ViaMedia

Author: Jayne Ozanne

  • Revd Adams’ Story – Is It Wrong for Me to Tell the Truth?

    by the Reverend Adams, a gay Methodist Minister

    My first experience of ‘deliverance’ ministry occurred on a Birmingham high street. I had thought I was just meeting someone for prayer, and first realised I might be wrong and in danger when three men greeted me instead of one. They took me to some rented rooms above a shop on the high street.   Immediately I knew I was in a bad place.

    My relationship with faith had started when I was 18. I had come from a non-church background and felt sad and lonely. I had known I was only attracted to men when I was at Junior school but didn’t know how to tell anyone. Homophobia was very common and – like many others – I was scared.

    When I came to faith I told my new Methodist Minister that I was gay, that I had no male friends and was scared to make any. I hoped he would help me. I was hugely mistaken.

    He told me I couldn’t be gay because that was ‘not of God’. It was evil, a perversion – I must be possessed. He also told me I was a potential child abuser. I couldn’t have been more shocked.

    Naively, I trusted him. I just wanted to be accepted, welcomed in Church, and to have some friends. I was desperate not to lose my new faith.

    He suggested I go to a Pentecostal Church he was associated with in Birmingham, which had ‘experience of dealing with Gay people.’ Desperate for help and acceptance, I consented, eagerly. And just like that, I found myself alone in a room with three men, cut off from all outside help.

    They spoke kindly while we walked up the stairs, but as soon as the door shut, this very quickly changed. They became aggressive and spoke over each other louder and louder, pushing me and shouting that gay men only existed because of abuse and therefore I had been raped by my dad or grandfather. I was an abused and broken person who had been preyed on and would prey on others, they said.

    I remember trying to stand up and say that this was rubbish; they shoved and shouted more. The next thing I knew I was on the ground where they continued to attack me.

    They commanded demons of homosexuality to leave me, and hit me again and again.

    I was absolutely terrified.

    I pretended that it was working and that they had made me different. I left as quickly as I could and remember running to my car. I collapsed inside, locked the doors and cried.

    I drove back home and promised I would hide this and never speak of it again, but the Methodist Minister told me that was not the end of it. I was clearly a serious potential child abuser and I couldn’t volunteer as a Boys Brigade Officer anymore, unless I told the BB Captain so that I could be monitored at all times. If I didn’t tell him, then the Church would have to be informed and I would be in essence outed to all the congregation.

    I felt so dirty. I wanted to die.

    He went on to say that I needed to find a nice girl, marry and have children, and that the gay would go away. I told a girl all this – we were friends and it was so hard to do. I loved her – and still do – so we married. We thought we could complete the cure. We had children and were together for almost 25 years.

    God has such an amazing sense of humour as I was training as a Methodist Minister myself within about 5 years of the gay conversion experience. I hid my true self deep within myself, so that no-one could see how much I hated myself.

    From the outside, we looked like a perfect family, but underneath it was hell for me and (I think) my ex-wife. I was lonely and suicidal. I felt like I was always pretending and was never good enough for God or my ex-wife.

    When we split and I came out it felt like a huge weight had been removed – I could breathe freely for the first time.

    Unsurprisingly, as an out gay Minister I encountered homophobia. One retired minister said that gays in church were a disgrace and if she was still a minister she would resign.

    One church where I was meant to be observing a local preacher I was training rang twice to inform me that if I entered they would all walk out in protest at my ‘sin’. The abuse they gave me and the language they shouted down the phone left me shocked and shaken. The Circuit told me not to go but said nothing to the people at the Church. I was told to just accept that this was normal, acceptable behaviour.

    As I was coming to the end of my 5 years there I was initially offered an extension. However, I was then told by a church full-time lay worker that I was ‘hated and detested’ and that I ‘should go where people like you are tolerated.’ Shocked, I reported the incident to the Circuit / District. I was then told that I should leave, because the other church worker had to stay. They withdrew my own extension to stay, and just like that, I had been forced out.

    Now, we live in fear. Where will we end up? Is there anywhere we will be accepted?

    There aren’t enough words to describe all the other incidents I’ve encountered since then. I’ve been told to stop complaining, that people are allowed to express homophobic views. I’ve been told by people in senior ordained national roles that that ‘we shouldn’t rock the boat’. They said that black people had to accept racism within the Methodist Church, that women had to accept sexism and that I had to accept this.

    I’m left with a multitude of questions. How much is too much? Is it wrong for me to tell the truth? Could even writing this post be accused of rocking the boat?

    I feel powerless and live in fear.

     

  • Lesbians, Sex and the Church of England

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of ViaMedia.News, Director of the Ozanne Foundation and Member of General Synod

    I could see that the bishop was going red, and as he did so nervous giggles spread across the Synod Chamber.  I stood, pan faced, at the speakers’ microphone and said: “I’m deadly serious, bishop.”

    The Church of England’s Synod Question Time is supposedly an opportunity for General Synod members to raise questions of the various Chairs of the Church of England’s Boards and Councils and is one of the few mechanisms available for us to try and hold these senior leaders to account.

    It was February 2017 and I had just asked the Chair of the House of Bishops, or more precisely the bishop tasked with overseeing the Church’s work on sexuality and gender identity matters, the following:

    “Bishop, given we understand that the Anglican Communion might break over “it”, that the Church of England faces a split over “it” and I cannot get ordained because of “it”, what actually is “it” for a lesbian like myself?”

    Of course, I didn’t get an answer.

