Month: June 2018

NEEDLES AND CATHEDRALS

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Image result for toilet and drug addicts

A friend told me of a recent visit to one of our cathedrals, where having been welcomed by the steward, was offered the pass code for the toilets. Why, she asked, do the toilets command such high security? The answer, “well we don’t want drug addicts injecting themselves in there, do we?” was delivered with an unhesitating conviction that my friend found initially rather unsettling, within the Christian context.

This response, or at least the manner in which it was delivered, so disturbed her that she looked to me for an explanation. Surely the church should be welcoming such people; furthermore, what positive action is the church taking towards engaging with, and caring for them.

Perhaps rather too keen to defend our cathedral churches, I pointed out the health and safety issues involved in having dirty needles lying around in toilets available to visitors. “People often expect the church to be a soft touch…” was a common line of argument that I proffered.

Most cathedrals and city churches do indeed have programmes of support for homeless people and their associated problems, but I knew I was on the wrong side of the gospel. Jesus tells a parable of a Samaritan travelling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He comes across a man who has been attacked and left for dead. A priest and Levite have already passed by the man, either fearing that they would become “unclean” through contact with the man or had urgent or ritual obligations to fulfill. The Samaritan, however, disregarding all health and safety concerns for himself and his patient, entered the crime scene, (were the muggers still around?) applied first aid (had he any idea what he was doing?), supplied ambulance support by putting the man on his donkey (was the man in a position to be moved?) took him to the nearest inn, and left money with the innkeeper to look after him (was he to be trusted to support the man?).

Who, asks Jesus, acted as neighbour to the victim? The answer might seem obvious, but for us to emulate the Good Samaritan in our own lives as Jesus commands, is rarely so clear-cut. We are both to care for our neighbours with planned and responsible programmes of action, and yet be ready to respond to the unexpected where we see an immediate and urgent need, by putting our own plans to one side and taking risks.

I’m looking forward the cathedral’s response to my friend’s letter.

NEW IMAGE OF GOD

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face of God

According to a recent survey involving a computer generated “identikit “, this is what a sample of American Christians believe to be an accurate visual representation of God. The 511 participants in the study saw hundreds of randomly varying face-pairs and selected the one which most closely matched their ideal. By combining all the selected images, the researchers could assemble a composite “face of God”.

Note the image has no beard and even if he is younger and more feminine than the clichéd “Old Father Time” model, he’s still white and male. It’s hardly surprising, since our services address God in masculine terms and as Father.

In another American study concerned with gender stereotypes, girls as young as six believe that academic/scientific brilliance is a male attribute. The majority of children and adults will draw masculine figures of surgeons and engineers, and despite a growing interest in maths and science among girls, only 10% of their toys are focussed on science, technology or engineering, compared with over 30% of those directed at boys.

Perhaps most alarming of all, is that in nearly all cultures worldwide, men seem to enjoy higher self-esteem than their female counterparts. Surprisingly perhaps, in industrialized Western countries like the U.S. and Australia, the gap between male and female self-esteem is more pronounced than in non-Western, developing countries.

How can we improve this situation if we still think of God in male terms? As Mary Daly the American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian, wrote in 1973: “If God is male, then the male is God”. Yet the Catechism of the Catholic Church is quite clear; “God is neither man nor woman: he is God”. Even St Anselm, the 11th-century Archbishop of Canterbury, prayed to “Christ, my mother” and called God “the great mother”.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury could do more for the cause of women by insisting on removing all patriarchal imagery from services and theological texts, whilst using inclusive language in all its publications. Other denominations have set a precedent which we would be well-advised to follow: the United Reformed Church agreed in 1984 to use inclusive language in all its publications and in 2014 its General Assembly called on all URC congregations to use “inclusive and expansive language and imagery in worship”. In 1996, a prayer book of Reform Judaism, was published, calling God “sovereign” instead of “king”, and “source” or “parent” instead of father. A change within all churches is long overdue.

