My publisher has just sent me the online opportunities to buy We’re All equally Human.
If I can still mention that buying a print book from me is the most valuable kind of sale for the author, but if you are not in New Zealand it obviously makes sense to save those horrendous shipping costs.
If you want a print copy from me and need the content in your hands faster than ‘after Easter’ if you place an order with me I will email you the final script so you have it before the book arrives. Just let me know when you order.
I refer you to a recent blog of mine When to speak up and when not. Like a viral pandemic which does not go away just because we are tired of it, then injustices do not simply melt into the sun if no one does anything about it.
I long for a day when our interaction with the rainbow community is as seamless as it appears in the video presentation from the GA meeting last year, given by Rev Dr Theresa Cho https://vimeo.com/showcase/8596507?page=2
Hope to hear from you. If you buy from another source, do let me know how you found the book. If anyone wants to use it as a study resource for a group contact me about special pricing. jones.rs@xtra.co.nz
In our Lenten journey, we are approaching Jerusalem just prior to Passion Week journey. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem’s hard heart. May he not weep over ours.
Brought to Tears
The journey to Jerusalem is never easy, not any easier now, with this dread feeling that it was all for the last time. Those moments when it seemed you walked in slow motion, all sound muted; looking at and seeing the faces, but not hearing their words your own mind racing “Listen!” you wanted to shout, “Listen now! Take heed of what I say! Now! I won’t be back, you know!” When you saw the city the beloved temple gleaming in the setting sun suddenly it was all too much, and the tears came. So many times, Jerusalem had been told the good news. So many times, it had not listened, its sophisticated multicultural society believing it was too knowledgeable to need to look inside and see what was needed – what was the ‘one thing necessary’. It was too much to bear without tears filling your eyes, dropping one by one on the dusty path one by one down the steep hillside, bouncing off shiny olive leaves, hissing into steam on sun scorched ground.
The question of voice is a fraught thing. When raised in fundamentalist settings, one’s voice is thoroughly proscribed. You are to give voice only to the acceptable, the ‘right’ and the ‘true’ (as defined by that setting).
It takes a while to realise some are allowed their voice just because of who they are, while others are rendered voiceless in many subtle ways just because of who they are. It also takes a while to work out that some groups aren’t speaking up in your particular bubble because they were never allowed in.
It takes even longer to train oneself, as one of the more ignored groups in the public spaces of your bubble, to speak up, to know about points of order and rights of reply and your right to ask for secret ballots. To work out when logic is needed and when personal experience might carry the day.
Some women, but mainly male allies, clamoured, over decades, for women to be included in the priestly class. In the New Zealand Presbyterian church women owe a big debt to Rev Ian Fraser, who deliberately planned and carried through a strategy to both educate and convince the church. Why did men do this? Well, women weren’t there! Because they were not elders or ministers, they just weren’t present as voting members of successive General Assemblies. You can’t vote for yourself if you do not have a vote!
Women became a group which the New Zealand Presbyterian institution finally admitted to the heart opf the bubble, women elders in 1955 and women ministers in 1965. Women therefore are due the same respect as male ministers. That sometimes happens but, read the Burning Bush follow up report, sometimes not. https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/about-us/research-resources/research-papers/women-of-the-burning-bush-still-burning-25-years-on How ever good or bad it is to be a woman minister in today’s PCANZ, they are now in the ordained ministries of elderhood and clergy because people spoke up and continued to speak up, actually from as far back as 1924! If you take that as the start of this debate in the church, it took 41 years.
Gay and lesbian Presbyterians, if they are in a committed relationship, still cannot be officially ordained as elders or ministers in the PCANZ. Like women before them, this officially excludes them from Presbyterian General Assemblies as voting members because only elders and ministers can be commissioners. This means that this issue will only be progressed if straight allies speak up and continue to speak up.
There’s an old story about Jesus being asked after his death what plans and structures he had left on earth to carry on his work. HIs hypothetical answer was, of course, his followers. There were no supernatural structures or blessed constitutions or massive institutional frameworks or confessions of faith or Moderators to manage the continuation of his work. Just a bunch of shell shocked, frightened followers facing the opprobrium of the Jewish religious establishment and the might of the Roman Empire. Where would we be now if they had failed to speak up and to continue to speak up – an activity then which could be fatally terminal? The sentimental part of this story is the conclusion that Christ had no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no voice but ours.
So when I heard the other day “we’ve decided not to talk about it” on LGBTQI issues, I went home and pondered whether that was indeed the mature, wise move it had been made to sound, or not. I’m not proud that it stopped me saying at the time, “Well, I’ve just written a book on the subject”, but it did. I colluded with the conspiracy of silence in the moment. But, when I got home and reflected on the conversation, I wondered what voices do excluded groups in our church have but the voices of those included in the sacred bubble? No hands but ours, no feet but ours, no voice but ours.
