Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction.........................................3

Chapter 1 The Jesuits in China......................6

Chapter 2 The social and cultural challenges of urban

mission.............................................17

Chapter 3 The Eden Project in East Hull.............22

Chapter 4 Comparison of the Approach of the Eden Team

in East Hull with the Jesuits.......................31

Conclusion..........................................41

Bibliography........................................45

Appendix A. Carl Belcher Interview Questions........48

Appendix B. Anna Moorhouse & Laura Jones Interview

Questions...........................................49

Appendix C. Andrew Chubb Interview Questions........50

Page 1 of 74

List of Figures

Figure Page

Figure 1: Message Trust 4 Points....................33

Page 2 of 74

Introduction

The city of Hull has developed as an ‘island’, cut off

from the rest of the country, at the ‘wrong’ end of

the M62. The population, up until the recent influx of

Eastern Europeans, has been ninety seven percent white

British, despite the fact that many refugees have

passed through its ports.1 It has a unique culture

which grew out of its existence as a port and centre

of the fishing industry, as well as the fact that it

was a city established by royal charter in the Middle

Ages, and, therefore, has always been independent and

non-conformist - it was the location of the first

major act of defiance towards King Charles in the

English Civil War in 1642.2

1 Hull City Council, ‘Ethnicity (Census)’, Humber Data Observatory2001,<http://www.humberdataobservatory.org.uk/dataviews/tabular?viewId=344&geoId=9&subsetId=25>, [Accessed: 30/04/2014]2 Richard Gurnham, The Story of Hull, (Andover: Phillimore & Co. Ltd,2011), pp.58-63

Page 3 of 74

In the Seventeenth Century, it was strongly

puritanical and, from the Eighteenth Century, a centre

for Methodism with Methodist attendance in the

Nineteenth Century being more than double Anglican

attendance.3 However, with the post-war decline of its

industries and with a pattern of neglect by Central

government, as well as the development of large

council estates (including one of the largest in

Europe), it has become a place of dislocation, decay,

crime and poverty (as will be elucidated in Chapter 2

below). The Methodist Church has been unable to

establish itself in these new housing estates to any

great extent and the Anglican churches have been in

retreat.

It is into this setting that the East Hull Eden Team

members have entered to bring community renewal and

their work can be compared to entering an alien,

culture to bring the gospel. The Eden Project itself

began work in the late 1980s in Manchester, seeking to

impact the youth culture in neglected inner city

estates. Their primary approach has been for teams to3 Ibid., pp.111-112

Page 4 of 74

take up residence in such estates and to live amongst

the target community in order to incarnate the gospel.

This has been coupled with specific outreach events

run by music and dance teams associated with the

Message Trust.4 Since then, The Eden Project has

planted teams in other cities, primarily along the M62

corridor, and the East Hull team is a more recently

established one.

In order to identify how realistic the notion of

taking the gospel into an alien culture can be

associated with the work of the Eden Teams in East

Hull, comparison will be made with the approach taken

by the Jesuits, and specifically Matteo Ricci, in

China in the late Sixteenth and early Seventeenth

Centuries. In that context, the Jesuits were faced

with an alien culture which was hostile to western

influence and was soaked in the traditions, rites and

mores of Confucianism and, to a lesser extent,

Buddhism. The Jesuits, ‘rather than seeking to

eliminate local culture...were encouraged first to

4 Matt Wilson, Eden: Called to the Streets, (Eastbourne: Survivor,2005), pp.9-27

Page 5 of 74

study and then to participate in it’.5 Thus, they

integrated with the local community through dress,

learning of language and other cultural norms, and

adapted the gospel to the local cultural setting to

make it accessible to their target audience. In

chapter 3, I will consider the extent to which the

Eden Team have done the same.

In chapter 4, I will seek to compare and contrast the

two missions and their relative effectiveness in

reaching their target community. This will lead to

some conclusions in chapter 5 concerning the future

and long terms sustainability of the Eden Project.

In order to commence this work, I begin in chapter 1

below with a consideration of the approach of the

Jesuit mission to China.

5 Mary Laven, Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit encounter with theEast, (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2011), p.19

Page 6 of 74

Chapter 1

The Jesuits in China

The missional approach of the Jesuits in the Far East

at the latter part of the Sixteenth and early part of

the Seventeenth Century was ‘especially

important...for highlighting critical questions about

the cross-cultural passage of Christianity itself’.6 In

seeking to meet the challenge of introducing

Christianity into an alien culture, the Jesuits

pioneered a new approach of inculturation, as will be

demonstrated in the remainder of this chapter, which

may provide some suggestions as to how to approach

mission in the inner city culture of the Twenty First

Century.

6 Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity,(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), pp.215-216

Page 7 of 74

The venture of the Jesuits into China was an extension

of an already existing mission into the region which

commenced with Francis Xavier. Having established a

base in India (primarily on the West Coast in the Goa

and Kerala regions), the Jesuit missionaries extended

their operations into Malacca and the Philippines and

from there to Japan. They also established a base in

Macao which was primarily a trading post but at which

the Jesuits provided pastoral care for the residents,

and used it as a place from which to launch their

mission into mainland China.7

One of the distinctive features in Xavier’s approach

to mission was the importance of communicating the

Christian message in the local language. Ross suggests

that ‘Xavier had firmly grasped that translation into

the vernacular had to take place if any effective

communication of the Christian message was to occur’,

although he goes on to suggest that Xavier’s attempt

was ‘too impetuous’ in that it relied on translation

by a man uneducated in deeper Japanese thought

7 R. Po-Chia Hsia A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp.51-77

Page 8 of 74

(Yajiro), leading to some unfortunate and unhelpful

words being used to translate key terms.8 Through poor

selection of Japanese equivalents of Christian words,

misunderstandings arose that created the impression

that Christianity was a form of Buddhism, and so, to

counter this, Xavier elected that Latin words were

modified into Japanese so that, for example, Deus (God),

became Deusu. This Japanese adaptation of Latin words

hindered the Christian message because they did not

carry meaning within the culture and instead were

superimposed upon it.9 In comparison, in his mission to

China, Ricci used Chinese equivalents that flowed out

of Chinese thought patterns as we shall see below.

Having travelled through Japan in 1550, Xavier also

learned that ‘the poor beggar dependent on charity was

clearly not the way to gain entry into Japanese

society’.10 This led to a change whereby he began to

dress in the finest clothes he had available, and to

give gifts of western artefacts to the persons of

8 Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742,(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1994), p.299 Ibid., p.2910 Ibid., p.26

Page 9 of 74

importance in the region where he desired to spread

his message. These two characteristics of the Japanese

mission, using the local language, and adopting the

dress and customs appropriate to the culture, became

two of the pillars of the approach used by Valignano

on his arrival as Visitor to the East in 1574 to

further the work begun by Xavier.

The approach of Xavier proved fairly successful in

Japan for a time. By the end of the Sixteenth Century,

it is said that there were around three hundred

thousand Christian converts in Japan.11 In the early

Seventeenth Century, suspicion over western intentions

and a change of regime (the Tokugawa family coming to

power) caused a reaction against all westerners,

resulting in their expulsion (with the exception of

one trading post) from Japan, and also in severe

persecutions of Japanese believers. Nevertheless, the

model of inculturation pioneered in Japan by the

Jesuits was applied by them in China and developed

further.

