Unexpected journeying 2/2

Where to start? I'm the youngest of four children, all brothers, part of a staunchly conservative evangelical family. Wikipedia describes my father like this: "Wenham had the distinction of being a conservative theologian, a defender of biblical inerrancy", although as specialists would detect he propounded a few unorthodox views. My mother came from another evangelical family. So I have evangelical genes through and through. We had animated mealtime discussions, but I don't recall any mention of the decriminalization of homosexuality, which following the Wolfenden Report (1957) was eventually passed into law when I was 18. Nor am I aware of being very conscious of the issue. I noticed CS Lewis in his Surprised by Joy referring to gay activity in Malvern College when he was a boarder there, but I don't recall speculating whether there was any in the boarding houses of the public school where I was a day boy. The idea of "fancying" (in the ugly term) boys didn't enter my head. The only fancies I had were for those who were very definitely the fairer and more exciting sex. I am immensely grateful for the innocent foundation for life that my parents gave me. I had a most happy and privileged upbringing.

So then I went to Cambridge - all men's college of course - and immersed myself in the evangelical Christian Union, work and visiting Footlights where my best friend was President. I look back with chagrin at myself as blind and deaf. I now realise there were a number of gay men among my friends, but when one of them asked me what I thought of homosexuality, my answer was somewhat dismissive, like, "Well, sex is meant for procreation, so it must be between a man and a woman. Otherwise it's wrong." For him that conversation held infinitely more significance than for me. Many years later I apologised to him and he remains a friend, which says much for his graciousness. I continued to enjoy the sitting-beside company of both men and women; but face-to-face love was reserved for women, eventually one in particular who agreed to marry me.

Which is a long preamble to explain why, when I was finally ordained into the priesthood, I remained thoroughly orthodox in my religious convictions and teaching. Much as I dislike such labels, I would have called myself a conservative evangelical, Bible-believing, strict on remarriage, anti-women bishops, anti-homosexuality and sceptical about charismatics (who believe that the Holy Spirit is still miraculously active today). And now I return to my previous post, which was about the revolution - or was it evolution? - in St Peter's attitude to non-Jews, moving from believing them to be unclean to welcoming them as fellow-believers just like him, and sitting down to eat their food. Luke in Acts describes the step-by-step process which my commentator says God was taking him on to think the unthinkable and to accept the unacceptable, and of course change the history of world Christianity.

My journey was similarly gradual. I have previously recorded two milestones, but never in my blog what might be regarded as the first. As I journaled shortly after: "That night, 30th September 1994, opened my eyes to the tangible reality of encounter with God. Whereas I had been able to assert God's activity in retrospect, I now began to find him in the present." It was an event witnessed only by my wife in our home, but the results of which were noticed for better or worse by many more. In other words I had discovered that my charismatic friends were right. The Holy Spirit is more than an odd old expression. Maybe that was what prepared me for subsequent changes, such as coming to the conviction that women may hold leadership roles and even become bishops! My faith in the authority of the Bible remained, but it too was changing to understand it in its cultural context and apply it in our contemporary context. I've found it nowhere better expressed than in the late Rachel Held Evans' Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. 

from Meriam Webster dictionary

The last bastion to fall was undermined bit by bit, and I have recorded it a number of times in this blog. I remember my children with their straightforward faith telling me that of course God unconditionally loved their gay friends, as if I was mad to doubt it. I discovered that one of my Facebook friends was a lesbian and a Christian. I met parents of gay children who had been driven away by the attitude of their churches, parents who were painfully conflicted by the church's teaching and their children's experience. And inevitably I began to reflect. The critical moment came in a quite unexpected place, that is a churches' summer festival in Somerset, called New Wine. It was a charismatic evangelical event, where the accepted tradition about homosexuality at the time was generally similar to my original one, for example I don't think an openly gay worship leader would have been allowable. Being interested in the subject I went to the first of two seminars on the subject of equal marriage, where the line was that if you were gay you should either remain celibate or marry a partner of the opposite sex. In the Q & A session at the end a woman stood up. She related her road of faith and declared that she was a lesbian with a partner, and woe betide anyone who dared to separate them. 

