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Author: Jayne Ozanne

  • Pandemics, Parishes & the ‘National Church’

    by Revd Professor Robert Gilbert, Biochemistry Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford and Anglican parish priest 

    It’s a whole Church year since congregations first stopped worshipping together in person. A whole Church year since those who could, moved online. And although in the Summer months in person worship was able to resume, it obviously wasn’t the same as it had been before. Congregations remained distanced and could not sing, and were small in number because that is what safety required.

    Since last March the widespread delivery of services over the internet has enabled those able to get online to join in worship provided within their parishes, and also to sample ministry on offer from elsewhere. Diocesan and national provision of online worship has played a significant role too, especially where parishes lack the resources or opportunity themselves; along with continuing radio and TV broadcasts like the BBC’s Sunday Worship and Songs of Praise.

    In the parish where I serve, our recorded online audio services have gone out via our website but also on the local Hospital Radio. This has been a brilliant collaboration and one which has enhanced for us the sense that an online presence is a real presence, and that people kept apart from loved ones, by sickness and by the requirements of social distancing, can and are being reached with words of encouragement and comfort and a reminder that there is a Body of Christ to which they belong.

    The experience of the past year has, for me, underscored the prime importance of the delivery of ministry through parishes and chaplaincies. Parishes and chaplaincies provide context and relatability, and not only when worship in a church building or together within a community is possible. Online or broadcast worship is always from somewhere in particular, and it matters to those who tune in where it is coming from. Parishes also provide a locus for social action, and for engagement with and strengthening of the general community, believing and not.

    The signs are that this is understood by church leaders. In a recent Spectator article, the archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote how “[t]he aim is to make each parish and each Christian community sustainable”. “If that doesn’t happen,” they said, “there really will be no Church of England.” At the recent General Synod the Archbishop of York spoke of a vision for “a simpler, humbler, bolder Church”.

    During the first national lockdown in particular I had a sense of the priesthood of all believers being realised in a new kind of way. The need for every person to worship from where they were didn’t seem to weaken, I thought, belief in a Body to which we all belong, but strengthened it. It was, in practical terms, an experience of a simpler, humbler, bolder church. As the Church plans for the future the focus should be on empowering, resourcing and enabling parishes and members of congregations. The routes for achieving this will include diverse forms of ministry, ordained and not, that provide real presence for local communities. In their Spectator article the archbishops spoke of the biggest rise in lay and ordained vocations for 25 years – and this should be combined with a much enhanced sense of the equality of all believers and those who minister to them.

    Speaking of equality, it will be healthy for a simpler, humbler, bolder Church to move towards a situation in which the holders of diocesan posts also hold parish appointments. It is not unknown for archdeacons to be incumbents too; there is no reason why we can’t reimagine such roles as always involving parochial ministry, or why we can’t move towards a situation in which if a diocese is in need of a suffragan bishop then they are an incumbent or hold another kind of parish role as well. This could be complemented by a redistribution of responsibilities among those who are ordained and those who aren’t, thus freeing up time for localised as well as oversight ministry. Increases in centralised posts and diocesan provision can give a helpful sense of things being done, and suggest a reassuring management structure. But, as the archbishops have indicated, the Church of England delivers primarily at parish and chaplaincy level. Resources need to be concentrated in parishes and chaplaincies, so their differing needs can be understood, and because those are the places from which growth will come and where vocations are nurtured.

    A national Church is needed to enable a continuous network of parishes, but it can do so lightly. The Church of England’s standing in this country has been profoundly damaged, over several centuries, by ways in which it has taken on the role of one powerful organisation among others. Hence the need now for renewed simplicity, humility and courage. Our existence as a relevant national organisation, as an organisation with a prophetic and pastoral role, is dependent on the continuing vitality and resourcing of a system of parishes and chaplaincies as the main activity in which the Church of England is engaged.

     

  • Families – Love ‘Em, Hate ‘Em

    by the Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, Member of General Synod and Trustee of the Ozanne Foundation

    I’m experiencing an interesting collision of three family stories as I sit down to write this piece. The gospel reading for Sunday morning sees a dying man hand his mother into the care of his close friend. Meanwhile the daffodils are out and we celebrate Mother’s Day  -or, for those of you who enjoy being counter-cultural, Mothering Sunday. This is dwarfed by the drama of the world’s most famous dysfunctional family having their melt-down on the international stage.

    When all goes smoothly being part of a loving family is wonderful. We can feel assured of love even when we mess up. We know where we belong and we can trust that our family has our best interests at heart. This may be a genetic family, or a constructed family. It may be a social and faith-based family, such as a church. If your family is a really safe place it is also where you can have a good row. You can be free to say what is on your heart without the fear that you will be expelled.

    Within a healthy family system being loved and belonging are not up for negotiation. There is, or should be, no ‘deal’ – in other words, nothing transactional about your place within your family.

    Sadly, we know that it doesn’t always work out that way.

    For many people it is a defining aspect of their emotional life that they are always striving to please their judgemental parents. Long into adulthood they crave parental approval more than anything else. It’s fairly common for successful people on Desert Island Disks to say something along the lines of ‘I really wish my Dad had lived long enough to see me win an Oscar, he never thought I’d amount to much.’

    It is very hard to have a settled and confident sense of belonging if you are constantly feeling judged. Whatever you may think about ‘Megxit’ it does look as if she never developed a confident sense of belonging to her new family and always felt judged – maybe by them, maybe by the British press. Whatever the real story it has caused sadness and distress all round.

    When my mother moved to the UK following her marriage one of the first things that struck her was how people controlled their children though their inheritance. In Switzerland you simply cannot cut off a child you’ve fallen out with. The inheritance laws give an equal share to every child.

    So if ordinary human families so often mess this up maybe there is a second chance within God’s family?

