THE EXCRUCIATING AGONY OF A CHRISTIAN CLOSET

As the dust settles on the Anglican Church in Southern Africa’s most recent synod, our Archbishop Thabo Makgoba is being quoted globally regarding the pain he is experiencing from a decision not to allow our clergy to bless same sex marriages. 

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba 

Please note that I speak of a simple blessing, not marriage, yet 16 of 22 bishops voted against this. Archbishop Thabo speaks of a double edged sword. 

Allow me to introduce a third edge...

As I write this, my own pain centres around an aspect seldom acknowledged - those gay Christians who actually believe their gender “leanings”, “temptations”, “preferences” are an abomination to be resisted. To the extent that they pray and fast their way out of their natural sexual identity in order to be saved. This, as a CNN journalist said about Aleppo, “It is what Hell is really like and then it got worse.” 

Aleppo

Marrying for Jesus

These 'good' gay Christians all too often go to the extent marrying someone of the opposite sex.

Yes, many manage to be relatively happy, they love their spouses, their children, the holiness of family. But the need to suppress their sexual drive looms larger as the years pass. Inevitably their denial of self takes its toll on the relationship and mostly on the person committed to Christ and the Church. Some soldier on. Others don’t resist temptation and are caught. Others, in their maturity have stopped reading the Bible literally and decide to do the honourable thing by confessing to their spouses.

It seldom works

Having counselled several of these committed Christians, all men admittedly, I am appalled at the excruciating pain this can cause everyone from the family to the secret gay partner.

They were Anglicans, Methodists and Lutherans and, where love, mutual respect and concern for the children were dominant elements of the marriage, I witnessed some remarkable solutions. A generosity of soul not always found in  our pews.

Other situations, involving righteous judgment and literal Scriptural interpretations, have left an unholy trail of devastation – fathers unjustly accused of pedophilia and banned from interaction with their beloved children. Off spring whose minds were poisoned and whose emotional wellbeing was mortally wounded. Vocations had to be abandoned.

I'm not gay

Let’s be clear: I’m not a Lesbian, trans or bi sexual. My children aren’t gay and I don’t’ have LGBTI siblings to campaign for. I wasn’t a gay activist before re-joining the Anglican Church 35 years after my Confirmation. I didn’t need to be one because nobody in my secular social circle was bothered with judging our gay friends or condemning them to hell. We were all too busy getting on with life.  I had no concept of the hell too many Christian gays go through.

Called to priesthood at the turkey-necked age of 51, I was far more concerned with political activism. Desmond Tutu was an important role model and the main reason I asked to be trained in Soweto. Truth be told, I had visions of becoming the Mother Theresa of the townships. What arrogance and what ignorance of God’s sense of humour. I was too old to suit the Church’s pension fund so self-supporting ministry was my only option. In other words, I had to keep earning a living as a PR consultant. 

Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane

It’s how I became Archbishop Njongonkulu’s international media liaison consultant and how I jumped into the deep end of one of his signature ministries – HIV/AIDS.

It's NOT...

All this at a time when the disease was increasingly identified as punishment for homosexuality. That stigma became the incubator for millions of deaths. I thank God for ++Jongo who insisted on a communication campaign that would “shout from the roof tops that AIDS is an illness like any other, and not a punishment from God.”

A frightening number of Anglicans ignored the message.

The third edge

Inevitably my personal ministry veered into that arena. Our national Health Department was refusing to provide antiretrovirals. I was clocking up funeral services at an alarming rate and working with passionate activists, several of whom were Anglican priests and gay.  Some were infected others weren’t, all suffered the pain of being open about their sexuality in a Christian environment.

I had stepped into the realm of the "third edge”.

More broad minded?

But I was not your typical Anglican priest: I hadn’t attended church for 35 years; I was battling to curb a vocabulary learned in a news room (still am); I was a divorcee who had had two long term live-in relationships; and, I loved to party.  Perhaps it is because my gay associates felt I would be more understanding that they began recommending me to married gay men seeking counselling.

What a learning curve for me. I encountered an awful aspect of Christian cruelty, good intentions gone awry and responses that caused excruciating pain to EVERYONE in the affected family and even their extended families.

Can you begin to imagine the pain of being rejected by a Church that is part of your DNA?

And don’t for one millisecond think you can crack it with “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”  It is that very approach that gnaws at family and friends who fill our pews and share Communion. We hurt them by judging their loved ones and relegating them to hellfire. 

How we must hurt the Tutus

Leah and Desmond Tutu

Revd Mpho von Furth Tutu and her wife, Marceline

I worry about the hurt Desmond and Leah Tutu must feel because  since her marriage their daughter Revd Mpho is not licensed in Southern Africa. Yes, she could return to the USA and minister there but her parents are in their twilight years and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation needs her management.  

