Demoralised clergy

SIR – Graham Coombes (Letters, November 21) encourages congregations to protest against Episcopal target-setting amid rising pressures on members of the clergy.

The early Christian Church grew because people were impressed by believers. They wanted to be like them and to be with them, their own lives then transformed through worship and fellowship. Places of worship ought to be as natural to visit as our own homes: places where, as Archbishop Wulfstan said at the turn of our first millennium, we can “discover who we are, where we come from and what our end will be”.

“Churchianity”, or loyalty to the increasingly complex structures of the Church over the faith, is in danger of demoralising clergy who once felt a calling to act as bridges between real life and real faith.

Rev Canon Alan Hughes

Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland