Be careful - people are watching

It always comes down to choices doesn't it?

The choice to bless or curse, to believe or reject, to do right or do wrong.

The choices we make always have an influence on others and all too often it seems that ‘Church’ (that collective of voices and attitudes) knows more about what it dislikes than what it believes. ‘The Church’ excels at making choices without thinking what it communicates to the rank and file believer and the world outside it. We speak and the God we claim to follow becomes the God we represent and speak for.

A few weeks back, sitting in a local pub, engaged in conversation, we found ourselves discussing the Church. “The problem with the Church is that it is stuck in the past,”said one of the people present. I could only say I wished it was, especially if that past was the Church in the book of Acts. As the discussion continued another person chipped in with the observation that the past the Church was stuck in the fifties. “Church is only concerned with the ‘high and mighty’ whilst ignoring ordinary folk,” said another.

As I tried to explain the realities of the Christian witness that is the church (the local expression of Christians together where I am) as I know it to be today I found myself wading through a raft of views which positively acknowledged my position yet railed at Church and what it stood for or was perceived to be. Distant stand offish clergy who were desperate to get people into their churches with its irrelevant message telling the people around them how they stood for whatever it was that would win approval.

“The Vicars I’ve met are like politicians. They’ll say whatever you want to hear to get you in,” said one of the more animated. “But you’re not like that,” they added as they sought to ease the pain and be kind.

No matter how much they acknowledged the work and ministry we were doing, the sticking point was ‘Church’ as they perceived it to be. Perceptions shaped and affirmed by the press, the clergy (the dogcollar makes us both spokesperson and model) and anecdotal tales. They generally liked the things they thought Jesus said but they just didn’t like ‘Church’ and didn't know enough Christians to make ‘church’ real for them.

What my conversations with the world regarding Church tell me is that it is out of touch with it. Our attempts to appear in and with it don’t only look fake but also make us look absurd. We are regarded like a Vicar we had in our town in the late sixties who, donning a chunky pullover got a guitar (with rainbow guitar strap) and called everyone ‘man’ and became a figure of gentle ridicule!

Of late I’ve been accused of being part of an intentional deceit. The guilt was by association rather than commission, but that didn’t stop it stinging!

We're too desperate and so we look to recruit ‘ethnic minorites’ so we can parade them to remove the charge that Church is predominantly white. Across the globe the Anglican Church is definitely not a white majority group.

Church is generally too old and so we look to young vocations in the hope this will change the PR and see them (as one person put it) like ‘Judas sheep’ who will lead the young into our church buildings.

We engage in sexual politics which affirm lifestyles, gender issues (which confuse gender and sex and uses the words as if they were one and the same) and approve of just about anything that crosses our paths with the mantra that ‘Jesus just wants us to be happy’. Actually the truth is that Jesus wants us all to be holy.

The Christian Church has always been inclusive - today we have the danger that we are making it permissive in our attempts to attract people. We have always welcomed people to ‘come as they are’ in the realisation that having met with God they will leave different.

I pray for vocations to be explored and encouraged in all of God’s people that all might fulfil their baptismal calling. I struggle as I find some people groups highlighted and sought out to the apparent detriment of other groups. I am frustrated when someone obviously called is restricted because they will have passed the age of fifty by the time ordination occurs. I despair when the reason for this is given as “Best use of our financial resources.” Ageism appears to be one of the very real problems the Church has today and the view that only the young can win the young denies the experiences I have had over the years.

The reality is that we are making choices which lead us to think we are dressed to win people and build Church whilst the world gazes upon our nakedness and laughs at us as we reinvent the story of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ in our own context/

I’ve scribbled this as part of the scratchpad and a memory dump this blog is. I do it to stimulate and help me dialogue internally (and externally as I talk with God and other people) as I look to move forward. If you stumble across it, I hope it helps you in your context, and I welcome comments and discussion for this can only (generally speaking) be helpful.

Church us about welcoming all who are ‘far off’ and the realities are this:

‘Nothing we’ve been, nothing we’ve seen, nothing we’ve done, or will do. Nothing future, present or past can ever separate us from the love of God’

AND

‘Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore them gently. But be careful to make sure that you do not fall into sin correcting them.
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.’

