Lesbian Bishop elect of Stockholm

The Diocese of Stockholm in the Lutheran Church of Sweden, with which the Church of England is in communion, has elected a new bishop. Nothing unusual there, except the bishop-elect is not only a woman, but also a lesbian. Eva Brunne lives in a registered partnership with another woman and has a young son.

She was elected by a significant majority of 413 votes to 365 against Hans Ulfvebrand, her opponent in the final second round of the election on May 26. How refreshing to see a Bishop chosen in an open manner by a wide range of people who know the gifts, experience and suitability of the candidates, rather than the mysterious appointments system of the Church of England.

Bishop-elect Eva has been chosen as the most suitable person for this leadership role, regardless of her sexuality. We can and do applaud the Church of Sweden for this prophetic decision, but we look for the day when such an appointment in the Church of England would not in itself be newsworthy.

By the Porvoo Agreement, the Church of Sweden is also in communion with the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales and the Church of Ireland. Is it too much to hope that leaders of these Anglican churches can be open to learn from their sister church in Sweden, and embrace the ministries of their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered members?

Are conservative Christians unfaithful to Genesis 1?

Conservative Christians opposed to the full inclusion of LGBT people in the church don’t just have a problem with human sexuality and homosexuality. They have a problem with God, God who created human beings in his own image (Genesis 1.27), saw all that he had made and saw that it was very good (Genesis 1.31).

Conservatives have a problem with God who creates abundant life in rich and wonderful diversity and loves lavishly – grains of sand, hairs on head, lilies of the field, sparrows, gay men and lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and heterosexuals.

The fullness and abundance of life of which Jesus speaks is there to be enjoyed and immersed in at every step on our journey through life. For any human being the discovery that there is abundance of life all around us awakens the abundance of life within us. Once awakened, it can flow lavishly, opening hearts, souls and bodies to the glorious awareness of all that is holy and infused with the presence of God.

God’s lavish, loving abundance is a problem for conservatives of a puritan persuasion. Conservative Christians are a problem for God’s creation and not the solution. Those who are drawn to respond to God in creative, lavish and unorthodox ways are a problem for conservative Christians.

Conservatives defend and are on the defensive.

They set out to defend ancient understandings. They major on the fall, sin and guilt and a dualistic view of the world, divided into good and evil, the sacred and satanic, the saved and the lost.

God is an object in creation, external to a person’s being, who issues rules and commandments for us to obey and against which we shall be judged, setting them all down in a book.

Conservatives have a fragmented awareness of life and fail to capture a vision of the wholeness of life in which everything is interconnected and holistic.
Their faith perspective is damaging to the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

A dualistic world view is damaging for humanity, encouraging and fomenting conflict and division between nations, faith communities and within Christianity itself.

A dualistic world view is damaging for the planet, failing to see the deep interconnectedness and fragility of ecosystems and the unity in creation.

The world needs saving from a conservative Christian world view. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ in the living awareness of people who are deeply open to love, beauty, glory, holiness.

Melanie Phillips’ world of intolerance and persecution

Melanie Phillip’s article in the current edition of the Spectator majors on the idea that what is normal is being subverted and destroyed in our society. Melanie knows what normal is, normal lifestyle, normal ethical principles, normal sexuality.

She thinks that a liberal society should show tolerance of homosexuality but thinks this has been hijacked by an agenda which aims at destroying the very idea of normative sexuality altogether by smearing it as prejudice.

Lesson one for Melanie (from my psychotherapy training) – there is no normal. Normal is what the majority think or what a culture has accepted as normative for them. In truth, though, each person’s normal is unique to them. Normal for me is being gay, loving my male partner, waking up in the morning with him, eating muesli and making toast.

Christians being persecuted by Equality and Human Rights Commission
Melanie Phillips’ argument is that the freedom of Christians to practise their religious faith and live by its precepts is being prevented by profoundly illiberal and oppressive ‘progressive’ voices in church and society. The Equality & Human Rights Commission is being used persecute Christians, a tool of oppression designed to stamp out all such heresy. It is making homosexual practice, once outlawed, compulsory and is prohibiting Christian practice.
When people make such obviously exaggerated and false claims, and when every day Anglican Mainstream publishes such assertions, you know that they are in a desperate corner and are using extreme language and arguments to support an ever weaker position.

The church is being asked to honour and respect the presence of LGBT people in church and society. It is not being asked to approve patterns of behaviour which is judges to be unhealthy in heterosexuals.

Melanie Phillips says tolerance of homosexuals is right. But she goes on to make a series of statements that are so laughably extreme that she undermines the potential reasonableness and integrity of her own position.