    Justin Welby expressed this very clearly when the news broke that the man he had always supposed to be his father was not. In 2016 he said: “My own experience is typical of many people. To find that one’s father is other than imagined is not unusual. To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal.”  And he said that he found who he was in his religious faith, “not in genetics”.

    This is a very big deal. A whole new chance to find who you are in the context of the love of God and to become part of a healthy Christian family. I would even go so far as to suggest that this makes the church specially attractive to those who have challenging parental experiences. The offer is that you are adopted into the family of Christ and receive God’s unconditional love. It’s full of potential for healing and growth, stability and maturity.

    The incident where Jesus, in extremis, thinks more of his mother’s pain than his own and entrusts her in the care of John, is a highly charged example of the quality of love we all long for. In the gospels we hear of Jesus’ acts and his teachings but there are very few moments of personal intimacy. This is one of them.

    As Christians we invest very deeply in the ‘belonging’ part of faith. What could be better than becoming a child of God? How sad, how bitter then is the fact that huge energy goes into defining who ‘belongs’ and who doesn’t? This surely is an evil thing which betrays the love we proclaim.

    This week, Jayne Ozanne quit the government’s LGBT+ Advisory Panel. She was holding them to account for their commitment to ban “conversion therapy” – which they were failing to implement. Thankfully this bold action has drawn a fresh promise that a ban will happen.

    This is a way of putting action into the General Synod motion which also called for a ban.

    It matters so very much because so-called “conversion therapy” is the most cruel expression of the many ways in which LGBT+ people have been treated by their Christian family. Sadly church has never been a place where any minority has felt safe. We unknowingly transfer our dysfunctional family systems into the church. We pre-load God with a love which demands total conformity – a love which will cut you off if you are different or rebellious or challenging.

    We will never get this right until we repent of our idolatrous image of God and rediscover the God who is the very essence of love. Yes, as human beings, even within the church, we will probably go on being cruel and judgemental and capricious, but let’s stop calling that ‘God’ and own it and take responsibility. Goodness – just imagine if people were able to say ‘I don’t want you in my church’ instead of ‘God doesn’t want you in his church’!

    It is a massive challenge. Taking responsibility for our own prejudices and working to understand what’s going on and bring about change. The Christian family could be pretty wonderful if we could just grow up enough to treat one another as equal siblings.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Are ‘Leaders’ Biblical?

    by the Very Revd Nicholas Henshall, Dean of Chelmsford

    Subverting the language of Leadership before it subverts the Church

    A colleague who serves as a priest in the Church of Sweden recounts the deeply moving experience of attending an ordination at which the candidate being ordained deacon was a person with Downs Syndrome. It was clearly a powerful moment. In all the contemporary rhetoric about leadership, this ordination said something important and surprising about the kingdom of God.

    Tolstoy tells a parallel story about three monks who were so forgetful that they couldn’t even remember the Lord’s Prayer, but so holy that they could walk on water. Tolstoy was no friend of organised (and organising) religion, and his story was partly another pot shot at the Russian Church. But the story but it raises the question in a pointed way of what qualities we might really need in our spiritual guides: holiness, or a good memory?

    Whatever else, we clearly have a problem with language. It is very striking that the word “leader” is never used of a Christian minister in the New Testament or in Christian tradition until the latter part of the 20th century. From then on it becomes ubiquitous. This is an extraordinary phenomenon, and one that demands our critical engagement.

    Don’t misunderstand me. There are clearly aspects of Christian ministry where we can learn from the language and study of leadership. Indeed, why wouldn’t we want to up our game, especially in the areas of good governance and proper accountability where churches have often come unstuck. I certainly need to learn from some of that wisdom to fulfil my role. But the absence of leadership language in the New Testament and Christian tradition – and Jesus’ own wholesale rejection of the language of power (Mark 10.43 and parallels) suggest that “leader” is at best a wholly inadequate word and at worst deeply misleading.

    By contrast, when the early Christian community came to choose names for their “ordained elders” (the best phrase I have been able to come up with so far) they rejected the welter of Old Testament possibilities and the range of alternatives offered by Hellenistic culture. Instead they settled for three normal, secular, colourless words: supervisor, elder, and servant. Just a couple of generations after the death and resurrection of Jesus,  Ignatius of Antioch points out it is the deacon who represents Christ, because it is all about service.

    When the church became a respectable institution, the supervisor, elder, and servant found themselves transformed into clerical officials, acquiring the appropriate finery and exotic headgear, and rather forgetting Jesus words to his disciples when they started arguing about who was the greatest: “it is not so among you” (Mark 10.43). And as Christians in the west gradually stopped speaking Greek in church and started speaking Latin, the simple name for authorising ordained elders – “laying on of hands” – became the grand word “ordination” – a word used for the installation of Roman officials. Every time I put on the traditional vestments to celebrate the Eucharist I remind myself that these are not the distinctive robes of a Christian priest, but the uniform of a fourth century pagan magistrate. It is important to feel the irony.

    Beyond the sheer negative impact of managerialism, the language of leadership has taken such a hold in the churches because it dislocates us from the problematic language of priesthood. Priest in English (arriving by way of medieval French) is simply a contraction of the word “presbyter” i.e. “elder”). The title of the Common Worship ordination service is bizarrely tautological: “priests, also known as presbyters”. Well, no. They are simply different translations of exactly the same word. In the Latin rite, it has always just been “presbyters”.

    Our problem is that we use typically use the word “priest” to translate to translate two completely different biblical concepts. The “presbyter” word for an ordained minister, certainly. But we also use “priest” to translate a completely unrelated word meaning “the person who sacrifices.” Certainly this word is core to the Old Testament understanding of priesthood. But this word is never used of a Christian minster; only of Christ and of the corporate body of the church. It is for instance the word used in the phrase “royal priesthood” at 1 Peter 2.9. It has nothing to do with ministry and  everything to do with all of us having equal access to God because of what Christ has done for us. We no longer need a sacrifice. That’s why Calvin said so emphatically “the priesthood is common to all. Not so the ministry”.

