Wading back into the post-Thanksgiving blog/web/email world I was so very pleased to have the following report from the UK's Inclusive Church in my inbox.
It gives a great summation of a just-completed conference entitled "Drenched in Grace" and commmitted to the proclamation of God's inclusive love. Speakers included Sharon Moughtin-Mumby, Jenny Te Paa and Louis Weil and the link at the bottom of this post will take you to transcripts or recordings of their talks.
I had the privilege of meeting with the Inclusive Church folks when in London last month. I look forward with great enthusiasm to partnering with them to offer a global witness to the power of the Living God working in and through us to transcend our divisions and differences and call us to the only true unity: the unity of being many members of the one Body of Christ.
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[26NOVEMBER] Last week, 180 people gathered in Derbyshire, England for “Drenched in Grace,” Inclusive Church’s first residential conference.
We met as Anglicans, committed to our church. We met as evangelicals and charismatics, as catholics, liberals and conservatives. We met at the Lord’s table - the unifying core of the conference. We reclaimed with confidence the orthodoxy of the inclusive Gospel we celebrate in the Anglican Communion.
We offered a model of engagement to the Communion at large. In our disagreements we acknowledged the primacy of God’s love in which we are all held together, but we did not keep silent about our differences.
Dr Jenny Te Paa (St John’s College, Auckland NZ) opened the conference. In a strong speech, Te Paa reminded us “how pervasive the reach of enmity has become amongst us.” She urged us “not so much to focus too intently and singularly on the bad behaviour of the few, but rather to focus anew on the very good behaviour of the many.”
Revd Dr Sharon Moughtin-Mumby in her talk “Out of the Silence” said “I believe it is vital for us to .... refuse to skip over the difficult and challenging or awkward passages of the Bible, just as in Inclusive Church we are committed to refusing to skip over those who can be made to feel like the difficult, challenging or awkward members of the people of God.”
Revd Dr Louis Weil (Berkeley, California) spoke about the central place baptism holds in our ecclesial understanding. Speaking of the sacraments of baptism and communion, he said “our obsession with validity has weakened the boldness of the sacramental signs. This creates a low level of expectation and weakens our understanding of mission.” We are in communion with one another by God’s grace, not by any human action. “I am in communion with Peter Akinola (the Archbishop of Nigeria)” he said. “I will remain in communion with Peter Akinola until we are both on the other side.”
Canon Lucy Winkett (St Paul’s Cathedral) spoke of the need to “forge relationships on the anvil of profound disagreement.” “The worry that we have as Anglicans is that our faith can be so driven by fear that our liturgy is tedious and our public pronouncements shrill and irrelevant.” In a powerful and wide ranging address she called for engagement with others across the theological spectrum.
Mark Russell, the Chief Executive of Church Army, sent us out into the world, calling passionately for the church to unite. “Unity is not saying that we will always agree with each other, unity is a deeper spiritual concept. Unity allows me to love my brothers and sisters even when I don’t always agree with them. Love allows me to hold difference and diversity.” He challenged us to “go from here, with a renewed vision to pursue a costly unity, and a vision to bring a gospel of hope to all.”
Many present are increasingly alienated and distanced from the church which they see as home. They are being rendered spiritually homeless. A common question was – why are our episcopal friends, who value and support classical Anglican comprehensiveness, so silent? Why do they, with few exceptions, leave the field clear to those who continually seek to undermine the Communion and deny its profound unity?
We have a Gospel to proclaim in a world disenchanted by the actions of those who proclaim a message which excludes. We invite them to meet with us, so that we can together move into the world with a vision of costly unity and hope for all in Jesus Christ.
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Inclusive Church is "an network of groups and individuals committed to celebrating and maintaining the Anglican tradition of diversity and welcome." Read or listen to talks from the conference on the Inclusive Church website ...
5 comments:
It is good to hear Louis Weil speak of the effecacy of the sacraments in that way. We need to hear more of that. I have been scandalized about the way that our bishops have greeted many of the eccumenical efforts with the Lutherans and the United Methodists. The effecacy is worked by God, not by human action.
In their book, "Good Goats" the Linns wrote:
"Whatever our addiction as a society, whether it be to violence and retribution as opposed to peace and compassion, or to hoarding money as opposed to sharing, we usually mimic the addictions we attribute to the God we adore."
