What, then, Is "The Church"?

You might have to forgive me, but once again I am going to apply my experiences of my last life into the realm of my present life in ministry!

One of things that annoyed me about employment contracts was that sense that the employee is the employee and "the Company" the company. Distinctive, separate. In fact, so frustrated was I by the wording of some Terms of Employment that I was once asked to consider that I caused a little bit of hoo-ha by reminding "the Company" that it was the sum of the parts of its employees and that as such the document was built upon a false premis. I already sense the contract lawyers among you twitching, but I claim this as a moral perspective, not a legal one (and yes, there is a distinction there too, at times).

In the world of Social Media that I inhabit all too infrequently these days, there are many who have written many words in recent months condemning "the Church" (and in this case, the English Church). The perspective is rooted in that of the Terms to which I referred above - "I" am I and they are "the Church". In the processes surrounding the creation of English lady-bishops (among so many favoured issues these days), there has been a sudden lurch in this tendency. So let us unpack it. 

• Is "the church" an organisation from which I can exist separately as a member?
• Is "the church", then, an administrative body based somewhere away from me?
• Is "the church" the bishops?
• ... and so on

I think that the answer is 'no' to all of these things. For me to stand and condemn "the church" in my blog rantings (as so many have and routinely do, because blogs are safe places to insult people and institutions, aren't they) is for me to create a distinction between them and me. If we apply this to the average family model, can I stand separately from my family unit with any integrity and condemn them all? I think probably not. 

What I am struggling to express is that "the church" is me, it is you, it the person with whom I disagree and the person whose sympathies I share - and therefore not someone or something else. It is me with Mrs Miggins in Pontefract whom I have never met. The Synod is not the church, nor the Houses, nor Watch nor Reform - yet their members are. We are many who are one body. In our differences, we are the same. We are distinct and we are similar. 

I think the bottom line is this: when the blogging community lambaste the Church they are lambasting me and Mrs Miggins. Perhaps it is easy to step outside of the circle and throw brick-bats back into it, yet the most important thing that we often overlook in our words and sentiments, is when lambasting the Church, people are indeed indulging in a little self-serving masochism. We are a group of disparate individuals, all chosen by God to one accord - to form a frail association of the like-minded on Earth so that we can get on with the ridiculous responsibility of bringing to life none less than God's own Kingdom. 

And I still support bishops with other chromosomes than me. For the record. 

The Example of the Cross

I am almost in the market for a job! The little curate has a little while left to cook before *ping* - post of first responsibility. Put another way, I watch for vacancies on websites, in Jezebel's Trumpet, in the eavedropped conversations of others - so that I know what is out there when the time is right for the Vernacular Curate to be let loose on the unsuspecting world. 

I saw such a vacancy yesterday which I will not name, but which made me shudder to the very core. 

Let me remind you that I am one of your Anglo-Catholic types who wears a black shirt and that odd little strip of white plastic (or starched silk when I can afford it). I like anything 'Eucharist', I know how to wear a biretta, know what a maniple is all about, am not afraid of the threat to my masculinity that wearing a little lace might bring, can articulate the differences between a Romanzier and Dearmerite and parp incense from some furrible or other. Yes, dear reader, I am one such type of bloke!

Well, I saw a vacancy for a post: it wanted Jesus but the improved liturgically sound version. It wanted Nelson Mandela in a biretta; it sought Mthr Teresa but didnt want the oestrogen or the breasts; it aimed way beyond perfection; it wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury plus a little more experience in church leadership. In other words - it was a normal advert for a Rector, Anglo-Carflic style. So I ventured to its website, as you do in such instances. Listen to this (cut and paste from its Homepage):

To find out more about Forward in Faith and to find 'safe' parishes in your area please follow the links below

The history of S. ****  has led to a strong identification over many years with the catholic tradition in the Church of England. The church occupies part of the currently uneasy territory between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church and longs for reconciliation between them. We believe that the Church of England needs catholic witness and understanding to fulfil its mission as a national church, and S. ****  sees its role as an upholder of what is sometimes mockingly called the traditionalist' faith, believed by all at all times. 

Is it me? I am from a stable like this, but I look and I wonder what kind of disease ridden beasts this church offers safety from - oh yes, wimmin - in all their grotesque menstruating filthiness - or so they would leave you thinking. 'Safe'? Is there a woman-zapper on the door; a hormone-sniffing hound in the pews; a skirt alert posted in the porch? They base this on biblical principals like so many people do when they want to exclude and marginalise normal God-fearing Christians. 

No, no, no, no and no!

This is probably a church-shattering thing I am about to say, but we need to contextualise the Bible in how it deals with people. St. Paul tagged along with the murder of Jews but I doubt a word of chastisement has ever been uttered from a pulpit - because he saw the light. The nativity shepherds were a little lower than scumbags in NT times - then the biggy: it was kind of normal to crucify in Bible times. I have never read or heard a clear condemnation of crucifixion, just lots of platitudes about how horrid it might have been. Yes, cross-born murder was quite normal at the very same time that women were being cast to the fringes. We cannot take one without the other. You cannot uphold an anti-female stance 'cos the Bible tell me so' without introducing the state sanctioned murder of criminals and itinerant preachers at the same time. 

The Cross upon which our Lord died is the very reason why we have to learn from the Bible, not recite  and live it verbatim. 

Needless to say, I shan't be applying - I know which Bishop is mine.