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Tag: sin

  • On the Exchanging of Friendship Bracelets; or: The Bishops are Asking us to Lie

    by Matt Drapper, an author who writes about church and queer culture. His book ‘Bringing Me Back To Me’ is an autobiographical look back at his experiences of Conversation Therapy Practices and homophobia within Christianity and his journey towards healing from trauma

    Imagine you have two friends, who are Christian women, who love their church and each other and you hear they have become engaged. Later, you are invited to a church service at which the couple, who have been recently married at a civil ceremony, will be blessed and their love for each other celebrated before God and the gathered congregation of their friends and family. You’ve dressed up for the occasion, written a card emblazoned with hearts and even brought a pocket full of confetti just in case they decide to take photos after the blessing. You’ve already heard of the couple’s disappointment; they cannot be married in the church with a traditional ceremony, and it feels a pity to have their blessing taped onto the end of a regular Sunday morning service, however you know this will be a wonderful celebration with family and friends. Except, when the minister stands up to pray, she describes the women’s relationship as “friendship” and instead of rings, they exchange friendship bracelets.

    The minister knows. The couple know. The gathered friends and family know. You know, this is an opportunity to come before God for a blessing on the relationship and civil partnership or marriage of a couple who love one another, but who have been denied the opportunity to be married in the church building they love (a right granted to straight couples simply for living in the catchment area of the parish.) However, everyone has (at the request of the House of Bishops and the Church of England Lawyers) been asked to lie and say they are just celebrating a friendship.

    For context, I’m referring to the documents recently released for General Synod which detail the ways Churches will be allowed to use the Prayers of Love and Faith. These prayers were ostensibly designed for the blessing of same-sex relationships, but, due to the inclusion of the phrase “with no change to the doctrine of marriage” in an amendment passed in February, have seemingly had their entire purpose removed from them, and worse, replaced with an encouragement to pretend they are something else entirely.

    One example of the prayers which some churches will be enabled to offer, begins with a promise of love and commitment, but ends with just friendship.

    For lifelong peace
    God of all grace,
    friend and companion,
    look with favour on N and N
    as they journey together through life. Deepen their love
    and strengthen their wills
    to honour the commitment they have made,
    that they may continue
    in lifelong faithfulness and friendship to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    All Amen.

    To what “commitment they have made” is this prayer referring? The Guidance offered for use of the prayers states: “Pastoral preparation with the couple should cover the fact that the service is not a marriage, or a Thanksgiving for Marriage, or a Service of Prayer and Dedication after Civil Marriage.” And yet, the blessing of a civil ceremony or marriage is exactly what these prayers have been asked for, and prepared for. No one was asking for a new form of pinky-swearing with our best friends and a promise to love them forever and ever and ever.

    “They are roommates,” used to be the whispered code for an Uncle or Aunt known to be living with their gay partner, back in the day. “They were good friends,” suggest descriptions below paintings of historical possible queer love in museums. And now the Church of England is asking us to use the same veiled language, whispered, between evening prayers.

    As if it were not enough that the latest Guidance of the Use of Prayers of Love and Faith (and its accompanying Theological and Pastoral Introduction to the PLF) consistently use the words “holy” and “ideal” to describe straight presenting marriage, suggesting an “unholiness” and “less than ideal” to same-sex partnerships, and as if it were not demeaning enough to describe the Prayers of Love as Faith as “Prayers on the Way” (on the way to what?), the Guidance appears to be asking Ministers, Couples, Friends and Family to be intentionally deceptive before each other and before God. I would go so far as to say, The House of Bishops are asking us to lie.

    We have spent our lives being told our relationships are not Holy. This new document enforces this feeling in some of the most unhealthy language I have ever heard. They may have swapped out the word “sin” for “unholiness”, and not aimed it at us directly, but they should say what they really mean, if they are proud of it. Call us sinners, please.

    In describing their purpose, the guidance continues: “The PLF fall short of affirming a couple’s entire way of life as made Holy by God, and blessed as a marriage service would do…The PLF do not seek to simulate marriage or pretend that our Church has made a decision to extend marriage to same-sex couples.” The Theological document could not be clearer. PLF is not to be used as a celebration of same-sex relationship. And yet, what else are they designed for? Throughout the recent documents, they are consistently described as celebrating friendship. Are we to believe the women’s football team will be using the prayers to bless their bonds? Are we to understand the men’s mental health support group will be showing up for a blessing over their budding friendships? Is this a blessing for besties?

    No.

    We know what it is.

    It is what it is.

    In the most outrageous sample from the Guidance, it is suggested as an image: “The minister may pray over rings worn by the couple (but) to avoid the impression that the service is a marriage service, rings are not given or exchanged.” Pardon? The minister knows, the couple knows, the friends and family gathered know what this service is for and what the prayers for the rings mean. Yet, the House of Bishops and Church Lawyers are asking us to pretend we don’t understand. To lie about it to each other and in front of God.