Not on the Damascus road nor in a Tel Aviv apartment but in a Somerset field, I was finally turned round. It wasn't a voice from the sky, but it was a clear conviction which has never left me in spite of doubts. We sought the woman out. She told us her story, which included being banned from leading the youth group in her church years earlier and made unwelcome there. Since then she had not lost her faith, simply her fellowship. When I embraced her and her partner, she commented, "You know, you're the first Christian who has hugged me since I came out." And so supporting LGBTI+ people has become important to me. I want them to know that they are just as much loved and just as unconditionally as any other of us human beings. I have been indignant at the bile and vitriol directed at gay Christians by others who also call themselves Christians. This terribly happened when Christian musician, Vicky Beeching, admitted to a newspaper journalist that she was and always had been gay. She wrote her story in her painful book, Undivided, (see my review here Undivided by Vicky Beeching) in which incidentally she picks up the parallel of the story of Peter and the Gentiles. This week I hesitate to use the word, but the reaction to her coming out has been as near to verbal crucifixion as I have witnessed.

Having met and talked to LGBT people and their parents, especially within the church, I know that it's not a lifestyle choice. It is in their hardwiring. Which is why "conversion therapy" of any sort is so cruel. It's saying either, "You are an egregious sinner, who needs to be converted," or, "You are dangerously ill and need to be healed." I am glad the Church of England has called for it to be banned, but sad that other Christians disagree (Evangelicals urge PM not to ban conversion therapy). In her very good Thought for the Day on Radio 4's Today programme, Catherine Pepinster (listen here) quoted the late Cardinal Basil Hume: "In whatever context it arises and always respecting the appropriate manner of its expression, love between two persons whether of the same sex or a different sex is to be treasured and respected." Yes, all faithful love is to be treasured.

Who's to say whether I'm still an evangelical - not that I have much time for exclusive labels? I'd simply say I'm a sinner who tries to learn from and follow Jesus.

And so, to my dedicatees, and all your sisters and brothers, I will say, God welcomes you without reservation in His Church and you will find many churches who will also welcome you unreservedly. You're no worse a sinner than I am; and you don't need to be cured. You are loved for who you are.

The God of surprises 1/2

This and my next post are dedicated to three of my friends who have been severely wounded by their treatment at the hands of those who brand themselves as "evangelical Christians".

I don't like internecine sniping amongst so-called brothers and sisters, and so I shan't indulge in it here. I don't believe it's helpful or right. So I'm hoping that the Lord will set a watch over my fingers and my brain. My intention here is simply to tell my story. 

Jane and I customarily read the Bible together using notes entitled Life Every Day. Over the past fortnight we have been following the story of the early Church's mission to the Gentiles (non-Jews). You may remember that it began as an exclusively Jewish sect centred on Jerusalem. However in his own ministry Jesus Christ had given glimpses that his mission was not merely to men but also to women, not just to the Jewish nation but to whomever he met from despised Samaritans to Romans and others. And when he gave his followers his great mission statement, it was a mission starting "in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." The notes traced how the Church, in particular Simon Peter, one of its leaders, was slow on the uptake - and it was only by a series of nudges followed by a crisis event in Caesarea that he eventually got the point. Here a few quotes from Jeff Lucas's notes. "Slowly, gradually, the Church is inching towards the idea that Gentiles could be part of the Christian family, but other events would have to unfold first. God is patient." "Gradually, Peter's heart and mind are being opened up. A cataclysmic revelation is about to come, but not before God slowly, carefully, prepares Peter for it. Wisdom is found in the journey with Jesus, if we are open to it." The crisis event for Peter was a vision of unclean food which he was told to eat and then a summons from a Roman centurion, Cornelius, arrives asking him to come to his house. That day all his inherited prejudices were shattered. He talked and ate with those he'd previously considered beyond the pale and found them already within the fold of divine love. As he reports back to his critics in Jerusalem, "If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" That rightly but not finally shut the critical party up. There continued to be eruptions of exclusive sentiment, I suppose until the mother city of Jerusalem is ransacked in AD70.

