Sticking your neck out

This years Greenbelt contribution is turning out to be quite challenging - naivély so perhaps. In previous years my Molten Meditation contribution has been like a sort of respite care offering to exhausted festival goers. It's creatively interesting and perhaps challenges some notions of what worship music and meditation is about but there's never been any real challenge theologically to either myself or the participants. This year is a massive challenge to both. 

Coming up with the ideas was easy enough and during conception it felt quirky, interesting, cheeky even - I was mixing in words and concepts that I don't really understand but they felt cool and important and what could be better than that? It's one thing to poke a bit of cheek at some easy targets, it's another when you start to realise that actually there's important things going on here that are neither frivolous or easy - that we're dealing with people's ideas about faith and what's sacred. There's that word again - sacred - i've been trying to work out what that means for years now and I still don't really know. That's why words such as Sacramental and Eucharist really interest me - I'm trying to get to the bottom of what they are all about and why they can cause such division and deep opinion. In comparison I feel like a sacramental athesist - I feel like there's no depth to my faith, nothing untouchable or losable, just the thinest veneer of belief that encompasses the poor excuse for a human that I am - although that sounds a lot grander than it actually is.

Our first contribution is "Spontaneous Eucharist". The concept is to explore the spontaneity inherent in the Eucharistic moment - see I told you I just like the sound of the words, what that actually means is open to discussion. My thinking was that sometimes this act of communion is revered like some sort of complex interplay of cosmic forces, or it's often treated so casually as to be largely irrelevant to anyone's life other than a quiet period in a service once a month - whereas perhaps there's something in there which is vital yet simple and exciting and accessible and important that could actually be useful as a spiritual act in a spontaneous moment in real life. So, could it (communion) bring healing to a situation, could it enable people to share in a celebratory moment, could it be the focus of joy, and a shift in focus from pain? So what does that look like? Two people in a pub have an argument where things are said in the heat of the moment - could one of them produce a Spontaneous Eucharist kit as a means of sharing something spiritual in order to bring healing and love back to their relationship? A group of friends enjoying time together, could someone produce a kit and in that moment of shared experience fill it with a sense of the divine in the sharing of bread and wine. That to me seems very beautiful.

But what I've discovered is that me "thinking" these things isn't good enough. Offering a box to someone to do something cool probably isn't going to get very far - it has no weight, no understanding, no gravitas, no backstory - it ends up as a sort of joke box, like "Holy Soap - to wash sins away" and that's most definitely not the point of the exercise. So what it needs is all the relaxed and grooviness of the casual free-church communion intermingled with the more sombre, poetic and heaviness of meaning from more traditional church. So we have to treat the parts with respect - the "ordinance" (is that the word?) need to be consecrated, prayers need to be said, they need preparation. In the giving of the box things need to be said to explain the intention, that it's serious that it should not be used lightly - this is the body and blood of Christ. Myself and Suzanne come at this from opposite ends of the Eucharistic spectrum and we've wrestled with the questions of whether it's actually possible to offer a Eucharist in this manner at all - what that means in terms of responsibility, of family, of consent, of a shared meal, of distribution and disposal. But I think we're getting there, I think by talking it through and really getting to the guts of what communion is, we're coming to a place where actually we all believe the same things and that's blooming marvellous.

Our second contribution is a service entitled "Sacramental Charismania" - again there's an element of cheek in that - poking fun at both my sacramental and my charismatic brethren. I'm a member of a charismatic free church, I lead worship there in the traditional guitar led worship band styli. All my more creative and alternative worship endeavours - Molten Meditation, Soul Circus - all exist in a more sacramental environment. Very few of my charismatic friends are interested in anything outside that arena. But I'm a rubbish charismatic and my experience of it has included a few ups and many downs to the point of crashing out of the religious game altogether - but I'm hanging in there. What I have found though is that there's something very special in charismatic worship - in the idea of giving time over to singing together and getting lost in music, in worshipping and losing yourself, in a spontaneous expression of yourself to god - it can be magnificent. It can also be chaos, hurtful, arrogant, graceless and controlling - those are the bits I'm interesting in exorcising. I want to pull something sacred out of the charismatic experience and I want to bring a depth, a grace, a lightness of touch and humbleness to what that means in the context of a service (quite lofty ideals I think - I must be bonkers). Charismatic expression is not doing well in the transition from modern to post-modern - contemporary christian music is often loudly criticised (something I'll get into in another post) - and it's largely associated with Evangelical christians, mega churches and the religious right. It's a bit odd really as the free-church movement had an immensely post-modern genesis - to break away from the traditional church like it did in order to start something that was led by the spirit, spontaneous and open. Somewhere, somehow it got trapped and locked itself into a very modern mode of being. I'm convinced there's a way forward for charismatic worship that reclaims the good stuff, rejects the mania, and embraces a faith of journey rather than destination, a faith of grace where we are rather than having to believe the right things in the right way. That's what this service is about.

I believe there are closet charismatics and ex-charismatics all over the place - particularly Greenbelt - looking for other ways of articulating their faith, but no one is engaging with the sort of expression that charismatics love - worship, singing, dancing, being happy and even clappy about god and then praying and sharing with one another. We're going to attempt to do something about that. It won't be easy. I feel very strongly that we can't assume that anyone is on our page and knows what we know or has been through the thought processes we have - so we have to come to that place together. We have to somehow rid ourselves of what made us feel bad in charismatic church - it's like we need to confess where we messed up and also let go of the hurt we may feel or the criticism we hold very justly in our hearts - we need to shake the rubbish out of ourselves. Then we need to decide what it is we're going to believe - but not exactly, not a creed of absolutes but more like a code of behaviour designed to restrict or discourage the worst excesses of man's manipulation - that doesn't make much sense but I think it will in time.