    This ministry is never about power. Always about service. That has got lost somewhere in the language of leadership. When we have to qualify the word “leader” with the word “servant”, something has gone quite seriously astray. Servant leadership courses can easily become a way of double bluffing ourselves. As I’ve said in an earlier post on this site, whenever Christians start talking about service and vulnerability, there’s a good chance that they are really talking about power.

    In Matthew 8, when Jesus says he will come and heal the pagan centurion’s servant, the centurion replies “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof”. The word translated “worthy” at 8.8 is the simple Greek word for “enough”, “sufficient”, “adequate”, “competent”.

    That is my daily prayer, for myself and for the whole people of God: “Lord, I am not enough, sufficient, adequate, competent.” Subverting the language of leadership, and learning to speak the upside down language of the kingdom of God.

     

  • International Women’s Day – Choose to Challenge

    by the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester

    In 2019, on a visit to the Holy Land I visited the church in Magdala and found myself faced with an enormous and extraordinary modern painting by Daniel Cariola depicting larger-than-life sandaled feet which are those of Jesus Christ and those around him. There is also the hand of a woman stretched out so that it is just touching the hem of Jesus’ robes, and at the point of connection there is a vibrant, almost electric, circle of light. As I recall that picture now, it is not only deeply poignant as we live a time when close proximity and touch are things many people long for, but it also seems pertinent this week as we mark International Women’s Day (IWD) with the theme ‘Choose to Challenge’.

    We have had a bucketful of challenges over this past year and little of it has been of our choosing. Yet I am also aware that even when there is not a viral pandemic, for many people across our world there is continual and overwhelming challenge, not least for many girls and women. Not much of their challenge is chosen, good or life-giving – unlike the sort of challenge which is the focus of IWD.

    The hand in the Cariola painting is that of the woman who had been suffering for 12 years from a continuous flow of blood.  She knew much about isolation, trauma, and loss, not due to a viral pandemic but due to her gynaecological condition. I suspect her mental health was affected as well as her physical health.

    As the woman touches Jesus, he feels power go out of him and he voices a challenge, ‘who touched me?’. The question would have sounded absurd to Christ’s disciples given they were being jostled by a crowd, but it could also be heard as critical and disapproving. Yet I wonder if it was more about ‘choosing to challenge’ in order to make this woman visible, such that the ‘who’ in his question was inviting the woman to be revealed as someone with a unique identity and story. Here is a woman who has been hidden, rendered irrelevant and even stigmatised, and now she is about to be deeply noticed as a significant and loved individual.

    The gospel writers, as is so often the case where women are concerned, refer to her simply as a woman (unlike the men named by Mark and Luke in their chapters recounting this incident). We will never know if Jesus actually used her name in the moments of their encounter, but he does call her ‘daughter’, reflecting value and intimacy in relationship.

    It is this challenge to notice and recognise that the Church is called to join in with wherever people are hidden, stigmatised, labelled, or condemned as ‘other’, not only as we live a viral pandemic but as we emerge from it and shape the future we want to see.

    Yet there is another challenge in that circle of light, and it is that of the woman herself. Amid her desperation, isolation, and pain, she shows great courage in acknowledging her need and taking a decision to reach out.

    In my recent book ‘Encounters’ (which has Cariola’s painting on the cover), I reflect on this gospel story in the context of women in prison. It is not easy for those women to reach out for help, yet rehabilitation and restoration are not possible until that moment comes.  Indeed, it requires a woman’s story to be heard and her trauma to be recognised.

    This week as the Domestic Abuse Bill reaches Report Stage in the House of Lords many of our proposed amendments and challenges to the government are endeavouring to recognise the people who are powerless to challenge and remain hidden, most of whom are women, but not exclusively so.

    I am acutely aware that whenever one speaks out specifically for women and girls there is nearly always a backlash from people who want to critically point out that boys and men should not be left out. I agree. Yet, I also want to say that sometimes we need to shine a light more strongly in particular areas to change a pervasive culture which has been perpetuated down the centuries. And working for that kingdom-of-God-shaped shalom means sometimes unashamedly choosing to shine the spotlight on women in order to bring challenge so that their potential and equality can be recognised and fanned into flame.

    It is all part of the bigger picture in which we need to choose to challenge injustice, inequality, and discrimination, not least when it comes to disability, sexuality, background and colour.  At the same time,  we must never forget of course that the category ‘women and girls’ is of a different shape –  as all of those other listed categories of ‘difference’ include women, girls, men, and boys.

    As we mark IWD this year I hope that we might all be challenged about how we challenge to make visible those who are hidden in the crowd of our communities and further afield, and how we do so in a way which enables those unique individuals to recognise their own worth and needs such that they can dare to challenge the narrative they have of themselves.

    And today it is about women.

     

  • The Idolatry of Being “Sound”

    by the Revd Canon Simon Butler, Prolocutor of the Province of Canterbury and Vicar of St Mary’s, Battersea

    A friend of mine who is now a bishop once said to me that being a parish priest is, in part, all about managing other people’s idolatries. It was a provocative comment which has buried in it a deep truth. Most of us know that an idol can be more than a physical object worshipped by people. It can be a career, a sense of status, or an adherence to a certain way of doing things. When the ‘thing’ becomes the end in itself, the journey towards idolatry is very much underway. Identifying the idolatry is one thing, however; setting aside the idol in favour of true worship is always the challenge.

    I am regularly reminded of this comment in my ministry because it helps me to bear with others and to recognise the danger in myself. We might even ponder whether the most worrying division in the Church of England is between those who know themselves and those who don’t!