We could learn from history. Ian Fraser saw that GA debates weren’t getting anywhere and so proposed education and a survey throughout the church. He continued to speak but in a different way. We’re All Equally Human is a similar but different approach. If we do nothing?
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It’s a quote routinely attributed to Edmund Burke. But it turns out falsely so. Apparently, he never uttered these words. At best, the essence of the quote can be traced back to the utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, who delivered an 1867 inaugural address at the University of St. Andrews and stated: “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” https://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html
This quote refers to men both in the generic sense of humankind, but also because in 1867 men were the principal actors in the public arena. Today’s men may not realize it, because it has always been true for them and is the backdrop of their lives, but men are listened to more than women in our church. So, this quote is correct in its gender references. “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing”
(BTW: I found it interesting at a funeral I attended recently that when the MC ‘forgot’ the next item on the programme (twice) the next item was a woman reading poetry.)
At this stage in our church I would not be surprised that there would be nothing that appealed to a queer Christian in being accepted as a minister in the PCANZ. We may in fact be working for a change in principle which will not be taken up by anyone for some time, if at all. But our polity at the moment is wrong on this issue. Allowing homophobia to continue as one of our guiding principles is very wrong, just as prior to 1965, sexism was the wrong beacon to follow then.
I heard again the other day about Mike Riddell’s persistence in protesting against wrong. We were reminded about the time he stripped to his boxer shorts in an Auckland City Council meeting when protesting about homelessness in the city. In the Baptist church where he ministered for 7 years, they now have this on their website:
Gay and Christian group
The Gay and Christian Discussion Group is an informal gay affirming discussion group that meets monthly to discuss issues that directly affect our faith, how we feel and what we can do for other Gay Christians. We DO NOT believe that being gay disqualifies anyone from living a full and faithful Christian life.
Our aim is to provide a safe forum for Christians who happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender to openly discuss their thoughts, hopes, and fears in a supportive and constructive environment without fear of instant condemnation. The group is open to people from all denominations, and any who are interested in finding out more about being gay and Christian. We are not limited to Ponsonby Baptist members.
I don’t think there would be anything which needed fixing that Mike would not talk about any more. That might leave the rest of us and others uncomfortable but that was less important than righting the wrong.
An important footnote: This does not mean jumping in without reference to the needs and desires of the gay community in this matter; deciding we know best, as straight Christians. Had the person said to me, “The gay friends I have in the church have asked us not to talk about this”, then that would have been different. That kind of conversation needs to come first so we are working with people and not at them.
Keep on speaking up, people!
Susan
(Not so sad right now, more mad!)
We’re Equally Human, hopefully going to the printers Monday 4 April, in your hands therefore in about 3 weeks from then? DV and CP. (a prize for whoever works out what that means).
Orders: jones.rs@xtra.co.nz Pricing to be confirmed. Watch this space. Pre orders will open when the book goes to the printers.
Last post I used a picture of the young woman Russian ice skater who apparently did the first quad jumps in women’s figure skating at an Olympics (and won gold with her ROC team). Since then, news has broken that the medal ceremony has been delayed because of drug investigations connected with her.
She is under 16 and so is seen as a ‘protected person’, meaning the sole responsibility is not seen as hers. Also because of her age, her name should not be known publicly.
The official word will come out in time. I’d like to say however, that the thought of Russian coaches etc., breaking drug banns when Russia has been allowed to send a non-national team, despite intentionally dodgy past behaviour, defeats my powers of understanding. Watch this space.
There is forgiveness and mercy which may be called for in some sense given the age of the athlete, but there is also the question of taking responsibility and of accountability and of fairness to other athletes. There is also the question of how very young athletes are treated in the effort to bolster national pride and glory.
Reactions to Wherever you are.. are bringing insights into people’s journeys. One thing I’ve noticed, (which I could have worked out before), is that those who have stopped church involvement are finding the book affirming and helpful. Others maybe not so much.
It’s made me think about what makes the difference for a person between one stage of the journey and the next. While Fowler and others might present the stages as discrete from each other, they do, of course, blur into each other at the edges. I’ve also experienced a kind of cyclical movement for myself where I can revisit former stages depending on the topic. For example, my theological ideas might become quite radical, but I can be fundamentalist about church customs and traditions. It may be that I cling on to those traditions exactly because I feel less secure in other areas of my spirituality. Sometimes in the darkness you need to hang on to what comfort you can find!
