Re-Calibrating with Justin

For those of you with young children who are resident in the Great British Isles, you may be forgiven for thinking that I am about to talk about Mr. Tumble. It may be that time will tell, but it is not my raison d'embarkation!

Today is an important day. Today we greet, with a joyful heart, our new leader and Uber-Shepherd - one Justin Welby as he starts his ministerial journey at the wheel of the Church of England, and also to the Anglican Communion around the world. May God bless him richly, each and every day.

Today is an important day because we, the Holy Tenants of God, have a new landlord. For priests, this is our equivalent (sort of) of that which our parishioners experienced when we processed into our new churches after the last interregnum. It is a time of uncertainty, gladness certainly, but a sense of wonder as to who this geezer is. 

For me part, all I know about ++Welby is that he can't wear a collar properly and that he is apparently owned by the Alpha movement (their words, not mine: "our man, Justin Welby"). As a sacramental and liturgical Christian, perhaps that ought to be setting me teeth on edge. However, I also believe God is behind all of this, so I am at peace and instead find find myself wondering what sort of shower he is assuming the leadership of from his new abode in Lambeth Towers.

The Church of England is, I think, at an important point in its own story. That isn't because of the many issues that nip at its/our gaitered ankles. It isn't because we are so broad that we are like a flimsy balsa wood aircraft - apt to collapse under the weight at any moment.  It isn't because no two Anglicans are alike or because the deistic view of the Other is much mitigated by what church you go to (which is to say that for some, the Spirit is to be adored, other Jesus Christ, and others the Father - and rarely in combination if I am honest). What will determine the future of our beloved Church of England, now led by a man whose collar doesn't fit, is how we learn to disagree. 

The shenanigans of the last few months tells me that the carcinogen in our cells is self-created. In the hands of bloggers and tweeters, article writers and pulpit be-moaners a church is being gentle dissected into unhappy cohorts of the mutually self-supportive. Maybe it was always the case - but it is clear that now the self-destructive appetites of English Anglicans is made manifest to all eyes.  Archbishop Justin will probably lead me into my fifties - and if he does one thing, I will age peacefully. If he can teach his little lambs some of that grace that seems lacking these days, he will have spent his decade well. If I or others can stand across a room in a decade and say, "I know you are different to me, but let's exchange the kiss of peace because I love you anyway", then we will be home and dry. 

In very simple terms, Archbishop: teach how to get along again. And may God be with you every step of the way. Amen.

The Day after THAT Day

Courtesy of ENS

Before I say anything, a point of clarification - I am in favour of women being consecrated as bishops. Being both male and Anglo catholic are fearful things to be at the moment.

Very bright and insightful people have already written many good and worthy words in the light of the failure of the General Synod to pass the draft legislation that would have paved the way for the consecration of women as bishops. It passed through in the Houses of clergy and bishops, but fell in the House of laity. It is also fair to say that some foolish and baseless words have also been written too that would suggest that somehow God has failed and that the Church of England is now utterly dead. The writers of those words do not know God, I would suggest. 

I am one who feels sadness that this process didn't conclude as it ought. However, it didn't happen as many might have hoped (me included), and we are now left with some choices. Do we crumble as a church? Do we become unbalanced in the understandable reaction of regarding all women in ministry as living martyrs? Yesterday ended and today's day broke. My church is still standing stone on stone and the living work of God's mission seems, here at least, to have survived the night.

This all feels to me like a vast-scale Bishop's Advisory Panel (selection conference) where laity are either approved or otherwise for training for ordained ministry. Some of the words I have heard are the words I have heard from those who have either 'passed' or 'failed' that process. There is a real sense, which frustrates me in either case, that where the process is  for one's cause that it is of God and blessed by the Spirit. When it fails to back my cause, it is flawed and weak and characteristic of human ineptitude. In the case of BAPs, whole churches full of people might believe a candidate to be called for ordained ministry only to be told by three good folk that they are not. That is earth-shatteringly bad for them as this is for women in ministry today  - but much the same, it seems to me. Do we therefore focus on the the process, or do we re-focus on what God may just have said to us through its outworking?

What saddened me yesterday almost as much as the result was the stream of consciousness, often through Twitter, that poured forth into the public domain. I read some appalling things among the other heartfelt pleas. High in rhetoric and pathos, low on prayer and theology - some things were said that could have turned my resolute heart against the cause. Given that votes were in the hands of brothers and sister Christians, all present in the light of their own consciences, words like "stench" being applied to a possible No, or that if a room full of humans out of many millions make a flawed choice, that an entire church would be seen to be dying. I read more that lacked grace yesterday than I did in a long time. And that before the result. 

