The Black Priest

Waiting for someone to sort it out

2009-01-09T15:06:00.005Z

There is a good deal of chatter and not a little activity among some evangelicals about "false teachers"and the need to purify and re-reform the church. It is focused of course by the Bishop of New Hampshire's existence and by the determination of the diocese of New Westminster in Canada to provide liturgical rites for the blessing of same-sex partnerships. Some people talk about the revisionists as preaching another gospel - though I must say Gene Robinson sounds like good 'ol time religion to me. Last year's Lambeth Conference was perceived as an exercise in futile avoidance - taking time to listen and hear and understand people with whom we don't agree when we should be taking stands and opposing false teaching. The activist reasserters (as some in the USA call them) have found a focus for their energies in organising GAFCON, and its sucessors FOCA (Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) and the new ACNA (Anglican Church of North America)

In one forum recently we were asked for any biblical justification for patiently continuing to be in fellowship with those whose teaching and understanding is very different from what we believeto be the biblical way. I suggested the parable of the Wheat and the Tares. One respondent commented that he thought it was a parable about the world (ie not relevant to the church). But the parable of the Wheat and the Tares is a parable not about the "world" as opposed to the "church". It is a parable about the coming of the Kingdon. The context of that coming kingdom is the world (Matt 13:38) in which the wheat and tares are sown. There is nowhere else for this drama to be played out. There is no world/church opposition in the teaching of Jesus. The coming of the kingdom demands response and creates crisis (krisis) wherever it is announced. Sometimes that is the streets and sometimes in the synagogue (Luke 4).

It is a characteristic weakness of some evangelicals not to be able to read the parables of the Kingdom without wanting to bring in the safety net of a pure church in a messy world. But the purity and the mess are to be found everywhere - just as Jesus told us they would be. The resolution of the uncertainty only comes at the end of the age - and it is not in our hands.

This parable is a very good biblical and (perhaps importantly, dominical) example of why our officious attempts to do the purifying and sorting out are plain wrong.

2009 - Darwin's anniversary year

2009-01-08T09:46:00.006Z

The press and the media are full of Darwin. Two hundred years after his birth and 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species his genius is being thoroughly and properly celebrated.

Listening to some of the coverage I am struck by the way in which he noticed and noticed and noticed. His use of the garden as Down House as his laboratory was both charming and highly inventive - but didn't appear to be so - one of the gardeners commented on his "mooning about". But from what appeared to be a simple rural Victorian gentleman's idyll he ran a huge web of research and investigation by correspondance. His networking was extraordinary, his range and number of interlocutors astonishing, and the persistence with which he pressed them all for observations was exceptional.

All of this left me with a hugely increased sense of respect for a man of property and susbtance who used his advantages to the very best effect. He knew of the controversial nature of his research into human origins, but did not shirk in the end from publishing what he believed he had discovered.

So that left me wondering why he had been so opposed by Christians from the beginning. Their spiritual great great grandchildren can still be found seeing in Darwinian thinking demonic tricks being played on the faithful. But nothing could be further from the intention or the effect of the work of the observant sage of Down House. It cannot be irreligious to reflect as hard and as deeply as we can on anything in this world and why it is as it is. That is to use our greatest gift of consciousness as it should be used.

And for those of us who find in Christian faith the heart and centre of a deep understanding of things Darwin has perhaps one thing more to remind us of - the virtue of patient enquiry. There are in Charles Darwin no rushings to judgement. The changes in understanding of the origins of the universe and our place in it have been monumental, and in the hands of some challenge the very nature of faith itself. But patient waiting and reflection continue to show some believers how to correlate faith and understanding - how fides can endure with the intellectum of this our world. What I find more disturbing and distressing than anything the world of science can throw up to challenge faith is the behaviour of co-religionists, and their insistence on a pre-theoretical commitment to a collection of books as the source and sum of the truth about almost all questions. Unless that commitment is shared there can be no real communicating. And their engagement with the world as it is has to endlessly hope for a capitulation as an a priori to this "Biblical worldview". So there can be no patient enquiry, no listening or corresponding with those who don't see it our way. No feeling the force of their arguments or difficulties, and no real and proper correlation between what we now know (only in part of course) about the world, and what we believe (and in a religious sense know) about God.

Trying to conduct that kind of dialogue I find very taxing and demanding - not least because it is far from easy to discover a language that communicates. But out of the anniversary celebrations the patience of Darwin will encourage me on, working in my own laboratory and context.