Time to revolt?

I never bothered to become a marriage officer and I applauded priests who refused to act as marriage officers when mixed race marriages were banned. I now applaud those who either ignore the ‘gay’ rules or are heeding the call to hand in their licences.

Too many of my brother and sister priests have gone through 30 years of the Anglican Church saying “soon there will be a breakthrough.”   Too many have battled the Church’s trade-off: “be celibate and you can be licensed to be a priest”.     

If social demographics apply, some 10% of our priests are gay. Maybe more because it makes so much sense for God to call natural nurturers into our vocation.

Older and wiser

I do, however, take comfort from the fact that age invariably brings a more mature interpretation of Scripture and greater confidence in the findings of modern science as well as confidence in God’s abiding love.

As Rabbi Dr Jay Michaelson Ph.D. writes in Behold I make all things New, “God versus Gay isn’t just a false dichotomy.  It’s a rebellion against the image of God itself.”

Rabbi Dr Jay Michaelson

Allow me to share more of the rabbi’s quotes:

“As a rabbi and long-time LGBT activist, I’ve counselled many Orthodox young people who are terrified of having to choose between happiness and their religious way of life.  Families have been torn apart by this issue and as long as the false choice between God and gay persists, our brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends will continue to struggle. They will torment themselves and be excluded from their families and communities.”

“Before I came out, I was certain that being openly gay would spell the end of my religious life.  I was an Orthodox-practicing Jew which gave meaning and shape to my life.  I repressed my sexuality, acting out occasionally but regretting it afterwards.  I tried, for years, to change.  Eventually, after 10 years in the closet I had had enough. The pain, isolation, loneliness, and shame had grown so great that I was ready to forsake my religion for the sake of my happiness.”

“Coming out was the doorway to greater religious faith and joy than I had ever imagined.  My relationship with God and my religious community grew stronger. My spiritual path began to unfold; my prayer life began to awaken. My love for other human beings slowly unfurled and expanded.”

“Imagine believing that because of something you cannot change God hates you.”

“Whose fault is it that 40% of gay teenagers consider suicide – four times as many as straight kids?  Ours, of course.”

"It's not African"

I know that a number of the bishops at the synod hailed from countries far more conservative than South Africa, where same sex marriages are legal, but I quote a Nigerian, The Revd. Rowland ‘Jide’ Macaulay LLB, MTh, “Historically, Africa has always been the friendliest and most tolerant continent. Homosexuality and same-gender behaviours date back to before colonialism and the intervention of religion. The arrival of colonialism contributed to the mass hatred and also the influence of religious fundamentalism. It contributed to the debased argument for homophobia. Yet Christianity teaches and encourages Love thy neighbour as thyself.”

I am busy working on a manuscript that examines how faiths based on rebirth and karma -Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Hinduism – affirm the dignity of queer identities and sexualities. In it Devdutt Pattanaik, author of more than 30 best-selling books and lecturer on the relevance of mythology in modern times, says “the well-meaning doctrine of ‘all religions are the same in essence’ has led to the assumption that all religions are intolerant of all things LGBTIQ.” 

He adds, “When faiths affirm the dignity of the queer, they empower them psychologically, politically, and economically.” 

That third edge

 In all this let us not lose sight of the third edge of the sword the Anglican Church continues to wield. I have watched young priests grow old while waiting to be affirmed. One of the saddest stories I was told was how, many years ago, seminarians were told that a bishop was refusing to ordain single priests. 
The young man, fighting his gay sexuality, proposed marriage to a woman who knew about his personal battle, but also believed they would conquer all through prayer and faithfulness to the Church.

As it turned out, in order to have sex, and for her to conceive, he would have to read porn and then pounce on her as he was about to climax.  Of course the marriage didn't last. 

As the Lord says:

“My people, what have I done to you?”

*********

Watch Mpho Tutu van Furth speak about human sexuality and her marriage - 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsL0kBJAy2s

WE ARE IN A DITCH DOLLS!

If ever there was proof that God has a sense of humour it was when I was ordained to priesthood. When I hit the half century mark Church wasn’t on my bucket list, I was saving for a world cruise on the QE2. God was more likely to be mentioned when I stubbed my toe and Jesus didn’t really appeal other than to discuss whether he and Mary Magdalene had had sex.

Nonetheless, as I began attending services at St Martin’s-in-the-Veld, Joburg, I had that ‘new convert’s’ romantic perception of religion and clergy. Probably a hang-over from my convent boarding school days when the only posters we stuck on our walls were of the pope and various saints.

