Going for Gold

As the Para-Olympics have now finished our minds are fresh with the image of plane-loads of athletes returning with an unbelievable number of medals. The world is asking how we do it. Sixty six medals in the Olympics put us second in the table, one above China. One hundred and forty seven in the Para-Olympics also put us second, this time one below China. How can so small an island produce so many champions. The answer, it would seem, is that a lot of lottery money has been sunk into Olympic sports. We (that is lottery players) funded our athletes to the tune of about four million pounds per medal. The whole situation is a wonder of focused strategic planning with money being targeted to fund what is likely to succeed. In the process, some pretty hardnosed decisions had to be taken and not only have athletes been funded, to enable them to devote themselves to full-time training, but the infrastructure of Sport GB has been set up and funded to achieve the greatest effect.

It brings to mind another scenario, which is the current state of play in the Church of England, in which the treasure chest of the Church Commissioners is being unlocked to fund those projects of church building and growth which are deemed likely to succeed. The same principles are in play. Proper strategic planning is thought likely to produce results and the hoped-for change to church growth. Money will be channeled into those things which will provide such growth, whilst other parts of church life will lose their funding. If it worked for the Olympics, then why should it not work for the Church?

Olympic funding and sharp management is not the whole story. Without the skills of the runners, the rowers, the horse-riders and so on, there would be no medals. It is not just focused strategic thinking that brought in the gold, although that seems to have helped. Primarily it took the focused and often sacrificial dedication of each athlete to devote their lives to the pursuit of excellence in their chosen field. The good management of second rate athletes will not active Olympic glory, but good strategic thinking is a tool which can greatly assist in the fostering and development of talent.

For the Church of England, the Renewal and Reform program is a welcome tool both to unlock and to focus the potential that is there within the church. Indeed it might be said that the church will only succeed in its mission if it gets its act together and starts working in a much more determined way. But we must not confuse good management with the inherent talent of being the face of Christ in the world. I support the Renewal and Reform program, indeed I voted for it before I left General Synod in 2015. But the program itself cannot be the success we hope for. It can only a means to foster that success. Being good managers is not what the church is about, although managing well ‘what we are about’ is to be expected. What we are about is to live lives of holiness with an engagement in the world which will always be sacrificial and self-giving and through which the face of Christ is revealed. This raises questions as to whether all bishops need to be outgoing, dynamic managers, or whether there is a place for mystics, prophets, thinkers, or men and women of deep prayer. Good management on its own is of little use unless what is managed is thereby transformed and empowered in mission.

But there is one other question about Olympic gold which is relevant to these discussions. There is something glorious about coming home with so many medals, at the cost of several hundred millions of pounds, but does that help engender community sport projects in the ordinary places of this land? In other worlds, it has been argued that there is something very elitist in the way that Olympic funding is done. It can be argued that, by going for excellence, ordinary people in ordinary communities might be inspired to go out and engage in sport, but would the money being spent of Olympic gold be more productive if were to be spent at the more local level? For the church, is the present ethos of the Church of England weighted to the more 'successful' and high profile churches, whereas there may be many small congregations, perhaps condemned by having small numbers, which area nonetheless exercising heroic ministry as salt in the communities in which their lives are set?

The Hippopotamus

It is well known that the word hippopotamus comes from the Latin and means 'river horse'. It is unsurprising that, when faced with this creature, people likened it to a horse that lives in a river. Such a comparison surely stretches the imagination, but it was the best that people could come up with at the time. The advent of DNA sequencing has revealed a number of previously unknown relationships and has clarified the tree of evolution. The hippopotamus is related to other creatures and those creatures are not horses but whales. At some point in the evolutionary journey, a creature gave rise to two different branches of its tree. One branch moved into the water and became whales. The other branch grew legs and became land-living and those creatures were the hippos.

Another modern day discovery is that dinosaurs and birds share a common ancestor. That discovery changes our perceptions. It gives us new insight into both dinosaurs and birds. The two types of creature no longer fit neatly into two unrelated boxes. They share a commonality. They belong together.

