This is the first of an ongoing series on “shalom activists”, people who are engaged in peace-and-justice activism, from a shalom perspective. In this two-part episode I interview Aglaia Barraclough, who works in the area of restorative justice.
We begin with Aglaia’s early childhood in Greece and then London, including the pervasive presence of the Greek Orthodox church in life and culture, exposure to conservative evangelical Christianity in a youth program, and how this engagement with another version of a Christian faith community still remained within a “closed set” understanding of faith and community. Still, this conservative evangelicalism offered deeper and wider engagement with the bible, along with a more positive, participatory kind of involvement, especially for youth people. This attraction eventually leads to a “conversion” and break with Orthodoxy.
Later, in her university years (in Sheffield, where she met her future husband), we hear of Aglaia’s exposure to Anglicanism and house church charismatic Christianity. Also, here, she found her way into Workshop applied theology education program, led by my partner in this podcast, Noel Moules. Workshop was the first time she encountered an engagement with Christian thought and life “from the inside out”, rather than from the “outside in.” It offered a space “to ask dangerous questions,” have genuine conversations, and included the idea of faith as a “journey of discovery” and “moving toward the centre” (rather than a destination inside a closed set circle). Workshop also introduces a notion of “salvation” for us here and now, not just just from sin/hell but for something else–shalom, putting things right, mending, restoring. There were also fresh interpretations of atonement, resurrection, and hope.
We concluded the first part of our conversation with Aglaia’s current spiritual practice, centred on contemplative, Celtic, and (neo-) monastic forms of faith, particularly that offered by the Northumbria community and its rule. This also offered a surprising return to the significance of a set liturgy.
Photo by Alex Vasey on Unsplash