 

THE ABDICATION OF GOD

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Image result for Harry arctic

Although here in the UK we have a Queen as our nominal head of state, we are not ruled by monarchy in the traditional sense. We live in a democracy, in the hope that the self-evident dangers of investing power in one person alone can be avoided. If we hold that to be a morally sound principle of government in the secular world, then surely we should apply the same philosophy within our spiritual lives.

That is exactly the focus of Pentecost : the power, energy, life and responsibility of God are poured out on each of us. Together as the body of Christ we have the responsibility to act in the world. We have the power to forgive, the power to create, and the power to love.

I think there is a tendency to view the spiritual life as akin to the polarised society of Downton Abbey, or of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited; a world of glamour, bright lights and luxury upstairs and a world of darkness and drudgery downstairs.

Even through the distortions of those rose-tinted, period-drama spectacles, we can see clearly what an inherently unsatisfactory existence it must have been; Women wouldn’t have the vote, the food would be cold having been brought long distances from the kitchen, medical treatment would be primitive by today’s standards, not to mention the lack of wi-fi in the house…..and that’s just upstairs.

Some still peddle the notion that down here in our earthly existence we toil away against the odds of nature and disease and then in the life to come we will enter the bright, glamorous world of heaven.

The Gospel of the incarnation asserts that God is with us, born among us, and power is outpoured upon us. We are here to build heaven on earth, indeed the kingdom of God is among us already.

If we think of the spiritual life in terms of an upstairs and downstairs realm, all power will be invested in God alone, allowing us to abdicate our own responsibility to others and society.

Read the parables of Jesus which begin “the Kingdom of heaven is like . . . the kingdom of God is like” . . and you can begin to understand early Quaker Gerrard Winstanley’s notion of the Republic of Heaven. Kingship and God are simply not compatible in post-Pentecost thinking.

In an open, liberal society words themselves cannot be banned but if we are to continue to use the image of kingship in our theology, let us at least have the right sort of image to inspire us. Think of Prince Harry on his Arctic Charity trek trudging to the North Pole with wounded fellow servicemen, enabling them to become the first amputees to ski to the North Pole unsupported; or think of the Queen, powerless to speak her mind in public.

After all, in the New Testament, it is the dying Jesus, powerless, subjugated and nailed to the cross, who is described as king.

GAY DEAN

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Image result for new dean st edmundsbury cathedral

I had been unaware that Norman Tebbit lived in my neck of the woods until he recently popped up in the media, unhappy about the appointment of the local cathedral Dean. Lord Tebbit said he found it difficult to accept a “sodomite” as a member of the clergy and would not be attending services at which the new Dean was officiating.

Rev Canon Joe Hawes was gentle and diplomatic in his response, saying he felt “no ill will” towards Tebbit and admired the way “he has cared for his wife with such devotion following the Brighton bomb”.

The Church of England itself also took a very measured stance after the statement was made public: “It has been clear for more than a decade that clergy are entitled to be within civil partnerships. Lord Tebbit is welcome to his views.”

Yet on closer examination the Anglican church is far from even-handed in its attitude to gays, gay marriage and civil partnerships. Certainly ministers are allowed to live in a civil partnership, providing they remain celibate, as “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively….” and …”it would not be appropriate conduct for someone in holy orders to enter into a same sex marriage.” There are times when I’m embarrassed to be a priest in the Church of England.

Such hypocrisy cannot remain and should not be tolerated. How can there be one rule for lay people and one for priests? What exactly do the bishops in the Church of England profess their God finds so objectionable in a physical relationship between two people of the same sex? What constitutes a physical relationship anyway? Will the gay priests be allowed to kiss, to kiss with tongues? Which parts of the body will they be allowed to touch, hold, stroke? How will the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich ensure the new dean refrains from a physical relationship?

Of course many leaders of the church are afraid that promoting same sex relationships will offend and alienate others within the Anglican Communion, but the cause of equality must take precedence over the risk of schism. The Church of England should affirm gay relationships in all their fullness, and rejoice both in civil partnerships and gay marriage.