    It came to mind this week when I read of an entirely unedifying episode of competitive homophobia between factions of the separatist Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) and the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Put very simply, the bishops of ACNA issued a statement on same-sex relationships which denied the possibility of someone among their members calling themselves a ‘gay Christian’ (please don’t laugh, they are deadly serious); this was followed by a group of ACNA lay and clergy people issuing a letter implicitly criticising the ACNA bishops’ statement (from a ‘gay Christian’ perspective), defending their right to use the language which the ACNA bishops wanted to outlaw; finally, appalled by the first statement and even more so by the second, the Church of Nigeria then issued an outraged letter signed by its Primate, virulently homophobic in tone, condemning everyone else in this echo chamber, taking ANCA to task for even raising the matter.

    I hope readers might forgive me a passing moment of schadenfreude[1] in all of this. Self-righteousness does need to be mocked. Even Jesus had these moments. But once that feeling had passed, I was reminded of the vulnerability of LGBTI+ Anglicans in Nigeria and ACNA who have to live in such a poisonous and unhealthy environment. For all its faults and mis-steps along the way, at least the Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith project begins with an honest acknowledgment of all the voices at the table. There are clearly those in and ACNA and the Church of Nigeria who identify as gay or, along with a modest number of conservative Anglicans in England “same sex attracted”. Among them there is an honesty that sexual temptation and lapses from the celibate lifestyle are a reality of living in fallen world. One hates to imagine the consequent pastoral burden that LGBTI+ people have to bear with only denial and condemnation in the air.

    But the wider question of idolatry is the one that bugs me. If you define the membership of a sect such as ACNA, or even as a Church like Nigeria, in clear opposition to a particular ethical action by drawing a line in the sand (as they have done on homosexuality), then the risk is always that you focus on the definition as the mark of membership. The line becomes the measure of your welcome, the article of faith which sets you apart from ‘the rest’. You then have to define ‘the rest’ in some way as ‘other’. So we end up with the ACNA/Nigeria language of heresy and false teaching, the persistent claims that to hold a view such as mine (i.e. on the wrong side of their line) is to be outside of grace, and thus you redefine the gospel in much narrower terms. This is a subtle form of idolatry, however much you dress it up in the language of conscience (a word that has been the cause of much Protestant sin). It is, dare I say it and to borrow a phrase beloved of some conservatives, a form of false gospel, a limitation, even denial of the scope of the grace and love of God.

    I’m pondering this question in Lent, with the words of Jesus about “dying to self” in my ears. Do I, do we risk, in our focus on doctrinal soundness and personal conscience, putting ourselves and our views in the place where Christ’s superabundant love should only have pride of place? Might we need to die to the idolatries that we love to create in the Church, which make us feel better about who we are and that for which we stand, always at the expense of ‘the rest’?

    Is this how we end up excluding others from that which God only includes us in?

     

    [1] Translated: the pleasure you take in the misfortune of another.

  • Independence & Safeguarding: Marking Our Own Homework?

    by Prof Helen King, Professor Emerita in Classical Studies at The Open University and member of Living in Love and Faith project

    The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) issued its final report on the Church of England last autumn. Now, the heat is on, because the deadline for the church’s response to the various recommendations is 22 March.

    That explains a lot. It explains why the document on Independent Safeguarding Structures for the Church of England presented to General Synod last Saturday was only sent out two days before the meeting. It also explains why it has so many typos: I’m all in favour of getting on with sorting out the safeguarding mess, but typos don’t give me much confidence. This document was clearly completed in a rush. The House of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council each had just one week in which to suggest changes. One revealing typo features in a section about how ‘club mentality’ is “exacerbated in an institution where ordination conveys authority which can leads to a culture of clericalism in which challenging the authority of the ordained becomes a kind of spiritual offence”. “Can leads to”? I’m guessing that this started out as “leads to” but someone didn’t like the suggestion that clericalism is an inevitable part of ordination and wanted to add that “can”.

    It’s a good point about how we weaponize the spiritual, but was it right to make that change? Fiona Gardner’s Sex, Power, Control: Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church (2021) notes how difficult it is to challenge the authority of the ordained. In 2005, while Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser for Bath and Wells, she was shut out by the diocesan hierarchy as it closed ranks to protect itself when the abuse carried out by Rev. David Smith became known. In her words, she was “seen as peripheral (not ordained and female and not, as it turned out, ‘in the know’ about what had been going on)”. Smith’s crimes finally came to public attention in 2007.

    That point about how the hierarchy failed to see someone who was “not ordained” as a peer and a professional is revealing; even more, the combination of being “not ordained” and female. Independent Safeguarding Structures includes a point made by the survivors who worked on the current proposals; namely, that clergy training needs more on “the causes and nature of abuse”. For more on that, again, see Gardner, who uses her psychoanalytical experience to think about how the culture of deference – clericalism – protects abusers. She quotes David Runcorn on the role of boarding school values in shaping abusers: “devotion to the team” but also “distrust of women, suppression of emotion, assumptions of patriarchal and hierarchical social ordering, mocking of any feminine trait in men and minimal empathy for the weak and ordinary”. Can the Church of England name and reject these values?

    I was reminded of boarding school culture again when listening to the presentation on Independent Safeguarding Structures made to General Synod. We were told several times that the aim of a new Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) is to avoid the church “marking its own homework”. The phrase was used by Richard Scorer, representing 21 people abused within the Anglican Church, at the end of his submission on the first day of the public hearings at IICSA, 5 March 2018. It has since featured in media headlines about the Peter Ball abuse case, and after the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral had failed to report a disclosure made to her. It has also appeared in headlines around the inquiry into historic child sex abuse in Scottish football.

    But marking your own homework – self-assessment – is a recognised part of teaching at all levels: here is a 2017 document from Trinity College Dublin. And it can be a very good idea. Assessment has traditionally been something from which students are excluded, so that self-assessment changes the dynamics of power as the teacher becomes a facilitator rather than the mysterious source of grades which determine your future. When I’ve used self-assessment as an educator, I’ve found that students are often harsher when marking themselves; they are more aware of the shortcomings of their own work. Self-assessment helps students to understand how they learn. But – and it’s an important ‘but’ – it requires humility and honesty, and those have been qualities in short supply as the Church of England has covered up abuse.

