Triduum, 2008

Cooking a buffet of dishes from Fiance's Country of Origin and amazing a housefull of guests at his with the authenticity of my cooking. Neglecting to tell any of them that we'd merely googled the recipes on broadband and purchased the ingredients from a local Tesco. Offering several of them a lift home "on the way back to mine" and then driving back to his for the night. I hate my own dishonesty.

Coward.

One of the volunteers asked me today why I wasn't getting married in my own church.

I replied that the question wasn't mine to answer.

There was a member of the management team behind her. He hasn't been able to look me in the eye all day.

Mercy Ministries. A strange definition of mercy.

I've been spending the last three days furtively watching Mercy Ministries of Australia slowly unravel under the glare of the Sydney Morning Herald.

It all sounds sickeningly familiar. The "girls" (ie young women)
1. were punished for talking to one other about why they were there
2. weren't allowed outside the front door without triplicate permission
3. weren't able to speak to medical professionals without "supervision" that meant they were afraid to be honest
4. were endlessly told that it was their fault and they were beyond help
5. were arbitrarily kicked out onto the streets even though they were worse than ever

Been there, got the T-shirt for each one. And not the Mercy Ministries T-shirts, either. Such things happen to women and men, young and old, every day in the mainstream psychiatric and mental health systems. And nobody out there expects any differently. They just expect Christians to do things better than everyone else... because Christians themselves claim they can.

It's a case, firstly, of too many expectations having been placed on Mercy Ministries. But what then makes the behaviour of Mercy Ministries so exceptionally evil (and I use that word deliberately) is that they bring God in to justify the control, oppression and condemnation. Or not God, so much as Satan and all of his powers and principalities and legions of demonic sidekicks. Which surely feels far, far worse than simply being told you're mad and untreatable for mere organic/psychological/emtional reasons. It's theology gone so screwy that it causes its proponents to lose sight of all concepts of human sanctity or dignity, or of love. Which poses the question, a la Laing, of who exactly is the mad one.

At some point early this millennium some deeply Pentecostal friends were trying to persuade me to apply to the Mercy Ministries place in Bradford. What saved me was the opening of the Bradford House being delayed until I was both well past their upper age limit and no longer wanting of any such "help". I wonder what delayed their opening. A lucky escape, I think.

A question. Help me out, please...

A woman at work asked me this morning what we were doing for marriage preparation classes.

Nothing, obviously. Obviously, given that [details omitted because it's just too boring to blog about]. And given that (I'm guessing, based on no actual knowledge) that such things do not cover questions of pre-existing progeny and death-threats against brides at the wedding ceremony (I exaggerate, but only slightly), I'd always assumed that "marriage preparation" would be fairly irrelevant for Him and I.

Nevertheless, I'm curious. What are these much whispered-about "marriage preparation" courses about? Because as much as I've got too much on my mind to be bothered about being asked to learn sponge cake recipes or male trouser sizes, I could do with, well... some advice. Or just someone to ask the sort of questions you can't ask your mum or your friends. (To be fair, one friend has offered, but she's just given birth to her fifth child in as many years and doesn't seem to have slept for months.)

So whereas I suspect that much of the faith-based "marriage preparation" comes with a right-wing, family-values, Biblical-womanhood type of agenda, I still know there's a lot I need to know and I'm not sure who to ask...

Palm Sunday, Anyparish UK

We'd wanted to go to His parish to hear our banns of marriage being read. I'd rung the vicar, not so much to request or announce this but to ask where the church was, as it didn't appear to be listed anywhere online and I couldn't find the phone book.

The vicar had said to me "it's delightful that you should want to do that, but I'm not sure that we can give you the best impression of what Church should be." I tried to reassure him that I've been to a fair diversity of churches in my life and that I am open to all interpretations of what Church could be.

"Your'd be most exceptionally welcome. But we're an old congregation," he said. "Nobody, literally, nobody under 75 - not even me. It's a challenging parish, so complex, some pockets of such baffling deprivation... and then that school, too. And the last vicar left - goodness, no I shouldn't say that. But do, Grace, please, tell do me about yourself.."

We went to the early morning service today. I saw glances of apprehension and consternation towards us, an inability to fathom why we'd ever have wanted to come. But then, a thawing, and by the time we left not one of the 30 congregants had failed to welcome us, to congratulate us and to ask "but why did you want to come?"

Because you welcomed us.

