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The Girl from Montego Bay: Rose Hudson-Wilkin on Faith, Calling, and Leadership · Future Christian

• 0:00
  Loren Richmond Jr (00:43)
• 0:03
  Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today Martha Tatarnic welcomes the right reverend Rose Hudson Wilkin, Bishop of Dover. Bishop Rose was born and raised in Jamaica before coming to the UK to study. Ordained to the priesthood in 1994, in 2007 she was appointed as a chaplain to Her Late Majesty the Queen and in 2010 became the first female appointed to the position of the 79th Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
• 0:07
  In November 2019, she was consecrated as a bishop in the Church of England and installed in the Canterbury Cathedral. In May 2023, Bishop Rose was one of three female bishops to make history by playing a part in the coronation of King Charles III. Her autobiography, The Girl from Montego Bay, was published in January 2025. Bishop Rose is in wide demand as a preacher and speaker
• 0:10
  undertaking engagements both nationally and internationally, as well as making regular appearances in the media. A reminder before we start today's conversation. Please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend. Connect with Loren Martha, and Future Christian on Instagram. You can send an email to loren at resonatemediapro.com with comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes. Your support means a lot.
• 0:14
  in us making this podcast possible.
• 0:17
  Martha (02:17)
• 0:21
  Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. I am your host for today's episode, Martha Tatarnic, and I am thrilled today to be joined by the right Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover. Welcome, Bishop Rose. It is such a privilege to be able to talk to you today.
• 0:24
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (02:35)
• 0:28
  It is good to be with you. Thanks for having me.
• 0:31
  Martha (02:38)
• 0:35
  Thank you so much. So we normally start with some opening questions that give people a bit of context about your faith background and your journey of faith. But because today we're going to be talking about your book, The Girl from Montego Bay, which in so many ways covers that spiritual journey and that journey of call, we're going to keep our opening questions on the briefer side and ⁓ and just
• 0:38
  get right into the book as soon as possible. So ⁓ if you could just give our listeners a little bit of context about your current ministry ⁓ context, then we'll be able to get into a deeper discussion about how you got there.
• 0:42
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (03:27)
• 0:45
  Yes, yes. I am the Bishop of Dover, which is a geographical area in the Church of England within the Diocese of Canterbury. And Canterbury, as you know, is the historic ⁓ diocese in the Church of England. That's where it all began, as it were, for ⁓ one can think of.
• 0:49
  Martha (03:47)
• 0:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 0:56
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (03:56)
• 0:59
  Episcopalianism within the Church of England context. And so geographically, we are on the southeastern tip of the island, ⁓ right at the bottom, one is looking at a map of Jamaica. Sorry, not Jamaica, a map of the United Kingdom, my goodness.
• 1:03
  Martha (04:19)
• 1:06
  Yeah.
• 1:10
  Slip of the tongue there.
• 1:13
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (04:23)
• 1:17
  I know, I know
• 1:20
  the girl from Jamaica can't get away from Jamaica. ⁓ So I was born and brought up in Jamaica and at a very early age felt called to ministry. That ministry led me to the UK to train with the church army because the church army had women. And then I went back to Jamaica, worked and I happened to have met and married someone.
• 1:24
  Martha (04:46)
• 1:27
  Great.
• 1:31
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (04:53)
• 1:34
  who is from the northeast of England. So he came out to Jamaica. We lived there for a while and then he wanted to come back. And so as a dutiful wife, I followed him. So that's why I'm here in the UK. I often say to people, you know, you've got to be crazy to want to leave your warm, beautiful sunshine and white sandy beaches to come to a cold country.
• 1:38
  ⁓ I say no one in their right mind would do that.
• 1:41
  Martha (05:27)
• 1:45
  Right,
• 1:48
  I guess you have to be crazy in love. Okay, well, we're gonna dig into a few pieces of that whole journey that involves ending up as a bishop in Dover. But how long have you been a bishop?
• 1:52
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (05:31)
• 1:55
  Yes, there you go. There you go.
• 1:59
  I've been a bishop now for six years. I used to say to the children at schools when I visited and they asked me that question, I would say to them, I'm a baby bishop. And their little faces when I say that to them. So yes, I've only been here six years. And of course, right at the beginning, we had COVID. So a lot of stuff was being done online.
• 2:02
  Martha (05:50)
• 2:06
  six years.
• 2:09
  Hahaha
• 2:13
  yeah.
• 2:16
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (06:13)
• 2:20
  and it made it much more challenging at the beginning of it because you were...
• 2:23
  Martha (06:17)
• 2:27
  ⁓ yeah, I think everybody who
• 2:30
  went into a new ministry context in COVID really had their work cut out for them. ⁓
• 2:34
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (06:22)
• 2:37
  Yes, yes, yeah,
• 2:41
  the thing shut down.
• 2:44
  Martha (06:29)
• 2:48
  Yes, indeed. Things that we don't plan for or expect. Well, as I noted, we are talking today about your memoir, The Girl from Montego Bay, and it's a really well-written, really compelling, really candid book. I can't recommend it highly enough. And our goal today is to give all of our listeners a
• 2:51
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (06:34)
• 2:55
  Yes.
• 2:58
  Martha (06:53)
• 3:02
  sense of that book so that they go out and get it for themselves and delve into your story and all of the different components of that story. So let's rewind back to sunny Jamaica and tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what your early life was like.
• 3:05
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (07:13)
• 3:09
  Yes, you know, we were a poor family.
• 3:12
  But there was nothing extraordinary about that because everyone else around us were more or less in a similar situation unless you were a tourist or from Europe or the Americas, et cetera, and lived in much more sort of posh estates. But one of the things that I remember as a child was the freedom to explore.
• 3:16
  Martha (07:48)
• 3:19
  Hmm.
• 3:23
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (07:49)
• 3:26
  the freedom to explore.
• 3:30
  what one would probably think of as being wasteland. Belonged to someone, but it was just there. And as children, we could go on it, we could play, we could climb trees, we could, we never had toys. No one bought toys for us. I think my mother may have sent a doll, not may have, she sent a doll once and that doll, you know, endured throughout my childhood. And years later, you know, it would be the same doll.
• 3:33
  Martha (08:07)
• 3:37
  Right, okay.
