Category: Politics

Are We to be Doomed by Intransigence?

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

Whether or not Albert Einstein actually said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” I think we can all agree that in the most part this sentiment holds true.

That said, perhaps a better, more accurate saying actually might be “if you want a different result then you have to try a different approach”.

Certainly President Trump and the Democrats could learn this, and arguably Theresa May and her Brexit deal too (we’ll find out soon enough!).

One thing is clear though, simply repeating the same rhetoric over and over again is not likely to unlock any deadlock or move people nearer to finding a solution that is acceptable to the majority.

While many would love for the content of what is being said in various key debates to change, the first thing that normally needs to be addressed is that of the debate’s tone. Hence the constant talk of “good disagreement” – not as an endpoint, but as a way of working together towards trying to find one.

Anyone who heard President Trump lambasting the Democrats for not agreeing on his demands for a border wall, and laying the blame for any deaths of children in custody firmly at their feet, will understand I am sure what I mean.

He has stormed out of meetings, he has shouted at reporters, he has made what many would see as outrageous claims – but the one thing he has not done is modelled any form of “good disagreement”. Or compromise. For to do so would be seen as weakness, or so it seems he believes.

This is “stubborn hard man” diplomacy – which most of us learnt earlier in our childhood rarely works.

Intransigence it seems can be rather infectious, affecting both sides of the pond. Indeed, our very own Prime Minister has been accused of the same tactic.

However, at least in her case she has brokered a deal with all 27 EU nations, and appears to be trying to address some of the concerns expressed over the backstop. Perhaps most importantly, her tone – whilst firm – has been far more respectful and as such a much better model of “good disagreement”. Who can forget her willingness to sit, listen and answer hours of questions in the chamber back in mid-December – a model that perhaps her counterpart in the US would do well to heed?

Intransigence, of course, is not the sole purview of politicians.

We see it constantly in various polarised debates across society – not least in matters concerning the sexuality debate within the Church.

I would suggest we had a perfect example of it last week.

A letter signed by some 100+ clergy within a large diocese of over 1500 clergy, which criticised their bishop for a letter he himself had sent a few months before. Their complaint? That he had failed to mention things that they felt he should have said, and that he had said things that they felt he should not have said (despite it being completely in line with the current House of Bishops guidelines). Their “overriding concern”, or so they said, was that it implied a certain “direction of travel” in the diocese – even though it was a direction that the Archbishops themselves had committed the whole Church to undertake.

Ironically it beautifully proved why the bishop’s letter was needed in the first place!

Of course the hard truth is that their letter said nothing new. It was the same intransigence that we have seen throughout this whole debate. Yet again they chose to ignore the fact that – as the House of Bishops have themselves stated – there is a wide body of opinion on this matter. Yet again they failed to engage with the critical issue of pastoral care for the LGBTI community and the significant harm that has been caused by their teaching. Yet again they threatened to go elsewhere if their demands weren’t met.

What struck me most however was the letter’s tone.

It’s a tone that many are now becoming all too familiar with.

It’s a tone that has the veneer of seeming gracious and kind, yet has veiled threats at its heart. An iron fist in a velvet glove. “Stubborn hardman diplomacy” that gets us nowhere.

It’s a standoff.

Or should I say a very Mexican standoff?

Where (according to Wikipedia) “no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory. As a result, all participants need to maintain the strategic tension, which remains unresolved until some outside event makes it possible to resolve it.”

So what could this outside event look like I wonder?

Well, it’s very difficult to speak for either the US or UK situations, but I wonder whether in the Church it will be when the congregations of these clergy start to stand up to them and say “Not in my name!”

Ideally of course they would follow this up with action – such as choosing to stop their financial assistance, and perhaps instead divert it to an inclusive church organisation.

The good news is that we know that there is an inevitably about this particular “standoff”. For research has shown there is a younger generation of Christians that are growing older by the year who hold a completely different view on this issue to their older leaders.

It is purely a matter of time.

Sadly there is the burning question about how many lives will be traumatised before this time comes to pass…but the answer to that is of course in our hands.

My answer to the very Mexican standoff that we are currently experiencing is therefore that we pray that the voices of those in the pews will become louder over the year ahead, and that they will vote with either their feet or their wallet against letters sent in their name.

