Faith in the City

Faith in the City was a report published in the UK in Autumn 1985, authored by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas. The report created a large amount of controversy when it was published, as one of its conclusions was that much of the blame for growing spiritual and economic poverty in British inner cities was due to Thatcherite policies.

According to the report's authors, the Archbishop's special commission was established with the following aim:

"To examine the strengths, insights, problems and needs of the Church's life and mission in Urban Priority Areas and, as a result, to reflect on the challenge which God may be making to Church and Nation: and to make recommendations to appropriate bodies."

The Report made 61 recommendations: 38 of them to the Church of England, and 23 to the Government and Nation. The church was asked to identify its "urban priority area" parishes, according to Department for the Environment indicators relating to 1981 census data. The six indicators were: levels of unemployment, overcrowding, households lacking basic amenities, pensioners living alone, ethnic origin, and single parent households.

It was to pay attention to clergy staffing levels; to adequate training programmes for ordained and lay leaders; to liturgical needs; to styles of work with children and young people; to the use of its buildings. It was also to look at its work in industrial mission, social services, social responsibility, church schools and education.

The Recommendations to Government and Nation were specific — taking in the Rate Support Grant, the Urban Programme, levels of overtime working, Community Programmes, Supplementary Benefit, Child Benefit, the taxation system, ethnic records and housing availability and allocation, homelessness, "care in the community", Law Centres and law enforcement.

When the report was published it caused immediate controversy. An unnamed Conservative Cabinet Minister was reported as dismissing the report—before it was published—as "pure Marxist theology" and another Conservative MP claimed the report proved that the Anglican Church was governed by a "load of Communist clerics".Margaret Thatcher, a Methodist, told her friend Woodrow Wyatt that "There's nothing about self-help or doing anything for yourself in the report" and lamented that the report focused on state action. According to the late Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, although the report was loudly "rubbished" by some senior Conservative politicians, these attacks had the benefit of making "Faith in the City famous".

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