Christianity and Me

I always fancied myself as a Christian minister, although I never became one, and so I am prone to giving the odd reflection on faith and belief! Here is my offering today.

I am a Christian, but it worries me that this might cause people to make assumptions about what I believe. If I added that I was a former lecturer in Theology at a British university, then I suspect that people would guess that I was fairly ‘liberal’, if that’s the right word, and they would be right.

Wedding of two brides

For some strange reason, ‘Christian’ has become associated in many quarters and in the media with being quite obsessed about matters of sexuality and reproduction over against other issues. The fault often lies with Christians themselves. You hear of Christian politicians who had to resign because their party supported gay marriage, or Christians businesses which didn’t want to include openly gay people as clients, etc. etc.

Here is a Christian creed with which I would absolutely disagree:

- We believe that Jesus was a celibate, Mary was a virgin, and therefore Christians should not indulge in any sexual intercourse before marriage; neither should they express any homosexual feelings.

- Christians should campaign for abortion and homosexuality to be made illegal. Christians should also be wary of feminism, anything that is left wing because of the danger of communism, and all other religions, especially new ‘spiritualities’ like Wicca and Paganism which are the work of Satan.

- As long as they keep to all of this, Christians might feel that they want to give to the poor from time to time, which is fine, but there’s no need to get too strung up with that.

- God will judge people, sending those who do not believe in Jesus and do not keep to the above-mentioned creed to hell, which is eternal torment. It sounds terrible, but that’s God’s justice and we have to accept it.

Yes, that’s a parody but, unfortunately, it rather rings true.

I have been to two gay weddings, one of which was in my own family, and I hope I get invited to more. It’s a wonderful celebration; in many ways the history of persecution of homosexual relationships gives it more energy and joy than one finds elsewhere. I have also been to a funeral when a gay man in my wife’s family mourned his husband; this was very moving. He was truly married, and it took death to part them. The New Testament is thought to be against homosexuality, but the passages on the topic are few and unclear, and Jesus himself said nothing about the issue. But he did challenge religious traditions if they were inhumane or hypocritical.

Often, Christians who want to constrain people's sexuality also believe that women should remain in subordinate positions or even that abuse by ministers or priests is best swept under the carpet. That speaks volumes. Churches who represent such things are morally corrupt and so lack moral authority.

Sexuality is like a great river that flows through human life! There’s little point in trying to dam it; you’ll end up with a flood. We just need to make sure that people are protected from the excesses of human desire when it becomes damaging and fails to respect the integrity of others. We need to provide education so that everyone knows what they’re dealing with and how they can be hurt by it. And we can celebrate sexuality, intimate relationships, and marriage when they enhance lives; in my experience, they certainly do for gay people.

Stroma McDermott, Anglican Vicar in Knaresborough

Feminism does not need to be a dirty word among Christians. At its simplest, it is arguing that women are equal in value to men, and deserve an equal voice in how we organise our society. That is pretty tough to argue against, so people resort to setting feminism up as some kind of monster. Apart from agreeing on the basic principles, feminists do not all say the same thing; there is rich debate and diversity there.

The older demarcation of gender roles did not allow for genuine resect for women, as much as conservative Christians, especially the Catholic priesthood, want to retain them. They call that ‘complementarity’: i.e. men do this, mostly public and including leadership, women do that, mostly domestic and supportive, and it all works out. Yet in history, women were not only considered as having different skills and areas of activity, they were also regarded as inferior, and there’s plenty of evidence that men thought like that. That way of thinking should have died out in the same way as believing that one race is superior to another.

Christianity is not something tied to a particular culture. It evolves and adapts as cultures do. It is not helpful to assume that the way people lived in Victorian Britain was Christian, and present day society is not. If you do, then please read Dickens. Christianity is just as relevant to a society that accepts gay marriages and less formality around marriage generally, not by resisting these things but by celebrating and helping to shape them in everyone's interests. There are plenty of social abuses in modern life causing great suffering: human trafficking, modern slavery, discrimination in many forms, poverty, lack of opportunity leading to despair, addiction, and degradation of the environment. These are the issues for which Christians need to prioritise their energies in challenge and resistance.

This is my reading of the Gospel message:

- Jesus, as we meet him in the gospels, puts sexuality on a very low priority level. We have no idea whether he was married or not. He argued for the permanence of marriage in a society where a man could destroy a woman by divorcing her. He does not mention homosexuality at all, but generally he is on the side of those whom society ostracises. He is happy to talk to women who have had several partners or have been involved in adultery, although he gently and non-judgementally suggests that they might want to sort their lives out. But he leaves that to them.

Mary breastfeeding Jesus - a traditional image (Truro)

- Mary’s virginity was a metaphor for the newness and God-givenness of the Christian revelation as the early Church saw it. There is no need to see it as referring to the state of Mary’s body, nor as promoting contempt for sex.

- Jesus’ ministry was at heart a radical reaching out to the most disadvantaged in society, and a call to a commitment that took people away from comfort, from wealth, and from adherence to tradition when this proved to be inhumane. Caring about the poor was central, not peripheral.

- Therefore, Jesus was proclaimed King of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom which was not a political entity, but a community of loving and non-abusive relationships in which everyone was valued. He was also the ‘Son of Man’, a metaphor which stood for a humane kingdom as opposed to the great and oppressive empires of his day, symbolised by various ferocious beasts.

- Jesus was killed as a criminal rejected by his own countrymen, but the fact that he rose from the dead shows us that no-one’s life lacks value or is meaningless. To say that God in human form was crucified reveals that God is not somewhere above us, looking down in divine contempt, but beneath us, holding us up.

- God is a judge, yes, but of all those things that keep us down: the abuse of power, hypocritical piety, lack of concern for one’s fellow human beings, belief in one’s superiority and privilege, whether that be class, race, gender, or any other way that people divide society. All of these things have no value in the eyes of God and will be swept away in the eternal life to come. But that does not mean we can make a final judgement on any person.

And so, the future of the Church if it is to have a future, it seems to me, is to provide support and be involved in those movements that express the voice of people who have been marginalised: Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+, and others. It will be inclusive of disabilities and concerned about the environment.

But that doesn’t mean that it is shirking its 'spiritual' task. Yes, we all need a space away from activity, from politics, from campaigning, so that we can find ourselves before God in a quiet place. The Church is there to provide that. But if it does not stand up for the vulnerable in the public sphere, how can it console you, when you feel vulnerable, lacking self-worth, and scared of the future in the private sphere? These two things are linked and can’t be separated.

During this time of Covid-19, it is good to remember that Christ teaches us that no-one dies without meaning or value, and that God will be firmly by their side, taking them into new life.

Sermon over!