Over the years of editing Surviving Church, (as followers will have noticed!), I have routinely avoided getting involved in debates about the LGBT issue. My main reason for side-stepping this issue is simply because it is not an area where I feel I have any expertise or, indeed, anything useful to say. The only time that this broad topic touches on my real concerns is when I see the raw exercise of power by church people being exercised against minorities. The sight of an African bishop trying to exorcise the gay activist Richard Kirker at Lambeth 98 is an image that is stored in the memory of many of us. The recent Lambeth Conference has also shown that at every turn the Communion is haunted by the infamous vote on a proposal known as Lambeth 1.10 at Lambeth 98. There is plenty to be found on a variety of websites about the history of this statement and the way that these few words have become what appears to be a defining badge for many in the Global South and how they see the gay issue. Lambeth 1.10 is claimed by many in the Communion to be the official position of the entire Communion which can never be altered. Unfortunately, the prominence given to the statement will ensure that the current 2022 Conference may be remembered for little else than the discussions around this infamous proposal. It is as though a poisonous plant has been inserted into the Lambeth Conference process and no one really knows how to move beyond it.
As I have already indicated, the place where LGBT issues coincide with the main concerns of this blog is when we find bullying, ostracism and discrimination directed at members of these minority groups. These three words, each describing negative behaviour against such groups, involve abuses of power. The LGBT community frequently do complain about negative experiences in being part of church congregations. The fact that such bullying is at the hands of outwardly faithful Christian people has to be a source of concern. Sometimes a mild generalised disapproval against gay lifestyles and relationships changes into something vitriolic, obsessive, and hateful. Some preaching seems to make this single cause so prominent that you might get the impression that the definition of ‘orthodox’ Christian behaviour and belief is found in the one who makes the correct condemnatory remarks towards the LGBT community. In practice, this has had the consequence that many congregations are complete no-go areas for these communities.
As a reaction to the exclusiveness found in many conservative churches in the CofE and elsewhere, other congregations have pushed against this and are trying to demonstrate a different way, the direction of welcome and inclusivity. One particular church that followed this inclusive path is the church at St James Didsbury near Manchester where Lizzie Lowe had been a member. http://survivingchurch.org/2018/06/15/lizzie-lowe-a-death-and-a-congregation-transformed/ Lizzie had taken her own life after concluding that her teenage lesbian feelings were unacceptable to God. This teaching had not been particularly prominent in the St James’ teaching, but somehow a negative message had been picked by the 14-year-old. Her death was a profound shock to the vicar and his congregation. They then laboured to explore and put in place a ministry of welcome to people with same sex attraction, like Lizzie, and see what it might look like.
At a recent conference I attended online, this inclusive welcome theme was further explored. A network called Open Table has been set up around the country to support church congregations trying to create an environment where members of the LGBT community and other minorities can feel safe. They will not have to listen to sermons which show an obsessive interest in their private sex lives or seek to ‘convert’ one sexual preference for another. As I heard this word ‘safe’ it occurred to me that the gay/trans communities are not the only ones to feel unsafe in some of our churches. The whole safeguarding enterprise is, as readers of this blog will know, bedevilled by situations where abuse survivors can feel decidedly unsafe or under siege. One reason for a chronic lack of feelings of safety among survivors of abuse, is that their experiences of past betrayal disturb the fantasy of a congregation which believes that Christians should always be trusted without question. Any infliction of suffering by a Christian on another is a deeply unsettling narrative which many would rather not hear. Christians prefer to push away such stories which may involve facing up to the moral frailty of some Christian leaders. A safe church is also one which is ready to hear hard truths. We need the places of safety for both groups, minority sexual groups and survivors alike. What might such a safe church in fact look like?
In offering some kind of answer to this question, I am guided in part by descriptive words used by this network Open Table. This organisation, as we noted above, focuses on the need to provide a place of spiritual safety and belonging to minority groups. Offering a place of safety and an opportunity to belong is something that people of all kinds need in their Christian life. What would the church look like if this Open Table model really succeeded in making the church a true place of welcome? The words that sum up the way that Open Table operates are three in number. They are ‘included’, ‘affirmed’ and ‘empowered’.
Going to a church service, especially for the first time, takes a great deal of social courage, as we all know. We sense that people will be looking at us, making instant judgements based on our clothing, appearance and our body language. Will we be included in this group of people that already know each other well, or will we stand around at the end of the service look lost and hoping someone will speak to us? Inclusion, as we all know, is quite hard work both for the giver and receiver. It takes social skills, not possessed by all, to be successful. To be included in a group, which may be quite small, takes determination on the part of a newcomer. Every congregation has discussed this problem. Asking questions of the newcomer which are neither superficial nor intrusive requires skill. The most important qualification for doing this important work of inclusion may be simply the ability to love people. The love word requires that we do not want to force anyone into a mould which we pre-determine. A trained church leader should be quietly encouraging those people with the gift of unconditional welcome to practise their gift.