January 14, 2019
Brexit, Sex & Science: Can We Challenge “Fake News”?

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

I was listening to an American political commentator on the radio the other day, who was saying that the divisions between two political sides in the USA were getting worse. Neither side is listening to the other; families and friends are divided; each side listens to what it wants to hear. He’d convened focus groups of differing views where within ten seconds people were taking sides, and within five minutes were shouting at each other. ‘Everyone wants to be heard’, he said, ‘but no one is listening.’

On Saturday 20^th October there was a big march in London calling for a People’s Vote on Brexit. Three days later I sat at my breakfast table in London listening to the chanting of supporters of Tommy Robinson at the Old Bailey. Two sides, two views, and who is working to reconcile them and to listen to the other? Who will include the excluded, on either side? And what really is the truth?

The ‘post-truth’ undermining of rational evidence and reasoned argument makes it hard to know what to believe. In the 2016 referendum campaign opinions were presented as facts; truth may be undermined by innuendo or downright falsehood. With climate change for example, doubt is thrown on carefully monitored conclusions by partial studies, in a similar way to how the tobacco lobby fought for years to minimise the harm done by its products. You don’t have to disprove the science: you just have to enable people to ignore it, by giving them an alternative narrative they want to believe, by creating ‘fake news’.

And the same thing is around in the church’s debates on sex. There’s been huge progress made in the scientific understanding of issues around human sexuality over the last 50 years, and there’s much evidence about sexuality to engage with. But that scientific evidence doesn’t necessarily fit with inherited ways of interpreting the Bible: so how do those who feel uncomfortable with the evidence respond? The Church has been tempted to follow the way of the world: setting up binary splits (e.g. GAFCON), disputing the evidence, finding alternative narratives which undermine credible scientific studies, ignoring the challenges of the experiences of others, refusing to engage with those with whom we disagree.

A presentation at the Church of England’s General Synod in July 2018, about the work of a group reviewing the relationship between scientific understanding and the Church’s views on sexuality, began with reference to St Augustine’s comments on how literalist interpretation of the scriptures (in relation to creation) by some Christians was bringing the faith into disrepute among pagans who knew it didn’t tally with scientific understanding of the world which God had created. Augustine’s point was that, while the Scriptures are authoritative and contain the truth of God’s salvation in Christ, the way they are interpreted needs to be carefully assessed, in order not to conflict with the truth of God made known in the world around us, the truths of reason.

Just as we no longer insist, for example, that the earth is the centre of a universe surrounded by water, so we need to listen to and engage with the truth of sexuality in the world around us. We have the ability to understand the human body, the human psyche, the human brain and the human condition better than we’ve ever done before – and we should therefore be open to being challenged about our preconceptions and misguided assumptions. The science doesn’t determine our ethical conclusions, but it will helpfully inform how we should interpret and use the tradition.

That’s why I’m hosting a day in London on December 8th 2018, to help Christians understand more about how science is helping to illuminate our understandings of sexuality. This isn’t a polemical event arguing for change: it’s offering the opportunity to listen across binary divides, to listen to scientific truth which may be uncomfortable, but is the reality of how God’s world is.

A particular example is people who are born intersex, whose sex at birth is ambiguous or uncertain. Because they don’t fit the binary model of what’s ‘normal’, such people have often been forced as children, without their consent, to undergo life-changing surgery. If you’re open-minded enough to encounter four brave young people who don’t ‘fit’ and who may challenge how you think, spend four minutes watching this video:

On December 8^th, Sara Gillingham will be sharing her own story about how she has been treated, and Dr Peter Hegarty will be explaining how society has responded to intersex people over time and the harm that has been done to them. We also need to be open to the truth about the significant harm many LGBTI people have suffered over the years, as evidenced by high levels of depression, self harm and suicide. Professionals such as Professor Michael King have been studying this for years – and as Christians we need to hear the facts from his studies, and respond pastorally to them.

Jesus says in John’s Gospel: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free… because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.’ Chapters 8 and 9 of John are concerned with ‘fake news’: how good religious people didn’t accept the truth of who Jesus was, because of what they believed should be the case. The religious group they belonged to believed the truth couldn’t be like that, and they were more loyal to their group than to God’s truth.

