Beyond Inclusion: Part One - Lizzie Lowe's Story - Growth but at a price

An interview with the vicar of St James and Emmanuel Didsbury about their response and growth towards inclusion following the death of Lizzie Lowe. Their church's silence on difficult matters of sexuality led Lizzie to believe that she coud not be loved by them or by God as a young gay person. They realised they needed to change. This is worth the watch and consideration. Read more on the church's acions and her story at st james and emmanuel

Bishops leading by example

In a post on the Church Society Rob Munro bemoans

After the clergy refused to take note of the bishop’s report last February, this session left the bishops staying really quiet, with the exception of the more vocal liberal bishops, and the interventions of the Archbishop of York. On key theological issues they listened and didn’t lead.

He seems to not notice how the bishops actually voted on the two issues that he (predictably) voted against: On the motion to welcome transgender people - bishops: 30 for, 2 against, 2 recorded abstentions. On Jayne Ozanne's motion saying that conversion therapy had no place in the modern world - bishops: 36 for, 1 against, 0 recorded abstentions. But maybe any bishop who voted against the Munro line is a wild liberal? As he was there he hasn't even got the excuse of misleading 3rd person reporting. The tables giving how synod members actually voted are here, the Bishop of Chester wasn't there for either vote -that would have been an interesting vote but I see that Don Allister - with a strongly conservative reputation - voted for both motions.

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 24

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

It had hung there so long - all Carrie's life certainly - that it was no longer any particular colour. It had been packed away for the summer but she knew where her mother stored it in the bottom drawer of the hall chest of drawers and she hung it as fast as she could, to block any view through the letter box or fanlight, where camera flashes were intruding with frightening rapidity.

This is a bit of a cheat as I read this book earlier in the autumn and have just seen that it never got teased. Patrick Gale's 'A Perfectly Good Man' a tale of a Cornish clergyman - I thought this was wonderful, a very powerful tale of goodness and fallibility. And that extract makes a very good teaser! I hadn't spotted that one of the characters in the book is a continuation of someone from his earlier Notes from an Exhibition. Here's the Guardian review. If you go to the author's website you'll get his view and some more reviews.

Civil Partnerships and Marriage

... the consequences of not allowing same-sex partnerships to have legal status with real force can really damage children... (h/t Geoff Coupe)

Sublime silliness

After a discussion on Poulenc's Gloria in the midst of last night's piano lesson (Uttoxeter Choral Society and Sandbach Voices are performing it next week), I spent this morning with Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias

Written in the midst of the occupation of France in the 1940's Poulenc sets words of Guillaume Apollaire. This YouTube clip is from the first act. It gets madder - here's the wikipedia summary of part of act two:

The curtain rises to cries of "Papa!" The husband's project has been a spectacular success, and he has given birth to 40,049 children in a single day. A visiting Parisian journalist asks how he can afford to feed the brood, but the husband explains that the children have all been very successful in careers in the arts, and have made him a rich man with their earnings. After chasing the journalist off, the husband decides to raise a journalist of his own, but is not completely pleased with the results.

..and ends with a call for the audience to go and produce children:

Ecoutez, ô Français, les leçons de la guerre
Et faites des enfants, vous qui n'en faisiez guère
Cher public: faites des enfants!

I was introduced to this piece in the 1970's - at Cambridge - where a theatre group performed this with Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale. I went to see it twice - in part because it was so enjoyable partly because on the first visit I ended up sitting behind a tourist couple who thought they were here to see the Cambridge Footlights and were somewhat surprised at what they were served up with! They were rather restless so I got a far better chance the next night with various of the performers appearing from among the audience. On the Footlights connection - could Monty Python have appeared without some of these surreal pieces of French humour - I'm also thinking of Zazie. There appear to be quite a few film clips from various performances of this work on youTube.
Probably not suitable watching for International Women's day later this week!

Teaser Tuesday - 29 June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Straight and GLBT people alike can look at Sodom and Gomorrah for what they were, as mentioned in Ezekiel: arrogant, overfed, unconcerned, haughty, detestable and all in all inhospitable. But the greater point that Jesus made to his disciples as he elevated the Sodom and Gomorrah story was that regardless of what the people of Sodom did, nothing was more tragic than a person turning her back on Almighty God to yearn for things manmade.

(on Lot's wife) from Andrew Marin's Love is an Orientation - link is to suem's review.

