The events of the past two weeks, the meeting of General Synod in November 2023, the conduct of the entire LLF process and the incompetence of the Church to respond the victims of abuse and implement an effective Safeguarding system all demonstrate to me a Church that has none of the characteristics that communicated to me 60 years ago by practice and example what Christianity looks and feels like. Words were not needed.
Foundational Anglican Christian theology with its reliance on scripture, tradition and reason is responsible for creating and justifying a core theology, an edifice on which and within which abuse has been built. The edifice supports conservative Christian homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, prejudice against other religions and cultures and particular categories of people.gy and culture that underpins abuse in the Church. Abuse has become systemic.
Fifty years ago I found Harry Williams in Heffers bookshop in Cambridge. In Harry’s books I found wisdom and truth, honesty and humanity, integrity and playfulness, that reinforced my courage to believe and the freedom to trust my own intuition. Among others. Harry gave me courage to believe disbelievingly.
Jesus was processing his life of human experience and emotions and relationships with exactly the same resources as you and I process our lives and experience. One difference between us (not the difference between divine and human nature) is that our experience, if we are Christians, is processed through the constructs of theology and faith that evolved following Jesus’ death and have been evolving ever since. We are programmed in a way Jesus wasn’t.
In September, five members of Changing Attitude England met in a London garden one afternoon to explore our beliefs about God. I had circulated a position paper beforehand setting out my thoughts as a framework for our conversation. The five of us who met in the garden, plus one, wish to extend the conversation we began by organising an open event on 2nd March 2024 at St Andrew’s Short Street, Waterloo from 10.00 to 16.00 when we hope many of you will bring your own experience to the gathering, exploring our understandings of God in our human awareness and vision raised by the question What kind of God do we believe in?
The Rev Ian Paul, member of the Archbishops’ Council, General Synod, and a leading conservative voice told students at an Oxford Union debate on Thursday that allowing gay clergy to marry would amount to state interference in religion reminiscent of Nazi Germany. He provided the evidence that underpins my conclusion that there is no relationship between faith in the Mystery named God, a mystery manifest in the life and teaching of Jesus and experienced mystically in the essence and energy of unconditional, infinite, intimate love.
Do gay people contaminate the Church of England? This question has been haunting me since I learnt yesterday that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York seem to have accepted the resignation of the Revd Andrew Hammond, Chaplain at St John’s College, Cambridge, openly gay and appointed as chaplain to the General Synod by the Archbishops last year. Andrew offered his resignation as a result of homophobic reactions to his contribution to the act of worship at Synod on Tuesday morning, part of an act of worship themed round humility. Andrew’s key point was that humility is the opposite of the sin of pride. The Gay Pride movement is using the word as the opposite of a sin that produces humiliation and shame.
Canon Mark Oakley has coined a new word, saying “we need a brave Tutufication of the Church, allowing bishops more creativity, freedom of speech and honesty about what they believe, with a commitment to never let religion compromise justice.” I believe the entirety of the Church of England needs a far more radical ‘Tutufication’. For a start, the Church needs bishops who with the courage and independence of mind to individually Tutuficate themselves. Today’s House of Bishops is composed of men and women with none of the Christian conviction, courage, radicalism, independence of mind, freedom of heart and soul, playfulness and energy that fuelled Desmond Tutu and transformed people open enough to respond to his proclamation of God’s unconditional love, energy, truth and justice.
