expected to be enthroned at the Cathedral in the spring, will arrive at a time of uncertainty about the future shape of the diocese.
If recommendations by the Dioceses Commission were to be accepted in full, Bishop Nick Baines would be made redundant by about 2013.
“I have taken the job knowing that,” he said. “But it’s not about me; it’s about the ministry of the church and how we go about shaping that to serve the world.
“The church exists for the sake of the world, not for the sake of the church. We are not here to keep the church happy. We want to see the communities that make up Bradford happy and thriving.
“Are our current structures good enough to do that? The Dioceses Commission suggest they aren’t. The church needs to be confident about managing change and focused on what the church is here for.”
Recently a national newspaper said the Bradford Diocese would be scrapped because Christianity had been marginalised by Islam.
Bishop Baines is well aware of the city’s changing demography; from 1976-80 he studied French and German at Bradford University. As an experienced media commentator, he is attuned to the ways of national newspapers.
“There is this single public narrative out there that many politicians and media propagate: ‘church’ means ‘empty pews’. Good news stories get filtered out because of this narrative.
“It needs to be challenged by people like me, not whinged about. That’s partly why I blog, because you can challenge some of these things,”
He attributed the politically correct notion that other religious faiths were offended by the signs and symbols of Christianity to “white, secular, post-Christian assumptions”.
“It’s part of this single narrative. We need to do something about it,” he said.
A Liverpudlian who worked as a Russian linguist in the GCHQ ‘spy centre’ at Cheltenham, before joining the ministry and serving in Leicester and latterly Croydon, Bishop Baines is aware of the danger of being populist.
“When people say they want a bishop to speak out it means they want you to say what they want you to hear. That’s just part of the world we are in.
“Sometimes you are beginning a conversation; it’s not necessarily where you end up. It’s the first word, not the last,” he said, meaning that dialogue is a conversation, not merely an exchange of views.
He is looking forward to moving into Bishopscroft, his official residence in Heaton, with his wife Linda.
They have two sons and a daughter. The youngest, Andrew, is working with a charity in South Africa. Richard and his wife Emma have a six-week-old son Ben. Melanie is married to Liam, a musician.
In Leicester the Bishop regularly played guitar and sang in a city-centre pub. Reportedly, he used to fill the place.
Bradford may take that as a hopeful sign of uplifting harmony to come.
e-mail: jim.greenhalf @telegraphandargus.co.uk
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