    Independent Safeguarding Structures is certainly an improvement on the usual unconvincing claims that ‘The church has come a long way…’ or ‘That was the past and it’s all fine now’. In Bishop Jonathan Gibbs’ presentation to Saturday’s Synod, he talked about “things we are not doing well now”. Wording like “Given the church’s past failings and present weaknesses in safeguarding…” is far more realistic. Other good things include the acknowledgement of inconsistency between dioceses on safeguarding arrangements; that it is the “internal cultures of the Church of England which too often have resulted in preventing best practice”; the involvement of survivors and the intention to involve them even more as Phase 2 develops; the realisation that it is at the very least problematic to expect someone to trust the institution through which their abuse took place to provide a fair investigation into what happened to them.

    Bishop Jonathan said that the aim of independent safeguarding is to rebuild trust. It’s clear from the document that they are expecting people to be suspicious; even needing to say how important it is to “demonstrate that the appointment process is not being manipulated in favour of ‘safe’ candidates” shows the basic lack of trust that has resulted from this long and sorry history of failing to deal with abuse, as does the wording that this is a search for “a structure which the church may put in place, but which it cannot frustrate”.

    Will this document be enough to satisfy IICSA? It isn’t clear to me whether the aim of Phase 1 of Independent Safeguarding Structures – an Independent Safeguarding Board – is quite what IICSA had in mind. IICSA specifically asked for Diocesan Safeguarding Officers to be able to make decisions independently of the bishop; the present document envisages them instead appealing to the ISB if “difficulties arise within the diocese which compromise their effectiveness”.

    Even if it is enough, we can’t abdicate all responsibility to an independent body. In some ways, we are still going to need to mark our own homework. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it requires not just honesty, but self-knowledge. Marking our own homework can be part of our reflection on how we are doing. Every one of us needs to be aware of our role in preventing abuse. Renaming safeguarding ‘training’ as safeguarding ‘learning’ – something else mentioned on Saturday – isn’t enough.

    As for those who have already suffered at the hands of church abusers, listening, repentance and redress must be prioritized.

  • Change is Coming…Even if We Feel the Record is Stuck

    by the Ven Nikki Groarke, Archdeacon of Dudley and Member of General Synod

    “I can hear change humming
    In its loudest, proudest song.
    I don’t fear change coming,
    And so I sing along.”

    Words from US Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s forthcoming book, ‘Change Sings’

    Change is humming. Can you hear it?

    The Archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote in a recent article “the Church in changing times”:

    “The Anglican stability that people rightly cherish — as do we — is the result of our willingness to change. As the theologian Hans Kung once observed: ‘To stay the same when everything else around you changes is not to stay the same.’”

    Are we willing to change, to sing along?

    Some of us thrive in changing times. I admit to relishing the challenge of leading change. It energises me, yet I understand that others find it threatening.  What I am struggling with right now however, is not being able to sing along with change, as everything feels stuck, and June freedom still feels a very long way away.

    Change is humming, but it’s so quiet now it’s almost imperceptible.

    We know that the world has changed. We know (whether we like it or not) that some aspects of church life will need to change. We can work towards that change to a degree, but this has all gone on so long, that many of us can’t really remember what ‘normal church’ felt like, so planning for change feels very abstract.

    In a reflection entitled, “A change has begun” delivered in March last year, Rowan Williams said:

    “And as we contemplate the coming months, not knowing when we can breathe again, it’s worth thinking about how already the foundations have been laid for whatever new opportunities God has for us on the far side of this crisis.”

    The change that began humming last March will provide new opportunities, but the far side is still yet to come.

    Change is humming, but the record has stuck.

    I was challenged last week by a wise woman, when I spoke of feeling that so much of the work I believe we need to do to change and strengthen our churches for the future is ‘on hold’.  She urged me not to press pause, but rather to respect the unique phase we are in and look for opportunities to do new and different things, to nourish, support and enable people in this season so that we come out of it flourishing rather than depleted and exhausted.

    She pointed me to William Bridges’ writing on transitions, where he argues that the process of change is different from the change itself. Change is situational, transition is more personal, the inner reorientation that enables the change to become real. It involves rites of passage, appropriate endings and beginnings, dying and rebirth.  He writes helpfully about the ‘neutral zone’ between the ending of one stage and the beginning of the next, being the key element of transitioning well.  In this neutral zone we can easily feel apathetic, we drift in an untethered way, disorientated and uncertain, disconnected and disengaged. It’s certainly how I have felt in this last lockdown especially.  But Bridges asserts that “the neutral zone provides access to an angle of vision on life that one can get nowhere else. And it is a succession of such views over a lifetime that produces wisdom.”

    Change is humming, but in the neutral zone it’s humming a different tune.

    We are going to be in some degree of neutral zone until at least late June.  How can we embrace this gap for something fruitful?  Rather than trying to go into reverse, back to the way things were, or into fast-forward, planning for the future without knowing the parameters, can we simply embrace the emptiness to prepare well for coming out of lockdown into a new beginning?

    Individually, the neutral zone can be used positively for retreat, time out for prayer and reflection. Although social distancing and staying at home have meant most of us have had enforced time away from others, there is a difference between isolation and retreat. Choosing to enter the wilderness as Jesus did in preparation for beginning his ministry might reframe the experience, enabling it to be a more spiritually regenerating period. Perhaps engaging with Brueggemann’s grouping of the Psalms into those of orientation, disorientation and new orientation will speak hope into our soul.

    Collectively, the neutral zone can provide space to invest in relationships.  How can I use this moment to deepen understanding with a colleague, to communicate well, to facilitate creative thinking?  How can we offer just enough structure to reassure people they are held and secure, without constraining new ideas which will, in due course, emerge? How best do we set short term goals that can be celebrated when met, without overwhelming people? How can we set an outline direction of travel, in the midst of uncertainty, such that the background hum of change is helpful mood music rather than dissonant clanging?