11 Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First ThreeThousand Years, (London: Penguin Books, 2009), P.707

Page 10 of 74

According to Ross, Valignano believed that the Chinese

and Japanese, in comparison with the peoples of

Africa, India and South East Asia, were ‘‘gente

Bianca’ whose sophisticated societies appeared to him

to be on a cultural level with Europe’s’ and this led

to his ‘new missionary approach’.12 Essentially this

approach had a number of elements to it: apart from

translation of texts into the vernacular and dressing

in clothes that would make them acceptable to the

ruling powers within the target community, it also

included breaking from the approach of the Padroado

and the Patronato of assuming that Latin Christianity

was culturally superior and which had meant that to

become a Christian meant also to become culturally

Portuguese or Spanish respectively. Thus, Valignano

envisaged building ‘in Japan a Christian Church that

was Japanese and in China a Church that was Christian

and also Chinese’.13 This of course meant the Jesuits

understanding and assimilating the language, culture,

values and traditions of the target community as far

12 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.4213 Ibid., p.43

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as possible, and aligning the Christian message with

these norms, adopting the ‘modo soave, the gentle

method’, in their dealings with those of the target

community.14

With the arrival of Matteo Ricci and Ruggieri, and

under the guidance of Valignano, a mission into

mainland China was commenced proper in 1582. Speaking

of the overseas mission of the Jesuits, including

those in Japan and China, Lindberg suggests that

‘these missions were remarkable expressions of

theological flexibility in shedding Western cultural

baggage and striving to inculturate the Christian

faith in Asian Culture’.15 Thus, from the outset, the

aim of the Jesuits was to apply the inculturation

approach mapped out by Valignano.

Initially, in Zhaoqing, at the instruction of Chen

Rui, the Supreme Commander (zongdu) of Guangdong and

Guanxi provinces, the Jesuits adopted the dress of

Chinese Buddhist Monks.16 They also presented

14 Laven, Mission to China, p.1815 Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations (second edition),(Chichester: Blackwell Publishing, 1996), p.33816 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.75

Page 12 of 74

themselves as monks from ‘Tianchu guo, India the land of

the Buddha’.17 This proved problematic, however, as

‘their personae, doctrines and liturgies - were

perceived by the Chinese through the lens of

Buddhism’.18 It is also reflected in the catechism that

Ruggieri authored, Tianzhu shilu which ‘contains anti-

Buddhist polemics while using terms specific to

Chinese Buddhist usage’.19

It was soon identified that the Buddhist Monks were

not generally well thought of, and that the gospel did

not sit easily under the guise of Buddhist teaching,

and Ricci was advised by his friend Qu Rukui to

‘distance himself from the Buddhist persona, on

account of the inferior social status of the Buddhist

clergy’.20 In 1593, as Matteo Ricci became more

familiar with the philosophies of the Chinese,

particularly with Confucian philosophy, he ‘developed

a new vision, a program and a catechism that aimed at

the conversion of the literati and Mandarin elites’.21

17 Ibid., p.9218 Ibid., p.9219 Ibid., p.9420 Ibid., p.13621 Ibid., p.135

Page 13 of 74

Over time, he ceased to be known as xi seng (Western

Buddhist Monk) and instead became known as daoren (man

of the Way) or yiren (extraordinary man).22 He began to

dress in the silk robes and the four cornered hat of a

Confucian scholar, and to grow his hair and beard in

keeping with the look and style of the same, and soon

he was accepted as a scholar, not just on the basis of

his look and dress, but particularly with his

knowledge of mathematics and science, alongside his

deep understanding of Chinese philosophy.

Ricci saw that one of the greatest inroads for

establishing confidence in what he had to say was not

simply through bringing the gospel as a western

doctrine, but also through bringing learning of all

sorts to the Chinese, primarily scientific learning

(astronomy, maths, geography, etc.). Thus, the

Christian message he presented was in the context of

scholarly wisdom. Some of the elements used to

transmit this message included objects such as clocks,

sundials, his world map, his astronomical knowledge

and later through his writings. Ross states that ‘the22 Ibid., p.136

Page 14 of 74

worldview of Chinese intellectuals was a unified one

in which science, philosophy, religion and technology

formed an interrelated whole’.23 Thus, Ricci presented

Christianity in the same way, not as an alternative to

the culture, but as something that could be integrated

with the culture through its alignment with original

(as opposed to ‘neo’) Confucianism.

The writings, ultimately, were one of the most

important media for the Christian message as Ricci

took the philosophy of Confucius and identified points

of correspondence between Confucian teaching and

Christian doctrine.24 One of the chief areas here was

the development of the Confucian notion of ‘The Lord

of Heaven’. Ricci used this expression to explain

something of the Catholic understanding of the nature

of God in Chinese terms in his book Tainzhu shiyi (The True

Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), composed during his years in

Nanchang, the first edition being completed in 1595.25

Laven describes this work as ‘an extremely clever

23 Ross, A Vision Betreayed, p.14624 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.158. See also Ross, A VisionBetrayed, p.12825 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, pp.224-239

Page 15 of 74

exercise in persuasion that depended, nevertheless, on

deft misrepresentations of both the Christian faith

and the religion of the Chinese’.26 In summarising the

objective of Ricci in composing this work, Hsia says,

‘Ricci was inspired to find parallels between the

sayings of ancient Confucian classics and the

fundamental principles of a pared down Christianity,

stripped clean of the doctrines of original sin, the

Crucifixion and the Resurrection’.27 Ross defends this

work by suggesting that it is ‘a piece of Christian

‘apologetic’ that is an intellectual defence of the

Christian faith in philosophic terms’.28 He also

suggests that Ricci’s aim was to ‘present Christianity

as a faith that could be adopted by a Confucian

Scholar administrator while he remained an official of

the empire and a follower of the philosophy of

Confucius’.29 If seen as a piece of apologetic rather

than as a catechism, as Laven seems to see it, the

omissions are not such an issue since, in itself, it

26 Laven, Mission to China, p.20027 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.22428 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.14729 Ibid., p.145

Page 16 of 74

is not pretending to be a declaration of the whole

gospel. It seems that Ricci believed that, ‘as St

Thomas Aquinas had married Aristotelianism to the

Christian faith, so something similar might be done

with Confucianism’.30 This did not mean that such a

synergy would tell the reader everything there was to

know about the Christian faith but rather would show

how it was echoed in the works of the ancient

philosopher. In its presentation as a dialogue between

a westerner and a Chinese scholar, it used a genre

familiar both in Renaissance Europe and Ming China and

was thus accessible to both.31 It is a ‘synthesis of

Confucianism and Christianity’, and a refutation of

Buddhism.32 As such it made the Jesuit position clear,

concluding as it does with the sacrament of baptism

for the Chinese scholar, and opened the way for

dialogue with the Confucian Literati without ever

being a full explanation of the Christian message.

Ross describes Ricci’s work as ‘a mission that aimed

at entering Chinese society through the intellectual30 Ibid., p.14431 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.22532 Ibid., p.239

Page 17 of 74

world of the Confucian literati’.33 His intent was to

engage them intellectually and thus win them over

through reason and philosophy to accept Christianity.

In this he adopted the cultural norms of the Chinese

society. He received visits from and visited the

literati in all the cities where he took up residence

and thereby debated publically with them.34 He

demonstrated his own learning and understanding of

their philosophies and challenged them using their own

terms of reference. He also built a reputation for

himself so that people began to seek him out in order

to converse with him, especially after his move to

Beijing. Hsia says of this period, ‘Ricci had no need

to travel. The whole world came to him in the form of

visitors and letters; and he reached out to the world

through his books.’35

Intellectual ability was highly valued in Chinese

society. The triennial civil service exams made

intellectual pursuit a must for anyone who wanted to

establish themselves in the civil or military service,33 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.12634 Ibid., pp.130-135 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.281

Page 18 of 74

and particularly to obtain a government stipend. One

of the things that people sought out Ricci for was to

understand how to remember more in approaching these

exams. Ricci, it seems, had a phenomenal memory and

therefore wrote a book (Xiguo Jifa) on how to maximise the

use of memory.36 Whilst this book was not of much use

to the Chinese because of the techniques it used, the

abilities of Ricci that spawned it helped to build his

reputation amongst the Literati.