How to choose guests for your wedding: advice from the New Testament

From Matthew Chapter 22

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'

"But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

This passage, of course, wasn't written to instruct on how to choose one's wedding guests. It's a parable, meaning that it's intended as allegory. It's apocalyptically eschatological and it’s messianic, meaning that it talks about the personhood and role of Jesus in the end of the world. It was written, I think, to challenge people on their response to God and to the people around them. Weddings, as such, don’t really come into it.

So I know that to take this as a literal model of how to respond to those refusing to come to our wedding would be to sidestep the point of the parable. By already having ended my quotation where I did, I'm aware that I've left out the most disconcerting and uncomfortable bit of the story.

However...

What would happen if I were to seek out and invite a dozen completely random and previously unconsidered people to replace those who've refused to come?

the google search terms which people used to find this blog whilst I wasn't blogging

Most of the time, a simple "Jesus wept".

But then there was the rather touching "what was life like in Jesus [sic] days"

And then the hugely ironic "Jesus+emotions+women" *Grace cringes*

But then the massively telling "dangers of denominational rules". For which, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, my blog came right at the top of page 1 on google.ca.

rant.

*Grace has deleted it. It wasn't very kind, or not for a blog, anyway*

Working for a Christian organisation: 2008

All sorts of new bits of charity legislation are being introduced in the UK. This basically amounts to an obligation to far more stringenly demonstrate that you're acting for the "public benefit", whatever that means.

The new legislation has been developed, as far as I understand
1. to force schools charging several multiples of my annual salary for each child's education to do either do more to support and develop their communities... or else pay tax like everyone else
2. to stop anyone thinking that so-called Islamist groups are a good thing to give money to

In theory, then, financially-transparent Christian groups that don't threaten violence (well, aside from a bit of ethnic aggravation and low-level intolerance/bigotry) don't have anything whatsoever to fear from this. But the paperwork involved is still quite scary.

Last night I dreamt that the process of transforming previously "exempt organisations" into "faith/faith-based charities" was to be overseen, monitored and evaluated by the Commission for Social Care Inspectorate and Ofsted. I woke up sweating, terrified it might be true.

At work this morning, I sat in front of my computer wondering what would happen if it were.

I think we'd have to improve coffee provision, for a start...

evolution of a worshipper

Hello again. Apologies for my absense.

This Dave Walker cartoon, in its various levels of evolution, been resonating with me ever since I first came across it. I particularly like the transition from the iPod-sporting not-quite-shaved emerging-churchy-type to the cross-on-stick-thingamy-bearing Anglo-Catholic.



And then I saw today that someone has updated it yet again.



Is this where I'm heading?

the seven-facts-about-me [or I can't sleep] meme

From lilwatchergirl, who tagged me some time ago...

Seven facts about myself
1. I've only just learned how to use html to underline what I'm writing. I had a grandfather who liked to underline everything he wrote.
2. That was the same grandfather who once told me that Arthur Scargill was the most evil man who had ever lived. Until an extremely amused Sunday School teacher explained otherwise, I held an elaborate and sophisticated theology of Arthur Scargill as Satan incarnate, exactly in the same was as Jesus is God incarnate.
3. Talking of miner's strikes and suchlike, I think Billy Elliot was a lovely film. There's still a weeeeeny little bit of me that would have loved to be a ballerina too...
4. ... and it's fortunate that it's only such an ickle bit of me that does, because I cannot dance at all, and don't particularly even enjoy trying...
5. ... which is unfortunate because He To Whom I'm About to Be Married is an exceptionally good dancer. If he didn't come from a place even more macho than 80s Easington, he may well have ended up in a tutu...
6. ... but that's enough about that because my mum may be reading this. She's one of only four people who know "Grace" in real life.
7. I sometimes find real life utterly overwhelming.

thought for the day

The legally most straightforward places* for Grace and Fiance to elope for a Christian wedding ceremony leading to a UK-recognised marriage would seem to be South Africa and Thailand.

*This does not include the State of Nevada (ie Las Vegas). Resorting to a marriage officiated by Elvis would make Grace weep, and that would not be straightforward.

call yourself a Christian?

