NO SEX, WE’RE ANGLICAN!

Let’s take a step back.

I gave the Alpha Course a lousy rating in my previous posts. Yet the Alpha website says 27 million people have participated in courses across 169 countries. Those charismatic folk must be getting something right for a lot of people.

Why didn’t it work for me? Was it my spiritual or intellectual arrogance? Probably a good dose of both. 

Early on in my spiritual journey I underwent a Myers Briggs personality type assessment and emerged as an ‘ENTJ’. Referred to as field marshals we are said to have a natural tendency to marshal and direct. This may be expressed with the charm and finesse of a world leader or with the insensitivity of a cult leader.

In retrospect, I got far more out of Alpha than I appreciated at the time. For starters there were always questions to take back to my spiritual director, an irreverent woman with a great sense of humour. 

 As counterpoint she introduced me to Henri Nouwen who took theology out of my head and planted it in my heart. He helped me understand that I’d embarked on a lifelong relational journey, not a God 101 Course.

I was fascinated by the Dutch priest, professor, psychologist, theologian and social activist. A prolific author, he had a hectic schedule and was a sought after public speaker. Then he felt called to join a community where people with developmental disabilities live with assistants. 

 For 10 years he served as resident priest at L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto in Canada. Most importantly he was Adam’s assistant, spending up to two hours a day dressing, feeding, bathing, and shaving the severely disabled young man. It was time spent in meditation that yielded wonderful spiritual insights. Nouwen said he learned more about the spiritual life from his friends in L’Arche, than he had ever learned in classes of theology and psychology.

Henri Nouwen and Gord, a L’Arche resident, became friends. They travelled together to speaking engagements and their core message was ‘just open your heart’.

Fr Nouwen and others like Thomas Merton and Gerald Hughes helped me to understand that I’d embarked on an intensely personal relational journey. I stopped looking to Church to do the work. At best it was a supportive structure. One that offered me the sacraments, teachings and what had become invaluable fellowship. On that basis it didn’t have to be perfect.

Just as well. I was becoming increasingly aware of its quirks. As Alpha drew to a close someone in my group mentioned that it was okay to for gays to become priests as long as they didn’t have sex. I laughed. 

Then I learned that this wasn’t just an ‘Alpha’ thing. I got the same response elsewhere. It was official Church policy!

My pre-churchfriends were just as bemused. We all wondered if the married priests and bishops, who were presumably enjoying their conjugal rights, had any concept of what was being asked of gay clergy. Did they really believe that healthy humans with no vocational call to celibacy would feel obliged to obey?

Years later a married Anglican friend shared that he’d given up sex for Lent and nearly ended up wrapping his Merc around a tree. It proves my point.

Besides, the same exponents of celibacy for gay priests would often righteously opine that the reason the Catholics were having problems with paedophilia was that they didn’t allow their priests to marry.

No, I’m not lesbian although I suspect some people in my village think I am - as an in-house joke, my son calls me ‘Dad’. It’s a play on ‘Father Loraine.’ But I have counselled too many good Christians who have gone to hell and back wrestling with their sexuality. The official Anglican stance on same-sex relationships was and still is an issue that bothers me greatly.

When the Irish recently made history by voting for same-sex marriage the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin declared that the Church needed ‘a reality check’. I agree but I suspect we differ on what that reality is.


Comments are welcome.

KING THUMBS NOSE AT POPE

As I hurtled along my journey into Anglicanism I was reminded  

of the elephant in the sanctuary. King Henry 8th.

The nuns had dutifully made us non-Catholic convent girls aware of the lust filled recalcitrant king. How he’d thumbed his nose at the Pope who wouldn’t annul his first marriage so he could marry Anne of Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn

The sisters told how Henry had taken control of the Church in England. Destroyed the monasteries. Published the bible in English. Beheaded two of his six wives.

We teenage girls, starved of romance, were enthralled.  We fantasized about being wooed by a king. We ghoulishly imagined having our heads chopped off.  We didn’t care about Church politics. Nor did we bother about the apostolic succession. This is the belief that the apostles passed on their authority to their successors and so on.

The succession issue mattered to me. So I conducted my own research but Google was still a twinkle in Larry Page’s eye. History books became yet another fascinating side-path in my personal journey.

