Media project to change the narrative around Christianity
by Ruth Peacock, Religion Media Centre:
The Church of England is creating a new website to help “change the narrative about Christianity in the English speaking world”.
For the initial four year project costing more than £1 million, the Centre is seeking a staff of four and the recruitment process is underway for the first Senior Editor role at £60-75k.
The Centre for Cultural Witness is the idea of the Bishop of Kensington, Graham Tomlin, who told the RMC that the church does good things at local level in communities across the country, but these are not often brought to public attention.
He said: “Very often, the public profile of Christian faith is a little bit negative. Maybe people think that the church is dying, and that they don’t often hear Christian voices in public. The initiative came out of a sense that this is something we need to pay attention to”.
He explained that the idea arose from conversations around the Church of England’s ten year strategy, suggesting ideas for the future against a backdrop of declining church attendance and financial constraints, not helped by Covid lockdowns.
The strategy said the church’s future was to be “simpler, humbler and bolder”, which may involve new kinds of church communities outside traditional structures, new forms of lay ministry, encouragement to bring in more young people and intentional change on issues of social justice such as racism.
The website will be created in partnership with theology departments and the bishop explained it will aim to appeal to people outside the church: “It will unashamedly want to help people understand the riches of Christian faith. We have this extraordinary story that has shaped culture, in particular western culture and cultures across the world in profound ways, in our art, literature, architecture and values. But as a culture, we’ve often lost and forgotten that story and that wisdom. And so the aim of it is simply like to share that wisdom more widely”.
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