In terms of human race, a study of genetics reveals that we are all within about 0.1% of each other in genetic makeup. We have such a history of racial antagonism against anyone who seems different, whereas the truth is that we a share a common genetic base, which is that we are all human. The fact that we only vary about 3.5% from the African great apes adds another perception as to our unity with the rest of the created order.

When we consider human sexuality, I wonder whether we build constructs of perception as to who is 'us' and who is 'them' when in fact we are all one. Apart from a tiny minority, who might be described as asexual, to be human is to be sexual. Why do we, who are heterosexual, speak of lesbian and gay people as having a different kind of sexuality? Can there be a perception of human sexuality that finds a common denominator, so that human sexuality fits into one box, regardless of orientation? I believe that the-quest-for-intimacy lies behind human sexuality and that that is the common factor (the box) which encompasses the whole experience of what it means to be human. Intimacy brings with it vulnerability, which means that the risk of intimacy brings us to a place in which some will find deep healing and fulfilment, whilst for others it will have been a place of traumatic wounding.  Regardless of orientation, our sexuality can be a place of brokenness and pain. If that has resulted from others exercising power over us in an abusive way that has wounded us at the deepest level of our being, then it might be the case that we live out our subsequent lives is a way that is driven to overpower others and abuse them. Yet, if we can grow beyond the wounding of growing to maturity, we may find a delight and joy in another which brings the deepest of joys. The commonality of human experience, regardless of our sexual orientation, lies in the desire for an intimacy that can be both creative and life-giving.

There are yet more aspects of human living that we so readily place in different boxes, whereas they ought to be in the same box. Take ‘love’ for example. Eros, agape and philia are three words for ‘love’ which each has a different and distinct meaning. Eros might be deemed to be sexual love, whist the others are not. The problem is that we end up with a dualism that separate sexuality from love, so that what concerns our relationship with God ceases to have any sexual content, whereas (as has so often happened), sexuality is split off into a box marked ‘the world, the flesh and the devil’. Yet, if we can see the different pictures of love, that are expressed in the different words for love, as belonging in the same box and so sharing a commonality, then something of our human sexuality is taken up into our relationship with God. He loves us in our entirety and seeks to redeem the totality of our being. 

In Praise of Celibacy

When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." Perhaps that sentence might be appropriate for the Alice in Wonderland world of the Church of England, in which words can take on a particular significance as banner-words for one group, whilst the next group is either untouched by them or else uses the words in a very different way. No more is this the case than in the vexed discussion over human sexuality. In fact the use of words so varies in meaning that, much of the time, no discussion really takes place at all. I think, for example, of a speech in General Synod, in which the speaker said that amongst his penitents he regularly heard the confessions of some twenty priests, all of whom were in same-sex relationships and all of whom lived in chastity. His words made the point that there is a number of gay clergy in relationships, but his words must have brought a degree of comfort to more conservative members of Synod, who would have heard him say that nothing ‘naughty’ was going on. Yet my definition of chastity is one I picked up from Jack Dominian, that noted Roman Catholic writer on human relationships and sexuality. In this definition of chastity, its meaning is to do with sexually integrity. All Christians are called to live in a state of chastity. Such chastity is to do with the quality of our relationships, whether they are creative, life-sustaining and person-making. So what I heard that speaker say was that all twenty of his penitents was living in a good sexual relationship, which was a blessing to them. How that sexuality was expressed could not be deduced from what the speaker said, but why would we want to know how two people express their love for each other in the privacy of their own home?

A different word, which for me has some very different meanings, is celibacy. What I mean by the world is a world apart from what many seem to mean in the heated discussion of our time. I want to write in praise of celibacy, for celibacy is a Christian vocation which has long been part of our tradition. I am not celibate, but my understanding of this word has come through the comments of two people. The first was an English priest, working in America, who perhaps said more than he ought to have done in talking of his work as confessor to a convent of nuns. He had met one or two celibates among the nuns, who had been such glorious people that it made celibacy something to be admired. However, most of those in the convent were not celibates, but women hiding from their sexuality. How I interpret this perspective, again assisted by the writings of Jack Dominian, is that celibacy is both a gift and a vocation. Far from a denial of sexuality, it is about a wholeness of sexuality in which the person concerned is released from the commitment of intimacy with one person and is therefore open to non-physical relationships with many people. Few people in the convent, in the view of this confessor, actually lived such vibrant, integrated and fulfilled lives.

