On July 11 the Bishop of London and Dr Eeva John presented a report ‘handing over’ the work of the Next Steps Group to the new Synod that will meet for the first time in November 2021. Dr John talked about the radical new Christian inclusion described by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their letter published in February 2017. She addressed each word in turn.
Radical
She said “It is far-reaching in its scope, excluding no one. There are no ‘others’. We are all human, equally human, equally loved by God, equally and together made in God’s image, equally and together frail sinners in need of redemption, and in the Church equally and together new creations in Christ.” She said that this kind of inclusion is, and will be, uncomfortable and in the context of LLF is of an order of magnitude more uncomfortable and costly for our LGBTIQ+ friends in Christ. She thanked LGBTIQ+ people especially for bearing the cost of taking part in the LLF process.
At the moment lay and ordained people are excluded from marriage in church. Our relationships cannot be blessed (except at risk of a CDM for clergy bestowing a blessing). We are not equal in selection, training and preferment in ministry, lay and ordained. We are excluded in a way that is not simply uncomfortable. We are absolutely denied equality in the life of the Church. Our full inclusion will not be an uncomfortable experience. It will the fulfilment of decades of longing and campaigning.
Dr John identifies the cost we may risk by participating in LLF encounters where we may be abused. The cost for us is far greater. It is the cost of knowing that every time LGBTIQ+ issues are addressed we are seen as inferior, our love in relationship systemically denied by the apparatus of the Church.
Dr John said the LLF process is “radical because it is agreeing to explore the roots of our differences about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage, not privileging one view or another but seeking deeper understanding of them all.” This is not radical for LGBTIQ+ people. The hierarchy of the Christian Church is way behind the rest of society in seeking deeper understanding. The hierarchy hasn’t yet found the confidence to argue for what they know from experience to be true.
New
Dr John said this Christian inclusion is “new because it involves the whole Church in learning together. New because the bishops are appealing to the whole Church in this process of discernment and decision-making, listening to what the Spirit is saying to the Church.” If only this were true. In the end, the decision making process will be undertaken alone by the House of Bishops. They alone will present the outcome to General Synod in November 2022. The current discernment is being undertaken by the Next Steps Group and they are all bishops. The Advisory Group with lay and clergy members hasn’t even met.
Radical Christian inclusion isn’t new. It’s the essence of Jesus’ teaching and at the heart of the Gospel. Archbishop Desmond Tutu knows this all too well. Jesus, for him, represents the God who was “firmly on the side of those who had been pushed aside – the hungry, the homeless, the poor.” This belief drove his commitment to denounce racial injustice and oppose apartheid. Gay and lesbian people were, for him, simply the next group of oppressed people in need of liberation. “The Jesus I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and today it’s the gays and lesbians who are being clobbered.”
Christian
Dr John said the LLF process is “Christian because it draws on our shared faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the faith that is uniquely revealed in the Scriptures and in God’s gifts of reason and wisdom shaped by the Spirit. Christian because it calls us to be kind and gentle-hearted as we seek and find Christ in one another.”
This begs several huge, basic questions, questions raised by Desmond Tutu. Neither the Church of England nor the Anglican Communion has grasped the implications of Jesus Christ’s Gospel of radical inclusion for all people and all creation. This is what has been uniquely revealed.
A newly published book by Adriaan Van Klinken and Ezra Chitando, Reimagining Christianity and Sexual Diversity in Africa, quotes Cameroonian scholar Elias Bongmba:
“Ubuntu stresses an ethical responsibility that repudiates scorn and killings, which homosexuals have faced in some African contexts. The vulnerability of lesbians, gays, and transgender people is a cry for an inclusive worldview which respects the dignity of all.”
I live with a far more inclusive world view than the view I held prior to Lambeth 1998 and my dramatic introduction to the world of the Anglican Communion resulting in a still-growing international circle of friends and contacts. I continue to develop my spiritual and religious world view, seeing all of us as equal in creation, equal “in God” or “in Christ”, whatever our country, culture, or religion. The Church of England has not yet developed a global, let alone a cosmic, world view. It remains tragically parochial. The lack of a global, cosmic, spiritual world view seriously inhibits the Church of England’s vision of all creation as infused with divine sacred presence. This limitation restricts it’s capacity to imagine possibilities outside the orthodox, traditional box within which it conducts it creates theology and conducts its affairs.
Inclusion
Dr John concluded by saying that “inclusion is not something we create or even bring about in our own strength or through clever argument or impassioned debate. Inclusion is a gift. It is Christ who has given us to each other, it is Christ who is doing the including and it is in Christ that we are called to be one.”
When she said in her opening section that there are no ‘others’ but that we are all equally human, equally loved by God and made in God’s image, I took this to be a universal truth, an inclusive world view, applying to the whole of humanity, irrespective of faith community, culture, race, gender, or identity. If Christ is doing the including, is this the cosmic Christ of Teilhard de Chardin, or the more exclusive Christ of Christian and Anglican tradition in whom we are required to exclude those who do not adhere to our definitions of faith? The inclusion which comes through Christ is a gift integral to all humanity and all creation. Creating inclusion requires us to learn about and confront our prejudices, phobias, and habitual ways of thinking and acting. Eeva said as much in her conclusion “This is a formational process of learning to become more self-aware – increasing our self-awareness.”
Changing Attitude England’s definition
Changing Attitude England’s definition of radical Christian inclusion for LGBTIQ+ people is that we will be fully and equally included in the life and practice of the Church of England when equal marriage, the blessing of our relationships and equality in ministry are achieved.
It is not possible for the Church of England to begin to deal adequately with the questions of gender and sexuality confronting it unless it opens imaginatively and experientially to a new, radical, inclusive world view incorporating unconditionally LGBTIQ+ people.