The stage of being ‘affirmed’ is the next stage in coming to the stage where church starts to be a place of safety. Another word for affirmation is acceptance. To be accepted Is to be known by a group of people. They honour us by acknowledging our presence and showing us that they feel safe with us as we are with them. This place of acceptance is a place that is earned over a period of time. It is being in a place where trust has been gained and forms the basis for a future relationship with individuals and the whole community. The gaining of this status of being trusted will hopefully remain in place over years and decades.
The third word ‘empowered’ describes the process whereby we take a distinct role within the community or congregation. To be empowered is to go from being a trusted individual to being one who takes a responsible or trusted position within the whole. Who is doing the empowering? At a human level such apportioning of responsibility comes through a committee or an annual meeting decision. It is also possible to see the empowering as something happening in a vocational sense. It is sometimes helpful to see church tasks as involving the gifts of the Spirit. A Christian is always entitled to seek such spiritual support and guidance for any task which he/she sees as part of their individual Christian pilgrimage. When the sense of being spiritually empowered is felt, it gives a strong boost to our overall awareness of being in the place that God wants us to be.
It would not be hard to write a description of church life where none of these three experiences are encountered. There are many churches that exclude, ignore or marginalise. My readers will no doubt be recalling episodes in their lives that illustrate ways where they have encountered the opposite of the ideal church experience that I have been trying to imagine. Even when the ideals are actively worked for, the perversity of human nature has a way of changing something that should be positive into something negative. The opening for experiencing ourselves as valued and able to contribute to the whole can be turned upside down by a single individual keen to play power games. Quite often they have some psychological need to control and dominate. Then there are the political games over churchmanship or sexuality that pollute the atmosphere all too easily and may make church life seem an endless power struggle. The hope must always be that there are individuals and congregations that have caught the vision of what are called Open Table churches. We need places of radical fearless welcome in God’s name. All of us need such places and we need to do all in our power, whether as leaders or ordinary pew members to bring them to pass. In practice it is quite hard, but the starting place has to be this vision of what is possible. Church congregations can be places of welcome and joy or they can be places riddled with politics and power games. Most of us would opt for the first but the sheer contrariness of human nature seems to ensure that we often find ourselves negotiating with the second. The church then ceases to be an encounter with God but a survival experience of competing power games and factions. Let us be grateful that we can, whatever our current church situation, at least imagine a church free of such things. It is our imagination that that may be the seed of a church that is indeed an Open Table, and through it others may come and discover the power of belonging, inclusion, and acceptance.
When I became an Anglican over forty years ago, I was shocked by the routine churchupmanship regularly and freely expressed by congregations. They obviously needed to feel better about themselves and did so by decrying the churchmanship of their nearest churches. I was also shocked by the need of congregations to feel superior to disabled parishioners. This would either be subtly expressed or in a more obvious and domineering manner. LGBT and other groups frequently make similar complaints. I don’t find this in other groups to which I belong for the simple reason that when it occasionally crops up it is stamped on straight away. It is not acceptable, and made known it is not acceptable, should anyone stArt to behave like this. So gay couples have no need to fear, or hide if they join in community life. Christianity has too often been watered down into “niceness” and parishioners soon understand that if they don’t ” nicely” and politely accept that those demeaning them are ” only trying to help” they are made to feel wrong for making a stand. With such a background, some people will always go further and behave worse. The parishioners who are targeted are simply expected to take it. Then those who insist on their “Christian” views hide behind theology to intimidate and upset their targets. This Kind of behaviour is all too acceptable in many churches. Those of us who make easy targets feel the atmosphere and get the message. Those of us who are blatantly targeted are expected “to put up with it.” In the past congregations frequently . mirrored the attitudes of society so that people who felt inadequate and were bullies were less noticeable. Now that society has changed greatly, the church is one of the last bastions where this behaviour is essentially accepted. So, sadly, it is still just fine to be gay bashing, a paedophile, a sex pest etc. I live in a very small market town and it is noticeable that the difficult people in our congregation have no where else to go. Now that they can’t discriminate in public their social lives have shrunk to the church. A church in which clergy disregard guidelines is a safe haven for bigots of all kinds. And no, we don’t have to put up with intrusive questions elsewhere. We can say that is private without the disapproval of the rest of the group. Early Christians had a long teaching period before full acceptance into the church. Now that the church insists it is open to everyone without judging them, all the bullies and bigots feel at home. I am not saying we should go back to the past. But I do ask why it is that those who behave badly are allowed the upper hand? Is it because by protecting clergy at all costs the leadership are reluctant to call out the misconduct of parishioners?
