Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Mapping God: When everything is taken literally, meaning itself can swiftly start to unravel
Michelle Burns Guarding the Flock Persistent. Vexatious. Or Simply Uncomfortable?
Martyn Percy Bullying Institutions and the Church: Some Remarks
Lorraine Cavanagh On Forgiving The Church
Interesting that Burns, Percy and Cavanagh are saying similar things at the same time. The CofE’s bullying culture is not even queried just accepted. Putting your bullying out to tender with lawyers and brand managers is something I saw a great deal of as a union rep for the clergy. Most clergy want to believe that their bishop cares about them but are dumbfounded when they discover that the CofE’s brand trumps everything else. As I’ve articulated many times before on TA; a bully’s power drains away if you openly laugh at the most egregious examples of their behaviour. It’s… Read more »
“ Putting your bullying out to tender with lawyers and brand managers” That’s a great piece of phrasing!
It is a fantastic description and made me smile wryly – but it describes a bitter truth which is far from funny. Michelle Burns talks about accountability becoming ‘conveniently unclear’ in respect of her personal settlement. To look at it another way- I am not a vegetarian but I would become one instantly if I had to take a knife and kill what I intended to eat. So by the COf E outsourcing its bullying ( and misusing its funds to do so too) bishops can maintain the fiction to themselves and others that they really are god-fearing caring people… Read more »
Colin, Thanks for your post. Just to reassure you. I, for one, did “get it” and understand your message, and agree with it. But I am INTP/INFP by Myers Briggs, very similar to you. So perhaps it is no surprise that we share an understanding of God, but others with a different psychological make up might differ. And that is the issue, I think. The question to asks is not what is the one true image of God, but how do we have a church which understands that different people need and respond to different images of God, and we… Read more »
Simon, I would expect you – and others – to “get it”, all members of an increasingly rare breed. I understand totally that those of a different Myers Briggs psychological make up differ from me. I’m not making judgments about whether or not mine or theirs are simply different images of God. (Well, if I’m honest, I probably am, especially in relationship to authority and control, orthodoxy and tradition and Biblical inerrancy, when my sexuality and intimate desires are being analysed and questioned and blocked all the time). Your mindful theory based on experience rings true for me as well.… Read more »
Colin, just to expand on this, I wonder how much you have reflected on how much your particular relationship to God is down the fact that you are gay, rather than that you are INFP. Arguments that gay people may have an “innate disposition”, which gives them certain characteristics, are considered in poor taste nowadays. Social construct views dominate. But going right back to the origins of gay scholarship in the 1860s, we gay people have been arguing for homosexuality as an innate disposition for almost 160 years. It was 20 years later that doctors such as Krafft-Ebing took our… Read more »
Simon, thank you for your thoughtful comments. , from my teens onward into my twenties when my engagement with Southwark Diocese developed, I was very conscious that the Church of England attracted a significantly higher proportion of gay men than our numbers in the general population. The attraction for some was clearly High Church finery and campery. I appreciated the trappings but I avoided the camp because it had an unhealthy feel, closet, incestuous, etc. I understood the attraction to be about the collusion of those with secret desires who were able to identify kindred spirits, often from their campness.… Read more »
Colin,
Many thanks for your response. I asked a hard question of you and you responded with honesty and generosity.
I spend a lot of time looking at homosexual and gender variant spiritual vocations outside Christianity, and (I would argue) therefore outside the distorting effects of patriarchy. So it’s fascinating to have a different narrative, from somebody who has spent much of his life within the church, and to see the overlaps and differences.
Thank you.
Simon, in an earlier post, John Beaverstock remarked on the practice of capitalising pronouns relating to the divine, despite our liturgical books sticking to lower-case. When my bishop adopted this practice I found it hard to read his ad clerums (and I’m a straight man). I cannot explain this intellectually – the feeling was more visceral. An analogy might be folk shouting at you using upper-case on social media, but even that doesn’t get close.
I think it depends on what women you are talking about!
My wife certainly loved thinking of God as Father, Lord, King. As do women parishioners I work with.