• 3:40
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (08:22)
• 3:44
  with a leg missing or an arm missing or an eye not there. ⁓
• 3:47
  Martha (08:25)
• 3:51
  Right.
• 3:54
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (08:28)
• 3:58
  But mostly we would create things, we would make things. So we would use elastic bands as it were. We would collect it and that would be our ball. Because if people had money, they were going to use it for food and essential items, not toys. ⁓ For birthdays, there were no birthday parties, no birthday present. I mean, you're lucky if when you woke up that morning, they themselves would remember.
• 4:01
  Martha (08:43)
• 4:05
  raid.
• 4:08
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (08:58)
• 4:12
  and say, Rose, it's your birthday today. You know, ⁓ it's my birthday, okay. ⁓
• 4:15
  Martha (09:04)
• 4:19
  Right.
• 4:22
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (09:04)
• 4:26
  You get
• 4:29
  what I mean? You know, that was life. And you didn't sort of sit and long for it to be different to something else. We didn't have televisions initially. So I didn't know what I was missing, you know, if I was missing anything. And then families, there was a jollity. So even though we were poor, it wasn't something to be sad about. There was joy.
• 4:33
  Martha (09:19)
• 4:36
  for sure.
• 4:40
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (09:34)
• 4:43
  People danced. There was music. Of course, Jamaica has given birth to reggae. know, everyone knows Bob Marley and everyone can sing. I remember when we used to sit in a government yard entrenched out, you know, or no woman, no crime, you know. So we would just sing. We would just sing and dance without any sense.
• 4:47
  Martha (09:34)
• 4:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:54
  Of course, yeah.
• 4:57
  yeah.
• 5:01
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (10:04)
• 5:04
  of anyone is watching us. So there was that freedom. And the other thing too, ⁓ you know, if you walked down the street, the books or the adverts had people who looked like you.
• 5:08
  Martha (10:07)
• 5:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:15
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (10:20)
• 5:18
  People who were in leadership responsibilities, they also looked like me. So I grew up with a sense of, belong, I am real, I'm not make believe. And you contrast that with a child who grows up in a predominantly white community where they don't see images of themselves. So when I, on the rare occasions when there is any comparisons made with me,
• 5:22
  Martha (10:31)
• 5:25
  Right.
• 5:29
  Of
• 5:32
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (10:49)
• 5:36
  and my friends who were born and brought up here in the UK and they will say to me, Rose you have so much more confidence.
• 5:39
  And I think that that is because I grew up in a place where I could see images of myself in all walks of life and not just cleaning the streets and not just sweeping the floor and not just making the tea or doing the cooking.
• 5:43
  Martha (11:12)
• 5:46
  wow. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:50
  Absolutely. Well, that really leads into my next series of questions because a big part of your book is about discerning a call and how that call has evolved over the course of your life. ⁓ You know, I was
• 5:53
  I was really, really struck. So you talk about being 14 when you started to sense that call to ordained ministry. I was about 15. I talked to so many people and it's that sort of 14 to 16 age range. There's something that happens and like there's kind of a ripeness, I guess, for God to speak into our lives in a particular way. But, you know, I grew up ⁓ in a church where women had been ordained longer than I had been alive. So I
• 5:57
  It was very normalized for me to see women in ministry in my church and in the churches in the community where I lived. ⁓ You discerned that call to ordained ministry when you didn't have those examples of women in ministry. And yet that
• 6:00
  call was pretty clear for you. Can you talk a little bit just about the role of the church, feeling that sense of call and then, and then how you sort of negotiated that place where you weren't seeing people like you as a woman in the church.
• 6:04
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (12:54)
• 6:07
  Yeah.
• 6:11
  in the church and leadership. You know, when my mother left Jamaica, I was two years old.
• 6:14
  And so I grew up with my father's sister and her family. We saw him. He was occasionally present, but not engaged as it were with us. And we were sent to Sunday school. I refer to myself as a cradle Anglican because I was baptized at three months old. And our folks, they worshiped early morning. Services were 730.
• 6:18
  Jamaica and then the children were sent to Sunday school which was at 9.30 much later on and then 11 o'clock.
• 6:21
  ⁓ when we moved from the main place in town. What was relevant for me was I could sense that there were issues within the family. Nowhere in the family I heard the words, I love you. It was never spoken, not even the adults between themselves. We never heard that. And I guess there was something
• 6:25
  Martha (14:04)
• 6:28
  ⁓
• 6:32
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (14:14)
• 6:35
  in me that needed to hear that, I love you, that needed an arm around me saying, well done, great job, et cetera. Never had that. And there were many battles between my aunt and her brother, who is my father. And you you got a sense, we felt the sort of...
• 6:39
  no one loved you sort of thing. know, people were putting up with you in a way because your mother had left. ⁓ And I used to sing a very sad song.
• 6:42
  Martha (14:39)
• 6:46
  Hmm.
• 6:49
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (14:51)
• 6:53
  I'm nobody's child. I'm nobody's child. Just like a flower. I'm growing wild. No mummy's kisses and no daddy's smile. Nobody wants me. I'm nobody's child. And that's a pretty sad song. is. But it was quite a cathartic experience when you sang it. Then you were it wasn't just staying inside. It was
• 6:56
  Martha (15:09)
• 7:00
  That's a sad song. my gosh.
• 7:03
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (15:21)
• 7:07
  coming out, you know, the wind could hear it, the trees could hear it, as it were. But it was through Sunday school that I first engaged with a God of love, because there I heard, for God so loved the world.
• 7:10
  Martha (15:26)
• 7:14
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:17
  wow.
• 7:21
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (15:40)
• 7:24
  Now in my ministry, I say to people, I want you to interrogate the scriptures and allow the scriptures to interrogate you. I didn't know that that was what I was doing as a child.
• 7:28
  Martha (15:49)
• 7:31
  Mmm.
• 7:35
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (15:53)
• 7:38
  because I was interrogating the scriptures. God, this great big God loves me. This insignificant person whose mother picked up and went away and father is over there, but couldn't give two hoots and aunt picked up the slack, but would always remind me that I should be grateful because they didn't care enough and all that sort of stuff that is going on. And yet God loved me. My goodness. You know,
• 7:42
  Martha (15:53)
• 7:45
  I won.
• 7:49
  yeah.
