I have concluded that I belong to a church within a church and it makes me feel quite proud. I like the image above because the juxtaposition of the two churches in their different states of repair sums up my sense of where it's all at.
A week or so back, accompanied by my beloved's vicar, I went to a meeting of Changing Attitude, an Anglican based organisation which exists to challenge the received wisdom and orthodoxy of the "traitional Christian" view on human sexuality. It was quite well attended by a mixture of the lay and the ordained, straight and gay and was chaired by our patron the Rt. Revd. John Packer, Bishop of the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds.
We did not plan the overthrow of the church, (although we did talk about organising a joint social with the group from a neighbouring diocese). Our discussions were not behind closed doors with secret knocks and people leaving at different times to avoid being followed with the consequent risk of the door being broken down at 3.00am. The following day no one was arrested, no one was threatened with the loss of a job or college place or was harassed in the street with attendant threats to family members, or beaten. No one experienced "corrective" rape.
I mentioned my having been to this meeting to one of my colleagues the next day and, as ever, there was a combination of a lack of interest and a general sense of perplexity about what all the fuss was about. In this country at least, as far as the unchurched go, homosexuality is pretty much a non issue outside the orbit of the usual right-wing hate suspects. Even within the church my observation is that many members of many congregations are off message in relation to their Conservative Evangelical leaderships' stance and I know of a couple of clergy who, free from their Conservative Evangelical former placements, are reevaluating the whole issue. Outside Conservative Evangelicalism I sense even less interest in issues of human sexuality within the church but I do sense a fear of the reaction of other churches abroad. One small denomination in Britain - I won't say British denomination, was all set to be very proactive and forward looking over the gay issue but quietly let it drop for fear of alienating and losing its African and Asian congregations which seemed to me to be an acknowledgement that the tail does, indeed, wag the dog.
It isn't as if the theology on human sexuality was questionable. It isn't - even though some who should know better still argue that it is and lead those who do not know better astray, but the long standing scholarly disciplines of Biblical Criticism and its understanding of the subtleties of the ancient writings of the Bible and their cultural and political influences and compromises can be sacrificed on the altar of .. well I'm struggling for the phrase here. Any suggestions?
I was pondering this afresh when I read in this week's Guardain the inspiring story of Cameroon gay rights lawyer Alice Nkom, who is leading the fight to overturn anti-gay laws in the 80 or so nations which still have them, 42 of which are member states of the British Commonwealth. I was equally surprised (and gratified) to discover that criminalising homosexuality is illegal under international law, according to Jonathan Cooper, a human rights barrister who is the chief executive of The Human Dignity Trust. Among the legal authorities establishing that precedent is a 1994 ruling by the UN's human rights committee based on a case in Australia.
H.D.T's first legal challenge is against section 53 of Belize's criminal code, which states that: "Every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years." What has so upset and shocked me is the discovery that Belize's evangelical, Anglican and Catholic churches have united to oppose the challenge. They are expected to set out their objections in a pre-hearing review on Friday and seek to introduce evidence that homosexuality can be "cured".
Really? That old argument is still doing the rounds? Dear God!
In a joint statement earlier this summer, the churches in Belize declared: "In every country that has granted a new 'right' to homosexual behaviour, activists have promoted and steadily expanded this 'right' to trump universally recognised rights to religious freedom and expression. The people of Belize will not surrender our constitution, our moral foundations, and our way of life to predatory foreign interests." No scaremongering there then. These leaders have very un-Latin American names. They are: Catholic bishop Dorick Wright, the Anglican bishop Philip Wright and the evangelical Rev Eugene Crawford. Would I be cynical in suspecting the hand of American or Australian GAFCON types at play here?
And yet I am in the same church and it depresses and upsets me that this is so. Can I repent on behalf of others? I think not but I want to. I belong to a church within a church I have concluded: a minority who seek to put into practice the teachings of its founder in terms of inclusivity and care of the marginalised rather than the tendentious teachings of the Old Testament. I have long had a term for such Old Testament Christians - LEVITICITES. Their teaching seems to me to be as far from the essence of the the teaching of the carpenter from Nazareth as it is possible to be.
I sat in church this morning and listened to the Gospel:
Matthew 25:31-46
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Could it be much clearer? Well, seemingly so. It doesn't mention homosexuals, you see, so clearly an application to them within the spirit of this teaching is clearly a non-starter.
"There are none so blind as them who will not see."
Read Alice's story here