The other comment was a speech, again in General Synod, in which the speaker (a nun) said that celibacy is a glorious vocation, but that forced celibacy withers the heart. There is here a sharp contrast between a glorious vocation, which is what I want to praise, and the business of heart-withering that is being so rigorously pursued by the Church of England at this time. Enforced celibacy is not celibacy at all, but a power-game in which any expression of sexuality which does not fit in with our idea of the 'norm' is suppressed. We ought to support those called to a single life, but what on earth are we doing engaging in enforced celibacy? What kind of priesthood do we expect people to exercise if, as part of the process of ordination, we seek to wither their hearts?

All I seek to do in this posting is to share what the word celibacy means to me. It is possible to say that two people are in a partnered-relationship and are celibate, as for example in a sham marriage, perhaps to qualify for citizenship. But I have no idea what it means to say that someone is partnered, yet also celibate. If you are in an emotional and committed relationship with someone else, you are not celebrate. Celibacy is about the whole person, not just what you do with your reproductive organs. And human sexuality needs to be seen in terms of the very core of what it means to be a human being, not just an impoverished view that reduces our being down to a single sexual act.

Perhaps we need to be more ready to celebrate giftedness and less strident in both condemning others and seeking to control their lives. Celibacy should be celebrated as both gift and vocation, without using it as a tool of power to suppress the joy of others. A holistic view of sexuality will lead us to celebrate with those whose lives are already blessed by God in their mutual self-giving. And what God has blessed, who are we to condemn?

The Game of Tennis

On Sunday 10th July many people will be watching the men's tennis final from Wimbledon. Not so members of General Synod, who begin forty eight hours of facilitated conversations about our attitudes to same-sex relationships. One side believes that any such relationship is sinful, whilst the other side thinks that relationships are relationships and any relationship can lie on a spectrum from destructive and soul destroying to creative and a place of real blessing. The Anglican Communion is threatened by being broken by this debate. It has been likened to a game of tennis in which both sides are concentrating on serving ace after ace in the belief that their argument is a winner that cannot be returned. However, each player is on a different tennis court. Their arguments do not engage. There is no discussion. There is no game of tennis. The point of the shared conversations is not to assist either side to win, but to help them engage and at least begin to listen to each other.

I find the picture of tennis, played on separate courts, to be a useful one. It might also be used about the recent 'debate' about our place in Europe. Rather than debate, it seems that we have not engaged in discussion, but rather we have just shouted at one another. The shouting match has been fueled by anger at the way life is and our feelings of helplessness in the face of moving populations and lack of control in a world of increasing globalization. Many people wanted to stop the world and get off, enticed by the belief that we can get off and survive. To liken this exchange of ideas to a tennis match, in which there is no engagement, is to recognize the 'truth' on both side of the argument. Debate there should have been, which would have meant a coming together (on one court) to draw out and balance the different elements to find one picture in which the pros and cons could be seen. 

So I think the Brexit side does have an argument about the importance of democracy and the desire to have control over our own affairs. How we order our lives is tied up in our sense of self-identity. Being part of a constantly moving flow of people can bring riches, but it also risks a loss of what makes sense of life, in terms of culture and tradition. Feeling we are governed by faceless bureaucrats in Europe gives rise to a sense of helplessness in the face of a rapidly changing world. 'Take Back Control' became the central mantra of the Brexit campaign.  Yet, if we had taken part in discussion, and done so in a way in which we listened to each other, what was predictable before the vote was that to vote to Leave would take us into very troubled waters. The markets were bound to crash. Our credit rating was pound to slump, thus pushing up the cost of borrowing. Europe was bound to act to limit the damage we were going to do to it. A future trade deal was bound to be on worse terms than what we already have. We will be at the back of the queue for any deal with America. Immigration will rise as France takes the opportunity to ride themselves of the camps at such places as Calais and push the 'problem' and the people onto English soil. And suddenly Europe is a far less stable place than it was last week. Empires rise and empires fall and we are kidding ourselves if we think we can claim back any status as Great Britain. Indeed, a vote for Leave was bound to be a vote for the break up of the United Kingdom and maybe Europe too. It is a vote for us Englanders to be on our own. That is what we have chosen. All this was known before we cast our vote, but no one seemed to be listening to anything that was said. The argument of Brexit is that we willingly choose all of this, a loss of power, a smaller economy, a surrender of influence in the world, because  we think that is a price that is worth paying for the reclaiming of power over our own affairs. Let's hope that so high a price is worth paying for our own autonomy and that such autonomy does not just become isolation and decline. What is missing in all of this is the right leader to take us into the future. It will take an extraordinary man or woman (and supporting team) to pull our nation together again and begin to heal the wounds that we have inflicted, both upon ourselves and upon our European Community. It will take extraordinary transformation to move from being able to blame Brussels for everything to living with the reality that life will be what we make it. Perhaps the Church is called to stand with people in the midst of the ruins we have created, and to be a sign of hope that new life can be found, as we rebuild broken relationships and seek to create community together.