This debate in recent years had become tainted by those (some) who would fight for a cause at all costs, few-holds barred. Compromise was non-negotiable, seeking to create an inverse of the present. The present is unacceptable to many, and rightly so, but could we in all conscience create its equal and opposite sibling? These and many questions will now have to be re-imagined, and perhaps even more radically than before. 

For now, we are left with a strange sense of numb, in the light of Sunday's gospel which, perhaps even cruelly, refers to such agony being but 'the birth pangs' (a uniquely female experience). I think it is fair to say that a 'No' was a considerable shock to all sides, which now leaves questions. In the middle of those questions is God, however. Why did the verdict go this way? What would God have the church do before this can pass through? Are there lessons and what are they? We are, I am quite sure, being asked by God to consider embracing diversity and difference, but for all those years of campaign and energy to not have been utterly wasted, the church (and me too as part of it) have now to consider what today must bring now - for it is the tomorrow that none of us expected. 

And I concede that all of this is very easy for me to say (but take heart, women will be bishops long before I will be) ...

I am Neither a Catholic Nor a Mum

The perfect storm?

No, but I am a parent and a Christian. 

It's a funny old thing - this business of self-applied labels. 'Momhood' is prevalent in our world, indicating that Moms are either somehow very very organised as a tribe, or else genuinely the better parent in any two-parent-child combo. You will never hear "speaking as a parent ..." and even less often "speaking as a daddy...", but you will regularly hear "speaking as a mother ...". Funny isn't it. It permeates into the interweb and its life too - I am not sure I have seen or heard of DaddySnot, but MumSnot is all the rage. Politicians' entire careers and conglomerated companies' entire fiscal output is mitigated by the pleasure or displeasure of MumSnot. And good for them. Without mums there would be no need for Dads. And that. 

The same applies to church life too. If asked, I am a Christian. Speak to millions of others and they are not Christians they are, without any hesitation, Catholics. In my entire lengthening life I have never heard anyone make the statement: "I am an Anglican ...". I have certainly heard "If you are not a Catholic, what religion are you then?".

I have pondered this over years. To be a Catholic is to be a proud-and-out Catholic. To be from my clan is to be "Christian", and if asked what sort -  "Church of England" as eyes flick left to right. It doesn't effect the Methodists - they seem proud to label themselves so. I wonder sometimes if the world, including its members, regard "Anglican" as a euphemism for "mediocre", or "not really any specific type of Christian, it's just that I do to church and hope not to be spotted too often". 

It is fair to say, to paraphrase the Pub Landlord, that if you want rules where do you go? The Roman Catholic Church. If you don't want rules, it is not France you go to, but the Blessed Cee of Ee. In a world where choice seems to be the choice of choice, it is odd to me that a denomination that is so clear about its rules and limitations, teachings and edicts (and I offer no criticism at that whatsoever), is made up of members so proud to apply the name to themselves. We on this side of the Tiber, unbounded by rules (with the ones we have so easily abandoned if a pulpit and an altar really don't work with a set of speakers) and apparently so free to live as God made us, seem almost fearful of claiming membership to this august body of disciples. 

Some of you may think that it is only a name, and therefore not important. I think that name is hugely important to us - it is our badge, our "who we are", until it comes to our ecclesial badge. In this life, you are either the brick or the mortar - and I would love for a time when "Anglican" didn't still mean "just not Roman Catholic". 

I am not sure what this makes members of the OrdinaryHat - that is too much for my tiny brain

Something for the Weekend II

Brought to my attention by a new but firm friend - the work of the wonderful Richard Stilgoe. Enjoy!!

A Statement of The Manifestly Obvious

One of the few helpful things about this process of packing up and leaving is that I have to remove myself, in part, from the warp and weft of the Church of England Merry-go-Round. My attention to Synod was fleeting, by reading of others' blogs criminally sparse, and my view of the Church Times cursory. This removes me from a depth of knowledge, but also grants me an insight into the wider macro-perspective. 

It may be a blogosphere thing, or it might just be how it is for everyone, but it seems that in the present, Anglicans can do nothing but fight among themselves. I have touched on this already. 

