Evangelising England

OK, so this was announced last week Evangelising England.

To which I let out a resigned sigh. 

 

To those who don't know me - and probably some of those who do -  this may well sound like I have rejected Christianity, and don't want people to get to know Jesus. That could not be further from the truth.

I am a passionate believer that people need to know Jesus, need to engage with the Divine, need to find faith, find spiritual truth and reality that engages them and drives them and fires them on.

I am a passionate believer that we, as Christians, need to talk to others about what we believe, discuss with them, engage with them about faith - ours and theirs.

The reason I sigh is that the Church of England as a system and structure has done so much damage to these conversation over the last few years. The damage has been done mainly with the farce over Women Bishops and the constant and continuing hand-washing over sexuality. The messages that these have sent out - very publicly - are that women are just about tolerated and that anything other than heterosexuality is an abomination to God. The recent suspension of ECUSA over this issue is a clear demonstration of the feeling from the church system.

Now I know that there are many Anglican churches that strongly support women in all roles. There are many churches who are less interested in peoples sexuality than their humanity. The problem is that the general public perception of what Christianity means is set by the more public statements. There is a perception that Christianity is anti-women and anti-homosexuality. This is not helped by some of the more fundamentalist reports coming from the US and (sometimes) supported by people in the UK. The impression given is, although we are very British, and are not going to shout and rave like the Americans do, British Christians are also very much the same.

This statement is likely to have a number of effects:

1. All sorts of money and resources will be poured into ineffective, outdated "evangelism" campaigns.

2. Some of the larger, more conservative churches will push their agenda again, and there will be embarrassments.

3. For a few people, in a few places, the negative impressions that the Church of England has given over the last few years will be undone.

Of course, there is a view that not giving total support to any activity that you define as "evangelism" makes the baby Jesus cry. In truth, some of these activities make him cry - both in sadness and laughing.

I am all for evangelism. I am all for telling people the good news. But the starting point today is to undo so much of the damage caused by the Church of England as an organisation. And then it is to engage and listen. And then to change and accept and embrace others, to move to being where they are, to be the presence of God for them.

Yes, I am all for evangelism. That is why I sigh at the statement, because I suspect, in many cases, this will put back the work once again.

The house of bishops statment on same sex unions

The house of bishops has issued a "pastoral statement" on same sex marriage being reported on the BBC more simply. The reaction to this on my twitter feed has been painful to read, and my personal reaction is angry and saddened.

I did think the church had learned its lesson from the debacle of women bishops, but it seems not. When women were first ordained, some 20 years ago, it was broadly speaking bringing the church closer to up to date - they should have done this a decade or more before, and it would have been radical, dramatic, and made a point, as it was, it merely indicated that he church was trying to keep up to date.

The fact that women could still not be bishops was a problem that, ideally, should have been resolved within a few years, but has taken 20 years beyond to get close. When it is finally passed this year, it will not be a success, a mark of the church coming up to date. Some will celebrate, but I will not be one, not because I don't think women should be bishops, but because all this does is resolve a ridiculous anomaly in the church. It is important to fix this, but there should only be sadness that this has taken so long, that so much bile and hatred has been shown through this process.

And just as this is starting to come to a conclusion, the house of bishops puts out this statement. I have posted on homosexuality before, trying to look at it from a biblical perspective, and I am not going into that again. The statement, which does not permit clergy to be joined in a same sex union, or to ordain anyone currently in a same sex marriage, is a huge step backwards for the church.

Firstly, why do I care what a church which I am no longer part of says? The reason is that, like it or not, the church is seen to reflect English Christianity. It is seen as representing what Christianity means to respectable, normal people. What this has come to say is that Christianity is misogynistic and homophobic, which it isn't.

One of the core parts of the statements is the reassertion that marriage is between one woman and one man. While I accept that this has been the traditional teaching of the church, I struggle to find out why. Many of the significant figures in the bible, those who we are told to look up to, had multiple wives. People like Abraham and David, not to mention Solomon. And in the New Testament, while we don't get so much detail about the domestic arrangements of the main characters, we do have one significant statement, often used in support of this: Tim 1:6 "An elder must be the husband of but one wife". The clear implication of this is that there were those in the congregation who had multiple wives, and that they were considered acceptable, possibly eldership material - otherwise why would Paul need to put this in his letter?

I am not suggesting that we should be starting a campaign for polygamous relationships. All I am trying to say is that the idea of "one man, one woman" is not a biblical concept. Once we escape from that idea, should we not be prepared to consider same sex relationships as acceptable? Let me be clear, we are taking about two people who are prepared to commit themselves to marriage, with an intention of a long-term relationship, as much as different-sex couples.

As Rachael Mann discusses in her blog, she may, at some point, have to choose between a loving, committed relationship to another person, or a commitment to her calling as a Church of England vicar. Should it come to this, what is her option (or anyone else in the same situation)? I suppose, to not get married, to live together unwed. Is that really the message that the church wants to send?

At the end of the day, I suspect that this is bordering on illegal - if not already, it will be - to refuse a legal marriage to your employees. or to refuse to accept people based on their marital status. Then the church will find itself on the wrong side of a legal battle, which will make it look even more ridiculous.