    You see, we don’t tend to really think about lesbian sex within the Church of England, dare I say we don’t really tend to think about lesbians at all!  Most of the focus has, I’m sorry to say, been on the supposed sex acts between our gay brothers in Christ.  That is undoubtedly because both Old and New Testament have a few lines of text about certain sex acts, which sadly are normally taken completely out of context and are frequently mistranslated.  Sparing the fact that anal sex is far more prevalent amongst heterosexuals than homosexuals, what the Bible is clear about is that there is absolutely nothing that focuses specifically on the whether the love between two people of the same sex is right or wrong – that is, unless you think of that between David and Jonathan.

    Today is Lesbian Day of Visibility, and I believe it is right and indeed necessary to stop and think about the plight of lesbians within faith communities, and sadly what so many have had to endure through the ages.

    Lesbianism is not a new thing – it has just been far more covered up, due to cultural taboos and the dominance of patriarchal power structures that have subjugated women throughout the ages and kept them “in their place”, or worse, just out of sight.

    In some ways I think many have, like Queen Victoria, just not considered the fact that women might be attracted to each other.  Men may have been far more aware, not least I fear to say because of the prolific amount of online porn (evidently, many men find it more satisfying to see two women together than to watch another man having sex).

    Be that as it may, faith communities have not, it seems, really thought through their stance on lesbianism.  It is just “tucked on” to their position on all LGBT+ people, mostly informed by their position on gay men – the “L” is just another letter in the LGBTQI alphabet.

    So, what is “it”?

    In trying to force this question in Synod, I admit that I was trying to get the Church of England to see how utterly futile and meaningless their internal discussions actually are about sexuality.  Can we really boil down the whole of the future of the Anglican Communion to how two people choose to express their love for each other?  If that really is the case, then I would argue that what we should be focusing on is the actual love between two people – the fact that they have deep feelings for each other and have decided that they have found a life mate who they want to commit to, cherish and honour.

    For centuries, lesbians have had a stark choice.  For most, they could either stay as spinsters (the archetypal “maiden aunts”) tasked with either looking after aged parents or (if they were lucky) hiding behind the fact that they dared to have their own career; or they could enter into heterosexual marriages and just “put up” with it.  This happened and still happens at great cost. The “just putting up with it” has sadly led to years of marital rape, or worse, forced rape – and sadly has led to some taking the only way out they know, that of tragically taking their own lives.

    Many churches still teach that that is “the best way forward”, with many advocating that LGBT+ people should enter into mixed-marriages, little thinking of the significant harm this does – to both parties.  On the one side you have someone who is having to endure a sexual act that they do not desire, the other because they are not experiencing the sexual desire that they deserve.

    It is a pitiful state of affairs, but all too common – trapping both parties in a misery of hell.

    Moreover, worse stories are now coming to light – particularly, sadly, within the minority ethnic religions.  Here a lesbian’s plight is far more dangerous – with an untold number being subjected to “corrective rape”, often by family members, in order to try and “make” them straight.  Few, understandably, will ever speak out about this for fear or shame.  Even fewer will try to seek justice – they have been traumatised enough already, and they are all too aware of the state’s appalling record of getting any convictions.

    So, what should we do?

    Well one of the critical things, I believe, is for more lesbian women to become far more visible and to speak out about their experiences.  That is why I am so keen to support #LesbianVisibilityWeek.  We need to find new ways of profiling good role models, who can challenge stereotypes and show that we, women who are attracted to women, exist everywhere – in all cultures, age groups, social structures and backgrounds.  We are a force to be reckoned with and we will not be silenced.

    As for defining what is “it”…

    …well, I shall await an answer from the House of Bishops on that.  For, as I said, so much seemingly seems to rest upon it – even the future of the Church of England!

  • Jas’ Story – Please. Be. Kind.

    by Jas, a former drug addict, Bible College Student and now married lesbian

    I was in prison when I first encountered Jesus.

    I had been a drug addict but when I met him, everything changed. It felt like I fell in love, spending all my time reading about Jesus and getting to know him. When I left prison, I started to attend a church. I loved it. I became a serial volunteer – if there was something needing doing, I was the first person with my hand up. I got involved with loads in the church: stewarding events, running teams and serving however I could.

    I wanted everybody to know about Jesus (I may have been a bit annoying with my over-excitement!), so I took my girlfriend to church. The quiet whispers all around when we walked in of “Are they together….?”  was the first time I realised that being gay might be a problem. The vicar sat me down the next day and explained that being gay goes against scripture and that I shouldn’t “do” it. I promptly split up with my girlfriend – I wanted to be God’s girl and if that meant being single, I was ok with that.

    I moved to another area to attend Bible School to learn more about God. I went on missions, I learned scripture and served the church. I became chief steward at a national event, spent my summers trekking around the country volunteering for Christian festivals and felt genuinely happy. The only problem was that I was still gay, and I felt so bad about it.

    I had the odd slip up where I would meet a girl and would then repent, full of guilt and shame and feeling terrible about myself. I would spend night after night on the floor of my room, crying and begging God to make me acceptable. It never changed. I spent years poring over scripture, trying to understand why being gay was so bad, trying to understand the original context and what the clobber passages really meant.  I never really understood how this God who loved me so much would begin to hate me just for loving someone with the same genitals. It made no sense.

    Eventually I was honest with my church about my feelings. It did not go down well.

    Initially I was asked to meet with the elders of the church – all 12 of them – while I tried to justify my theological position. It was frightening, being completely alone  and on the spot, trying to explain why I felt being gay was not a sin.