So much for an oversimplified account of our past few days' reading. Why have I bothered to write about it? Well, I'd already been drawing my own parallels when last Saturday we read: "God was doing a new thing, and they struggled to understand it. Let's be open to the God of surprises. He is trustworthy, but not predictable.   To ponder: When did you last change your mind about a long-held view or opinion?"

Rodin, Le Penseur (wikipedia)

Readers who have put up with my meanderings over the years may perhaps recall occasions when I have admitted to doing so eg Women bishops - an apology and Love unknown. I think all I'll say at this point is that I have found Jeff Lucas's reflections reassuring and his questions challenging. Next time I shall turn to the issue which has stirred me to write again. (cont)

Unhappy Families

Really, what family needs twenty homes to live in? (See https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/604000/map-of-every-uk-royal-residence.) It is extraordinary how many houses and how much land (and seabed) is either held in our royal family's name or actually owned by them. (See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/royal-family-how-much-land-own-crown-estates-wedding-meghan-markle-queen-a8352401.html.) I am not in least bit envious of them. Their wealth doesn't seem to bring them much joy. As a wise man once put it, "for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content." 

I do understand that, if you're born saddled with great wealth and all that goes with it, you have a problem. And if you're surrounded with vested interests who want to benefit from your wealth and status, then you have a major problem. It becomes more than a burden when your wealth attracts unremitting media attention. It becomes a deadly nightmare. And so I can understand why Prince Harry and, his wife, Meghan Markle decided enough was enough - in every way. Admittedly they lived in only one (rather large) house called, ironically, a cottage, in contrast to his brother and his aunt (two each) and his father (with five). However I don't think it was property envy that provoked them to up sticks and resettle in the environment where she had made her living. I'm writing this before watching their interview with Oprah Winfrey; so I don't know what they will say about their reason for going. But judging from the sudden PR operation and the leaking of hostile emails from "the Palace", I'd assume the couple weren't happy merely to play the Royalty game.

Photo: ITV

Monday morning Well, lots of journalists watched the CBS interview last night, and started to comment this morning. Indeed they are predictably making a meal of it. On our local radio station there was a royal "biographer" who clearly had it in for Meghan in particular, and there was no obvious reason if not because of her mixed heritage. What was the point of 'bleating' when everyone has had 'dark thoughts'? And why now, when Harry's grandfather has been so ill in hospital? If there's one thing that's clear it's that the Sussex couple don't control the broadcast networks' schedule. She hoped the royal family would make no response to the interview to "display their utter disgust and contempt for their exposing of the family (dirty) linen in public."

I suspect if the royal family was not surrounded by the multitude of courtiers, equerries, special advisers and press officers ("the firm") and if they were allowed to be free of the constraints that we, the public, put on them, they would prove to be quite a nice bunch of people. However, what has been striking about this weekend has been to pick up the sense of proprietorship that the press, and in particular the tabloids, has for the royals. It's as if the country owns the royal family. I've heard someone say this morning that the Queen is devoted to duty but not such a good mother. Who knows? And who presumes to judge? What parent is complacent about their parenting skills?

Although the departure of Harry and Meghan from the royal orbit has, in my opinion, impoverished the royal family, they could have bequeathed it a great gift. That is that breaking free from the shackles of the institution is the best way to human flourishing, and defying the demands of the media is possible.

Perhaps also they might cause the establishment to reassess the role of royalty. Is a head of state helped by having excessive wealth and property? And don’t give me that guff about how good they are for our tourism income! What an insult - the monarch compared to an art gallery or a theme park! Do they need a huge retinue of hangers-on with a vested interest to hang on? Perhaps we have something to learn from our “friends in Europe" about effective constitutional monarchies.

 
The big question is whether the media will have the strength of purpose to resist the temptation to take easy pickings from those who, though very privileged, are just as human as the rest of us. And will the public be prepared to forego their voyeuristic obsession with those born to wear coronets? Because we, as a society, are succeeding in making some human beings very unhappy.