Fact is, back in Henry’s day Church was predominantly about politics and power. First-born sons inherited the titles land and wealth. So younger siblings often became ambitious priests. (Think Machiavelli and you are getting warm.) The Church had become the high road to political influence and wealth accumulation. Vocation, celibacy and poverty were part of the small print many overlooked. 

Of course there were exceptions on both sides of the English Channel. They brought new meaning to ‘saint’.

Notably the king still gets a surprising mix of good and bad Press.  Several Catholic websites paint him as evil personified, egotistical, harsh, and insecure.  Political commentators are kinder. We Anglicans tend to ignore the elephant.

In a nutshell Henry (1491-1547) played the role of a Renaissance man to the hilt. His court was a centre of scholarly and artistic innovation. Glamorous excess kept him on the brink of financial ruin.

Holbein's The Ambassadors shows the luxurious display expected of Tudor diplomats.Holbein's .

Real and perceived enemies were tortured and executed. All good fodder for modern movies and soapies. 

Henry’s main dispute with the Catholic Church was with papal authority. Yet he was quick to institute the concept of the divine right of kings.

Importantly, despite his excommunication from the Catholic Church, he continued to believe in its core teachings. He also retained the clergy who didn’t tick him off politically. So the apostolic line of succession was not severed. The likes of Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Cranmer had all been ordained by Rome. That succession would be continued within England and across the world.

Bishop Steve Moreo was consecrated in St Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg. 

A former political journalist, I wasn’t fazed by Henry’s shenanigans.  But I must admit to being relieved to learn that it is only in England that monarch is ‘the supreme governor and defender of the faith’. For me separation of State and Church are key.

As defender of the faith and supreme governor of the Church of England Queen Elizabeth even approves the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I was reassured.  But there was an important lesson. Do not confuse Church leadership with God.  

Meanwhile, having bunked the ‘Holy Spirit’ week-end, I’d underestimated the persistence of the Alpha Course facilitators. They arranged a special Saturday session for those of us who hadn’t been able to get away!

Convent raised I was good at guilt. By the Friday I was doing some serious grovelling to God. I was begging, no exaggeration, for the Holy Spirit to give me a good solid zap next day.  If not it would be like attending a Girl Guide camp and returning with no merit badge.

Needless to say, nothing did happen. The Holy Spirit had other plans. Instead I spent much of the Saturday afternoon consoling a distraught woman. She felt the Nicky Gumbel video for that day had instructed her to give up her live-in partner of 10 years. Yet she loved and respected him. She and her daughter were financially dependent on him. A good man, he’d been hurt by divorce and was disillusioned with marriage.

It was my first experience of the tensions between the ‘real world’ definition of family and Church teachings. Do we set too much store on a marriage certificate? It is, after all, an instrument of State? Does the sacrament of marriage not rest more in mutual commitment, caring for each other, respect. The vows?

What do you think?

By the way, I’m finding most of the comments on my blog posts are being made on Facebook. Thank-you. And I’m gobsmacked to find that these pages have been viewed from as far afield as Qatar, India and Sweden. Nine countries in all!

 Just a reminder, if you feed your email address into the blog site you will receive direct alerts.

Have blessed week.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

There was a point when I acknowledged a need to worship God within a Christian context. It was the ‘how’ that challenged me.

Somewhere along the line I attended a ‘non-denominational’ service conducted by a dynamic pastor in a school hall.  I was used to the traditional Catholic and Anglican Churches of my youth so that hall just didn’t do it for me. (I later learned how traditional architecture, candles, vestments and icons are triggers for worship.) It also didn’t help that the sermon was on the need for women to obey their husbands.

The Anglican parish I was attending seemed to suit my basic needs. Designed by Sir Hebert Baker, the stone church had beautiful stain-glass windows. The services just bordered on the high and hazy. It felt like church.  

Importantly, the sermons were exceptional. (My rector became a bishop.)  And I’m still in awe of the God-incidence that took me past several other Anglican parishes between that one and my home.

Frankly the main reason I kept returning was the new social circle I was slipping into. I enjoyed the great conversations and the good red wine. My rector and his wife (my Spiritual Director) subscribed to the Benedictine principles of hospitality. They were generous hosts.  I, who’d become a real pleb as a single mother building up a major business, was drawn into company that enjoyed the arts and were creative. Most importantly, several of them understood the politics of our imminent democracy.

Never underestimate the power of planned fellowship!

I was also increasingly impressed by Jesus’ joie de vivre – the quality of wine he produced at the wedding, the dinner parties he attended, the friends he visited. His maverick approach to social taboos.