    Making peace with the present will enable a more healthy emergence into the future. In due course we may have to revisit endings. Some things didn’t end well, because we had no idea they were gone for good. This time last year much that was laid down was done so temporarily, but some of it has since died and inadvertently been let go of for ever, and must be appropriately grieved for before something new can begin and grow in its place.

    We will, as always, weave in and out of endings, beginnings, and the neutral zone, as transition is part of life, and navigating transitions well is what grows wisdom.

    This season of change has the potential in our churches to build to a crescendo at the right time.  The enthusiasm with which we add our unique voice to the song to make it loud and proud will depend to no large extent on how we engage with this neutral zone of our transition.  But we do so, in all our rich harmonies, knowing that our remodelled selves, and our remodelled churches, are safe in Christ.

    “‘Christ yesterday and today’, says the prayer over the Easter Candle, ‘all times belong to him and all the ages’. He is contemporary to me now; and when I remember with honesty and hope, I discover that he is contemporary with what I remember, faithfully at work in my past as in my present. And as I struggle and pray to bring together the fragments of an identity that is always being shaken around and remodelled, I get some glimpses of the promised end in which Christ simply embraces the whole of me, all I have been, and makes it one with itself and with him.”

    Rowan Williams, “Candles in the Dark – Faith, hope and love in a time of pandemic”

  • It’s Time to Talk About…Sex!

    by Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge and ordinand at St Augustine’s College of Theology

    One of the slightly tiresome things that British people seem to do is say one thing when they really mean another.  I find myself doing this all the time – it’s far easier to talk in riddles or to talk around the point rather than be direct and honest, even blunt. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of Living in Love and Faith. I’ve sat through a number of meetings, and read the book, and talked about it to a group of people from a variety of different viewpoints, and it’s all been described in rather beige terms. Words like ‘love’ and ‘relationship’ feature, as do discussions of ‘good disagreement’ or ‘bible based’ this or that (whatever that actually means?). Yet one word about which there has been far too little discussion has been the word sex.

    It’s all a bit icky, I suppose. Nobody really wants to talk about sex to a group of ‘church people’, and prejudices still remain when talking about gay sex between men. The old tropes are never far away from the surface – it’s disgusting, it involves body fluids, and it’s just not polite to talk about it. Sex might be all well and good and produce children, but please let’s not chat about it over coffee. However, the current position of the Church of England is all about sex – and ultimately boils down to who does what to whom, when and even,what goes where. Until we grasp that, we will get nowhere.

    The current position of the Church of England is clear – if you are not in an opposite sex marriage, then you  should not have sex, full stop. All such extramarital sex is sinful and must be repented of. And as the Church, in their wisdom, blocked gay people from getting married, then gay sex is entirely banned. That is really what the marriage debate is ultimately all about.

    Civil partnerships were originally vociferously opposed by bishops, seen as the root and source of all evil, but once it became clear the world was not ending, they warmed to them. Yet it is a lie that “the bishops support civil partnerships” – what most support is the legal protections that civil partnerships bring LGBTQ clergy, provided they promise they’re not having sex. That’s not support – that’s a redefinition of civil partnerships. It is ludicrous to suggest that most clergy in civil partnerships are refraining from sex (willing or otherwise), any more than those in opposite sex marriages are – yet this is the falsehood the Church of England holds onto. It is nonsense. Meanwhile, those that do remain celibate are doing so under duress from a church pursuing a policy that flies in the face of the vast swathes of psychological evidence on wellbeing. Talk about rock and a hard place. Anyone who defends the current position of the church shares culpability in this denigration of LGBTQ clergy.

    In my professional life, I have seen a number of different definitions of what sexual intercourse is. What has both bemused and appalled me in equal measure is that whenever this question is raised with those who so vociferously oppose same sex marriage, I am told that it’s a facetious question. It really isn’t – if you oppose something, you need to be able to define it. When does the sensual, for example, become the sexual? When does intimacy become ‘sexual’? Being blunt, does something need to penetrate something else for it to be classed as sex? One particularly useless definition I’ve heard is ‘something you wouldn’t do with a friend’ – is this really the best we can do (and is it even true)?

    And the interesting thing is that I, and many who support same sex marriage, have no truck with a ‘what goes where’ understanding of sex. For many of us, sex is fundamentally part of relationship forming – something that comes from within and builds up a relationship in love. Sex is not some strange “add-on” – it’s central to the development of relationship. By telling someone they can have a civil partnership but cannot have sex, you are fundamentally assigning their relationship as second best. In fact, you are actively doing violence to it. You are demanding that a key part of the human story is withheld – that something which dignifies the human person is forbidden. You are placing an erroneous separation around the sexual act. This is plain and simple for anyone with even an elementary grasp of human psychology.

    Yet that is what ordinands are asked to sign up  to when going forward for ordination – ‘do you agree to abide by Issues in Human Sexuality?’ means ‘will you promise to agree with this false divide, and make sure you don’t have sex and thus deepen your relationship with the person you love?’. The justification, of course, being that clergy are supposed to set an example to laity – so ultimately, the position of the Church of England is threefold: firstly there is a distinct dividing line between sex and relationship, secondly that all sex between people of the same sex is entirely unacceptable, and thirdly that their relationships are thus of a lower quality than opposite sex marriages. It’s ridiculous. And intolerable.

    The problem is that no-one in the hierarchy seems willing to admit this.

    Likewise, far too many clergy are forced to be complicit: ‘yes, we have a civil partnership, and strictly speaking that means we are celibate, but…’ Some bishops even seem to encourage their archdeacons to do the dirty work for them, going in after an interview to make sure the new vicar understands the ‘policy’. Civil partnerships only – no marriages. And “you need to sign up to Issues…if you know what I mean”.