So that's where we are, what we're trying to achieve and some of the thought that's gone into it. I would really value input from other people on the service and what we're doing. Experiences, good and bad of charismatic worship - maybe you belong to a post-charismatic church - tell us about it!

Best place to share is our facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/SacramentalCharismania

Hating religion, loving Jesus

A youtube video went viral last week showing a guy performing his poem about how he hates religion and loves jesus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY . As this was “liked” and shared excitedly around Facebook like some kind of revelationary call to truth it set my mind a-pondering and here are my reflections.

I get what he says and it’s elegantly put but is it really a revelation to believe that this bad stuff over here is “bad” and this good stuff over here is ummm “good”? Religion did all this bad stuff – boo, hate religion whereas Jesus said all this good stuff – hooray, love Jesus. We have been saying this forever. Jesus said it, Peter said it, Paul said, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Wimber and the Pope has said it at some time or other. Every church ever created is born out of the idea that current religion is bad – we have 36,000 denominations in Christianity, which means there must at least be 35,999 bad ones.

It's an inspiring watch though - you feel yourself nodding along and thinking that he is soooo right. But for me, dwelling on these ideas, it starts to fracture. The thing that starts to get up my nose is that this tends to be about those other people or a mysterious entity called “religion” – it’s always about some other church, some other denomination – “yeah, I hate what those churches do, religious freaks, at least we just follow Jesus”. Hang on, who are we calling what here? How does the rest of society view this video? They just think we’re all a bunch of nuts – they roll their eyes and move on – don’t we get it yet? Blaming something else, someone else for what’s wrong with the church is such a typically modern response. What we should be doing, I believe, is directing this at ourselves – we are religion, we are the problem, we have to start by embracing that rather than kidding ourselves that it's something outside of our responsibility. That's like being an investment banker who believes they have nothing to do with the current economic climate. To move on, to move forward is to confess our part, to own up to how none of us live as Jesus suggested. Religion isn’t man searching for God, it’s people getting together and articulating what they believe to be true – how does the other one work, this “God searching for man” bit – what does that look like day to day, how is it not religious?

Whenever we meet, whenever we begin to articulate our faith we are engaging in religion. Do I hate the terrible things religion has done? Of course – and I continue to hate it where religion allows people to oppress other people, where it disempowers women, where it sets up exclusive clubs and power structures, when it ignores the poor and doesn’t challenge the wealthy. Where it reacts poorly to events like Occupy London on the steps of St Pauls rather than leads them, when it creates conflict rather than builds bridges. As the man says – “when it sets itself up as self-righteous”, but in his critique he can’t help but do the same.

But, I also love religion. I love religion when it produces movements for change, when it undermines Apartheid and abolishes the slave trade. When it produces schools for the poor, creates a health service and a welfare structure. When it creates the Salvation Army, Christian Aid, the Samaritans. I love religion when it gives birth to Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. I love the religion that provides prison chaplaincy, visiting systems and spiritual healing for inmates. I love the religion that cares for traditions, for our history, for our art our architecture, our heritage, our sense of self. I love a religion whose door is open to the homeless and destitute – I love the YMCA and Street Pastors in Norwich, the tranquil places of prayer like the Julian Chapel. I love a religion that reminds us that some things are sacred, some things are important and are held for me, outside of me. I love how religion gets us together and sends us out. I love how my grasp of the sacred is not a lonely one, how the path I walk in my faith has been trodden by a multitude before me. It’s religion that enables me to have a book that speaks of God and Jesus and life and religion that lets me read it with reference to a millennia of thought and deed.

We are religion, it’s up to us to be a force for good, to be good news. And nice one mate (video making blokey), thanks for making us think. Another thought - the biggest danger of missing the point (which is what I think he does) is that nothing will ever change - as long as we direct our criticism elsewhere believing it's us that has got it right then we allow things to stay the same, allow ourselves to stay the same because we are, after all, living for Jesus, not religion :)

Jay Bakker - Fall To Grace

In his youth Jay Bakker experienced the full gracelessness of the body of Christ. Being in the UK we’re not really aware of the impact or influence of Jay’s parents, Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker's, tele-visual ministry. In its heyday in the late 1980’s they were pulling in millions of viewers, but in the UK without satellite or cable TV our access to American tele-evangelists was through documentaries about crazy bonkers Americans, doing crazy bonkers things. So when the crash came it appeared only as a footnote to the usual delights of nonsense Americana. If, like me, the stereotype of prosperity preaching, insincere and overly emotional evangelists is enough to give you hives then I recommend Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book “Salvation on the Small Screen” as a useful antidote and a fresh, graceful response. 

Jay’s life experience of his family's fall from grace through financial and sexual scandal forms the background to his book “Fall To Grace”. God’s grace continues to be a conundrum to the church. From the modern church's focus on law to the post-modern’s focus on works, grace is often side-lined when, according to Jay, it should be the centre and focus of who we are and what we’re about. He calls the rediscovery of grace a “Revolution of God, Self and Society” and the book is laid out to tackle those three revolutions. Using the book of Galatians as his guide he takes us through what Paul thought about grace and how his ministry was forged upon it. Jay’s enthusiasm and passion for the subject that "saved his life" is boundless and you can also feel his frustration when relating stories of how God’s people seem intent on limiting this gift of grace. The book is broken up with “Grace Note” stories from other people sharing particular experiences of how grace has worked in their lives. I found these a useful diversion of focus from the writer who inevitably becomes the hero in his own story. It’s an easy read, very accessible and fairly short but one that provokes and challenges us to lift the lid of grace in our lives – it’s a vital lesson that we need to continue relearning until, as Jay hopes, it causes revolution. There are some weighty tombs out there on grace that dwell in deep theology with sombre thought - this isn't one of them. This a personal, honest, sometimes tragic but overwhelmingly hopeful account of grass roots grace working in the real world with all the mess and colour that implies. A rewarding read, thank you Mr Bakker.

