I repeat: The Church of England is systemically abusive

I repeat: The Church of England is systemically abusive

Transgender and Intersex friends of mine and the wider Transgender and Intersex networks to which they belong are angry at the way they feel the LLF process abused them. The serious concerns reported repeatedly by some have not been taken onboard. From my liminal place in relation to the Church of England my perspective is clearly at odds with those who are committed to the protection and preservation of the institution. I do not see best practice or the highest interests of LGBTI+ people being upheld.

Myths - Chinese, Trumpian, Brexit and Christian

Myths - Chinese, Trumpian, Brexit and Christian

The attempt to create a new mythic history of China and to suppress evidence of more recent events may seem remote from our concerns in the Christian West, but in this evolving age of a seamless reality we are discovering that every country and culture and human being is in some way intrinsically interconnected. The church tinkers with small issues it thinks are important and fails to see the how it needs to develop the biggest picture possible in response to the dangerous new myths that are being deliberately constructed.

Bishops and conservatives meet in secret to reinforce the abuse of LGBTI+ people

Bishops and conservatives meet in secret to reinforce the abuse of LGBTI+ people

My transgender Christian friends are furious about the news that three senior bishops responsible for the Living in Love and faith process recently met a delegation of conservative catholics and evangelicals who had demanded a meeting to talk about the transgender guidance issued by the House of Bishops. Conservative Anglicans are exerting extreme pressure on the Living in Love and Faith project to ensure that the outcome absolutely does not respond to the expectations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people that our God-given identities are finally recognised and granted equality by a revision of Church teaching and practice about human gender and sexuality.

A Christian Vision of Seamless Reality

A Christian Vision of Seamless Reality

Tucked away at the end of this blog is the revolutionary dynamite that was inspired by an article in the Guardian Review on Saturday 18 May 2019. Only a seamless vision of creation, evolution, Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus the risen Christ, son of God, can hope to radically transform our relationship with our planet, the universe, our brothers and sisters in every continent of every race and gender and sexuality, overcoming our addiction to the defence of prejudice and difference.

Interior reflections of a priest

Interior reflections of a priest

In June 1988 a group from St Faith’s Wandsworth went to St Columba’s Woking for a retreat weekend led by Verena Tschudin. Verena provided us with a number of pictures from which we could choose one. She also gave us a series of questions to help us engage with the image. I offer these journal thoughts from thirty-one years ago as a complementary insight to what was going on within me at the same time as I was writing my reflections about parish life and ministry in the previous blog.

A philosophy and vision for parish ministry, then and now

A philosophy and vision for parish ministry, then and now

On December 26 1986 I set off on sabbatical, flying round the world for three and a half months. The one condition given was that I should keep a journal. Recently I’ve been rereading the journal. Yesterday I reached the entry for Friday 26 May 1988, written to remind myself of the ideas and ideals that were paramount in my philosophy of life and ministry. Nothing that I encounter now in church on a Sunday morning comes remotely close to what as a parish priest I was seeking to create in 1988.

What do I believe? Paradigm thoughts of a feral Christian

What do I believe? Paradigm thoughts of a feral Christian

In the modern West, in Christianity, faith is still primarily about what people believe and how they behave. A person is in a right standing with God when they acknowledge the validity of certain conceptual truths and by living as God wants. The evolution of Christianity from the first to the third centuries and the triumph of Christianity in the fourth century has now become an existential crisis for Christianity. We have endured thirteen centuries of a new kind of religiosity, Nicene orthodoxy. It is at an end, this doctrinaire belief in theological niceties and certainties, the inherited orthodoxy and traditionalism.

Honesty and Truthfulness in the Church

Honesty and Truthfulness in the Church

In his latest newsletter, James Alison, the well-known gay Catholic theologian, describes what he has learnt through the process of becoming a source of information for Frédéric Martel, the author of In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy. The Church of England has similarities and dissimilarities with the Catholic Church. We do not have a celibate priesthood. We do not describe homosexuality as intrinsically disordered. We do have a problem with systemic abuse. All but one of our lesbian and gay bishops live in the closet. We are having difficulty in processing the place of LGBTI+ people in the Church.

Archbishop Justin invites all gay bishops to Lambeth 2020 - but refuses to invite their spouses

Archbishop Justin invites all gay bishops to Lambeth 2020 - but refuses to invite their spouses

The really big news about invitations to the 2020 Lambeth Conference is that all lesbian and gay bishops are being invited, whether or not they are single or partnered, celibate or “sexually active,” overturning Archbishop Rowan’s refusal to invite Gene Robinson to Lambeth 2008 because he had a spouse. But this time, the spouses of two bishops, one lesbian, one gay, are not being invited. The person to hold to account for this prejudiced injustice is Archbishop Justin, but none of the English LGBTI+ networks, OBOF, the Ozanne Foundation, the General Synod Human Sexuality Group and the LGBTI Mission, has been willing to name the Archbishop and challenge his decision.

Releasing the feral essence of God to flow in our beings

Releasing the feral essence of God to flow in our beings

My daily faith experience is woven around the always elusive presence in which silence, attention, presence, self-giving, experience, quality, emotions, the unconditional, uncertainty, goodness are ingredients and essences, everywhere. Trusting deeply in what I can’t prove but know is my core, my essence, deep within, touched by, feeling it. The Church faces me with many images of God – homophobic, misogynistic, white bearded, authoritarian, judging, cruel, partisan, rejecting. The disconnect the Church maintains, between an imaginable God for the twenty-first century, and the God of co-dependency, abuse, depression, anxiety, and neurosis, is unsustainable.