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Pitch [sic] battle

Why does the sight of Gareth Malone make me froth with rage? He seems like a pleasant enough chap. Mild mannered. Inoffensive. If he pushed in front of you at the queue at Waitrose, you’d probably end up apologising to him. 

I’ve never even met him. Unless you count the time, almost a decade ago, when I’d just written a scathing article about his second series (a boys’ choir in Leicester) for Music Teacher magazine. Shortly afterwards, I bumped into him at a conference. He caught sight of my name badge, and then dropped his cup of tea onto a polished marble floor (with the attendant clatter of broken china and mumbled apologies). Some might say it’s the most musical sound he’s produced to date.

No, it’s the complete betrayal of every principle I hold sacred about the arena of communal singing for which I hold him ultimately responsible.

For most of us, swanning into a school and starting up a choir without bothering to meet the music teacher simply isn’t an option. Nor is swanning out again without leaving the structure in place for that choir to continue once the bright lights and television cameras have been turned off.

Some of us might find ourselves dissatisfied with the singing of our workplace choirs. For us, the solution is to keep working at it, cheerfully, patiently; encouraging and motivating our singers. Not, for us, the big budget option of buying in a load of singers from the nearest professional choir, dressing them in the uniform of postal workers, and pretending Gareth has achieved the impossible yet again.

Still others might love to get someone else in to do all the grunt work; the boring stuff; teaching the notes, so that we can arrive for the final rehearsal, pronounce a benediction and bestow a Young Mr Grace-style, “you’re all doing very well”, before dashing off for an evening of celebrity schmoozing at an awards ceremony.

Few of us, unless utterly and completely without shame, would be prepared to be part of a process where we fly in to take credit for the hard work and professionalism of others, on national television. Malone seems disturbingly comfortable in doing this. 

Hang on! Surely there’s a long tradition of ‘chorus masters’ training choirs for performances ultimately conducted by someone else? Repetiteurs don’t expect to be part of an opera. Dance, theatre, and voice coaches will not be involved in a final performance. True. But in each and every case, the contributions of the whole team will be acknowledged, courteously and appreciatively, in some way. A mention in the programme. Being invited up on stage to take a bow. A bottle of wine and a card from the cast.

Not with Malone. There can be no excuse for his steadfast silence on the subject of those who make his projects possible. 

By far his greatest offence is to contribute to the societal zeitgeist of instant gratification. If you expect to join a choir and be able to do it, straight away, forget it. Where would be the fun in that? At first, Malone seemed to be leading a revival of community singing in the UK. Over time, he’s become the reason why more people don’t want to join a choir.  

He is the reason why children are now ‘doing singing’ for a term, before moving on to a term of pony-trekking. And a term of parascending. Followed by a term of origami. Or whatever.

Music is a lifetime’s work. That’s the whole point. There is never a time when one can say, “I’m good enough”. However much you think you know, there’s more to learn. However good you think you are, there’s always someone out there to remind you that you can be better. It’s humbling, empowering, and hugely inspiring. But it’s also a leveller: it’s something anyone can do, anyone can enjoy, and anyone can improve at. 

Innocently, at first; now more wilfully, Malone has become part of the problem. For every hour of glamorous performance on national television, a choir will have spent months learning, improving, and enjoying what they do. To portray the world of choral singing in any other way is an affront to teachers, leaders, choral directors, and singers.

This matters. I don’t want people to be put off by the amount of work involved. I want them to persevere. I want them to experience the buzz of their first live performance, the applause of an audience, the sense of achievement and self-worth, and that irrepressible desire to go out and do it all over again.

Nor is being a young choir director necessarily akin to being good. Leading and motivating a team of singers is a tremendous responsibility. The toolkit needed to find ways of addressing the musical (and sometimes emotional) needs of every singer in your choirs is an enormous one - and it’s learned with years, experience, wisdom, and self-criticism. By going on the journey, yourself, you want your singers to go on too. You don’t acquire that experience by watching and learning from one choir, or one director - but by learning from hundreds of different ones. That takes time. 

