House and home

Recently the topic of affordable housing has been discussed in the media.  With a chronic shortage of this, and with any help that is given going (rightly, I suppose) to those worst off, it's those people who are in the middle who are going to struggle most to get on the property ladder.  By in the middle I don't necessarily mean 'middle class.'  I mean those people who earn enough to live on, but not enough to save up and buy.  This will probably include people we think of as middle class today; office workers, even nurses and teachers. 

So it seems that in the future more people will have to rent, either alone or with friends.  Even buying with friends might become an option.  I found it interesting that the recent BBC series Sherlock showed two young men sharing a flat, for financial reasons, something that people often don't quite 'get.'  Of course, there was a recurring theme that half the people they met would assume that they were sharing because they were a couple. I've encountered that myself, even when I've been sharing with 2 or 3 people!  

 But is it necessarily a bad thing that fewer people will be homeowners?  Perhaps not, in many countries it's more usual to rent than to buy.  But as commentators have said, certain things would need to change if renting were to become more popular.  As I've written about before, tenants are often at a disadvantage compared to homeowners.  It's unlikely many landlords will feel the need to invest in extra energy efficiency measures like insulation or solar pannels as they will derive little personal benefit.  The same goes for decoration and non-essential repairs and upgrades.  It's understandable, especially if you have long term tenants and haven't got to attract new ones.  Perhaps landlords need to be given some incentive to do this, perhaps tenants need to be able to badger their landlords more.  Perhaps if people are living in rented property for longer, rather than seeing it as temporary, they need to have more opportunity to do work (decoration, refurbishment) themselves.  To be able to feel settled, to make a place their own.

To make living in rented property attractive, these aren't the only changes that would need to take place.  Society often seems to take it for granted that 'proper' adults own their own home, and share it only with a partner.  Why?  As a result, most official paperwork and benefits are based around each household being occupied only as a single unit.  Council tax, for example, is based on the incomes of two adults living in each house leading to some downright unfair effects (but that's a whole other rant).  Even government research surveys find it hard to cope with two or more non-related, non-partners, sharing a home, and surely that will become more normal.  Officialdom needs to recognise that the two adult (and two income) per household model does not reflect all households.

There is a danger that if property becomes concentrated in the hands of a rich minority then theose worse off will have little choice but to accept lower standards.  That's something to be careful about.  And there's the pension situation: many people living on pensions today can afford to do so (just) because they own their own homes and don't have to pay rent.  If fewer pensioners in the future own their own homes, and have to pay rent from ever-decreasing pensions, that's something that needs to be addressed- sooner rather than later.  But will it- or any of these concerns?  Or is too much like joined-up, long term thinking for governments which seem to only deal with the immediate problem?

Balancing the personal and the corporate

The conflict (if I can call it that) between individual spirituality and organise religion has always interested me.  I know people who've struggled to find a church where they feel at home because they can't find one which fits in with their personal ideas.

Personal spirituality is much more fashionable at the moment than organised religion.  Particularly when people say that religion should be private, or restricted to the private, hidden parts of a practitioner's life; never spoken about with non-believers, never obvious or overpowering.  Although I don't agree that faith should be something we hide (that doesn't really fit with Jesus' commands to be 'witnesses,' does it?) I can understand the attraction of the personal vs organised debate.  In a way, evangelical revivals of the few hundred years even going back to the Reformations, have brought this about by concentrating on the believer's individual relationship with God rather than the church's.  Protestant doctrines playing up the role of the believer in searching out God for him or her self, through Bible reading and personal prayer, took over from Medieval ideas of finding salvation through the church and priesthood.  Spiritual movements, both Christian and from some other faiths, and cultural shifts, have only increased this tendancy to individualism over the last few decades. 

Organised religion, by contrast, is often today seen as foolish and deluded, as out of date, stuck in the past.  Sometimes, sadly, the institutions of the church or the behaviour of other branches of the church can seem more of a help than a hindrance to Christ's Great Commission.  We know this isn't how things should be, but changing this situation is fraught with difficulty and heartbreak for many.  But Paul's letters show us the importance the early followes of Jesus put on the church, the community of believers meeting to worship and to support one another, so we try to make it work, in our church, in our town, getting little recognition or encouragement. 

The paradox is that much research (and 'evangelism training') shows that it is very often the community of believers, the church, which helps bring people to a place where they find God.  Not always, of course; some people find God on their own, but many more come to church services or groups, go on Alpha or a similar course, or through friends willing to talk about and live out their faith. So although people will often say 'I'm fine with Jesus, it's the church I can't stand,' often it's the church which helps them understand what Jesus really meant. 

So how does the church respond?  How do we balance the importance of a personal relationship with Christ with our responsibilities and relationship to the body of Christ, the church?  I'm not sure I know.  As usual I suppose we just have to do our best and listen to God's guidance.  And trust he knows what he's doing.

A question

Amidst all the furore over the debate on women bishops, could I ask a question, hoping that someone out there with more knowledge than I can answer it?  Does anyone have any figures showing what percentage of the Church of England is opposed to women bishops?  Not just synod, or clergy, but the feeling among actual church members?  Because I think that's something which has got lost. 

Most of the comment we've heard has come from bishops and clergy, or at most lay members of synod.  And I think as a result the proportion of people opposed has been overstated.  I'd be interested to hear more of the 'view from the pew'.  The internet and blogs are good for that, but most recently have understandably been commenting on the views expressed in synod.  What do ordinary people think?  Has anyone even asked? 

So if anyone can point me towards information, please let me know.