Keeping Faith in Change with Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin

Can we keep faith in meaningful institutional change, even when we can't see the way forward? How can we shift the narrative around migration to one that centres compassion? And what does it look like to really live our values?

We unpack these questions in this uplifting conversation with the Bishop of Dover, Rose Hudson-Wilkin: the first Black woman to be ordained as a Bishop in the Church of England as well as the first woman and person of colour to become Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.

You can follow Bishop Rose's work with the Diocese of Canterbury on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Listen to Bishop Rose's recent address at Women and The Church (WATCH)'s recent Not Equal Yet conference here. 

Support some of the organisations helping migrants and refugees in Dover:

• The Samphire Project
• Kent Refugee Action Network
• Migrant Help UK

You can also get involved with City of Sanctuary and Borough of Sanctuary networks near you.

Keeping Faith: A How-To Guide is part of Women’s Interfaith Network's 2024 Keeping Faith Programme. Read more about the programme here and be the first to hear about upcoming events and ways to get involved by signing up to our newsletter. Views expressed on this podcast are the speaker’s own and may not reflect the views of Women’s Interfaith Network.

Hosted by Maeve Carlin

Produced by Maeve Carlin and Adam Brichto

Edited by Adam Brichto

Executive Produced by Lady Gilda Levy

Theme music composed by Jamie Payne

Logo and Artwork designed by Jasey Finesilver

Support from Tara Corry

Transcript

Maeve Carlin: Welcome to Keeping Faith, a how to guide, a new podcast from Women’s Interfaith Network exploring how women keep faith in ourselves, in each other, in a cause, or in religious faith so you can learn how to keep faith too.

I’m your host, Maeve Carlin, and today I’m speaking to the Bishop of Dover, Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the first Black woman to be ordained as a bishop in the Church of England and, before that, the first woman and person of colour to serve as Chaplain to the speaker of the house of commons. You may have heard her powerful contributions on Question Time or in debates in the General Synod, the National Assembly of the Church of England. You may also remember news reports of Reverend Rose, then vicar of a Hackney parish, sitting on her church's roof to protest the lack of funding in a rapidly gentrifying borough.

 In this conversation, Bishop Rose reflects on her journey to ordination, how she keeps faith in institutional change, and the need for a compassionate, solutions-oriented approach to migration.

Keeping Faith: A How To Guide is part of Women’s Interfaith Network’s 20th Anniversary Keeping Faith program, a year-long conversation bringing women together to unpack what keeping faith means to them. You can find out more about the programme and get involved with upcoming events, via our website, blog and social media.

But for now, let’s jump into our conversation with Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin. 

Maeve Carlin: Well, Bishop Rose, thank you so much for being here. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Thank you for having me. 

Maeve Carlin: You've described feeling God's call to ministry while you were still a teenager in Montego Bay, Jamaica, years before women were first ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England in 1994, let alone appointed as bishops, which didn't happen until 2014.

Growing up, you would have seen women very much at the heart of church life, but still excluded from church leadership. Can you share with us what it was like keeping faith in that call? 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Thank you. Very interesting question. I, um, as a child, it was very clear to me that women were instrumental in the life of the church. It was the women who first arrived, opened doors, cleaned the church, prepared the altar, brought the bits that are needed, did the flowers, made sure things happen. And then the man would just turn up, do their bit, and then disappeared. And long after they had gone, the women were still there. And they were also there in greater numbers.

They made sure the rotas were done and all those sorts of things. But yes, I did notice that in that building called the church, in that building called the church, they were not in “leadership” as we refer to leadership. So they were not standing behind the altar, neither were they preaching.

They would read the lessons, but probably not read the gospel. That was special. So the men did that. But then I was in a particular situation in that. Um, we didn't have a regular priest, and so on the Sundays when we didn't have a priest, the lay reader would take the service. What was wonderful was that the lay reader didn't hog it all for himself.

He recognised that there were lots of young people around. And he then invited the young people to take part in the, in the service. And as we got older and more experienced, on whenever there was a fifth Sunday, it would be the young people who led everything. And I got to preach my first sermon when I was 14. 