The false picture being painted by Malone is harming the cause of community singing in our country. And it needs to stop.

Oh, and it’s “pitched battle” - a battle at which the time and place are selected by both sides. Drop me a line, Gareth: you choose the time and place, and we can settle this over a cup of tea. Served in a plastic tumbler in case you drop it.

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I will sing with the spirit, and with the understanding also

From a very early age, I've been fascinated by the differing reactions people have to music.

At university, at my first "Analysis" lecture, I was asked what my initial reaction to the subject was. As a rather green 18yr old, I argued passionately in favour of the notion that people's first reactions to music are the most important.

At age 21, being reminded of my 18yr-old self's response by a lecturer with an absurdly good memory (the excellent Dr John Rink, now at Royal Holloway) I had to concede that a thorough knowledge of the structure of music brings an additional level of understanding.

Now I'm (just) 42, and with twenty years as a conductor behind me, I still reflect on that question and my response, from a more mature perspective, is probably "either - or both". Immediate reactions to new music are often the most emotIve and long lasting. But a greater understanding of the music can often lead to greater enjoyment and appreciation.

These days, with so much instantly accessible recording and performance material around us, there are pressures to perform in a way that is faithful to composers' intentions, best manifested through the canon of 'historically informed' performance (which in many cases is neither historic, nor informed, merely odd). There are also pressures - given the number of times individual works are performed and recorded - to "do something different". Both points of view are equally valid. Both are equally flawed.

I think I'd express the dilemma in terms of jazz. To perform jazz well, you need to have a cast-iron feeling as to where the beat lies, so you can play around with it. You need to understand the rules of harmony, in order to break them. You need to grasp what makes a 'good melody', in order to ignore that and create a great new tune that people remember.

No conductor can justify not knowing the 'rules' and the conventions of music performance. An ignorant conductor is a poor conductor. Someone who doesn't know the rules will inevitably be exposed as the poor musician they are.

But knowing the rules, thoroughly, means that you know when to break them; and when not to. That's what leads to many of the new, exciting performances of old works; and the dynamic renditions of new ones that we hear today.

The prevalence and accessibility of recorded music puts a pressure on all of us to 'do something different'. The skill lies in knowing when and where to be 'different.' Sometimes, the music needs us to put our own slant on it, and add our own creativity into the mix. Sometimes, the music speaks for itself, and we should merely be the mouthpiece for it. Ego is and should be secondary. Serving the music must come first. Some composers know/knew what they want/wanted so clearly, no interference from us is necessary. Others need help to bring those ideas to life.

A good musician will instinctively recognise the difference between the two. Conductors should know their Schenkerian analysis. Audiences - if led by a competent conductor - shouldn't need to, because it should be obvious through our performances.

Conductors: we learn the music, so you don't have to. This should be our mantra.

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Mutual Flourishing

One wet Wednesday at Lambeth Palace:

“So, what are we going to do about this women thing then?”

“They want to be bishops - we can’t let them be bishops!”

“But we let them be priests, and now some of them have been around long enough to be bishops.”

“Not going to happen.”

“But, no, seriously...”

*fingers in ears* “La, la, la, la, I can’t hear you, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm”

“You’re being childish. We really need to talk about this.”

“We can’t have women bishops. The traditionalists will hate it, and they’ll walk away, taking all the money with them.”

“There are more important things than money.”

“Try telling that to Fr Smith who’s got to raise £40k for his roof in the next week, otherwise the council will close down his church!”

“But still...”

*sigh* “OK. You want women bishops. But how?”

“Well... I’ve had an idea.”

“Go on...”

“Could we come up with a way to keep everyone happy?”

“I doubt it.”

“What if we had women bishops AND male bishops who don’t like women?”

“Impossible - they’d all be at each other’s throats on a daily basis. It would be worse than it is now! You can’t be serious...”