So I was quite shocked when a woman who had dealings with the higher echelons of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa made disparaging remarks about clergy who “slept around” and “reallocated” funds.

It was the best thing that could have happened to me.

With my rose tinted glasses relegated to the dustbin and a healthy dose of cynicism I came to understand that Church is, at best, a messy organisation – a peculiar balance of humanity at its best and its worst. If you are looking for miracles, look no further than your nearest parish and how it has survived personality clashes and varying levels of competence, humility and servanthood.

Ignorance is…

But the years passed and I’ve been jogging along with a sense of ‘knowing the Church’.  Then the One with the quirky sense of humour had yet another belly laugh as I began writing my mystery series.   Having worked as Archbishop Njongo’s media liaison person for seven years and been a Susan Howatch fan, my first novel was inevitably set within Church. The main protagonist is a former PR guru testing a calling to a monastic vocation but who has to solve a couple of murders with the help of the folk running the agency.  Alec Fergusson is white middle aged and a doddle for me to write about.

A strange thing

Then, as I began the next novel, a strange thing happened. Alec began taking a back seat as Archbishop Shakes Khumalo assumed centre stage. At first I wasn’t too bothered. After all I’d spent many years within the ANC, I’d trained for priesthood in Soweto, I’d worked for Archbishop Njongo. It also helped that Shakes spent several years in the UK where he studied Law.

Of course I could write from a black archbishop's perspective.

But as Shakes drew me into his worldview I came to understand how much I still have to learn. How patient my black friends and associates have been with me all these years and why I have to rely on black editors to help keep Shakes credible.

There’s no turning back. The series belongs to Shakes and its meant to be a fun read. But against the backdrop of the #blacklivesmatter vs #alllivesmatter debate and at a deeply personal level, I know that I have to dig ever deeper into his world.  Not because it will make him more credible but because I must.

A wake up call

My unease increased when I shared this Facebook post,

and a dear friend responded ‘Black lives matter’.

That brought me up short.

The following morning at around 4:27 I watched a CNN interview with Dr Brian Williams, the black trauma surgeon who had treated the Dallas policemen shot during a Black Lives Matter protest march.  

Emphasising that he didn’t want to detract from the pain of the slain officers’ families, Dr Williams told how he too feared for his life outside the hospital. He spoke of the need for more open discussion about race. “How can we understand each other better,” he asked. “We need to stop talking over each other, to truly listen to the other side, to not shut each other out.”

Other interviews followed and, as the slow winter dawn stretched across Kommetjie, I came to understand that until and unless we erase the vulnerability of and dehumanisation of black people, all lives can’t matter.

As with all cataclysmic events an iconic picture emerges. My bet is that this is the one that will epitomise the Black Lives Matter movement.

Facebook user R. Alex Haynes posted: “This is my best friend that I have known since we were 8 (20 years now). “Her name is Leshia and she has a 5-year-old son. She went to Baton Rouge because she wanted to look her son in the eyes to tell him she fought for his freedom and rights. They haven’t released her as of yet but she’s fine.”

Hopefully, the US discussions on racism will spill over into South Africa where the sin of differentiation and privilege bubbles and boils.

Where is Church in all this?

The Anglican (Episcopal) Church in Southern Africa has transformed, If I’d made Shakes white, he wouldn’t have been credible.  But I am acutely conscious of the cringe-worthy unconscious racism that still exists among clergy and laity alike.  It’s a spin-off of privilege, the sense of white is right and better. (Anyone tried to introduce choruses in a traditionally white parish lately?  ever wondered why so few black parishioners serve on committees?)

Of course there are exceptions but, while we Anglicans don’t usually  sink to the depths of the preacher from another denomination who told his congregation that white people were better off because they work harder, we have at many levels yet to truly listen to each other. To respect each other. To see God in each other.

Because I haven’t made the Shakes series a soapbox for racism it is in the detail of his life that I am made aware of his daily realities. The white suffragan bishop who disapproves of any efforts to “Africanise” the Church. The difficulty he has in dealing with an apartheid era security operative and his guilt for abandoning his Sowetan boyhood friends on his journey to success – first as an advocate and then as a church man.

Yet again, God has nudged me out of my comfort zone.

Not the Samaritan

I felt this as I preached on the Good Samaritan last Sunday. I’d filled an emergency pulpit gap and was relieved to find it such an easy reading. But no matter how I leaned on past interpretations this nagging voice kept saying “it’s about being in the ditch.”  I realised that for too long I’d viewed myself, my congregants and my Church as the Samaritan – duty bound to minister to those in need and less privileged.