Maeve Carlin: Wow. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: And I can still remember the lectionary reading, which I chose, which was Psalm 8. “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” Because I guess it fitted in with the wrestling I was doing in relation to “how could this God be interested in me, that he died for me and loved me?” So I was fascinated by that. So yes, it was through those early years as a child that I felt that this is what God was calling me to do, to lead, to be a priest in the church. 

But as you say, there were no images of women priests. There weren't even women priests in America at that time yet. Um, and so when I dared to broach the subject with my bishop, my bishop was "Rose, we're Anglicans, we don't do that". I smiled to myself because I thought, "you may not do that, and the church may not do that, but I know God does that." There was just something inside me that said, "yes, this is what God does". And so, I remember making a little pact with God, you know, saying, "God, the church doesn't want me just yet, but you know, when they are ready, I am going to remain faithful and I'll be ready." And I was 33 when I was ordained a priest.

And all that time carrying it in my heart that actually God is calling women. Why isn't the church embracing women in leadership? Why are we just leaving them to do the tea and coffee or the cleaning or the flower arranging, et cetera, or teach Sunday school alone. I actually once heard a young man saying in a deanery meeting, "well, you know, the women in our church, they're very happy doing women's work". And I said, "so what is women's work?" Well, “teaching Sunday school”. Isn’t it interesting that the things that we deem as not important, contrast that with what Jesus thinks is important - when Jesus takes a child and says, "if you want to be great, you've got to become like this child". That’s powerful. But yeah, we're still looking through human lenses, unfortunately. 

Maeve Carlin: Yes, with our own biases and our own... 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: With our own biases, with our own cultural biases, as well as our personal ones. Yes, and familiar ones.

Maeve Carlin: But it sounds like through that lay leader you had a vision of a different kind of church. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Yes, yes. And the vision of the kind of church, although, yes, I did read passages in scripture where it says women should be silent, but I, it never occurred to me. You know what it felt like?

For example, yesterday I attended my grandson's confirmation. So the whole family were there. And my youngest granddaughter, who is three, had her colouring book and her bigger brother was trying to help her to colour it. And every now and then she would say, she would sort of speak up and we'd say, shh, shh, shh, you know.

I have a feeling that it was something like that. You know, the women, because they weren't allowed in the central bit with the men and they were at the top doing their own chattering. And Paul saying, "be silent in the church", you know. But then, you know, Paul and other biblical writers, they were writing from a particular cultural perspective.

And of course, if they're writing from a particular cultural perspective, that is going to affect what they write, you know, and, um, I believe that, you know, we responded to God now as to what is important, you know, what is real for us today. And how do we draw on everyone in the room.

So for example, I did a lead worship at a general Synod some years ago, when they were discussing women's ordination. And the, the evening prayer that I led, the reading was Luke 10, where Jesus sends them out two by two. And in that he says, "the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest" and blow me down! In the very next debate, I listened to people. giving reasons why women should not be priests in the church. And I remember thinking, gosh, I must have been in another planet. Did they not just hear the reading from the gospel? 

Maeve Carlin: Well, this year, of course, is the 30th anniversary of women being ordained in the Church of England. And I've heard you speak so powerfully on how the church's attitude to women, both as an institution - as we've been describing - and in what's preached from the pulpit has a direct impact on women in the congregation: how they see themselves and how they are seen and treated by the men in their lives. Of course, this isn't just an issue within the Church of England, but it's a heavy responsibility for an institution to carry. How do you feel the church is living up to this responsibility and how far do we still have to go? 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Sadly, I think we have a long way to go, and the reason why we have a long way to go is because we have institutionalised this separation or segregation in terms of men and women, you know, there was a time in our country when women were not allowed to work, when women were not allowed to be teachers and doctors and engineers and, you know, all these so called men's role and now no one bats an eyelid. But the church still holds the, the key to the door, that says "women, there is something different about women." How is it that when I look at a man, I just simply see a man.

There's a wonderful, in that film, ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ Sidney Poitier said to his father, "dad, the problem is you see yourself as a Black man. I see myself as a man." There's a big difference, because him seeing himself as a Black man means that he limits himself to what he has been told that Black people should and should not do. And the same thing in relation to women. We need to see ourselves as made in the image of God. There was a poster that I had made, um, and took to one of the I want to say protest, but when they were debating it in, the synod, I, you know, a coach left the Midlands and went down to Dean's yard and there I was standing with my poster.