Hell is a virus

Thinking about the good news/bad news concept that for there to be good news about the kingdom of god there must be bad news about hell (seems bonkers to me but there we are). I do community computer support and are forever removing virus' from people's PCs. The argument that there has to be bad news for there to be good news is very much like the current crop of virus' which appear as fake virus scanners telling you that your machine is infected and about to explode - the only way out is to subscribe to their anti-virus software for £30 every month forever. The thing is that the only virus was created by the fake anti-virus in the first place - when i remove that then their machines are perfectly fine.

This is very much like concepts of hell. People are living their lives quite happily and christians come along and introduce the idea of hell and eternal torture - their only way out is to subscribe to a religion which has control over them for the rest of their lives. If we could remove the fake hell virus then perhaps we can get on with living without having to subscribe to someone else's rules. We need to run the religious combofix scanner and purge ourselves of these false and harmful bits of terrorism.

Just a thought :)

A New Honesty

In episode two of the BBC’s new sitcom “Rev” we find our bumblingly earnest Adam, vicar of a declining urban parish, faced with sharing space and services with a temporarily displaced horde of happy clappy evangelicals. A comedy clash of styles is inevitable but it’s not the marrying of the different ways of worshipping that the programme focuses on, it’s the caricature of the evangelical vicar Darren. He’s written as supremely arrogant, certain of his role and rightness with a patronising rudeness that causes Adams wife Alex to remark on their first meeting “what a knob-end”. As a stereotype Darren’s character had some threads of recognisable truth but it was so overdone as to make me wonder where this level of cynicism comes from. Darren’s church arrived with plasma screens, lighting, a large P.A. system, comfortable seating and a smoothie bar, devices used by many a “Fresh Expression” to create an environment in which people can meet with God. Why do the creators of the programme believe that this is something to be scorned? Is there something in the world outside the church that requires it to remain the same, to be as expected, so when they do happen to pop along for a wedding or a funeral they will find it reassuringly empty, cold, joyless and crumbling. Or perhaps it’s because they can see through the vain attempts of the church to appear trendy and modern when it’s not actually very good at it.

Fresh Expressions or Alternative Worship can be seen as a way of jazzing up the church, to make it more culturally accessible, but that’s not the heart of it. At the heart is a desire for a new honesty in the church. An honesty that asks questions about why we are here, why are we passive participants in a gathering that doesn’t seem to have a need for us? Fresh Expressions emerge out of the involvement of the body, out of the desire of normal people to express themselves, to meet the creator with their own creativity, to move beyond the singing of songs into a wider experience of art and life so that everyone’s talents may be employed in the worship of God. Is this self-serving? Of course it is! Jesus doesn’t want observers of worship, he wants active worshippers, knee deep in the love of God and each other, a people who want abundant life to break out in their abundance of worship.

Church should evolve from the marrying of people’s desire to worship God and their desire to express themselves. A Cathedral may be a place of worship but in a moment of honesty we see that it also celebrates the architectural endeavours of man. The architect may desire to worship God but he also desires to design and build a great building. The stained glass artist may desire to worship God but he also desires to produce great glass work. The Bishop may desire to worship God but he also desires a community of believers. A worship leader may desire to worship God but he also desires to play well, or a worship band may desire to worship God but also just wants to enjoy playing together. Creativity has always played a vital role in the gathering of believers and when we lose that, when we leave it all to the couple of people at the front, then we will find ourselves asking “why are we here?” Redressing, rebranding or repackaging in an effort to appear trendy is building on the sand of fashion and culture. To build on people’s desire to worship through the expression of themselves is to build on the rock of the faith in peoples hearts and from there these other things may well emerge.

It wasn’t the plasma screens, lights or even the smoothie bar that was dishonest about Darren’s church, it was his belief that it was all somehow the work of God and much more important than dealing with the realities of the people in his midst, especially those that didn’t fit the image. If instead we approach worship with the sort of honesty that has doubts and asks questions then it opens it up to our contribution, our participation, our expression. This will find itself reclaiming ritual, invigorating liturgy, finding new breath in old songs as well as creating new ones. This is what connects us to God and each other as a creative body of worshippers. Church then becomes an invitation into a creative process.

I Don't Have a Clue...

.... about prayer and direction and hearing from god or knowing the path. How do you do it exactly? How do you alter the fabric of time and space to go where you feel you should? Those frustrating words "i feel god is leading me to..." followed by "a new place" or "a new job" or "the fridge" how do we conjure them up? Why is it that prayer only works in retrospect? Maybe i'm not praying the right kind of prayer, maybe i'm not reading the signs, maybe there are no signs and prayer has nothing to do with me. When it all goes right, planned or unplanned, I can happily point out the Almighty's guiding hand, but when it doesn't, even when it appeared to be, am i now permitted to shake my fist at the sky?

I don't know what i'm doing. I talk cleverly about a god i can't possibly understand and the more i learn the more envious i become of people with simple faiths, who seem unconcerned about the injustice, about the oppression and neglect in their midst. Could i not be a happy clappy, smiley, bubbly, fundie christian rather than a malcontent? Why is it that i pin so much on the hope that gods hope matches my own while my prison vetting forms remain unfinished?

I have tiny moments of jesus-like behaviour followed by a saturation of self - self importance, self indulgence, self pity. How do we do it? Is to have faith, to trust in god to do nothing in my own strength? Do I sit awaiting the bailiffs trusting that somehow god has a plan of poverty for me and my family. How ethical is it to put money in the collection plate when none of the money actually belongs to you?

I don't have a clue. This religion is broken. Maybe now god can do something with me - or maybe i'm just trying to give the impression of hopefulness. Is it not stressful enough trying to make our own way in life without worrying about what god wants us to do? Well come on then god, speak up!

