The occasion of welcoming home the servicemen turned out, to his embarrassment, to be a presentation by the mainly poor parishioners of St Philip’s and the Salford Royal Hospital to Green himself to express their gratitude for his care over the war years.
Although the years of The First World War were significant in Green’s life and ministry, F.D. Coggan gave little prominence to them in his appreciation of Green in his series of published lectures These were His Gifts57 except to say that he would follow his lads with letters and with prayers, and was there for them if they returned. Hennell made no mention of them at all.
Wilkinson pointed out that towards the end of the war there was a growing interest in Christian ethics and Green made a timely contribution in publishing The Problem of Evil 58 in 1920. His investigation of the problem of evil revolved round Green’s theological concepts of the Holy Trinity with the community of the three persons as the centres of knowledge, love and will, the model for humanity which used free will selfishly causing the fall with resultant suffering. These concepts are investigated at length in Chapter 6.
1919 was a significant year for Green. He was offered a Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge and also the Bishopric of Lincoln. He refused both as he had not felt the call. A university life would deny him being in day-to-day touch with ordinary people through which to experience the providence of God and he had not the appropriate rural experience to be bishop of Lincoln. There were other reasons. As he stated regularly he was opposed to the bishops’ life styles and he was concerned for the future of St Philip’s Church. In the parish magazine for October 1919 he wrote that if he left St Philip’s the endowment from his residentiary canonry would be lost, the income would fall to £300pa and the parish had no Rectory of his own. He had paid £400pa personally for his curates’ stipends. So he committed himself to Salford. He later refused to allow his name to go forward for the Sees of Birmingham and of Blackburn, as he said he wanted to die a parish priest. As it turned out he was to stay in Salford for the rest of his ministry.
49 Sheen, op. cit., p73.
50 Alan Wilkinson: The Church of England and the First World War (SPCK, London, 1978).
51 Ibid., p223.
52 G.K.A Bell: The War and the Kingdom of God.
53 PG: Artifex, Manchester Guardian, 10/12/1914.
54 G.K.A. Bell: Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury Vol 2 (O.U.P., 1935) p768.
55 Wilkinson, op. cit., p9.
56 PG: Artifex Manchester Guardian, 17/2/1916.
57 Coggan, op. cit.
58 PG: The Problem of Evil (Longmans Green and Co., London, 1920).
1920-1930
CHAPTER FOUR: ALL-ROUND PRIEST
In 1924 Green published a revised version of The Town Parson with his firmly held view the pastoral care of parishioners was vital to the religious life of the nation. He wrote: “Next to the influence of the home, especially the mother, nothing is so vital to the religious life of the nation as pastoral care.”59
An important aspect of his work was that he aimed to enable a wider clientele than his own congregation to learn for themselves as adults reflecting on their experiences. He attempted to help them discover skills: how to pray, confess, grow in holiness, to study the Bible, to meditate, approach Holy Communion, to live the good life. He gave practical demonstrations on how to do them. Green had delivered lectures on pastoralia, how to be a clergyman, in 1914 at Cambridge and London University. Their publication as The Town Parson was delayed by the war and he dedicated it in 1919 to the memory of the fallen and to those who “having served their King and Country in the Great War desire now to serve the King of Kings in the ministry of his Church.”60
The Church was, indeed, in need of ministers. Many clergy had been killed in action as chaplains and the number of deacons ordained in the Church of England in 1919 was 261 as compared with 610 in 1914. Green felt he had something to offer.
The material in The Town Parson was recycled later as lectures at Durham and London Universities and published as The Man of God in 1935. Green’s attitudes to the ordained ministry can be deduced from these books.
Green put the pastoral care of people at the centre of Christian ministry. He quoted Dr. Knox, Bishop of Manchester, saying there had been recent developments in Church government such as the establishment of Parochial Church Councils and Diocesan Conferences but no advance in the spiritual life of the nation.61 Such church business Green believed had led to the neglect of parochial duties and he remarked: “Few people of the world want the opinions of the clergy in matters of business, but they do want direction on moral and spiritual matters.”62
After World War I there was a lack of clergy and inadequate money to pay them, and Green’s contention was the laity had to play a rightful active role in the cause of the Gospel. In The Man of God Green condemned clergy who engaged in politics. It was the laity who should be allowed to witness to their Christian faith by engaging in political and social issues, thus keeping the Gospel in touch with all. If the clergyman did these things he was denying the laity their opportunities and was neglecting his own duties. He admitted he thought he would be active in reform movements on behalf of the poor, but he had discovered such action was not a valid, nor best, use of his resources. He considered that clergy should be the brick-builders of the social system, preaching sin and turning out good people. Green wrote: “I am sure the clergy must exercise real self denial and have a great many things they do themselves to be done by others.”63
As far as he was concerned a clergyman would do well to obey the ordinal in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and “set aside all worldly cares and studies.” His task was to be an ambassador for Christ as set out in 2 Corinthians 5:20, whose aim was to do spiritual work; that of preaching, teaching, pastoral visitations and administering the sacraments. The rest could be left to capable laity. Green warned the twin dangers for the clergyman are “the Spirit of the seminary, which cuts a man off from his fellow men, and the Spirit of the World which cuts a man off from God.”64
What kept Green in touch with the world, and so with God in one respect, was close contact with his people as their pastor.
Hence, high on Green’s priorities was visiting in his parish. This was neglected by many parish priests but for him it was the only way “to know my sheep” after the model of Jesus the Good Shepherd. His visiting was not intended to be inquisitorial, but to meet two necessary needs “to love and to be loved”65 as he said in The Man of God.
His visiting was characteristically systematic, house-to-house, as he had been instituted to the cure of souls in the parish and not the care of a congregation. Visiting in this way enabled Green to know those who did not go to church, understanding them in their own context as he held a moral responsibility for them. He believed visiting was missionary work to make relationships with “the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, the sick, the poor, and the impotent.”66 He believed his contact with them improved their lives. To this end he was always looking for the opportunity to link them with the Church. Whenever possible he would prepare for his visits by scanning school registers and parish lists for an opening in conversation but his main aim was to get into the house. He seized every opportunity to pray once inside. In The Town Parson he gave an insight into his love of his parishioners when he said “Working people are much less reserved in religious matters,”67 presumably than the other classes. He made every effort to reach the men who were protected by their wives and portrayed as man-eating tigers. Green, noted for his humour, wrote “the tiger