And, um, and the words that I had on it were "women: beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God." And I believe that. 

So I'm not second fiddle to my husband. I once said in a meeting, um, which is a meeting being held in Asia, uh, and, uh, and there was this sort of Nigerian archbishops and, and Asian bishops and I, I remembered saying to them, "my husband is not the head of my household. There are two adults who are head of that household and there are three children, and if decisions are to be made, we discuss them.

And sometimes he might feel strongly about something, and we go with it. Other times I might feel strongly about it and we go with it. There is a mutual respect and my husband is not insecure and so he doesn't need to be afraid that his wife is having a say.” And so that's just a real special joy.

So what I believe is that the church continues to contribute to the brutalization of women by putting women in a corner. They limit what women can do and cannot do. And by doing that, they're saying, "Women, you are very different. You need help. You need a father figure. You need a parent figure. And I am that parent figure, simply because my genitalia happens to be different". And I think it's wrong. 

So I want to teach my son and I want to teach my daughter about mutual respect. By an accident of birth, you are who you are. And you just need to learn to respect that God makes women and he makes men and we live together and, and, and we thrive together. We respect each other and we have different gifts. And, you know, as a woman, I might be good at something, but actually there might be men too, who are even better than me at some of the other gifts that are so called ‘women's gifts’. And I'm grateful to God that as a woman, I was able to carry two of my children. We adopted one. And yes, I'm very thankful to God, but that does not make me any less. And I certainly would not want to be married to a husband who thinks that by virtue of his genitalia, he's more superior.

God has not put him in charge of me, what God has said, "here is a helpmate." And we're going to be each other's helpmates. And I worry that as a church, we continue to perpetuate. Uh, women as being less than, because that's in effect what we are saying. And we might dress it up in theological languages and call it something else and says, "God ordained this." And it's very difficult to have an argument with somebody when they invoke God. But I want to say that God made men and women in his image, in His image. And from that perspective, you know, God gave us gifts. And the important thing is for us to work out what are your gifts and how best might they be used for the building up of the body of Christ without self-entitled men trying to put me in a corner.

And women - Jamaica is known for its reggae music and, of course, Bob Marley features greatly. And one of Bob Marley's song was "emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds." As women, we need to free our minds. We need to interrogate the messages that we are told by men about who we are and discover for ourselves who we are and live into that. It always saddens me when women, um, play that tape that says, "Oh no, the man is in charge". Yeah.

Maeve Carlin: It's very difficult, I think, for women not to absorb that tape that they've heard played over and over. But yes, I was nodding very emphatically there through what you were saying, people won't have seen. And I think it's also something in interfaith, with organizations like the Women's Interfaith Network, the reason we exist is because in male-led interfaith spaces, many women feel themselves retreating into the background, and they might not mean to, but it, they feel themselves moving in that direction. So by creating a space where women are leading, we hope that we can shift that tape a little bit.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Yes. And actually, in our leading, we're not trying to be like a man. 

Maeve Carlin: No. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Or to mimic a man. We're just leading from the place where we are. We're leading from who we are. You know, poem that, um, Nelson Mandela used at his, inauguration." Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” It is our light that frightens men, and, and frighten some women to who then gets into a sort of competitive, you know, "he, she is better than, you know, or I am better". We don't need that. We don't need to prove anything to anyone. 

And so, the fact that men are, um, are left feeling inadequate because of my presence. That's not my problem. That's not women's problem. That problem belongs to them. And they, if they're honest enough to say, "Hey, I'm feeling a little bit inadequate because you are so good at X, Y, and Z, as my wife or whatever", is to say "That's okay. What are you good at? And you shine at that. And allow me to shine. Let us all shine". But what we have done is that women are blamed for others’ inadequacy. And, uh, and, and so we're pushed in a little box and with men with the keys that says, “you can do this, but then no more, you can clean the altar, you can do the dusting, you can put the flowers in there, but quickly get out of that space because that's a man's space.” Now, I see nothing in scripture that tells me that that's okay. 

And one of the good things with this sort of interfaith connections, is that as women, we can see each other and dare to say, "Wow, that's a mirror. That's a mirror. "And when you look in the mirror, who do you see? You see yourselves and perchance you can say, "Might God be calling me too? Might God be calling me too? 

