Misreading the map...

Published in the Church of England Newspaper - 13 September 2013

I love walking in the Yorkshire Dales.

During my last visit there, I decided to walk up Great Whernside, a big bald moor rising above Wharfedale.  I set off with my map, bag and compass, quickly reaching the moor wall, beyond which there are few obvious features to help in finding the path.  As I checked my map, I saw a dotted line reaching up towards the summit so I set off, following it with the help of my compass.  I could see no visible path on the ground, but that was not unusual, and I pressed on across the moor.

Before long, I got into difficulties.  The ground became increasingly boggy, until I reached a point where I had to jump between tufts of marsh grass and dark sodden areas of peat bog.  I remember missing one tuft of grass and ending up thigh deep in thick peaty water scrambling to get out.  I checked the map again.  I was still on the dotted line but I realised that continuing on this route was both impossible and dangerous.

So reluctantly and carefully, I turned back and retraced my steps out of the bog and back to firm ground.

In the pub that night, I recounted my failed attempt to a local who looked surprised, and then roared with laughter when I showed him the dotted line I had tried to follow.

“That’s not a path” he said when he had stopped laughing. “That’s a parish boundary!”

Reflecting on this later, I saw the absurdity of what I had done.  I had diligently sought to follow the map.  I had followed this dotted line carefully and accurately.  But because I had misread the map my progress had ground to a sticky and dangerous halt in a miserable bog high up in the Dales.   The map wasn’t the problem – it was my interpretation of the map which was at fault.

I can’t help but think that we have made the same mistake in our understanding (or misunderstanding) of the Bible and homosexuality.  As the church, we have joined together a faint dotted line of scattered verses and have thought we understood the map of the scriptures.  We have tried to follow the path faithfully, only to find ourselves getting stuck in an ever more treacherous bog.

And now we have ground to an uncertain halt.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury noted in his address to General Synod, the world has moved on, and the church’s stance on sexuality, same-sex partnerships, and now marriage is putting us at odds with society at large.  At the recent opening of the new headquarters of Evangelical Alliance he spoke about the way in which the church’s position on sexuality is alienating younger people.  “We have to face the fact that the vast majority of people under 35 think not only that what we are saying is incomprehensible, but also think that we are plain wrong and wicked and equate it to racism.”

In Australia, research by the evangelical group Olive Tree Media showed that 69% of non-Christians surveyed said that church doctrine on homosexuality is a ‘belief-blocker’ – only exceeded by child abuse in churches.

As Evangelicals, we are passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that opens hearts to a personal relationship with Him.  Yet our interpretation of Scriptures has led us into a dangerous dead-end where we are alienating the very people we want to reach.  We have sought to follow the Scriptures – our map – but perhaps we have misread them just like I misread that dotted line, and have found ourselves alone in the wilderness as a result.

On the moor, there was only one option for me – turn back and look again.  Perhaps we need to do the same.

Rev Benny Hazlehurst
Accepting Evangelicals

www.acceptingevangelicals.org

Don't know, Don't care ...

Following the renewed controversy about whether Jeffrey John could or should be a Bishop this summer, YouGov conducted a random poll asking whether the public at large thought that "the Church of England should or should not allow the appointment of Bishops who are gay".

The results came out in favour of gay Bishops - 39% were in favour, 27% against - but what struck me was the high proportion of people who just didn't care - or in the words of the survey "have no opinion either way".

Almost a third of those questioned (31%) had no opinion either way.

There are 2 possible interpretations of this:

Either they don't care because homosexuality just is not an issue for them - it doesn't provoke a response, positive or negative.

Or the Church of England and probably, by implication, the Christian faith is simply irrelevant in their lives.

Either way, this should be a matter of grave concern for those of us who want to make Jesus Christ known, as it shows how irrelevant the church has become for so many people.

For those for whom sexuality doesn't illicit any response, the way the church gets hot under the collar (usually the dog collar!) over and over again about this one issue must push them more and more to the conclusion that we are nothing to do with them.

But I suspect that the greater proportion of the 'no opinion' group have written the church and the Christian faith off, and see the church as a quaint anachronism, which has nothing to say to them. Our traditional ways of doing things - our patriarchal institutions - our funny clothes and rituals - our liturgical and ecclesiastical language - simply do not make an impression on an increasing proportion of the population.

For those Christians in newer churches, (mainly evangelical or pentecostal in style) this is not news. Their growth in recent years has been due largely to presenting the gospel in a contemporary way, seeking to make it relevant to a new generation. But even here there are problems.

In the 25-39 age group where these newer churches often do well, there were significantly fewer people who expressed no opinion, (27%) but this is the group who were most in favour of gay bishops (52%) which goes against the predominantly conservative approach on sexuality which these churches take.

Nor can the established church take much comfort from the older generation. Even among the over 60's (the only age group which came out against gay Bishops - 25% in favour, 40% against) the 'don't care' vote was the highest of all age groups (34%). This age group is generally regarded as being the most 'religious' (and most traditional) and those of us who are attend church will know that this is the best represented group amongst the majority of our congregations, and yet over a third don't care on this most traditional of issues!

The challenge of this survey is not the issue of gay bishops. It is the challenge which the church faces in presenting the Gospel in a relevant and engaging way. It is the challenge of bringing the love and teaching of Jesus Christ to our nation in the social environment of the 21st Century, rather than the 17th or 19th Century. It is the challenge of living and acting in a way which can speak to people who have been turned off what we do and what we say to the extent that they just don't care.