Simple innit?

Living where 'words mean what we want them to mean' (part the second)

Continuing with this rather contentious and quite popular issue (if the people who want to discuss this are anything to go by) I have to begin, as we always should, by retreating into the Bible with Genesis 1.27 telling us:

'So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.' 

This brings forth some challenging (and interesting) thinking for we too are trinitarian in our own existence. We have some considering us to be body, mind and spirit (soul). Others mike like to consider us in three relational aspects: man (if you'll excuse the gender) to God, man to man, and man to inner man (or traits, characteristics of inner being). The need for Jesus comes through the realisation that in either of the two models described here, the 'man to God' (the spirit or soul) element is fractured and communication is disjointed (but there are still 'Godincidences' which resonate and confirm the existence of something higher and unseen (even with those who calling to be non-theists).

So whilst the convention is that God is traditionally portrayed as male, and that's because when you look at the Bible, that's the sex that He is written in and that's generally been the language used. Not a problem when 'man' also meant 'male and female or  humanity and therefore everyone) but when we find foolish people trying to rename history because of the combination of three letters (IHS*) in the word. It is the misunderstand of the living word (Jesus) that also find a place in this discussion.

The problem we (I?) have is that to change the Bible to say other, or different, to that which it has always done is to change the Bible - obvious and yet people are seeking to do this in so areas and still claim authenticity and authority for the revised editions. Cannot, I am afraid be so. Where errors are created through errors in scholarship there is a case but where the error is that it does not accommodate that which we wish to validate or approve of, that's a non-starter in my book.

To seek to change the Bible to appease one side of a perceived divide is to render that divide wider than it might ever have been. The potential for it to become like a game of rugger where, as the pressure increases, more and more people rush in to get behind the ball and things get rather ugly and confrontational (I know this is as the place where I was most likely to have been sent from the pitch in years gone by!).

I had someone quote Mary Daly to me recently. They portrayed Daly as a reasonable and devout Christian (two traits of hers that weren't obvious in that which I have read - but hey ho, on we go) and quoted her as saying: '

If God is male, then that means that male is God also'

Actually, I had a fuller quote on my system from something I'd studied back in the nineties whilst doing applied theology and the quote, in the context of the section, that I have is:

 DALY, M. 1973. Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon Press.

Now this adds some interesting aspects to the discussion I'm sure, but rather than be distracted by this at the moment I'd like to continue the journey and stop the bus and visit 1 John 4 (NIV):

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

God, is male and female and therefore it is logical to believe that the person I see before me (male or female) is indeed the image of the invisible God made visible. To use the term 'Him' with the intention to wound or to demand status or position that does not exist would be to deny the 1 John passage. To demand that God is 'He' in a dominant or power seeking manner is to deny the image of God in others and to mar that image in ourselves. The same, I am glad to say, is true in situation where some might use 'She' to describe God also. In fact to see that God actually has no gender in terms of establishing some predominant sexual political sense is to free God to be exactly as He is - male and female. The problem is that we listen for the words that we do not want rather than see past them into the God whom we worship - and herein lies the real issue.

That some women will struggle with God as 'He' is as obvious as the fact that some women will also struggle with God as 'She' also; and the same is true for men as much as women. This is not merely an issue where women are the only people to feature or be affected!

As one who suffered what we now call child sexual abuse I can see how some would be turned away from one of the same sex as those who used their place of power and authority and how God being made in their sex and as a person of power and authority could be hard. But this is, in cases like this, not a place to b change God from He to She (or to retain the 'He' as a panacea for the ills and wounds inflicted) but a place to find healing and coalescence and commitment to open and life-giving engagement and life in the freedom of something far greater.

Some despise Daly and her vitriolic feminist thinking. The criticise her for the bile and rancour, the awful rallying cries against the male, that she represents. Me? I see one for whom a broken and a separation from the very place, and person, where healing was to be found and (as I have done on any occasions) commit her to God's grace, love, care and healing and trust that He (how she'd hate that) will be merciful and compassionate (as He is). 