Jesus doesn’t call these good religious people true believers. He calls them ‘slaves to sin’ and ‘not of God’. Because God is the God of truth, even when the truth doesn’t fit with what we believe should be the case about God. Because not living in God’s truth leads us into sin.

God in Jesus calls us to listen to others, to learn and to love. Are we willing to be challenged by the uncomfortable truth? Or will the Church follow the way of the world and avoid the uncomfortable facts which don’t fit what we want to believe?

October 29, 2018
Gender Recognition Act – Whose Lives Are Actually At Risk?

by Erika Baker, Convener of the Christians for LGBTI+ Equality Facebook Group

I have been genuinely shocked by the vitriolic responses to the Government’s consultation on the proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) from feminists and from many Christians.

None of the arguments appear to be remotely rational, nor do they have anything to do with the proposed changes.

Radical feminists seem to have developed a concept of what it means to be female that absolutely depends on gender being fixed. Anything that challenges that view challenges their identity.

Concerned Christians base their objections on Genesis, a story that explains that God created male and female, and that can seemingly only be true if the categories are rigid and binary, and if male and female only refers to external physical characteristics.

Even many gay Christians appear to have used the acronym LGBT for decades as a synonym for “gay” and there is an astonishing level of LGB ignorance of trans people and aggression towards them.

As when sexuality is debated, it seems there is virtually no compassion for people who, through no choice of their own, find themselves outside what society considers to be the norm. Instead of looking at the reality trans people are living in, people look at their own fears and blame trans people for finding wholeness through transitioning.

Whenever our gender and sexuality are debated, science and psychology are ignored and trans people’s actual well-being is disregarded. To many people in society, trans people become “mere issues”, and personal belief and irrational fears become the sole arbiters of truth.

The argument that trans people are a threat to society, and to women in particular, tends always to focus on just trans women. Very little is being said about trans men and non-binary people meaning that all the shrill fear and public condemnation is reserved for trans women.

While those fears are definitely real, they are neither legitimate nor well-founded. Many are based on complete ignorance of the current legal situation.

One argument goes like this: ‘What if trans people are suddenly allowed to self-identify and use any toilet they like? What about safe women-only spaces in women’s refuges? Trans women in women prisons?’ The fact that not all trans women have had gender confirming surgery and that some may never want to have surgery seems to add another layer of terror of women with penises allowed to access women-only spaces and abuse “real” women. Or, another argument goes, ‘once trans women are allowed to access women-only spaces, it makes it easier for men to dress up as women to enter those spaces and assault women.’

The moral panic is palpable.

In reality, the proposed changes to the GRA have hardly any effect on trans people’s access to single?sex facilities and services. The Equality Act of 2010 already legislates for trans people to use facilities and services that are best aligned with their gender identity. This does not depend on having a gender recognition certificate, nor on having had any kind of surgery or medical intervention. Trans people can already change their names, and gender identifier on passports and other documents, with the exception of non-binary people, as there is as yet no non-binary category on official documents. One exception are prisons, where it is harder to be placed in the right estate, although in practice, most cases are assessed on an individual basis.

All that the proposed changes within the Act are aimed at is changing birth certificates without requiring a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and evidence of having lived in the acquired gender for at least two years in the form of bank statements, passports, payslips, utility bills etc. The fact that this evidence must be available before a Gender Recognition Certificate is issued should make it obvious to the “panicking worrieds” that people are already changing their identity and peacefully living trans lives.

People who fear that self-identifying will suddenly open the doors to hostile men in women-only spaces need to realise that trans women have been using female toilets and changing rooms for many years. In order to convince doctors that they should qualify for a Gender Reassignment Certificate, trans people must prove that they have been living in their acquired gender for at least 2 years.

The fact that those who now worry about the changes have felt safe in the past, and that there have been no reports of women being attacked in public toilets by men pretending to be trans women, should help to set minds at rest.

The idea that women’s refuges will no longer be safe is particularly strange. Are we to assume that a man who wanted to attack defenceless women would go to the trouble of obtaining a new birth certificate, when he could far more easily enter a women-only space as a cleaner, electrician, plumber or delivery man?

If we are genuinely concerned about violence, we ought to look at the violence against trans people.