• 7:52
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (16:23)
• 7:56
  story of ⁓ Jacob when he held on to the angel I'm not gonna let go until you bless me that was me if God loved me then that is pretty serious stuff I am NOT going to let go of this God who loved me
• 7:59
  Martha (16:31)
• 8:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:06
  wow.
• 8:10
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (16:43)
• 8:13
  And not only did he love me, but he showed his love by sending his son. Not just a second cousin, you know, in the realms or an angel or, you the archangel. He sent his son for me. That was pretty special. And I never let go.
• 8:17
  And it was through that, we never had a priest every week in our local church. And through that, ⁓ the elderly reader, lay reader who was there, would often get the young people involved in the worship. And so at a very early age, as soon as we could read, we would stand in a little box by the lectern and we would read the lessons. would, ⁓ when we could, ⁓
• 8:20
  the prayers meaningfully, we would be given that task and when there was a fifth Sunday we had the whole service to ourselves and that was when I preached my first sermon and it was a deanery youth service and I can still recall climbing into the pulpit and of course we have the lectionary within the Anglican Episcopal tradition and the one reading that stood out for me
• 8:24
  Martha (17:43)
• 8:27
  Right.
• 8:31
  course.
• 8:34
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (18:04)
• 8:38
  was the Psalm, Psalm 8. ⁓ What is man that thou art mindful of him? And so it was all of those things, you know, that I felt that God was calling me. And then one night I had a dream and the dream woke me up and I was saying, hallelujah, praise the Lord, woke others in the house up.
• 8:41
  And I was disturbed by it. I reached for the Bible and it opened at Luke four. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news. That settled me. went to bed the next morning. I took up it. It wasn't called daily bread, but it was probably daily word. And it had readings for the day and the allocated reading for that.
• 8:45
  Martha (18:40)
• 8:48
  Uh-huh.
• 8:52
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (19:00)
• 8:55
  was the Isaiah passage of the one I read in Luke 4, Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And it was as though something laid on me that said, this is talking to you.
• 8:59
  Martha (19:05)
• 9:02
  Gosh.
• 9:06
  yeah.
• 9:09
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (19:19)
• 9:13
  Calling you I never let go of that I held it and then in my conversation with my bishop I said, you know, you've taught us how important the sacrament is and yet there are churches that goes for months without the sacrament and he must have gotten where I was going and he said, know Rose I also wanted to know why you know, we didn't we don't have enough men he explained but I said but there are
• 9:16
  Martha (19:41)
• 9:20
  Yeah.
• 9:23
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (19:48)
• 9:27
  There are women who open the church, cleans the church, put the flowers out, set up the altar. What's about that? Roses! We're Anglicans! We don't do that! In my heart, I thought, you may not do that. And the church may not do that. But I know that God does that. I just felt it in my bones that God did it.
• 9:30
  Martha (19:49)
• 9:34
  Uh-huh.
• 9:37
  Well, you know what, I have to say that exact line when I read it in your book, I just got shivers down my spine. And I've quoted you a number of times in sermons and articles that I've preached and written since reading your book, ⁓ because I just found that moment ⁓ of clarity and confidence so stirring.
• 9:41
  And, you know, in listening to your account, I just wonder whether that courage and clarity was really born out of that experience of love. I mean, I find you describing that experience of God's love as a small child and the weight and significance of that really compelling. ⁓ Yeah, I don't, where do you feel like?
• 9:44
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (21:13)
• 9:48
  Yeah,
• 9:51
  Martha (21:13)
• 9:55
  it came from.
• 9:58
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (21:13)
• 10:02
  do you remember the story where Jesus talked about the person who sold everything they had in order to buy something else? it the pearl of great price? That they had sold what they had to get something even better. And it just felt as if...
• 10:05
  Martha (21:34)
• 10:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:12
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (21:41)
• 10:16
  through the love of God that I knew in my heart that there was something greater. I need not worry whether someone, you know, parents loved me or cared enough because someone greater did. And actually, ⁓ this was experienced through people, people within the church. So I have an adopted mom and an adopted dad, not married to each other, two completely different
• 10:19
  people who was just amazing. You know I still think of them when I think of mum and dad they're who I think of ⁓ because they were the ones who put an arms around the shoulder they were the ones who said well done or that was amazing or I love you and and for me that was God at work.
• 10:23
  Martha (22:12)
• 10:26
  you
• 10:30
  Yeah, yeah, truly. I think as you describe the ups and downs on that road toward ordination and all of the moments of no along that path, it is really telling the the
• 10:33
  Just quiet conviction that you continued to hold to through all of that. You say at one time, if God will, the future will all be possible. And you describe feeling reassured that you had a real sense that God had a plan for your heart, as well as your ministry, that everything was in God's hands. I think that there's so much spiritual encouragement in your book for people in times of uncertainty, in times where there's a
• 10:37
  disconnect between their own sense of call and what the path ahead seems to be. ⁓ Were there times that you that you did struggle with uncertainty? Were there times that you felt discouraged by the the path ahead not being what you felt it should be?
• 10:40
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (23:48)
• 10:44
  Yeah,
• 10:47
  it was knowing. There's a real sense that when the church kept saying no, being disheartened by the churches, no.
• 10:51
  But having a sense that they were not following God. ⁓ You know, they were not following God. They were basing what they were saying on their own sort of cultural stuff.
• 10:54
  Martha (24:09)
• 10:58
  All
• 11:01
  for sure.
• 11:05
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (24:24)
• 11:08
  They were using their own experiences and putting God in a box. So this great big God was being squashed into a little box according to our minds that says it can only be done in this way. And all along, I just knew it that God was bigger than that.
• 11:12
  Martha (24:42)
• 11:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:19
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (24:52)
• 11:22
  and if only we could.
• 11:26
  look to God and hold on to that knowledge of what God wanted to do, then we could supersede the sort of negatives, box-shaped that we try to put God in. So I've always, yes, I did feel disappointment when the vote came back and it was a no.
• 11:29
  But it just stirred me on to draw closer to God because God was different and God had a plan. And my prayer was that the church would one day hear and see what God had in store. Yeah.
• 11:33
  Martha (25:45)
• 11:36
  Yeah, that's really beautiful. again, I think that that can be a spiritual guidepost to people in a variety of circumstances of disappointment, not just in terms of sense of vocation, because you never seem to let bitterness creep in to your faith journey as you describe it. You do seem to be able to feeling that
• 11:40
  ⁓ returning to God's love in the midst of the disconnections that we experience all across the church.
