In a live video launch for his new book, Vile Bodies, on Monday 5th February, Professor Adrian Thatcher issued a number of challenges to the Church:
We need to get this toxic theology out of the Church
The theology and behaviour of the Anglican Church is intolerable
Clinging to faith is increasingly problematic
The Church is making the faith less and less attractive with a theology that messes people up
Bad theology is in the bloodstream of the Church
Passionless sex is very problematic
I am sick of and sickened by the relentless, constant homophobic, transphobic narrative in the Church of England and the constant pressure to suppress the lives and energies of LGBTQIA+ people in Provinces of the Anglican Communion – and in Christianity (and Islam) in general. The lives of my LGBTQIA+ friends in Ghana and Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are impacted every day by insidious prejudice. A tyranny of prejudice rules, whether it is state- and religious-sponsored hatred and abuse in Uganda and Nigeria or tribal, factional hostility and prejudice in England, in the Church of England Evangelical Council, among members of the General Synod and the House of Bishops. In each place it has the same poisonous effect.
I am living through an era of death in Christianity, part of the continual cycle of death and rebirth that is resurrection life. In this evolutionary period, Christian churches are addicted to dying understandings of gender and sexuality, resistant to the death of abusive, prejudiced theologies and Biblical interpretations hostile to the God of unconditional, infinite, intimate love. What is dying in Christianity is an era of addiction to prejudices and dogmatic peripherals that obscure the mystical, spiritual essences of Jesus’ humane and human awareness of the divine in all creation.
The system is corporately responsible.
“Archbishop Justin prioritises the need to keep the church united, above the need to do the right thing, it gives the conservatives immense bargaining power. If only he had the courage to call their bluff.” (A comment on Thinking Anglicans)
Holding together the unity of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion have been priorities for the last three Archbishops of Canterbury. They have allowed themselves to become the victims of those unafraid of bullying, challenging and threatening them.
Both current Archbishops bear responsibility, but it is not theirs alone. The infection is systemic, corporate, infecting the entire institutional structure of the Church of England; the General Synod, the House of Bishops, the immense unaccountable power of Archbishops’ Council, the Secretary-General, William Nye, and the Secretariats in Church House and Lambeth Palace,
A Taste for Death
I’m reading P. D. James’ A Taste for Death at the moment, a crime thriller as a respite from sexuality and theology. A character’s apartment is used by the Special Branch as a location for surveillance, taking photos of student demonstrations. “They were very sweet about it,” says the character.
“After all, it was rather fun in a way. The sense of conspiracy, being in the know. And it wasn’t up to us to make a stand. They know what they’re doing. And it never does to antagonise these people.”
Wow, I thought as I read it. That’s exactly what the Church of England is like today. Best not to write and post this blog. It will only upset people and get me into trouble. But I enjoy being a conspirator, a member of the Special Branch. I feel called to take a stand, especially when I’m not in the know, not part of the institutional structure. But I suspect very few people are in the know, and those who are act with great caution and circumspection, most of the time.
The Deconstruction of Christianity
Conservative evangelicals are deconstructing Christianity; though in their minds they are preserving their version of Christianity, their orthodox, traditional, Bible-based Christianity, the version of Christianity that bears almost no relationship to mine.
A few people do have the awareness and courage to speak the truth; Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin at the July Synod.; Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley by resigning from LLF; Bishop Martyn Snow by issuing four provisos; Bishop Alan Wilson by co-writing To Heal and Not to Hurt with Rosie Harper; Adrian Thatcher for writing Vile Bodies; the 110 members of GSGSG including Nic Tall, Helen Shepherd and Robert Thompson who recently wrote to the bishops.
But the taste for death is strong –and that’s what it is – a movement to bring about the suicide of Christianity in the guise of saving it. I’d like to believe we are reaching a moment of real crisis – but we probably aren’t. Any attempt at General Synod later this month to effectively challenge the control exerted by a few powerful figures in the magisterium, the controlling impact of conservative evangelicals and the ability of “Synodical process” to defeat any attempt to develop a more progressive, just, visionary, Christ-like version of Christianity, will be defeated by a regressive majority in one or more Houses.
The effect on us
A gay married priest wrote, publicly, this week:
“. . . the application to us of the Church of England’s homophobic policy, which is despicable, unchristian, toxic, dangerous, was in the end too much to bear, both the cruel manner in which the whole situation has been managed and the absolute total lack of pastoral care - yes my mental health has been impacted. It’s time to move on, to make a clean break, to put distance between ourselves and the institution that is the Church of England. As a priest led by God’s just and gentle spirit for over 30 years one senses when the time to do the right thing has arrived. For me, that time is now, and it is no longer possible to remain part of a Church that actively promotes such institutional homophobia. In any decent Christian human beings’ thinking that cannot be of God, of Christ, of the Gospel, but is simply abhorrent, sinful, and in my humble opinion, unsafe for those faithful children of God who are LGBTQIA+ who remain.
“We’re already looking at other paths where inclusion is paramount. This shameful difficult period has been allowed to drag on in a way that were it happening in any other walk of life, wouldn’t have been allowed. So much for the exemptions, special privileges and protections that the Church of England has - human rights for some but not for all!
“God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good! Amen.”
The toxic un-Christian Church
We are all infected in some way by this systemic institutional un-Christian Omni-God worshipping pernicious influence. This is Christianity without the divine, mystical otherness manifested by Jesus, the mystery of unconditionally loving, vulnerable, open-hearted presence. The presence is always there, in our midst, in creation, in life and in every human being, but today’s Church has a remarkable ability to distance us from the presence and categorise the creative energies as Gnostic, un-Biblical, heretical, sinful.
The surviving healthy Church
Healthy church hasn’t disappeared entirely, and those knowing intuitively what it feels like will find healthy Christianity in a cathedral or a local church led by priests and people with independence and courage, playfulness and depth and the gift of trusting their intuition and experience, heart and soul. But in so many the freedom to trust and express these essential Christian qualities is suppressed by the threat of a CDM (Clergy Discipline Measure) or the deadly environment of diocese and institution, sucking all the energy from the grass roots to Central Control, the ever expanding all-powerful bureaucracy.
The God, the Jesus, the Holy Spirit, who are all present and correct at meetings of the General Synod these days are having a deadly effect. The same trio of revered ultimate-authority figures were present at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 in the plenary debate on Lambeth 1.10 – and they had the same deadly effect there. Like a Nazi rally, it was, said Bishop Peter Selby.
The informal coalition of seventeen progress groups, representatives of which were present at the Lambeth Palace Library meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and in group meetings with the LLF bishops and staff, are developing the confidence, wisdom and courage to challenge the magisterium. I salute their growing effectiveness and strategic vision. The General Synod Gender and Sexuality Group (GSGSG) is playing a vital, pro-active role. Changing Attitude England continues to campaign for visionary change.
Come and be inspired and empowered by some members of these groups at the Life in all its fullness event on 2nd March 2024 at St Andrew’s Short Street, Waterloo. This is your opportunity to directly engage with the movement for transformation and change. Book your tickets now!