Amen

Homosexuality - unraveling the threads

Through conversations, forum discussions, listening to seminars, reading books and studying scripture I've begun to find myself pulling together all sorts of threads that increasingly seem to be suggesting that there's good news for people with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender orientation. By "good news" I mean the good news about Christ's kingdom, derived from the life of Jesus and proven in his death and resurrection. I'm not a trained theologian, I'm a punter, a consumer of religious goods and services. I don't claim to have had a single original thought about the subject, but I've been a christian all my life, loved Jesus all my life, read the bible all my life and I listen with my heart and my head. This article is about what I've found to be true, or at least about where I've found I can place my hope on the question of homosexuality. This hope also feeds into thoughts about wider gender issues and masculinity generally but that's not the focus here.

Where are we now?
Currently the traditional teaching on homosexuality declares that any sexual behaviour outside of a heterosexual marriage, between one man and one woman, is deviant and inherently sinful. John Stott in his book "New questions faced by Christians today" finds the sin of homosexuality so obvious that he fails to make any reference to where the bible might back that up - it is, after all, clearly counter to nature and the whole or God's created order. Here's a little snippet from a film called Prayers for Bobby where Mary Griffith (played by Sigorney Weaver) is addressing a town meeting and highlights the generally accepted stance on homosexuality.



We'll hear more from Mary later on.
I believe there to be four stages to a Christian's beliefs about homosexuality:

1. Homosexuality is an abomination - pure and simple, characterised by placards declaring "God hates fags".
2. Homosexual orientation isn't a sin in itself, but the practice of it: two gay people having sex, most certainly is. This assumes that the solution to all gay people is celibacy. This stage is characterised by "love the sinner, hate the sin"
3. A rising discomfort with the idea that the only choice for gays is the denial of intimacy, the constant battle with desire and a life lived at the sort of level of holiness that no normal person could hope to achieve. Aren't all sins are the same...? This stage is characterised by avoiding the question all together.
4. I hope to show that stage 4 is not a place for excusing sin or turning a blind eye to something for the sake of compassion (although compassion is often sorely lacking in this debate) but is a place of affirmation for gay relationships, rooted in the gospel of Christ.

How do we even begin? I'm a believer in transformation. I believe that as Christians God is trying to reform us into the image of Jesus, but we have to want to change - and we so don't want to change. Sometimes we resist change so manically that it results in churches splitting up over the furniture, the use of books or a projector, modern songs or older hymns let alone points of theological tension. I used to be a smoker - really enjoyed smoking but I knew that at some point I'd have to pack it in. I read a book by Alan Carr who had discovered some simple, penetrating truths about smoking and by the time you got to the last page you would have stopped smoking for good - no withdrawal, no patches, no cold turkey. It worked for lots of friends of mine (although it didn't work for me). I then read his larger, more expanded book where he said that when he had finished the first book he sent it to many of his closest smoker friends, partly to say "look what I did", but mostly in order to free them from the devils of smoking. He was dismayed to find out that although all the friends accepted the gift none of them actually read it. They feared that if they did it might actually cause them to change. I believe when it comes to changes in our belief systems we come up against a similar fear - a fear of change, of what that might mean, and if we're not ready for change, if the change has not already begun then we're unlikely to be transformed even when good evidence is placed before us. You can trace this back to Luther and Calvin suggesting Copernicus was a nut, through the support of the slave trade, race equality, gender equality and now homosexuality - perfectly godly people who were not ready to be transformed would desperately defend the previous state.

Most Christians would probably place themselves somewhere around stage 2 and stage 3. I'm unconvinced that this article will prove to be anything other than interesting for stage 2 people but i hope that some of you stage 3 loiterers will find something to move you forward. As "radical evangelical prophet" Tony Campolo puts it in "Speaking my Mind", with his head in stage 2, his heart in stage 3 and his hope in stage 4 "There must be good news for homosexuals. Given the likelihood that their sexual orientations will not change, we must do more than simply bid them to be celibate; we must find ways for them to have fulfilling, loving experiences so that we affirm their humanity and ensure their participation in the body of Christ."

We're going to look at this in three parts, each requiring consideration before you can really run with any conclusions. Firstly, Scripture, the verses that form the basis of the anti-gay theology. You may say that's all we need but I don't believe that, so please bear with me. Next I'll share some thoughts on marriage as this, I believe, is the strongest argument for heterosexual exclusivity in the minds of the evangelical. And thirdly we look at the reality of the gay christian experience. Compassion without scripture can be tossed and turned to serve all sorts of agendas - scripture without compassion divorces it from the gospel of christ - at least I think so :)

Scripture
It should be noted that nowhere in the bible does the text refer to the orientation of homosexuality. Same-sex relationships would certainly have existed, especially amongst the Greek and Roman communities, so it's not something that would be completely alien to Paul or other biblical writers. It's interesting that there's no mention or open discussion or reference to people entering into homosexual relationships, purely references to specific acts.