This reminds me a little of flying in to Wellington airport (bear with me, all will become clear). There is often turbulence as we approach the land from the sea and the plane is wobbling around up and down and sideways. I comfort myself in those moments that the pilots can choose an average of all those positions and are checking all the time that we are maintaining the appropriate height for each stage of our approach.
It’s kind of like that with faith stages. We may seem to be wobbling around, but somewhere inside, something has clicked which drew us more into the questioning stage, than remaining in the conventional stage – or more into disenchantment than remaining wholly enchanted. (Get the book if you don’t understand these references, see below).
It can be that a shocking event moves us decisively, with no mistake, into the next stage of faith. More often, I suspect, we move more slowly. A series of events, comments, books, people, combine to move us out of conventional faith, out of the enchantment we had felt and into the next phase. What I am working out is that until that has happened, we remain mostly enchanted or mostly conventional.
There is nothing wrong with that, as we all move or don’t move at our own pace and in our own idiosyncratic fashion. There are no prizes for speed in this ‘sport’, there are no technical skill points or artistic impression points (yes I’ve been watching Winter Olympics figure skating and snowboarding). If you can’t do a quadruple jump, you haven’t failed!
15 year old Russian skater does first quad jumps in women’s Olympic figure skating.
So why am I teasing this idea out? It has occurred to me, through recent emails and conversations, that it’s important on our own journeys to find like-minded people to walk with. So, whatever the one event or the conclusion from several events which has moved you into the next stage, seek out others who have experienced that same shift in consciousness. They will know what you are talking about, even if your journey is qualitatively different from theirs. They will ‘get it’. It will help both your journeys to talk with each other. (If there is no one you can find in your neighbourhood, drop me an email and we can chat.)
On the other hand, that very dear friend of yours, with whom you have always talked a lot and shared many deep experiences? They might not have made the same shift as you have. You will not of course, now cut them dead, but you may find that it is best to confide a little less of your new discoveries to them. Those conversations may be saved for the people who have made the shift. Your long term friend? Still good fun, still a stimulating companion, but let the ground of the conversation move to other topics.
You will know what I mean when I say that to move ahead, you sometimes need to employ a sharp knife’s edge to ideas you formerly held dear. The phrase ‘cutting edge’ is not an accident. To get somewhere new we need to slice through some long held knots and ties. Continuing to talk a lot with those long term friends still in the same old place, can dull your faith-knife’s cutting edge. Someone who has not made the same shifts as you will not understand this ruthless-seeming approach to cutting old ties. It’s not ruthless but it is conscious. It seems ruthless to people still unaware of how ideas and assumptions can twine about us like the tendrils on a sweet pea plant, holding us. That holding firm seems like a good idea at first as we struggle to get a foothold in the faith, but it can also hold us back as time goes by.
Even delicate seeming tendrils can hold us back and fence us in
I know that more conventional believers think that a questioning, seeking person might be in danger of losing their faith. But it takes more trust, I believe, to step out on a journey where you do not know the final destination. Faithfulness is required on the seeking journey, but it is a faithful determination to keep putting one step in front of the other, trusting our Companion and our companions. What an adventure!
In other news…. It was a thrill yesterday to be shown an order of service which had used an affirmation which is in Wherever you are, You are on the Journey. That minister (whom I don’t know personally) had obviously ‘made the shift’ and recognized words they and their congregation needed. It was particularly timely as Progressing the Journey is in the final edits stage. It has not only new words to familiar tunes like the one I posted last week, but also liturgical fragments for different times of the church year, including affirmations. I remember the thrill of discovery I felt finding Dorothy McRae McMahon’s books of liturgy. it would be wonderful if Progressing the Journey provided the same sense of discovery for others. That’s a dream to be made real, I hope. Here’s a taster:
Affirmation and Recognition of Faith Found in Epiphany Epiphany Year C We recognise those moments of epiphany – we’ve all had them – when we have suddenly realised everything has changed.
When we have seen deep down inside us and found there what we did not expect. Instead of the dark, greedy, grasping selfishness we have been warned of all our lives, we have discovered within, instead, light. Light which children’s drawings sketch around angels light which softly glows with compassion and welcome, beckoning us to own our inner rich resource which is so like God as to be no different from that we call divine.
We recognise, in those moments of discovery, in those glimpses of the truth, we can never be the same again, even if the waters are deep and dark we will be led through them by a loving guide who is, sometimes, us.
And thankfulness rises deep within.
Go well everyone, befriend intentionally and live courageously,
Susan
Wherever you are, You are on the Journey still available from me at jones.rs@xtra.co.nz. $20 per book and $5.60 for P & P up to 3 copies. I’ll send the bank account number and you send me your street address. Easy-peasy! Loving the emails I’m getting about how people have found it a book which gets them thinking about their own journeys. Let me know how you’re finding it!
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