    The Guidance is also clear on another point: you cannot offer the blessings to people who are still going through an unsettled divorce. Why not? If it is a blessing for buddies, for two roomies who get on really well? Make it make sense.

    As a gay man who grew up in a Christian household, and then in evangelical Christianity, I was taught to whisper about my sexuality. I was told by my family, “You cannot Be Gay at home.” I was told by my church, “You will lose your leadership role if you are openly in a Same-sex Relationship.” Better to keep these things hidden, wrapped up in shame, secret, pretend to be something you are not. Queer Christians recognise a lie for what it is: Shame, Denial, Pretence.

    Asking ministers, couples, friends and families to lie to each other and before God is a sure way to invite destructive poison into a congregation. Is this really the best they can offer us?

  • Getting Hot under the Collar about Sex

    by Mother Fiona Jack, curate at St.Barnabas, Ealing and member of General Synod

    A motion to urge the government to take action to limit children’s access to pornography was passed with an overwhelming majority at the July sessions of General Synod. There was also a recommendation for programmes to increase awareness of its pernicious influence on the young. There’s currently an Online Safety Bill at Committee stage in Parliament; if passed, it will go some way to bringing in legislation to address the problem. No-one, I imagine, would take issue with this; we heard evidence from professionals, parents and confessors attesting to the damage done when children access age-inappropriate material.

    I have a particular interest in this as, in my other life, I run a qualitative research business. Recently, we conducted a study for a major platform provider on the same topic. We discovered that not only do children access 18+ sites, but they are often more tech-savvy than their parents and can circumvent parental controls because they know their parent’s login and password details. The issue is much broader, however, than pornography. Equally harmful for children is violent content or horror. I remember my own daughter (despite warnings from me) watching a horror film with a 15 rating when she was about 12. She discovered, to her regret, why such films are not recommended for younger children. As well as horror and violence, online gambling and other online purchases can present problems: not only can children manipulate their parents’ email accounts, but they sometimes have their bank and credit card details and can run up large bills through online purchases of – for example – computer games, which also sometimes have violent or other adult content.

    Given this potential broader remit, I was somewhat disturbed that the debate in Synod focussed on pornography, to the exclusion of these other risks to children’s mental health and well-being. Coupled with other debates in Synod and the subsequent furore around same-sex relationships and marriage at the Lambeth Conference, this led me to reflect on why, as a Church, we seem to have sex on the brain. The overriding narrative from the Church seems to be that sexual sin is more serious than any other. What about the many other besetting sins of our age? Why don’t we hear much about pride, greed, envy or anger?

    I would argue – and I don’t think this is particularly contentious – that the underlying message of the Gospels is love. We hear plenty about agape love, certainly, the kind of selfless love a parent has for their child or the love God has for us. In the Church, we’re all comfortable with this kind of love. Love is OK as long as it’s pure and spiritual, right?

    There’s also the eros kind of love though, as so breathtakingly portrayed in the Song of Songs. What is it about the eros kind of love that makes some people in the Church get so hot under the collar? Being embodied is part of our identity – we are not built or intended to be pure spirit either on this or the other side of the grave – have you noticed how nobody talks about the resurrection of the body these days? We interact in the world for good or ill with our bodies. In a lecture entitled “Towards a Christian Sexual ethic for the 21st century”, the Revd Dr Carla Grosch-Miller pointed out quite rightly that the only function of the female clitoris is pleasure. If we believe we are fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator, then we can only assume that enjoyment of sex was part of God’s plan for women in the first place. And for how many centuries have women who have enjoyed sex been thought of as whores – not to mention the cultures which still practise FGM for this very reason?

    There can be no more beautiful expression of love than the joy of sexual union between two people who love each other in the context of a committed relationship – and that’s equally true for heterosexual and homosexual couples. If we theologise sex into something shameful and sinful, then we deny a fundamental part of what it is to be human, and life becomes beige not red-blooded. In the words of the Song of Songs: ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it’. If we are fortunate enough to find this kind of love in our lives, we might find in it a window into the love of God which is both passionate and fervent, full of desire and longing, eros as well as agape. Sadly, we are taught not to want certain things or certain people: we don’t choose who we love – how much easier would life be if that were the case?

    Going back to our starting point, our children must be protected from all kinds of harm online, not just pornography. Over-emphasis on sexual sin can make us look like people for whom it is always Lent and never Easter (Pope Francis) or like Narnia without Aslan where it’s always winter and never Christmas. Here’s a radical thought: instead of disapproving attitudes and a tone of moral outrage towards the secular world and our fellow Christians, what if the Church were to send a message of understanding and encouragement, a message that speaks of joy and hope even in the midst of suffering? Perhaps then we’d be following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.