I pulled the Observer from the letterbox at 06.45 this morning and glanced at the front page. A large blue headline box announced “The church’s problem with sex; Tom Adams meets the author of an incendiary new book that challenges centuries of fakery, abuse and homophobia.” Who could the author of this incendiary new book be, I wondered? But first things first; make a pot of tea, add milk to the muesli, carry the tray up to my meditation room, and open the Observer Review.
Let’s talk about sex
This is how the article is headlined. And the author of the new book that “challenges centuries of self-serving homophobia? Ah, my friend Diarmaid MacCulloch who, says the introduction, is primed, with some glee, for the backlash. Diarmaid’s book, “Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity” is published by Allen Lane on 19 September, nearly 700 pages, £35.
Tim Adams, who interviewed Diarmaid, says that:
“In the 37 years since that Higton debate, the church has lost touch entirely with the wider mood of the country, in continuing to pander to the archaic homophobia of many of its members in an effort to “maintain unity”. It is hard to keep up with the triangulations it now performs in order to hold that line. I think the formula goes as follows: gay vicars can live together in velibate civil partnerships. Same-sex couples may in certain circumstances be blessed in churches but not in standalone services. And – for the most delicate bigoted souls – gay relationships may best be understood in the context of “covenanted friendship”.”
Tim Adams references Sandi Toksvig who was attacked for an open letter to the 650 bishops attending the last Lambeth Conference. She had several credible death threats, sometimes requiring the assistance of the police hate crime squad. Each and every one of those threats came from an evangelical Christian. Inevitably they wanted to kill me on God’s behalf. I know that the majority of evangelical Christians do not in any way think like this, but there are extremists who do – groups threatening schism. Diarmaid says he is primed for attacks from the fundamentalist voices within the church, here and abroad. He lists his opponents as the “usual suspects”, evangelical devotees of the “detestable” Alpha course led by Holy Trinity Brompton in London, or from the “strongholds of all things homophobic” that are often “outposts of the diocese of Sydney, Australia”. He thinks the African churches are more ambiguous than we think they are, making a lot of noise just to please the Bible belt Americans who send them money. The Bible belt churches are, of course, supporters of Donald Trump. And my widespread engagement with gay friends in numerous African countries confirm that LGBTQIA+ people are as present and active in Africa as anywhere else on the planet – some of them, despite Christian prejudice and hostility, creating loving, committed relationships.
The Clitoris
At this point in the article, Tim Adams references Archbishop Rowan Williams as providing evidence for Diarmaid’s argument that theological debate is complex. Diarmaid had asked Helen King to read his book pre-publication. Helen, General Synod and Together member, thought there was a major omission in his book – he hadn’t mentioned the clitoris much. This prompted Diarmaid to add thoughts from Archbishop Rowan on the clitoris, written long before he became Archbishop. Helen has, of course, just published a book herself, "Immaculate Forms: Uncovering the History of Women's Bodies". Writing about the clitoris is not something I am used to doing myself, nor was it ever, so far as I remember, a subject of ++Rowan’s lectures and sermons at Westcott House and subsequently in conversation, nor in conversation with Helen. My horizons are always open to expansion.
The Bible
Diarmaid understood from his father, among the last of a breed of avuncular parish vicars “with a splendid intolerance of bullshit”, that is was obvious to any half-intelligent reader of the Bible that it is a kind of “cacophonous library” of competing voices rather than any strict gospel truth. “How anyone could have mistaken it for the word of God baffles me. And there’s obviously an intellectual dishonesty about that.”
In the book he examines the scandalous way different churches have covered up paedophilia and abuse and develops a thesis that we should always be wary of those priesthoods that believe they have a monopoly on truth and virtue.
The Observer article has enabled me to include in a blog, uncensored, statements of opinion that I share but usually try to suppress for fear of upsetting the fundamentalist natives with their unhealthy abusive dogmatic obsessions.
And breathe . . .
Having read the article and finished the pot of tea, I lit a candle and a joss stick and settled myself to meditate for thirty minutes, gazing at the crucifix, two photos of gay priests I admire and a photo of my current amour – and, learning from Helen and ++Rowan, breathed goodness, love and energy deep down into my belly and genitals. I breathed in the fuel of Jesus energy necessary to enrich and nourish the reservoir of goodness necessary as fuel for protection against Christian homophobia and as fuel for the courage to write and tell the truth, identifying and confronting the systemic abuse in today’s C of E. For as long as the Church fails to welcome and honour LGBTQIA+ people equally, to select us and ordain us equally, to open marriage to us equally, equal for clergy and lay ministers alike, the Church will remain an abusive, prejudiced, systemically homophobic institution.
Diarmaid has provided us, LGBTQIA+ people and allies, and the Church itself, with a new resource, a resource that is almost certainly more authoritative and healthy than the Living in Love and Faith book, an egregious book that panders to conservative evangelicals, he says. Thank you, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, for your gift of courage and wisdom. Are we able to rise to the challenge, to organise ourselves into an effective, active movement for change, to change attitudes so dramatically that we become a people who want our lives, our church and our faith to live into the depth of God unconditional, infinite, intimate love, truth, wisdom, justice, compassion and goodness that within the shortest space of time, those in love, those who long to be open and honest and married, and those of us in civil partnerships and already married, overcome Christian anxiety and prejudice are liberated, along with everyone else, into Kingdom life in all its fullness.
Diarmaid MacCulloch. Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity. Allen Lane. Published on 19 September. £35