• 11:43
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (26:28)
• 11:47
  Yes, I took seriously. I didn't so much take at heart people's interpretation.
• 11:50
  ⁓ Of Christ or the message from from the scripture. So for example, know The fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience. I'm still learning patience. I'm not quite there yet with that one ⁓ but You know, I'm always asking What is God saying and trying to hear it and see it not through the prism of a preacher?
• 11:54
  Martha (26:50)
• 11:57
  Right.
• 12:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:04
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (27:08)
• 12:08
  but in the stillness and the quietness of my reading and my reflection. So...
• 12:11
  I recall going into a baker's shop, is a Caribbean baker's in the Caribbean. And this particular shop, we have a special bread called hard dough bread, which is beautiful when it's warm and you put the butter on it and it just melts into it. But it's quite beautiful. But I would go into that shop and they belonged to a Pentecostal church. I love wearing trousers. I love wearing earrings. If I don't have my earrings in,
• 12:15
  Martha (27:34)
• 12:18
  yum.
• 12:22
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (27:46)
• 12:25
  I feel as if I'm naked, you know? I have been known to go where I'm going. ⁓ my goodness, I have no airing. So I'm rushing into a shop to get an airing. On one occasion when I was ⁓ chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, my dresser, luckily it was a woman who came to dress me that day in my robes. I had to get her, she had to take her airings out for me to go.
• 12:29
  Martha (27:48)
• 12:32
  Yes.
• 12:36
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (28:11)
• 12:39
  But, you know, so they would say to me, you're not to wear earrings, you know, it's sinful to be wearing earrings. It's sinful to be wearing trousers. It's a man's clothing. And I'm thinking, what are they on about? Where does it say that in the Bible? Just go away, you know? So I'm more prone to read the words and to sit and ponder.
• 12:43
  Martha (28:26)
• 12:46
  Right.
• 12:50
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (28:37)
• 12:53
  What might this be saying to me? What do I need to take? What do I need to leave behind?
• 12:57
  and what is God saying in all of this? And so for that reason, I also take seriously when I pray the Lord's Prayer, which we say several times per day, know, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. That's a prayer we are saying, am I just saying it because we need to say it or do I believe it? And if I believe it, am I going
• 13:00
  Martha (29:11)
• 13:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:07
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (29:13)
• 13:11
  to live it. Because how I live is telling others about what I believe. And you know our folks used to say, action speaks louder than words. In other words, what we do, how we live with one another will be its own message to those around us about who we are.
• 13:14
  and the God that we say we believe in. So that's why it's important to me to live faith. It's not a head thing. As a matter of I preached a couple of weeks ago and a man afterwards said, boy, you really spoke to me because I used to just see my faith as a little sort of security blanket.
• 13:18
  Martha (30:04)
• 13:21
  Right.
• 13:25
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (30:05)
• 13:28
  And I was challenging this sort of cultural Christianity, you know, and saying, how is this taking meaning in your lives? ⁓ yeah.
• 13:32
  Martha (30:18)
• 13:35
  yeah, beautiful. I mean, there's so much that you've offered there that I think we constantly need to keep in mind. And I appreciated your saying too, ⁓ you know, that need to come back to the scriptures and to our prayer and reflection, not necessarily as leaders of the church, but as people who are on the path as well. ⁓ I think that's...
• 13:39
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (30:45)
• 13:42
  We are, yeah,
• 13:46
  we too are disciples. Yeah, we're learners.
• 13:49
  Martha (30:49)
• 13:53
  Yeah, I think that's so
• 13:56
  important. We're learners. Yeah, we're students. We're unfinished products. Thanks be to God. Yeah. So another piece, there's so much that I appreciated about the book, but another piece that I really, really appreciated ⁓ was the reflections about being a mother, ⁓ juggling those
• 14:00
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (30:57)
• 14:03
  Yes, yes, amen, amen.
• 14:07
  Martha (31:18)
• 14:10
  different vocations as a priest, as a parent, as a woman, as someone who, you know, has to balance ⁓ roles that can sometimes feel like they compete with one another. ⁓ Can you say a little bit about that juggling act? What's been challenging? What's been life-giving? How you've managed that juggling?
• 14:14
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (31:40)
• 14:17
  Yes.
• 14:21
  A wise elderly priest once said to me, Rose, God does not call you to something called family. And then later he calls you to something called ministry that destroys the first call. I've always held that.
• 14:24
  Martha (32:03)
• 14:28
  Right.
• 14:31
  Yeah.
• 14:35
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (32:10)
• 14:38
  and remembered it. And what that has led me to is the reality that my life being lived out within the family is not only a calling, but it is also a witness.
• 14:42
  It is also a witness to the love of God in Christ Jesus. And so ⁓ when the children were very little, as a matter of fact, when I first offered myself ordination training, when women were now being allowed. ⁓
• 14:45
  Martha (32:30)
• 14:49
  Yeah, a witness.
• 14:52
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (32:46)
• 14:56
  had a daughter she was ⁓ approaching two years old and and they basically said to me you ought to be at home looking after your daughter and looking after your husband and your daughter and I remembered saying to them because I felt I had nothing to lose so I can reply to them and I said my husband is perfectly capable of looking after himself and had I not thought how I was going to manage with my daughter then I would not have offered because
• 14:59
  Martha (32:56)
• 15:03
  Yep.
• 15:06
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (33:16)
• 15:10
  reality is as a parent going into ministry then something has to adapt, be adapted and so for me normally I like to do my prayers early morning but when you have young children and you know they need to be fed and they need to be gotten ready for nursery or school then you have to be sensible.
• 15:13
  Martha (33:43)
• 15:17
  Yes.
• 15:20
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (33:43)
• 15:24
  And so
• 15:27
  when I started ministry with them, said to the vicar, after I have dropped them.
• 15:31
  Then I will come to morning prayer with you. Whereas previously I would have been very happy to have morning prayer early in the morning, but I have little ones. ⁓ And so that's what I did. And then I would clock off. School finished at 3, 3.30. I would clock off then. And then I get to collect them from school. I get to see their excitement. They want to tell me about their day, what they've been getting up to. And then I would cook, tea
• 15:34
  Martha (34:00)
• 15:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:41
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (34:20)
• 15:45
  for them, we would eat together. And then in the evening, I can either go out to meetings or whatever I'm doing out and get a babysitter to come in and babysit. I once had my husband telling someone he couldn't do something because he was babysitting the children. ⁓ boy, I was not impressed.
