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THE ST PHILIP’S CENTRE
TOM WILSON AND RIAZ RAVAT
The St Philip’s Centre is an ecumenical Christian charity publicly incorporated on 2 June 2006 by representatives of the Anglican Diocese of Leicester; the Parochial Church Council of St Philip’s Church; the East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church; the Oxford and Leicester District of the Methodist Church (now the Northampton District); and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nottingham, with the following aims:
1.Equipping Christians and others to live and work in a multifaith society.
2.Providing opportunities to reflect on Christian mission, presence, engagement, dialogue and evangelism in a multifaith world.
3.Offering consultancy and training services to enable people and communities in Leicester and beyond to live together in harmony.
4.Sharing regionally, nationally and internationally the experience and expertise gained from the objectives in 1, 2 and 3 above.
The St Philip’s Centre is a resourcing, not a representative, organisation. We do not work in isolation but in relationship with a wide variety of groups and professional bodies. Our partnerships are always established for a purpose, to meet shared objectives, mutually enhance delivery of services and further the common good. We have three main areas of focus. First, the delivery of experience-based education and training. Second, resourcing and equipping those at the grassroots. Third, developing and supporting those within positions of influence at all levels, especially but not exclusively within the Church and other faith communities.
The education and training work engages a wide variety of people, from primary school children to old age pensioners, as well as professionals involved with the armed forces, healthcare, the police, offender management and managers in private companies. Work for the common good includes organising vigils and other responses to times of national tension or tragedy, as well as resourcing efforts to tackle complex issues such as child sexual exploitation or hate crime. Work with churches focuses on equipping them to better understand the complex multifaith world in which they operate. Other major areas of work relate to Prevent and Near Neighbours, both central government initiatives which are explained in further detail in subsequent chapters.
Theological foundations
The St Philip’s Centre works for the public good, and does so from a Christian foundation. The Centre’s current strategic plan states:
We aim to fulfil what Jesus says are the two great commandments to love God and our neighbours as ourselves. The church describes God as Trinity and Christians believe God to be relational. This belief in the importance of relationship inspires us to work hard at articulating and engaging with diverse Christian understandings of this inheritance of faith. Moreover, part of the foundational understanding of the St Philip’s Centre as a Christian organisation is therefore that we are to relate to others, both those who are similar to us and also those who are very different. The St Philip’s Centre is founded on the understanding that every human being is unique, all of us are intrinsically valuable and all of us need help to become the individuals we were created to be. The St Philip’s Centre recognises the complexity of the world, the church, and other faith communities and that we are called to take risks and to actively engage with the other.
The St Philip’s Centre accepts that all those involved with the Centre do not necessarily believe in the same way. We embrace people from a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds to serve the common good, which we understand to be founded upon the ethos and values derived from the Christian foundation of the Centre.
The Centre is thus rooted in the Christian tradition, but in a generous and open way, enabling people of all faiths and no faith to be employed by and work in close partnership with the Centre.
Stakeholders
As well as the original founding partner churches, the St Philip’s Centre has established good working relationships with many other Christian groups. These include but are not limited to the Anglican Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, the Anglican Diocese of Peterborough and the Baptist Union of Great Britain. The Centre also enjoys good working relationships with local public sector organisations, especially Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council and Leicestershire Police, as well as with local army regiments, especially the Seventh Brigade and 158 Regiment RLC. The Centre has significant partnerships with a wide range of educational institutions, including De Montfort University, the University of Leicester, Loughborough University and Leicester College, as well as numerous schools and colleges in Leicester, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and even further afield. Moreover, the Centre enjoys good working relationships with national government departments, notably the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Centre has worked closely with the Church Urban Fund in the delivery of the Near Neighbours programme, and with national organisations such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Inter Faith Network for the UK and the Christian–Muslim Forum.
All of the Centre’s work relies on the goodwill and co-operation of all of these stakeholders. Crucially our future success depends on developing and maintaining strong relationships with local people of faith. The St Philip’s Centre is very grateful for the support offered to our work by so many individuals and organisations, especially within the City of Leicester. These are far too numerous to mention here, but are nevertheless recognised and respected as key stakeholders in the work of the Centre.
The Centre’s values
Figure 2.1 illustrates the Centre’s values. The current vision of the St Philip’s Centre is of ‘Learning to Live Together’. The notion of learning is an active one, but one based in grassroots, community settings, rather than in the isolation of academia or the public policy sector. The whole phrase can be taken as an invitation to actively learning about how an individual or specific community should live appropriately in modern society whilst also emphasising that this learning cannot be done in isolation; we learn how to live with others by being with others. The phrase is expanded for the title of this book, emphasising the idea of learning how to achieve the best possible coexistence, but it is deliberately compact when used as a strap line for the Centre.
Figure 2.1 The St Philip’s Centre’s current vision and values
There are four values used to give concrete shape to this vision. These are: encounter, understand, trust and co-operate. We will first examine the possible linear developmental progression they have before expanding on how else they interact with each other. Detailed exploration of these values forms the bulk of this book.
A lot of the work that the St Philip’s Centre does is simply enabling people to encounter difference. There is a natural human tendency for us to seek out people who are like ourselves. But if we surround ourselves with similarity, we lose the capacity to live well with those who are different; moreover, a failure to encounter the other can mean we develop fears of them. These seeds of fear may take root in our subconscious and grow into plants of prejudice and even hatred. Furthermore, being surrounded by similarity can stunt our own growth and development into rounded human beings. If these problems are to be overcome, we must encounter difference.
These