Never in the seventy five years of my church-going life that started in a kindergarten Sunday School in South London have I set about “looking for Jesus”. Jesus was always there, part of the landscape, along with God, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, the traitor Judas, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the well-known gospel writers, Saint Paul and a host of characters, fictional or real – who knew? – you don’t distinguish between fictional and real at the age of three.
I didn’t go to Sunday School looking for Jesus – I was sent by my non- (at the time) church-going parents. Jesus was a rather sickly looking individual, often accompanied by a sheep, who was pictured in a book at home (If Jesus Came to My House by John Gale Thomas) and in images at church, where Jesus also looked rather sickly in Edwardian and pre-Raphaelite pictures. I despised their vapid colours. This Jesus wasn’t in the least inspiring. I got the impression that Jesus might somehow be living in a wall safe in the Lady Chapel but the safe was hidden by a curtain and I wondered why Jesus needed so many layers of protection.
I’ve never ‘found’ Jesus. I’ve spent all my adult life living in an elusive relationship with Jesus. If I have in some way ‘found’ Jesus it has been within myself through friendships and conversation, reading and dreaming, church activities and non-church activities. My childhood taught me to be very suspicious of where the church taught me to find Jesus and what this Jesus looked like, how he behaved and what he expected of me. I am still very suspicious of what the church teaches, especially the orthodox, biblical, traditional brands.
The Real Jesus?
I have no doubt that Jesus was a real, historical person. I am also very clear that the Jesus of today’s church is not a real person but a mythical figure, a constructed Jesus created by the church. The Jesus of the church, of gospel narrative, myth and legend is the creation of the original witnesses and early followers of Jesus, the creation of the four evangelists and Q and those who were captivated by the person they described; of the early church and of the church in every culture, century and generation.
Today’s church invites people to come and meet and get to know Jesus. But it’s a post-code lottery – which Jesus are you going to find there? The Jesus whose Father is in turns abusive, racist, misogynistic, homophobic? Or perhaps the Jesus who requires absolute conformity to the orthodox teachings of the church as instantly accessible in the Bible? Or the Jesus embedded in the historic formularies and Canons of the church; or maybe the Jesus to be found in dogma and doctrine, or ritual and liturgy, or in lengthy expository sermons or easy-to-sing choruses and friendly and accessible Alpha groups and an enthusiastic welcome? Take your pick – all these versions are in one way or another unhealthy fantasy versions of Jesus and, as a result, misrepresentations of God.
Some in today’s church live with the dangerous fantasy that they ‘know’ with certainty the ‘real’ Jesus and are therefore able to introduce others to the ‘real’ Jesus. They can’t. There isn’t a ‘real’ Jesus in existence somewhere in the space/time evolutionary cosmic continuum. Even the Jesus seminar can never discover the ‘real’ Jesus of the gospels.
According to the recent statements posted by conservative evangelicals, the unchanging Biblical gospel which brings light, life and love to all who repent and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who achieved reconciliation with our heavenly Father through the atoning death of Christ upon the cross. Atonement theology is one curse afflicting LLF and cause of the impasse afflicting the House of Bishops. Conservatives believe the House has embraced heresy by departing from the clear teaching of Scripture on matters of sexual conduct. The House, they say, has changed doctrine on sexual immorality by blessing that which the church teaches is sin; changed the doctrine on marriage by assuming non-marital relationships to have similar composition and status before God; and changed the doctrine on homosexual relationships by assuming that they can be blessed by God. Sex outside heterosexual marriage is inherently sinful. God finds homosexual sex detestable in his eyes. For conservatives, this is heart-breaking, wicked and outrageously arrogant.
These ‘Christian’ views are the result of belief in a ‘real’ Jesus, an unchanging Bible and a God of ‘love’ who finds same-sex love and sex inherently sinful and detestable. Bishops expect LGBTQIA+ people, our families and friends, neighbours and colleagues, churches and congregations, to hold together in the highest degree of fellowship possible with these people (+Manchester), continuing to speak well of each other as befits our incorporation into the Body of Christ (+Southwark). Conservative evangelicals are allowed to describe LGBTQIA+ people, our lives and relationships and loves, in the most abusive, hostile, prejudiced way while we are expected to live in the highest degree of loving, open fellowship with them. This would be an incredibly unbalanced settlement. It is not a settlement I wish to subscribe to as a gay Christian who lives with deep convictions about the essence of God, God as manifested in the Jesus of John’s Gospel - life in all its fullness.
Life in all its fulness
I experience life in all its fullness. I endeavour to live life in all its fullness. I have been exposed to a wide range of attitudes in the Church of England to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Bible, tradition, reason and human experience. That is why I co-founded a group called Changing Attitude. I discerned from my wide Christian experience that some attitudes to God were unhealthy, prejudiced and discriminatory, on grounds of race, gender, and sexuality, among other characteristics.
I discerned
As a gay man I worked out at an early age that the teaching of the Church and the Bible and ideas about God could be questioned and challenged. This is part of my arrogant nature. My intuition, my sense of who I am sniffed out the unhealthy and therefore untrue versions of God and teachings said to be embedded in the Bible. Exposure to radical theologies and biblical analysis from the 1960s onwards showed me why I was right to be suspicious. It is bizarre to be living, sixty years later with issues in human sexuality, gender and race unresolved in a Church where safeguarding for those of us who are targets of prejudice is so inadequate; so many of us are still the objects of prejudice, still being abused. The Church of England is failing to live with and unable to communicate a healthy, unconditionally loving God today because it is held captive by passionate disagreements about the essence of God.
Encountering Jesus
It is, I believe, true to say that we can never discover an ultimately ‘real’ Jesus for ourselves. It is even more true to say that we can only discover the ultimately real Jesus for ourselves. Our belief in God and Jesus and the Spirit is always personal, intuitive, emotional, an act of faith and trust. It is the awareness and confidence that each of us builds for ourselves, within ourselves. We can do this more easily if we are fortunate enough to have found good resources - a healthy Christian community and wise mentors. These mentors will show us by quiet example that we can find the Christ-like self within. I have been fortunate to have found myself in the company of many wise, spiritual, contemplative, active mentors in the course of my life.
Humankind is still learning about God. Each of us will learn about God throughout the whole of our lives. A healthy church will help us develop a healthy love life, a healthy love of life, and a healthy love of the essence of all life, the mystery we experience as God.