    Then followed the deliverance ministry. I was given three exorcisms by different groups. I don’t know which was worse – the dramatic one, the quiet one, or the shouting one. All of them scared me. I started to question if I really did have Satan living in my heart and if I was, as they told me, an abhorrent stench unto the nostrils of the Lord. They offered me therapy to overcome my desires, which I took. I was so desperate to be acceptable to God I would have done anything. I begged God, I tried so hard to be straight, I did the therapy and the group prayers, I tried to believe that the exorcisms would heal me. Nothing changed. I felt awful, I hated myself for being so immoral, I hated that I didn’t (as they told me) have the faith to be cured.

    Then I met someone special.

    We were both volunteers at a summer camp, serving coffee in the big tent. She had just come back from mission overseas and was so full of Jesus. She inspired me, pointed me towards Jesus and really excited me about what we could do for the kingdom together. The more time I spent with her, the more I fell in love with her and we decided to get married. When we announced our engagement, some church people were angry. They felt that I had betrayed God for lust and said I was a disgrace to Christianity. Then we met with the vicar of my church who told me that he could not condone what we were doing and so banned us from the church.  I was told that my services were no longer required for many of my volunteering roles, not just within my own church but also for the bigger summer events. My chief stewarding role was taken from me as it would be ‘inappropriate’ for me to be in leadership while living in ‘such obvious sin.’

    Many people I loved did not want to be near me as they said I could contaminate the community with the way I embraced sin. Through getting engaged I lost my church, my community and my vocation. It was awful and I was left feeling that I wasn’t good enough for God. I worried that every time He looked at me, He saw something dirty, sinful and worthless; someone who had given up for carnal desires, who had turned their back on Him and had grieved the Holy Spirit.

    We found a church that would marry us and we were married a few years ago. Since then I’ve really struggled to go to church. We don’t live near an accepting church and so we are told that we may attend churches but can’t do anything other than be passive observers.

    All we want is to belong to a community where we can know God more, where we can serve, where we can take Jesus into the world. Unfortunately, we are not allowed because we fell in love. I struggle to even look for God without being filled with guilt and shame and regularly question whether He would even want me back.

    What I would say to the church is that gay people are still people. We hurt and we break and words and actions can do a lot of damage.

    Please. Be kind.

     

     

  • Lisa’s Story

    by Lisa (a pseudonym), who is a trans woman from the North of England.

    When I agreed to tell this story, I was reluctant because this happened 20 year ago and I was unsure how much relevance it would have now. It is very sad that it appears to still be so; if anything, the Government’s views on conversion therapy (along with trans rights in general) appears to have become even less supportive than it was.

    I was a very active member of an Evangelical, Pentecostal church. I had been to Bible college, was on the leadership team, regularly preached in my own church and others, led worship and was in charge of outreach for the church.  No one suspected that I was anything different than what I appeared to them to be. Not the church members, or my family; no one. I am now so sorry for the hurt that hiding truths about myself caused, especially to my wife and my daughter.

    I had been struggling with my gender identity all of my life, and now knew, after much counselling (secular) that I was trans. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I cannot start to explain the difficulty I had accepting this, but somehow I had kept it totally secret.

    This was until one particular night when something changed.

    I sat in my car and considering driving it very fast into a wall. The question was clear in my mind: “Do I go through with this thing and live as the woman I knew I was meant to be, or do I die?” The one thing that was impossible for me to do was just carry on pretending.

    I decided to tell my wife, and her world and mine fell apart.

    Once she knew that I was going to go through with this she immediately said that I could not transition and stay with her. Nor could I transition and see my daughter who I idolised. My wife rang the Pastor of our church, who was fully in agreement with her. He then wrote me a letter. It was 20 years ago and I can’t remember the exact wording of it, but it offered me two options: either receive counselling in order that I may repent, or leave.

    Of course I knew full well that all the “repenting” in the world was not going to change me. Neither would exorcism, which I knew they would then try.  So many times in the preceding years I had rebuked the Devil, I had begged on bended knee to be different, I had prayed and prayed, and failed. I could not try any more. I felt that I had let God down, the church down, my wife and daughter down. I thought that if being a Christian meant not transitioning, then I couldn’t be a Christian.

    I left the church, I left my wife, and, hardest of all, I left my daughter. I also thought I had left my faith. I had no one and nothing. All my friends were in the church; all my life had been there.

    A position came up with the company I was working for in a different part of the UK. I took it and a few months later changed my name and legally transitioned.

    My wife was true to her word and I had a battle to be allowed to even see my little girl. After 12 months I was allowed supervised visits (my daughter is now 26 and after many years we have a good relationship).

    In time I met a wonderful man. We fell in love, got married, got a dog (she is gorgeous!) and it has taken me the best part of that twenty years to realise that God made me this way and accepts me as I am. To realise that if Jesus died for anyone, he died for everyone: gay, straight, cis, trans, black, white. My faith has changed; I’m certainly not as bigoted as I once was. I think I’m a better person, but that’s the thing – even if I’m not I am certain that God loves me.

  • Timothy’s Story

    A series of personal testimonies from LGBT Christians

    Conversion therapy is horrifying.

    Although I speak as a survivor, even then I am one of the lucky ones. I wasn’t given electric shocks, wasn’t forced to fast or strip, haven’t experienced aversion therapy or corrective rape.

    Because I haven’t been subjected to any of the above, I find myself in a strange position when people talk about conversion therapy. Have I had it or not? I ask myself. What counts?