“No, hang on. I think I can see how this might work.”

“I’m listening.”

“We come up with some kind of dirty, under-the-table deal... every time we appoint a woman bishop, we sort of balance it out by appointing a woman-hating bishop too. If we keep the numbers equal, no-one can complain.”

“It’s a stupid idea. Everyone will complain.”

“Not if we give it a really catchy title.”

“Like what?”

“It would have to be something confusing. Everything the C of E says is confusing. Something catchy... but essentially meaningless. Something that sounds really positive and affirming, but actually means the complete opposite.”

“I can’t see how anyone would flourish if we did that.”

“THAT’S IT! ‘Flourishing’ is a great word!”

“No-one would flourish. There’d just be this thing where mutual hatred would grow on both sides. No, we’re really going to have to think about this again.”

“Flourishing. Mutual. Flourishing. Mutual.... I’VE GOT IT! FLOURISHING MUTUALITY!”

“OK, run me through this again. We come up with this thing we call Flourishing Mutuality. We sell it to the traditionalists on the basis that they will get lots of women-hating, traditionalists into leadership positions in the Church of England?”

“Yes.”

“And, at the same time, we sell it to the liberals on the basis that they will get lots of women-loving, liberal bishops into leadership positions too.”

“Yes.”

“Including...” *reaches with trembling fingers for a glass of water* “...actual... you mean... actual... real... WOMEN?”

“Yes”

“It’s crazy.”

“But we’d all be flourishing in our mutuality.”

“So eventually, we’d end up with an equal number of traditionalist bishops and women bishops.”

“Yes.”

“But wouldn’t the traditionalist bishops refuse to ordain women as priests?”

“Probably. Small price to pay for stability and harmony within the Church of England though, isn’t it?”

“I suppose you’re right. But wouldn’t the liberals throw their toys out the pram every time a traditionalist was made bishop?”

“No... because they’d have their own women bishops.”

“And wouldn’t the traditionalists throw their toys out the pram every time a woman was made bishop?”

“No... because they’d have their own traditionalist bishops.”

“So you’re saying everyone would be happy and the problem totally solved?”

“Yes.”

“I see where you’re going with this - but if we start having quotas for particular types of bishop, that would mean we’d be appointing bishops on the basis of gender or politics, not on merit.”

“I don’t know why that bothers you. We’ve never appointed bishops on the basis of merit before. Usually, it’s about whether they went to the right Oxford college.”

“You know, I actually think this is a great idea. You’ve really hit on a long-term solution with which everyone will be totally and completely happy.”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Very well. Make it so.”

“If it works, we could even have gay bishops!”

“Steady on.”

“Why not?”

“I think that would be a step too far, even for us. Perhaps let that one be the next Archbishop’s problem? We’ll be retired by then and we can sit on the sidelines sipping sherry without having to get involved.”

“I guess so.”

“I am a bit worried though.”

“Why?”

“Could this... Flourishing Mutuality thing... backfire on us?”

“I can't think of a single reason why it would.”

“Well... might some people not think we’re trying to please everyone, when we actually succeed in pleasing noone?”

“I can absolutely guarantee everyone will be happy with this - because they all get what they want.”

“But isn’t there a danger the wider world might think we’re legitimising discrimination, by letting the traditionalists have at least some of what they want?”

“Oh, most probably.”

“And you don’t see that as a problem?”

“Not at all. We’re always discriminating against someone. First it was Greeks, then slaves, then Jews, then black people... I mean, just look at the Spanish Inquisition. That was hardly a walk in the park, but we got away with it.”

“And you don’t think that a Christian Church should, maybe, not discriminate against ANYONE?”

“Can’t happen. People expect it of us. They’d be hugely disappointed if we didn’t have at least one group to hate on.”

“So we allow women bishops, and then everyone will let us off the hook about the gays?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up. So, on to item 3: what’s this idea you’ve had about sharing some conversations?”

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“To dust you shall return...”

The business of ‘getting older’ never ceases to be interesting. On the one hand, age - and the wisdom and life experience that come with it - encourage us to question those things with which we were brought up, and no longer to accept them as fact, or ‘gospel’ truth. On the other, it also brings a sense of responsibility to think for ourselves about what those things mean. Perhaps this is what is meant by the term ‘middle-age crisis’.

Today is Ash Wednesday. It’s a day I’ve always found difficult, and I’ve never really been quite sure why. I suppose I’ve come to actively despise the words “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The Church, perhaps because of the very nature of its calling, tends to attract as its congregants those who are vulnerable in some way: at least, those who are searching for answers to the bigger questions in order to make sense of themselves; at most, those whose vulnerability is such that it demands a compassionate response. In that context, the words, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” seem an unspeakably cruel thing to say to such a person. 

In our better moments, we might see these words as a reminder of our insignificance - the same sense of wonder and awe we get when we stand atop a high cliff, or next to a roaring ocean - that sense that we are a small cog in a big wheel. Here for the blink of an eye, then gone. So our lives, and what we do with them, counts. At our most positive, that humbling experience can encourage us to do more, and to be more than we are right now. 

But for those whose natural inclination is to be self-condemnatory; for those imbued with a natural sense of shame or guilt, those same words can be unbelievably damaging.

Tonight, I found myself - perhaps for the first time - not wishing to participate. Having been ‘well brought up’, to use the old-fashioned expression, I don’t need God in order to castigate myself for those areas where I fail, or don’t give of my best. As a professional musician, even a couple of minor mistakes can become a fully-formed reason to need to run off into a corner and be alone with my guilt. 

As well as that upbringing, I’ve also had three decades of the Church telling me that I am essentially a sinful and wicked person who needs to ‘repent’ of that sin. As an 11-year old server - then reader - then singer - then organist, I suppose I’d always accepted everything I’d been told. As my life has expected me to grow in ways different to that, I’ve come to actively resent the messages the Church increasingly conveys. But that’s lazy: in the past few years, I’ve found myself needing to confront these received truths and, perhaps for the first time, think about how they apply to my own life. In short, I’ve needed to start finding God and stop using religion as a crutch. One of the messages I find most distasteful is the idea that we are all inherently sinful and ‘need’ God to make sense of that. Surely it is better for us to struggle, wrestle, and make sense of our own ideas about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, with God’s help?

Well, I’ve had enough of repentance. My life is insufficiently interesting for it to present many opportunities for sin, wickedness, and degradation (more’s the pity). And part of rationalising the lack of self-confidence I’ve had through my first 40 or so years on the planet, is to come to a healthy view on what constitutes a deliberate sin, and what (more often than not) constitutes nothing more than an innocent mistake.

What is important about mistakes is that we learn from them, grow, and develop. That is healthy. Positive. There is no need to ‘repent’, in Church terms for those. And on the occasions where we actively ‘sin’ - unless it’s something major like murder or violence - well, shouldn’t we take some personal responsibility to repair broken relationships and set things right with each other, rather than getting on our knees and assuming everything will be OK just because we said “sorry” and God forgave us? This primitive view of repentance and forgiveness is intellectually facile, and holds us permanently in a state of burden to a God who, if he’s anything like I hope he is, would rather we grew, matured, and evolved as people. For the sake of his world, and ours.

I’ve always been rather fond of ‘taking up’ something for Lent, rather than ‘giving up’ something in an outward-facing act of apparent penitence. The ridiculous ‘Ashes to Go’ phenomenon - the Church’s latest desperate attempt to make itself seem relevant; and the imposition of ashes seems, to any modern human, to bear something of the cap-doffing, cod-spirituality of yesteryear.

If we take away anything from Lent, should it not be that it is through a process of self-examination and reflection - not repentance - that we might become better people?

Also tonight, I did not receive Communion (see posts passim). I have no intention of receiving Communion in an Anglican church again until the bishops reverse their position on issues of human sexuality.