Others drew my attention to this thread on Twitter which illustrates an attempt by a parish church at inclusiveness (St Paul’s WestHackney). The comments are a valuable addition to observe the reaction of others to this. I haven’t made up my mind yet.
https://twitter.com/stpaulswesthack/status/1555604465490599936?s=21&t=dX4DBMDVB-nLXVJuq1xbag
What do others think?
It was very small on my tablet, so I couldn’t really read it properly. But what I saw I rather liked. A good effort!
I am a former member of the above mentioned church. As a part of the lgbtq community i found it deeply unsafe, because of the attitudes of part of its leadership.
The team vicar chose to start an online blog. In her first post, she outed me (inaccurately) as gay, slandered me and told lies about a meeting in which she was not present.
After pleading with the rector for 6 months for action around this and getting nowhere (being told its worse in other churches and that i should stop contacting him – ie a thorough holy ghosting with no reaching out ever again), i did the following things:
– whistleblew to the NSPCC. I was concerned not only about what had happened to me but also about the lack of good safeguarding in the church and the appalling response when i reported. The rector told me he’d had no safeguarding problems in 15 years. The current safeguarding officer is the wife of an ordinand. Hardly a model of independent safeguarding. The NSPCC passed my concerns into past case review 2
– reported to the police and the blog was recorded as a hate incident. I was not named but so much detail was given that i was cleaely identifiable. It had a deeply traumatic inpact on me in a place i had expected to be safe. The shunning and ostracising from part of the leadership team effectively pushed me out of the church
– brought a cdm, which i eventually won after no end of foot dragging by the bishop. The vicar in question was rebuked and given retraining. According to fiona gardner’s book only 2 % of the laity win these.
Some lgbt friends also left, others stayed.
I offered after the cdm was done to have a mediatory meeting with the vicar (something the cdm process really pushed INSTEAD of taking action. I insisted on action first, THEN reconciliation). The vicar refused.
Prior to these events the rector had affirmed me to go for ALM. I offered to do this, work with the whole of the clergy team as a pastoral support for lgbtq ppl as there was no appropriate and timely support given to me. The rector told me i should go to a different parish to do that.
I have copies of the cdm submissions and can see that the rector of this “inclusive” church directly lied about me in his cdm submission saying he first met me at the church for everyone conference (i was volunteering on his team) and asked him for money, which i did not.
What has troubled me even more than the queerphobia and misogyny i experienced, is the lying.
I am lucky to live in manchester, because after a long wait i got free counselling through the lgbt foundation to deal with this trauma and it was a Godsend. The only thing i asked for out of the cdm was counselling, but the bishop refused. I also did my best to make things safer for others, but in the process i found out how deeply unsafe the c of e is
I won’t set foot in the c of e now.
This church is draped in rainbow flags, and yet has been the most damaging experience of my christian life.
It is unable to listen to and learn from the experiences of the lgbtq people within its walls. The only story that’s allowed is once we weren’t inclusive, now we are, everyone worship the rector.
I was willing to do the hard work of working with the people who had harmed me, and forgiving, but the church leaders were not.
So i continue on my faith journey away from those who have damaged my faith and my soul. This has not been an easy path, but after a LOT of counselling i am now much happier and confident in my queer christian self.
I walked out of the c of e forever and found far safer denominations and spaces and people to engage with.
It has taken a lot of discernment to see where is genuinely inclusive, not merely repeatedly stating it and waving rainbows.
I walked part of the camino again, and understand i must forge my own path.
I recognise i am lucky to live now, in a time where we can access genuinely safe faith spaces in new ways . I am part of an online bible study group of queer christians. I love it. Its still a joy to me to be able to be out and christian in these safer spaces, and learn from queer christian elders .
I found discipleship courses with a lovely teacher, and now i’ve completed the first 3, I became a local lay worship leader in my new denomination. I still feel like i’m missing a step when walking somewhere, like I’m off balance, being affirmed (consistently affirmed) instead of demonised.
Trauma can never be erased, we just grow around it.
I reach out to touch the world that is to come
Yes, typical tactics of an unsafe church which has been found wanting. My church joined the inclusive church society to try to prove it was safe. Who do they think they fool? Desperate tactics by those trying to cover up. You have my sympathy. Glad you found somewhere safe and welcoming.
