2015 has been a busy year for Ekklesia. A year in which we have aimed to focus our work to be more effective. Here we take a look back at some of the highlights, month by month.
JANUARY
With a General Election looming, our focus at the beginning of the year was ensuring a wide range of voices could be heard in public. We published our letter to the BBC calling for the election debates to include a range of political views, and not just the main three parties. This idea was eventually taken up, with the ITV hosted debate including the Greens, UKIP, The SNP and Plaid Cymru for the first time in May.
Meanwhile we re-published the important Third Harries Report on the Impact of the Lobbying Act. We were among the many contributors who pointed to the negative impact of the Act on advocacy and campaign organisations and continue to contribute to this important work.
Also in January, the horrific Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris brought issues of extremism, terrorism, free speech, and religious identity to the forefront. As usual our commentators provided a range of reflections that looked beyond the obvious and posed questions about how we should respond to such atrocities.
FEBRUARY
In February the Ekklesia staff team took some time out to reflect on how we might structure our work going forward. From our fruitful discussions, we identified five strategic work areas: belief and values, equality, living economy, peace and nonviolence and people and politics. We also devised our new strapline which we believe encapsulates our core aims : Transforming belief and politics.
Ekklesia continued to be called on for comment on critical issues. Co -Director Jonathan Bartley spoke on the Jeremy Vine show in support of the Anglican Bishop’s letter condemning austerity politics. We were signatories to a letter in the Guardian calling for an end to Greek debt and were cited in the media calling for a more rounded approach to religious education.
MARCH
March saw us launch our General Election Paper – ‘Vote for What You Believe In’ which outlined ten core values by which we should judge our politicians.
Later in the month, we were delighted to co-host ‘Is Migration the Election Issue?’ with Harecourt United Reformed Church. The panel had a range of speakers from across the political spectrum, including a certain Labour MP by the name of Jeremy Corbyn. The event also enabled us to launch Vaughan Jones’ important paper on the subject.
Also in March, Ekklesia COO, Virginia Moffatt, took part in BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Morning with Ricky Ross in a fascinating discussion on Money & Morality.
APRIL
As electioneering began in earnest, we published two new reports, on intergenerational housing and re-engaging young people in politics. Meanwhile on the anniversary of the Armenian genocide we hosted a conversation on the subject between Ekklesia Associate Dr Harry Hagopian and co-Director Simon Barrow.
In April our co-Director, Jonathan Bartley, took unpaid leave from Ekklesia, as he was standing in the election as a Green Party candidate. As the Greens’ spokesperson for welfare and pensions, he was able to make some high profile media appearances. Whilst he wasn’t speaking for Ekklesia, we appreciated his raising issues that concern us, particularly welcoming his robust challenge of Iain Duncan Smith during the Daily Politics Election Debate on welfare.
Finally, we launched a crowdfunding exercise to produce our first book ‘Sexuality, Struggle and Saintliness:same sex love and the church’ by our associate Savitri Hensman.
MAY
Our three final election papers were published in the week of the election. Savitri Hensman looked at the need for social security in a climate of a shrinking state, Bernadette Meaden reflected on how we might move welfare beyond austerity mentality and a third analysed party manifestos in the light of our election values.
On Election night, Ekklesia associates and staff stayed up all night to provide a rolling blog of commentary and reflection. The result – a majority for the Conservatives – caught us all by surprise, and was devastating for those of us concerned with progressive politics. We concluded our coverage with a comment piece recognising the difficulties we would now face and re-committing ourselves to continuing to hold the government to account .
Prior to the election Ekklesia co-Director Simon Barrow, spoke on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Morning with Cathy Macdonald about our election values, whilst after the ballot, COO Virginia Moffatt discussed the results on BBC Radio Ulster Sunday Sequence.
JUNE
With funding achieved for our first book (and many thanks to our donors), production was well underway. Meanwhile, we were pleased to submit applications to the Think Tank of the Year Awards for the first time. Although we didn’t win, we enjoyed attending the event which also provided some useful tools for us to evaluate our work.
June also saw the Pope’s long anticipated encyclical on climate change which proved to be an inspiring document for both secular and Christian campaigners. We published a range of commentary in response to Laudate Si, including Bishop David Atkinson’s thoughtful paper on the subject
JULY
Earlier in the year, disabled campaigners had approached us asking that we challenge Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms from a faith basis. Accordingly, we contacted a number of leading Catholics who shared our concern about the direction of travel on welfare. Our open letter (co-published with our partners the Centre for Welfare Reform) invited him into dialogue with us, and resulted in a great deal of press interest. We were pleased the Minister responded and our reply was also widely reported. The impact of the letter was considerable, with the Independent noting in December that it was one of the eight times Christians challenged David Cameron’s government.
Also in July, we provided detailed response to the cruelty of George Osborne’s summer budget. We were among the first to point out the implications of the tax credit cuts before it became a political storm in the autumn. We also provided commentary on the budget on BBC Radio Scotland and LBC.