Goodbye 2008

2008-12-31T12:52:00.003Z

I think the year has been mixed for the people of the DRCOngo. In some respects there has been a semblance of order in some parts. But not if you live in Kivu. I wonder when the anguish of that nation will end. But then Zimbabwe is just as bad if not worse. The whole continent is littered with failed states. Who can do something about it and how can it begin? Lord, have mercy.

I try not to be anti-Israeli. And I certainly can recognise that Hamas are a very unprincipled and cynical group, who don't seem to sare for the well-being of their people either. But how can a people who faced extermination possibly think that exterminatory policies will work in their struggle with their neighbours?? Gaza is a shame and a crime.

Will 2009 be the year we all leave Iraq? Perhaps. Has it been worth it? Almost certainly not. And being in Afghanistan (which will certainly last all the year) will be very hazardous. It really hurts to think of the families who are losing loved ones on a weekly basis.

Bsides all that the other stuff is minor - but here it is anyway. This year has been loads better personally than 2007 - so I am very grateful for that. I don't know if I am a better person - but I am trying to live in a simple, straightforward, uncomplicated way. I am better in control of all the aspects of my life - including my finances (for the first time in my life?) - though I am not buying into the myth of human control. I know perfectly well that things will happen to me - and in fact the test of my character will be shown in how I respond.

I don't know if to be hopeful or anxious for the life and future of our church. I am hopeful when I head the proposal for women bishops - though I still think a simple one clause measure would have been simpler - crueller at first, but leaving fewer untidy ends. I only hope that what we have does not get lost in Synodical politicking. The stance of the church on sexuality is also unclear. The intense spotlight has meant that pastoral responses which existed years ago, bishops knowing their gay clergy and being able to quietly support them and so forth, has almost died. Now there is much more intrusive questioning, and arse covering. Not healthy.

But I rather suspect that 2009 will see us get further on the road to schism with the conservatives taking their bat and ball off to another playing field. I hope the Communion does not recognise the new province (though the way that the ACNA is being run they seem to suggest that they don't really care if anyone recognises them or not - they are the true Anglicans) - but it will probably mean if they do that there will be a parting of the ways.

Staying Put

2008-12-22T11:57:00.005Z

Sometimes I get twitchy and let myself get drawn into a flurry of speculation and exploration of jobs other than the one I am doing at the time. Now, it is a hard business to judge when it is right to be looking at other things to be doing, and it is certainly the case that if you are a priest in the C of E no one is going to be looking after your career (or whatever you call it) but yourself.

Every time you look at such things it is emotionally taxing: you have to think about the job and the move and the new place and so forth. And that is because it is never just a job.

Then I remember the lecture I heard at a British and Irish Association of Mission Studies Conference in Maynooth years ago about "Celtic Christianity". The eminent lecturer was scathing about the characterisation of most of what passes these days for "celticness" in Christian spirituality and practice.

In discussing the celebrated capacity of monks to undertake great long journeys as 'pilgrims for Christ' he told us that this was a habit of the Irish monks in particular. As soon as the winter storms abated and fairer weather came they got itchy feet and jumped in their coracles and were off. But it would be a mistake to think that everyone did this. There were the British monks who tended to get left behind. They it was who did the digging and sowing and planting and tending and reaping - so that when the itinerant Irish returned for the winter there was something to sustain them all for the winter. The complaints of those who stayed put have left their mark in the literature.

Benedictines see stability as a virtue. When I get twitchy I remember that it is, and try and calm down.

From the other side of the fence

2008-12-15T11:30:00.004Z

The Bishop of Chichester has run into choppy water over his refusal to contemplate appointing a suffragan who will ordain women, and simply relying on a retired assistant bishop to do so. The mechanism for such ordinations is clearly in place in his diocese, but the signal it sends is hardly encouraging to supporters of women's ordination.

Because I have been out of the flow of parochial ministry for well over a year now, and because of all the changes in my life, I have been living among lots of people who don't share the 'churchy' perspecive on life and the issues of the day. I have been helped to see how some of what passes for policy in the Church of England looks to ordinary English people.

It is thirty-three years since our government under Harold Wilson passed the Sex Discrimination Act. Progress has been slow - and a significant pay gap still exists between men and women. This is worse in some areas than others - IT being a notoriously male preserve with pay disincentives for the few brave females who venture into that world. But if you ask people now whether it is right to discriminate against people on the basis of their gender in the workplace they will all instinctively say that it is wrong. We have changed the cultural consciousness of the nation.