• 15:48
  Martha (34:41)
• 15:52
  The wrong
• 15:55
  thing to say.
• 15:59
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (34:44)
• 16:02
  It is the wrong thing to say. I did say that to him. said, darling, they are your children. You're not babysitting them. You make arrangements. You know, and I recall a curate of mine, ⁓ you know, he disappeared shortly after. It was either the Christmas fair or the international food fair that we had. He disappeared. I said, where is he? And I called him. He said, my daughter was tired. I said,
• 16:06
  just get back down here. We've got all these women. They were here long before you got here, setting up and doing this and doing that. And now that it's finished, we need all the help to put it away so we can all go home quickly. And I said to him, I've never told anyone that I can't do something because of my children. Because if I can't be there because of my child, then I know that I need to get somebody else to attend.
• 16:09
  to
• 16:13
  my children. So unless they're dying or they need hospital care, otherwise we can make arrangements. So I've always done ministry with a young family and then they got older and I know the practice, make sure you have your day off and I encourage my clergy to have their day off.
• 16:16
  But each person has got to be sensible. What is it that works for you? And I found that when I took my day off, I would clean the house from top to bottom. So I never had a break. You I was working even harder cleaning the house. And you know, us Caribbean people, we love to clean our houses. It must be spotless, no dust.
• 16:20
  Martha (36:15)
• 16:23
  Yes, truly.
• 16:27
  Right. Right.
• 16:30
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (36:37)
• 16:34
  The folks used to say, I want to see my face. You shine that floor until I can see my face in it when I come home.
• 16:37
  Martha (36:45)
• 16:41
  my gosh.
• 16:44
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (36:48)
• 16:48
  So I didn't end up not having a day off, day off properly, full day off. I then decided, you know what, I'm gonna do what's best for me. And taking that time off when the kids come home and being with them and managing, that worked for me. So I think it's important that each person in ministry,
• 16:51
  work out what is going to be of more value to themselves and make that work. ⁓ But spending time with the family, spending time with not just the children but with your husband so that your husband doesn't feel left out of things or you know he's also in ministry but it is so easy in particular with you know them being in ministry that you are both working so hard
• 16:55
  that you never get the time to be lovers, to be friends, just to go for a walk hand in hand and just to be. And so you have got to make that a reality.
• 16:58
  Martha (37:55)
• 17:02
  Yeah, I really appreciate the tending to those various components as a vocation. And I think that ⁓ it was such an important point along my own journey in ministry and having the courage to start a family, which I felt so called to. I mean, I always say I knew I wanted to be a mother before I knew anything else about my life. And yet I couldn't quite see how those
• 17:05
  two things could go together, being in ministry and being a mother. And it was really having to surrender it into God's hands. If you're calling me to this, I have to believe you're gonna help me chart the path. And it's been quite amazing how God has helped to do that. But it is, you know, not a one size fits all model. It really is not.
• 17:09
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (38:24)
• 17:12
  Yeah.
• 17:16
  Yes.
• 17:19
  No, and each
• 17:23
  person and each family has got to work out what works for them. Yes.
• 17:26
  Martha (38:51)
• 17:30
  Truly. Yeah, that is
• 17:33
  so true. Well, you've been a trailblazer, not just in women's ministry, you've also been a trailblazer in asking the church to consider some of its entrenched racism. You do share some pretty painful stories in your book of coming up against a hard wall of ⁓ racism that is at times pretty blind to itself, I would say. ⁓
• 17:37
  What would you most want the church to hear about taking meaningful steps in addressing racism?
• 17:40
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (39:28)
• 17:44
  You see, the church needs to recognize that she is God's instrument here on earth. And if the church is God's instrument on here, on here on earth, then the words of Micah, the prophet,
• 17:47
  springs to mind. What does the Lord require? To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. So it seems to me that the church
• 17:51
  Martha (39:52)
• 17:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:58
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (40:07)
• 18:01
  is not just about religiosity. And Jesus had much to say to the Pharisees and his Jewish brothers and sisters about the way in which they were ritualizing everything.
• 18:05
  And he was saying, actually, it is about relationships. It is about people. So if I believe that God has called humanity into being, then it means that I do not have a choice as to which bit of humanity I love or I take in and embrace because God loved the world.
• 18:08
  Martha (40:51)
• 18:12
  Hmm.
• 18:15
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (40:56)
• 18:19
  God created the world. And I think it was Desmond Tutu who described racism as spitting in the face of God.
• 18:22
  Martha (41:07)
• 18:26
  wow, yeah.
• 18:29
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (41:08)
• 18:33
  spitting in the face of God. And so my take on it is, if God made all humanity, then I don't believe for one second that God got it wrong. And so, as a matter of fact, in the story of creation, we are told that each time God created, God said, this is good. This is good. And God's excited about that. So we share.
• 18:36
  Martha (41:22)
• 18:40
  Right.
• 18:43
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (41:38)
• 18:47
  in that excitement of God's creative order. We too ought to be thankful for all of God's creation and it therefore means that we have a responsibility as God's instrument here on earth to challenge racism when we see it, when we hear it. So for example when I once said to a group of predominantly white congregation
• 18:50
  ⁓
• 18:54
  area. These were church wardens and their priests for a visitation. And I said to them, if you had a vacancy in this area, would you consider having me? And hand went up straight away. Why would we? We don't have any black people here. And I thought,
• 18:57
  Martha (42:30)
• 19:01
  Wow.
• 19:04
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (42:32)
• 19:08
  Interesting, interesting I said with a smile on my face. I said, so white priest can go to Africa.
• 19:11
  White priests can go to Asia, the Caribbean, our inner cities, in which our churches are predominantly black in our inner cities. White priests can go anywhere and everywhere. But black priests can only go where there are black people. How interesting. And left it with them to ponder and to think about. So personally, I believe that God created humankind.
• 19:15
  Martha (43:00)
• 19:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:22
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (43:10)
• 19:25
  and I believe fervently that God knew what he was doing and therefore I have to love and respect people of all colors and cultures and creeds. I never tried to proselytize people of faith. I respect them.