The Revd Dr Marcia Mount Shoop

In the US the Revd Dr Marcia Mount Shoop, preached that same day on the same reading at the Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville North Carolina .  A consultant, author, and theologian who focuses on healing and spiritual growth around issues of violence, race, power, privilege and loss, she was far more eloquent than I was in Ocean View Cape Town.

A moral ambivalence

Addressing white supremacy and the moral ambivalence of white dominant institutions around race and power question she urged, “Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are at a crossroads as a nation and as a faith. The road behind us is washed out—we cannot go back, we cannot un-see what we have seen, we cannot deny the blood on our hands, we cannot deny the moral ambivalence around the very category of full humanity that rests at the foundation of our most hallowed institutions—our justice system, our education system, our government, our economic system, and yes, even the church.”

She spoke of how duty is an attempt to tidy up the ambiguity of our human situation. “And while our human minds like simple, clear, non-negotiable answers to life’s most complicated questions, ambiguity abides—and calls us to a deeper place from which to define our morality, our responsibility, indeed our humanity. Far deeper than our learned reflexes of duty is our blood chilling vulnerability: mine, yours, ours.”

Snoop elaborated, “And while the normative culture of mainline Christianity has taught us the language of helping the “least of these,” white culture, white patriarchal culture has told us lies: that we can somehow secure our safety, our well-being on the backs of others and make ourselves less vulnerable than everyone else. As white dominant institutions, Mainline churches have not often considered our own profound vulnerability.

“What if we are not the Good Samaritan? What if we are naked, barely conscious, and beaten within an inch of our lives on the side of the road? ….. What if being Jesus followers is less about being the one with the power to help and more about telling the truth of just how vulnerable we really are? This is not duty. This is not pity. This is our humanity.

“White culture has distorted our shared humanity and our full humanity because it formed us with an expectation of safety and self-protection. White culture has tried to tell us we can erase our vulnerability, our grief, our fragility, our uniqueness, our idiosyncrasy—and from this attempted erasure we have learned repetitive, dehumanizing habits. We are habituated to ask “How can we help?” But rarely do we ask, “How can we change? How can we be the change?”

“White supremacy is a powerful demon that must be exorcised. This does not mean all white people are bad, this means the culture spawned by white supremacy is a disease that afflicts us all—it permeates our instincts, our muscle twitches, our gut reactions, our intimacy, our self-understanding. Jesus, help us, help us not be afraid to tell you the truth of our affliction.”

For her full sermon go to: http://ow.ly/bwPj302gNlI

Or maybe we should all simply watch this 14 year old white boy's You Tube video:
http://ow.ly/QNpX302h0tI

A DOSE OF HOLINESS FROM AN ARCHBISHOP CONCEIVED IN A DRUNKEN COUPLING

A healthy dose of reality

The recent revelation that our Anglican Archbishop, Justin Welby, is the illegitimate son of Sir Anthony Montague Browne has all the ingredients for a global scandal. After all, it has elements of sex, booze, high society, beautiful women, political power and religion. Yet the public face of some 77 million Anglicans worldwide has deftly deflated the story by resorting to good old fashioned honesty and, yes, holiness.

Lady Williams

Honesty is the best policy

For starters, his 86-year-old mother, a recovering alcoholic who hasn’t touch a drop in decades, deftly took the wind out of the yellow-press sails.  Lady Williams of Elvel, a former magistrate and a deputy lieutenant for Greater London, said in an interview: “Naturally, my son has deserved an explanation and I have been as open as I can.”

She went on to reveal that, “fuelled by a large amount of alcohol on both sides”, she and Sir Anthony had slept together only days before her “very sudden marriage” to Gavin Welby, a whisky salesman with social aspirations.

Because our archbishop was born nine months after that wedding he was presumed to have been a honeymoon baby. So mother and son would have been shocked by the paternity news but there was no attempt by either to dodge the issue.

An uncomplicated response

The Telegraph broke the story and a senior journalist reveals that, when he approached the archbishop with circumstantial evidence that had been garnered, Justin Welby’s uncomplicated reaction was “why don’t we do a DNA test?’  A saliva swab was taken from inside his cheek.

Lady Montague Browne, Sir Anthony’s widow and a former personal assistant to Churchill’s wife, readily produced a hair from her deceased husband’s hairbrush for the other half of the DNA test.

It appears that she had long suspected that he was Justin Welby’s father.  She told The Telegraph that, many years earlier, her then husband had teasingly said: “I’m told I have a son… you’ll find out one day.”

Moreover, when Archbishop Justin’s appointment was announced her son from a previous marriage (seems the aristocracy and Elizabeth Taylor have multi-matrimony in common) began discussing with Sir Anthony how uncannily alike they looked.

