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Polluted Ground or Holy Ground? Going Forward to the November Synod

Written by

Helen King

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by the Very Revd Dr Mandy Ford, Dean of Bristol

I trained alongside men who did not believe that I could be a priest. We were friends, we learned together, we prayed together, we drank gin together. But as our period of training came towards its end and we were about to move to our new dioceses, I started asking the question of them, “When I celebrate the Eucharist, do you think Jesus will turn up?”

The best of them were honest. Quite simply, the answer was “no”. The Church of England did not have the right, apart from the universal church, to ordain me.

I’m still here. The Vicar of Dibley jokes have faded. No-one is surprised to see a woman at the altar or conducting a funeral any more. Yet, female colleagues still have to endure being abused or criticised because of their hair colour, tattoos, fashion sense, parenting choices or simply for existing.

Perhaps I’ve grown more compassionate over time, but I don’t think I’ve ever confronted someone with the question, “Do you think I’m going to hell?”. But as a gay woman in a civil partnership, I probably know the answer.

My response is the same. I’m still here.

When we stand on polluted ground, as the theologian James Alison describes it, we do not have to allow ourselves to be poisoned.

Alison, drawing heavily on Girard’s anthropology of the victim, points us to Jesus. When Jesus was accused by the authorities, he remained silent. When he returned to face those who had abandoned or persecuted him, he did not retaliate. Jesus would not set the cycle of violence spinning round again. He stood on polluted ground but he did not spread the poison around.

This is a tough space to stand.  Polluted ground can easily become toxic. Misogyny and homophobia become internalised as self-loathing, low self-esteem or victimisation without us noticing.

What would it feel like to stand on holy ground instead?

My experience of holy ground is closely tied to my experience of vocation, in coming to mature faith as an adult, in the call to ordination, in my relationship.

In those things I experience being beloved as a child of God and if I look around, it becomes easier to see others as my sisters and brothers in Christ.

I have been thinking about the Chamber of General Synod as a toxic space, as polluted ground. Instead, I ought to take off my shoes before I enter.

Comments

4 responses to “Polluted Ground or Holy Ground? Going Forward to the November Synod”

  1. Brynn Craffey avatar
    Brynn Craffey

    I initially balked at your last line but because I resonated so strongly with the body of your essay I wrestled with it, and consequently have come to even more strongly resonate with that line, too. Thank you for this!

    Reply
  2. Mr Benjamin H Mackay avatar
    Mr Benjamin H Mackay

    The thing is, homophobia and misogyny have two huge Legal protections. The Five Guiding Principles, and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I am a practising Roman Catholic, and I look on with dismay at the lace and high camp on view in London and Portsmouth (S. Agatha) It Won’t Do.

    Reply
  3. Joe Hawes avatar
    Joe Hawes

    Wow, I’ve been dreading Synod, but this is a very good corrective. Thank you Mandy

    Reply
  4. Michael Hampson avatar
    Michael Hampson

    The trouble is, there are equally valid biblical mandates both ways.

    And for those of us in the Anglican Via Media (“scripture, tradition and reason”), there are equally valid historical and logical mandates both ways as well.

    For the biblical mandates both ways: on the one hand, sometimes Jesus prayed in the temple, or taught in the temple, or wept over Jerusalem; and then on the other hand on [at least] one notable occasion, he went into the temple and overturned all the tables, leaving the place in utter chaos.

    In the historical record, for a thousand years, renewal movements in the catholic tradition established new monastic communities or centres of learning or pilgrimage, all contained within a single organisational catholic unity under a single papacy (just about); until finally there was a movement so vital, and a centre so resistant, that it could not be contained, and it had to leave, and global protestantism and global anglicanism were born (and here we are).

    And rationality dictates that sometimes agreement to stay together under certain terms acceptable to both sides can be reached, and sometimes it simply, sadly, cannot, and separation is the better outcome for everybody concerned; consider the case of divorce as an important step in women’s liberation, for example.

    So. Still complicated.

    Reply

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