I’ve been reading A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community by John Pavlovitz, a pastor from Wake Forest, North Carolina who argues for a Church that manifests the characteristics of radical hospitality, total authenticity, true diversity, and agenda-free community, a Church seeking the Bigger Table, the Open Table exemplified by the eponymous English network.
Pavlovitz grew up in Central New York, a white, middle-class, suburban, Italian, Roman Catholic boy, raised on gluten and guilt. His family was affectionate but he inherited some false stories, about people of colour, gay people, poor people, addicts, born-again Christians, atheists. He quietly developed a subtly narcissistic religious world view where God gradually became the God of the Good People, where the “good people” always looked and sounded and believed an awful lot like he did.
Later, on a scholarship in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, he found himself living among artists, musicians, dancers, and actors, a decidedly bohemian alternative congregation, and working at the university’s cafe in his freshman year. Joe and Danny who ran the cafe seemed to hang out together all the time and to have bought a house together – what pals! thought Pavlovitz. It took him time to realise that not only were Joe and Danny a couple but that nearly the entire cafe staff were gay as well. He worked out that people’s gender identity and sexual orientation made them no less image bearers of the Divine; their love was a reflection of the heart of God, not because of who they loved but because of how they loved – deeply, truthfully, and sacrificially.
Changing Attitude England is campaigning from now until November 2022 when the House of Bishops presents their outcome of the LLF process to the General Synod. We are campaigning because we believe how people love – deeply, truthfully, and sacrificially – is the essence of Jesus’ life and teaching. We are campaigning because token, tentative compromise is no longer acceptable. Only radical inclusion, full equality for LGBTIQ+ people in ministry and relationships at the table, a much, much bigger table than it seems the bishops can imagine, a 100% open table, is our goal.
Like Pavlovitz, we are committed to building a messy, authentic, and hopeful spiritual community, a radical, transformative community, fully and equally inclusive of LGBTIQ+ people. I recommend A Bigger Table as a valuable resource for those of us who have always been convinced of our gender and sexual integrity, those affected by negative Christian teaching, and those being called to a radical campaign energy now. It is so often easier to quote other people and let them do the risky work of putting into words our own feelings and ideas. So let me quote Pavlovitz:
“The inclusion of the LGBTIQ+ community into the body of Christ is so important because it is one of the greatest opportunities we have to set the kind of table Jesus set for the believers he entrusted to carry the message forward. The Church’s resistance to and persecution of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning men and women is a push against the Holy Spirit because it runs in direct opposition to the heart of Jesus as reflected in the Gospel biographies and the book of Acts. It’s walling off the table from those who desire to be present.
“The answer isn’t offering some tentative, heavily conditioned token tolerance as a compromise. It is to be fully obedient to Jesus’ command to love one another as oneself. The straight Church doesn’t need to tolerate or pacify or throw scraps to the Christian LGBTIQ+ community. It needs the LGBTIQ+ community for the same reason it needs all those seeking and walking in faith regardless of their gender or skin colour or sexual orientation – because these folks are breathing sanctuaries of the Spirit of God and because without them any version of the Church is still inferior and incomplete. Until the queer Christian community is received fully and welcomed and included without caveat or restraint by the institutional Church, the Church will continue to be less grace-filled, less rich in its complexity, and less in the image of Christ than it should be. When Christians attempt to exclude any group from the table, they distort the Church because they deny the heart of Jesus for all of humanity. Discrimination hinders people from finding community, and it robs the Church of the tremendous gifts that diversity brings.” [p.138/9]
If you have reached a place of radical disenchantment with the Church of England and the failure of her bishops to create in the Living in Love and Faith process and material a vision of radical inclusion for LGBTIQ+ people, then join Changing Attitude England’s Facebook group and campaign actively with us. At the end of chapter 17, Fear Less, Pavolvitz describes the risks and challenges we face, and challenges us to trust that our campaign is the most deeply Christ-like activity.
“Seeking to reflect Jesus more fully often places us in direct conflict with those who share our faith tradition and even with that very tradition itself. Obedience to the new thing God is doing in us may bring friction and condemnation. It may challenge those we live with, worship next to, and minister alongside. This may be the very holy ground Jesus calls us to because it is the place we more fully bring the kingdom. Refuse to feel guilt for this road. You know how you got here and you know who is with you – and for you. Fear not.” [p.167/8]
Pavlovitz, J.2017,2020, A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community. Louisville Kentucky, Westminster John Knox Press