Sir Anthony Montague Browne

The old man was in a care home at the time and they spoke in French to avoid being overheard.

Separately, Jane Hoare-Temple, the daughter of Sir Anthony and his first wife, Noel, had concluded that there must be a family connection because the Archbishop was “the spitting image of my father”.  (Add a half-sister to the already interesting equation)

Archbishop Justin Welby

True leaders don’t duck

It all makes for a great story but I believe history will underscore the archbishop’s response rather that the juicy gossip.

I’ll treat you to his statement in full:-

In the last month I have discovered that my biological father is not Gavin Welby but, in fact, the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne.

This comes as a complete surprise.

My mother (Jane Williams) and father (Gavin Welby) were both alcoholics. My mother has been in recovery since 1968, and has not touched alcohol for over 48 years. I am enormously proud of her.

My father (Gavin Welby) died as a result of the alcohol and smoking in 1977 when I was 21.

As a result of my parents’ addictions my early life was messy, although I had the blessing and gift of a wonderful education, and was cared for deeply by my grandmother, my mother once she was in recovery, and my father (Gavin Welby) as far as he was able.

I have had a life of great blessing and wonderful support, especially from Caroline and our children, as well as a great many wonderful friends and family.

My own experience is typical of many people. To find that one's father is other than imagined is not unusual. To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal.

By the grace of God, found in Christian faith, through the NHS, through Alcoholics Anonymous and through her own very remarkable determination and effort, my mother has lived free of alcohol, has a very happy marriage, and has contributed greatly to society as a probation officer, member of the National Parole Board, Prison Visitor and with involvement in penal reform.

She has also played a wonderful part in my life and in the lives of my children and now grandchildren, as has my stepfather whose support and encouragement has been generous, unstinting and unfailing.

This revelation has, of course, been a surprise, but in my life and in our marriage Caroline and I have had far worse. I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes. Even more importantly my role as Archbishop makes me constantly aware of the real and genuine pain and suffering of many around the world, which should be the main focus of our prayers.

Although there are elements of sadness, and even tragedy in my father's (Gavin Welby’s) case, this is a story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives. It is a testimony to the grace and power of Christ to liberate and redeem us, grace and power which is offered to every human being.

At the very outset of my inauguration service three years ago, Evangeline Kanagasooriam, a young member of the Canterbury Cathedral congregation, said: “We greet you in the name of Christ. Who are you, and why do you request entry?” To which I responded: “I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God to travel with you in His service together.” What has changed? Nothing!

Cheated by death

Sir Winston Churchill

Father and son had met  within the Churchill circle. when Archbishop Justin was still a boy. Poignantly, when the archbishop was appointed in 2013, his father asked to see him but died ­­­­­­before that could happen.

Sir Anthony Arthur Duncan Montague Browne KCMG CBE DFC was a decorated war time pilot and diplomat who was private secretary to Sir Winston Churchill for the last ten years of the latter's life.

Gavin Welby, who died of a heart attack in 1977, also served in the Second World War but later “promoted” himself from lieutenant to captain A social climber, he’d changed his name from Weiler to Welby and dated John F Kennedy’s sister Pat as well as the actress Vanessa Redgrave. The Gatsby-like character stood for the UK Parliament twice and never revealed a short-lived marriage to an American heiress.

The archbishop would later describe him as “a complicated man” but “really, really brilliant”. Notably, he honours Gavin Welby in his statement and once remarked that if his presumed father had been honest about his life, it would have been “a fantastic story” of overcoming setbacks.

Two very different ‘fathers’. No doubt our archbishop is the sum of both parts and I love how real he is.

Lessons in identity

It appears that he hinted at the dramatic revelations to come when he spoke in Zambia to a gathering of young people from across Africa  two days before the news broke.

Addressing the question of personal identity on the eve of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting, he told them: “We need to be a church where I am who I am because I am in Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing that gives me identity and you will see why I am saying that in a couple days’ time."

Since that dramatic disclosure Archbishop Welby has been widely praised by faith leaders, Coptic, Jewish and Catholic alike for the dignity, grace and forgiveness with which he greeted the revelation.

For my part I’m immensely relieved that the Church scrapped the rule that barred an illegitimate man from becoming archbishop. That particular Canon was around for hundreds of years so perhaps there is hope for a couple of others to be trashed.

I also know that by simply writing this blog I have not only been alerted to several potential sermons on identity, I have a glimmer of hope that the example of compassion will take us on a journey of love towards  greater acceptance of political refugees and our  LGBT brothers and sisters.