CTBI Spring 2025 Magazine

Find out about the work of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) in our Spring 2025 magazine.

You can read the magazine online or download as a PDF.

Welcome

The journey of Christian unity is often joyful and celebratory. As we take steps closer together, and go deeper in our relationships, we are lifted up by the fellowship and the sharing of the Good News. There are also significant tensions to be navigated as we seek to be authentically open to diversity and yet also true to what we believe, cherishing what is precious to us in our respective traditions and valuing what matters to others, while together working to share our Christian faith in a pluralist public square in a way that is understandable and meaningful to the wider society. We can experience discomfort at areas of profound disagreement, and pain at those moments that highlight our continued separation from one another.

This Easter the calendars of Christians of East and West will coincide. Pope Francis has described this shared date as ‘an important sign’ (Address to the Group Pasqua Together 2025, 19 September 2024) and expressed the hope that the opportunity this significant moment in a year of other major ecumenical anniversaries and milestones would not be lost. The joy of this moment of unity and connection strikes a poignant contrast with much of the fragmentation, fragility and conflict in human relations we see all around us, from the local community level to international relations. As people of faith we trust in Christ’s promise of a peace that surpasses our human understanding, and we are called to act on that faith to bring about the transformation of society in accordance with our Kingdom values.

In marking the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea we reflect on our response to the question: ‘Do you believe this?’(John 11: 26). What does it mean to share our faith in today’s world? In this edition of the magazine, we share some of the responses and reflections emerging from different areas of our work. Working closely with the churches in Ireland, we continue to explore what is meant by reconciliation, both in the context of the unfinished work of the Northern Ireland peace process, and in the learning that can be shared from that experience to other areas of societal conflict and division. Foremost in our minds are the divisions related to race, ethnicity and religion with the trauma of the riots of August 2024 continuing to pose unsettling questions that require clear responses from the Church. As we mark the 30th anniversary of Racial Justice Sunday, we remind ourselves of the vision that inspired this initiative and renew our commitment to the actions required to achieve it, shining the light of our Gospel values on those areas where there is still resistance to naming the reality of racism and counting the cost of its lasting legacy. We have been encouraged by the participation of our members in our inter faith dialogues, conscious of the need to stand in solidarity with our neighbours of other faiths who are feeling victimised, misunderstood and attacked. Our experiences of sharing learning to help make the most of available opportunities to show solidarity, to build on examples of good practice and explore together challenging questions has affirmed the value of our ecumenical collaboration in this area.

In our member church profile, we have an opportunity to learn from the work of Revd Tim Norwood, National Ecumenical Officer for the Church of England. Revd Norwood offers a hopeful perspective for ecumenism, suggesting we are now more “instinctively ecumenical”. This is despite, and perhaps also in some ways because of, the many challenges facing churches at present. In sharing an example from the work of our Environmental Issues Network on Banking and Climate Justice we explore how effective partnership working can strengthen our collective ability to articulate and act on our values on those issues that matter to us for the sake of the common good.

You can keep informed of the progress of all these initiatives and more via the new Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) website which has been launched this year as a resource for the delivery of our strategic plan. There is an opportunity for member churches and bodies in association to promote ecumenical news, resources and events that align with CTBI’s strategic priorities, and we encourage you to avail of these opportunities where that might be helpful and support us by sharing the website as widely as possible to encourage engagement with the resources it offers.

Dr Nicola Brady, General Secretary Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.