To be be a member of the Church of England, to the passer-by, entails the following:

 - Carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about people carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about people carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury after carping on about the Archbishop of Canterbury

 - Carping on about the Anglican Covenant

 - Carping on about those who defend and/or condemn the Anglican Covenant

 - Carping on about whether women are equal in the Church

 - Carping on about those who have a view about whether women are equal in the Church

 - Carping on about the place of homosexual people in the Church (or in life)

 - Carping on about those who have a view about whether homosexual people have an equal place in the Church (or in life)

 - Carping on about being at Synod

 - Carping on about those who are at Synod

 - Carping on about the decisions made

 - Carping on about the lack of decisions made

 - Carping on about staying in the Church or running off to form another

 - Carping on about those who are running off to form another church somewhere else

...and so the list goes on. Let me be clear, though. I accept that I write this a carper, and have no illusions that I am above or outside of the carping. Yet carping seems to have well overtaken prayer as the conversation of the Church of England. 

We seem not to be able to celebrate the Paschal Mystery, only become fixated on how we regard that Mystery differently. 'God is Love plc' seems not to be struggling for extreme old age, but by a basic lack of graciousness. I sense, though, that some will throw their arms up in disgust saying: No Farv, you are wrong. I just care! 

I wonder if it is time to celebrate our common humanity. There is too little gratitude for the gift of faith, our place in the great family of the Church. Instead, we sound more like disaffected teenagers who are convinced that they know better and are the pioneers of all things. Yes, the Church of England is a messy gaggle of faith-holders. Yes, it often groping in the dark for a direction and its leader, Rowan, doing only what one person can to make things better. But it is our Church, our family - and just a scintilla of pride and defensiveness for this family would go a long way to healing the many hurts that are meted out almost daily in the written word. 

Is it time to stop carping? I hope that time comes soon. 

Fashionable Sneers

Every once in a while, when I fail to show the requisite courage to express my feelings here, my spiritual leader does it for me. In an article in The Independent, I read about ++Rowan's perspective on the English Anglican Church, and it resonated with me.

I often wonder what an alien would make of the Church of England, were that alien to land tomorrow. That alien, in their preparation for human culture, may have acquired its best selling book of all time, and may even have read the bit where the followers of Christ are called to "Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than this". That alien may have been impressed with the moral basis of a Christian life, even to the point of discipleship.

Then their ship lands and they look out of the door and see what it really looks like ...

 - Some Christians in the Church of England are so choosy about how to apply Christ's own words that rather than embrace half the population as equal, both in calling and ability, they would sooner walk away and form quasi-denominations. I am not sure that I read "Love you neighbour as yourself, until they don't agree with you or are slightly different biologically, then you may leave and almost join another denomination". The alien may be concerned then why an Ordinariat exists or the birth of baby AMiE. Love with conditions. 

 - For some Christians, being born homosexual makes you some kind of grotesque mutant, and quite unworthy of the neighbour-love. I can only shudder when I ponder how that same section of loving folk would regard those unable to grow to six feet in height, unable to paint with oils, unable to curl their tongue or those whose hair curls rather frustratingly. You're fine mate, so long as you are like me, mate. 

 - That Christians seem to want to fight over bits of paper rather than the needs of the poor. Only mention Section 2 and some Christians will lock you into a war of semantics soon as look at them. They may even start a group and ask retired clerics to help out at the coffee-mornings. Is this proper work of a Christian? The alien wonders. The alien thinks perhaps Christians like to get wound up about such stuff yet seems oddly quiet on some really important things.  

The alien would surely regard much of the energy of the Church of England as engaged in self-appraisal and self-protection when its Head is the man who self-emptied himself and died self-sacrificially that others may be saved. At best, it might regard many Anglicans as just a little pre-occupied with things that divide. 

We are a people with a mandate to love, and ++Rowan very properly drew attention to that lack in our present day. What are we fighting for? What are we defending? Orthodoxy? Our own 'safe place'? Did any of us embrace this faith that we may be safe? Once we place our heads elsewhere, we must surely take comfort that for many invisible and anonymous people, the faith of the Church is worth dying for (notionally and in actual fact), that it lives and breathes with people with real issues of life and death - and it makes a difference. He spoke of a "church in love", a beautiful yet simple phrase. We seem so far from it, and the transformative power that comes with it. 

Tomorrow is, in Lectionary Churches in the C of E, the day when we listen to the Parable of the Sower. The alien is likely to wonder when we will stop fussing over the soil that is already very good and have a crack at the margins.