As an American living in a society addicted both to violence and to accumulating wealth, I can pretty much figure this one out.
But I'm not giving up. My God is a loving, reconciling creator and redeemer of all things.
-J
RE: Louis Weil's well taken comments, he actually said "our obsession with validity has weakened the boldness of the sacramental signs. This creates a low level of expectation and weakens our understanding of mission.”
I don't see anything about efficacy here nor do I think that would be something Louis would actually say, having sat through a couple of years of his classes at CDSP (though I am VERY clear Louis is capable of speaking for himself). Frankly, I find the entire notion of "efficacy" meaningless. What would such a concept mean?
Louis' post spoke of relationality, of *being* in communion, not of believing anything in particular about it. That is an Anglican approach, as I understand it. We *are* in communion. We may believe fairly radically different things about that reality.
I really like what Jack Sprat said. That's my God too. That's the God of every Episcopalian I know in my city. I'm sure it's not the God of the entire Anglican Communion. It is certainly not the God of most Christianity.
After all the double talk we can't forget that those who are threatening to leave, and leaving are doing so because they can't stand the idea of men loving men and women loving women.
Nothing is more insulting to the GLBT children of God than to be relegated to bystander status while two heterosexual "sides" arrogantly battle out our eligibility to access God. The unmitigated gaul that it takes to assume that heterosexuals own the church and can decide whether or not to allow sexual minorities through the doors or not is breathtaking. We are their children, we grew up here! We are not anwering their invitation to church, we are coming because GOD called us! God created us including our sexuality in God's image and God's church is our Father's house. It does not belong to white, middle-aged, wealthy,heterosexual males to the exclusion or subjugation of everyone else. I would like to postulate that it's not possible to hold an exclusionist view and a view of "God is love" at the same time. You may welcome them anyway, but they will throw you to the floor or out the door.
If you believe that God is love, that all love originates in God and that people whose lives are centered on God will become conduits for God's love then how is it possible to hate, no - to LOATHE to the point of calling for the death of people for loving?
I recently went to a seminar taught by Eric Law, an Episcopal Priest from the Kaleidoscope Institute who instructs welcoming churches in how to overcome the clash of gay/straight cultures in their churches. It wasn't a very encouraging seminar if you're a gay Christian. He made a very convincing argument that the trouble starts with the fact that the church has refused to discuss, let alone facilitate loving, committed, egalitarian heterosexual relationships. Straight people can't turn to the church for answers in making their own sexual relationships holy, and healthy. Gay people, on the other hand are forced to search our souls just to come to understand what we are and so we're used to talking about sex and love in the same sentance, constantly. Until the church gets over it's sexual problems and can learn to find something holy in the love between heterosexual couples it will continue to be an obstruction to all couples and to undermine all families. His advice was for Straights to start talking about sex in church, and to demand that their churches address the very real trouble that straight marriage is in. Until that happens, GLBT folk will continue to be an easy place to sling blame and scape goat.
In the mean time while it is safe for me to walk into every Episcopal Church in Rochester, NY just a 5 hour drive away in Pittsburgh, PA I would not be safe in ANY church. Neither would my kids, my friends, or my family. I would really like all those here today living in heterosexual privilege to give some real thought to what it is like to be UNSAFE in church. No matter what other staights believe or argue with you about, no one would ever look at you and say, "Is that your wife/husband? We don't allow that kind of thing here - you're not welcome unless you disavow all sex/intimacy and love and leave your family." That IS what it is like to be Christian and gay. It is to have your faith constantly spat upon and derided every time you encounter Christians in any number.
The long way out of this hole starts with learning to connect lovemakeing of everykind to the Love of God.
The point by Law hits home. The mere mention of s - e - x strikes most people as intolerable in a House of God - and I am not talking about fundamentalist churches. In fact, many fundamentalist churches are better at (delicately) addressing heterosexual sex-within-marriage than the mainstream denominations. Congregations need to have adult education, teen education discussions on "Sexual ethics is just plain old ETHICS in bed". It shouldn't take an alternative press gay guy, Dan Savage, to remind heterosexual America that the two individuals having sex should be partners, not users.
NancyP
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