ViaMedia

Tag: prayer

  • Sports, Wellbeing – and the Theology of the Body

    by Helen King with Revd Pete Wheeler

    On Tuesday, Synod is hearing a presentation followed by this motion:

     ‘That this Synod recognise the missional potential for churches of sport and wellbeing through its ability to transform the lives of people and communities.’

    I (Helen) am among the members of Synod least qualified to speak in this debate, my own experience of sport including deliberately spraining my own ankle in order to get out of school hockey. When I see images of energetic lively young people on the website for the Church of England’s National Sport and Wellbeing Project, I feel the urge to go into a corner with a book. And yet… I want to speak in this debate.

    That’s because, at a recent deanery synod meeting, I heard about St Peter’s Aylesbury. We are not a pilot diocese for the Sport and Wellbeing Project, and St Peter’s is part of our diocese’s Estates Ministry Network. It has recently experienced revitalisation, which started from a ‘breakfast church’ initiative about five years ago.

    But before I share what they are doing, I want to say that I am concerned by the way that the supporting document for the debate, GS2381, focuses more on ‘sports ministry’ than on wellbeing, talking about numbers, and ‘success’, even (paragraph 1 of the executive summary) how to “find the sweet spot of how this could contribute to a growing and outward facing church”. In the research appendix that forms the second part of GS2381, we have “strategic aims” and “buy-in” and “sustainable business development” and “standardised systems and processes around data collection to refine Sports and Wellbeing Ministry models and approaches” and yet more language of “success’.

    For St Peter’s, their interest in wellbeing and exercise comes from a different direction. It is not about ‘sport’; it’s part of a focus on “health, hope and wholeness through fun, faith and fitness”. That’s backed up not through a focus on numbers, but through their theology of the body. The vicar, Pete Wheeler, told me that “In Estates ministry we commit to walk alongside people who often live very chaotic lives in areas of high deprivation. Their discipleship pathway is never a straight line – so, it can’t be about ‘numbers’! (And related to this I also long for the CofE to recognise that churches that are struggling financially are not necessarily ‘failing’!).” He went on, “Our theology of the body is not only as a sacred space where God chooses to meet with us, but as something that is fully endorsed by God in the bodily incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is, therefore, anti-gnostic – declaring that our own bodies, how we look after them, and what we do with them, really matter to God and to how we live a ‘whole’ and fulfilled life.”

    There are two projects which they run which express this theology most fully.

    Revelation Fitness runs free classes for all abilities, including chair-based classes. Pete writes “Each weekly class has a Bible theme (usually part of a series) which is developed and explored as the class exercise together – sometimes circuit, high-intensity interval training, exercise to music, etc. (For example, our current Series is on Colossians 3: 12-17 with each week focusing on a different attribute Paul mentions). It ends with a cooldown that includes a time of reflection and prayer. The music we use is combination of secular and worship tracks. After the class there is opportunity for Prayer Ministry and healthy smoothies.”

    Last month, they offered a 21-day sugar fast, with daily Bible passages and encouragements, to “clear your mind, boost your health, and reset your cravings – while drawing you closer to God. Let’s break free from sugar’s grip and focus on what truly satisfies.” Pete observes, “We reject the false economy presented by organisations such as ‘Slimming World’ who talk about treats as ‘sins’ (and subtly perpetuate the unhealthy focus on body shape and a cycle of failure to change habits). Rather, Revelation Fitness focuses on our call to be ‘fit for life’; to understand our bodies and how to fuel them well by using healthy, simple, practical and spiritual disciplines; learning to move, use and ‘tune’ our bodies into the daily rhythms of our life and calling.”

    As for the second project, that’s Revelation Run. Pete writes that “The missional energy for Revelation Fitness has also led to ‘Revelation Run’ which helps local people to learn how to run, with prayer as an integral part (and which usually starts with walking!). We have also developed links with a local group called ‘Recovery Runners’ – a community of people recovering from addiction, burnout, bereavement, mental health, etc., which we refer people to often … we have seen people’s lives changed through encounters with Jesus; freedom for those with addictions developing new healthy habits and disciplines; and those who find new hope as they discover their bodies are not the enemy.”

    I find what Pete and his community are doing is an inspiration. So I would urge a reset from sports to wellbeing; from a focus on children and young people (the result of the Vision & Strategy) to adults; and something driven not by the rhetoric of management and ‘success’ measured by numbers, but based on a rich theology of the body. Reflecting on the paper being presented to Synod, Pete noted that there was no need to do “evangelism by stealth” using sport as the way in, because Revelation Fitness is already advertised as a faith-based activity, and this does not put people off; they want to explore spirituality and faith without suspicion.

    Pete suggests that we are in a “new shifting missional landscape. We have the opportunity to enable all apostles (not just ‘pioneers’!) to ‘take church to the people’, by running, for example, local community sports and wellbeing groups, that include spirituality / faith / prayer as an integral part. This is something that the new parents of the next 10 years will happily be a part of with their children!”

