Fruity and three

Today's issue deals with an approach by a man who 'has a calling'. He's a member of another church in the area and lives with a woman. They're not married and have no intention of it. He comes to ask my opinion about his domestic situation in the hope that the CofE wouldn't be bothered about it and would train him?

So what's the way forward with this one I wonder?

Do I explain that the CofE is not an 'anything goes' organisation and tell him to go and sin no more?
Of course, for me the first thing to explain was that one of the biggies when it comes to the Christian life is that of being in a position whereby one was playing by the Book! The fact that he was in a relationship with another person, albeit a woman, didn't change the fact that celibacy until marriage was the rule. He wasn't married and he wasn't celibate and therefore he fell at the very first hurdle! So the ball was in his court really.

He pointed out that this was a long-term relationship and felt that to be celibate would damage this and to move out would break the relationship. I asked why they didn't want to get married and the response was that they 'just didn't', it was a choice!

After some discussion he felt that it probably wouldn't be a problem in the CofE as his domestic arrangements weren't part of the 'calling', it was about God and Him. I had to explain that there had to be clear evidence of calling and the way one lived was part of the discernment of a call. I also had to explain that just popping in from another firm and expecting the CofE to send them off to college was a bit of a non-starter! He'd no track record with the CofE so why expect them to fund his training. His response was that this was what he'd been told the CofE did, pay for people to train.

I again had to explain that the living arrangements weren't satisfactory and that not being a Anglican would make make things difficult from the beginning. I asked why he wanted to be an Anglican and the bottom line was that he wanted to go to college and was told that we'd pay!

He left as sad and disillusioned man, especially when I told him that a couple of years with us and a wedding ring would start to put things on the right track to help test his calling. Don't think I'll be seeing him again.

Do I tell him that he'd be ok as long as he keeps his domestics to himself?
I sat in a Potty training session a few years back where a chap from Church House told us that if we were homosexual we didn't have to put it on any application forms and not only that, it was out of order for bishops to ask about it when interviewing.

Keep you 'arrangements' to yourself and things will be fine, they have no right to be told or ask. better still, the man continued, those who oppose women are obvious and so we can identify them and weed them out so that eventually they will be gone - no place for people like them in the Church of England! (Perhaps he's the founder of the ordinariate?) The same when for evangelicals who opposed homosexuality and other stuff that cramped the style and liberty of those in church, for they also always put their heads above the parapet.

My advice is that plain and transparent is always a good way forward, stops worrying at night about what people might know and how they might one day reveal it. The Oscar Wilde, "Flee, all is discovered!" telegram springs to mind here!

Do I start to outline how we test calling and explain that his home situation presents a problem which needs to be addressed regardless.
Of course I do! There's four states of sexual activity: Married (male/female), unmarried (and celibate), unmarried (and engaged in fornication i.e. not celibate) and adulterous (married but sexually engaged with someone outside the marriage relationship of either, or both, parties).

It's pretty simple, always has been and always will be really!

Outside of this there are the various ways that we personally test a calling on our life and the way that we offer ourselves to, and are tested by the wider Church. Living Biblically is a start on this road of discovery.

Do I tell him to leave his 'other half', and their kids for the sake of his eternal soul?
Many out there would say a big 'yes' to this and it is one of the tough questions that we encounter from time to time. We don't want to split families and yet we'd be wrong to merely look the other way to maintain the atatus quo. For my part, I'd rather engage with the person and from a developing relationship with them seek to lead them, rather than demand or condemn, them into the place that they should, biblically, be. It is, after all at the end of the day, their decision and they have the freedom to act as they please - that's the way it was set up. We choose how we act and whether or not we act regardless of the setting!

This, of course, brings us back to restoring gently and lots of not judging lest we are judged and myriad numbers of splinters and beams in the eyes stuff!

Do I tell him to talk to his pastor and/or contact him to ask him to talk to this bloke and sort him out?
The reality is that the man is a member of another church and therefore unless he asks me to work with him he's under the pastoral care and authority of someone else. If he does ask me, I'd have to contact his pastor as a matter of courtesy. I would of course tell the bloke that I would have to speak to his pastor and ask his permission. If it's not forthcoming then I couldn't act.

Asking the chap's pastor to get involved is a potentially difficult thing to do, after all he's apparently comfortable with the bloke living in a wrong relationship, but I might try to find out what his 9and other people's) take on the situation is so that at least I might pray intelligently and perhaps discuss it should the opportunity ever naturally arise.

I find the big problem with this area is that many have no issues because it's heterosexual sin which almost sanitises or leads people to ignore it. But of course just as homosexuality is not the defining sin, neither can anything involving heterosexuality become the the invisible sin.

Is it me, or do many people who claim to be Christian live in a world where as long as they don't know, they aren't troubled? Is it more or do many not want to know so the previous sentence can apply?

Pax

ps. We will also need to consider the issue of 'calling' at time, but we have time. Thank you for those who are engaging with me - I'm happy to consider other viewpoints and dialogue.