Into Culture: Introduction

On 31st January 2023 I officially started my new role as Canon for Intercultural Mission and the Arts at Bradford Cathedral. The role has been shaped in light of Bradford being name City of Culture 2025. If you look at the archive of this blog (before I focussed on New Monasticism) you will see my musings on the intersection of arts and faith. This role has brought me back to that area of thinking and practice. What I am keen to do is to give space for my reflections on faith, art and culture as I grow and learn over the next season of my life.

I have called this series ‘Into Culture’ as an obvious play on words and as a way of expressing something of my curious position in relation to ‘culture’. When I engage in any culture, including my own Western culture, I feel like an alien/foreigner.  This is, in part, due to my neurodiversity which gives me a particular observation point to explore the broad topic of ‘culture’. I hope, over the next few years, to explore what faithful engagement with the culture sector of the city of Bradford and my attempts to facilitate intercultural mission in that diverse context looks like.