Longley: ‘Christians failing to move people’

Christian divisions and a failure to evangelise are leading to insufficient witness by the Church in the Midlands, the Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, has said, writes James Macintyre.

Archbishop Longley said that the world outside the Church was not “hostile” to the Christian message, but that “our own attempts to express or share our faith fail to move people sufficiently, especially when they see our divisions.”

Speaking at Coventry Cathedral on Sunday evening to mark Christian Unity week, the archbishop said: “As a demonstration of our Christian faith, we need above all to find ever-fresh ways to show the love of God for the world and this city that he made and cherishes.”

He suggested that the Church should do more to reach out to non-religious people who are nevertheless receptive to the message of the gospels. “With our shared faith and a renewed focus, we need to look at the world – and at this city of Coventry – not chiefly as an enemy that is indifferent or even hostile to the message of the Gospel but as the place where God’s salvation has already reached into people’s lives through the love of his Son Jesus Christ.”

The archbishop’s address also called on Catholics to remember the “suffering Church” in the Holy Land and wider Middle East.