See you later...

...I'll be back when I'm married.

Prayers, if applicable, would be wonderful.

trying to write a wedding speech about how much I love Him...

... and I'm utterly, utterly, utterly stuck.

How to generate words which convey the depths of how much I love him... without offending anyone who doesn't or hasn't loved?

How to express the hope I possess for our relationship... without coming across as condemning all those who have condemned us?

The Employment and Equalities Act (Churches) 2008

Somebody putting "Equal Opportunities" and "church" into Google will now think they've discovered a new piece of legislation. Tee hee.

I decided, though, today, that the government should grant all faith-based organisations full exemption from all employment and equalities legislation.

My reasoning is that the legislation has done very little to improve the employment conditions of employees in Christian organisations. All that has changed in the 30 or so years that such laws have been introduced is that Christian organisations have been more covert in their discrimination, pretending to follow the rules when they aren't, afraid to admit themselves unable to comply with or even understand what's legally being requested of them. This leads to the following problems
1. Job applicants and employees expect from Christian organisations legal rights and safeguards they will never receive
2. The vast majority of job applicants and employees do not have the time, money or courage to take Christian organisations to employment tribunals. The pressure "not to bring the name of Christ into disrepute" is immense and the adverse publicity generated can be vicious. John Reaney, who managed to win against the Diocese of Hereford was a rare exception.
3. Because the Reaney case was so exceptional, the majority of Christian organisations end up thinking they've got away with it.

If however, Christian organisations were to gain exemption from employment and equalities legislation
1. They could tell candidates the interview stage that they don't like gays/women/Blacks/immigrants so that the candidate would be aware at that stage what sort of organisation they were applying to.
2. They could stop using the Genuine Occupational Requirement clause to stipulate a youth worker who is "aged 24-26 with curly pink hair and a Scouse accent" so that they not longer look ridiculous in their own job ads.
3. Those Christian organisations who are known to be particularly good employers (such as the Faithworks Trust, Tearfund, Christian Aid etc) could receive the acclaim they deserve as outstandingly good people, properly motivated by grace, truth and love.
4. This would demonstrate that the guy who started the whole Christianity thing off was, despite never intending to form an organisation of any sort, an outstaningly kind, tolerant, welcoming, affirming and inclusive sort of bloke.

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a triumph of experience over hope? a conversation with a child far, far too young for the conversation we were having.

A conversation, too, that made me very sad for the girl with whom I had it...

HER: My Mummy says you're having a wedding.

ME: Yes. Do you want to come and bring her to the wedding?

HER: I don't like weddings.

ME: Why not?

HER: (Pauses, pouting) Well you'll have to have babies really quickly...

ME: (Cringing slightly) Er, we'll see what happens.

HER: ... 'cos you got to have babies before you split up. Once you're split up you can't have babies any more 'cos you're calling each other bad words and shouting.

ME: We're not planning to split up.

HER: Really? You're never going to split up?

ME: I don't know. But we're going to try really, really hard not to split up.

HER: (Eyes widening) So you might never ever ever split up?

ME: I hope we'll never ever ever ever ever split up.

HER: But (starts chewing a strand of hair) I didn't know you could hope about that.

On a lighter note...

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Thanks to Lina for this...

They're more scared of you than you are of them

It's what my mother used to say when I used to get scared of dogs that were too big and fluffy and wooffed at me too loudly.

I realised it again when this week Fiance and I had social intercourse with two more of the church ministers who refused to marry us.

We had to visit Minister One to collect our Banns, which Church of England law had required him, regardless of his personal objections, to publish for us. His vicarage, nestled awkwardly between a crop of identikit multi-storey inner-city tower blocks, the premises known locally as "that building where them from the social get your bairns took off of you" and the local arterial motorway, was one of the grimmest I'd ever seen. He opened the door, despite the horizontally-snarling snow, in the very most flimsy of shirt sleeves. I wanted to ask him to please go back inside and put a jumper on before speaking to us. He seemed just so nervous of us. "You work with children, don't you?" he said to Fiance.

Minister Two came up to me, entirely unexpectedly and out-of-normal-context in the corner shop and announced to me, triumphantly, "Grace!!! I've just spoken to your Fiance in the Post Office!" As he beamed at me, I suddenly saw a friend's three year old son grinning proudly as he told me he'd got his shoes on all by himself. I didn't know, then, how to respond to Minister Two. I felt like congratulating him - but that would have come across as patronising or insincere. I wanted to ask him what they'd talked about - but Fiance would no doubt be ringing on my mobile any minute to tell me all about it. But I could see that, for Minister Two, the conversation had represented a huge achievement.

I don't want us to make people uncomfortable. I don't want to spend my whole life frightening and antagonising the church and all its structures and leaders.

Jesus did, Fiance pointed out.