FROM THE BOUNDARY: Quo Vadis? Part two
Are we witnessing a new Reformation – reforms in the Church and other changes to our Christian religion, as a body of doctrine, scripture, ‘rules’ and understandings, so fundamental, at times so shocking, that in Christ “all things are being made new”?
Well, over the past 60 years and more there have been changes, new perspectives and a host of new challenges, in their nature so provocative that it seems as if the Church will ever be tormented by endemic schism and guerilla warfare, particularly in the Anglican Church. Its corporate expression, the Anglican Communion, confronting this ‘newness’ has manifested, in its loudest voices, a pitiful bankruptcy of thought, purpose and expression despite all the empty “listening” it enjoins, and for ordinary folk – well, isn’t it just irrelevant?
Who cares if the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) noted for its crude fairground pugilism and obsession with the sex lives of LGBTQ people, says ‘ya-boo’ to Lambeth?
Just about prayerfully plodding the pews, it’s all a bit precious for most of us, and even IF the sandstorms of change ARE relentlessly re-shaping the precipices of the Mountain of God, we stick to the foothills anyway because oxygen – and salvation – can be bought there for a pittance of “I believe’s” in the sacred supermarkets Sunday by Sunday. Meanwhile, these same pews become emptier and emptier, and congregations older and older, for the young think the standard stuff’s all as meaningful as Esperanto and conducive only to an unmasked yawn as wide as China. Meanwhile, from the smoke of Mount Somewhere ‘Thou shalt have no other God but Smartphone.’
We’ve witnessed too, with or without the separation of Church and State, new ways of legislating for divorce, civil partnerships, abortion and the work place. Patriarchy has become a sieve. Whatever happened to Sunday observance? The soft arm of Caesar has discovered and blessed human rights – the inalienable gifts of birth – of women, children, LGBTQ people. ‘No’ to discrimination. St. Paul must have turned in his grave. No more Stichus the Slave, no more “obey your husbands”, no more stoning wayward kids, gays and married philanderers.
Oh yes, and you can’t ethnically cleanse the Canaanites either. Sorry, you up there.
Meanwhile, the Church limps on; though outside of Rome, bless it, and however grudgingly here and there, it now understands that women can wear white shifts as awesomely as men. Mind even Rome is flirting with the idea that women might serve as deacons and old married men as priests in – get this – the Amazon! Yeah for Pope Francis! His detractors say he’s a communist.
It’s time for Pussy Riot – on vile segregation and the great persecution. Sorry, there’s no avoiding it. As an Anglican cleric at the first Pride March said in Broad Street last year: “The swollen rivers are flooding the great estuaries of the world into the open sea. There’s no stopping it. Legions of Pharisees won’t stop it. The armies of Mara won’t stop it. The roaring lion won’t stop it... It’s here now, as it’s always been, as part of the natural order of things... It’s called LOVE.” Love between human beings.
Yes, things are changing. In the US Episcopal Church 15 years ago, an openly gay man was elected a bishop. This year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for the second time elected an openly gay married man as bishop. Last year, in the Canadian Anglican Church a gay bishop married his partner in Toronto Cathedral. Blink.
Don’t worry. Last week, the Archbishop of Sydney thundered that those who support same-sex marriage should leave the Church. “We can’t bless same-sex marriage,” he said, “because we can’t bless sin.” Oh dear. And then the Archbishop of Crakow: the LGBTQ movement, he said, is “totalitarian”, “a great threat to our freedom”, the “new communism”. You what, sunshine? But then the ‘soft’ way. In answer to the Archbishop of Sydney, the Archbishop of Perth: “I’m so sorry for the distress [this has] caused. We are committed to witnessing people as Jesus did, with the promise of his love.” Jesus. Always Jesus at the heart of things. Isn’t that the ‘true Church’?
And here in the Caribbean? Well, you know that the offence of buggery, that galactical gift of the British which it abolished for itself over 50 years ago, has now gone the way of all flesh in Belize and Trinidad and Tobago; and like moves are afoot in Dominica, St. Vincent and maybe – just maybe – in Barbados. Guyana continues to faff about cross-dressing.
The Anglican Church, through its then Archbishop John Holder, has already debunked the abominable biblical texts at the Intimate Conviction Conference in Jamaica in 2017 and – get this – the Conference will reconvene here in April next year. This year we had an ‘Inclusive Church’ service at UWI as part of the Pride March celebrations with the theme “One Love, One God”. Meanwhile, the homophobic persecution of same-sex relations continues in 34 Commonwealth countries. Ah well. Is it time for Pussy Riot?
At the “One Love” service we sang, “I let Spirit run my life, and my heart is wide open.” Beloved fellow Christians – are yours open too?
Go safely, then – until the next time.
Reformation, from the boundary: “I will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me” (Martin Luther).