    One of the buzz words around conversion therapy is consent. How can something be bad or banned if people willingly undergo it? However, one problem is that this so-called ‘consent’ is often – as in my case – gained by brainwashing and emotional blackmail. Another problem concerns basic human rights. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims classes “conversion therapy” as a form of torture (April 2020). Torturous practices should be banned, whether people ‘consent’ to them or not.

    For me, I consented because of desperation. Growing up, if I encountered ‘a homosexual’ I’d be very happy to slate them as an abomination (and very often did), but could hardly look in the mirror for fear that I myself might be the same. I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined the possibility that there could be ‘gay Christians,’ and had certainly never met one.

    At university I subsequently met an openly gay pastor, and even though he preached celibacy and the renouncement of all ‘same-sex attraction’, it took me several weeks to overcome my prejudices, to believe he too was not an abomination.

    Desperate and eager for answers and understanding, I met with the pastor, frequently, for long theological discussions. To my utmost disbelief, it turned out he was not the only one – there were some my own age, apparently several of them, in his church! I was speechless. I was desperate for community, to see and believe with my own eyes that there were others who were experiencing exactly what I was.

    That was when the manipulation started. To be able to meet these individuals, I would need to agree to certain ‘conditions.’ There was a secret ‘same-sex attraction support group’ that met monthly, but to be introduced to them, I’d need to do two things. First, promise to agree to their principles and renounce all thoughts and actions of a homosexual nature; second, agree to their ‘mentoring scheme,’ to ensure my renouncement was practised as well as professed.

    There was also a carrot as well as a stick: apparently, many people who had gone to this group were now in happy, heterosexual relationships. I couldn’t believe my ears, couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have this opportunity. But truthfully, I didn’t even need that extra encouragement; I was so lonely and so desperate for community that I would have pledged anything just to believe I was not alone.

    Obviously, I quickly became disillusioned. The meetings only ever featured ‘success stories’ from ex-gay-but-now-straight visitors (back then, I never questioned whether their stories were genuine). As for the peers I was so excited to meet, we were all so full of self-condemnation and so closely monitored that conversations seemed competitive rounds of who was best at self-renunciation. We were all so defensive and frightened that even then it struck me we were victims of something. Tragically, we were made to believe that the perpetrators were ourselves and our own desires, not anything – or more accurately, anyone – else.

    The so-called ‘mentoring’ was even worse. It was conducted by different people, some straight and married, and others who were gay and fiercely celibate. But it was always punitive and always humiliating. We were supposed to meet weekly and report not just our actions but also our thought processes. We were encouraged to keep a diary of every time we had a gay thought or ‘carnal desire’. Each one would then be examined, dwelt on and shamed. I had a lot of ‘thoughts,’ so each time, my humiliation was overwhelming. I would be vilified, rebuked, and prayed over. I felt hated, disgusting, and abominable. At the beginning, I even thought I deserved to feel those things. I was made to believe that my desire to feel loved was sickening, an aberration of divine proportions.

    I would often be unable to sleep the night before these sessions in dread, and often cried on the way home. I’d always had bad dreams, but now they became truly horrifying, and always featured being pursued or tortured.

    Was it conversion therapy? The perpetrators would say no, of course. Not only did I consent, but  they weren’t explicitly trying to change my orientation. But their practice evidenced a different story. To them, if you were gay and wanted to love, you had a choice. You could continue being gay and settle with ‘close friendships,’ or you could try heterosexual relationships. The (supposed) success stories of the latter, and the brainwashing that suggested it was possible, were both insidious and omnipresent.

    Of course, many did try these heterosexual relationships, including me. Some of these relationships, not including mine, even lasted more than a few months.

    Regardless whether you term what I experienced as ‘conversion therapy’, what’s more important are the consequences. Should what I experienced be allowed? Is it harmful? Does it have any long-term effects?

    Like I say, I’m one of the lucky ones. After two years of therapy, my mental health has fluctuated but at the present day is relatively stable.

    But there’s even more to this than mental health. There’s also self-belief and personality. Spending such lengthy periods of time in self-loathing means my self-confidence remains non-existent.

    There’s also the hurt. Even now as a married gay man, several nights a week I still have nightmares, and I wake up most days with the residual feeling that I have been wronged, abused. Ever since my ‘mentoring,’ I’ve felt very easily targeted, and am injured by the smallest things. I find trust hard and forgiveness even harder. People often do, who have been caused to have such prolonged feelings of self-hatred and humiliation. Some things remain difficult to recover from.

    So – should conversion therapy be banned? Yes.

    Should it include private prayer for those ‘willingly seeking support from faith leaders in their struggles’? Yes.

    Is this problematic for the basic human right for freedom of belief? No. The whole point of human rights is that you’re free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others.

    I desperately needed the protection of this ban. It’s too late for me – but it’s not too late for others.

  • Is God Inhuman?

    by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s and Vice Chair of the Ozanne Foundation


    I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s book The Body. It’s a fascinating read about the wonders of the human body and how much of it – of us – is incredibly complex and still little understood. But in Chapter 11 he refers to things medical science learnt about the body through experiments carried out during the second world war by Nazis in concentration camps and by occupying Japanese forces in a huge experimental facility in China. He doesn’t dwell on them, but they were horrifying in their cruelty. Some experiments were supposedly to help soldiers wounded in battle, but others were to satisfy doctors’ curiosity by doing things unspeakably unethical just because they could. And although many Nazis were brought to justice for their cruelty, the director of the research centre in China was debriefed by the Americans to get his medical knowledge and then allowed to return to normal life, while the existence of the Japanese facility was hidden for forty years.