Attitudes like those of the Bishop simply look discriminatory and wrong. I am not saying that he doesn't have his reasons for doing what he is doing - just that, from the other side of the fence it all looks incredible and prejudiced and antedivulian.

This brings to the fore church and culture issues. I think it is hard for the Church of England to understand that it is in danger of placing itself in a Christ against Culture position with regard to a number of areas of social life - and especially those connected with equality, diversity, gender and sexuality. We are so used to being the church of the nation that we can't quite cope with a nation that is moving away from us in some areas - and I am not sure that we see clearly at all how dangerous it is to lose touch with the mind and heart of the nation in this way.

There is a grudgingness and slowness to respond to these issues by some of the church's leadership (look for instance at the bishops who have spoken against aspects of the equality agenda over the years in the House of Lords) that implies that they are somehow against equality and diversity. There has been in recent years as well a tendency on the part of more conservative Christians to oppose what they see as threats to religious rights and freedoms and for the crucible for these to be around the self-same contoversial issues. So the whole thing starts to take on the character of a 'culture war'. Church against Culture - with Church batting for "religious rights" - how can that be faithful to a kenotic Christ who told us that saving our lives was the sure way to go about losing them?

Culture wars like that may be what some people want. Conservative Evangelicals never really feel that they are being faithful to Christ unless they have lots of people and things to define themselves against. But I don't think it is what a very great deal of ordinary Christians want of their church. They live on the other side of the fence most of the week - and they feel the force of the reality that is a world that enshrines equality and diversity. They discover that not discriminating doesn't necessarily damage the fabric of society, or threaten the family or undermine marriage or make it impossible for people to worship their god or any of the things that we are told such agendas will surely bring about. Indeed, and in the other direction, it may make possible a framework of mutual respect for an increasingly diverse Britain and dignify everyone with opportunities that discriminating does not. It is therefore sometimes seen as a positive good.

Neibuhr's contention is that the various relationships of Christ and Culture (of, above, against, in paradox and as transformer) are not mutually exclusive, but that all are useable as approaches to the challenge that Christ's reign and human cultural activity present. The voices over the fence from Churchland, the voices of so many of the people I live and work and socialise with, tell me that what they see is an institution talking to itself, irrelevant to the needs of so many, and proving by their outmoded attitudes that they have nothing to say. And while this is sometimes said in a hostile way, more often than not there is an element of wistfulness about it - as if they wished that there was a way good news could still be spoken and heard.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!"

2008-12-12T11:15:00.007Z

So said Walter Scott. And our whole society is based on relations of trust that can only operate because in our human communicating we decide that we can rely upon the things that we say to each other. In fact, truth telling is so important that we legislate against lying at critical moments and in critical places (perjury). We all teach our children that truth telling is good and that lying is bad - however much in the world of grown ups we do the opposite.

Part of the purpose of this blog is about honest living. I know the difference between not lying and not telling all the truth. Telling all the truth in an undifferentiated way is not necessarily virtuous - on the contrary it can be cruel, embarrassing and thoroughly unpleasant for other people. It was one of the reported failings of the famous Bishop of Durham of the early 20C, Herbert Hensley Henson, that he was too honest. His strict Protestant unbringing made him a speaker of very unvarnished truths, and, as no one was as intelligent as him (a prize fellow of All Souls, Oxford at the age of twenty) he could be very cutting indeed.

I have had two lives - one in which I hid primarily from myself unacceptable aspects of my person. Supressing that furiously until I never named it, I was therefore engaged in telling a monumental lie to myself, God and everyone else about who I was. Why did I do it? Weakness of character, perhaps. And because I thought that to be what I was was unacceptable to God, my family and myself. Again, there was perhaps a bit of pride in the mix - I wanted to be seen as normal and to fit in. Well, finally I realised that the only way to be me was to be me - however unacceptable or difficult some aspects of myself were. And in the moment of facing that I found that they were not unacceptable anyway.

I am learning to be honest and confident in who I am. I therefore find it disconcerting, on websites that support gay married men, to find lying extolled as a virtue - and the cultivation of whole double lives upheld as somehow a creditable choice. Now, don't get me wrong - I know very well indeed how much trouble is caused by married gay men facing up to who they are. But it does them no favours to tell them that their deceptions are good or acceptable. One of the most frequent fears expressed on these sites is the worry that their children will reject them. Frankly, if they have been lied to for years, then they are far more likely to do that than if they have been told the truth and helped to live through the painful conesequences of what is really the case.

