Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 March 2008 08:33:49
Every so often you read around the blog world and you find stuff which makes you weep; something makes you ashamed (either of the country you are part of or the communities you choose to identify with) and stuff that makes you feel angry.
This morning I went onto Richard Hall's Connexions site and read his Open Door? post. It invoked all of the emotions I described but it also gave me hope. Whilst Christians and particularly ministers are ready to stand up and say that things like homophobia, hypocracy within our churches and an unjust asylum system which effectively sentences people to death in their home countries is wrong there is still hope. It is when these things still exist, but go un-noticed or unmentioned that we will have real problems.
Reading through both Richard's post and that of Pam B which refers to her concerns regarding the welcome people get whatever their sexuality I am struck by the compassion towards other people both writers appear to have. What this would suggest to me, would be that within their individual communities people who had social characteristics which may make them "the other" compared to the majority of the congregation may be more welcome. As such whilst there may, rightly or wrongly, be some level of cynicism towards the progress their denominations are making it would suggest that on a grass roots level what actually effects the experience of those who don't fit the majority profile is how welcoming and affirming the individual churches in their area are.
It also underlined to me the importance of what I want to do. These blog posts indicate that inclusive practice needs to be developed further in many churches if our churches are to be inclusive welcoming places and if we want to be able to fulfil the gospel. Yet I am convinced and know that the good practice does exist, to some extent, in churches up and down the country (and indeed across the world). Too often though that good practice can't be spoken about because of worries about how it may be interpreted (i.e. is it encouraging practice which is out of line with dominant understandings of scripture) or more importantly because people just think what they are doing is "normal practice" and so don't understand it is good practice which should be identified. What we need to do is identify that good practice and see how it can be (i) shared with others, (ii) further developed and (iii) communicated as a message of hope to those who feel no alternative than to leave our churches.
Beyond that there are many people, such as the person Pam B talks about, who have left our churches hurt and broken, feeling excluded from the community. They have not, necessarily, given up on God and God never gives up on them. Many of them will still be in touch with individual Christians who they don't identify as being like the church. I believe very strongly that those of us in churches who are in contact with these people have a responsibility to these people to enable them to experience fellowship. Whilst they feel they can't be part of "formal church" we must be willing to share with them in ways in which they feel comfortable. We need to be willing, aswell, to see mission as reaching out to these people, to reassure them that God loves them where they are at. We should also be able to know and share positive examples of the "institutional church" with them aswell though. Too often all we are able to do is reinforce the painful and destructive messages of exclusion when talking about our churches. Think of the power of talking about and sharing examples of good practice.
I am not saying we should involve ourselves in the culture of silence which often exists around bad practice; it needs to be challenged. Neither am I saying that we should ignore the sin in anybody (and remember homophobia is as much a sin as promiscuous behaviour amongst any sexuality). Rather I am saying we should be sensitive to where the people we are talking to are at and also equally celebrate the good in our churches. Also we need to be aware that what we are talking about isn't just "the gay issue". Inclusiveness and experiences of good and bad practice relate to a range of issues in our churches (singleness, lone parents, childlessness, disability and the list could go on for a while yet). The woman at the well's story was so powerful because she was able to go to those around her, whom she normally avoided, and share the good practice that she had encountered with Jesus. (**Note the good practice she had encountered with Jesus was not something the pious religious authorities or indeed moral guardians of the time would have identified as good practice, necessarily).