Was Ricci successful? The mission did grow during his

time there, but not at a phenomenal rate. By the end

of his lifetime in 1610, there were about two and a

half thousand baptised converts in China.37 Also, there

is the suggestion by Laven that most of the people who

actually responded to the gospel did not respond on

the basis of intellectual argument but rather in

response to miraculous events and Divine interventions

in their lives.38 Such people were artisans and women,

rather than the literati that Ricci was aiming at.

However, to focus on these conversions is to miss36 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.12937 Laven, Mission to China, p.22538 Ibid., pp.213-217

Page 19 of 74

Ricci’s impact on the mission to China. Although, the

actual converts among the Literati were few, they were

significant. Ross suggests,

As Ricci and Valignano had planned, byachieving a secure place within Chinesesociety, the Jesuit missionaries wereable to oversee the growth of a ChineseChristian Church. Without the leadershipof distinguished Christian literati,most of whom like Xu Guangqi wereconverted in Ricci’s lifetime, thiswould not have occurred. However, theyhad only become Christian because ofRicci’s ability to present Christianityas the fulfilment of Confucianism.39

As Hsia says, ‘Ricci thought it better to have a

small, high-quality Christian community than a large

multitude’.40 The result of this approach was that by

1644 (34 years after Ricci’s death) the Christian

community numbered seventy thousand.41 This expanded to

around a quarter of a million by the end of the

century.42 Whilst this may not have been significant in

terms of the overall population of China, which stood

at around one hundred and eighty seven million in the

39 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, P.16640 Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.28241 Ibid., p.29342 MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, p.706

Page 20 of 74

year 1600, it represents a very rapid growth in a

relatively short period of time.43

The ultimate failure of the mission came about as a

result of the Rites Controversy – the accommodation of

Confucian practices around burial of the dead and

other such rituals for Christian converts. Ross asks,

‘was it in the end because western Christianity was so

inextricably linked to European culture that it simply

could not shake itself free from the identification of

Christianity with European culture with no

remainder?’44 Valignano and Ricci’s attempt at

accommodation of the cultural practices of the Chinese

where such did not conflict with Christian thought and

praxis, ultimately led to a reaction from the Catholic

hierarchy which then tried to westernise the

indigenous Chinese church and divorce it from its

cultural context. This led to a rejection of

Christianity by the Xangxi Emperor, who continued to

tolerate the Jesuits only as scientific advisers.45

43 Jan Lahmeyer, “Historical demographic of china”, PopulationStatistics, 2003 <http://www.populstat.info/Asia/chinac.htm>[Accessed: 29/04/2014]44 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.19945 Ibid., p.198

Page 21 of 74

In summary, the approach of the Jesuits in China was

not just to dress in Chinese garments and adopt

Chinese customs, but also to present the Christian

message in Chinese terms and thought patterns that

could be understood and practiced amongst the

intellectual classes without compromising their

Chinese identity, culture and traditions. These

attempts at inculturation by the Jesuits and the

reasons for the failure of the mission will be

considered in comparison with the approach of the Eden

Project in urban mission later in this dissertation.

Page 22 of 74

Chapter 2

The social and cultural challenges of urban

mission

Having considered the missional approach of the

Jesuits, particularly in China at the turn of the

Seventeenth Century, in this chapter I will consider

the situation that confronts those seeking to carry

out mission in an urban setting, and particularly in

the city of Kingston upon Hull. This will provide a

backdrop for considering the specific approach of the

Eden Team as they have sought to establish themselves

in East Hull in comparison with the approach taken by

the Jesuits in China.

In his analysis of the modern urban world, David W.

Smith suggests that we are witnessing ‘the creation of

dualist cities in which parallel communities are

Page 23 of 74

divided by gross disparities of wealth and

opportunity’.46 Eddie Gibbs describes the inner city

areas of Britain as ‘centers of high crime, family

breakdown, youth unemployment, drug dealing, and

decaying public housing’.47

Kingston-upon-Hull is such a place where the River

Hull does not just divide the city physically, but

also draws a line between the poorer communities of

East Hull and the wealthier, Middle Class communities

of ‘the Avenues’ in West Hull. This same division

extends into the loyalty expressed in the support of

the local Rugby League teams: people from East Hull

support Hull Kingston Rovers and those from West Hull

Support Hull FC. This rivalry is bitter and fierce and

is rooted in the social and class divisions of the

city. One of the East Hull Eden team informed me that

she would not be seen wearing black and white on a day

46 David W. Smith, Seeking A City with Foundations: Theology for an UrbanWorld (Nottingham: Intervarsity Press, 2011), p.9147 Eddie Gibbs, Churchmorph: how megatrends are reshaping Christiancommunities (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), p.116

Page 24 of 74

the two teams were playing each other at risk to her

own safety.48

Hull grew during the Nineteenth Century primarily due

to its development as a port. It rose to become the

third largest port in Britain by 1870, behind London

and Liverpool.49 It also developed industries in flour

Milling (Joseph Rank) and in the production of

chemicals and drugs (Reckitt and Coleman and Smith and

Nephew were both founded in Hull). In addition, Hull

became a significant port for the fishing industry.

However, the Second World War had a devastating effect

on Hull as a city – ninety percent of the houses in

Hull were either damaged or destroyed.50 Damage to the

docks, and the delays in repairing the damage, meant

that much overseas trade that formerly passed through

Hull was diverted to other ports, leading to a decline

in the prosperity of Hull as a port.51 Also, the

devastated housing stock was replaced by a number of

new council estates around the city, including in East

48 Laura Jones, East Hull Eden Team Member in the interview of7th March 201449 Gurnham, The Story of Hull, p.13350 Ibid., p.18051 Ibid., p.184

Page 25 of 74

Hull, the Preston Road Estates, which led to the

relocation and breakup of the tight-knit fishing and

port communities into scattered housing. The fishing

industry itself was almost completely destroyed by

‘the Icelandic ‘Cod Wars’ of 1975-6 and the EU’s

failure to agree an acceptable common fisheries

policy’.52 All of this left the City in decline. The

following summarises the social challenges of the

city:

Today unemployment is still about twice thenational average, at about 14.4 per cent in2010. There are many families where twogenerations have grown up never having a job,and those who work tend to be in low-wagejobs. In 2009 the average weekly pay in thecity was calculated to be £407.70, £44.70less than the regional average and £88.30less than the national average. ConsequentlyHull remains an area of considerabledeprivation...Hull was the 11th most deprivedarea in the United Kingdom in 2007.53

Whilst Hull is now in the process of recovery, it is

on the council estates where this deprivation is most

prevalent and is demonstrated in other statistics such

as the crime rate: in 2009-10 there were one hundred

52 Ibid., p.18753 Ibid., p.195

Page 26 of 74

and twenty recorded crimes per thousand of the

population, compared to seventy nine per thousand in

the United Kingdom as a whole.54 Such statistics can

also be reflected in education (in 2008-9 Hull schools

achieved the second lowest rate of A to C passes in

GCSE’s), and health (life expectancy in Hull is on

average three years less than for the rest of the

country).55 According to a recent BBC News article,

‘Hull is also the most heavily-indebted area in

Britain, with forty three percent of the population

admitting they were in serious trouble financially’.56

The building of the new estates did not result in the

establishment of many new churches to service those

estates. Historically, Hull was a strongly Methodist

city (both Wesleyan and Primitive), and attendance at

chapels far exceeded attendance at any of the other

denominations up until the Twentieth Century.57 Many

Methodist Chapels were destroyed during the Second

54 Ibid., p.19555 Ibid., pp.195-656 ‘Hull top of the debt table: ‘There’s loads of debteverywhere’’, BBC News Humberside <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-25117308> [accessed: 05/12/2013]57 Gurnham, The Story of Hull, pp.142-144