AUGUST
In August, the Labour Party Leadership campaign was in full flow, providing us with an opportunity to reflect on each candidates’ views against our core values. We were delighted, and somewhat surprised, that Jeremy Corbyn, the candidate who polled best, won the campaign, and though we feel some aspects of his leadership could be improved, we have broadly welcomed a new voice on the political stage which is calling for anti-austerity policies and working for peace.
We were also very pleased to be invited to Greenbelt where we hosted our first event in a few years. The title, “Is the right to offend sacred?” came out of our internal discussions following the Charlie Hebdo shootings. Our four panellists, Professor Mona Siddiqui, Anjum Anwar, Joy Wallis and Robert Cohen proved interesting and thoughtful speakers and the packed tent demonstrated the importance of the subject chosen.
Meanwhile, Ekklesia broke the news that the highly regarded Stirling Religious Studies department was being considered for closure. The story caused international outrage and resulted in the University being forced into talks with staff and students to find a way forward.
SEPTEMBER
The refugee crisis dominated the headlines in August and September, and Vaughan Jones provided us with another helpful paper proposing positive ways to deal with the issues. Meanwhile thanks to funding from the Passionists Small Grants fund, we were able launch a new survey on the work capability assessment, led by researcher Stef Benstead. The aim of this research is to develop a much needed alternative to the discredited assessment, developed in partnership with disabled people themselves.
September also saw Ekklesia COO, Virginia Moffatt, speaking at the Pax Christi and WILPF conference on Women and Peacemaking: personal and political.
OCTOBER
The Ekklesia website was first set up in 2002 and over the years we have published over 20, 000 articles, reports and blogposts. But it has long been due for a makeover. We are very grateful to all our supporters whose donations helped fund the complicated work of transferring all our archives to a new site and redesigning it to be fit for a world with multiple browsers and viewing platforms.
Much of September and early October was taken up with the development of our new website, as we tested the glitches and made last minute alterations with the web designers, Netuxo. We were delighted when we were finally able to unveil the site in October. We are very grateful to Netuxo for their hard work and hope you like the cleaner, simpler look.
In October we also launched our second crowdfunding project, for our next book, ‘Foxes Have Holes: Christian responses to the housing crisis’. The book is a collection of essays from housing experts, edited by Andrew Francis and Trisha Dale and will be launched in Manchester in April 2016. We are grateful to all the donors who ensured we raised enough money to make this book possible.
NOVEMBER
As always in November, our focus was on Remembrance. This year we published a new paper looking forward to the challenges ahead. We were also very pleased to re-publish the excellent Veterans for Peace paper on the influence of the British Legion on Remembrance.
Staff and associates were in great demand and took part in a number of local and radio discussions about wearing the red poppy. What was notable this year was how much support there is for people choosing not to wear red poppies or wanting to practice an alternative Remembrance. Ekklesia has long been advocating for a more plural Remembrance and welcome this change in public thinking.
We were also very pleased to attend the 50th birthday of our funders the Andrews Charitable Trust. Meeting other grantees proved stimulating and enjoyable and hearing the story of the founder Cecil Jackson-Cole, with whom we have much in common, proved very inspiring.
DECEMBER
Throughout Advent, we published daily reflections on our website linking faith and action. We hope you found these helpful If you missed any you can see the complete collection here.
We ended the month with the delivery of the first Ekklesia book, Sexuality, Struggle and Saintliness: Same Sex Love and the Church, by Savitri Hensman. This has been a huge amount of work which has only been possible thanks to Savitri, Simon Barrow, Jill Segger, Michael Marten and Bob Carling and all our crowdfunding donors. We are very pleased to have finally got copies and are looking forward to the launch on the 5th January at 7.15pm, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.
In addition, we have also received final edit of “Foxes Have Holes: Christian responses to the housing crisis” which will go into production in the New Year.
You will have also noticed that throughout the last couple of months you will have received regular reminders about our annual appeal, ‘Make Room at the Inn’. We appreciate that everyone has many financial demands, particularly at this time of year, but as a small organisation operating on very limited resources, we do appreciate any help you are able to offer.
All in all, we think you’ll agree that 2015 has been a busy and productive year for us. We’d like to thank all our associates, researchers, commentators, speakers and partners for their rich and insightful contributions to our website and events. We are very grateful to each and everyone of you.
Also many thanks to all the organisations with whom we’ve worked this year: Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Centre for Welfare Reform, Tax Justice Network, JPIT, Greenbelt, Pax Christi, Harecourt United Reformed Church, Anabaptist Network and many more. It’s good working with you.
Finally, we’d like to also thank you our readers and supporters. We hope that you have found our work useful and are appreciative for all the support and encouragement you continue to give us.
We wish you every blessing for the new year and look forward to seeing you in 2016.
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