Through the Wall

It was back in 2013 that we set sail on a cruise to the Baltic. My father was nearing the end of his life and, somewhat to our surprise, he offered to pay for us to go on a cruise. So we chose this one, which took us to St.Petersburg in Russia. The star visit, while we were there, was to go to the Hermitage, which is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world and the largest collection of paintings anywhere in the world. Not only is the place filled with millions of pieces of art, but the building itself is a work of art. In one room alone we were told that, if they stripped all the gold-leaf off the walls, the weight of gold collected would be 9Kg. The Rembrandts require a whole hall for their display. Before we set off, my father commented that once we had seen the place we would understand why there had been a revolution. He was right. The extreme wealth represented  by what we saw was in stark contrast to the plight of ordinary people in pre-revolution Russia. This was never a situation that could be sustained indefinitely. The wonder is that, after the revolution, the people kept their museum.

It was on this journey that we stopped off in what had been East Germany. We went on the Molli steam railway. As is so often the case on such journeys, as enjoyable as seeing the sights is the opportunity to talk to local people. We found ourselves sitting with the guide and we asked her what life had been like in the old days and what had brought down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. She told us some of what the old days had been like. There had been a constant fear of informers and the secret police. Many would take their driving licence at the age of about eighteen, after which you could put your name down for a Trabant car. By the age of about thirty, some twelve years later, you might reach the top of the waiting list and actually get your car. What brought down the divide between east and west, she said, was television. They were not allowed to watch western TV, but everyone did. Seeing there was so much better a life the other side of the wall was what eventually turned the tide until a tipping point was reached and the barrier could no longer be sustained.

I have started reading the book 'End Game', by Professors Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly. Their argument is that is any system there may be a tipping point in which sudden change occurs. Not much might have been seen to be happening beforehand, but many elements of the system were reaching their limits until, very suddenly, change comes. One element in their argument is that population size is out of control and we will suddenly reach a point at which the human species can no longer thrive or even survive. We already find that there is more traffic on the roads, greater competition for such things as jobs or college places and growing tensions over who owns which of our planet's resources. Extreme differences in wealth are creating instability within our society and we may be reaching a tipping point in which such injustice becomes unsustainable. Migration has become a global challenge, with more the fifty million displaced people in our world today. It seems to me that what exacerbates this situation is not television, as was the case in East Germany, but smart phones. We live in a complex world in which many factors affect people's lives, including overcrowding, war, famine, poverty, lack of water and so on. If it appears that there is a better life to be had the other side of the wall, then dissatisfaction can spread as instantly as social media allows and suddenly a lot of people are on the move, searching for that new life. It appears to me, in such a situation, that trying to limit immigration simply has no hope of working. Barriers exist to help the richer country maintain its wealth, often at the expense of the poorer country. The situation becomes a question of justice and what is unjust simply cannot ultimately win.

We have just voted to leave the EU and one of the major factors in that decision has been people's worry about immigration. Maybe we will be able to cope better with the challenge by having more control over our own borders, although we risk increasing isolation by doing so. However, if we think we can keep ourselves safe (and isolated) behind our walls, we are kidding ourselves. Thanks to social media, the 'others' can see what is on our side of the wall and, one day, the wall will come down.