    It’s time this nonsense was blown out of the water!

    Clergy in civil partnerships are having sex, and the church rules mean that they are forced to lie about it. This is not healthy sexual politics. Meanwhile, clergy still cannot enter a civil marriage with someone of the same sex, based on the House of Bishops’ ‘pastoral’ letter issued seven years ago on Valentine’s Day, ostensibly because of sex. Yet even the application of this rule is subject to a postcode lottery, with different bishops interpreting it differently.

    This damaging farce needs to end. Clergy need to be encouraged to be honest, not duplicitous. Bishops need to openly refuse to abide by the 2014 statement and turn the conversation out into the open.

    And we need to start talking about sex.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • What to ‘Give Up’ When Everything’s Been Taken Away?

    by Canon Robert Hammond, is Lay Chair of Chelmsford Diocesan Synod and a Member of General Synod

    It’s that time of year when I’m sure we’ve all been asked by work colleagues:  ‘What are you giving up for Lent then?’

    It’s a ‘good opportunity’ question, really. A chance to do a quick bit of round the water cooler theology. Explain why many Christians give something up for Lent, that it’s more than not eating chocolate, or giving up cake. I tend to explain that it’s also about focussing on prayer life, God and perhaps taking something else on, or at least replacing the meaningless with the meaningful. And then I’d usually answer the question. One year it was single use plastic; that was interesting as with my Pret lunch being on full view in the office, I couldn’t sneak the odd plastic pot of (imported) strawberries and blueberries past my colleagues. Usually of course it’s alcohol or more specifically in my case, wine. I should explain though that I have a sideline in wine education, judging and leading wine tours abroad and that unfortunately March and April  just happen to be when many of the international wine fairs are held: Düsseldorf, Verona, Vienna, Bordeaux…  So, when I say I’m giving up drinking alcohol I usually add ‘unless it’s professional drinking’. At least, I used to.

    Last year was different of course, The first Lockdown was introduced during Lent and we were all adapting to new ways of going about our daily lives: Zoom Church, online shopping, face masks, hand washing, the daily Prime Minister Briefing, the statistics and sadly probably also having some personal experience of the effects of Covid-19. Everything changed so quickly; plans were changed, flights cancelled, hotels re-booked, working from home was a novelty and frankly, I can’t remember whether I continued to give something up for Lent or not.

    So, what about this year?

    Like many of us my life has become far simpler, less complex, less frenetic but no less busy. I’ve become used to operating in one place – the canvas my life is played out on is smaller. As a Civil Servant I’m working from home full time and haven’t been to a work office for almost a year. I spend most of my time in my study, so separation between home and work life is blurred. I miss my daily commute by train; time to think, to pray, to read, to be quiet. I miss the walk to my office in Canary Wharf along the Thames. I thought I’d gain time but I seem to have lost it; the pandemic has been a time thief. I go from bed to office in 5 seconds now and that’s not long enough for me to contemplate the day ahead.

    Of course, it’s also taken many other things we valued, eating out, our favourite coffee shop, travel, holidays, visiting friends and family or having them to dinner…  the list goes on. It’s easy to feel the pandemic has robbed us of them as well.

    But, I then read the Gospels set out for Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday:

    “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?” (Mark 8:17),

    “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret ……  and whenever you fast, do not look dismal, …  put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your father who is in secret and your Father, who is in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6: 6 & 16).

    Have things really been stolen in the way I thought they had?  Yes, I’ve lost my favourite apricot tart from the bakers in Canary Wharf each morning and my coffee. I’ve lost the glamour of flying to wine fairs and tasting some excellent wines, and I’ve lost the kudos I got from posting that on Facebook. Hardly important things in the scheme of things!

    So, this Lent I’m not going to focus on what I’ve lost or what I feel has been taken from me; none of that really matters and pales into insignificance when I look at how some people’s lives have changed over this year. But I am going to put effort into ‘perceiving and understanding’ and not dwell on ‘talking about having no bread’. I’m going to get some of that lost time back, which hasn’t been stollen – I’ve just lost the ability to use it properly. And I’m going to focus on going into my room and praying, not just working.  It seems to me that this Lent especially is an even better time than usual to focus on what’s important and not to get too hung up on giving something up. If I were at the water cooler in the office I’d say that what we’ve given up already is more than enough and perhaps we should enjoy that coffee or apricot tart and not feel too guilty, but we should reflect on the whole last year and what we can learn from it.

    I got up earlier this morning, went for a walk and said Morning Prayer overlooking the sea; it felt good to have regained something I’d lost. And I will be giving up drinking alcohol this Lent, including professional drinking.

     

     

     

     

  • When You are Not Invited to the Table

    by Augustine Tanner-Ihm is an African-American activist, writer, speaker who recently trained for the Anglican ministry at Cranmer Hall, St. John’s College, Durham, and now a Doctoral Student in Leadership, Culture, and Practical Theology at Bakke Graduate University.  

    In many American Christian homes, families throughout the 50 states and territories traditionally leave an extra chair and plate at the dinner table. Strangely these extra knife, fork and spoon were rarely, if ever, used as this extra place at the table was designed for Jesus, himself. This is culturally designed to show honour while also being human-led by the privilege of having daily bread.

    This extra place at the table is to show welcome and hospitality to Jesus but also to whoever may show up. At the table, everyone is disarmed and equalized. This is probably why Jesus and the Christian biblical authors use this metaphor many times in the Greek Scriptures.

    What happens when you are invited to the table but there is no place for you there? You arrive with your best clothes and a bottle of wine and there is no one greeting you at the door. No one offering you a fresh cuppa. Or even saying your name. Many people would argue that you should be grateful that you even received an invitation at all. You feel rejected, despised, or worst forsaken.