Maeve Carlin: I mean, we're talking about this massive institutional change: much that's already happened, much that still needs to happen. And another much-needed institutional change the church has been grappling with, is how to reckon with and repair from its complicity in institutional racism, both historically with collusion in empire and enslavement, and in the present day where global majority clergy are still so underrepresented. As the first Black woman bishop in the Church of England, you've spoken about longing for a time when there are no more firsts, when it's become normal and expected that the church reflects our society and the Anglican Communion around the world. Clearly, we're not there yet. So, if it's not too personal a question, I would love to know how you keep faith that the church can pull together for meaningful racial justice.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Yes. I'm often asked the question, "Why do you remain in the church? When the church has behaved badly to women, to Black people, why do you remain in the church?" And you know, my answer is always the same, "Because I know who called me. I know who called me. I know where my calling is from. It is not from man.

It is of God. And because it is of God, then I will be faithful to that calling and live into being the change that I want to see." Um, it reminds me, I spoke about holding up the mirror. earlier on. Michael Jackson, the late Michael Jackson, one of his songs. "If you want to see change, take a look at the man in the mirror" and you see yourself. And when you see yourself, you know that you are an integral part of making that change a reality. I think it's a sort of Chinese proverb that says, you know, "Instead of complaining about the darkness, why don't you just light a candle?" 

When I confirm, those who I confirm, I say to them, we give them a lit candle at the end of the evening of the service. And I say to them, "You won't be able to take the candle lit all the way home. You're going to get into a car or the bus, or, you know, it's going to go out. Remember, when the light goes out, you become that light.” And so by that, what I'm saying, I'm laying down a challenge to say, "Let us shine, let us shine, and let us live into what it means to be a follower of Christ, only a follower".

And so by that, what I'm wanting is for all of us to recognise that, any change that we're going to see if we're not prepared to be part of that change, then we ought not to be pontificating about it. We have to be willing to be part of that change, and therefore it means that we have to be willing to recognise that something is wrong.

You know, we've got eyes, we've got eyes, and we just have to look with our eyes and we can see the absence of women, or the absence of black people and young people, you know, and so if we can see it, then we ought to be asking the question, okay, why is X or Y or Z missing from the room? Why are they not at the table? What knowledge are we missing out on by not having Black people, pink people, gay people? What are we missing out on - women, children, by not having them at the room and sitting at the table? And, and so I think that as a church, we must not be afraid to name, but we can only name things if we allow ourselves to be curious. And ask the question, to look around us. Let us not be afraid to notice that there are very few Black people in leadership or very few women in senior leadership. 

So we're recording this now at a time when President Biden has stood down. And there is much talk about who is going to take up the mantle. I heard a question being asked, I was in my car late last night and I heard it this morning on the news as well in the BBC. Repeatedly, people have been asking, Is America ready for a woman of colour to be in leadership? And I'm screaming at the radio, “What do you mean, is America…What kind of question is that?” Why are they asking that question? The very fact that they have to ask that question tells us, reminds us that that space, that leadership space has been inhabited by a group, an entitled group with a particular genitalia that says, this is ours.

Nobody asked if, if America is ready for a white man, because why? Because that is normal. Nobody asks that. It’s normal. And so what I am saying, what I believe we need to do is to say to those who are crowding into that space of normality, make room for women into that space called normal. Make room for Black people. Make room for other disadvantaged groups of people because we're normal. Why? Because we too are made in the image of God. 

And what is interesting, some years ago I went to Ghana, and in Ghana I visited the place where, those who were enslaved were taken and locked up, chained in caves to wait until it was time to go on the ships to be taken across the transatlantic. And it was brutal but something shattered me more. And it was the fact that above ground, a church was built. A church was built. It means that worship was going on above ground while people - human beings made in the image of God - were being held in chains below ground. Now, the only way you can do that is if you, in your head, you tell yourself that those people in chains are not as human as you are, because if they're human as we are, then we couldn't possibly do that to them. And that is precisely what we have done to Black people. They are less than human, and that is also what we have done to women. That's what men have done to women, and women have bought into it. They're not the top of the chain. And who is at the top of the chain? White men. You know, it's interesting. If you had a mediocre man in a role, you never hear someone say, oh, "well the one we had before was mediocre, so we won't, we, we won't do that again."

