What is in Kelvin's Head?

Apologies have consequences too

15/04/2016

The world seems to be full of bishops apologising to LGBT people.

However, there seems to be a curious absence in the world of LGBT people freely accepting those apologies and being thus able to take their place as full members of the churches.

In the last week we’ve had the latest document on family life to come from the Vatican and it is very clear that there’s a change in tone from the current pope and it is hard not to welcome that. However, it is also equally clear that there’s little change in substance.

Much the same applies in the Anglican world.

Earlier this year, we had the most profound words from the Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the Primates’ Meeting in Canterbury. However, we must begin to ask whether they were empty words or words that mean something.

After the Primates’ Meeting he was reported to have said that it was a “constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality”. This was widely reported at the time as an apology to LGBT people. This was at the meeting at which the Primates decided to take action that would punish the US based Episcopal Church for treating LGBT people as, well, ordinary people. Such action was somehow too much for some members of the Anglican Communion and the Archbishop was left trying to explain that the action against the US Church was not a set of sanctions but rather a set of consequences. Oh, “all actions have consequences”, the Archbishop reminded us again and again.

The trouble for the Archbishop is that apologies have consequences too. Actual apologies that is. Apologies that don’t mark a new start, that don’t demonstrate a turning around, that don’t exhibit that metanoia experience that we all know is the gospel in action, are indicative of rather cheap grace and don’t amount very much to being apologies that should be taken seriously.

Justin Welby has his work cut out as Archbishop of Canterbury and he has my sympathies and sometimes even my prayers. However, his work won’t make any coherent sense if he goes around making insipid apologies to gay communities whilst all the while being the public face of a body which is engaged in persecuting LGBT people in its actions. The sanctions/consequences/actions against the US church were symbolic of the real persecutions that LGBT people face daily, particularly those LGBT people who live in parts of the world where we have most to fear. And the trouble is, in the church we believe rather strongly that symbols matter rather a lot.

I’m not sure what the opposite of grace is, nor what the opposite of a sacrament is. Perhaps we need to coin a word. The “consequences” that that Archbishop had the misfortune to be explaining to the world’s press after the Primates’ Meeting seem to me to the the outward sign of an inward and yet curiously visible spiritual cruelty.

You don’t get to be a front for that kind of speech and also be taken seriously when making apologies to the very people who are on the blunt end of the actions.

The trouble for bishops making apologies is that real apologies have consequences too. Real apologies mean turning things round; doing things differently; starting anew. And the fact that we’ve not seen that yet indicates that we shouldn’t take the apologies of the Archbishop of Canterbury as meaning anything other than that he’d rather people didn’t think he was beastly.

But beastly is as beastly does.

This week some of the pernicious “consequences” of the Primates’ Meeting have been worked out in the context of the rather more healthily constituted body the Anglican Consultative Council which is meeting in Lusaka at the moment. And all the while the threat remains that other churches in the communion which dare to be nice to those poor unfortunate homosexualists might also be consequenced themselves.

The Anglican Consultative Council is supposed to be a body in which the voices of lay people and clergy who are not bishops is heard internationally. It seems rather a pity then that they’ve just elected not only a bishop to chair it for the next six years but one of the Primates themselves.

How long will it be before we realise that we’ve got a bigger problem with the Episcopate in the Anglican Communion than we have with LGBT people who just want to get on with the rather extraordinary calling of just being an ordinary follower of Jesus.

Only this week I heard of yet another person unwilling to join the Anglican Communion because it is known for being at best ambivalent about the way it treats LGBT people. These disputes are costing us members and we should not take seriously mission initiatives which come from those who are making mission in Western countries almost impossible.

And still the absurdities of the situation grow. This week one of the churches which the Church of England (and my own church for that matter) is in full communion with decided to open marriage to same-sex couples. The Church of Norway joins the Church of Sweden in doing this joyfully and thus welcoming gay and lesbian people fully into its life of faith. This passed with almost no comment in the Anglican world. Are gay Norwegians really not as spiritually wicked to those of an anti-gay persuasion than gay people from Little England? Are gay Lutherans just not worth a schism? If not, why not? Do we think that these Lutherans, upon whom we’ve expended rather a lot of ecumenical agape in recent years, just can’t help themselves? Why are gay Anglicans in the US the target and not gay Lutherans in Norway? I have to confess I just don’t get it. Does one church have better lesbians that the other. Or more wicked ones?

And it leaves people like the Archbishop of Canterbury exposed. He may have a gift at the moment of keeping many (though clearly not everyone) in the Anglican world talking to one another and that’s not to be sniffed at. However, there is a danger that whilst the talking goes on, the church becomes so internally incoherent that it risks looking spectacularly foolish in public.

And that is not what being a fool for Christ is all about.

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply