This week’s entry is an opinion piece.
The Church of England made a serious attempt to help revival. Not just with the Alpha course (which has its critics), but with yearly initiatives like Thy Kingdom Come which encouraged Christians to share the gospel and pray for a handful of people. Like the innocent childlike thought: ‘If you could save five people in this world, who would you save?’ But this initiative came and went each year with only some success, but not the revival which many dreamed of. Like the yearly organised national days of prayer. There were dreams and visions. Azusa Street in the US had broken racial boundaries and birthed the Pentecostal movement. But there was still racism in the church. We should have known better. Especially when it came to our treatment of the LGBT+ community. We were effectively shooting ourselves in the paw by being so critical of them.
We need gay Christians as surely as we need female Christian leaders. But many preferred to criticise the community. In fact, the majority. But I am so liberal that I think we need LGBT+ Christians to offer apologetics and communicate with the LGBT+ community. They know more about the excesses and dark side of their community than anyone else. Every community has its dark side, including the Church (and so, when we assert our right to throw metaphorical stones, we should be aware that ‘people in stained-glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’. Or at the very least, keep the stones metaphorical and not physical).
I’m not entirely a progressive, I’m a moderate voice. Although I am a liberal Christian, rather than a conservative one. Labels hey? (May as well embrace them.) It is often said, in the continuing online debates, that there was no judgement - that a certain Christian loves gay people, but that non-marital sex is a sin. Traditionally the Church had always said this. But I thought we should know better than to effectively project the discrimination which we sometimes experienced onto any other people group. We should have said ‘The discrimination stops here and we are not going to pass it on’. Surely, we would have had God’s help in this? We claim he is with us after all. The LGBT+ community faces many of the same problems that other minorities face, despite the lip service from so many. Would this community be treated better in a revival? Who is a revival for - just a few or for everyone? But how are the progressive, liberal and conservative believers to be united when such issues have become dark, shadow creeds or shibboleths? Even the Bible verses which are used to condemn LGBT+ people are using words which, before translation, only apply to the highly promiscuous. And even they deserve love and dignity. Jesus did say something which apples to this issue. ‘Do not judge…’. It is ongoing.
But if revival is not inclusive then what is the point? You may as well only have it for a certain sex, a certain age group, a certain race and be done with it all. Why not let God decide who he wants involved? Besides, if you’ve been born on this earth, you are already involved.
Or maybe, to give an opposing view - the writer (i.e. me) is
far too politically correct and worldly. To which I respond with a simple
question: ‘Maybe, but what is more worldly than prejudice?’
It is unknown whether or not a full-blown revival would melt cold hearts on
either side, but there is some precedent that certain discriminations can be
removed as evidenced by the Azusa Street revival where racial tensions were
sometimes resolved. But, in reality, pragmatically, these are ongoing issues
which are unlikely to be fully resolved until kingdom come. At least a revival
would be interesting for many, especially if debates were more civil.
This is only my opinion on the subject. Most of us will already have received
enough brow-beating to need a lifetime of therapy.
A dry entry. Dry as a riverbed in a drought. Am I making
something so fascinating, so boring again? Sorry. Let’s move on to something
less tedious…
