2nd opinion: Trust me – I'm a bishop

Well, would you? Trust me, that is? That photo up there makes me look like a friendly sort of a guy. But do you trust me? The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just published research on the engagement of faith communities with regeneration initiatives. It finds, not really to anyone's surprise, that a lot of regeneration work is done by faith-based bodies. It notes that in many regeneration areas, faith institutions are the only bodies with staff, buildings, structure and networks; that faith groups are more likely to challenge top-down practices and that they are concerned with long-term regeneration.

More surprisingly, it also highlights a persistent level of uneasiness among many regeneration professionals about working with faith communities. Hence the trust question: would you trust me and, more to the point, fund me – or your local mosque, temple, gurdwara or church – to run a neighbourhood initiative for your tenants?

Housing's Better Future makes this a far from rhetorical question. Housing associations that get deeply into the neighbourhood agenda are going to need partners on the ground to help them deliver. Ruling out faith communities leaves very few other options. So why do so many regeneration professionals think we are not to be trusted?

The answer is that faith communities are variously seen as perplexing, proselytising and prejudiced. Well, I'm going to plead guilty to all of those things – and argue that you should trust me anyway.

Yes, we are perplexing; we have strange rituals and unpredictable holy days. You're embarrassed when you offer us the wrong food or can't understand our accents and above all, because we're not coming from the secular liberal consensus, you don't have a feel for what makes us tick. But, as with racism, your ignorance or misconception is your problem, not ours.

Yes, we proselytise. Some of us believe we have a message to share with everybody. All of us at least want to give the next generation of our communities a solid grounding in our faith and its values. Of course, we can promise not to direct public funds into direct evangelistic activities, but there comes a point beyond which we cannot separate entirely our social programmes from everything that speaks of our faith. And don't forget how much of our own funds we put into community activities. Genuine partnership will not ask us to create a false divide.

The hardest charge to admit is that we're prejudiced. I really wish it wasn't the case. But yes, many of us struggle on gender equalities and on the rights of sexual minorities and children. I am one of more than 110 bishops of my church, all male. I can see why housing professionals, properly steeped in equal opportunities best practice, might want nothing to do with us. But together with other bodies who can compensate for our deficiencies, we can be part of achieving overall equality of opportunity. Without us, your aim of equal opportunity is likely to mean no opportunity at all for many people.

As housing associations move further into neighbourhood regeneration initiatives, the challenge of finding partners becomes urgent. Some will see no one they want to work with and try to go it alone. Others will attempt to set up their own quasi-community organisations, and will quickly learn what happens when you overstretch the capacity of a deprived area.

Others will work with local faith communities, learn to trust them and, therefore, actually achieve something.