Terrible for you #churchtoo. To have such a broadly drafted inclusivity statement, even without the gross misrepresentation, must be a sad phantasy. Congregations I’ve been part of have consistently had difficulty reaching out to people very similar to them. I’ve been involved in trying to bring people together from almost identical positions, and it’s hard work.
Generally I feel similar to Stephen in having insufficient knowledge in this area. In the secular world, I was of course receiving inclusivity training many years ago. Even back then, infringements were beginning to be taken very seriously. The church is still blundering about.
Generally recommendations for the quality or otherwise of a church experience are more valuable when received from those attending them, than from its leadership, but it’s still no guarantee of safety.
Thanks Steve, and to Mary and English Athena for your empathy
I want to be really clear on this – it is solely a part of the leadership team i am speaking about here. I attended one of the smaller services and was made to feel very welcome by some beautiful women in the laity, with whom i am still friends. I had also been involved in volunteering with the refugee group and praying with other small groups there and i felt the loss of this keenly.
I was surprised by the lack of understanding of lgbtq issues across a church that markets itself so heavily as inclusive. Little education had happened. In the laity i never came across any hostility – i sensed the vast majority of ppl wanted to be welcoming and inclusive but weren’t always clear how to be so.
Part of the trauma was the seperation from my church community, who i loved and who loved me, because of the behaviours of a part of the leadership, which was especially hard during the bleak days of the pandemic and when i was ill with covid and then long covid, something i am now recovering from.
I can’t speak to what happened in the past when i was not present in the church and i don’t think its appropriate for me to pass any judgement on that. I am writing about my own experiences over the period January 2019 – 2022.
I had taught in Lizzie Lowe’s school previously and the teaching community in manchester was deeply shocked and saddened by what happened.
I acted in the ways i did in the hope and prayer of preventing a repeat of such a tragedy in the future, in much the same way i would have done when i was a teacher.
A statement i wrote in a reply to the bishop during the cdm might explain this further –
“There has been so much documented around the risks that homophobic behaviour, (especially that which is cloaked in the robes of religious authority, and therefore can appear as outright rejection by God himself, outing LGBT+ people without their permission, casting them out of church and worse), poses to LGBT+ Christians, especially to young people and young adults. The responsibility of protecting them from the horrors that my generation of LGBT+ Christians have suffered lies squarely on our shoulders and I don’t have words strong enough to warn you of the potential dangers inherent in this situation if such behaviour from clergy is allowed to go unchecked in a church of this kind.”
To lose a community where you felt loved and accepted, because you were betrayed by a hypocritical leadership, is a massive loss. We all owe you a debt for having pursued justice in this matter.
There’s a similar phenomenon with feminism and the women’s ordination movement: some who claimed to be pro actually behaved in a very discriminatory way. And probably still do, but thankfully I don’t have to encounter them any more.
Oh, goodness, yes. My bishop at the time was nominally pro women, but somehow, there was one female canon, and most of the women he sent to selection conferences were turned down, including me! He has now gone to his eternal reward. He may have sorted himself out with God, and I hope he did. But he never sorted it out with me.
Thanks Janet that’s really kind. And I hear you on the feminism and women’s ordination stuff. Solidarity x
Oh, my goodness! Saying I’m so sorry is not enough, but I am. This is something I’ve come across, of course. People lay claim to a policy which looks great on paper, but in practice, it simply has no basis in reality. I’m glad you’ve found a lace to be you.
I have had to remove a comment on the grounds that it was somewhat offensive. Please remark about things with sensitivity and grace especially where the feelings of other people are involved. Suicide is not a topic for speculation or surmise.
Thanks Steven.
Coincidentally, today I ran across this article re talmudic teaching on those born of indeterminate sex: https://www.daat.ac.il/daat/english/journal/cohen-1.htm
Fascinating to learn that Judaism has for millennia acknowledged the realities of intersex, and has not taken ‘male and female he created them’ to mean that all humans are either definitely male or definitely female. According to this rabbi, legend tells that Abraham and Sarah were both of ‘hidden’ sex!
That’s brilliant! And fascinating. Thank you.
So sorry that has been your experience #churchtoo it really is very difficult to hear how dreadfully you and others have been treated.
On the subject of inclusion for any survivor that has not seen it there is a survey on survivor engagement:
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/media-centre/national-survivor-survey-inform-churchs-safeguarding-work
I appreciate people will have differing views on it but do have a look or pass it on if you know anyone that may be interested. Personally I think there are so many people with kindness and integrity on Surviving Church that I hope people will engage and share their wisdom.