    The Uighurs and Rohingya. Political and religious terrorism. Black Lives Matter. Child poverty and homelessness. Violence and discrimination against women, LGBTI and disabled people. Cruelty continues, and those with power who do it will find ways to justify the unjustifiable. We even do it in the Church – not only with repeated safeguarding failures, but by being complicit with society at large in structural discrimination against black people and poor people and women and LGBTI people. The Church goes further now than society does in maintaining exemptions from discrimination against women and gay people, and we justify it in the name of what is acceptable to God – which makes the Church and its God appear inhuman to many.

    What is ‘humane’? What is ‘inhuman’? After all, it’s human beings who act ‘inhumanly’ some of the time. Being cruel and discriminatory is something which every single human being is capable of. That’s you and me both. Which of us is without sin and can say that we have never acted in a way intended to be hurtful? Who has never done something which another person experienced as cruel and unkind?

    A healthy human body is a dynamic balance of many different systems and needs, where too much or not enough salt or other nutrients can be fatal. Like our body, our humanity is a balancing act, full of difficult compromises to enable life to happen at all, more or less good or evil. Being human means we are capable of being, not either good or bad, but both good and bad, both humane and inhuman. And yet we define acting ‘with humanity’ as being solely good: as the Oxford Dictionary puts it, being human or humane is having ‘attributes or behaviour proper or befitting to a man.’

    Why do we do think that being good and kind is ‘proper’ and ‘befitting’ human behaviour, when experience is that human behaviour includes so much that we want to reject as ‘inhuman’? Discrimination, violence, misogyny, racism and slavery come from dehumanising those who are ‘different’, excluding them from being our fully human neighbour, treating them as ‘other’ or as evil or to be eradicated like germs from the social body, acting as we do so out of the evil that has not been eradicated in us. (See the useful reflections by John Root around racism and binary thinking).

    The view that ‘acting with humanity’ or being ‘humane’ describes only the morally good aspects of human behaviour is not derived from the reality of the world around us. It is in the person of Jesus Christ that Christians believe humanity in its fulness is fully realised: the human being without sin, the Son of God who shows us what is ‘proper’ and ‘befitting’ to a human being, without hatred or cruelty or exclusion, bringing us together into the love of God in our redeemed humanity.

    It is no coincidence that the goodness of humanity is defined by the one who takes on himself our sin for our salvation. Repenting of our sins, cruelties and lack of love, and inviting Christ to dwell in our hearts in love to transform us, frees us to acknowledge both past and present evil in us; it enables us to become more humane, by letting go of the inhumanity of believing that we are good and others are bad.

    The case of Jonathan Fletcher is yet a further example of how avowedly orthodox faith can inculcate an atmosphere of fear and repression in which our humanity in Christ is denied and abused, and God is modelled in ways which are more inhuman than humane.

    It’s crucial to Christian faith that God is the God we see in Jesus: that God is humane, human, abounding in steadfast love. God is not the inhuman deity who many have experienced through the Church, and of which we must repent. Any Church or Christian disciple making either God or other people become less rather than more human and humane needs to repent and change.

    My former colleague Canon Mark Oakley often asks: ‘What do people become in my presence?’ More human, or less? And we might add, ‘What do people become in the presence of the God I worship?’

    Through your church and through encounter with you, do people and their God become more or less human?

  • Why Don’t You Just Leave?!

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media, Member of Synod and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

    “Why don’ you just leave the Church of England?”

    It’s the question I’m repeatedly asked by my non-church LGBT friends and allies after the repeated mistakes, misappointments, misguided decisions and misunderstandings in relation to sexuality and gender identity matters.

    To be honest, it’s the question I ask myself constantly too – as I’m sure do so many others.

    But of course, that is precisely what the “conservative fundamentalists” want.  They’d love to purify the Church of those who they think defile it, and I’m sure there are many who will have muttered under their breath “who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” (or in my case, “woman”).

    The question has come into sharper focus following my recent resignation from the government’s LGBT Advisory Board, where I’ve been asked publicly by the media “Why on earth do you stay in such a homophobic institution like the Church of England?  Surely you should resign from there too – for exactly the same reason that they too have created a “hostile environment”?”

    My impromptu answer surprised even me. I said it was because I knew there were those who were changing their minds within the Church, that this movement was only ever in one direction and that research shows that there is a younger generation, even within the Church of England, who think very differently to those in power at the moment and that “one day things will change”.  But, and it’s a big but, I have always then stressed that the key question is how many lives get damaged and ruined in the process, and whether people can cope with being the victims of injustice and abuse whilst this change occurs.

    That “but” has come into sharp focus with the launch of the Living in Love and Faith materials, and the realisation (finally) that there are major safeguarding issues for LGBT people as they are “encouraged to take part”.  Added to that there is the totally misguided notion from the Church hierarchy that there are “two equal and valid sides” in this “debate”, and that all we need to do is reconcile and everything will be all right.

    Even the archbishops in their Synod address talked about the need to “just love each other”, which shows a complete lack of understanding about the abuse being metered out by one side on the other and the obvious power differentials at play.  As many have themselves reflected, it feels like we are tragically in a situation akin to domestic abuse, where one side is constantly being assaulted and yet those with the power to do something about it are advising both parties to “just love each other” and get over it.

    No, the abuse needs to stop first.  There can be no peace without justice, and no reconciliation until those who have the power to wound are dealt with appropriately.

    Interestingly, what domestic abuse victims are encouraged to do is to leave and find somewhere safe.