     

  • Bodies at Prayer

    by Dr Karen O’Donnell, Director of Studies at Westcott House Cambridge where she teaches Worship and Liturgy. She also teaches Gender and Christian Theology for the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge. She has published widely in trauma and feminist theologies.

    As I’m writing this, I’m recovering from surgery on my spine to relieve a herniated disc that has been causing me serious problems for the last year or so. I’m conscious of my body in ways that are not usual to me; of the slight ache at the bottom of my back and that I’ll need to get up and stretch soon. I’m also conscious of the way in which this relatively minor injury has impacted my ability to pray. Just before Easter, as term was coming to an end, I entered Westcott’s chapel toward the end of a day for Evening Prayer. It’s a ritual I enjoy as it marks the end of my working day and helps me transition into the evening with my family. On this particular evening, my back was really painful. I hobbled down to the chapel and sat down in my usual seat. This evening, however, I found that I just couldn’t sit on the hard pew. I couldn’t stand for any length of time and I couldn’t sit down either. My body was in too much pain to pray.

    It is at times like this that we notice the place of our bodies at prayer: when they struggle to conform to our expectations, or when they are in pain. The rest of the time, we’re quite good at ignoring our bodies when we pray. Unlike our Muslim sisters and brothers, we do not have a set pattern of bodily movements to engage in when we pray. It is easy for prayer to become a cerebral thing –something that happens in our heads. Our bodies are (or can seem to be, at least!) largely superfluous.

    This isn’t new and is, I argue, a long-lasting result of the influence of Greek philosophy in the early church. The brilliant Hillary McBride charts the development of this thought in Christianity like this:

    We did not find our way to a disembodied existence on our own: we had millennia of help. Western philosophy and Gnostic religious thought influenced a popular line of thinking that goes something like this: The soul and the mind are distinct from the body (that’s Plato). The mind is where the truth is, but the body has needs, desires, and limitations (that’s Descartes, and some translations of the apostle Paul). Around the same time as Descartes lived, the Christian Reformation happened, which emphasized our mind’s ability to grasp the who and what of God: feminist and liberation theologians have written that this put the body in the straitjacket. (1)

    The result of this understanding of the body is that the body has been feared and distrusted and it is something that many spiritual seekers across the centuries have felt they have to transcend and subdue in order to make spiritual progress. When we bring our bodies to worship it is often as a problem that needs to be solved – a body that needs to be healed, a body that has accessibility requirements, a body that is in some way different to the other bodies around it. What might it mean to come into prayer recognising that we are our bodies, our bodies are not neutral, and that our bodies are not problems that need to be solved before we can really pray?

    In his new book, A Body of Praise: Understanding the Role of our Physical Bodies in Worship, W. David O. Taylor takes these questions seriously as he explores the ways in which our physical bodies engage in worship (2).  Christian liturgy – corporate, public acts of worship – is disposed to engaging the body. Not only does liturgy require our bodies in order to engage with worship (indeed, our bodies are the entrances into worship and sacrament), but Christian liturgy has great opportunity for embodied engagement.

    I used to be part of a very charismatic evangelical church and, as a youth leader, would regularly attend youth camps/festivals that included highly produced times of worship – a large rock band, lights, images, projections – all of which were, at times, accused of being manipulative. Perhaps these components were, but more traditional aspects of Christian worship do similar things. Yes, material things like incense, flowers, candles, art, architecture, the sharing of the Peace, participation in the Eucharist all have richly symbolic theological meanings but they also serve to make our worship distinctly sensory. Our senses are deeply connected to our memories, meaning that the way in which we encounter worship in our bodies can be profound. In our olfactory senses, for example, “odors take a direct route to the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory” (3).  The smell of incense, for me, is the smell of the divine.

    In a culture that has a curious relationship to bodies, sometimes acting as if completely disembodied, sometimes treating the body as something to be subdued and tamed, sometimes celebrating bodies, sometimes ignoring them completely, it is important that our spiritual encounters – both individual and corporate – attend positively to our bodies. It is important that we remember that it is only through our bodies that we encounter and come into relationship with God. It is through our bodies that we enter into prayer and liturgy. It’s not manipulative to engage the senses in worship but rather a mode of curating embodied encounter with God. It is important in our worshipping lives that we don’t replicate the dualistic ideologies of Greek philosophy but rather recognise the sense of whole being that is being human. Our bodies are not problems to solve in order that our minds or souls might be able to pray. Rather our bodies are how we pray; the very places in which we meet God.

    Notes
    (1) Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living (Brazos Press, 2021), 215.
    (2) W. David O. Taylor, A Body of Praise: Understanding the Role of Our Physical Bodies in Worship (Baker Books, 2023).
    (3) Colleen Walsh, “How Scent, Emotion, and Memory Are Intertwined — and Exploited,” Harvard Gazette (blog), February 27, 2020, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-memory-are-intertwined-and-exploited/.