The recent Stonewall trans report makes sobering reading. Rather than being predators, 41% of trans people and 31% of non-binary people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months. More than 28% of trans people have faced domestic abuse from a partner. 25% experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. 12% of trans employees have been physically attacked by colleagues or customers in the last year. 36% of trans university students in higher education have experienced negative comments or behaviour from staff in the last year. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of nearly 2.5 million adolescents, found that sexual minority youths have greater risk of life-threatening behaviours compared with their heterosexual and cis peers. Transgender youths are the most affected followed by bisexual and homosexual teens.

THIS is where our fears should be focusing – on the safety of trans people in our society.

Trans people are not the problem –WE are the problem.

Trans people do not threaten us – it is OUR responses that threaten their physical and mental well-being.

Instead of giving in to our fears and trying to rationalise them, would it not be better to resolve to find out more and to educate ourselves?

We owe it to our trans siblings to do what we can to create a society in which they are fully included, fully respected, fully safe.

This post has been written with the input of the Revd Dr Tina Beardsley, who is a member of the Coordinating Group for Living in Love and Faith and author of This Is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians

October 26, 2018
‘Cake-Gate’, Discrimination & Established Churches

by Dr Meg Warner, Theologian, Lecturer and Member of General Synod

A Northern Ireland-based family bakery this week won its appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a conviction for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. You may be familiar with the story – Mr Lee, an activist for the organisation ‘Queerspace’, ordered a cake from Ashers Bakery, run by a ‘conservative’ Christian couple, Daniel and Amy McArthur. The cake was to be decorated with the text ‘Support Gay Marriage’ and a photo of Sesame Street’s Ernie and Bert, as in the photo above. After initially accepting the order, the bakery later cancelled it and returned the deposit. The McArthurs were initially found guilty of sexual orientation discrimination contrary to Northern Ireland legislation. (There was more to it, but this description will suffice for our purposes.) Although an initial appeal was unsuccessful, the McArthurs were ultimately cleared by the UK’s highest court of appeal.

The essence of the Court of Appeal’s decision was that the McArthurs had objected to the message and not to the messenger. In other words, as the McArthurs would have been happy to have baked a cake with some other message for `Mr Lee, and would have refused to bake the cake with this message regardless of the sexual orientation of the person placing the order, they were not discriminating against Mr Lee on the basis of his sexual orientation, but merely objecting to being implicated in the promotion of a cause with which they fundamentally disagreed.

While commentators argue about the likely implications of this decision for LGBTI people and organisations in the UK (for example, Stonewall claims the decision ‘sets a hugely dangerous precedent’, whereas Peter Tatchell has argued that the decision is a victory for freedom of expression, and Savi Hensman that the decision is no great loss for LGBT rights), I find myself wondering how the McArthurs, and Mr Lee, are getting on.

Take the McArthurs – sure, they’ve had a big win, but what kind of shape are they – and their business – in? Family-run bakeries tend not to be disproportionately represented amongst top-level litigants in the UK. Litigation is inordinately expensive, and especially at this level, so the McArthurs are likely now either bankrupt or caught up in the political machinery and machinations of others in ways they could not possibly have foreseen when they originally gave Mr Lee his deposit back. Of course, it is not only money that gets chewed up in legal proceedings, but also time, emotions, privacy and dignity. What kind of abuse has been directed at the McArthurs over the years since they cancelled Mr Lee’s order? Anybody who has stuck his or her head, however unwittingly, over the parapet on either side of the sexuality issue, will know from bitter experience the sort of invective that has likely been directed at the McArthurs, and no doubt also at Mr Lee, who has now also suffered a major defeat. I hope that the McArthurs have a good pastor and a supportive congregation, and Mr Lee very good friends. They will have needed them.

One of the great ironies of this case is that had Ashers Bakery been part of the business empire of The Church of England Inc, instead of the family portfolio of Mr and Mrs McArthur, none of this would ever have been an issue. Religious organisations are entitled to discriminate. There is no need on their part to distinguish between message and messenger, opinion and person – UK religious organisations, including churches, are permitted (in certain defined circumstances) to discriminate on the bases of sexuality, marital history, gender and religion or belief.

‘Mum and Dad’ family-businesses are bound by legal restrictions from which churches are excluded. The irony, of course, is particularly marked in the case of the Church of England, which is an established church. Even though Magna Carta provides that the monarch is to be subject to the law of the land, the established church of which the monarch is supreme governor may discriminate between the people of the land in ways that would be illegal for those people themselves.