I know one or two people who have continued a tangled web of lies for years and years: are they happy? No, they are not. They are plagued by anxiety and regrets. Anxiety about exposure and what it would all mean if it all came out. regret for missing out on authentically being able to be themselves - they speak of a great sense of having 'missed the boat'. And meanwhile they live an apparently happy, calm, married life.

Merton and Barth

2008-12-10T16:01:00.002Z

40 years since both great men died.

Here is Merton writing six days before his death of the giant statues of Buddhas at Polunnaruwa

"The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional refutation...that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything...without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening."

I am at the beginning of learning not to live in that kind of a defended way - but to search and seek instead for God. That sends me back to my foundations. And I have now to be as honest as I can be.

On feeling the odd one out

2008-12-10T15:48:00.002Z

Went to a clergy do last night - dinner at the bishop's. It was very nice - very informal - very friendly. It was about as good as these things can be. I think it was a chance to meet other people fairly new in the diocese.

Now that can be a receipe for what I loathe - having to hang around and be interested/interesting with people I don't want to be with and feeling trapped with the person in the room who is least interesting. But it wasn't like that. The bishop in question is very 'man of the people'y, and on this occasion it worked a treat in making everyone relax.

Except I didn't. Not quite. Because I know that my partner outed me to the bishop in question on the phone the previous week by accident. And this diocese is not noted for its accepting perspective on gay clergy. So everyone else was there with their wives (bar one woman who had just got engaged again - so that made her safe). And I was there alone - with my partner elsewhere. And nothing was said. So I said nothing.

I don't think I expected the bishop in question to say anything - that would be far too much like acknowledging the reality that he had stumbled across. And if he had said something then he might feel he had to DO something - though what I am not quite sure, as I am employed by the NHS. So I didn't expect it - but I still found it hard that it was totally ignored.

And then, to turn the tables on myself, if I didn't want it ignored why didn't I say something in conversation to the other guests? And the answer there is probably that I didn't want to risk what I thought might be their reactions. My lack of confidence and courage.

So it all combined to make me feel the odd one out. And that is not a bad feeling to feel, I think, for someone who has mostly fitted in well and for whom social fit has been easy. Because it can't be for lots of people, and there must be many in our churches and hospitals and other places where people gather who feel that they can't quite be themselves. I don't fit in all places now, and that is my choice - so don't think I am whingeing. I'm not. Just noting.

Nativity among the elderly

2008-12-10T15:06:00.000Z

Just back from our Nativity play presented to the patients and friends of the the three wards here by staff of the two wards for people with dementia - one an assessment ward, and the other a ward for people with challenging behaviour. The lounge was packed with about 50 people.

The activities staff had gone to a great deal of trouble with the whole thing and the set looked lovely - painted backdrop, stars, straw and crib - all there. The staff who were in the cast were togged up in gear borrowed from a local Methodist church, and Jane read a very simple version of a combined Nativity story. I was Joseph - and the keyboard player. So besides singing my solo of "Little Donkey" I was forever nipping back and forth to play for the carols. We mimed our parts (or perhaps more honestly, mugged them). There was lots of laughter.

But what I noticed was how many tears there were as well. Some from patients, but others from friends and family. I might have expected that from a primary school, but not, I would have thought, from an audience watching a cast of middle-aged healthcare workers mangling the greatest story ever told. But its power, along with the traditional carols, to touch and move remains undimmed.

One patient, who lives very much in his own world now, was entirely engaged and looked almost animated at times - I haven't seen him like that for months. He remembered something very deep perhaps.

I know lots of priests who frankly despise this kind of religion. But common religion links the roots of Christian culture, which are so faded in some ways, to all kinds of elements of people's genuine spiritual selves, which are not always accessible very much even to themselves - let alone the professional purveyors of religion.

Mince pies and Christmas cake and a tombola completed the proceedings. And a lot of good feelings for a couple of wards that often feel very sad, as they are filled with the people who are saying the long goodbye - and some who have passed beyond our world of communication and expression. May the peace of the Child of Bethlehem be theirs.

Starting to think

2008-12-10T13:32:00.000Z

I am tired of being an onlooker in the blogosphere - so I will use this as a way of posting what I want to say about anything and everything that interests me - if it interests you too that is all to the good