Page 27 of 74

World War, leading to a retraction of the

denomination. Anglican churches were built in the new

estates, but again, retraction of the Anglican

denomination has left most on the estates of East Hull

several generations away from regular church

attendance.58 This renders a population of ‘un-

churched’ people – those with no concept of the

Christian message and no experience of church

attendance whatsoever (except perhaps at weddings and

funerals).59 The view given by Chester and Timmis of a

post-Christian culture is exacerbated in the estates

that are so far removed from Christendom.60 Those who

enter the estates to share the Christian message do so

as ‘aliens, exiles and pilgrims in a culture where we

no longer feel at home’.61

Chester and Timmis also suggest that the Christendom

models of evangelism which reach those on the fringe

of church or who have had some church attendance in

58 S.J. Dixon ‘Hull Churches and Parishes’,<http://www.dixon115.freeserve.co.uk/hull.htm> [accessed:07/01/2014]59 Tim Chester & Steve Timmis, Everyday Church: mission by being goodneighbours, (Nottingham, Inter-Varsity Press, 2011), p.1560 Ibid., pp.21-2261 Ibid., p.22

Page 28 of 74

the past ‘still have plenty of mileage in them’ but

that they are irrelevant for reaching the several

generations unchurched communities of the United

Kingdom.62

David W. Smith argues, when laying out an agenda for

urban mission,

One of the lessons we derive from the historyof the missionary movements from the Westover the past two centuries is that timetaken to enter and understand a strange newcultural world was not wasted time. Indeed,the more thorough the preparation and thedeeper the insights gained into the newworlds which missionaries entered, thegreater their long term effectiveness both incommunicating the message of the gospel andacting as catalysts for positive social andcultural transformation.63

This gives a recognition that urban mission cannot

simply replicate other types of mission but needs an

approach that is relevant to the culture of the target

community. In the same way that the Jesuits in

general, and Matteo Ricci in particular, took time to

understand the Chinese culture into which they were

seeking to take the gospel, so the Eden Team has

62 Ibid., p.2963 Ibid., p.42

Page 29 of 74

approached mission by seeking to understand and

connect with the culture of the target community

wherever they have gone, and, for the purposes of this

dissertation, in East Hull. It is this approach that

will be discussed in the next chapter.

Page 30 of 74

Chapter 3

The Eden Project in East Hull

The Eden Project approach grew out of a recognition

that, in Manchester in the 1990s, there were deprived

estates from which the churches had retreated, and

where, poverty, deprivation and crime were rising.64

The Worldwide Message Tribe, under the leadership of

Andy Hawthorne, had been putting on missional events

in the mid 1990s in response to seeing the

‘deprivation’ and ‘godlessness’ of young people in the

Longsight estate of Manchester.65 These events were

held in schools in suburban Manchester and comprised

of ‘high octane’ rave-style music and a simple

‘gospel’ message as part of the presentation.66 This

music was the original shared cultural connection with

64 Matt Wilson, Concrete Faith: The Inside Story of the Eden Network,(Manchester: Message Trust, 2012), pp.12-1765 Ibid., p.1466 Wilson, Concrete Faith, p,15

Page 31 of 74

the youth on the estates. Soon these events saw many

young people make faith commitments; however, the

young people in the inner cities, whom they had set up

the events to reach, were somehow being left behind.67

Even though, on the Wythenshawe estate, after their

initial faith response, many had come to church, few

had stayed. The conclusion was that, ‘young people in

the estate were desperate to know God but the existing

church wasn’t resourced or ready to take them on, at

least not on the scale required’.68

Juliet Kilpin suggests that ‘as the gap between church

and society in Britain becomes increasingly cavernous

and we grapple with the effects of secularisation,

consumerism individualism and post-Christendom, Jesus’

followers need permission to experiment with new ways

of connecting with those on the margins’.69 Thus, in

1996, the ‘Eden Project’ was launched in which

Christians associated with the Message Trust moved

into the Benchill area of Wythenshawe (‘officially the

67 Ibid., p.1568 Ibid., p.1769 Juliet Kilpin, Urban to the Core: Motives for Incarnational Mission,(Kibworth Beauchanp: MatadorPublishing, 2013), p.103

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most deprived ward in the whole of the UK’).70 Over the

next few years this work then extended into other

deprived estates around Manchester.

Carl Belcher, one of the early Eden Project team

members, told me in an interview that the aim of the

plan of moving into the estates was to ‘do life’ with

the young people of the estates; the intention was to

live in and be part of the local community and model

something of the kingdom of God and the love and

acceptance of Christ to those around them.71 The main

challenge to this approach was to get past the

previous and widespread ‘parachute’ approach in which

people go into such estates for short term missional

projects, but then retreat once the mission has been

completed. Instead, the strategy of the Eden Project

was ‘to create significant clusters of people, between

20 and 30, living in quite a small area’ in permanent

residence on the targeted estates.72 One of Eden’s core

values is ‘making a redemptive home right in the

70 Wilson, Concrete Faith, p.1771 Interview with Carl Belcher carried out on 11/12/201313:40pm. See Appendix A. For Interview questions.72 Matt Wilson, Eden: Called to the Streets, p.40

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middle of a difficult community’.73 From such a home

Eden workers aim to reach out to the youth of the area

in which they reside through youth clubs, detached

work and just from living alongside and brushing

shoulders with them, thus to help them on a journey to

faith. These activities have been replicated by the

team established in East Hull.74

The rationale for this approach is laid out by Matt

Wilson as he suggests, based on the research of Malcom

Gladwell that ‘to break through and see real

transformation brought to the collective mind and

behaviour of their culture, activists must achieve a

Tipping Point...of fifteen percent of the population

of that group.75 He goes on to suggest, however that

‘to see a tangible difference in the prevailing

atmosphere of an identified culture or subculture

those activists need only achieve a Tipping Point of

two percent of the population of that group’.76 Thus,

thirty Eden team members can, in theory, ‘impact on a

73 Ibid., p.3274 Anna Moorhouse in an interview carried out on 07/03/201475 Ibid., p.2676 Ibid., p.27

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population of 1500’, which are the ratios the Eden

Project use in sending out their teams.77

Trust had to be built with the community and a sense

of longevity had to be engendered. Barriers were

broken down through the proximity of living.78 Also,

there was an emphasis not on activity but on

acceptance and interaction with the young people.79 The

approach is similar to that of Urban Expression, in

that ‘as we follow Christ’s example by being

incarnational, it gives greater authenticity to speak

to the community about Jesus’.80 Matt Wilson describes

this approach as ‘a high-commitment, incarnational

Christ-commissioned lifestyle that’s not for the

fainthearted or the restless’.81

Each of the projects launched in Manchester was done

so in co-operation with a church that was already

working in or near the target area. From the links

built, the aim was to help people on a journey to

77 Ibid., p.2778 Interview with Carl Belcher carried out on 11/12/2013 13:40pm79 Ibid.80 Shona Kerr, ‘At Street Level’ in Julet Kilpin, Urban to theCore, p.18781 Matt Wilson, Eden, p.31

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faith. Such churches acted as a base for the Eden

workers who had moved into the target areas, both for

their own worship, and also as a launch pad from which

to do mission within the neighbourhood.

During the first decade of the Twenty First Century,

Eden began to replicate this model in other cities

primarily across Northern England. This was the

trigger for establishing an Eden Team in East Hull.

