The Manor House Group

The Manor House group, which met for almost ten years in the 1980s and early 1990s, was, without doubt, extraordinary. Self-selected or gently, almost shyly, invited, we were Jews and Christians looking for an experience and a dialogue beyond the standard interfaith encounter.

 

Most, but not all, the Jews were from the Reform and Liberal traditions, and all but one of the Christians were Anglicans - Sister Margaret Shepherd being the honourable exception, who brought an astonishing strength to the group. In no sense did we wish to belittle the excellent work of the Council for Christians and Jews, the London Society of Jews and Christians, or the Interfaith Network, to name but a few of the many players in this area, and with which most of us were seriously involved. Without them and their brave and often pioneering work, it would not have been possible to contemplate having this conversation at all. But we did want, if at all possible, to go beyond conventional dialogue, to try to understand and experience and possibly even gain something from the other- find a different spiritual experience perhaps - and our desire to do that was matched by some of us having a deep desire to do something practical together to achieve some kind of lasting project that was interfaith in action, as well as words - but the development of that is another story.

 

Central to our selection and self-selection were some long-established close friendships. Richard Harries - then Dean of King’s College London but soon to become Bishop of Oxford, was one key figure - already a good and close friend of several of the Jewish members of the group. Rabbi Tony Bayfield had links to several of the Christian members and close links with a couple of them.

 

To add to that, Jews, who are renowned for arguing with each other - two Jews, three opinions being no joke - broadly trusted and liked each other. The Christians liked and trusted one another as well - essential for the experience we were to undergo - although they were somewhat taken aback by the intensity of argument and the speed of interruption of each others’ sentences by the Jewish members. Quite often, the Christians told us later, it would seem that the Jewish members would never get to complete a sentence because one of the other Jews would leap in with a “That’s not quite right’, comment, or “That’s not how I see it,” or, worse, “That’s not what the text says….” Indeed, the Christian members were infinitely more courteous to each other, and, remarkably for us Jews, much more polite about each other and each others’ views that we Jews would ever manage to be.

 

But something happened to us all during the ten years or so of our regular if infrequent meetings. We would all do everything we could to create the time and space to be there - often for a whole day and once a year for a delicious two days, where we discovered that one of the main differences between Jews and Christians was that Christians, by and large, are better at country walking. (That later turned out to be untrue, and later on Bishop Richard Harries and I became regular walking companions, with our spouses….) The something that happened to us all went far beyond what the publication by SCM Press (Dialogue with a Difference: The Manor House Group experience, SCM 1992) can convey. We changed.

 

I certainly changed. I had had a history of deep interest in Jewish Christian relationships   largely in the mediaeval period as a result of undergraduate research into the Jewish communities of southern France in the period of the Albigensian crusade until about 1400. But that had remarkably little relevance to our discussions. I had also been passionately involved in the discussions and later creation of the first interfaith hospice in the country - to date the only one - in Finchley, north London. That had largely involved Jews and Christians, with rather less Muslim, Sikh and Hindu involvement as well. Indeed it had been particularly marked at its inception by the development of far better relationships between Jews of a variety of different degrees of observance and orthodoxy, and the passionate commitment to the project by both Catholics and Anglicans - the Catholic church made the land available and the local Church of England rector organised the most remarkable rotas of visiting clergy of all possible denominations.

 

But I had never tried before to enter what I could only describe as the ‘Christian story’. To my Jewish mind, the very idea of a person being ‘son of God’ was bizarre, and the concept of a human being - Son of God or not - dying to save us seemed curious as well - incomprehensible in that the language itself did not make sense to me. I had been an avid reader of Geza Vermes and others on the subject of Jesus the Jew - and that discussion was forceful amongst our debates, and the Jewishness of Jesus seen as an incontrovertible fact.

 

But the idea of Jesus’ sacrifice? Or his relationship to God…..? It is still not part of what I can only describe as my story - but in the course of those discussions, and the absolutely searing honesty with which people talked about their most profound beliefs, I came to understand something about the nature of the idea of sacrifice, and the value of suffering, that was not part of mainstream Jewish teaching, but had something to offer. I began to see how there was a concept of suffering ennobling the spirit, and the reverence for a Man/God figure who embodied that suffering, that was far beyond my Jewish experience. I did not share it. I could not share it. But I was gently allowed to enter into these Christian friends’ deepest beliefs in a way I had never experienced before, and it changed me.

 

It changed my understanding of Christianity profoundly – obviously - but it also changed my understanding of life and its values. Suddenly, the reason that many Christian friends had been leaders of the hospice movement made sense. Suddenly, the idea of the need for a good death and a spiritual awakening or reconciliation was illuminated. In those few but important and profound encounters with Christian friends, I changed and was changed, and my perception of the spiritual strength to be gained from suffering was quite altered.

 

I will never believe that suffering is good for people - on the whole it seems to me quite harmful. But when people suffer, it is a fact that their suffering can ennoble the spirit, and that realisation was unexpected and wonderful. It has changed my life. And it really was interfaith dialogue that did it - so I cannot say any longer that I am more interested in practical expressions of interfaith. Both real conversation, that goes deep, and practical expression of working together are important - and it was a conversation, and an ongoing dialogue, that made me see the world differently.