ViaMedia

Tag: Psalms

  • Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

    by Revd Ruth Harley (Vicar, Cowgate and Priest in Charge, Newbiggin Hall)

    When General Synod meets in the coming week, the Archbishop of York will move a motion beginning “that this Synod recognise and lament the distress and pain many have suffered during the LLF process, especially LGBTQI+ people.” This is the start of the motion (coming from GS 2426) which effectively brings the long Living in Love and Faith process to an end, with no progress made towards greater equality for LGBTQI+ people within the Church of England.

    This is not the first time we have seen an LLF motion before Synod which starts like this. Compare and contrast the motion brought to Synod in February 2023 (from GS 2289): “That this Synod… lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church.”

    Recognise, lament, repent… none of these are quite an apology for harm done, though they may be spun that way. And indeed apologies have been given, in statements from the House of Bishops and on the floor of Synod. In the ‘letter to the church’ issued by the House of Bishops in January, they acknowledge that “many, holding a variety of convictions, have felt, and still feel, bruised, hurt or unsafe by the conversations and the discussions we have had, particularly LGBTQI+ people. We are very sorry that the process has become so protracted and painful.” They are sorry, we are assured. But evidently not sorry enough to make any real changes.

    The House of Bishops apparently wishes to “recognise and lament the distress and pain” which this process and the church’s stance on same-sex relationships causes to LGBTQI+ people. But it does not wish that lament to lead to any material changes which might reduce that distress and pain by making a meaningful move towards the much-vaunted “radical new Christian inclusion” which Justin Welby called for (but, again, made no actual moves towards) back at the start of the long, drawn-out and ultimately fruitless LLF process.

    For those of us who have been following the sorry saga of the Church of England’s conversations about sexuality for some time, there may be a bit of a sense of déjà vu about all this. Back in 2017 the report from the House of Bishops on the Shared Conversations (GS 2055), the rejection of which kickstarted the LLF process, proposed “establishing across the Church of England a fresh tone and culture of welcome and support for lesbian and gay people, for those who experience same sex attraction, and for their families, and continuing to work toward mutual love and understanding on these issues across the Church”.  This is even further from an actual apology, but it serves the same function as the apology, lament and repentance we have already considered: it sounds like we are doing something, without actually making any real changes. I wrote about this at the time, and every word of that blog post, written almost a decade ago, could apply equally to the present situation. As I say, we have not made progress.

    The problem with all these apologies and non-apologies, laments and calls for repentance is three-fold:

    1. They are deceptive. They imply something which is not true. They imply that there is a real care and concern for LGBTQI+ people in this process, which has never been there. They also imply a hope for change – because surely if you can see and hear and lament that your siblings in Christ are suffering because of your actions, you will change your actions? – which again is not substantiated by the (lack of) actions of those making these statements.
    2. They devalue the very concepts they claim to espouse: lament, repentance, apology. These are things which should mean something. And when the action undermines the words, that meaning is eroded. Repentance, in particular, is a concept which carries weight in the life of the church. It is about turning away from past sin, from past perpetuation of harm. To claim repentance, and indeed lament, while continuing to perpetuate the same harm is at best disingenuous, and at worst deeply damaging to the body of Christ.
    3. They undermine the integrity and unity of the church. Our integrity is undermined when we do not speak honestly to one another about our present position or our future intentions. To claim, as the House of Bishops did in their ‘letter to the church’ that “we dare to hope that the LLF process will leave a legacy of greater inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in the life of the Church of England” while refusing to act in any way that might give substance to that hope, is deeply lacking in integrity. The unity of the church (repeatedly emphasised as a priority in the LLF process) is undermined when it is build on a fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge the true nature of our diversity and our divisions.

    These are not small issues. A non-apology (or even an apology) which lacks substance, or indeed is undermined by the substance of the motion which follows it, is not just one more slap in the face to those of us faithful LGBTQI+ members of the Church of England who have engaged at such great cost in an ultimately fruitless exercise which has done nothing to move us towards greater justice and equality within the body of Christ, and indeed has (arguably) taken us backwards in some respects. It is also a statement which undermines the integrity of the body of Christ.

    If we are going to move forward together, then we have to start by being honest with one another. An honest apology, lament or repentance will be backed up by real action which leads to real change. Without that, it is worse than meaningless, it is harmful.

    Until that comes, perhaps the best we can do is to pray with the psalmist: “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.” (Psalm 123.4)

     

     

     

  • Trans Theology Conference – The Pastoral Care of Transgender, Intersex and Non-Binary People

    A Reflection by the Revd Jane Speck, Chaplain to the Conference; Jane is the Chaplain at York St John University, where she works with staff and students and leads a multifaith team.  She is also a member of the Iona Community.

    This September, York St John University was privileged to host the second ever Trans Theology Conference. Inaugurated in Oxford in 2022 by Revd Helen Garton and Chrissie Chevasutt, the conference seeks to give voice to trans people of faith, to create community and to share research and best practice.

    As the Chaplain to the conference, I was invited to offer the Conference Reflection at its end. Myself a cisgender trans-affirming feminist woman, it was a huge honour to be invited to address the conference in this way. The following is an edit of the reflection I offered, in the hope that it will sum up the main issues of the conference and even inspire some of you to sign up for next year!