The silence which judges

As Colin Coward reports on the Changing attitude weblog, a Ugandan bill is in the process of working its way through their legislature which would not only bring in the death penalty for homosexuals it would also make it a crime for friends/ family of homosexuals not to report it to the authorities. In an attempt to build a broad coalition against this wicked legislation letters were written by Changing Attitude to the leadership teams of Fulcrum, Reform, Anglican Mainstream and the Church Society over a week ago, so far only Fulcrum have made a response the other organisations seem to be unable even to offer the courtesy of an acknowledgement.
Pressure needs exerting on the so far silent Church authorities to pour some light on this loathsome bill which goes directly agains a Lambeth resolution which many of those groups were all in favour.
On a lower leadership level, there's a facebook group to coordinate and share ideas.

DJs, Christians and gays

Hat tipping to the Church Times weblog comes this tale of Fat Roland's trials with Refresh FM in Manchester (website looks as out of touch as their phone lines). An item covering this story from Pink News is here
From the Fat Roland blog:

You may feel the need to protest or campaign after reading this piece. You can talk with me further at dj (at) fatroland.com. Whatever you do and to whomever you speak, please show the same grace that I have tried my hardest to show throughout all of this (often through gritted teeth or teared eyes!). You will not change minds by shouting at people: start from their point of view and work from there.

Pardon!?

Thanks to Mad Priest for this priceless piece of Nicky Gumbel errr. wisdom:

I'm absolutely astonished that anyone would go to a church and not be welcomed because of their sexual orientation,

(originally from the Guardian)
You should be astonished, St Nick.

How indeed!

'How is it that in the 2000 years since Christ came, we have managed to make generations of gay and lesbian people believe that they are not welcome in our churches?'

said from the platform at Spring Harvest. Go to the Changing Attitude Blog to read the rest. Pebbles beginning to move.

I'm sorry

.. and want to apologise to all who are offended by this posting.

Hatred and Intimidation in the USA

From Mark Doty's blog:

Later, my legs feel liquid, my heart isn't ready to slow down. Thinking about how strange it is for a woman alone to come after two six-foot guys. Thinking how she wanted this to happen, somehow -- singling us out for her rage instead of the people in the car ahead of her, coming back to provoke us, then running into the restaurant to fetch the men. So that she could feel her power over them, or us?

But go and read the whole thing!

Nature Watch (continued)

And while you have that image of a partially clothed man and a kangaroo wrestling in your mind, here's a tale from West Sussex about gay ducks in Arundel.

Predictable

A second head of Changing Attitude Nigeria has been granted asylum in the UK. The Changing Attitude press release says:

The LGBT members of CAN do not believe that they can safely come out and reveal themselves to their priests, let alone their congregations. They fear that their own priest will not offer them counselling and prayers but will react negatively to them. The problem they would bring to their priest is in any case not the problem of their homosexuality, but the problem the church has with homosexuality. They do not want to come to church for help to be changed or healed. LGBT people know, as Archbishop Akinola does not or possibly cannot know as a heterosexual man, that we do not need healing from our innate, God-given sexual identity. We long for the church to learn “… what it is that the Lord requires of you: only to act justly, to love loyalty, to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6.8

Inevitable after the attack on him this summer, but speaks volumes about the warped version of the Christian faith held by some Nigerians - and given impetus from the top.

Malapropism of the day

Overheard in a local charity shop

He was flirting terribly with some decorators this week. It looked as if they enjoyed it, maybe they were under the carpet.

Balance and Lambeth

For some reason, I'm reminded of this film having read the review at the weekend.
Couple of links:

• MetaCatholic on Romans, sex and idolatry - I will put a towel around my head and get around to a serious read of it (and his previous articles!)
• Then there's Graham Turner's sermon from Sunday morning (ms word format ;-(), though his talks page also has it as a wav file.
• Finally there's a pretty balanced assessment from Peter Ould - a call for self-examination on all sides!

Eight to go!

Well maybe it's not as substantial a move as the Guardian would have you believe but it is still a pretty brave change for James Jones to admit. The next Wycliffe council might be interesting...

Don't ask

The Guardian reports that a number of ex US military generals have called for the scrapping of the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy over gays in the military. It reports that there is still opposition amongst the serving military and this quote from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Peter Pace caught my eye

I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way

they must have pretty high entry qualifications in the US military...certainly no remarried divorcees, let alone any other malefactors!