The vision for this team came from Andrew Chubb.82

Having worked previously in Birmingham as a Head in a

challenging school, and having taken that school as

far as he felt he could, Andrew moved to the East

Riding of Yorkshire to take up a position as Principle

of the newly established Archbishop Sentamu Academy on

the Preston Road estate.83 There were a number of key

factors that influenced his decision: the level of

deprivation in Hull; the sponsorship of the Church of

England of this academy (and specifically the

involvement of Archbishop John Sentamu); the ability82 The details recorded were given during a structured interviewwhich took place with Andrew Chubb at 11:00am on Friday 7th

March 2014 (see Appendix C.)83 ‘Home Page;, 2012 Archbishop Sentamu Accademy, 2012, <http://www.sentamu.com/> [Accessed 12/03/2014, 13:03)

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to influence the design and build of the new academy;

the proximity of the academy site to the newly

established Freedom Centre in Hull, a regeneration

project in this same area.84 All of these factors

presented for Andrew a ‘fantastic opportunity for

regeneration and spiritual regeneration of this

deprived area of Hull’.85

With this vision, Andrew contacted the Message Trust

and began negotiations to bring an Eden team to the

Preston Road estate, to be based out of the Academy.

This team was to work alongside the school chaplain,

the Label of Love schools ministry team,86 and a nearby

Church of England church (St Aiden’s) which had a

vision to reach this estate.87

The East Hull Eden Team was established in July 2012

and is currently made up of two workers: Laura Jones

84 ‘Home Page’, 2011, <http://www.freedomcentre.info/>[Accessed: 12/03/2014, 12:56pm), as related in the interviewwith Andrew Chubb on 07/03/201485 Interview with Andrew Chubb, 07/03/1486 ‘Home Page’, Label of Love, 2012,<http://www.labeloflove.co.uk/> [Accessed: 12/03/2014, 14:50pm]87 ‘Home Page’, St Aiden’s, 2014,<http://www.staidans.org.uk/welcomepage.htm> [Accessed:12/03/2014, 15:56pm]

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and Anna Moorhouse.88 Anna works as a Teaching

Assistant in the Academy and Laura works in the school

for 10 hours per week assisting with Religious

Education lessons and with the acts of collective

worship. In addition, both workers attend an already

established Youth Centre (‘The Hut’) on the estate

which gives them an opportunity to mix with the youth

socially as well as during school hours. They also

carry out detached work. They live in a restored house

on the estate that was previously derelict and are

thereby accessible to the local neighbourhood. They

have also recently taken up responsibility for a

community garden that was in disuse naming it the

‘garden of Eden’.89 In addition to the above they run

sports and other activities during the school

holidays. All of this work is aimed at building up

relationship and trust with those who live on the

estate as well as demonstrating that they are working

for the good of the community.90 Anna stated that their

88 The following information was determined from a structuredinterview carried out with Anna Moorhouse and Laura Jones at10:00am on 07/03/2014 (see appendix B.)89 Anna Moorhouse interview on 07/03/201490 Ibid.

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approach has been ‘getting to know the young people in

as many settings as possible’.91 They have not only

commenced work but have also partnered with those

already engaged in youth work on the estate.92 The aim

has been to ‘build trust’ because the young people

‘need to get to know you or they ignore you’.93

Laura Jones likened the approach of the team to being

similar to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet in that his

intention was not to change the story but to make it

relevant to a modern audience; in the same way, their

aim is to contextualise the message of the gospel so

that it is accessible to people on the Preston Road

estates.94 The chief means of doing this is to live

amongst the community until barriers of suspicion are

broken down so that a platform can be built for

communicating the gospel. It is also to present the

gospel message in a way that can be understood by the

young people of the estates.

91 Ibid.92 Ibid.93 Laura Jones interview 07/03/201494 Ibid.

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A critical missional activity during the last two

years, where communication of the gospel has been

attempted in this way, has been the mission carried

out in October 2013, in which the Message Trust band,

Twelve24, were invited into the school to work for a

week.95 This culminated in a concert on the Friday

night at which the band presented their gospel message

based on THE4POINTS.96 This is a very simplified

presentation of the gospel reduced down to four items:

God loves me, I have sinned, Jesus died for me, I need

to decide to live for God. The response to this

message was that over one hundred young people

indicated that they wanted to take up this offer on

the night.

The challenge for Anna and Laura, however, following

this event, was remaining connected with, and

discipling this group of young people.97 This has been

a constraint, both of available people to carry out

this work (i.e. Anna and Laura) and also of the

95 Homepage, Twelve24, <http://www.twelve24.co.uk/> [Accessed:12/03/2014, 15:11pm)96 Homepage, THE4POINTS, <http://www.the4points.com/INT/index.php>[Accessed 12/03/2014 15:17pm]97 Laura Jones interview 07/03/2014

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appropriateness and ability of St Aiden’s to be able

to accommodate these young people.98 Anna acknowledged

that the follow up plan for this mission could have

been better.99 The result since then has been that one

or two have been added to the church youth group and a

few others have been happy to attend the lunchtime

club run by the Eden Team in the academy to continue

to explore faith. Anna and Laura account these as

positive outcomes, as well as the fact that ‘fourteen

hundred kids heard the message’.100

The Eden Team would see their successes during this

period as the mission, the building up of trust with

the local community, especially the youth, through

activities on the estate and in the school, the

establishment of responsibility for the community

garden, the ongoing relationship with the Academy and

the work continuing to be done in the academy, as well

as the specific converts they have managed to obtain

during this period.101 Their identified failures include

98 Anna Moorhouse interview 07/03/201499 Ibid.100 Ibid.101 Ibid.

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the lack of capability to follow up the mission event,

and the inability to be able to reach certain parts of

the estate.102 They identify that both of these

‘failures’ are factors of the number of bodies on the

ground to fulfil this work and so one of the key needs

of the project is to attract more Eden Team members to

work as part of this team in order to increase the

current capacity and to work more effectively in the

activities and events carried out.103 Also, they believe

they need some male team members to work more

effectively with the boys they are in contact with.104

In addition, the support they receive from St Aiden’s

is at capacity and so they need additional people from

the local Christian community to catch the vision and

to work alongside them.105 Finally, they also need long

term sustainable finance to continue and to expand the

work.106 They have also identified that, in the future,

it may also be appropriate to establish a fresh

expression of church on the estate itself that will be

102 Ibid.103 Ibid.104 Ibid.105 Ibid.106 Ibid.

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more appropriate and accessible to those who come to

faith.107

In all of the above, the East Hull Eden Team have

followed the Eden Project principles which can be

summarised as follows: to live amongst the target

community and ‘do life’ with them; to build trust and

relationship with the target community; to help those

in the target community to begin the journey to faith

and to disciple those who are further along that

journey; to work out of and with the help of a local

church; to establish a project that is sustainable

over the medium to long term.108

Currently, the Eden Team are two workers in an estate

of four thousand five hundred people. This is a long

way removed from the targeted ‘two percent’ tipping

point that can significantly impact this population.

Thus, the greatest need for this team to achieve their

aims is to extend the team working on this estate.

There also remain challenges of long term financial

sustainability of the project. Anna and Laura

107 Ibid.108 Ibid.

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acknowledge that this is something that needs to be

addressed before the team can be expanded.109 They also

acknowledge that, for the team to have a greater

impact, it needs to be more visible, and that is

something they will address in the coming summer with

the outdoor activities they are planning.110

In the next chapter I will compare and contrast the

work of the Eden Team in East Hull with that of the

Jesuits, as outlined in chapter 1 of this

dissertation.

109 Ibid.110 Ibid.

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Chapter 4

Comparison of the Approach of the Eden Team in

East Hull with the Jesuits

From the descriptions of the work of the Jesuits in

China at the turn of the Seventeenth Century and the

work of the Eden Team, both in Manchester, and

specifically in East Hull, we can draw some very clear

comparisons and contrasts in terms of the approach

taken by these two missional movements. These

comparisons revolve primarily around the level of

inculturation attempted by the missions and also the

extent to which the missional approach has been

incarnational.

David Bosch defines incarnational mission as ‘the

church being born anew in each new context and

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culture’.111 This suggests, the ‘inculturation of

Christianity and Christianization of culture’. 112 In

other words, the impact on the culture of the gospel

presented in this way, will not only impact the

culture but will also affect the theology,

ecclesiology and culture of the church itself within

the culture into which it is being introduced.