With increasing calls for disestablishment as the Church of England drifts ever-further from the people to whom it is called to minister, and as the evangelism of ordinary English women and men (and especially young people) proves ever-more challenging, it is time for the Church of England to show leadership by relinquishing its special privilege to discriminate.

Probably the McArthurs were not aware, prior to ‘cake-gate’, that churches are entitled to discriminate in ways that they themselves are not.

I bet they know now. I wonder how they feel about it?

October 15, 2018
Preaching to the Converted?

Colin Blakely, Editor of the Church of England Newspaper and Co-founder of ViaMedia.News

We all like a good sermon, and when one is delivered with wit and insight it can bring enormous benefits. And in the wider world when public figures speak out, often on set-piece announcements, everyone of course listens as intently as parishioners listen to the homily. Their words are examined closely and are then interpreted according to one’s perspective, agenda and hopes.

In recent months we have been treated to a string of such announcements, in the political as well as church worlds. The question however, is: who are the words being aimed at, and are they really the full picture?

Take, as one example, the speeches of the Prime Minister. Since she assumed office, Theresa May has often repeated the mantra ‘Brexit means Brexit’. This has served to bolster her support in her own party, although few (even inside the Cabinet) evidently really know what that means in reality.

The fact that her own party is deeply split on this issue means that the primary aim of her messages is to those in her own grouping. So while she wants to reassure those who express some disquiet (because she backed the Remain camp during the Referendum) her words are heard by a much wider audience. This includes those Remainers in the Conservative Party as well as those in the wider community.

But look at the hurdles facing the Prime Minister. Not only does she have to get her Party on board, she also has to get her Cabinet on board. Both are big demands. And that is even before we get to the battles she will face in Parliament. Already we have seen long delays to any legislation on the issue because of the dangers of the Government losing a vote. And that is just as true in the House of Commons as it is in the House of Lords. Although it is much more pronounced in the Upper House.

And should she achieve success there, she faces the bigger hurdle of getting any legislation accepted by the other 27 countries in the EU.

However, it is clear that she is not speaking to any of those. The immediate aim is actually her own survival. So her speeches have to be interpreted in the light of that, even if Remainers are unhappy with the strength of her comments.

Meanwhile, back in the Church world, we can find a parallel situation. Church leaders, when pressed about inclusion and equality, look first to the immediate threats. And that comes mainly from the pews. Whether it is over issues like women’s ministry or how it treats gay Christians, their public utterances are often, like those of the Prime Minister, aimed at those who pose the biggest threat.

And so in recent years when Church leaders have made conciliatory noises, it has been for reasons they underestimated. That was certainly the case when General Synod rejected the House of Bishops’ paper on sexuality. Stunned by the defeat, the two Archbishops made a hurried commitment to ‘radical inclusion’. Of course, they could do no else.

But the term, like ‘Brexit means Brexit’, is open to interpretation. So far, us members of the press are asking what it really means. After all, few LGBT+ members of the Church have been included in any of the discussions about the future. Is that ‘radical inclusion’? It doesn’t look like that from the Press Gallery.

We have to go back some decades to see leadership standing up for what it believed in. Lord Carey showed how it could be done by backing women’s ministry, although Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee demonstrated its hesitance by demanding the Act of Synod. His stance divided his evangelical constituency, some backing his progressive stance, others deriding him. Could a modern Archbishop take such a prophetic stance?

The reality is, like political leaders, concern is about those who threaten.

So speeches and public statements are aimed at those groups. This means that others are left bereft. (Some senior figures in the Government agree that the 48.11 per cent who voted to remain have to be reassured, but that is an issue for another day). Similarly, those who long for acceptance in the Church have to listen to announcements that are aimed not at them but at others. This is deeply unsettling and problematic. But perhaps those want to see ‘radical inclusion’ have to accept that their leaders are human and need to bring as many of their constituency with them as possible. It may not be prophetic, but it is realistic.

On the other side, we have seen situations where Church leaders have made their case with pride. We have seen whole deaneries in Manchester become ‘inclusive’. We have seen the Diocese of Lichfield adopting an inclusive policy. Things are changing, but perhaps more of those in authority should follow the example of George Carey and take the courage to be prophetic.

October 4, 2018