    As A Black Queer Christian, this has been my experience at many tables. It is also the experience of many marginalised people who do not fit into the majority narrative. “Sorry, we are Closed” signs from the Church have been unintended and (at times intendedly) communicated to me and people like me. Therefore, I have tried to use the right knife and fork, so to speak. I have tried to rid myself of any hint of blackness. Change the way I think, speak, walk, and dress to be accepted. I tried to date women with utter failure. I went through reparative therapy in a charismatic Anglican church to be right with the church and respectfully, accepted fully by God. I prayed and prayed, and nothing happened. I wanted to be loved and accepted by God and the Church, I was willing to give up everything. After all, isn’t that what the gospel is calling us to do? To be accepted at the table I must rid myself of my blackness and my queerness, right? But to what? To Whiteness and straightness? Aren’t these just as broken as anything other human identities construct?

    This month we celebrate the lives of black folk that has made a significant influence in the US and around the world we celebrate LGBTQIA+ History Month. Two communities I am apart of and only recently I have been happy to be a part of. These two communities have historically been asked to eat the crumbs under the table in the cold winter’s night, while others eat at the banquet table. We celebrate communities that could not celebrate themselves. And even today many people find the idea of celebrating these communities divisive. When centuries of generational trauma continue it becomes difficult to align yourself with something or someone that is instilled that is immoral, disgusting and just wrong.

    This week I watched Russell T. Davies’ It is a Sin, which was a fictional drama about the Aids epidemic in the 1980s in London. This was eye-opening to many people especially younger queer people in the community. I watched as a character named Roscoe was rejected by the family he loved because of his sexuality and their faith tradition, who even wanted to send him away “back home” to Africa. I watched as Christians and the church used a virus that disproportionately affects gay men to preach hate and sometimes violence. It was difficult to watch how the church treated the same gender loving relationships, particularly as someone who desires to be ordained. I recently read an article from 1982 entitled: “I would shoot my mum if she had AIDS, says Vicar”. And another about “AIDS’s is the Wrath of God” from another Vicar. The last article I read was even worse: “GAS GAYS SAYS TORY: Answer to Aids”.

    I wasn’t born until 1990, therefore I have no lived experience from the 1980s of how the queer community was treated. However, I had two family members die of Aids and was scared to tell people because of the stigma of the virus. Therefore, I respect and honour so many older queer people who are still around and especially those who are still involved in the Church. This must have been extremely difficult to have as part of their lived experience, and indeed somewhat still part of their present, as it relates to their relationships and gender identity.

    Growing up in the American Midwest we played a game called, “Smear the Queer”.

    The game started when the object is thrown into the air. Players may either snatch the object out of the air or wait until it lands. If the object lands, the person closest to it MUST pick it up. Once a player is in possession of the object, they try not to get tackled. Once tackled, the object is thrown into the air (or at a particular person) and the game starts over again. Play usually ends when everyone is tired or when someone gets hurt. This game was played in my youth group and was a clear understanding that being queer was outside our welcome. The queer was a person that it was okay to hurt through voice or fist.

    While listening to stories of the Windrush people being rejected from church services and called savages by the very people that had the conviction of the imago dei . Many Black folks I know have nothing but disdain for the Church of England. Even some Black clergy believe it to be “Babylon” (the place where evil flourishes outside of God’s will) or worst believe its leadership are mere imperial masters dressed in cassocks with Union Flags underneath. This felt very true when my dear brother and partner in the Gospel of Jesus, Father Jarel Robinson -Brown was bullied by many people around the UK. There was a call for unity but as we know from the Hebrew scriptures there is not unity with injustice. The Anglican expression of Christianity, in which I love and devoted all of my 20’s to full-time unpaid work, let down many Black Anglicans that have entrusted them with their gifts, talents and lives. For, my White Anglicans and Episcopalians in our great Anglican Communion, you must remember Unity and reconciliation follow justice, not the other way around! And people of this Anglican Jesus movement, we must allow and accept the prophets of the church. Prophets are rarely ever loved and are often rejected. But we know through the Scriptures that prophets sent by God to speak to God’s people were there for righteousness not for their own glory. It is always a path of sacrifice over glory for any prophet: “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church”.

    The invitation to the table is a transformative one. Jesus invited you as you are but does not want you to stay that way. He desires you to become more holy through love and worship of him. That is what sanctification is all about. But that does not mean we ought to reject others. Rejection is receiving the crumbs under the table. Rejection is giving your son a rock instead of bread when he is hungry (Matt 7:9). Rejection is being invited to the table only to realise you are not invited but what the person wants you to be is invited. That is not what being a part of this Jesus Movement that Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church is speaking about. Being a part of the Jesus Movement is not staying silent because staying silence in oppression means you remain controlled, and not controlled by the spirit but the flesh. Dean Kelly Brown Douglas speaks of the church that is not yet there. This church that is aspirational.

    We are trying to be a church, but we are not there yet. This aspirational venture of trying to be church flows to its invitation of the other. The other is the one who is being crucified.  And we are a part of that daily crucifixion of the Queer and Black folk among us. Each day they come to serve but the church continues to crucify them asking “why you are not satisfied with the crumbs, you have been given?”

    The Church must be a people that walk with the crucified people of the earth- not act as the arbiters of injustices! The Church cannot be the one that crucifies the helpless but rather needs to be the one to wipe away the human tears of the world’s injustice, foreshadowing for humanity the eschaton. And as Christians, we should only be controlled by the Spirit of God, not man. This actively demonstrates that the invitation that God is asking for the Church to extend to all people is not based on their personhood but on them being sacred children of God.

    We must welcome people to the table and do as Jesus tells us in the gospel according to Luke – when welcoming people into the banquet, welcome everyone. Not just the people like you, but the marginalised people in society. Remember Jesus welcomed Judas to the table with open arms. He did not confront him with differences, but rather showed compassion and loved him. Just as we should.

    Welcome to the crucified amongst us!