Bishop Philip: A Christmas message

The Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro, reflects on the pandemic and reveals his hopes for the coming year

The pandemic came out of the blue and knocked us back on our heels as a society. Yet what I remember about the first lockdown, long before we knew about vaccines, is that there was a wonderful, quiet springtime. Nature sprang back to life and there was remarkable beauty all around us, taking its rightful place again. I remember hoping we would learn to live more lightly and lovingly on the Earth. I want to hold onto that now, rather than going back to “normal”, living unsustainable lives.

As a church, we took a lot of flak about churches being closed. But my overwhelming feeling was that of being proud of how we responded - not just by putting services online, but also the way church communities rolled up their sleeves and did shopping, collected prescriptions, ran food banks. They stepped up to the plate.

I myself did Zoom services with my wife. We had good banter together on screen; she pulled my leg about things, I got my guitar out and sang, people even got to meet our dog. It was good fun and a bit homespun, but people tell us they really appreciated it and found it encouraging. I felt it was something we could do that filled a vacant space, and I hope it showed us in a nice, positive, human light. As other churches became more equipped, we stepped back and let them take over. I don’t think we should be too quick to say we’ve got over this. The virus is still out there, and coming to terms with all the changes it has wrought in us will take quite a long time. That in itself is humbling for humanity. I was on Scilly for Remembrance Sunday, and wound up fog-bound – it was a reminder that you can’t live life without paying heed to rhythm of nature, the wind and the tides. Similarly, Covid has humbled us and I think as a human race, we have needed that a little bit.

Social media has become really important over the last 18 months. You can’t ignore it, and I don’t want to – I want to be connected. The church is in the business of communication; we have a message we want the world to hear. I want to engage, and use social media to listen and learn what’s going on, to take the temperature of the culture and society in which we live. I want to know what Cornwall is thinking and feeling.

I often tweet about Freedom of Religious Beliefs (FORB). This goes back to the work I was commissioned to do three years ago by then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. It has developed real momentum - it’s on the political agenda much more than ever before, and I see it as part of my job to keep it there. It’s not just a narrow issue of interest to a few people, but part of a broader agenda around human rights and being able to live the life you want, free of the ugly regimes in the world today. When in London recently, I went to the Foreign Office to meet Richard Ratcliffe, [husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, currently imprisoned in Iran] during his hunger strike, to express my solidarity with him and to press the UK government to do what it needs to do to secure her release.

My message this Christmas is that rather than simply beginning at home, charity should broaden its horizons and have long arms. Central to my understanding of the Christian faith is that God has not held himself at a distance from this world, but is one of us and immerses himself in the messiness and uncertainty of human life to the extent that he himself became a refugee in Jesus and made himself vulnerable. He’s not one who keeps his hands clean, but gets them dirty and is there to care for us and love us. He holds his hand out to us, and we need to hold ours out to others, not just our nearest and dearest but those different from us and a little more challenging.

For 2022, I think we will discover a new and better, more caring way of living beyond the pandemic. We must ensure the good lessons of caring for one another in the community and cherishing the planet are not lost. I hope we will remember how fragile and vulnerable we are on this Earth, and not take one another or the planet for granted. l