    If I can be honest, it is what I’d recommend all LGBT people do who are finding the journey just too hard and too painful – there is no shame in going somewhere where you will be loved, honoured and cared for properly.  Where your wounds will be dressed, your heart healed and where you will be honoured with dignity and your love celebrated.

    In truth, it is already happening.  Indeed, it has been happening quietly for years, as thousands have left without threats or sabre-rattling, and certainly with no media attention.  Unlike a certain wing of the Church who keep holding their bishops to ransom, saying they will leave, but who rarely seem to actually follow through and go.

    However, there is another reason – if I’m honest with myself – why I stay.

    And that is because this is my home.  It is where my friends and family are, it is where I have have roots and memories.  It is my familiar place that I love.  I do not want to leave for a foreign land, I want to stay where I belong – I just want to be safe in doing so.

    Sadly, there comes a time in any abusive relationship where the realisation dawns that the only way out is to leave, with the vain hope that in doing so the offending party will then reflect on their offensive behaviour.  The trouble with that strategy though is that they are inevitably then left to retraumatise other victims and so the cycle continues.  Which is why so many of us stay and try and change things.

    So, if you’re wondering what to do, I would suggest that you must put your own wellbeing and safety first.  If you are finding things too painful, please do leave and find a refuge – even if it is for a short while, in order to find rest and recuperate.  Easter Saturdays are an inevitable part of the Easter story.

    However, for those who know their calling is to stay and soldier on, please do take care of yourselves and know where your “red lines” lie.  That is, where are the lines that if crossed you will say “enough is enough”, and that you then feel empowered to act on principle – not beaten down into submission, as so often occurs in situations of domestic abuse.

    I am honestly weighing up how near the Church hierarchy’s decisions are getting to my own red lines.  The constant undermining of LGBT people and the lack of progress to create safe environments where we can flourish is astounding.  Maybe soon it will be time for me to act again on my principles – and leave.  We will have to see – God only knows.

  • It’s A Sin: The Myth of Homogeneity

    by Father Richard Peers, Sub Dean of Christ Church, Oxford

    Extract from: Final Report – Independent Lessons Learned Review for Emmanuel Church Wimbledon (March 2021)

    “Theme 17: Homogeneity

    The Review illustrated that one of the biggest difficulties in identifying and disclosing the behaviours was the myth of homogeneity. The Review evidenced that a person who possesses positive characteristics and is widely highly-regarded could nonetheless display entirely inappropriate, abusive and harmful behaviours which render them ‘unfit for their office’.

    Furthermore, those who wish to disclose abuse or harmful behaviours can be caused to question their experience and reality where the predominant narrative outlines the positive traits of an individual. When this is combined with a narrative of protecting the gospel above all else then this becomes a powerful barrier to disclosing abuse or harmful behaviour.”

    It was in 1987 that the Pet Shop Boys released their single It’s A Sin which provided the title, and elements of the soundtrack, for the recent Russell T Davies mini-series on gay life in the 80’s. Whether it was 1987 or a little bit later my strongest memory of dancing to this iconic song was on a Sunday night (gay night) at The Academy in Boscombe, just outside of Bournemouth. It was an exhilarating time for me. I had met and was with that night, the love of my life, a housemate was performing on stage with a live snake (don’t ask). Like the housemates in the recent TV series it seemed that there was nothing that could poison our sheer delight at life. 

    Three decades later watching It’s A Sin touched many unexpected raw nerves for me and I am not embarrassed to say I wept watching it. 

    During lockdown I have done a fair bit of online teaching in the form of seminars for various groups including ordinands at Ripon College Cuddesdon and Cranmer Hall in Durham on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, better known as Confession. I have heard a fair number of confessions in the last 20 years or so. One of the key tasks of a confessor, it seems to me, is to help the penitent identify what is and what is not sin. Many people come to the sacrament filled with shame, self-loathing or in need of healing. 

    We live in a society in which the language of Christianity is tired and worn; it is hard for people to understand. Sin is a key concept that is much misunderstood. Yet the older I get the more important I think sin is. The more I believe in its reality. We all know that when anyone says “Human beings are divided into …” some trite simplism is going to be uttered. If only it was so easy.

    The older I get the more aware of my own sin I become. I am a deeply flawed human being. If that sounds like I am beating myself up. I’m not. 

    The older I get the more aware I am that we are all sinners. We are all capable of deeply flawed behaviour. My favourite image for sin (not sure who invented this, perhaps it was me) is a bicycle on which the front wheel is slightly askew. We human beings just can’t cycle straight. We need to constantly adjust for the reality of our askew-ness (sin). That’s mostly what the Christian life is about.

    At the top of this piece there is an extract from the investigation into abuse at Emmanuel Church Wimbledon by Jonathan Fletcher. For me it is the most important passage in a very important report. The review highlights how a combination of fear and putting people on pedestals made it impossible for victims to report abuse. It also calls for a wider understanding of vulnerability in situations where individuals wield considerable charismatic and institutional power. These are all important lessons to learn. But it is this myth of homogeneity that is, I think, the most important lesson and the most difficult for us to hold on to.

    The American pastor and writer Brian McClaren talks and writes about :

    “Confirmation Bias: the human brain welcomes information that confirms what it already thinks and resists information that disturbs or contradicts what it already thinks.”

    and

    “Complexity Bias: the human brain prefers a simple lie to a complex truth.”

    It is easy to believe that there are good guys and bad guys. The truth is almost always more complex.

    A friend of mine was one of the young men who formed part of the residential community associated with the serial abuser Bishop Peter Ball. It was a transformative and wonderful time for him, all blessing. Another friend spent much of her life as part of l’Arche communities. She is the leader she is now because of that experience. She has spent the last year grieving the revelations about Jean Vanier.