    Attendees at the conference travelled a long way together in those couple of days, plumbing the richness of trans lives and experience, sharing wisdom, offering poetry, performance and song to express experiences more fully. It was emotional for many, as we looked both at how very far the Trans community has come, and yet how far there is still to go.

    Chrissie Chevasutt began the conference with the image of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. It’s such a favourite with me, as a metaphor for all kinds of life journey, that I keep a couple of copies on the Chaplaincy bookshelves for people to read.

    However, I realised during Chrissie’s talk that Eric Carle made a huge omission when he wrote his book, and it’s one that Chrissie addressed. It’s the page depicting the caterpillar’s cocoon. Carle drew the cocoon, then we flip the page and – ta daaaa! Butterfly! Which is exactly how easy transition is, right?!

    Well, of course not. That time in the cocoon can last a very long time. On the second day of the conference, Professor Susannah Cornwall showed us data on NHS waiting times for Gender Clinics. The average wait for a trans person to rise to the top of the waiting list and start to receive treatment is 69 months. The struggle to be taken seriously; the pressure to submit to a medicalisation that may or may not feel helpful, and meanwhile the striving to live an authentic life within a patriarchal society and what, for many, is also a patriarchal church denomination, all take their toll.

    Not for nothing did Dr Nicolete Burbach draw profound parallels, in her session, ‘What Does the Cross Mean for Trans People?’, between the experience of transitioning and the cross of Christ. Many trans people will have felt crucified by their experiences, as the data around trans people’s mental health tragically shows.

    However, there was a broader theme that I saw peeking out around the edges all the way through the conference. And that is the theme of hope. Dr Burbach spoke of the hope encapsulated in the cross as we look back with the benefit of hindsight and see the light of the resurrection. This is not a blind or Pollyanna-ish hope. This is a hope which bears the scars of crucifixion, which transforms its suffering into the understanding, compassion and love of redemption.

    It’s hope that keeps trans, intersex and non-binary people on their paths, and hope that keeps them battling to save themselves and one another. It’s hope that leads people like Jack Woodruff, speaking of his experience ‘Navigating the Church’ to believe that for trans people to find a place in a church that affirms them is a distinct possibility – and, in some places, actually a reality. It’s hope that keeps so many of us within churches that are experiencing the pushback we explored at this conference against the equality and inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people, as trans people gain confidence. Chrissie helpfully named the forces that seek to keep minority groups ‘in their place’ as the Old Empire, rising out of our colonial past and refusing quite to die.

    We heard that hope sung by Naomi Orrell in her astonishingly beautiful, prize-winning ‘Antiphon for the Blessed Trans Body’ in the Spoken/Written Word competition. We saw it enacted in Jo Clifford’s ground breaking ‘Queen Jesus the Play’, and experienced its rhythm and power in the poetry of Jay Hulme. This hope is real, and weaves its way through all our lives.

    Hope, however, is not an easy thing. A Buddhist friend tells me that one of the things Buddhists seek to let go of is hope, as it is tied in to desire and is therefore a form of suffering. Hope is a risk. Hope courts rejection and hurt, which many trans, intersex and non-binary people will know too much about.

    But hope also gives strength for the struggle. The gloop inside the caterpillar’s cocoon struggles to rebuild itself, then fights to be free. Without the fight, there would be no strength. Without the struggle, the butterfly will never fly free.

    This does not, and cannot be allowed to, justify the pain inflicted on trans, intersex and non-binary folk by others. Perhaps it can give meaning to the hard paths they walk, as they head towards the light, but it can never be used as an excuse. This is why the non-judgmental, positive pastoral care on which the conference was focussed is so vital in enabling people to re-member themselves in the re-telling of their trauma, and in being given the space to grieve, to process and to move forwards again. Alex Clare-Young addressed this in their talk on ‘Queer(y)ing Narratives’, noting that pastoral care can never be a ‘one size fits all’ model, but must be nuanced for each individual, the stage they are at and the needs they bring. Perhaps Eric Carle should have inserted an extra page in his storybook, showing the struggle of the butterfly to get out of the cocoon and fly…

    In the Christian faith we are particularly and uniquely placed, I do believe, to embrace people of all gender expressions. We believe in a God who transcends the gender constructs we ascribe to. We teach a God, as The Venerable Dr Hayley Matthews noted in her opening remarks, who spoke that word Vav or ‘and’, not ‘or’, in creating humanity – male and female; who chose a model of infinite variety for creation. A God who reminds us that we never, ever get to say, ‘you’re made in the image of God, and you’re made in the image of God, but I’m not so sure about you…’ And we believe in a God who gave us Jesus, to experience human suffering, give himself to the process, and show us that suffering and even death are not the end of the story. As it says in the Psalms, by his wounds we are healed. And so we wear our own scars, however we have come by them, as symbols of our hope and badges of our belonging to the One who touches our wounds and says, you are still here. You belong.

    This conference was a gift, both to us at York St John and, I hope, to the attendees. It is, I hope and pray, one that many more people will open their arms and hearts to receive next year.