Foundational Anglican Christian theology with its reliance on scripture, tradition and reason is responsible for creating and justifying a core theology, an edifice on which and within which abuse has been built. The edifice supports conservative Christian homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, prejudice against other religions and cultures and particular categories of people.gy and culture that underpins abuse in the Church. Abuse has become systemic.
Jesus was processing his life of human experience and emotions and relationships with exactly the same resources as you and I process our lives and experience. One difference between us (not the difference between divine and human nature) is that our experience, if we are Christians, is processed through the constructs of theology and faith that evolved following Jesus’ death and have been evolving ever since. We are programmed in a way Jesus wasn’t.
In September, five members of Changing Attitude England met in a London garden one afternoon to explore our beliefs about God. I had circulated a position paper beforehand setting out my thoughts as a framework for our conversation. The five of us who met in the garden, plus one, wish to extend the conversation we began by organising an open event on 2nd March 2024 at St Andrew’s Short Street, Waterloo from 10.00 to 16.00 when we hope many of you will bring your own experience to the gathering, exploring our understandings of God in our human awareness and vision raised by the question What kind of God do we believe in?
Canon Mark Oakley has coined a new word, saying “we need a brave Tutufication of the Church, allowing bishops more creativity, freedom of speech and honesty about what they believe, with a commitment to never let religion compromise justice.” I believe the entirety of the Church of England needs a far more radical ‘Tutufication’. For a start, the Church needs bishops who with the courage and independence of mind to individually Tutuficate themselves. Today’s House of Bishops is composed of men and women with none of the Christian conviction, courage, radicalism, independence of mind, freedom of heart and soul, playfulness and energy that fuelled Desmond Tutu and transformed people open enough to respond to his proclamation of God’s unconditional love, energy, truth and justice.
