Are Churches Middle Class?

There's something of a furore going on amongst a few of my firends on facebook right at the moment as to whether or not middle-class Christians have a condescending and patrinising view of 'working-class' urban areas.

I must confess that my first response is slightly defensive - as I'm irredeemably 'middle-class' in so many ways: did reasonably well in education, come from a stable home (divorced parents, but settled), encouraged to follow aspirations, interested in a variety of cultural artefacts, reasonably well-read, a bit obsessive about how apostrophes get used etc.

However, in quite a significant way, I - like many more than would care to admit it - am also working-class.

That is to say, by the old definition of working-class I am working-class.

As Owen Jones reminds us in 'Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class', a person whose only means of subsistence is the value of their labour, is working-class.

I have no accumulated wealth. I don't own any property. In fact, I don't have particularly secure housing - insofar as I live in tied-housing, should I become ill and leave my work, I (and my family) would have nowhere to live.

Now we would be fine - in that we have the benefit of parents who would help us - and we could sell possessions to fund rent for a little while - but it would be a big upheaval.

Anyway, you get the point - without working, we have means of generating an income. We do not have 'wealth' or 'assets' that can be put to work to generate income. 

You can see that by this reckoning, most of us are working-class after all.

However, middle-class is also about cultural values - it's about where you buy your food, and what your aspirations are in relation to recreation and holidays. This is where it can get very confusing - because it's certainly not just about money!

(The 'working-class' plumber who has done well in their work may make far more money than me, and may own property, pursue expensive hobbies - golf, skiing, cars etc, may send their children to private school - but may also like caravan holidays in Southend, may not care for independent cinema, might not fancy reading EL Doctorow or Marilynne Robinson, and might not like nice wine. I may well enjoy a caravan holiday in Southend, but I'm far more likely to want to visit a european city with art galleries and interesting architecture... It's not straight-forward...)

Of course, any of us from ay particular social class or background can run the risk of being condescending to others - for we can easily take our own experiences and expectation as normative, and regard any deviation from these as being - well, deviant!

It's worth remembering that traditional working-class values of family could often keep marriages and close family relations together when in more middle or upper class settings there might be more liberty (selfishness?) to abandon conventions. One could imagine an air of condescension, suspicion and even condemnation running from the so-called lower classes towards the upper classes in this case.

But clearly, there's also the problem of a general view in society that to live in an urban area, in a 'working-class' setting of deprivation is somehow a terrible fate from which people need to be rescued... It's easy for people to be duped into thinking that these life situations are somehow caused by a personal failing on the part of those who live there. Usually not - deprivation, just like wealth, is usually inherited - and social advantage or disadvantage becomes entrenched through early years and education systems.

The great thing about living in an urban cosmopolitan environment, is that you have a better chance of spotting the variety of social norms, and thereby gaining the potential through imagined futures, to change one hopes and aspirations. My norms needn't be always my norms, because there are other norms around - I can begin to question whether what seems normal to me actually carries a value judgement inherent within it - my norm is not necessarily good or bad, right or wrong, it's just my norm!

As I come to understand other people's norms, I can call into question by own, and evaluate them.

This is particularly important for Christians - as there's nothing more dangerous to us than assuming that our cultural norms are in perfect syncronicity with the norms of the gospel - that's a form of idolatry. Heaven forbid we ever fall into the trap of doing what Ludwig Feurbach accused 19th century liberal protestants of doing: looking down a deep dark well, and in the fractured reflection of ourselves in the murky water below, believing we have seen God! 

Let's not allow ourselves to think that the mission of God in the world is to save people from council estates and 'working-class' areas and save them for nice suburban middle-class culture! No, instead let's be committed to the model of mission which joins in with the saving and transforming work of Christ in the world: confronting injustice (and taking on those powers and interests that cause others deprivation), but also combatting idolatry - of the kind that seeks to elevate my cultural experience and social class and make it the plumb-line for others.

Here endeth the lesson.        

--
Revd Graham Hunter
Vicar // St John' Church, Pitfield St, Hoxton, N1 6NP
020 7739 9302 // www.stjohnshoxton.org.uk // www.facebook.com/stjohnshoxton // @StJohnsHoxton
Join our new email list: sign me up!