    What can we learn from this? Nothing simple.

    I can’t write a line, or come up with a phrase that explains this.  All I can do is offer the Christian faith. St Paul is often mocked for the complexity of his writing; his endless and sometimes seemingly incomprehensible sentences. But he was on to something. Perhaps no one has understood sin better. We human beings are all sinners. There are certain characteristics that we associate with something we call ‘holiness’. I am deeply sceptical of them.  

    When we pray the penitential material in our worship and in Scripture it is not a reason to beat ourselves up. It is a reminder that every human being is a sinner. I am with St Augustine, and the Pet Shop Boys: It’s A Sin. I find the constant repetition of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner” to be tremendously liberating. This is who I am. This is who everybody is. As I say to people when they begin the journey of Spiritual Direction with me: there are no gurus.

    As we move into Holy Week there are simple questions we can ask. Why do we need Jesus? What do we need saving from? And the simple answer is: ourselves. As Walt Whitman put it “I contain multitudes”, and some of them are not very nice.

  • ‘Oi Vicar, Why Don’t You Heal Yourself?’

    by the Revd Canon Timothy Goode, Rector of St Margaret’s, Lee, Disability Adviser to the Diocese of Southwark, Member of Archbishop’s Council and Co-Chair of MOSAIC

    Talk about coming down to earth with a bump! The day after I was ordained deacon, and the official start of my time as Associate Curate at Croydon Minster, I stepped out, crutch assisted, into my new parish, wearing a crisp new black clerical shirt with dog collar gleaming fresh and white in the early summer sun. Though I was nervous, being the first time I had gone public in my new ‘uniform’, I wished to inhabit my new role with confidence and go and greet the hustle bustle of central Croydon life.

    My planned port of call was Surrey Street Market, which has existed since the 13th century. Just as I started to walk through the market offering welcoming smiles to all who passed, suddenly at the top of his voice, loud and clear over the surrounding melee, a local greengrocer shouted, ‘Oi Vicar, why don’t you heal yourself.’

    Immediately I was aware of the eyes of the crowd turn and focus on me. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in and, with an utterly unconvincing smile, I made a hasty retreat back to the Minster, my perceived lack of agency having been publicly mocked.

    The incident confirmed for me that my physical impairment would never be allowed to be separate from my role as a public figure within the Church; the two were going to be forever inextricably linked.

    This incident, and countless similar incidences have caused me to reflect back over my own life and how my own lived experiences of disability have challenged and reformed my understanding of privilege as a white heterosexual male. Where have my own attitudes, both formed and inherited, created barriers to access and, as a result, denied others agency?

    I know that my experience of single sex education at mostly white middle class boarding schools could easily have impacted on how I engaged with race, gender and human sexuality, to name but three groups which the church has marginalised and oppressed over many centuries.

    But I am also very aware that I, and countless other disabled people, have had to confront and overcome disabling attitudes that have created barriers to access, in order to recover and restore the agency that such attitudes have denied.

    As I have sort to embrace and champion inclusion across the Church of England, I have become more and more aware of the power and potency of a cyclical motion encompassing ‘Attitude, Access and Agency’. This cyclical continuous motion all too easily perpetuates belittlement, exclusion and powerlessness.

    Disabling attitudes form barriers to access which in turn deny or remove people’s agency. This denying of agency reinforces additional disabling attitudes which form even greater barriers to access, which further close off agency and so this vicious cycle continues to revolve and evolve, marginalising and diminishing as it does so.

    On the one hand the Church of England, through the Common Worship introduction to Baptism, states that ‘in God we have a new dignity and God calls us to fullness of life.’ Yet with the other hand the Church of England withdraws that very dignity and denies the very agency required for fullness of life on those who continue to be marginalised because of economics, age, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, learning and physical disability, neurodiversity and human sexuality, to name but a few.

    These disabling attitudes have deprived the Church access to the gifts, talents and insights of countless people, people whose very agency has been denied.

    So how do we overcome this vicious cycle?

    The Christian faith shows us how the subversive and liberating actions of the incarnation not only stops the vicious cycle in its tracks, it actually reverses it, transforming the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle, where the challenging of prevailing disabling attitudes breaks down the barriers to access, restoring and enabling agency.  In turn, this restored agency challenges additional disabling attitudes, breaking down further barriers to access, further restoring and enabling agency. Thus, the virtuous cycle continues to revolve and evolve, transforming and liberating as it does so.

    We first hear the subversive and liberating actions of the incarnation in the call of Jesus’ birth, challenging the rulers of the day.

    We see it as Jesus challenges the prevailing disabling attitudes, when he eats with “sinners” and the socially marginalised as well as the ritually unclean and those considered economic traitors.

    We see it when Jesus upturns the Old Testament code by teaching a new way of understanding God in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you…” (Mt 5:38).

    We see it when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a war horse, thus demonstrating a dramatically different way of addressing injustice, without resorting to violence.

    We see it when Jesus overturns the moneylender’s table, challenging the very practices the Temple used to rip people off and exclude various marginalised groups from worship.

    Ultimately, we see it when Jesus is executed as a rebel by the establishment. The God of the entire universe chooses to be killed as a criminal on a cross. The ultimate act of subversive love and vulnerability.

    To embrace the virtuous cycle is to embrace the way of the cross. More importantly, it is to embrace the way to the resurrection, the definitive destination of the virtuous cycle. It is the Risen Body where we all are invited to find our fullest identity and image, the ultimate place of inclusion and where our vulnerabilities and abilities find their fullest expression.