Europe

For all my ordained ministry I have been very much involved in ecumenism. I suppose I have been lucky, for I have experienced at first hand the vibrancy and excitement of working with others to establish something new and to do it with people of very different traditions, whose very difference brings new riches to the partnership. Difference becomes a blessing. What unites us is not being the same, but bringing our difference to a common creative vision. I once heard someone say that, in any organisation, what is needed is both pioneers and settlers. The Wild West could only have been won by pioneers, but then people needed to put down roots and settle. Both the pioneering and the settling had their part to play. There would be nothing to settle without the pioneering, yet people need to put down roots and establish systems and conventions, if culture and society is to flourish.

I find this a helpful perspective. Yet, in terms of ecumenism, we cannot just see this in linear terms of pioneering leading on to a calmer time of settlement. My experience is that, ultimately, that never works. I believe that the Church comes alive when its members are drawn together in a common task which fires the imagination and releases creative energy. The best of ecumenism comes when churches together are drawn into such a shared endeavour. What epitomises such creativity is leadership (clergy and lay), whose shared vision is both infectious and inspirational. That has been my experience and that is why I am an enthusiastic ecumenist. It draws us into that oneness that was Jesus’ prayer for us and it is through such oneness that the Spirit is known and the mission of the Church comes alive. Settling, by which I mean putting down roots and establishing shared ways of doing things, is an essential part of any such endeavour. It is about building for an ongoing future. Yet, when that future arrives, it can found that the spirit has gone out of what was once so life-giving. Those who had led the vision have moved on and others have taken their place, others who were never part of that vision. Ecumenism then becomes a matter of sitting around in committees and keeping structures going. What once had been so creative, vibrant and energising has now become time-consuming and something that eats up energy. We ought to keep channels of communication open, but the life has gone out of that shared enterprise we once found so exuberantly life-giving.

As I ponder how I might vote at the forthcoming referendum over our future in Europe, I feel a number of emotions. I am confused by the wild rhetoric of the two sides and their various hidden (or not so hidden) agendas. I am angry at political leaders, who seemly are failing to set out the issues in a calm and rational way that might help people to make this decision. I do not feel that we are being well served by the manner of this ‘debate’. Indeed, a good deal of wounding is going on, from which it may take our nation a long time to recover. But then I wonder whether the confusion of these days is simply a reflection of a society which has lost its way. The vision of what Europe might be, with any sense of us being drawn into an enterprise which gives purpose, or leads us into life-giving new possibilities, seems to have given way to a edifice in which managing the structures have become the very purpose of our shared life together. That has long ceased to be an attractive and energising thing. Rather, the energy (and money) eaten up, by what is no longer seen to be a worthwhile enterprise, has come to be resented. What is missing is a shared vision of what is could mean to be European and the shared leadership that could give form and direction to that vision.  Calculating how to vote, by asking what we might get out of this situation, is simply symptomatic of how far we are from the kind of shared vision that would make the European project a dream that empowers us and leads us to discover an exciting future.

Expanding Love

Last month was somewhat overwhelming. The second grandchild arrived safely, but it is a process which is not without its worries. The natural caution of the medical people led to one or too scares, with extra scans, just in case. The process of giving birth is not without its dangers and, in the past, not all mothers or babies survived. Perhaps an awareness of such things is a worry too far, but, living with a hospital chaplain, I am aware of just how many babies' funerals Jane has taken over the last 25 years. Such knowledge did not lead me to a state of pessimism, but simply a deep awareness of both the preciousness of life and it's fragility. The expected birth was time of overwhelming hope, combined with anxiety that all would be alright for our daughter. The arrival of the grandchild was a moment of great joy, yet to hold such a tiny new person in your arms is to marvel once more at the vulnerability of living. In her first week she was readmitted to hospital, just for a day, and then she survived a car crash. Yet she thrives and is now growing rapidly.

There is something beyond any control here. Our family has expanded by one unit and, with that expansion, love has grown bigger to take in the newcomer. The love for the rest of the family is undiminished, yet now there is more love than there was before, simply because there are more people to love. I think that expanding love in this way expands me as a person. My capacity to love has been increased. Yet with that my vulnerability also increases. Expanding loves increases the possibility of being hurt, if and when accidents occur. To love is to be open to woundedness.