But if it is a woman that's "oh, we've tried that, you know, and yeah it didn't quite work”, or Black, “oh no, no, no, no, no." You know, so we revert to what we think is normal. We need to get it out of our heads that normal means only white men or white people. Normal should mean the Human Race.

And there is an ignorance that says that God did not know what God was doing when he made brown people knew that they would be the ones who were going to be near, nearest to the equator. And so they needed to have the, the melanin you know, to help with the sun rays, et cetera. God knew perfectly what he was doing. And yet in our, um, in our inadequacies and our ignorances, we think that the brown skin simply means that they are not intelligent. There's a wonderful poem by Waring Cuney that says, "She does not know her beauty, she thinks her brown body has no glory, but if she could dance naked under the palm trees, then she would know. But there are no palm trees on the streets, and dish water gives back no images". So she can't see herself, that she's beautifully and wonderfully made in God's image. The people whom she associates with doesn't reflect her beauty. And so, in time, she has come to believe that she is of no worth. That she is less than. Because others have fed her the story that she's a woman, or she is black, so she's not good enough. And I want my interfaith sisters to rise up and to recognise that they are made in their God's image and perfect enough. And so we need not be afraid to let our light shine and, and do that confidently and respectfully, because by letting our light shine as Black people, as women, as pink people, gay people, all these various other peoples who are ignored and cast aside, then we will be giving others permission for their light to be shined. And we need not be afraid because we're, we're going to shine and be lights in the world. 

Maeve Carlin: Comes back to what you were saying about being mirrors for each other and reflecting back to one another what we see. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: And that's what we can do as sisters together. I often, I often say to folks that we have one heavenly father, irrespective of whatever we call him. We have one heavenly father and just a different mother. And that's why the paintwork is a little bit different.

Maeve Carlin: Wow. What a brilliant image. Well, speaking of seeing each other and reflecting each other and mirroring each other, as Bishop of Dover, you're preaching from the front lines of an issue that is never out of the headlines and one where we seem to have lost the ability to see each other, an issue you described as a political football where migrants, refugees and asylum seekers crossing the channel in small boats, we have politicians attempts to stop them coming and debates around how we respond to them once they're here. So can you share with us what you've seen both in Dover and in your visits to Calais and what it's been like to guide your community through it? 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Thank you. A few weeks ago now, I did visit Calais and visited one of the camps and met lots of young people. Lots of young men, but there were women there too.And there were children. There were children. 

I found it painful to listen to their stories, but I made myself listen because we need to listen because if we, if we block our ears then we don't hear and we will simply say "that's got nothing to do with me". But you know it has everything to do with us. Why? Because we're part of the one human race. 

And I was disturbed to learn that the police destroys their tents every few days. because they don't want them to settle there. But you're destroying someone's home in effect. And there are children there.

So, so what it tells me is, you know, we have so many people coming from other parts of the world and nobody in their right minds leaves their warm, beautiful country to come to the West to be treated in this way. So we have to ask ourselves, why are they coming? Why are they leaving their homes? Is it war? If it is war, what can we do? Um, do we need to stop selling weapons to unscrupulous leaders who are using weapons on their people? Do we need to engage with diplomacy in some of these countries to help them to work things out before it gets to a point where they just simply keep shooting? Do we need to speak truth to power to those who think that they can kill an ideology and it doesn't matte, whether women and children and innocent men are caught up in it all?

So I really do believe that we need to ask the questions why. It's almost if we don't ask the question why, then what we're doing is we're picking people out of the river at the end of the downstream, instead of going upstream and finding out why they're jumping in in the first instance and ending up where they are ending up. So you know is it climate change? You know I once heard a young man when he was asked "Why do you keep risking your life on the boat? Why?" One of them said that he was from Syria, and there was nothing left for him there. You know his home community had been completely destroyed and he wanted to go to university. He's now at university in Germany. Another one said,"I keep risking my life because I'm hungry and my people are hungry." I hear people say, "Oh, but they're all young men. They're all young men." Of course, it's going to be the strongest and your fittest that makes such a horrendous journey. It's going to be the younger people who makes that journey. 