    At the end of February ‘Mosaic’ – Movement of Supporting Anglicans for an Inclusive Church – went public. Mosaic’s mission is to call out and reverse the vicious cycles that blight our church, seeking to transform them all into virtuous cycles of liberation and grace.  It is through challenging the disabling attitudes, both within ourselves and within the church – those which create barriers to access and in turn deny agency – that will open streams of mission and ministry that have, for far too long, been denied access and agency within the church.

     

  • We May be Winning the Fight Against the Virus, but We Risk Losing Something Else…

    by the Right Revd Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London

    It has been a long year. So many of us have suffered, whether through loss of those we love, loss of financial stability, loss of the freedom to see our family and friends, loss of freedom of movement or loss of our mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. One way or another, we are all reeling from the sense that much has been removed from us. And this cannot help but raise questions of meaning, identity and belonging.

    In the midst of all this loss, it has been my observation that we are in danger of losing something else: the way that we relate to one another seems to be deteriorating.

    In particular, we have seen a rise in binary narratives.  One of the implications of this is that by definition you are either on the “right side” of the argument or the “wrong side.” The belief that I am right, and you are wrong, can so easily slide into being “I am good and you are bad.” From here, it is a short step to hate speech and violent isolation of those who hold different views.

    Perhaps it’s no surprise that, in this kind of climate, we hunker down with our own and, in consolidating our sense of belonging within our own communities – of whatever kind – we differentiate ourselves from others, setting ourselves apart. The Church is not exempt. We can use language which not everyone may understand. We have sometimes been quick to form different Christian tribes.  We have too often shut our doors to those we should have flung them open to. And as we do, we draw explicit and implicit categories which indicate who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’.

    Our challenge in this time is not to pretend that we are all alike. We clearly are not. But to recognise, and hopefully learn in some small way to overcome, our intrinsic nature which pushes away others and tries to carve out territory only for ourselves and to see our circumstances in the wider context of God.

    Digging Deeper

    Maybe the biggest reason for wanting to hunker down with our own is fear.

    I have reflected over the last few months since the publication of Living in Love and Faith that fear is the emotion that can hold the biggest risk in preventing us from listening to each other.

    I wonder what it is that we fear because of the process?  We may fear not being listened to, we may fear being marginalised, we may fear being misunderstood, we may fear for the future of the Church of England; we may fear abuse or bullying. And our flight or fight response can so easily turn to getting in our pre-emptive attack, as a form of defence, before we are attacked.

    Defence can look like denial – as Eli did with his wicked sons (1 Sam 2:22-25). In the end though it proves temporary and only makes matters worse.  It can also look like flight – as Hagar was forced to do from Sarai (Gen 16:6-8), but again fails to resolve the real issues.

    On the other hand, attack can look like assault – gossip, slander and efforts to damage people’s reputation as some did towards Stephen in the early church (Acts 6:8-15). Too often, this is precisely what we see on Twitter. It seems to increasingly be the default option and has led to a culture where it is deemed acceptable to publicly shame people, irrespective of the facts.

    Neither defence or attack leads to reconciliation or peace.  Defence pretends that there is peace when there isn’t, attack gives up on peace for the sake of getting what they want.

    The Bible pushes us in a different direction. Before running away in defence or lashing out in attack, it urges us to look within. It warns us that often conflict grows out of our sinful desires to have things our own way (James 4:1-2). Many conflicts would be far more quickly resolved if we were prepared to take the log out of our own eye before trying to take the speck out of somebody else’s (Luke 6:42).

    Pursuing Peace

    Despite the gravity of these words, they also mean that conflict is an opportunity – an opportunity to act in a counter-cultural way which reflects the love of God and brings God glory. A way that leads to peace. Paul writes to the church in Corinth, mired in religious, legal and dietary disputes and says:

    “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. 1 Cor 10:31-11:1”

    In other words, see conflict as an opportunity to glorify God by pursuing peace. This is a God who calls us to trust that His ways really are best (Prov 3:5-7), to serve others by putting their interests ahead of your own in love and mercy (Luke 6:27-28, 36) and to grow like Christ who not only said “love your enemies” (Luke 6:27-36) but loved us to the point of death (Luke 22:41-44).

    This does not come naturally. It requires brave people to step outside of the cultural norm and behave differently. People who are prepared to do the slow hard work of reconciliation where it is necessary. To head into difficult conversations with a humble, loving and hopeful heart. To walk the careful, slow, and sometimes painful path towards peace.

    Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air – if the tone of our debates focussed less on showing people how right we are but on how to care for those most vulnerable, those most likely to be hurt?

    Wouldn’t it be great if we could hold what is considered a minority opinion without being ridiculed or vilified as a traitor or troublemaker?

    Wouldn’t it bring great glory to God if we could avoid a culture in which we demonise each other for dissent?

    Wouldn’t it be a powerful witness to a watching world if we allowed each other the safe space we need for all views to be expressed and discussed in an atmosphere of compassion and respect?

    But as we gulp at the challenge, remember that we have a great ambassador who went before us. Jesus was stripped naked, mocked and shamed in a way so brutally humiliating, that Western art has shied away from depicting it. He endured more public shame than any of us ever will. He did it to welcome us into a community where boasting was ruled out, servants were now served and outcasts became children, where the status that he gave us mattered far more than the status we had on social media. He did it to transform us into people who count outward fame as rubbish, compared with gaining Him (Phil 3:4-9).

    For it is within Him that we find the answers to the questions of meaning, identity and belonging.