Here are the verses most commonly cited:

• Leviticus 18: 22, 20: 13
• Genesis 19
• Romans 1: 18-32
• 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11
• 1 Timothy 1: 9-10

Leviticus
The words in Leviticus are deep within the law of Moses. There's much discussion over what parts of "The Law" should be kept and what no longer applies. Jesus indicates that every part of the law should be kept although he models a very different way of applying it, whereas Paul releases all of us from its grasp because of the grace of God. Commonly it's agreed that cultural law, laws about food, dress, kosher or the "purity" laws can be discarded whereas the "moral law" (ten commandments etc) should still apply. The verses that describe a homosexual act as an "abomination" sit right alongside a large number of purity laws. The law was written at a time when the Jews had just escaped slavery and were wandering in the desert. God had told them they are a chosen people and much of the law related to the establishing of the Nation of Israel. The most important thing on their minds was to have babies and grow in number - anything that went against that was essentially treason against the state, and therefore against God himself. So obsessed were they about this that the "seed of man", a bloke's sperm, believed at that time to contain all the elements needed for creating life, could only be used for procreation. Ejaculation was explicitly for the making of babies - anything else was punishable by death. The words used in the verse are also interesting where they say "lay with a man as with a woman". Women were second class citizens, if that, they were owned by their husbands with no individual rights, no inheritance and little worth. So in Leviticus what's being said is that it is despicable for a man to waste his sperm on another man, and in the process make that man feel like a woman - it's a sin against man, a sin against the nation and a sin against God. For these verses to be held to be binding today, to treat them with any kind of honesty, requires that we take on a great deal of other teaching about what we do with sperm and how we treat women. This has a massive impact on masturbation, oral sex, wet dreams, and contraception; it has implications for couples who can't have children.  Many good christian friends recommended my wife and I had sex to bring about the birth of our overdue second child - totally contrary to the teachings of Leviticus. The law of Moses feels like a messy business to modern eyes but it was right for Israel's covenant with God at that time - although often abused and misunderstood. To pick and choose these verses out of their context as a demonstration of God's wrath against homosexual behaviour is dishonest at best. Here's a scene from the West Wing where President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) is about to address a group of radio talk show hosts who are having tea at the White House and is distracted by the host of a particularly conservative Christian station. He articulates some of the disparity in our interpretation and implementation of Mosaic law far better than I can.





(Additional notes - Much of what we know about the early Israel nation comes from their oral history known as the Talmud. It greatly expands on the law, it's like the cultural outworking, the day-to-day reality of what they were given. It's from the Talmud that we get all this stuff about a man's seed and also a lot of the attitude to women as possessions and second class citizens. It's remarkable how much influence this has had on the church, even though few Christians are aware of its existence. Somehow, we all know that according to the church masturbation is considered to be sinful, although it's not actually mentioned in the bible - it comes from the Talmud. It allows us to (i believe) wrongly interpret Genesis 38:9 (where God kills Onan for "spilling his seed upon the ground") by ignoring the fact that Onan disobeyed God - it was the disobedience that caused God's anger, not the resting place of his seed. When Jesus was criticising the teachers of the law he was often referring to the Talmud and how these things were added to the law and create such a heavy burden for people. Anyway, that's where these ideas about seed and sexuality are most talked about and although they are not enshrined as scripture they do tell us an awful lot about the Jewish society of the time.)


One other visual aid that doesn't actually prove anything but is quite remarkable. This is an image of the pages of Leviticus laid out in Word. The highlights in yellow show things that are illegal today (incest, stealing, dishonesty). The highlights in blue are things the church considers to be wrong but are not actually illegal (idol worship, dishonouring parents, adultery). The rest is god's law that we totally ignore - even though God says throughout that "I AM the lord your god and you will obey my decrees". So it's not as if there's any special pleading going on regarding gay sex, rather it's treating Leviticus in the same way we always have - in the way Jesus did.

Genesis 19 - Sodom and Gamorrah
The obliteration of Sodom and Gamorrah is often attributed to sexual promiscuity and homosexuality and in fact we get the word "Sodomite" and "Sodomy" from this association. The story referred to is the one of Lot who is visited by a couple of angels. Men from the town surround their house and demand to have sex with these visitors - this would be commonly referred to as "gang rape". Terrible though this is it's not the reason for the destruction of the town - that had been decided well before this event which we discover when the angels tell Lot why they've come - Genesis 19:13 "The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it." No doubt sexual immorality played a part but both Ezekiel and Jesus give a different emphasis on the reason for their destruction. Ezekiel 16 "49 Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen ". And Matthew 10 "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. 15 I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town." The key issue then is hospitality rather than homosexuality. It's shocking to note that Lot offered his two daughters to the mob as an alternative to the angels. PJ Smyth in his book "Relationships and Sexuality" bizarrely suggests that it was the lesser of two evils because at least the rape would be heterosexual - I feel it's more an indication of the value and importance placed on women at that time. In the surrounding cultures it was common for a victorious army to rape the defeated soldiers, to humiliate them, to make them like women - this is the sort of thing that's going on here. Maybe Lot's poor treatment of these sisters gives a clue to their unchallenged incestuous behaviour later on in the story. These are very strange times. In any case God did not destroy Sodom and Gamorrah because of homosexual acts, he destroyed them because they were proud and had forgotten how to be hospitable and compassionate.

Romans 1: 18-32
Most commentaries on homosexuality restrict their quote to verses 26 and 27 - ²⁶Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. I find this odd (or perhaps telling) because even pulling back a little and viewing a couple of the surrounding verses sheds a load more light on what's going on here. Paul is talking about idolatry and in my reading he appears to be speaking very specifically to a group of people who knew God, who exchanged the glory of God for something else, for creatures or images or man-made "things" that they worshipped. Idol worship at the time often involved the use of temple prostitutes and sexual rituals and that seems to fit what Paul is talking about. There's no mention of gay relationships and the words "abandoned natural relations" suggests that these are heterosexual people indulging in same-sex intercourse as a means of worship. I'm often puzzled as to why we don't just read the words that Paul wrote instead of projecting onto the text what we want it to say. Often I hear people using Romans 1 to describe the general behaviour of non-christians - people without Jesus are depraved after all - although in all honesty I cannot identify this behaviour in any of my non-christian friends. Very few commentators stumble into Romans 2 where it says that we "do the same things".