• 19:29
  Martha (43:24)
• 19:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:36
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (43:31)
• 19:39
  I suspect if I was born within a predominantly Muslim ⁓ world and family that I would be Muslim.
• 19:43
  Martha (43:40)
• 19:46
  Right.
• 19:50
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (43:41)
• 19:53
  that I would be a Jew, you know, if I happened to have had the, you know, the occasion of being born within that context. But I have been born within this context. I have embraced the faith as handed down to me. And it's not somebody else's faith. It is my faith. ⁓ And I'm holding on to it. ⁓ But it is a faith that says, look outwards.
• 19:57
  So I worked for nearly 10 years in parliament as chaplain and many people would say to me, what's faith got to do with politics? Why are you there? And I would calmly say to them, I don't know what Bible you are reading because the Bible who I'm reading talks a lot about people. We see God who cares for people. Politics is about people.
• 20:00
  Martha (44:16)
• 20:04
  Yes.
• 20:07
  Yes.
• 20:11
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (44:40)
• 20:14
  And so if politics is about people, then God is interested in people and so must I be. So when Jesus told the story of the Last Judgment, I was hungry and thirsty, sick and in prison, naked. And they said, but if we had seen you, we would have helped you in those areas. ⁓ inasmuch as you haven't done it to all these, you haven't done it to me.
• 20:18
  So there is a real sense in the Old Testament. It was when you go to pick up the harvests, the glean, the foods, don't bring everything in. Leave the things around the edges for the orphans, the widows, the aliens. In other words, those who are most vulnerable. So I find in scripture a God who is interested in all kinds of people. And that's what we need to be interested in.
• 20:21
  If I'm interested in that, then I'm going to love the refugee and the asylum seeker. Then I'm going to share what I have with them.
• 20:25
  with the homeless because that's what God demands of me. You know, a new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you. And if I love, we saw this expressed in the Acts of the Apostles where they sold what they had, they brought it and they shared it with the wider community. There is enough food in the world for everyone. It's just that some people have taken more than they need to. There are enough
• 20:28
  Martha (46:17)
• 20:32
  Right.
• 20:35
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (46:19)
• 20:39
  of the world's resources for everyone but some countries have appropriated it to themselves and still continues to try and do that ⁓ and in so doing we castigate people who don't look like us or speak like us and we demonize them and we treat them less than human. A good example of this that I would share with you
• 20:42
  is the example of when I visited Ghana I went to the place where they held those who they had captured before getting them out onto the boats and the big ships and it was disturbing.
• 20:46
  to see those small caved area that would have housed hundreds of enslaved people. ⁓ They wouldn't have anywhere to lay down and rest and sleep while they were waiting to be collected and taken to the Americas and the Caribbean. And so it was disturbing. But what disturbed me even more was that above ground,
• 20:49
  They built a church. They had built a church. That means worship was taking place above ground. How do you worship above ground knowing that human beings are being held in bondage below ground? They could only have done it if they treated or made belief that black people were not as human as white people. That's the only reason.
• 20:53
  Martha (47:39)
• 20:56
  wow.
• 21:00
  Wow.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:07
  Yeah, that's right.
• 21:10
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (48:06)
• 21:14
  You know,
• 21:17
  because if they're like us and we can't treat them like the way we treated them. And so that for me then becomes the challenge. You know, a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. And that means all of God's people. And so I would challenge racism wherever I find it and see it. I will call it out. I will name it.
• 21:21
  Martha (48:26)
• 21:24
  All of God's people.
• 21:28
  Yeah. Well, I, I am struck in your ministry, in your memoir by the number of what I would describe as pretty high pressure situations that you end up ministering in, because there are times when you're people's first experience of a woman in ministry. There are times when you're
• 21:31
  people's first experience of a black person in ministry. As you talked about just now, people's experience of a spiritual voice in a so-called secular institution. And now as ⁓ people's first experience of a black woman in Episcopal leadership, ⁓ I think any one of these contexts on their own could be considered a very high-pressure situation where you could sort of feel the weight of
• 21:35
  the world upon your shoulders of people's expectations of how they're going to form a picture of what ⁓ this new thing that they're experiencing can be. ⁓ Where have you found the grounding to bear that responsibility and to stay centered in the midst of that pressure?
• 21:38
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (49:48)
• 21:42
  Yeah.
• 21:45
  Yeah.
• 21:49
  Do you know that if anything, the pressure has come from myself? And the reason I say that is because I know that when I leave this role, I want others to follow who look like me. And that means that there is no place for being mediocre.
• 21:52
  Martha (49:59)
• 21:56
  Hmm interesting
• 21:59
  Wow.
• 22:03
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (50:20)
• 22:06
  You
• 22:10
  know, it's just not in my vocabulary or in my life experience. cannot be, you know, when you've had a mediocre man in a role, any role, whether it be business or in religion or whatever the area, ⁓ you never hear someone say, we've tried one of those before, you know, let's not try that again. It didn't work, you know. But if it's a woman or someone who is black or, you know, someone who is disabled or different culture,
• 22:13
  Martha (50:37)
• 22:17
  And it didn't work. Yeah. I know.
• 22:20
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (50:50)
• 22:24
  perhaps, ⁓ we've done that before, we won't try again. So it is incumbent on me, and I over exert myself, I know that I do, ⁓ to be the best, know, 100 % at all times, which is tiring.
• 22:27
  Martha (51:05)
• 22:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:34
  Mm-hmm, it is.
• 22:38
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (51:07)
• 22:41
  It is tiring,
• 22:45
  you know, but I have to be. Why? Because I want others to follow. You know, people will say, ⁓ you're the first this, the first that. I want to stop being the first. And when I stop being the first, I will know that it is pretty normal. It is pretty normal. And so I think I exert more pressure on myself than perhaps others have in me. I get such an amazing
• 22:48
  Martha (51:29)
• 22:52
  Yeah.
• 22:55
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (51:37)
• 22:59
  response to my ministry. I remember an elderly man in his 90s rushing over to me after a service. said, you have woken me up. I've been involved with church for over 60 years, but for the first time you have woken me up. And I thought, yes, that's what I want. The other day, the other day a man went out. said, that was inspirational.