I woke up this morning to various graphic descriptions of the Eldoret church massacre in Eastern Kenya. I was there, briefly, in the mid 90s, and my memory of Eldoret was of utter PraisetheLordsville, with every other building a place of Christian worship. I visited Rwanda soon afterwards, soon enough still after the genocide that, when I visited one of the churches in which hundreds there were massacred, they were still sorting the dismembered body parts into neat rows... as though neat rows of dismembered body parts would somehow make up for what they'd done. And I felt this morning as I felt in Rwanda back then: how can people who call themselves Christians and claim a personal relationship with Christ perpetrate such evil?

And then, later on in the morning, I utterly blew up at three of my very closest friends. Certainly, I didn't take pangas to their skulls or burn their babies alive, but I did most definitely say things they found very hurtful that will change our friendships forever and I cannot pretend otherwise. And I call myself a Christian, too.

Theologically, intellectually, I struggle with the concept of Original Sin as a premise on which to base the Christian message. Intuitively, though, instinctively, I can feel such evil inside of me...

Happy New Year: "Women who stop church 'put health at risk'"

I've just found this article in The Telegraph. Or, to be honest, on MadPriest's blog. I'm sure there must be a pithy and witty gender-related comment or some reference to Foucault to make on this, but I'm not sure what it is. I just know that week I thought I was going to have to leave my church, I felt exceedingly lonely and drank ridiculous amounts of white wine...

"Researchers say women who let their religious activity lapse are three times more likely to suffer from anxiety or become dependent on alcohol than those who keep their faith active.
However, men who took part in the study and who became less religious in adulthood did not appear to suffer any increase in mental health problems.
Dr Joanna Maselko, the lead study author, of Temple University, Philadelphia, said women suffered more from losing interest in religion because they were more likely to lose friends and social contacts as a result.
Dr Maselko said: "Women are more integrated into the social networks of their religious communities.
"When they stop attending religious services, they lose access to that network and all its potential benefits. Men may not be as integrated into the religious community and so may not suffer the negative consequences of leaving."
Dr Maselko, whose research is published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, questioned 718 adults.
Among the women, seven per cent of those who had always been active in their religion had symptoms of anxiety disorder.
However, 21 per cent of those who were less religiously active than in their childhood suffered symptoms of anxiety.
They were also three times more likely to have had drinking problems.
This effect was not seen in the men. The survey found male participants who stopped being religiously active were less likely to suffer from serious depression than those who still went to church.
Dr Maselko said: " A person's current level of spirituality is only part of the story. We can only get a better understanding of the relationship between health and spirituality by knowing a person's religious history."

https://www.careersfordisaffectedevangelicals.org.uk

Thanks for all the responses to my previous post. However, a determined commitment to a New Religious Direction (self-created Religious Movement or otherwise) will only happen if I leave my current job. And given that I’ve got a wedding impending and a cat to feed, leaving my current job will only happen if I find another one.

I think I may therefore want or need a new job...

I don’t enjoy job-hunting, perhaps because I'm fairly dismal at it. I utterly lack whatever cognitive/social skill it is (perception? intuition? social niceties?) to ever discern what the person reading the application wants to hear. I can (and usually do) fall into any or all of the following traps

1. Ending up sounding pathetically and frantically desperate for their job. I've landed myself in some farcically unsuitable and extremely short-lived employment situations this way. I would provide some anecdotes but I don't want to Out myself on this blog, yet.
2. Trying to be clever but instead coming accross as a pretentious/arrogant prat/twat. My classic was the treatise I produced (some time ago, I hasten to add) by way of application to a local GP practice advertising for a receptionist in which I spend half a page pontificating on the need for a thorough reorganisation of the local primary care trust in order to maximise the effeciency of the GP receptionist. I heard from a friend who worked there as a nurse that the practice meeting "wetted themselves laughing" at my application. At least they didn't invite me for an interview so they could all wet themselves in front of me. At least.
3. Providing them with Too Much Information. I was once told, at an interview, "of all the 27 applicants for this job, you were the only one who filled in the what-are-your-greatest-weaknesses-question with any honesty at all". I didn't get the job, suffice to say.

I have, therefore, booked myself an appointment with the local Graduate Careers Service. But I'm honestly no longer sure what it is I want.

In which Grace decides to form a New Religious Movement

After a lovely few days with family and friends and without all the hassles and politics and religious authority-play of work, I have suddenly realised: it doesn't need to be this painful. I need a New Religious (or Spiritual or Faith) Possibility... soon. But what?

