Smothered by security blankets

Yesterday I listened to Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4. It was marking Holocaust Memorial weekend and came from the West London Synagogue. The service remembered not only the Nazi genocide of Jews in the 1940s, but also the genocide of Armenians early in the century, of Rwandans in the 1990s, of Bosnian Muslims in Sebrenica, the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China today. The final reading was what most struck me. It was from Heinz Heger’s book – The Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps. I had known about the Nazis making Jews wear yellow stars. I'd not known about how they used triangles in concentration camps: with yellow triangles for Jews, brown for Roma, and pink for homosexual men (see Wikipedia) "Jews, gypsies and homosexuals were the prisoners who suffered most frequently and severely the tortures and blows of the SS and the Kapos. They were described as the scum of humanity who had no right to live on German soil and should be exterminated. But the lowest of the low in this scum were we, the men with the pink triangle. May they never be forgotten, these multitude of dead, our anonymous immortal martyrs" (based on the account of Josef Kohout, a Holocaust survivor).

Today I'm remembering my best friend from university. He was gay. He died a few weeks ago. He was a lovely and talented man, and a man of faith. He was never allowed to be married to the man he loved by the Church he served. And he still wouldn't have been - in spite of there recently having been a much trumpeted report from our bishops and archbishops. It was seen as a step forward - as indeed it was in that it proposed prayers of blessing for all committed partnerships including after same-sex civil marriages. It also was accompanied by a forthright apology: "“We have not loved you as God loves you, and that is profoundly wrong. We affirm, publicly and unequivocally, that LGBTQI+ people are welcome and valued: we are all children of God.” 

Linus, www.peanuts.com

Personally I was disappointed by the compromise, although I of course understand the awkward place in which the bishops found themselves, on the tightrope between literalists and liberals, and between the global north and south. I seem to remember Pope Francis once talking about how important it was for churches to be appropriate to their local societies. I can't find the quote but I think he wasn't arguing for moral relativism, just stating the obvious that science alters our understanding of the world. However it takes time for that understanding to spread. Yet in my search I came upon this resonant quotation: "I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security." It seems to me that the Church of England is too anxious to cling to its own security. It's common for a child to have a crisis when her/his security blanket has worn out to a mere scrap of a rag.

The House of Bishops (their collective title) were between a rock and a hard place. I'm not sure whether their collective response isn't a fudge. If so, it's par for the course for the CofE. "There are some among us who will be perturbed because they believe that these developments do not reflect the way of Christ as they understand it. Some will see these developments as steps along a continuing journey. Some will feel we have gone too far. Some will feel we have not gone far enough." A fair summing up, but the trouble with fudge is that it's not sustaining in the long term. And someone pointed out that an apology only rings true when you stop the hurt you're inflicting. It's time we repented fully of our part in anti-Gayism, which found its ugly flowering in the concentration camps. So I hope our church resumes the journey towards equal marriage pretty quick before we get bogged down in the mud for another six years.