People are reporting on Facebook groups that their parish has already held a meeting or series of meetings to engage with the Living in Love and Faith course material. Many more report that parishes will be holding meetings to work through the course in the Autumn.
It will be all too easy for us to engage with the material without raising a basic question. The LLF process and the material which has been published assume an equal validity between those who argue for a transformation of teaching and practice leading to full equality for LGBTIQ+ people and those who argue from the Bible and the clobber texts against equal marriage and sexual intimacy for clergy. I propose that we find the courage to challenge the material at a basic level.
I suggest that we who are participating in LLF meetings find the confidence to say that the use of clobber texts from the Bible and theological arguments from tradition in order to oppose equal marriage and the full equality of LGBTIQ+ people in the kingdom, equality in relationship, love, intimacy, blessing and marriage, is simply maintaining centuries of prejudice towards us that is abusive and intolerable.
This has to be done in conversations in your pro-inclusion LGBTIQ+ friendly parish as much as it has to be done in conversations where people with what they will claim is a “biblical, traditional, orthodox” position are present. Members of your own church need to know that we who identify as LGBTIQ+ are subjected to a systemically abusive environment in the Church of England where the ignorance of some and active prejudice against LGBTIQ+ people by others is still normalised. The simple facts of prejudice – from removing PTO from priests who marry their same sex partner, rather than having a civil partnership, to asking someone to stand down from leading a Bible Study group because of their sexuality – still surprise some church members who had never realised this happens. In groups where there is a wider range of views, pro and anti, the conservative view has to be challenged as an unacceptable variant that maintains a hostile environment in the Church of England.
This state of affairs has been tolerated throughout my adult life. The LLF process is predicated on maintaining a toleration of abuse and prejudice. I have maintained a level of toleration that I now find intolerable. There will be huge resistance to such a challenge from the minority conservative groups, from CEEC, which will attempt to appear open and understanding, as well as from Christian Concern, who will continue to heap abuse on us. The hierarchy will continue to defend the conservative right to maintain an abusive “biblical” stance. We have to challenge them.