Grace's Possible New Religious Possibilities

Agnosticism/Secularism
Sorry, no. God’s there and I like chatting to him/her/it. Not an option.

Sufism
Of all non-Christian ways of engaging with God, this I like. But I don’t think one can convincingly buy into one form of Islam without embracing the entire Ummah. And I couldn’t do religion that didn’t do Jesus. The whole concept of the incarnation is what I love.

Various forms of progressive Judaism
I like the ethics and the academic rigour of it. However, I’ve rarely felt excessively welcome in groups of religious Jews. Or maybe it’s just me. But either way, I don’t think I could ever do religion that didn’t involve Jesus. There’s Messianic Judaism, of course. But I don’t quite see the point of that for those who weren’t Jewish to begin with.

More “liberal” forms of Christianity
Oh please. Sorry, but I just don’t get it. I’ve read Bultmann, Cupitt and the like and yes, they’re very educated and intelligent people, but I’ve never seen the point of demythologisations, nor of insisting that modernity and rationalism inform faith. I’m fine with the Bible telling me that the world was created in six days and that Mary was a virgin and equally I’m fine with Darwin telling me both are impossible. I don’t need to contend with the alleged conflicts between science and religion because, after several years of scientific training and a few episodes of psychosis, I struggle to believe either in science or the objectivity of reality, text, reason or experience. For me, God is all there is.

Converting to Roman Catholicism
Could do. In recent years I’ve been surprised to find that I like a lot of the theology. But they’d need to be a significantly nicer to their women before I could really want to be a Catholic. So probably not this year, then.

Cutting edge, radical, hardcore New Paradigm Church-like
As in, like Vineyard, Hillsongs, NFI, G12-type churches. Maybe. They’re good fun. Sorry to be superficial, though, because I know these things shouldn’t matter, but the volume of the music tends to annoy me: God’s not deaf. Or maybe I’m just too old. But I also get edgy in groups that are so laid-back and informal that they lack clear structures of leadership or mechanisms for accountability.

Quaking
The whole concept of Quakerism intrigues me. I don't think I understand it entirely, but I love the idea of a God who resides within everyone. All inclusive, like.

Bog-standard Church of England-ness
Could do worse. I think it’s all something I understand and can relate to relatively comfortably. But I’m increasingly realising that faith has to involve community. I know they earnestly do try, but I think I’m still a bit young for the jam-making and the jumble sales of your stereotypical Anglican social scene. But I know there’s more to it then that.

Post-evangelicalism emerging Churchyness type “movements”
This interests me. I like the focus on community, eclecticism and inclusion. Sometimes I doubt that they’re ever as new or innovative as they claim, but probably few of us are. There’s not much of such things in my home town, but maybe I could start something new? Hmmm now there’s a thought…

guilt

I'm sitting here gulping as I click through my online banking record of just how much I've spent this evening. It's not that I don't love and value everyone for whom I've bought a Christmas present, not that I consider them undeserving, nor do I begrudge any of them the amount I've spent. I just feel guilty. Guilty about having the money to spend and guilty for not spending an equal amount on gifts for the destitute and starving.

I live in a neighbourhood and a community in which people who are deprived and destitute - and sometimes even starving - surround me constantly. In my experience, it is a poverty more shocking and complex than any poverty I've witnessed elsewhere in the world. People are poor not simply because they don't have enough money (if that were the case, the advent of tax credits would have transformed the area) and nor merely because they smoke or procreate too much (if that were the case, the local health centre offering smoking cessation and family planning would be busy) but for many, many reasons.

People are poor because they're being threatened by Provvie loan sharks who bullied them in 900% APR loans to buy presents for the children they had before they even had the chance to consider the idea that the could finish school which was before they were on the drink but when he was already beating us black and blue and when you feel like that you need a flat screen plasma telly on hire purchase, even though you live eight of you in a one-bed flat and you've got rising damp on the second floor and you can't always afford to put money on the electric and even though Miss did teach us at school it's cheaper to pay the electric by direct debit you're araid to even try to get a bank account whe you're in debt like this cos they'll look at you funny in the bank cos they'll know which part of town you're from and anyway Mum lived here like this, and Gran and Great Grandma too so when you live here nothing changes.

That was a long and incoherent sentence, I'm aware. Being born into this community must feel, I imagine, a somewhat similar sentence.