Incarnational mission implies that those engaged in it

become Christ to the community into which they are

reaching. This can be expressed as follows: ‘whether

people want to explore faith or not, our calling as

followers of Jesus is to model God’s love in any ways

we can’.113

In the approach of Matteo Ricci, the emphasis was put

primarily on understanding and becoming part of the

culture of the target community so that he could build

bridges of understanding into the philosophies that

were part of their world view, and thereby help them

to understand the gospel. Such bridges were built

111 David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology ofMission, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), p.454112 Ibid., p.454113 Juliet Kilpin, Urban to the Core, p.40

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through demonstrations of western scientific knowledge

which opened a door of acceptance for him in China,

but these in themselves were not the means of

communicating the gospel. Ross suggests that, for

Ricci, ‘his task was not primarily to build up

worshipping congregations’ but ‘to lay a foundation

for the future’ in which ‘the Jesuits and the faith

they proclaimed were no longer alien but in some sense

Chinese, then truly a Chinese and Christian Church

could be built’.114 This came from his reading of the

Chinese philosophers and couching the gospel message

in terms that would be recognised and understood by

his audience. Perhaps, in this sense, the gospel was a

‘Trojan horse’ which aimed to come in unsuspected into

the culture and thereby to change it. Po-Chia Hsia

suggests that Ricci ‘lured Chinese scholars into the

net of Christianity through learned conversations on

mathematics, natural philosophy and the afterlife’.115

However, one of the criticisms levelled at Ricci was

that the gospel he presented was ‘watered down’ so

114 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.135115 Po-Chia Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City, p.248

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that it became ‘simply a form of Confucianism’.116

Whether this was in fact the case is a matter of

dispute. Perhaps, rather, this was a sign that the

gospel really had been impacted by the target culture

as well as impacting it in accordance with Bosch’s

definition of incarnational mission cited above.

In comparison with Ricci, the Eden Team, working with

the Message Trust, have reduced down the gospel

message into THE4POINTS (as mentioned above), which

presents a very simple (maybe simplistic?) version of

the gospel which is understandable and accessible to

those to be found in the urban culture. This message

is based around four simple symbols which are similar

to those to be found on a play station control and

thus connects the message into the youth culture as

follows:

116 Ross, A Vision Betrayed, p.147

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Figure 1: Message Trust 4 Points

The message, presented as it is in sound bites, is

stripped of more sophisticated presentations that

include proofs of the existence of God, historical

evidence for the life of Jesus and for the

resurrection, etc. Rather it assumes a belief in God

and an acceptance of human sinfulness; it does not

give any explanation of the atonement but simply

presents the fact that Jesus died for us and that we

need to trust him; it concludes by putting the onus on

the hearer to accept this and to choose to surrender

their life to God.117 It also aims at evoking an instant

response rather than the notion of the individual

117‘About’ ‘THE4POINTS’, <http://www.the4points.com/INT/about_the4points.php?osCsid=1dabe453187e6371c816927fa41c9813> [Accessed:12/03/2014, 15:24pm)

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becoming part of a community with which they can

journey towards faith. In some ways this is in

juxtaposition with the general approach of the Eden

Team which seeks to establish relationship and trust

with the community in order to introduce them to

faith. In contrast, this form of presentation seeks to

connect with the individual through music and culture

rather than through incarnational living, in order to

gain an immediate response. It may be that this

disconnection goes some way to explaining why many of

those who responded to this message presented by

TWELVE24, have not connected with the ongoing work of

the Eden Team in East Hull.

Perhaps the same criticism could be made of this

approach as was made of the Jesuits: that in

presenting the message in a simplified or accessible

form, justice is not done to the message itself.

Alternatively, both of these could be indicators that

the target culture has itself influenced the message.

The Jesuits saw significant growth in the decades that

followed Ricci, as documented in chapter 1 above,

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which could be seen as a vindication of this approach

of inculturating the gospel. The Eden Teams have seen

a significant response amongst the youth based on this

message wherever they have been. However, the

challenge for the Eden Project remains the lasting

change that this will carry to urban cultures and the

challenge that discipleship of those who have

responded to the message brings, as well as the

ability of existing churches to assimilate such

responders. Perhaps, on this latter point, this is

where urban expressions of church will be required in

increasing numbers to be able to allow a new church

culture to arise in the urban environment, as

suggested by Juliet Kilpin.118 However, this message

takes no account of the great disparity in society

that has given rise to urban cultures such as in East

Hull.

David W. Smith suggests that ‘we thus witness the

creation of dualist cities in which parallel

communities are divided by gross disparities of wealth

and opportunity, the one suffering from material118 Juliet Kilpin, Urban to the Core, p.103

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poverty, while the other knows of dehumanizing poverty

of spirit’.119 The gospel message proclaimed through THE

4POINTS focuses on individual sin, salvation and

relationship with God to bring the person to faith,

without a consideration of the structural sin within

society that has given rise to the disparity seen in

the inner city. John Drane suggests that in such

circumstances ‘people are the victims of economic and

political exploitation, of abuse, violence, or

personal alienation. To tell such people they are

responsible, and they should choose Jesus instead is

not the gospel – or at least, not if the ‘gospel’ is

‘good news’.120 Personally, I would suggest that the

message of individual salvation proclaimed in THE

4POINTS is valid, although very limited, both in its

substance, and in its effectiveness of contextualising

the message within a redemptive community. From my

interviews with the East Hull Eden Team, this issue

has not really been considered. Rather the approach

pioneered elsewhere by Eden Teams has been adopted in

119 Smith, Seeking a City with Foundations, p.91120 John Drane, Faith in a Changing Culture: Creating Churches for the NextCentury, (London: Marshall Pickering, 1997), p.190

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East Hull. Perhaps the team needs to focus on working

from within the context of a journeying community

rather than using such ‘parachute’ techniques of

evangelism.

The aim of the Eden Team is to connect people with God

in the hope that such connections will bring

individual transformation, which in turn will

transform the societies in which they live. I think

perhaps that something greater than this approach may

be required which works at a societal, political and

economic level alongside the individual level to

attain the goal of transformation. However, whether

this wider perspective is within the remit of the Eden

Team working at society’s grass roots is a question

that might be considered in comparison with Liberation

Theologies, but is outside the scope of this

dissertation.

A second area of comparison between the work of the

Jesuits and the Eden Team is the target audience for

the message. Ricci concentrated on taking the message

to the Intelligentsia within China. This top down

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approach is one that aims to change the beliefs and

values of societies influencers so that, this in turn

will bring cultural change as these beliefs and values

permeate down through the rest of society.

Hugh McLeod says of the monumental transition that

took place in the UK in the 1960s, ‘social changes

after the Second World War were decisive in enabling

ideas previously limited to an avant-garde or to

socially marginal groups to become widely diffused and

to become practical possibilities’.121 This summarises

his proposition that in the 1960s a number of streams

of change came together: ‘gradual processes of change

over a much longer period of time provided the long-

term preconditions for the more rapid changes in that

decade’.122 He goes on to say ‘a small but influential

section of the population had broken away entirely

from Christianity, including many intellectuals,

writers, and political radicals’ and it was as their

ideas simultaneously permeated popular culture in the

121 Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2007), p.257122 Ibid., p.29

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1960s that rapid social change took place.123 In a

similar way, the approach of Ricci in winning over

some of the Intelligentsia in China was aimed at

achieving the same kind of cascading effect, and,

indeed, did achieve a rapid growth in the church in

China in the period following Ricci’s death, as

documented in chapter 1 above.