Jeremy Marks in his book "Exchanging the truth of God for a lie" says "It is ironic that people who find homosexuality hard to accept, are so quick to quote Romans 1:25, against us, telling us that we have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. In fact something very different and dangerous has happened. Instead, many of us exchanged the truth about ourselves for a lie, trying to conform to a narrow perception of what the Bible demands. Focusing on right doctrine and warning against wrong docrine is to feed on forbidden fruit. So we feed from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and die, instead of finding our nourishment from the tree of life, in Jesus Christ."

1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 & 1 Timothy 1: 9-10
These two passages are very similar and use similar words that are rendered in most translations to "homosexual" but the usage is ambiguous and the source of much debate.

 1 Corinthians 6: ⁹Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders ¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Timothy 1:⁹ We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰ for the sexually immoral, for those practising homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers. And it is for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

On the surface these appear to be devastating verses, particularly when you are looking for verses to back up those found in Leviticus and Romans, but with those other verses deconstructed they don't stand so easily on their own. The most accepted interpretation of Timothy today is that Paul was referring to "pederastry" as opposed to homosexuality. Pederastry was an accepted practice in ancient Greece where a male tutor took on a young boy as a student which was often exploited into a sexual relationship - we would call that "child abuse" and is not something anyone would condone. In Corinthians the Greek word used is "arsenokoitai" (which, in a moment of childish flippancy, I find quite hilarious) but its meaning remains ambiguous and it doesn't often appear in other ancient literature and so we can't really say what it says. However, we continue to use the word "homosexual" without any regard for its impact or how what it may mean today is vastly different from what was meant back then.

In either case what is Paul actually talking about? He's warning against actions motivated by selfish self-interest at the expense of others. He's also talking about the law being used unlawfully (1 Timothy 1:8) and that everything is permissible but not everything is helpful (1 Corinthians 6:12).

Last year at Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival I heard Gene Robinson speak. Gene was the first openly gay Bishop to be ordained in a mainline Christian denomination and gave some wonderful talks that have been very helpful to me in unlocking some of these ideas. In this short snippet he summarises a view of the verses we have been looking at.



Are these verses enough to justify the traditional approach to homosexuality? Even if you refute my findings is there enough there to warrant the unwavering belief that the Bible condemns loving relationships between people of the same sex? There are a number of examples of intimate same-sex relationships in the bible - Ruth & Naomi, or David & Jonathan, Jesus & his beloved disciple John, or Paul & Timothy. There's no firm indication one way or the other concerning the existence of any sexual content but when we read in 2 Samuel 1: 26 "I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women." it's got to make you wonder whether some of our attitudes come much more from our Victorian rather than our biblical heritage.

Marriage
This for me is the rock upon which everything rests. All our thoughts and arguments break upon this God given, divine institution, outside of which no sexual activity is permitted. To affirm gay relationships is to allow and endorse same-sex marriage - to do less is to either undermine the divine nature of marriage, or condone the unrepentant sin of sex outside of its protection.

On my journey one of the many things that annoyed me about the gay debate is that as it stands we (the church) have nothing to say to homosexuals. We consider their natural orientation to be sinful, we have no good news other than celibacy (which, let's face it, isn't great news) and we have no other moral guidance to offer. If, however, we accepted homosexuality and same-sex marriage, suddenly homosexuals would become subject to all the same moral and life-giving guidance that heterosexual christians benefit from and then we would have something to say! We could encourage monogamy and the power of relationship through marriage; we could afford them the same rights and social standing. It would be an awesome thing.

The passion with which the godly ideal of marriage is defended took me by surprise during my research. There's this almost Platonic rendering of the ideals of male, female and marriage - an unchanging, transcendent, perfection to which we, in our fallen state, must conform. John Stott in New Issues Facing Christians Today puts it - "Here then are three truths which Jesus affirmed: (1) heterosexual gender is a divine creation; (2) heterosexual marriage is a divine institution; and (3) heterosexual fidelity is the divine intention." To which he adds "A homosexual liaison is a breach of all three of these divine purposes." All of this is extrapolated from a single verse in Genesis 2: 24  "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." which is then quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19: 6. This all seems fair enough but what gets me is the insistence that this state of marriage between one man and one woman, this divine institution has remained constant and unchangingly true then, now and forever. By Genesis 5 we already have a reference to polygamy, not in a negative sense but in a matter-of-fact listing of genealogy and the practice of polygamy continues throughout the bible - King Solomon famously had 700 wives (and 300 concubines) and was the anointed king of God's people. The only mildly negative comment comes much later from Paul when he suggests that an Elder should have only one wife - but that's probably for logistical reasons rather than trying to maintain a divine model of marriage. Also this divine institution states that the man should leave his father and mother to join his wife and yet so many of us leave home long before we even meet our future wives or husbands - is that ok? Personally my experience of marriage is without question divine - every time my wife and I make love we can hear the faint sound of angels weeping, the earth trembling and the very firmament of the heavens glow in response. As I said, I don't quite get it.

What I do get is that God blesses relationship. I know that God loves the fact that my wife and I have committed our lives to one another - he rejoices at how our love can give a glimmer of the kingdom of God and how our faith in our marriage and the vows we made makes our relationship stronger. The nature of that marriage, the way it was done, whether we followed someone's divine model or not is unimportant - God cares about the relationship. According to an unchanging, compassionless reading of Scripture my own marriage turns out to be one of adultery; my wife was a divorcee. We do not fit the model and cannot conform to the Platonic ideals. However, I believe, as Jesus asked whether people were made for the Sabbath, or the Sabbath for people, then marriage is not there to bind us into a rigid model how things should be, but rather it's there to help us commit our lives to one another, to be something greater than the sum of our parts and to bring glory to God in the love we share.