The community centre around the corner from me is asking for contributions of shampoo, safety razors (safetyonlyplease), warm socks and nail varnish to distribute. Next time I'm out shopping, I'll pop into Superdrug.

a day when people seemed unkind

Nobody was speaking to me at work today. To be fair to them, there may arguably be a reason behind their collective incandescence with me [Solicitor: stop being so magnanimous] but that reason will have to wait until I'm actually sacked or else Someone may identify from this blog.

Half way through the afternoon, for the first time ever, I walked out. I walked out, leaving Everyone to assume that Someone had given me permission to depart early. If I'm asked to explain myself tomorrow, I'm sure I could plead female problems that I couldn't at the time disclose because there was a male visitor in the office. Equally, I could probably get away with telling them I'd had a panic attack. But I wouldn't want to be dishonest.

I came home and started making fresh, organic lentil burgers for the Bible study group this evening. It's a group I don't often have the energy for telling people at work that I go to because some of its members are Unsaved and they even like Fiance. I don't want to be told that I go there merely to feel comforted or un-got-at by being in a room where others have Unsaved partners too.

I go there because I experience God there, and community, too.

I think I've done very much more for God through making those burgers than I did in the office earlier. If Someone at work calls me to account for leaving early this afternoon, I will explain to them exactly that. They can have as many hours in lieu from me as they want. For the joy of such perfectly-crafted and tasty burgers that those who love me will love, I'd do anything.

a night when God seemed good

I received the following text

"hi grace herd u culdnt get tckts 4 messiah 2nite - i got spare!!! do u want????"

And so, I ended up going to an absolutely stunning performance of Handel's Messiah with two of my soon-to-be Bridesmaids.

Last time I heard the Messiah live, a few days before Christmas '05, one of those Bridesmaids was in hospital with potentially only weeks to live. I remember sitting there, praying throughout the performance that she'd live.

And she did. She sat there this evening beside me mouthing every word of the performance. Next year, next Christmas, she should be in that choir.

After weeks of frustration, tension and blinding annoyance, tonight God seemed extremely kind.

The dangers of rioting choirboys

Fiance and I have found a very exceptional Christian minister (henceforth to be known as VECM) who is willing to bend all of his denominational rules to their very limit in undertaking to conduct our marriage service.

We met with him last night to discuss the details. Various questions of ahem style arose. In the interests of (a rapidely diminishing) sense of magnanimity and of conciliatory hopes on my part, I'm trying to persuade my Place of Current Employment that one of their representatives may like use of a microphone through which to mutter through gritted teeth the odd prayer for Fiance and I. VECM is concerned that my Place of Current Employment may take ahem the liberty of an impromptu half hour sermon-in-prayer, as such types are allegedly prone to do. His final comment being 'well Grace, I can only warn you, our choirboys have been known to start to riot if the prayers carry on too long'.

I wish, I wish that I could instill such fear in my Place of Current Employment. I wish that I could threaten such subversive action and be received with anything other than threats.

magnanimous.

Another day, another meeting, another crisis.

The very nice solicitor I saw last night tells me that, in all my dealings with them, I've been "hugely magnanimous". I think Jesus would have been, too.

Jesus, however, could never have used the first century Palestinian legal system to fight the religious authorities he clashed with. No solicitor would ever have represented his case of vicitimisation for having claimed to be the Messiah.

I don't want money or publicity, nor do I feel the need for any public vindication, nor am I naive enough to believe that a tribunal claim would prevent them from doing to another employee exactly what they're done to me. All I want is for them to think. To think about the love they preach and to comtemplate how their employment practice might relate to that. So the question for me, in considering whether to take legal action against them is straightforward: which course of action will better help them to ponder what they're doing.

I spent the night with Fiance and couldn't sleep. I ended up downstairs watching various Benn Hinn miracles crusades dubbed into Yoruba (much flinging about of crutch, which says essentially the same thing in any language) and an un-named Muslim televangelist implore me to give my credit card details to Fatah. At about 4am I rang into one of the Properity Prayer lines and asked the operator to believe God with me for twenty grand for my "ministry". Not that money would sort my job out, of course, but it certainly wouldn't be any harm. The man ended the conversation by assuring me that a twenty-five grand cheque will be in my office pigeon hole tomorrow. If he's right, I will publish a written retraction of all my cynicism and apply to Rhema college.