• 23:02
  Martha (51:55)
• 23:06
  Yes.
• 23:09
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (52:04)
• 23:13
  wonderful thank you and he rushed out and then he rushed he said i was so excited that i forgot to pick up my walking stick
• 23:16
  You know, so that excites me. I did have a woman recently who came over to me and she said, ⁓ you know, people keep telling me, she said, that the only reason you're in the role you are is because you're black. And I thought to myself, what should I say? You know.
• 23:20
  And when I composed myself, I said to her, the next time someone tells you that, I want you to say to them, she would be in even higher office had she not been black. ⁓
• 23:23
  Martha (52:50)
• 23:27
  Right.
• 23:30
  That's a good response.
• 23:34
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (52:56)
• 23:37
  Yes, yes.
• 23:41
  Martha (52:58)
• 23:44
  Yeah, I think that that piece around the pressure that we put on ourselves is really important, but I think it's really important that you name that for the readers of your book, because I think that there are a lot of us who end up in a place of ministry or leadership where we are people's first experience of somebody like us in that role and the pressure that we place on ourselves.
• 23:48
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (53:23)
• 23:51
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:55
  Martha (53:27)
• 23:58
  is immense, but I love that that pressure leading to a bigger outcome that I won't be the first anymore. You know, that's great. Yeah, it puts it in perspective for sure. Okay, so just one final question before we get to our wrap up closing questions. As you noted at the beginning, you've been
• 24:02
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (53:35)
• 24:05
  Yes. Yes. Yes.
• 24:09
  Yeah.
• 24:12
  Martha (53:52)
• 24:16
  bishop now for six years. I don't know how long you have to be a bishop before you're no longer a baby bishop, ⁓ but you might be past the baby stage now. ⁓ What do you think are the most urgent priorities for the church right now? What do you think that we need to be considering about the future of the church most urgently?
• 24:19
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (53:57)
• 24:23
  I'll probably pass the baby stage now.
• 24:26
  Do you know, I believe very strongly that what the greatest challenge to the church is a lack of confident Christians. A lack of confident Christians. What do I mean by confident Christians? By confident Christians, I mean people who are not afraid to say, I believe beyond the church door.
• 24:30
  Martha (54:26)
• 24:33
  Hmm.
• 24:37
  Right.
• 24:40
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (54:42)
• 24:44
  And if people are going to say, believe, you know, if someone came up to us and said, oh, I had this diagnosis, you know, and I'm concerned, would we have the courage right where we are to say, oh, I'm gonna pray for you? And if perchance the person could say, oh, I don't believe, I don't believe, you know, would we have the courage to follow that up and say, I know you don't believe, but I believe?
• 24:47
  Martha (54:57)
• 24:51
  Yes.
• 24:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:58
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (55:10)
• 25:01
  And then the other thing I think of, you watch people going to the NFL, for example, you see the excitement. I mean, that's like ⁓ on the day at an NFL match, that's like a cathedral having worship.
• 25:05
  Martha (55:27)
• 25:08
  Yeah.
• 25:12
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (55:30)
• 25:15
  And so people are excited on the way there. They're talking about it. They can't stop talking about it. You know, they're singing. They're singing here in the UK. They're going to football matches and they're singing their hearts out as they as they go. And then during the match, they are equally excited. It is only when their team have lost.
• 25:19
  that you see them looking glum and they don't sing on the way home. So I say to our folks, why do we leave church on a Sunday as if our team have lost? Why?
• 25:22
  Martha (56:02)
• 25:26
  Right.
• 25:29
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (56:11)
• 25:33
  You know, we pass on neighbors doing the roses, pruning their roses. We don't even tell them where we're going. We come back and they're still admiring their roses with their pruning shares. And we don't even say to them, guess where I have been? Or the preacher said X or I sang this most amazing hymn the other day. You know, we don't do that.
• 25:36
  So to be a confident Christian, think would do all those things. And that, I think, would excite others. But we're not excited about our faith. And if we're not excited about our faith, why should other people be excited about it? We have a lot of in-fightings in our church.
• 25:40
  Martha (56:47)
• 25:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:47
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (56:59)
• 25:50
  The children in schools used to say, what do you enjoy most about being a bishop? And I would say to them, preaching, visiting schools, doing Q &A's with young people, know, that sort of stuff excites me and I enjoy that. And then one child invariably would say, and what do you not enjoy? And I would say, are you sure you want to know? And their little heads go bobbing up and down. And I say, adults behaving like children.
• 25:54
  Martha (57:21)
• 25:57
  Ha
• 26:01
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (57:28)
• 26:04
  Because so often in our churches we hear, ⁓ this person is not speaking to the vicar or their fellow church warden or the music director. And I'm just thinking, just grow up, people, grow up. You know, because if you're fussing and fighting within the church, why would anyone want to be a part of it? Why?
• 26:08
  Martha (57:49)
• 26:11
  Yeah,
• 26:15
  it's very true.
• 26:18
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (57:49)
• 26:22
  Why would
• 26:25
  they want to be a part of it? So, and of course, within the tradition here, we have high church, low church, forward in faith, have liberals, have conservatives, we have conservative evangelicals, open even. Oh, look, just get a life with all of those stuff. You know, it was in First Corinthians when Paul said, some of you are saying I'm a for Paul, I'm a for Paulus.
• 26:29
  Who died for you? Who died for you? Wasn't it Jesus? So we spent far too much time ⁓ focusing on ⁓ whether we are conservative evangelicals or ⁓ whether we are something else. I just don't have any time for that nonsense. I say to people, whatever rocks your boat,
• 26:32
  You know, whatever make your boats float, whatever you think feeds you, great. But right now we just need to get on with ministry. We don't need to be bringing that sort of separatism to ministry. Because to do that, I think, distracts from Christ. Yeah.
• 26:36
  Martha (59:08)
• 26:39
  it certainly does. And I mean, I
• 26:43
  think that word confidence applies there as well. I think that when we're confident in our faith and confident in the love of God, that intolerance across Christianity doesn't need to be part of the narrative.
• 26:46
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (59:13)
• 26:50
  No.
• 26:53
  That's right.
• 26:57
  Martha (59:28)
• 27:00
  Yeah.
