Many years ago, I worked as manager of a large storage warehouse – it was towards the end of the hazy days when smoking was allowed in the warehouse, and it was not uncommon for my staff to be seen whizzing around on their diesel powered forklift trucks with cigarette in hand. Of course, this was not the best thing to do, especially when the dealing with various palletised goods, including paper products, and so I decided, along with those at head Office that the fags must go – which didn’t go down too well.
Things settled after a month or so, and fag breaks were spent in the yard outside – or so I thought.
One busy morning, I sat with my foreman and staff and talked through the schedule for the day, stating clearly how things were to be done. All agreed, which was good because I had a meeting up North that day and didn’t want calls from head office complaining that staff were slacking in my absence. I got to the car and realised that I had left my brick , aka mobile phone, on my desk, so I ran back into the warehouse to hear my foreman, who had just lit up inside the warehouse saying, ‘so we will do it my way’ . it wasn’t just the foreman – the entire staff group were standing there with cigarettes in hands – I will leave the rest of the story to your imagination !
Today is Ascension day – the day when we recall Jesus’ ascension – his leaving this planet and returning to God. Before he did so, you will recall, he promised the descent of the Holy Spirit, which we commemorate in a few weeks time. So, His work done, teachings imparted, influence felt – and we are now left to take those teachings, His message and influence and share them with others – Simple ! Oh dear, have I got that wrong?
When I think back over my relatively short life (I am only 46 !) I have seen so very many changes, not least in the matter of social exclusion and equality. Derogatory terms, and legal exclusion that I grew up with in the 70’s are now long gone, and thank God they are. It is illegal now to incite religious hatred, to condemn, exclude or criticise another on the basis of belief, sexuality, gender etc etc. In that respect we live in a much more tolerant and holistic society than ever before, although we are far from perfect. There is , however, a loop hole. No, its not a legal loop hole, something the legislators have overlooked, the law is quite clear, the loop hole comes in the form of an elevated box – the pulpit.
It’s one of my bug bears – and something that gets me hot under the collar – why is it morally , legally and sociologically wrong to publicly condemn or discriminate against another on the grounds of religion EXCEPT when doing so from the pulpit? Arrrrgh ! It gets worse, why oh why, when Jesus left us all the apparatus for a loving, tolerant and inclusive expression of our Spirituality and faith do we light up our proverbial fags once he’s out of the building and do it ‘our way’?
I’ve been about a bit – although until fairly recently a life long Anglican, I have visited and attended other Churches in the past – I’ve heard Catholics slagging off protestants, Baptists decrying Anglicans and the practices of the local vicar, Methodists calling the Pope the Anti-Christ , and all this I saw daily in the all embracing Church of England.
Now I need to be careful here not to fall into exactly the same trap as those practices I am commenting on – this isn’t a slagging off blog entry, rather an observation. For the un-initiated, the dear old Church of England embraces a whole host of traditions. At one end of the ecclesial spectrum are the evangelicals, which include charismatics – those whose understanding of ‘church’ is deeply reformed and protestant – organs are ditched for electric guitars and some even defy Canon law by leading worship without robes. At the other extreme are the Anglo Catholics – those who believe that the Church of England is Catholic (with a big ‘c’), who use the Roman Rites (which they do illegally), wear vestments, call the Holy Communion, Mass – which again contravenes not only Canon Law but also Anglican Eucharistic Theology, and continue a number of practices that were ousted by Rome at the Second Vatican Council. In between these two extremes are all sorts of traditions and combinations – the richness of the Church of England !
But that’s just what we see on the surface. At both extremes are powerful groups, “Reform’ at the Evangelical end and “Forward in Faith’ at the Catholic. Both of these groups act as a safe haven for those concerned to keep the nature of the Church, as they perceive it, intact. Both of these groups actively condemn and campaign against women’s Ministry, they openly refuse ordination from Bishops who ordain Women, and many have been known to make hurtful and nasty comments towards women in Ministry within their areas. AND THEY GET AWAY WITH IT ! As a former Priest Colleague of mine once so eloquently put it, ‘if they don’t like the policies of the Church, those in Reform should bugger off and become Baptists, and the Forward in Faith lot should sod off to Rome’ (his words, not mine – but I see his point). Its not just women who are discriminated against and who are on the receiving end of verbal and emotional abuse by clergy in these groups and from the pulpit, homosexuals, divorcees, lone parents are all fair game, and it doesn’t end there. The very establishment that actively stands up for and seeks to live out the message of Jesus Christ so often falls so far short of doing so and instead portrays exclusivity and discrimination – Jesus was in effect saying, get out there, do the things I have told you, live the way I have shown you – and Christians the world over are saying YES Lord – but once His back is turned, they will instead do it THEIR way and feel it is OK to incite hatred, discrimination and the pain that this causes.
Isn’t it time that we went back to basics? That we looked at who Jesus himself condemned – hey that’s really interesting, it wasn’t the social outcasts, the roman centurion, the woman at the well etc etc – it was the religious leaders who felt that they could use their belief system to exclude , condemn and hurt others – things haven’t changed much, have they?