The Alpha Course wasn’t doing it for me.  Not enough reasoning for my personality type.  But I came from an era in which you finished your food (for the starving kids in Ethiopia) and anything else you started.

I did, however, draw the line at the residential week-end that most Alpha courses focus on. Over two days participants are encouraged to experience the Holy Spirit. For some this involves speaking in tongues. Others are zapped by the Holy Spirit and keel over.

No way Jose! When I was about 11 years old I’d fainted during Mass in Grahamstown’s Catholic Cathedral and wet my pants. There’d be no encore.  I bunked.

Nor did I have any desire to speak in tongues. Most of you will know that the gift of tongues is authenticated when, after a person has gabbled away, others are able to interpret. Invariably there’s a long and sometimes embarrassing pause before this follows. I often wonder if the interpreter isn’t just being kind.

Okay I accept it’s a special gift and that it can be a great way to lose oneself in God.  However, I’ve never seen it used publicly to really good effect. What’s your opinion or experience? 

SHOOTING OURSELVES IN THE FOOT?

If ever there was proof that God has a sense of humour it was  my participation in an Alpha Course. Moreover, I was allocated to a discussion group comprised of young people barely in their 20s. Someone had obviously misread my age on the submission form!  

That God-incidence would catapult me into fascinating territory. The lessons learned from those young people have stood me in good stead throughout my ministry.  (Remember, no church for me from the age of 17 to 50 and I hadn’t sent my two sons to church.)

In case you are wondering, Alpha is a 15-session introduction to the Christian faith and conducted all over the world. Developed by the Revd Nicky Gumbel, a former London barrister and vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, it is arguably the most successful tool of evangelical Christianity in recent years. Today Nicky’s services attract a regular Sunday attendance of around 4,500 people – most aged between 18 and 35.  If you’re dying to speak in tongues and consider yourself conservative, then Alpha is for you.

The Alpha format at my parish was a fellowship supper in the hall, then off to the church for prayer and far too many hymns for my liking. This was followed by the Nicky Gumbel video for that week. Then we would have group discussions.

I was almost old enough to be my group’s honorary granny, a cynical seeker of truth to boot. They brimmed with unquestioning faith and were into gospel music, Christian movies and coffee shop gatherings. Fresh-faced and privileged they were a-political and blissfully unaware of life in the townships. I was into progressive jazz, art movies, political activism, good restaurants and sometimes hectic parties. They spoke about keeping themselves pure for their wedding night. I’d been divorced and had two live-in partners, one for 11 years, the other for five years.

Not that I discussed my personal life with them but the dynamic meant (small miracle) that I had to mind my tongue and tread gently. My age didn’t seem to matter and I was afforded a privileged in-depth view of what young people expect from church - how action speaks so much louder than pulpit eloquence.

Many years later I served a parish deep in Soweto for the six-weeks of Lent. On the first Sunday I noticed that the extra-large and very youthful music group was dominating the Eucharist Service. The oldies were sitting through praise and worship with folded arms and glum frowns. Thanks to my Alpha group I felt confident enough to approach the talented young musicians and singers and challenge them to plan a service that would serve their elders. The following week they wowed us all with a traditional Prayer Book format interspersed with well-loved choruses and even a few ancient hymns. There was a beautiful solo during Communion. For the remainder of Lent they alternated between youthful exuberance and worship that they understood to be an important ministry to older folk.

But back to my Alpha Course.

It was providing plenty of fodder for me to take to my Spiritual Director and her husband, the rector. Through them I came to understand the meaning of “broad church”. They taught me the importance of respecting other people’s religious views and how I was entitled to question.

Fact is, the Anglican Church accommodates a wide range of opinions and people. In the process we embrace the high and hazy, the low and even the ‘speaking-in-tongues’ evangelicals.  

This broad approach is said to be Anglicanism’s strength and its weakness.

As I’ve mentioned before, we rely on three pillars, Scripture, tradition and reason. It is what allows us to disagree on matters like the definition of family and same-sex marriage. We are even allowed to question whether the bread and wine at the Eucharist is miraculously transformed into Jesus’ body and blood or if those who take communion in faith receive the spiritual body and blood of Christ.

(If you want to impress your bishop at a cocktail party, the first is called ‘transubstantiation’ the second is ‘consubstantiation’.)

So what do you think? Is the Anglican Church shooting itself in the foot by being too broad?