“The Equality Bill is the latest and potentially most oppressive attempt to impose politically acceptable attitudes and drive out any that fall foul of these criteria.”
“..the attitudes being imposed constitute an ideological agenda to destroy Britain’s foundational ethical principles and replace them by a nihilistic values and lifestyle free-for-all ..”
“.. they represent a direct onslaught on the Judeo-Christian morality underpinning British society.”
“Most people have been intimidated into silence under this onslaught.”
“… Christians in particular are being unfairly targeted by discrimination laws …”
“… religious groups will be banned from turning down gay job applicants on the grounds of their sexuality ... so churches, mosques and synagogues will therefore be forced to employ, for example, gay youth workers.”

LGBT people have been persecuted for centuries and are still being persecuted in many countries. Christianity has been and is still a major influence in this persecution. LGBT people are victims of persecution, but I am not and will not allow myself to be victimised. I observe with some bemusement conservative Christians now playing the victim card in their argument against the full inclusion of LGBT people.

Christians and other faith groups are being treated unfairly, says Melanie. They have no right now to uphold their belief that certain types of sexual behaviour are wrong. This is simply trumped by gay rights, which allows them no space at all (her italics) to uphold their religious beliefs. It is totalitarian.

Thank you Melanie and Anglican Mainstream, for so consistently overstating your case. I am confident that the carefully reasoned case presented by Changing Attitude, a Christian organisation, that the church should grant full equality to LGBT people, is being heard and will eventually be accepted by the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

Leading UK conservative bishops and Synod members support schismatic Canadians

Three evangelical bodies in the Church of England have sent a letter of greeting to Bishop Donald Harvey and letters in support of St John’s Shaughnessy.

The Venerable Michael Lawson writes as Chairman of the Church of England Evangelical Council and on their behalf. The letter says the CEEC are deeply conscious that the bishop is a genuine and authentic part of the Anglican Communion, and equally that he offers orthodox ministry. He is, says the letter, facing an atrocious ordeal.

The Steering Group of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in UK and Ireland which includes Bishop Michael Nazir Ali of Rochester and Canon Dr Chris Sugden and Mrs Sarah Finch, both members of General Synod have written to St John’s expressing wholehearted support in this time of great difficulty and shock and sadness that such an action be taken against them at St John’s.

The FoCA letter says they have grave concerns regarding the diocese of New Westminster’s departure from orthodox Christian teaching - which is held by the majority of the Anglican communion.

Dr Philip Giddings, Convenor, Canon Dr Chris Sugden (again), Executive Secretary and Bishop Wallace Benn of Lewes, Trustee wrote to St John’s Shaughnessy on behalf of Anglican Mainstream’s Steering Committee.

They say they recognize in St John’s the marks of authentic Anglican identity, faith and practice and send a message of solidarity, encouragement and support in prayer as the parish enters the judicial process to enable them to continue to use the property and resources that God has entrusted to them in the service of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for the good of all the people of Vancouver.

There is a challenge in the letters to those who think they are the true members of the Anglican Communion, starting at the top with the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the majority of bishops and parishes in the UK, the majority of Provinces in the Anglican Communion and filtering down to all those LGBT people and supportive heterosexuals who believe they are thoroughly orthodox, genuine, authentic and serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The implication is that supporters of Changing Attitude and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Anglicans who reject Lambeth 1.10 and the moratoria on ordinations and blessings are not orthodox or genuine. That is an arrogant implication.

The bishops and General Synod members who have signed are themselves undermining the Windsor Report and the moratoria on cross-provincial interventions.

The three groups are writing in support of a bishop and parish acting in defiance of their own diocesan bishop who is in good standing with his own Province and within the Anglican Communion. Unlike many of the Global South bishops, Bishop Michael Ingham attended the Lambeth conference and has been unwaveringly faithful.

The launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans on July 6 in London is the next step in a carefully planned strategy to introduce schism to the United Kingdom.

Almost certainly some of those signing these letters wish to see schismatic bishops in England leading schismatic parishes, and all because LGBT Anglicans in the UK want their loving relationships to be affirmed by the church.

Numbers are always important for these people. They claim that those attending Gafcon 2008 represented some 40 million Anglicans world-wide, 70% of the total active membership of 55 million.

Well, this is another grandiose, arrogant claim. If all that they claim is true, then they will eventually replace the present Anglican Communion with their new FoCA model. Time will tell.

Scott Rennie - Interview on BBC Scotland

Check out the interview with Scott Rennie on BBC Scotland's Politics Show here.

And check out Colin's article in the Guardian here.

Lifestyle choice – orientation and practice

The debates in the Church of Scotland this weekend about the appointment of the Revd Scott Rennie as minister of Queens Cross church in Aberdeen and his subsequent interview on BBC Scotland raised the canards of lifestyle choice and orientation versus practice yet again.

It is not a lifestyle choice, Scott Rennie told his interviewer. No-one says that about heterosexuals. Indeed they don’t, and heterosexuals would be puzzled if anyone told them their sexual orientation is a lifestyle choice.

It is offensive and demeaning every time someone refers to my identity as a lifestyle choice. The other debate being conducted at the moment about the Church of England bishops opposition to the government over its plans to amend the incitement to hatred laws may not influence the way conservative Christians talk about me, but I wish there was some way of educating them out of the deliberately abusive way they talk about lesbian and gay people.

