I was exhorted today to encourage the starting of a Mothers’ Union branch. I won’t be offering any such encouragement. Like some other clergy I know, I’ve no great enthusiasm for the MU.
The odd thing is that one never gets asked why.
I know the reasons that I’m not really into the MU, but don’t know whether they are commonly held.
It isn’t just past experiences of MU folk which put me off, though I’m only human and that is inevitably a factor, as I think it might be for others too.
No, it is two quite specific things that the MU brand has come to mean to me, and both are issues which the wider church has struggled with, to its own detriment.
The first of these issues is divorce – it is still within living memory that if someone got divorced they got put out of the MU. The fact that an organisation committed to family life would abandon people at a time when they most needed fellowship and support caused untold hurt. I know that may not be the case now, but it lingers in the air and I’ve never been convinced that this has really been aired and dealt with.
The second is to do with the way the MU changed from being an organization which was really good at offering support to families where a gay child was coming out to being an organization which offered nothing. They used to offer a video which parents could watch if their child turned up at home saying that they thought they were gay. It was good, excellent family ministry. The video was withdrawn some years ago. At the time of the Jeffrey John/Oxford incident, I was told that the MU had changed its policy and could no longer offer such support to such families. Indeed, I was told that this had changed in order to keep the MU links between members in this country and Africa which would otherwise fail.
I thought at the time that this was disgraceful and once again, families who were most in need of help were being abandoned.
The MU come to the Cathedral several times a year for their festival services and they are most welcome to do so. On at least one occasion, I’ve joined in their worship. They do lots of good work, including that in prisons, contact centres and with folk who have recently lost a child. Notwithstanding all that goodness, whilst I associate the Mothers’ Union brand with those two issues above, I’m afraid it is difficult to muster any enthusiasm for encouraging things to start up locally.
It is one of those organizations which one would really like to be proved wrong about sometime.
Thank you Kimberly. I think you know well enough that I could no more pray such a prayer as fly.
In fairness, I think it is worth posting a prayer written by the founder of the MU, Mary Sumner which is worth praying:
All this day, O Lord,
let me touch as many lives as possible for thee;
and every life I touch, do thou by thy spirit quicken,
whether through the word I speak,
the prayer I breathe,
or the life I live.
Amen.
The local Mothers’ Union has produced an excellent book of prayers which I saw on Saturday for the first time.
I am a member of an MU branch. Like most of the institutions I belong to I don’t support 100% of what the MU stands for. However, as it encourages members to walk along besides, families where is violence, abuse or separation and to be with women in the developing world during pregnancy and childbirth, I’ll support the MU. In the absence of the MU video can those with expertise pull together to produce one for every church with or without an MU branch. Families with children who want to come out deserve all our support.
Thanks Ann G for your comment.
I’m minded to put up some suggestions of resources for such families in the next few days. I’ve no doubt that the video in question would be out of date now anyway, so it is not just about restoring that particular video.
I think it is worth remembering at this point that my original point was about why clergy might not feel any enthusiasm for an MU branch in their congregation.
I take your point that lots of people belong to organizations that they don’t 100% agree with.
However, I wouldn’t join or remain a member of an organization which was openly racist. For me homophobia is just as unacceptable. Whether church folk like it or not, that is becoming a prevailing view in society.
I’ve a feeling that anyone advocating the international MU policy on human sexuality (which is based on Lambeth 1.10 which has never been accepted in Scotland) would have a high risk of being deemed unsuitable to adopt or foster a child by a local authority these days.
That is a pretty serious situation for any organization dedicated to family life to get itself into.
Whether or not the MU in Scotland takes the same policy or not is unclear to me. If it does it is a scandal and the MU here has not only abandonned families with gay kids but also any presumption to occupy the moral high ground. If it does not and choses to follow our own bishops in Scotland, the MU deserves praise for standing up and doing the right thing at the right time.
I wonder whether anyone feels like telling me whether the MU follows the Scottish Episopal Churh’s bishops’ policy on sexuality (ie the one from March 2005) or the MU Worldwide policy based on Lambeth 1.10.
I can’t see how one could hold to both views.
As a member of the MU, I too would welcome clarification.
Thanks for raising the issue.