RELIGION JUST A SUGAR PILL?

Looking back, the books I read in my run up to the Alpha Course were a wonderfully unfettered way to learn about Jesus and quite a lot of biblical stuff. Remember, I’d never attended Sunday School. My convent school religious education was based on a well-thumbed Catechism book that told me what to believe. My confirmation course in the Anglican Church was really an escape hatch to stroll through Boksburg, buy ice-cream and have toast for breakfast in the rectory.

Now 50, I was on an incredibly exciting journey of discovery – no epiphany, no lightning bolts but sensing a new beginning. It was also a welcome diversion from my hectic work and social diary, brain exercise. I hadn’t studied since my twenties. It was also long before The Tudors series was broadcast which would have put me off Anglicanism, despite that sexy Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Besides the off-the-wall books about Jesus, there were a variety of others.  These included fascinating archaeological finds (remember I wasn’t born with faith in my back pocket I needed proof), Judaic history and Greek history. Admittedly the Crusades and all their barbarity took a lot of shine off Christianity but then I wasn’t all that interested in following Jesus or killing people in his name. As the founder of a large PR agency I had long been used to dealing at chief executive level so the Son was interesting but if I was going to leap into a faith abyss I expected the ‘Main Man’ to do the catching. (In my PR life I was teaching chief executives ‘management by walkabout’ and the importance of an open door policy).

Running parallel to this was another development. In the second week after I’d attended my first Eucharist in about 35 years I called the parish to ask if they ‘did meditation’ in the Anglican Church. The rector’s response was “hang on I’ll call my wife, she’s into it”.  She was quick to share, “I’ve just finished a meditation and realised I think I’m God.”  We made an appointment for the next day.

I didn’t understand then but she was my first Spiritual Director.  The weekly psychology sessions were replaced by visits to the rectory. The coffee was excellent, the session were free and there was no reining either me or my reading in. Nor was there any proselytizing or effort to argue theological points. There was just lots of encouragement to continue my journey of discovery. And, because the rector had worked in the ad industry, a great understanding of my work life. There was also quiet amusement when I enquired if the best looking guy in the choir was single. (I’d find out later that he was gay.)

Today I count the three of them among my dearest friends and I fully agree with that marvellous Catholic priest Gerard Hughes who authored the best-selling God of Surprises. He argued that there is no such thing as coincidences, they are all God-incidences.

I’d spent a fortune on books but that little book would be that real beginning of my faith journey. Never one to subscribe to dogma Fr Gerry brought Church into different focus. Most importantly, he declared that God could never be fully understood because if this was so God simply wouldn’t be God. It made imminent sense and I stopped trying to prove God existed. Instead I stepped tentatively into the realm of mystery. But it was still a game of chance.

Those of you who were born with faith will probably have no concept how high those stakes were. So often when I share that I only really became a Christian at the age of 50 the response is “You must have been really happy for the first time in your life!” It wasn’t happiness I needed, I’d had huge doses of that throughout my privileged life. What I wanted was a spiritual dimension, balance. BUT with me still in full control.  

But I get ahead of myself! There was still the Alpha Course. It began with the traditional introductory dinner. I’d had a day from hell so had a long hot bath to unwind before heading for the parish hall.  I also poured an extra-large glass of wine to sip while I soaked, knowing full well that I’d be drinking fruit juice with supper. I was wrong.

As I walked through the door, I was offered a choice of “red or white wine?” An auspicious beginning. But as I watched the slick Nicky Gumble video, I couldn’t help spotting the production tricks. I could smell PR a mile off. But I enjoyed the company at my table and the following day my Spiritual Director assured me the course would “improve”. More of that later.

Writing this has reminded me how many of my Christians seems to enjoy unwavering faith. They never seem to doubt our religious rituals or question the Church’s teachings.  I now understand that it will never be as easy for me. Faith eludes me at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes I struggle to believe in unconditional grace. Or I just plain wonder if religion isn’t one big panacea. Yet I have acquired a relationship with God that permeates every aspect of my life – sometimes very inconvenient, invariably humbling but always dynamic.  I now accept that like most relationships this one will always have it ups and downs.  Of course I don’t play fair, I assume God will always be constant.

Do you also have faith wobbles? I’ve decided to give Archbishop Shakes, the main protagonist in my novel, a crisis of faith so your input would be very welcome.

May the Force be with you!