If I'm learning anything whatsoever about this, it's that what the Christian message starts, ends and utterly depends on and stands or fails upon... it's love. Unless Christians can treat each other properly (or rather, unless Christians can be honest about how hard it is to treat one another properly) they might as well not bother invoking the name of Jesus.

a prayer I found, which sums everything up

By Thomas Merton, quoted by Bishop John Liscomb, quoted by MadPriest

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

On a lighter note

Grace's own Equalities Challenge

Four bridesmaids. Representing between them the beautiful diversity of the female form, each one gloriously unique in colour, shape, size, age and fashion sense.

What are they going to wear? I attempted
a) hiring a dressmaker (none of those I emailed/left messages for have got back to me - I think I must have scared them all off.)
b) buying the same outfit off the peg for each one in the relevant size (I took Bridemaid 1 to John Lewis to try this out, using myself as a comparator. Whenever anything suited either of us, the other ended up looking somewhat, ahem, unfortunate. And Bridesmaid 1 and I are virtually the same colour, shape and size as one another, too.)
c) ebay (I found an outfit that I thought would ideally suit Bridesmaid 1 - who was delighted. I then got a bit excited and found a wonderful dress for Bridesmaid 2. It was 3 minutes until the auction ended and I bought it for a tenner. It's rather too small for her - well, at least I didn't overestimate her size - and she's now somewhat unimpressed with me. Ooooops.)

I'm now contemplating a possible d), which would involve writing each bridesmaid a cheque and telling them to dress themselves in whatever they want. When I put this to Bridesmaid 3 she replied that, given the choice, she'd dress herself entirely in Goretex and hi-performance fleece but that I'd have to accept that because she has a disability which makes her feel the cold, and claims middle-rate DLA for it, too.

And we all laughed.

the theology of equality?

As lilwatchergirl recently joked, I'm currently a bit obsessed with the concept of Equal Opportunities.

Suffice to say, this isn't the first time I've contended with such issues (suffice to say, because I don't want to be identified) and I've had plenty of opportunities to think about such things.

I think that the concepts of equality and diversity and the legal construct of Equal Opportunities is something with which the Church has yet to properly contend. In my opinion, the Church either
a) needs to produce a cohesive and dignified narrative about why Equal Opportunities does not accord with Christian principles and how it could run society better or
b)needs to embrace Equal Opportunities and lead the way in inclusion, tolerance, anti-discrimination and fair employment.
And currently, the Church does neither. There was the furore over the Incitement to Religious Hatred and how it would stop an evangelical preacher asserting that the Muslims will burn in hell... and then there was whatever the Bill was that was supposed to be able to force Christians to employ Buddhists as their vicars... then the particularly vicious kerfuffle earlier this year about how the Sexual Orientation Regulations would force a fundamentalist hotelier to allow a gay couple to dirty his sheets. Time after time after time after time the church gets dragged along kicking and screaming and is forced to stop scare-mongering cheap moral panic and obey the law.

But perhaps I should give the Church more credit. I think the Church realised long ago what a postmodern and pluralistic society has not yet grasped: one cannot legislate for attitudes. People will act far more readily according to their beliefs, feelings and attitudes than according to external rules imposed up them, and maybe there's little point pretending otherwise. Maybe the Church exposes what the rest of us daren't say, which is that Equal Opportunities legislation promises far more than it delivers and even, perhaps, delivers very little.

So where does one go from here? I don't know.

a job what i want

... what was advertised today.

Points in its favour
1. It's at an LEP [local evangelical partnership - an amalgamation of several churches each from a different denomination] and therefore in theory making a virtue of being all broad-minded and tolerant.
2. One of my best friends ever goes to the church attached. This may or may not be an advantage in getting me an interview (and of course, it shouldn't be), but it certainly indicates that they're nice people.
3. It's just round the corner from Fiance's so I would be working within a community. And I wouldn't be generating carbon emissions getting there (*grace is currently seeking all possible theological justification for pre-marital cohabitation*). And I'd be doing my bit for social inclusiveness by taking the shortcut through the grounds of the local mental hospital to and from work.
4. The pay is rather good. For the voluntary sector, anyway.

Points against
1. They want someone with management experience (*grace does not possess this*).
2. They want someone with two years of management experience (*grace does not possess this, either*).
3. Ideally, they would prefer someone with five years management experience (*you can see what's coming*)

questions

What would happen to Christianity, if it began to base itself on the love of Christ rather than the sin of humanity (ie Creation Spirituality as opposed to Original Sin-centred religion)?