As offensive to lesbian and gay people is the repeated distinction between orientation and practice. I am allowed to have a homosexual orientation but I am not allowed to practice my orientation. The practice being referred to is love, loving, making love, expressing and sharing love with a partner. In the minds of conservative Christians, practice equals sex. When straight or gay people engage in sex for it’s own sake, they practice something less than ideal. When we make love, we are doing something holy and sacred whether we are gay or straight and whether anyone thinks the Bible proscribes same-sex romance.

Scott Rennie emphasised the fear under which people live in the church. When the church eventually sees the light it will free lay people, clergy and ministers to leave their fear behind and live joyously in their own divine light.

LGBT people live not in fear of God’s judgement but in fear of what other Christians might do to them. As Scott said in the interview, this makes honest and truthful dialogue impossible. In the Anglican Communion it makes a proper Listening Process impossible. It won’t be possible until Christian teaching and attitudes have changed. But when that day is reached, neither the Listening Process nor Changing Attitude will be needed.

Meanwhile, we have to learn to live with our differences and respect each other, and part of the respect that all members of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion need to show to LGBT people is to learn that using the language of lifestyle choice and distinguishing orientation and practice would be offensive to heterosexuals and is offensive and demeaning to us.

Dreaming of global cooperation in the Church

Two more quotes from Solitude by Robert Kull, which struck me as I read them before meditating this morning:

“Blinded by projected fear and assumption of their own righteousness, and certain that their personal beliefs are true, secular and religious fanatics on all sides insist that global cooperation is impossible, but I think it worth a try.”

“What enormous suffering and destruction we have wrought by mistaking our descriptions for what they describe and by becoming slaves to the dogma we ourselves have created. Instead of seeking common ground, we often demand compliance and condemn apparent indifference.”

Am I a fanatic, I asked myself? I am sure some of the conservatives present in Jamaica think so, much as I think they are. I‘m passionate - for the continuing transformation of the Church into a Kingdom community.

“ACC’s close vote delays debate on Covenant” is the headline to today’s report on ACC14 by Pat Ashworth in the Church Times, accurate, although she wasn’t there. “Chaos as ACC battle on Covenant plan” the inaccurate headline to George Conger’s report in the CEN, who was there (arrived Friday, left Saturday).

“Williams: Feel others’ pain”, Church Times headline; “Archbishop hails ‘glorious failure” CEN headline to George Conger’s second report. George had returned to the USA on Saturday – Archbishop Rowan’s final address was given the following Tuesday. The Archbishop did not say the ACC meeting had been a glorious failure. He quoted Maria Boulding who says the alternatives for Christians were not success or failure, but glorious failure and miserable failure.

Andrew Carey, noted for his consistent negativity to Archbishop Rowan, says he “read widespread reports of confusion and mismanagement.” He didn’t read my blog, did he, but only the reports by conservatives, those who spin everything negatively.

Changing Attitude works for full inclusion and truth. My understanding of the truth is filtered through my experience and that is true for every human being. Blindingly obvious, of course, but conservatives think their truth is more truthful than mine. I always try to be honest and truthful in my reporting – and partisan, because CA advocates for the full inclusion of LGBT people.

Changing Attitude advocates for a fully inclusive church, LGBT people, women, children, those living with disabilities, all who in one way or another the church marginalises, excludes or holds a prejudice against.

Dualism, the compulsion to polarise, which is endemic to conservatives, is a curse, as, at times, is the parable of the sheep and the goats. Not satisfied with dividing the world into believers and non-believers Conservatives further divide the world into true and false believers and true and false Christians. The divisions they are trying to create in the Communion are founded on this false and pernicious duality.

I didn’t have many conversations in Jamaica with those holding radically different views from myself, much to my regret. I had a few, and they tailed off as the days passed. But the members of ACC did have conversations in the Bible study groups and discernment groups with people holding a wide range of radically different positions, and they learnt from them and allowed their hearts and minds to be changed a little.

And I was really present and visible in my own way, a gay man reporting on ACC14 and chatting with members and staff. I have wonder whether the hostility shown to me on Monday by Bishop Nwosu might have been to some degree displaced anger. The issues for the Communion had not been dealt with in the way he and some other conservatives wanted, especially in the outcome to the Covenant debate. Perhaps I was the visible target for his frustration, and a symbol of what his own teaching and mind set thinks is wrong with the Communion. Perhaps to a degree he is blinded by projected fear and the assumption of his own righteousness, and certain that his personal beliefs are true.

We are all capable of being blinded by projected fear, can assume that our own righteousness is more holy than yours, and over-certain that my personal beliefs are true. Conservatives fear lack of certainty about the Gospel and salvation. I fear dogmatism and certainty. And I fear for the ability of the church to ever been open enough to form a Christian community which works for global cooperation, compassion and generosity to those who are “different”.