In contrast with the approach of the Jesuit’s, the

Eden Project targets the poor and the marginalised,

the uneducated and the disenfranchised. This approach

is designed to target areas of need within the poorest

communities of the UK. Perhaps this is in keeping with

the Parable of the Dinner in Luke 14:16-24, where the

servants are told to go and invite to the dinner ‘the

poor and crippled and blind and lame’.124 Certainly this

reflects the population of the estates in which the

East Hull team are working. However, it is difficult

to assess how effective this will be in bringing long

term transformation in such estates, particularly

where the beliefs and values being inculcated through123 Ibid., p.29124 The Bible New International Version (OM Books: Hyderabad,2011), p.936

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the team stand in such contrast with the contextual

society and with the secularised culture of the UK as

a whole. It seems to me that the Eden Project has not,

at this point, thought out a strategy beyond the

current generation of mission. Maybe this is because

of the instinct to reach out to those in need now; or

perhaps because this movement was born out of a

presenting problem in a specific culture and is a

youthful reaction to that problem, and thus has not

yet come to maturity. This observation is not meant as

a criticism of the work currently undertaken by the

teams in very needy areas but as a perspective on the

future of this mission.

A third area of comparison is the contrast between the

intentions of each of these two missional movements.

The Jesuits set out to become part of the culture

itself in China. This was reflected in learning the

philosophies and adopting the dress and customs of the

Chinese. In contrast, the Eden Team does not

specifically adopt either of these elements, or any

other external cultural signifiers, but rather seeks

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to live amongst the target community without changing

beliefs and values to become part of it. Perhaps one

reason for the Jesuit approach was that the culture of

the Chinese was so radically different from that of

Post-Reformation Western Europe. Without some level of

cultural assimilation, the Jesuits could not have

achieved acceptance for their message but rather would

have been seen as outsiders seeking to impose an alien

religion onto the Chinese. Thus, the actions taken

were a necessary step to enable them to achieve a

level of acceptance in China.

In comparison, whilst the urban culture does stand in

contrast with much of society around it, in its

outward form and in its core beliefs and values, it is

rather a subculture of Western European culture as a

whole rather than an alien culture in entirety. This

means that Eden Teams can enter this culture and gain

acceptance within it, not through adopting certain

styles of dress, ways of speaking or modes of

behaviour, but through relationship and through

actions that break down barriers of suspicion and

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hostility with the urban residents and build a

platform for the Eden Team to be able to deliver their

message. In East Hull, the community garden is one

such activity which aims to provide a green / brown

space for the residents of the estates and an

opportunity for the Eden Team to work shoulder to

shoulder with the residents in order to build

relationship, and gain acceptance so that a platform

will be built from which the message of the gospel can

be shared.125 The garden project also gives an

opportunity to improve the cityscape surroundings of

the estates and therefore gives tangible and

demonstrable improvement which can be seen by all

residents. Thus, in an isolated, dysfunctional

society, points of contact are created which enable

natural links to form so that the love of God to that

community can be demonstrated in such acts which serve

the community. Therefore, in accordance with Juliet

Kilpin’s analysis, ‘as we follow Christ’s example by

125 Anna Moorhouse & Laura Jones interview 07/03/2014

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being incarnational, it gives us greater authenticity

to speak to the community about Jesus’.126

Finally, in summary, in considering the approach of

the Jesuits and that of the East Hull Eden Team in

attempting to bring the gospel to an alien culture,

the approach of the Jesuits focused on inculturation

of the message through dress, through writings,

through philosophy and through presentation of

themselves as scholars and intellectuals in order to

gain acceptance in the target community which would

build bridges for their message to be accepted. This

was primarily through proving the intellectual worth

of themselves and their message in an intellectually

driven society. In contrast, the Eden Team tend

towards incarnating the gospel by living in the

community, and seeking to gain acceptance within the

community, not through becoming like them, but by

seeking to connect relationally with them through

demonstrations of the love of Christ. However, their

approach is not without the use of cultural

126 Sheona Kerr, ‘At Street Level’ in Juliet Kilpin, Urban to theCore, p.187

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signifiers, such as music, demonstrated especially in

the October 2013 mission which used the band TWELVE24

to connect with the youth culture in the area.

The East Hull Eden Team is still relatively new in

terms of its creation. So far, emphasis has been

placed on connecting with already established projects

in the area, and with the work in the academy. The

2013 mission has been the first event to have broken

out of that mode with small numerical impact in terms

of building the Christian community. Primarily, they

have replicated the approach used by Eden Teams

elsewhere, so far with limited success. Perhaps an

approach that is tailored to the culture of East Hull

and the nuances of that culture will need to be

considered as this project matures, applying learning

from what has worked well and what has worked not so

well in this specific context. However, at the moment

there are no indicators from Anna and Laura that this

is being considered.

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Conclusion

In carrying out this comparison between the Jesuit

Mission to China and the work of the Eden Project in

East Hull, whilst similarities in terms of taking the

gospel to an alien culture have been identified, such

as living amongst the target community in order to

gain personal acceptance and thereby acceptance of the

message, the contrasts between the two missional

approaches have emerged as being greater than I first

thought when I embarked on this dissertation.

The first contrast is the difference between the two

target communities: the Chinese culture was completely

alien to the Jesuits and required a radical approach

in terms of cultural assimilation; the urban culture

targeted by the Eden Team is alien in certain aspects

(for example, attitudes to crime), however, it is

subculture of Western European culture and is

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therefore perhaps more easy to penetrate and gain

acceptance within than that encountered by the Jesuits

in the Sixteenth Century.

Secondly, the Jesuits went to the Intelligentsia

whereas the Eden Project targets the lower strata of

society – the poor, the uneducated and the

disenfranchised. The Eden approach is based around

immediate need to bring rapid change in a small area;

the Jesuit approach was strategic and aimed at long

term permanent penetration of the gospel within an

alien culture.

Thirdly, the Jesuit approach focused on assimilation

of the gospel message on the part of the target

culture, through persuasion based on intellectual

credibility. The Eden approach is based on acceptance

of the message of the gospel, flowing out from the

expression of the love of Christ to the target

community and through connecting with the community

through such signifiers as music.

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Having drawn these contrasts, however, there is much

that the Eden Project can learn from the ultimate

failure of the Jesuit mission.

As indicated in chapter 1 above, the Jesuit mission

foundered over the Rites Controversy. In the eyes of

the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, the

Jesuits had taken cultural assimilation of the gospel

too far and had assumed Chinese customs and practices

that were not acceptable to the culture of the church.

This tension led to a reversal of some of these

cultural assimilations by the church, which in turn

led to a rejection of the gospel and an expulsion of

the mission from China.

For the Eden Team, one of the acknowledged needs that

will give longer term sustainability to the inner city

mission is the establishment of new expressions of

church that will be more in line with inner city

culture. This was identified in my interview with the

East Hull Eden Team as well as by Juliet Kilpin in her

work in the inner city.127 Whilst the approach of the

127 Kilpin, Urban to the Core, p.103

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Eden Team is currently to work from the base of an

existing church in the target community, the

establishment of such new expressions, may lead to

tensions with the base churches, as well as with the

church hierarchy overall. Certainly, new forms of

ecclesiology will emerge but there is also the

possibility for unorthodox theologies to arise as

churches outside the existing church denominations and

streams become established – I make this observation

as a thirty year member of the New Churches who has

observed all kinds of strange teachings and doctrines

sweep through the independent church networks, often

bringing unhelpful emphases. Retaining some form of

theological orthodoxy whilst allowing the church to

take up a new cultural expression will be a challenge

for the Eden Project.

Leading on from this point, and still drawing on my

experience in the New Churches, the long term

sustainability of such churches is also questionable.

In my Masters Degree dissertation I wrote at length on

the challenges facing the New Churches as the

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generation that established them comes to maturity and

retirement.128 Whilst this will not be an immediate

problem for any churches established by the Eden

Project, the long term sustainability of the churches

and succession planning will need to come onto their

agenda at some stage.