Romans 8 sums the position up nicely as it places a cherry on the cake for us:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, 
neither height nor depth, 
nor anything else in all creation, 
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen (or what?)

I don't think this is what women are really trying to say at all - but it is what many in the Church hear!

This is another quick splurge - moments grasped with a cup of tea between the pirouettes of the daily ministerial round. Agree or disagree (and I hope there are both) - this is me (open, honest: warts and all) - I'd love to dialogue with you (for how else will I learn?). Don't talk about me - talk to me so we might be found in a place where God is honoured and healing and unity are ours.

Pax

* IHS - a nice coincidence as this of course means 'Jesus' coming as a shortened form of Ichthus (Jesus Christ God's Son Saviour)

Living where 'words mean what we want them to mean'!

Were I to be living in the world of  Humpty Dumpty (HD), Lewis Carroll's wonderful character from his gem of a novel, 'Through the looking glass', then the desire, and ability, of some to make words mean whatever the wish them to mean. 

Humpty Dumpty (a hero of mine) explains it thus:
'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean; nothing more nor less!'

The trouble is that I feel that somehow I have become Alice in this little play for increasingly when encountering the many HDs of this world I find myself asking the question:
'Is it possible to make words mean so many different things?

Now in the book, the retort from HD is to ask 'which is to be master' - and nothing has changed in either of the worlds I inhabit for in the secular society and the supposedly sacred society that is church (note the small 'c' for in this case it is not the universal Church but one denomination: And even then within that denomination it it not the majority view either).

So having swapped the usage such that things no longer have an 'impact on something else'' and having decided that 'sex' and 'gender' mean the same (which of course they most definitely do not as the former is about the sexual attributes possessed at birth whilst the later is merely a sociological construct) the latest word change escapade should perhaps have come as no surprise at all.

Living in a world where I am told that gender is merely a matter of choice - the outworking of a desire to be something other than perhaps one was - the tide, it seems (in a rather Jasper Ffordian manner), has risen such that it now washes over words too!

Yesterday I received an email with the banner: Church of England women call for an end to God as 'He' and want to use the generic 'She' as this is more inclusive! 

The email went on to say that with the demise of 'man' referring to 'mankind' as the generic term for people and with the rise of women in the church, there was a move to use 'the more  inclusive word 'she' to refer to God'. 

It was about now that I stopped and checked the date on the email - no it wasn't the first of April - so I continued reading and soon found that, 'God being male makes women feel 'less holy' and that using the masculine for Him makes some feel second class citizens because they're not male and so are not made in His image!' But of course God as female might bring some salve to those who feel marginalised and less holy but what to the men, does not the same apply to the when god becomes a 'she'?

Now I need to point out that the person who sent the mail is a male. Not only that but they are quite destuffed with the whole 'priestess' thing and the reason for this is all about sexism' but the sexism has not all been on their side of the line as (I hope) the two examples that follow might demonstrate:

i. During this person's training there had been the argument that the Church needed more women in ministry because, 'Women are more naturally pastoral!' But they weren't saying we needed to stop ordaining men because they were better at the building and admin and other practical stuff!

ii. The 'all men are rapists (and/or paedophiles  conversation) where the propensity for men to be one (or other or both) was used as grounds to confirm the need for more women to redress the balance and minister to the many people who had been broken by men. This bled into the area of language and the 'fact' (odd how often this fact is local and HD like) that use of the masculine gender with regard to God caused some women to find themselves unable to come to God or a place of peace within the Christian faith.

Yesterday the largest number of people who engaged me regarding this issue were women who thought that this was just another step in the CofE 'being bonkers!' 

One of the lovely ladies I spoke to said that, having been deserted by her mother as a young child she found the male God, as Father, something that made her feel safe.

A man I know pointed out that it wouldn't be long before I was wearing pink and laughed at the fact that whilst he considered the Church to irrelevant to him, he did enjoy all the rubbish that we spoke (actually it was a stronger word, but I don't like to be in the business of expletives, I leave that some of my other colleagues!). 'The way you're going there will soon be a 'women only' sign on your doors,' he said as I climbed into my car.