• 27:04
  Okay. Well, we're going to take a little break and come back for some closing questions. Thank you so much Bishop Rose for all of your incredibly insightful and candid reflections. Let's take a break and we'll be back in a moment.
• 27:07
  Welcome back to the Future Christian podcast. And I continue to be joined here by Bishop Rose Hudson Wilkin. And we're going to have some wrap up questions for Bishop Rose. So we always say to our guests that you can take these questions as seriously as you want, ⁓ which means that you can also take them not seriously at all. It's up to you. ⁓ But if you were Pope for a day,
• 27:11
  What would you be doing with that 24 hours?
• 27:14
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:00:20)
• 27:18
  Gosh, what would I be doing? I would be speaking out. I would be praying and I would be speaking out. I would be challenging world leaders. That's what I'd be doing. And I would be encouraging my clergy in particular to...
• 27:21
  be much more open-minded. I would be ordaining women as bishops and priests and deacons. I would be, I would not allow myself to be restrained by tradition. I watched Conclave where they said, you know, the church is not about the past. It is about where we're going.
• 27:25
  Martha (1:00:51)
• 27:28
  Yes.
• 27:32
  Go yes.
• 27:35
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:01:13)
• 27:39
  And I would make women priests and bishops and deacons if I were Pope. That's what I would do in the first 24 hours. ⁓ yes.
• 27:42
  Martha (1:01:20)
• 27:46
  Okay, busy 24 hours, but I
• 27:49
  would be celebrating right alongside all of that. That would be great. Here's hoping. Is there a theologian or historical Christian figure who you would want to meet, bring back to life, have a meal with? Who would that be?
• 27:53
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:01:29)
• 27:56
  You
• 28:00
  you
• 28:03
  ⁓ I don't know whether she is, she can be regarded as a Christian figure because of course our Lord's mother was Jewish, but I would want to meet Derry.
• 28:07
  Martha (1:01:55)
• 28:10
  ⁓ yeah.
• 28:14
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:01:57)
• 28:17
  I'd want to sit down with Mary and I want to say, girl, you inspired me. You said, yes, you said, yes. And I would say to her, you know, a ⁓ priest, well, she wasn't a priest, pastor from another denomination once said to me when we were having all these debates in our synod, ⁓ she said to me, Rose, remember that God
• 28:21
  Martha (1:02:03)
• 28:24
  Ha!
• 28:28
  You said yes.
• 28:31
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:02:27)
• 28:35
  chose a woman to carry the living word and if God trusted a woman with the living word are you trying to tell me that God does not trust us with a spoken word? So I would be sitting down with Mary.
• 28:38
  Martha (1:02:32)
• 28:42
  Mmm.
• 28:45
  Okay, that's a great answer. I think that she would have a lot to tell us. What do you think history will remember from our current time and place?
• 28:49
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:02:50)
• 28:52
  Yes, yes.
• 28:56
  Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I think history will tell us that we lacked the kind of courage, courage that we needed as a nation, as a
• 28:59
  international world to say to speak to Mr. Putin, to speak to Mr. Trump, to speak to all these leaders who do not use their roles for something positive and creative and wonderful but instead
• 29:03
  to say how bombastic they are. ⁓ I think history is going to tell us that we have been operating from a place of of fear and not courage.
• 29:06
  Martha (1:03:52)
• 29:10
  yes, wow, that is stark indeed and very true. What are your hopes for the future of Christianity?
• 29:13
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:04:03)
• 29:17
  I think my hope for the future of Christianity would be that we do not see Christianity hijacked by far-right proponents who think that they are speaking for God, but that I would see what our Lord entrusted us to live faith.
• 29:20
  a new commandment God spoke, our Lord Jesus spoke so many times about love. A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. So I would want to see for the future of Christianity that we live out that commandment and what a difference it would make in our world because it means we wouldn't just think about ourselves.
• 29:24
  But we would recognize it's that Ubuntu, the South African social language word, which means I am because we are. I am because you are. We are. Our lives are interrelated. We are interdependent. We belong to one another. And wow, what a terrific world it would be when we lived that. Yes.
• 29:27
  Martha (1:05:12)
• 29:31
  Hmm.
• 29:34
  I feel that really brings us full circle because you know we started talking about your journey and talking about the love of God and to to wrap it up on that note is truly remarkable. I have one more closing question but I do want to note for our listeners a couple of things which is that your book The Girl from Montego Bay has just won the Christian Resources Together Biography of the Year 2025 awards so congratulations.
• 29:38
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:05:50)
• 29:41
  Thank you.
• 29:45
  Martha (1:05:51)
• 29:48
  Also
• 29:52
  want to note that the audio book for the girl from Montego Bay ⁓ is now available on Amazon and Audible and you actually narrate that book. Yeah, so I think that that's an added bonus ⁓ for our listeners having had the joy of hearing you today to know that they could get that audio book and be able to hear your voice.
• 29:55
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:06:03)
• 29:59
  I did, I did, yes.
• 30:02
  Martha (1:06:19)
• 30:06
  through the entire memoir. ⁓ And with those two little notes, ⁓ where can people find out more about you and where can they get their hands on this beautiful book?
• 30:09
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:06:30)
• 30:13
  My goodness.
• 30:16
  I think as you've already said it, it's through Amazon or religious bookshops should have it in. But Amazon is probably their nearest bit from there. Here in the UK, it's SPCK that has published it. ⁓ Yes, so it's out there. Do you know?
• 30:20
  Martha (1:06:53)
• 30:23
  And are you on social media? Can people find out
• 30:27
  more about you that way?
• 30:30
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:06:56)
• 30:34
  I
• 30:37
  am not on social media as such. think there is a... ⁓ My office looks after a Facebook account, but I'm not very media savvy when it comes to social media at all. ⁓
• 30:41
  Martha (1:07:13)
• 30:44
  Okay,
• 30:48
  fair enough. Well, people should definitely get their hands on this book. I can't recommend it highly enough. And Bishop Rose, thank you so very much for your time and your honesty and your faithfulness in today's conversation and in your leadership in our church. It's a true privilege.
• 30:51
  Rose Hudson-Wilkin (1:07:32)
• 30:55
  Thank you.
• 30:58
  Thank you. May the peace of the Christ child be yours and your listeners this Christmas.
• 31:02
  Martha (1:07:43)
• 31:05
  thank you so much. May Christ's peace be with you too.