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‘What could be more Christian than to allow the Sikhs to use it?’ Church Redundancy and Minority Religion in Bedford, 1977–8
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
In 1985, Faith in the City, The Church of England’s report on Urban Priority Areas, commented that Christians frequently had an excess of church buildings, while ‘people of other faiths are often exceedingly short of places in which to meet and worship’. The challenge of securing sacred space has been common to migrant groups in Britain, and during the 1970s sharing of space between national historic denominations and migrant religious groups was identified by the British Council of Churches (BCC) and its Community and Race Relations Unit as a leading issue for interreligious relations. In the case of the Church of England, ancillary parish buildings were occasionally shared with non-Christian religious congregations for limited use: for example, later that decade the church halls of All Saints, Gravelly Hill, Birmingham, were being used by Muslims and Hindus for festivals and clubs.
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References
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11 London, Church of England Record Centre, British Council of Churches papers, Division of Community Affairs, Community and Race Relations Unit, 7/4/7, Douglas Webster, ‘Should a redundant Church be disposed of to People of another Faith?’, March 1972.
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17 RCCAP, part 15, RC (78) 100, Annex E, 10.
18 ‘Church Sale is given more Backing’ Bedfordshire Times [hereafter: BT] 7 April 1978, 1.
19 RCCAP, part 15, RC (78) 100, Annex A, 10.
20 Ibid., Annex E, 2. Some claimed, however, that the motion did not give clear approval to such a sale.
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31 ‘To Sell or Not to Sell.’
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39 RCCAP, part 15, RC (78) 100, Annex E, 6.The evangelical Church Society also opposed the sale: ‘Notes and Comments’ English Churchman 5-12 May 1978, 4.
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52 ‘Church Sale: Ten-Day Deadline’. The background of the authors of these letters – and whether or not they had any association with the Guru Nanak Gurd-wara – is unknown and should not be assumed.
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56 Ibid. 5.
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59 ‘Church sale: Ten-Day Deadline’.
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77 Ibid.
78 Ibid., §§7.132-3.