In conclusion, the Eden Project represents a vibrant,

youthful approach to inner city deprivation and

dislocation. As a new movement it is still energetic

and carries some momentum with it. Hope for the

targeted inner city communities is part of the fabric

of what is being established through Eden Teams,

especially in East Hull. The challenge for this

project is whether, in contrast with the Jesuits, it

can overcome the potential pitfalls that it faces (as

documented above) and can bring real, lasting,

sustainable transformation to some of the needy

communities of the UK. I hope and pray that it can.

128 Richard Bradbury, Cultural Change Management: Managing InternalCultural Change within the House Church Movement of Great Britain (Hull:University of Humberside, 1998)

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Bibliography

Bell, Judith Doing Your Research Project (Fourth Edition), (NewYork, McGraw Hill, 2005)Bosch, David J., Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shiftsin Theology of Mission, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991)Bradbury, Richard, Cultural Change Management: ManagingInternal Cultural Change within the House Church Movement of GreatBritain, (Hull: University of Humberside, 1998)Brown, Callum G. The Death of Christian Britain: UnderstandingSecularisation 1800-2000 (2nd Edition), (Abingdon: Routledge,2009)Bruce, Steve, Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults,(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)Carson, D.A., Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church:Understanding a Movement and its Implications, (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2005)Chester, Tim & Steve Timmis, Everyday Church: mission by beinggood neighbours, (Nottingham, Inter-Varsity Press, 2011)Drane, John, Faith in a Changing Culture: Creating Churches for thenext Century, (London: Marshall Pickering, 1997)Gibbs, Eddie, Churchmorph: how megatrends are reshapingChristian communities, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009)Gurnham, Richard, The Story of Hull, (Andover: Phillimore &Co. Ltd, 2011)R Po-Chia Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Kilpin, Juliet Urban to the Core: Motives for Incarnational Mission,(Kibworth Beauchamp, Matador Publishing, 2013)Laven, Mary, Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounterwith the East, (London: Faber and Faber, 2011)Lindberg, Carter, The European Reformations (Second Edition),(Chichester: Blackwell Publishing, 1996)MacCulloch, Diarmaid, A History of Christianity: The FirstThree Thousand Years, (London: Penguin Books, 2009)

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March, Clive, Christianity in a Post-Atheist Age, (London: SCM-Canterbury Press, 2002)McDonald, E.M., The Inquisition and the Jesuits in Japan, (NewYork: Kessinger Publishing, 1907)McLeod, Hugh, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2007)McNeill, Patrick, Research Methods (Second Edition), (London:Routledge, 1990)Newbigin, Lesslie, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (London:SPCK, 1989)Noll, Mark A., Turning Pints: Decisive Moments in the History ofChristianity, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000)Ross, Andrew C., A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China,1542-1742, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1994)Robinson, Martin, The Faith of the Unbeliever: Grappling with thebeliefs and unbeliefs which shape our society, (London: Monarchbooks, 1994,2001)Smith, David, Mission after Christendom, (London: Darton,Longman & Todd, 2003)Smith, James K.A., Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview andCultural Formation, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009)Thomas, Norman, Readings in World Mission, (London: SPCK,1995)Wegner, R. & J. Magruder, Mission Moves: 15 tectonic shifts thattransform churches, communities and the world, (Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2012)Wilson, Matt, Concrete Faith: The Inside Story of the Eden Network,(Manchester: Message Trust, 2012)Wilson, Matt, Eden: Called to the Streets, (Eastbourne:Survivor, 2005)Winter, Ralph D. & Steven C. Hawthorne, Perspectives on theWorld Christian Movement: A Reader (Revised Edition),(Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1992)Wright, Jonathan, God’s Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue andPower – A History of the Jesuits, (New York: Image Books, 2004)

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‘Home Page’, 2012 Archbishop Sentamu Accademy, 2012, <http://www.sentamu.com/> [Accessed 12/03/2014, 13:03)‘Hull top of the debt table: ‘There’s loads of debteverywhere’’, BBC News Humberside<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-25117308>[accessed: 05/12/2013] ‘Home Page’ Church Planting Movements, 2014,<http://www.churchplantingmovements.co.uk/> [accessed:15/04/2014]Dixon, S.J. ‘Hull Churches and Parishes’,<http://www.dixon115.freeserve.co.uk/hull.htm>[accessed: 07/01/2014] ‘Home Page’, The Freedom Centre, 2011,<http://www.freedomcentre.info/> [Accessed:12/03/2014, 12:56pm) ‘Home Page’ Fresh Expressions 2013,<http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/> [accessed:15/04/2014]‘Home Page’, Label of Love, 2012,<http://www.labeloflove.co.uk/> [Accessed: 12/03/2014,14:50pm]Hull City Council, ‘Ethnicity (Census)’, Humber DataObservatory 2001,<http://www.humberdataobservatory.org.uk/dataviews/tabular?viewId=344&geoId=9&subsetId=25>, [Accessed:30/04/2014]Lahmeyer, Jan, “Historical demographic of china”,Population Statistics, 2003<http://www.populstat.info/Asia/chinac.htm> [Accessed:29/04/2014] ‘Home Page’ The Message, 2014,<http://www.message.org.uk/eden/> [accessed:15/04/2014]3DM Europe, ‘Home Page’, Missional Communities, 2013,<http://missionalcommunities.co.uk/> [accessed:15/04/2014]

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‘Home Page’ Mission Shaped Ministry 2013http://www.missionshapedministry.org/ [accessed:15/04/2014] ‘Home Page’, St Aiden’s, 2014,<http://www.staidans.org.uk/welcomepage.htm>[Accessed: 12/03/2014, 15:56pm]‘Home Page’, THE4POINTS,<http://www.the4points.com/INT/index.php> [Accessed12/03/2014 15:17pm]‘Home Page’ Urban Expression 2011,<http://www.urbanexpression.org.uk/> [accessed:15/04/2014]All Biblical references are taken from The Bible NewInternational Version (OM Books: Hyderabad, 2011),

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Appendix A. Carl Belcher Interview Questions

An interview regarding the work of the Eden Project

was carried out with Carl Belcher on 11/12/2013 at

13:40pm. Carl was one of the early members of the

Eden Project in Manchester and now co-ordinates

the work in the Humberside region (East Yorkshire

and North Lincolnshire).

1. What was the approach of Eden when you were

involved in Manchester? Any successes and failures

you experienced?

2. What were the key aims of the work in Manchester?

3. What was the motivation, from your perspective, of

the commencement of the work in East Hull?

4. Has the approach in East Hull been any different

from that undertaken in Manchester?

5. What difficulties have been faced in East Hull

that may be similar / different to the work in

Manchester?

6. Do you know of any successes / failures of the

work so far in East Hull?

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Appendix B. Anna Moorhouse & Laura Jones Interview

Questions

An interview regarding the work of the Eden Project

was carried out with Anna Moorhouse and Laura Jones on

07/03/2014 at 10:00am. Laura and Anna are the current

members of the East Hull Eden Team.

1. What has been the approach of the Eden Team in its

work in East Hull?

2. What has been the history of this work so far?

3. What would you identify as the successes of this

work so far?

4. What would you identify as the failures of this

work so far?

5. What have you learned from the successes and

failures so far that will influence your approach

going forward?

6. What needs can you identify for this week going

forward?

7. What plans do you have for this work going

forward?

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Appendix C. Andrew Chubb Interview Questions

An interview regarding the work of the vision of the

East Hull Eden Project was carried out with Andrew

Chubb on 07/03/2014 at 11:00pm. Andrew is the

Principle of the Archbishop Sentamu Academy on the

Preston Road Estate, East Hull.

1. Why did you choose to come to Hull?

2. What was your vision for the academy and for the

area that inspired you to invite the Eden team in?

3. What has been the history and approach with

respect to the academy so far?

4. What is the way forward from your perspective, for

the team, and the Academy?

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