Since the arrival of the grandchild, life has got frantic. Six funerals have all come in at once and I have been immersed in grief of others. Love comes to this. To love is to to open oneself to wounding, but to love is also to live with an enriching vibrancy which takes us to the heart of what it means to be human. It leads me reflect on the urgency to live life-giving relationships to the full and to treasure the present moment of love. It leads me also to reflect on that love which is eternal. That is the love of God, which holds us in its transformational power in the NOW of human living and with the assurance that nothing will ever diminish or defeat it.

All this also leads me to reflect on what it means to share in the suffering of Christ. If love opens us up to the inevitability of wounding, as the love of God in Christ led to a cross, so to live Christ-like lives, in loving others, must open us up to engaging in the suffering of a broken world. Many of us are blessed by the love of a close family and, perhaps, many naturally live in a way that contains that love (as so limits vulnerability) to just that small group. To seek to love all creation is to accept a vocation in which we allow love to expand to take in every neighbour we meet. This expands us as people, as we begin to grow into the stature of Christ. Yet, inevitably, it leads us to places of suffering and grief, as we enter into the brokenness of those around us. As someone said recently on the radio, "if you live by Gospel values, there will be a crucifixion".

I find this challenging as I consider the plight of those seeking asylum in Europe. Protecting the comfort of own lives closes our ability to act in love. Loving the stranger in our midst engages is in our vocation to live as the Body of Christ. Perhaps the consequences are all too much? And yet, somehow, if we shut ourselves off from those simply seeking life, is not our own humidity thereby diminished?

The one that got away

If I were to describe the heart of Anglicanism, I would always start with Christ, for he is the head of the Church. But looking at more human structures, I would go back to Augustine, who did not bring Christianity to our shores, but did bring Catholic order and was installed as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. There is an unbroken continuity between those times and ours. True, under Henry VIII the English Church did break with Rome, but in many parishes the same people and their priests continued as the English Church. The Reformation brought considerable change and the settlement, under Elizabeth I, sought to establish the Church as being both Catholic and Reformed. A key figure, often quoted as the epitome of the Anglican Way is Richard Hooker, who placed great emphasis on the interplay between scripture, tradition and reason. In fact the three are deeply intertwined. Scripture is part of the tradition of the Church and St.Paul, for example, in reasoning out what it means to be a follower of Christ, was laying down words which came to be accepted as scripture. But an ongoing emphasis on scripture, tradition and reason leads us to a place of wrestling with truth in which we are open to where the Spirit is leading us in the present moment of our lives. Some have criticised Anglicanism as being less than clear and too middle of the road, but it seems to me that being prepared to move beyond what appears to be simple scriptural certainly, and into a place in which we grapple with the message of God, opens us to be led by the Spirit in a way that is thoroughly healthy and dares to face challenge and engage in debate.

In the recent meeting of Anglican Primates at Canterbury, the Archbishop of Uganda slipped quietly away from the gathering, apparently unnoticed. It was only when he wrote on his website that he had left, that people noticed the fact. He had come to Canterbury determined not to engage in any discussion. Either the Episcopal Church of the USA repented or it must withdraw from the Anglican Communion. And if this was not to happen, then he would go. There was no leeway here, no room for compromise. There was to be no wrestling with the questions over human sexuality, for in his mind his position was right. Despite the final communique that the Archbishops were committed to walking together, one, at least, got away and refused to walk in this company.

Little has been made of this one who got away, but his explanation ought to warn us of things to come. He spoke of never being more proud and happy to be part of the Church of Uganda. He also made it clear that he and his church are not leaving the Anglican Communion, for ‘we ARE the Anglican Communion and the future is bright’. It is clear than the children we gave birth to, as we laid down Anglicanism as a strand of the British Empire, have grown up and are making their own way in the world. It is not a colour of Anglicanism that I recognise, except from being one strand of a richly twisted flow of church life in which living with different was something to be celebrated. One strand, making a stand for its perspective of truth, is a far cry from what has been the tradition of Anglicanism and time will surely tell whether this very one-eyed version of what was a rich tradition does win its claim to be the Anglican Church of the future.