So let's try and make sense of this silliness - and that is, I am sad to say, exactly what it is - and get some substance into the froth before us.

Genesis 1.27 tells us:
'So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.'
Now, that doesn't seem to be unclear in any way: male and female are created in the image of God. The predominant language of the OT has the 'G' word as male. It could have been feminine and it could have been a neuter but there it is, God is referred to as male.

'Oh yes, " I hear some cry, 'But that's because we have lived in a male dominated world but things are different and that is no longer the case!' And as my friend would rapidly point out, the reality is that this is not about comfort zones but about sexual politics - it is (as a female priest friend has it) about 'redressing the balance and about seizing power from those who have wielded it for so long and empowering the women!' But she's a bit aggressive and so it's better to wrap such thoughts up in the cloak of invisibility that is 'pastoral concern' it seems.

The lovely person on the radio yesterday told me that, 'Using the word 'she' for God is much more inclusive!' Doh! How have I missed that change in the use of the word I asked myself?

Some time back I heard a sermon on the radio. The speaker was an American and she referred to God as 'She, He or it' before I changed the channel! The Episcopalian church the other side of the pond has led the way with this and a number of other unorthodox (in the proper sense) 'progressions' and it seems to me that without going too deep or pointing too many fingers at the assembled gatherings (for or against) what we have here is a move to make the church (of England) just a little more irrelevant and just a little more ridiculous to this outside of our walls -  and just a bit more divided within them.

Once again we are appearing to be just a more excited and passionate about anything, and everything, other than the Gospel of Jesus, the Christ, which is just a little sad as that is what will cause Church to grow - not playing with genders (physical, linguistically or spiritual).

I don't care what sex a person is - I respect, care and embrace them.
I don't care what colour a person is - I respect, care and embrace them
I don't care what a person's sexual orientation (real or perceived) is - I respect, care and embrace them.
I don't care what a person's faith history is - I respect, care and embrace them.
(Are you getting the picture yet?)

I am called to minister the love of God with whom by the act of Jesus, the Christ, I have been reconciled in the power of His Holy Spirit and to assist others to be  able to say that same.

I am called to minister in an inclusive, not a permissive, Church

I welcome ALL to come to Church exactly as they are - with the expectation that they will leave changed!

Now how flipping difficult can we make something that is so very simple I wonder?

Now why don't we get out there and show someone the love of God?

Pink and Blue Church

This morning I read this:

'The Church of England needs to move quickly towards ordaining women bishops because it is fast running out of men who are good enough to do the job, the General Synod was told this morning.'

The sad thing is that I meet with many men in one of my areas of ministry and one of the biggest obstacles to 'doing church' is the impression that it is a place for women and children. The good news is that when they find that it isn't they tend to get involved in a full on' way. The sad news is that for many their impression of  'Pink Church' is often borne out.

Recently I visited a place where almost everyone in the local church was female.
The clergy were women.
The Wardens were women.
The PCC secretary, Treasurer and PCC members were all women.
The organist was a woman.

Now I'm glad that they're there and keeping the flag flying [I don't have a problem with women - other than my daughter who bully me :-) ] and I'm grateful for their ministry and their commitment and fellowship . .

BUT (there's always a 'But' isn't there?)

The problem is that we do seem to be sending out the wrong message to the men out there.

We do seem to be making it sound like women are the remedy to the fact that clergy who are good enough to do the job are hard to find (Yes, I know I'm poor quality provision, I live with that reality daily)and so we are looking to them as a second best.

We do seem to be so taken up with fast track solutions and 'pushing things through' and 'making things happen' that we have forgotten about celebrating calling in those around us regardless of age, sex or football affiliation (still have my doubts about supporters of Man U, Millwall and Tottenham).

Where I find a Blue church I find the place packed with high quality men who are engaged and delivering the Christian faith in a dynamic and discipled manner. Hmmmm!

Yes - I know this will upset some out there - but talk to Ruth Gledhill of the Times (which I'd love to read online but won't pay the subscription) because she started it.

Pax