Theos, the religion and society think tank, is embarking on a new research project to explore the impact of local churches on the integration of forced migrants in the UK. This research aims to create a better informed public conversation on this issue, and we hope that it will in turn increase the confidence and effectiveness of churches, contributing to stronger and more cohesive local communities. We are grateful to the MB Reckitt Trust for their generous grant, which will significantly increase the reach and impact of Theos’ research. With MB Reckitt’s funding, we will be able to produce accessible how-to guides for churches and policymakers, enabling them to engage compassionately and effectively. In addition, the grant will facilitate our engagement with journalists and media agencies, ensuring wider media coverage and increasing the impact of our project.

You can find out more about Theos research on our website here: 

Generous support from MB Reckitt Trust will enable CTC to support parishes in engaging more fully with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who are not fluent in English - recognising their gifts, accompanying them pastorally and spiritually, and organising with them to challenge the injustices they experience.

For news and updates, please see our website.

Thanks to generous funding from the M B Reckitt Trust, the St Philip’s Centre has developed a focused study programme for Christians who live and minister in diverse contexts. We will hear from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian perspective on the inter-community relations in Leicester and the wider geopolitical context, as well as facilitating reflective discussion amongst those participating in the study programme. Our speakers are all well versed in the issues, although none are academic specialists in the topic. This is deliberate – we want the voices of ordinary people to be heard. The hope is that through facilitating engagement with this complex topic, focused on understanding the experience and perspectives of people of South Asian heritage in Leicester, we can equip people of influence to make more informed decisions as to how to best respond to the ongoing tensions, and so build a stronger, more cohesive society.

Website: https://www.stphilipscentre.co.uk/

Every year Passion Plays tell the story of Easter and draw the largest outdoor audiences of live theatre in the UK. They give people an opportunity to experience the Gospel story unhampered by centuries of religious traditions, but they are more than one-off performances. Every year Passion Plays are the focus of sustained work that equips and invests in local communities across the UK and promotes understanding between Christianity and the other principal faith traditions.

Passion Plays contribute to significant change and transformation for not only individuals but also wider social structures and we are keen to harness and replicate their beneficial impact. With the help of a generous grant from the M.B. Reckitt Trust we will develop an action research project to measure the impact of professional partnerships and community volunteers with the aim of developing online resources and running training events for wider dissemination. We will focus on the insights of volunteer-led communities created by a common endeavour in which people share knowledge, skills and experience, and on the potential of arts communities to tell the Easter story in a way that promotes religious literacy in a multifaith world.

You can find out more about the Passion Trust on our website here: www.passiontrust.org and read the research report here: https://passiontrust.org/research_passion_plays/

The Church and Social Justice, at a time of economic crisis and environmental catastrophe.

A day conference at Canterbury Cathedral Lodge, the Precincts, Canterbury CT1 2EH, Saturday 18 May, 2024

The gravity of the current economic and environmental crisis requires a new and energetic response through the Church’s teachings on social justice and the harmony of creation. Many are concluding that global interconnectedness coupled with uneven development has now reached a stage where human exploitation of nature has reached a tipping point.

This unprecedented historic discontinuity will require radical adaptation in politics and social organisation in the years to come, and calls for increased collaboration between theologians, historians, and researchers in the natural and social sciences. Anglican social thought in the twentieth century largely followed the incarnational theology of Maurice, Headlam, Scott-Holland and Gore, finding its fullest expression in William Temple’s conception of an ethical state. Following on from our 2022 conference on Temple’s Christianity and Social Order (1942), speakers at our 2024 event will consider the relevance and adequacy of this tradition in the light of today’s global challenges.

Programme and Registration details can be found here:-

Conference Programme: https://research.kent.ac.uk/anglican-history-theology/wp-content/uploads/sites/2427/2024/03/Conference-Programme.pdf
Conference Booking: https://store.kent.ac.uk/product-catalogue/division-of-arts-humanities/school-of-history/events/caht-social-justice-conference

Centre for Anglican History and Theology - Research at Kent

Postgraduate Scholarships at the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies Oxford

Discussions between Christians and Muslims gain value if they are friendly, respectful yet rigorous, and motivated by a genuine desire to learn and question. Creating settings for such discussions is part of the DNA of The Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies Oxford.

The M B Reckitt Trust is supporting the funding of two postgraduate scholarships at CMCS Oxford, one each for a Christian and a Muslim. In addition to presenting a research seminar on their work, the students collaborate in co-leading a monthly Qur’an and Bible study group. Through this collaboration we have seen scholarship holders grow in confidence in working together and facilitating discussion around scriptures in a way which is sensitive yet probing. The scholarship holders gain experience of a practical dimension of Christian-Muslim relations alongside their studies in this very relevant area. For more on the work of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies Oxford see www.cmcsoxford.org.uk

In the next phase of our Church on the Margins programme, we wish to build on the positive stories of hope that have been identified through participatory research –
creating space for people experiencing poverty and marginalisation to reclaim dignity, agency and power within their own congregations and communities, and at a wider level within institutional church. The programme will seek to enable transformational change to take place in multiple local communities across the UK, facilitated and funded by the URC, in which local people, communities and churches are enabled to reclaim dignity, agency and power together. This will contribute to wider thinking with the churches as to the role that institutional Christian bodies (nationally and locally) can play in investing a long-term social movement building, in which people and communities experiencing poverty and marginalisation are able to exercise leadership and agency.

The banking system underpins the global economy. Banks make loans and investments, and the way this money is used has consequences. Our current system doesn’t enable people and planet to flourish. 

JustMoney Movement’s Money Makes Change (MMC) programme educates and equips Christians and local churches to live out their faith and witness to shape a fairer, more sustainable economy, through how they bank, save, invest and spend money. With the support of MB Reckitt we will be able to develop the diversity of the programme, in particular to expand the reach and depth of our ethical finance education and action work with Black Majority Churches in the UK. This will enable more Christians from Black communities, many of whom are more financially marginalised than other ethnic groups, to know how their financial decisions can contribute to a fairer, more sustainable world, and to become aware of more inclusive, ethical actors in the finance sector such as credit unions. 

Working with and under the guidance of a group of Black Majority Church leaders, we will create tailored MMC resources in terms of language, cultural appropriateness, theological relevance, and practical specificity, and test these with local MMC ‘Champions’ who will be identified and supported to use such resources with their congregations and communities.
https://justmoney.org.uk/