I in no way wish to somehow make marriage unimportant or even suggest that the words in the bible are wrong or no longer apply. Marriage between a male and a female, a joining of lives, the combination of complimentary sexual organs, the creation of children - all that is good and right and true. However, we tend to project our western, modern idea of marriage upon this idea and make lots of claims that are not actually there in the text. There's no mention of love, there's no mention of rings, a service, a contract, vows, parties, stag/hen nights. In fact God expresses very little interest in how our culture celebrates the union of two people. If the sexual act brings marriage into being in God's eyes then sex outside of marriage would no longer exist - we'd be married to our first partner and after that we'd just have adultery. What I'm suggesting is that God doesn't need to give a strict definition of marriage because the over arching story of the bible demonstrates Gods interest in love, in relationship, in covenant, in faithfulness and it's that which I believe is reflected in marriage. If we believe that homosexuality is an orientation, if we believe that their attraction and desire for physical intimacy with people of the same sex is natural, then following God's way should open up marriage to these couples so that they can reflect God in their relationship.


Compassion
When the arguments and theology are exhausted all you are left with are people's lives. We find ourselves here, right now, and this is all we've got to work with. We hear many fine and wise words from many learned men on this subject (very little from women - maybe they are trying to tell us something - although it's more likely down to a flaw in my research and the patriarchal stream in which i find myself) but the voice we rarely hear is the one from gay Christians themselves. It's not surprising considering how marginalised they are. Even people at stage 2 and above rarely mention homosexuality with the same weight as any other sin - it always gets special treatment, how ever unintentioned. Here's a classic example from PJ Smyth who undermines his claim that we're all equal in the eyes of God in his "Definition of terms" - "Heterosexual: a person with "natural" sexual orientation towards the opposite sex" and so a homosexual would be a person with a "natural" sexual orientation towards the same sex? No, he can't help his hyperbole "Homosexual: someone who experiences sexual or excessive physical or emotional attraction towards someone of the same sex. This word can cover both males and females. Obviously there is a line that is crossed when moving from inclination to practice". Any person actually requiring the definitions would now be under the impression that gays are "excessive" and it's not an orientation, it's an "attraction". Try as he might to love the sinner and hate the sin he struggles to hide his condemnation - "Homosexuality is a deception. It is based on a lie. I have Christian friends who are practising homosexuals and their inability to see the plain truth in scripture plainly evidences this deception to me". Jeremy Marks came from the same stream of churches as PJ and set up "Courage" in 1988 to provide discipleship programmes for gay Christians in order to free them from this deception. He writes "In reality, the long-term consequences for many who took part in our discipleship programmes were depressing - near disastrous for some. The long-term damage to all of us has been incalculable. A strategy that had largely been inspired by hyped-up charismatic expectations of change proved spiritually catastrophic. Many people gave up their faith altogether..... I can now clearly see that this demand to follow a fundamentalist biblical perspective and refuse to listen to our intuitive sense of what is right, was utterly abusive and morally indefensible."

The church often makes no attempt to understand or relate honestly to gay people. They cite stereotypes and dodgy statistics that paint homosexuals as promiscuous, lust crazed animals who are incapable of lasting or meaningful relationships. John Stott, after a worthy defence of marriage, goes on to counter what some people have suggested about the quality of gay relationships - "... the concept of lifelong, quasi-marital fidelity in homosexual partnerships is largely a myth, a theoretical ideal which is contradicted by the facts. The truth is that gay relationships are characterised more by promiscuity that by fidelity." he then cites a study which concludes "Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience - it is virtually the only experience.... in short, there is practically no comparison possible to heterosexual marriage in terms of either fidelity or longevity. Tragically, lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience" to which Stott adds "There seems to be something inherently unstable about homosexual partnerships." Jeremy Marks points out that the majority of faithful same-sex couples are not to be found in the clubs, bars or saunas, and, knowing how society often treats gays, they tend to live quiet, discrete lives that wouldn't show up on any surveys radar - he lists the names of 84 couples he knows personally in long-term same-sex relationships. Sadly John Stott is well regarded and gets quoted a lot - Nicky Gumble references the same argument in his "Searching Issues" book that expands on some of the questions raised on Alpha Courses. I find it distressing to imagine a gay person on an Alpha Course discovering that not only is their natural attraction to people of the same sex sinful, but that they are also actually incapable of achieving long term happiness with one partner. Good News?

If homosexuality is a sin just like any other sin then why do we single them out for special dehumanising treatment? PJ tells us that we shouldn't "gay-bash", however, "it is not possible to accept a practising homosexual into membership". He then set's out his "action plan" with repentance first, followed by a command to "Ruthlessly & totally break all homosexual relationships. Destroy all pornography, letters, mementos etc. If applicable, get rid of all effeminate/masculine clothes & mannerisms and speech" and finally confess and pray with someone and expect daily discipline for the rest of your life. So presumably he's saying that you should stop wearing pink and mincing around like a girl. It's become fashionable in "New Reformed" circles, of which PJ's church is part, to champion or reclaim masculinity. Their belief is that church is too female - it's not keeping "real men" in attendance due to the lack of strong male leadership, and leaves just weedy, overly emotional men in the church. Christian men need to get a bit more macho. I'd like to offer an alternative view (maintaining the "working man" stereotype). Some men don't come to church because all their working week they have to answer to someone, their employer/manager/boss. Come the weekend the last thing they want to do is spend their Sunday morning answering to someone else and find themselves subject to yet another hierarchical system. What we all need on a sunday is a sense of equality, contribution, a sense of worth, for ourselves and our family - and strong, exclusively male, authoritarian leadership just doesn't do that for me. Homosexuality of course ruins the whole macho thing. I believe that often the reality is that gay men scare us straight men at a very basic level. As men we're used to being at the top of the sexual food chain - we're the predator. Introduce a homosexual man and suddenly we're in danger because we know exactly how predatory men are. It's like when your teenage daughter gets her first boyfriend - it's terrifying because you know exactly what the boy is after. It's, I suggest, one of the reasons why many churches keep women out of positions of leadership - fear of losing that "natural" place of power at the top of the sexual food chain. But these things are such an illusion, so counter to a gospel where victory is through weakness and sacrifice, through love and service, through denying oneself, picking up your cross and following Christ, being a body of believers, a royal priesthood where there is no Jew or Greek, male and female, rich or poor, gay or straight. Jesus was all about bringing the outsider in, finding the lost sheep, the lost coin, the stranger, the prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners, allowing all to eat at his table.