If so, what would happen to the Church, without guilt as a mechanism for enforcing conformity?

Therefore, is his grace (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) really sufficient for us...?

Either way, can one ever create a community based purely on love without descending into control-freakery, anarchy or bullying the free-thinkers?

It's my party and

A Significant Birthday. Ouch. I don't like them, at all. I don't think having one's Special Day so close to Remembrance Sunday helps, either. So far, I've been washing all my furniture covers to celebrate.

I'm feeling very much as I did on about my eleventh birthday, my mind suddenly full of new thoughts, perspectives and ideas, awakening to new possibilities. It's exciting but absolutely terrifying and, I am increasingly aware, likely to end in me very soon thinking myself out of a job. I'm going away, somewhere both extremely cold, windy and isolated, to think and pray and snuggle up with Fiance about it all.

Jesus began at 30, the Bible says.

fellow travellers #3

The fireworks began as soon as it got dark... well, that was about ten days ago now. But the banging began long before I left work this evening. I stood at the top of my road, the highest point for miles around, and watched.

It's a bit grim when you think about it, really. And the more I do think about it, the more I grow in sympathy for Guy Fawkes. Attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament was an indisputably stupid thing to do, of course. But perhaps Guy Fawkes felt that he has no other option, no other means by which to express his sense of oppression. Perhaps he was motivated not by powerlust or anger as much as his longing for religious freedom and his desperation simply to be allowed to worship God as he needed to.

The local authority in which I live has a policy of providing as many free Guy Fawkes night bonfires and fireworks displays as it can. Their thinking being that their provision will prevent local NEETs, unwashed and "communities" from randomly aiming lighted rockets into one another's yards. In an area so historically divided, racist and inflammatory, one can see their thinking. But yet it's ironic, in response to Guy Fawkes' attempt to fight state control of something, the government seeks to impose a controlled response. Like in all these new anti-terror measures.

I've never been particularly anarchist or libertarian, but I can't help wondering. If we all allowed those around us to believe whatever they want and worship however they like, what would happen?

And what would be the theological implications - and prerequisites - for that amongst people who believe that there is only one Saviour?

I don't know the answers to my own questions. But all around me, the firworks continue.

anonymity breach 101

Earlier this evening, blog readers were temporarily able to access the entire Facebook profile of Fiance through my blog.

D'oh.

fellow travellers #2

I think I inadvertantly Outed a volunteer I work with last week. She was asking why things seem a little ahem awkward between myself and a certain member of the management. I was telling her that we had exchanged ahem words about me having a Fiance who is Unsaved and Divorced. Before she had a chance to even consider offering any further ahem words, I added, jovially, "well at least he's a he. If we were talking even about a saved un-divorced woman I were in love with, we'd both be crucified in boiling oil".

It was only after she'd left the room in tears that I realised what I'd done.

She's a wonderful woman, so positive, so creative and God loves her so much. The only question I want to ask her is how, how do you cope with living and working and being in a situation in which you have to hide who you are?

I don't think that there is any non gay-specific (ie Metroplitan Community Church etc) area of Christianity in which being openly gay (or bi, lesbian, transgender etc) is an easy thing. But the most conservative, evanglical, traditional, male-dominated (well, that'd be them all) dare-I-say-fundamentalist churches are definately the least tolerant, caring or thoughtful. The Church of England's current tearing of itself apart over questions of sexuality are a mere microcosm of the wider Church. And the way in which the Church is currently responding to questions of sexuality is exactly the same way in which it was responding to gender issues a generation ago, and to considering questions of ethnicity a while before that.

So whereas, of course, I'm in an immesurably easier position than the colleague I accidentally de-closeted, I still believe that their opposition to our marriage remains not an issue of faith or theology but of diversity, different-ness, other-ness. The more our detractors tell me "now it's not because he's [ethnic and religious background of Fiance] it's because he's Unsaved and Divorced" the more I feel they keep saying that only to persuade themselves. And that all raises, I think, massive questions about the nature of faith affiliation, selfhood, identity and what it measn essentially to be human in relation to God.

"Give it another two hundred years" Fiance says, "and then they'll stop hassling and accept that we love one another."

And what, then, in the meantime? Does one run from any church that seeks to reject the most fundemental parts of one's being? Or does one stay and hope that, through one's persistence, that two hundred years might become only one hundred and fifty?