Maeve Carlin: And are young men not people? I always find that such a bizarre comment.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: That’s it. Exactly. So there are great issues there. You see, what we have done as a world is said, "We are first world, you are third world, and by doing that, we make them, "You are not like us. And we don't want you here because you are taking our jobs, you're taking our houses, you are taking our women."And yet, it is not the whole truth. 

So I want our government and our political leaders internationally to be having this kind of discussion. Since the impact of them coming here, to Europe, destroys your sense of being, then what are you going to do about it? Sending them to Rwanda is not the answer. So, okay, how can we work together? How can we go back to basics? Start setting up a commission or something internationally. Look at what is going wrong in those countries and how are we going to help to fix it. You have to be part of the solution and being part of the solution does not mean caging them somewhere and then sending them off to Rwanda. It does not mean that. If you're truly going to be part of the solution, then find out why they're leaving in droves and be part of the solution. The money that we are giving, um, focusing on, um, smugglers or, or the police in, in France, which is not effective, we may as well use that to invest in those countries. Where people can have jobs or people can feed their families, where people can farm their land and be able to feed and, you know, and share technological stuff with them so that, you know, they can rotate their crops. And that's what they want to do. They want to feed their families. And, and they want their children to be educated.

The same thing we want for our children, they want for their families too. So we need to think about that and think how best we can contribute to that. It's not going to deter them that you're going to pen them. They're going to try. They're going to give everything to trying and sadly it's, it is their lives too. 

Maeve Carlin: And would we not risk that for our own families and our own futures? 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: I often hear people say, "Oh, they're economic migrants. They're not real refugees or asylum seekers." And when I hear that said, I always remind them that the British were economic migrants when they went all over the world conquering. They were going to make more money for their families to improve their lives. So why aren't Black people and brown people able to make that decision too, that they want a better life for their children and their families? 

Maeve Carlin: Yes, I think, yeah, I've never heard of a white English speaking person being described as an economic migrant.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: And yet they are. My son in law, we were having dinner some time ago and we were just talking about their wedding and he happened to mention that his two cousins had picked up and went over to Australia, spent six months, and now they were heading to Canada and they're going to spend six months. And I listened to him and he happens to be white. And I said, you know, "that's quite interesting." Because no young Black person will be able to just pick up their passport and say, I'm going to go to Australia for six months, and then I'm going to go on to Canada, and they don’t have any money, so they go there and they pick up bar jobs. It's a different world, if you're Black and brown, compared to if you're white. So there is something in our world already that says by virtue of the fact that you were born in this place, or you are born with that colour, or born with that gender, already you are one step behind. And I want leaders within our world, church leaders, um, uh, social leaders, political leaders, to call a halt to that.

Maeve Carlin: Do you think that faith leaders and perhaps people of faith more generally have a particular role to play in challenging these narratives? 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: I think we do, but actually we can only challenge those narratives if we are living it out within our flocks, within our denominations, within our church space. So, you know, we cannot with integrity speak into these things if we are institutionalizing it in our, in our places of worship. We need a wider generosity. 

Maeve Carlin: Again, has to start by looking in the mirror. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Yes. Yes. 

Maeve Carlin: Well Bishop Rose, I'm so grateful for you making the time. I've just got one last question. You've said that faith should be part of life and how we live, not something that we keep in a box and take out on Sundays. Throughout our Keeping Faith conversation at the Women's Interfaith Network, we're exploring all the different ways we keep faith, whether it's in the future, yourself, your work, your community. I wonder what you would say to someone listening to this who may not share your religious faith but is trying to hold on to that sense of hope and conviction in the face of all the big systemic issues we've been discussing.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: One of the things that, um, I often smile about is sometimes people see me coming in my dog collar and they go, “Whoa, whoa!” you know, as if they're going to catch something, you know, and they like to tell me that they're not religious. And I point out to them that religion is that thing that gets their attention.

It is that thing that they focus their energies on. And I said, so, so, so, you know, tell me, what is it for you that gets your attention? Because we make those things gods in our lives. You know, and, um, last time I said that to someone was during Euro, and I said, “look at the fervor.” I said, “the football stadium, that's their cathedral.”