The church experience of many gay Christians is characterised by depression, low self esteem, loss of faith or simply walking away to what will probably be a better life. How do we expect people to "be" when we are constantly showing them how deviant they are? Franciscan Monk Richard Rohr, in this book "Things hidden - Scripture as Spirituality", has this to say about the human condition "With a lack of mysticism and any contemplative mind in some denominations, I find that many Christians still have no knowledge of the soul's objective union with God (1 John 3:2, 2 Peter 1:4). They often actually fight me on it, quoting to me that "all things human are evil and depraved" or "humans are like piles of manure, covered over by Christ." Such a negative starting point will have a very hard time creating loving or responsive people, just as when Rome tells homosexual persons that they are "intrinsically disordered". How do you ever undo such foundational damnation?"

Mary Griffith, who we saw at the start of this article, tells us more about how she came to understand the full impact of what we believe about homosexuality (in this slightly Hollywood-ised dramatisation of her story). Here's the rest of her speech:



So, is there a way out for homosexuals? Surely God can cure them, change them, help them? "Courage" ran for ten years as an "ex-gay" organisation focused on discipling homosexuals in the hope that God would change them. They tried everything - they became "conference junkies" praying that this time God would heal them. They tried heterosexual marriage, hoping that a good woman would sort them out. All the while they lived which such a faith and hope in the gospel of Christ that it would put the rest of us to shame. It didn't work. Does it ever "work"? In Jeremy's experience, very rarely. This lack of fruit in the face of such faith should surely be telling us something. Courage changed their view of homosexuality in the year 2000 and continues to support gay Christians by affirming their sexuality as well as their commitment to God. Jeremy sums up by saying "The years after founding Courage, I slowly began to recognise the putrefying fruit of our work. We had been rooted in traditional conservative Christian teaching but I began to realise how false much of our ethos had been. With the support and inspiration of many others, I was able to change the course of our ministry and begin to help gay people find true freedom in Christ - a freedom beyond our hopes and dreams. As I began to recognise my own internalised homophobia, I too came to find full acceptance in Christ."

Peterson Toscano is a remarkable man. I saw him speak a few years ago and he challenged everything I thought I knew about homosexuality and God's plan. Here's him talking about why he pursued a cure for his homosexuality.



Where do we go from here?
The reality is that we've come so far already. If you're not at stage 1 then you've evolved from the traditional teaching of the church and are already on a journey of change and transformation. What moves us from one stage to another is compassion - the same compassion that Jesus showed to people numerous times in the gospels when he prevented the letter of the law from being carried out and replaced it with love, grace and forgiveness. I don't believe the bible is trying to show us who to exclude and who to judge, instead it invites us to live as part of an ongoing story that's still developing, still transforming us into the image of Christ.

We are the church, we're the body of Christ and how that body is perceived is important to me. Does society view us as a life giving sanctuary, a place where the poor and needy are welcomed, where the stranger is accepted with open arms and people are declared free in the good news of Christ's kingdom? Or are we viewed as homophobic, emotional manipulators and perhaps financially corrupt? Recently we've had Conservative candidate and activist Philipa Stroud "outed" by The Observer because of her beliefs that homosexuals can be "cured by prayer". There's been all this business with the owners of a Bed & Breakfast refusing entry to a gay couple "because of their Christian beliefs" and we've had a man sacked from his relational counselling job because he refused to counsel gay relationships, again because of his Christianity and backed up by a former Archbishop of Canterbury. Doesn't anyone else feel embarrassed about this? Should we then tow the cultural line, shouldn't the church be counter-cultural? Yes it should be counter-culture but in terms of the enormity of the love we give, the bottomlessness of our compassion, of our acceptance, of the freedom we offer through Jesus. I don't believe it's good to be lagging behind culture as it develops and evolves, where secular charity events like Children in Need and Comic Relief touch and motivate people in a far greater way than the church ever does. The church needs to demonstrate the kingdom of God.

Against these things there is no law..... I believe we're at a point of historic change. The church has had to think about this question for all of 43 years - when it became legal in 1967. By 2067 this will all be a mild blip in the history books - but right now we're in the thick of it and we can't afford to ignore it. If nothing else I believe I've shown that the church needs to seriously consider its position, to look again at the fruit of their policies, but I also believe it's unlikely to do so without the church members getting involved. The change has to start in us. Maybe we can start to read the bible without automatically replacing "immorality" with "homosexuality". Maybe if we can be aware of how we sometimes bind ourselves to the law. Maybe if we came to understand that the problem with promiscuity and the resulting broken relationships, are the same regardless of gender or orientation. Then perhaps we can start to see God's glory in the commitment between all couples, in the love that's shared, the vows that are pledged and the healing and sense of worth that's born out of such companionship. Then maybe we would be the church of good news for everyone.

With that in mind, let's try reading about freedom in Christ with fresh "stage 4" eyes and maybe, like Paul, we can be unashamed of the Gospel.

Galatians 5

Freedom in Christ

 ¹It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  ²Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

 ⁷You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? ⁸That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ⁹"A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." ¹⁰I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. ¹¹Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. ¹²As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

 ¹³You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature^[a]; rather, serve one another in love. ¹⁴The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."^{[b] 15}If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Life by the Spirit

 ¹⁶So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ¹⁷For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.  ¹⁹The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.