  • Faith and Generosity in the Church: The Via Media, or Transphobia?

    by Revd Nathanael Hayler, Deacon, serving as Assistant Curate in rural Northumberland 

    Why do you remain faithful to a volatile institution?

    How do you show generosity to a hostile Church?

    These remain some of the pressing questions I am often asked when I share my story of journeying towards ordination in the Church of England as a transgender person. They are questions I grapple with in these early years of ordained ministry and will continue to ask as my sense of vocation grows and flourishes.

    As part of my ordination training, I was able to embark on a course of postgraduate study. I developed a project exploring how the Church of England has engaged with the experiences of trans people, both in the context of the local church and more broadly as an institution. Entitled ‘Thresholds of Faith and Identity: A critical analysis of the Church of England on transgender identities’, the piece aimed to prayerfully and creatively theologically reflect on where the Church is now, how it has reached that place and, importantly, what comes next – ‘towards a distinctively Anglican transgender theology.’

    The study and dialogue addresses topics of liturgy and worship, leadership and representation, and pastoral practice. Using theological language and reflective dialogue might feel dense and complex, but I intentionally grounded all my work in practice, always looking to ministry on the ground and to the experience of transgender Christians. Sometimes work on trans identities can be seen as “woke” or niche but the reality is that most of us, whether we know it or not, will encounter or walk alongside a trans person. This conversation is pressing, it is poignant, it is necessary. My research took place in the context of discussions encouraged by the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) conversations. There is a danger that this valuable LLF work will lose momentum and fizzle out; this conversation must continue in creative, engaging, and accessible ways.

    Understanding the need to remain faithful to Anglican convention felt important if this work was to go anywhere. Pushing towards action whilst working within the categories of scripture, reason and tradition offers an effective yet comfortable way the Church of England might begin to develop a coherent theology rooted in the lived experience of transgender individuals. However, there are immediate barriers that currently prevent such progress being made. Firstly, the ambiguity and contradictions that characterise the Church of England’s current position. For example, it is hard to take seriously sentiments that trans and non-binary people are welcome to explore a vocation to ordained ministry when another document prohibits the ministry of transgender people, believing we are not wholesome examples or stable enough to serve as deacons, priests, and bishops (Some Issues in Human Sexuality, 2013).

    Secondly, the Via Media that characterises the Anglican way is often sorely, even dangerously, misunderstood. Despite via media being seen as a virtuous existence for the Church, it is often misused; today it has fostered a culture of ambivalence and mere tolerance. The Church of England is still “sitting on the fence” in offering two very different views that can be ‘properly held’ by Anglicans on the topic of transgender identities. This gross misuse of the ‘middle way’ condones and even encourages transphobic attitudes and discriminatory behaviours toward trans people. The lack of clear guidelines, of both doctrinal belief and pastoral conduct, allows individuals holding authority to freely discriminate or be complicit in keeping silent in the face of such behaviour.  With gender identity legally (in the UK) understood as a protected characteristic and in seeking to treat trans people with dignity and respect, this current manifestation of transphobia disguised as holding the generous via media must be eradicated immediately.

    Instead of loathing the rich diversity that trans and non-binary people bring to our churches, we have an opportunity to celebrate it. And in this celebration we are invited to reimagine what it means to hold the middle way and re-embrace the Anglican tradition of via media in our time; building on the foundations of what has been handed on and always rooting our practice in the life of Christ. Therefore, instead of threatening our sense of self and our convictions, these differences encountered within the breadth of Anglicanism should move us toward a living embodiment of the ‘Way’. That is, Christ: the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). Christ’s ministry reveals a most beautiful interplay between charity and justice. Rather than seeing the via media as only a charitable gesture, seeking to please both those at the extremities and those at the margins, the via media could be a middle way that seeks to walk the path of both charity and justice – just as Christ himself inspires us to do. If we truly embrace our part in being a living tradition, by faith, we make space for the transformative work of the Holy Spirit, trusting that God will make a way in us and through us.

    As a transgender person, I don’t believe the Church currently recognises the sacredness of trans narratives as part of the living Christian story. I hope, one day, that hearing the experiences of transgender individuals will be understood as a transformative gift. As an ordained person, which very often feels like a scary and vulnerable public ministry, I want to encourage the Church not to neglect this important topic, because of we do that then we neglect our duty of care for the many lives touched by this. There is much work for the Church of England to do if it genuinely desires to welcome and encourage ‘the unconditional affirmation of trans people, within the body of Christ’ and rejoice in that diversity.

    So, I return to those first questions.

    Why do you remain faithful to a volatile institution?

    How do you show generosity to a hostile Church?

    Why? Because I believe in the transforming work of God in the Church of England, and I want to be part of that work. How? By the grace of God alone. Let’s not forget to pray. Pray for the work of the Spirit in the Church, so that one day God’s love will be shared freely and lavishly amongst all people.

    I’m currently exploring options for publishing my research, in the hope that it will be built upon and used to further conversation and provoke change.