That's where they go. You know, for others it might be shopping, and every weekend, where are they? They're at the mall or the shopping precinct or whatever. That's what they've made into their religion. I just happen to have a different one. So what is it that gets your attention? And just to encourage them to be curious about their religion, to notice what their religion is all about. Is it life giving? Does it teach them how to respect others? How to care compassionately for others? And does it make them want to hope for more? 

And I love to use the football analogy. I often say, you know, you see people going to the match and they're rowdy and they're singing and they're joyful and they're talking. I once watched and listened and eavesdropped on this conversation on the train. One guy looked as if he was in his probably eighties, Another one was a much younger guy, but they were both animated. They didn't know each other, but they got onto the train and they must have noticed that they're wearing similar colours. So they're going to the same football match. They got talking. 

When do you see people of faith, when they recognise each other, notice each other, talk about what God is doing in the world? What God is even doing in their lives? You know, but these two football people, they spoke so animatedly about, you know, what was happening and who they think should be playing left, back and centre right.

And I'm thinking, wow. I would love to hear people of faith sitting on the train and talking as animatedly like that about their faith, about what they believe and why they believe it. And, and the joy, the joy, I say to folks, “just watch the joy at the rugby match, at the races, at the the football match, at the cricket, look at how animated they jump up there.” Yes! And the only time they're sad is if their team have lost. Why do we leave church or our places of worship as if our team have lost? We come out and we're sad and we're serious, you know, there is no joy. If we have no joy, why would anyone be interested in being part of what joining what we have?

So there is something about how we live, the need for us to notice what we give our time to, and to be curious about what is God doing around us. And then to tell others about it. I'm always challenging people when I do a service. I say, when you get back home, pick up the phone, call someone and tell them where you have been today. I said, if you've discovered a new Marks & Spencer’s before you even get home, you're picking up your mobile phone and you say to guess what? I found the new Marks & Spencer’s or, you know, they have new line of underwear or a new line of whatever hats or whatever range.

And we tell others, but we never tell people about our faith. We never call people up excited and say, “Guess what? I went to my place of worship and I was so moved by X or Y that was said that I just had to come back and tell you about it.”

Wow. What a difference it would make if we did that. And that for me speaks into confidence. Someone asked me not so long ago, and I've been asked it more than once too, what is the greatest challenge to the church? And I said, the greatest challenge is a lack of confident Christians, a lack of confident Christians. So when we're confident, you know, we're not standing on the roadside sort of with a megaphone saying, "you must repent of your sins, you know". 

Maeve Carlin: Not very joyful. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: No, no, no. Yeah, I just think there is so much joy and so much good news to tell about our faith, what it means to us, but what is even more important, don't just tell it, live it, for goodness sake. Let's live into our faith, otherwise people will simply say, “I can't hear what you're saying because of what I see you doing, I can't hear it.”

Your actions. When I was a child, our old folks used to say, “action speaks louder than words.” So if our actions and our words do not match up, if we say God is love and then we don't practice that love to the migrants, the homeless, the person seeking asylum, the person who is lost, then it means nothing. It means nothing. 

Maeve Carlin: What a note to end on. Thank you so much, Bishop Rose. 

Rose Hudson-Wilkin: Thank you. Thank you. Every blessing. 

Maeve Carlin: We are so grateful to Bishop Rose for making time to speak to us, and for offering us a mirror, not only to see ourselves, but to see our potential to grow and change, both as individuals and communities. 

You can find out more about Bishop Rose's work with the Diocese of Canterbury at the link in our show notes as well as links to organisations supporting migrants and refugees who have risked so much to find safety and a future here in the UK. We can all be part of building a culture of welcome and sanctuary.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Keeping Faith: A How To Guide. Subscribe now on your podcast app to be the first to hear about our upcoming episodes, and please leave a review or share with a friend to help more people find us. To find out more about the podcast, the 2024 Keeping Faith Programme or to get involved with the Women’s Interfaith Network, you can follow the links in our episode notes or go to wominet.org.uk. Until next time, Keep Faith!

Keeping Faith: A How-To Guide was created by Women’s Interfaith Network. The podcast is co-produced by me, Maeve Carlin, and Adam Brichto. Our executive producer is Lady Gilda Levy. Theme music was composed by Jamie Payne and our logo was designed by Jasey Finesilver. Additional Support from Tara Corry.