Some months ago I came across Sam Howson’s YouTube videos about faith and his experience in churches in the UK and US. The first one was made in response to the news reports about Mike Pilavachi and his abusive activities in the Soul Survivor ministry. Sam is using his YouTube channel to explore his past, examine what was good, and what was destructive. Sam believes the Conservative Evangelical and Charismatic parts of the Anglican Church need challenging. He invites people to be interviewed who are able to help him, and us, understand where the CofE is going so wrong. If you haven’t yet watched any of Sam’s video conversations I urge you to do so. I have found them to be a vital resource in understanding the intrinsic dangers to be found in Christian Charismatic Fundamentalist opposition to homosexuality and equality for all, regardless of gender and sexuality.
Sam’s latest video, Frankly Gay, is an interview with Robert Thompson, vicar of the parish of St Mary with All Souls Kilburn and St James West Hampstead, member of General Synod and a vital, energetic personal friend and comrade in the business of campaigning for a transformed Church of England in which the Archbishops’ promise of radical new Christian inclusion means exactly that for LGBTQIA+ people – radical equality in marriage and in ministry.
In this interview, Sam wanted to hear Robert’s story and learn about his background and what it was like growing up as gay in Northern Ireland. Towards the end of the interview, the conversation turns to the “collapse” of the LLF process and Church of England attitudes to sex, abuse, safeguarding, blessings and equal marriage. I don’t believe the LLF process has collapsed. What has happened is that a breakthrough has taken place leading to the revelation that when the teaching and Canons of the Church are examined in detail, legally and theologically, there is nothing to stop same-sex relationships being blessed in church nor, ultimately, to stop clergy in same-sex relationships being married and same-sex marriages being legally solemnised in church.
Robert makes dramatically direct statements about the damage the attitudes and strategies of the Alliance of conservative churches and networks, including Holy Trinity Brompton and HTB plants funded by the Church Revitalisation Trust plus churches allied to St Helen Bishopsgate are having on the outcome of the Living in Love and Faith process. The urgent need is to embed equality and respect for LGBTQIA+ people in the teaching, practice and Canons of the Church; the failure of the House of Bishops to pursue the goal of a radical new Christian inclusion emphasises for Robert and myself the crucial need for progressive groups and networks to act decisively now.
As I watched the Frankly Gay conversation between Sam and Robert I made quick notes, realising that Robert was naming elements of the blog that I am planning to post tomorrow:
The CofE is worse than, more abusive than, a year 1 school class
LGBTQIA+ people are experiencing micro-aggressions all the time in the Church
We are repeatedly being ‘othered’ by conservative homophobic attitudes
Progressive bishops are not transparent in their support for LGBTQIA+ equality and fail to voice their support
The culture of the Church and the episcopacy is extremely fragile at the moment
A diversity of attitudes towards gender and sexuality is essential to the health of the Church
Conservatives want ultimate totally control over their tribal sector of the Church
The characteristics of Conservative Charismatic Evangelical churches and movements are like that of a cult
One of the most important elements of Christian life today is to understand what it means to be a human being in the kingdom of God
That’s what I heard Robert saying, but it’s best if you open Sam’s video and listen to their conversation. Their spoken words were being instantly converted into text and I’ve selected sections from the final part of the conversation for you to read here. I find it easier to share the written word with people rather than reporting speech.
Sex Before Marriage
In the section about Sex before Marriage, Robert and Sam talk about of the problem of othering people and a denial of experience – what is allowed in anatomical and non-anatomical expression with a girl friend or same sex partner and the distinction between intimacy and sex (45.13).
Honesty and Safeguarding
The conversation then moved on to talk about honesty and safeguarding. Robert said that in the conservative context, LGBTQIA people are not respected and actually even just coming out is problematic.
“Then there are the lies about our own human experience of sexuality, which actually also is at the bottom of the safeguarding problem. The safeguarding problem is a problem about being open, transparent and accountable to another human being and to outside institutions. And what we do in the church is often lie in order to maintain the facade that Jesus can get rid of all of these Jesus to overcome them which is actually not the reality of a lot of people and leads to an awful lot of guilt for people in terms of sexuality. Self-denial then becomes a dynamic in relation to safeguarding - abuse cannot take place in our communities because we're Christians.”
“Here's where the other element comes into it - when we discuss sexuality and safeguarding we never really discuss consent. And yet consent is what is at the heart of actually most people's modern sexual ethics. We need to discuss within the church both our own othering of other people, our own self deception and our lying about ourselves and also the ways in the thing I'm aware of is the chasm between the I keep wanting to call them allegiance alliance and the rest of the church.”
Living in Love and Faith
“What will actually happen is that parishes like mine will simply offer blessings of civil marriage on exactly the same way to gay couples as we do to straight couples. They will be standalone services that in effect the bishops have said we cannot have but in law lots of us think that we can.”
“And I look forward to the day when my partner and I will be able to get married and also to when we'll be able to celebrate marriage in church regardless of the gender of each person. That's going to be a bit of a struggle. We need to acknowledge that there are some who just want to exclude those of us who want to marry even though they would not be forced to do it themselves. That's the difficulty the bishops have to deal with, the fact that homophobia is much more problematic on the ground than a lot of them are prepared to admit. There are multiple examples in which bishops are simply not at present being as good as the year one teacher who will say that this is very definitely homophobia and call it out.”
“The bishops have rejected the idea of standalone services but they need to up their game on calling out homophobia when it is homophobia.”
Synod and the new Archbishop
“The primary issue that Sarah the new Archbishop has to face is a larger issue than just safeguarding. It is an issue about episcopal culture, and the difficulties of episcopal culture are tied up with the sexuality debate. It's about a lack of transparency and honesty amongst the bishops; about where they stand on particular issues. On the sexuality issue the conservative bishops are now being very transparent about where they stand. There is not that reciprocity on the progressive side and there needs to be because a lot of us who are simply ordinary clergy people within parishes feel that we do not have a voice within the episcopate whereas conservatives very definitely have a voice within the episcopate. I think the progressive voices need to become clearer and clearer. Of course the reality is that if those voices become clearer and more robust then they will be rejected. We're at a point when the culture of the church and the culture of the episcopacy is extremely fragile and could fall apart quite quickly.”
Is the Alliance a cult?
“The question for me about some of our churches today is in what sense are they actually different from being in a cult, if this community is meant to soak up all of your time and your only objective is to make people members of this community? What does it actually mean (to Alliance churches) be a human being, a person made in Christ, to be bearing Christ's love in the community in which Christ has set you? If it's all just about making people members of this community, our community and giving them a Christian identity, where's Jesus gone?”
Please, please, share Sam and Robert’s video conversation and this blog on Facebook and wherever you can. It’s vitally important now for progressive groups to initiate action that will lead to the public blessing of same-sex relationships and equal marriage in church and for clergy in a same-sex relationship who wish to marry.