Just seems like another category of stereotyping. And why? Men here; gays and women there.
I definitely prefer ‘friend, brother’ and even ‘lover’ to ‘father, lord, king’. But yes, preferences vary.
I think this makes the point quite nicely. “Women” are not a monolith.
Now it is another question altogether why some would lean toward “lover” rather than “Father,” e.g.
Anglican Priest, thanks for your response. Ref. Your first paragraph. I did not claim a monolithic thesis that women only go for one set of imagery. I actually said “a theory, which in my experience has some truth, that straight men tend to have an image of God of father, lord, king. Whereas women and gay men respond more to friend, brother lover.” Which is much more nuanced. As for your second, I think it can be argued that Julian of Norwich and many of the mediaeval women Beguines had a quite steamy and embodied imagery of Jesus, which could… Read more »
Sorry, I have just spotted a typo (or Freudian slip), the penalty of late night posting. For “treason” read “heresy”.
Although in those mediaeval cultures there was not much difference in practise.
There’s a very long history of the ‘lover’ imagery – some would argue that it goes all the way back to Song of Solomon. That is debatable, but in the 4th C Jerome wrote to one of his female followers, who had dedicated herself to virginity, that ‘when you are in your chamber Christ will steal through the lattice and stroke your belly’ (quoting from memory so may not be exact, but that was the substance). Then there is the biblical imagery of Christ as the bridegroom and the Church as the bride – not a huge leap from that… Read more »
I though this old hymn had fallen out of use, but I was mistaken – there are several versions on YouTube. ‘Thou dost seek a bride all pure and holy’ dates to 1872.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmFok6ZKrtM
As John Newton wrote in How sweet the name of Jesus sounds:
Jesus! my Shepherd, Husband, Friend,
My Prophet, Priest, and King,
My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
Accept the praise I bring.
HymnQuest has five different versions of that verse, as the editors of various hymnbooks have tried to change the first line. Alternatives for the fourth word include: Brother, Guardian, Saviour and “and my”.
So, another example of how the stereotype doesn’t work.
Here’s a man.
Using the whole range. King, Shepherd, Prophet. Lord. Friend.
Slave trader claimed by Christ.
Not quite the whole range! How about mother, sister, .. and many more, such as healer, companion, …….
There are other attributes listed or described in other verses of Newton’s words.
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!
It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds,
And drives away our fear.
It makes the wounded spirit whole
And calms the troubled breast;
‘Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.
Yes!
St Francis is interesting here – Christ as Mother. Turning quickly to AI as I am in a hurry to get off to lunch. “Francis’s own writings In his writings, Francis used strikingly maternal language for God and for spiritual relationships. Most notably, in his Later Rule and letters to the Friars, he described the relationship between friars using the language of mother and child — and applied nurturing, maternal qualities to God and to Christ. He wrote that friars should love and care for one another “as a mother loves and cares for her son.” This reflected a broader… Read more »
St Juan de la Cruz wrote very erotic poetry.
Didn’t he just.
‘If the Church of England rolled out a similar national software package that accounted for the weekly collection plate in its parish churches, and made all clergy use it’ – maybe not such a bad idea. It would have avoided the situation in a parish where I worshipped, which had several irregularities. The vicar, for example, visiting parishioners, telling them how much they’ve given in the past three years and asking for an increase in giving. The PCC treasurer failing to submit accounts to the Charity Commission for two years. In another parish, the PCC treasurer living a wealthy lifestyle… Read more »
Interesting article by Colin. I am a mathematician, and it is difficult to convince people we are in the ‘creative’ industry. Funnily enough, I just started work in the creative industry – Sony Playstation! Even accountants are in the creative industry, although maybe more constrained – and comfortable with – rules. Mathematicians have no rules. Musicians have no rules. Some may be comfortable with ‘God says this, God says that’, but I am disruptive, and first ask – what on earth do you mean by ‘God’, and how does ‘God’ say anything? On the other hand, I find Dostoevsky’s novels… Read more »