There again, is a cause for reflection, not repentance. Still another part of my upbringing where I have been conditioned to believe my ‘intrinsically disordered’ lifestyle (something over which I have no control, incidentally) is a reason for me to feel some sense of shame or guilt. Well, no. Again, as I get older, I realise it’s the Church that’s out of step with what is morally right and decent, not me. 

In the end, it’s all a question of language. The Church is very poor at recognising the impact its language and text can have on those who already feel inclined to doubt themselves. It doesn’t need to be laid on with a trowel.

And this is why I feel so privileged to work and worship in a cathedral that does nothing to accentuate how I already feel (and often try not to feel) about myself. Perhaps it’s no accident that I want to view Lent as a time not for repentance, but for “reflection”; for tonight’s excellent monologues by the Dean focused on the ‘windows’ of Lent. Through windows come light, and illumination. The notion of Lent as a season not for darkness, but for illumination, for joy, for hope, love, and positivity. I think, tonight, if I’d felt some sense of being compelled or obligated to join in, I might have resented it. Being allowed to join in actively, passively, or not at all - and feeling the freedom to be allowed to do that - enabled me to think and pray in my own way, and to learn. 

Well-crafted worship acts not as a barrier to knowing God, but a conduit to it. Tonight, well-chosen and beautifully expressed words, together with the silence and space to be able to fully reflect on them, enabled me to come to a new understanding. And it’s rare these days that I can confidently say the Church has helped me to become closer to God rather than pushing me away from Him. 

And surely this is the whole point: Church, faith, religion, and worship should provide - through words, music, and silence - the opportunity to examine ourselves, to pray, and to come to some conclusions. Bishops making sweeping statements about an entire cross-section of society and damning them all as inherently ‘sinful’ is nothing short of a disgrace. Spiritual and decent priests working to enable each of us to continue and deepen our own individual dialogues with God - well that’s something very special indeed. I cannot compliment Bradford Cathedral highly enough on its Ash Wednesday Eucharist: because instead of telling me what I should think, it enabled me to think about these things for myself. I feel enriched by it. 

As a footnote, perhaps this is another reason why cathedral worship increases in popularity, and bucks the trend of decline in other parts of the Church. Generally, cathedrals have sufficient confidence to offer meaningful worship whilst also offering a certain anonymity. I don’t need to believe everything my cathedral offers in order to feel fully part of it. Noone is insisting that I believe what they believe. More, they provide the ‘tools’ for their worshippers to work it out for themselves. Sermons which challenge and question - but don’t seek to answer. Music which is offered unapologetically and unashamedly with the intention of allowing us to think and feel. Pace, space, and silence to make our own prayer. This is what cathedrals are good at. And the rest of the Church could learn much from it.

The Church’s role isn’t to tell me I’m sinful or to demand my repentance: it’s to needle me and make me think about my behaviour as a rational adult. The Church’s role isn’t to provide neatly-packaged answers: it’s to make me question. The Church’s role isn’t always to speak: it’s to listen and allow space for me to grow at my own pace. This is, perhaps, my abiding hope for what organised religion in the UK today might be, and might continue to become. 

Tonight, I experienced a little of that for the first time in several years. And I’m incredibly grateful for it. 

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Recognising the face of Jesus

“The purpose of the shared conversations process was not to change the view of participants or to seek to change the views of others, but rather to recognise Jesus in the face, story and view of those with whom they might disagree.”

So what happens when you can’t recognise the face of Jesus in those with whom you might disagree?

Many years ago, Norwich Cathedral introduced me to the Rule of St Benedict. A passage from it was read (and probably still is) at the start of Evensong each day. From the outset, I was hooked: here was a guide to getting on with other people, and what it has to say is so practical. It has so much to say to any group seeking to live in communion with one another. It deals, practically, with the irritations close and regular contact with others can bring. It describes how differences can be mediated and moderated. It outlines how those very sources of irritation can be turned into a route towards greater shared understanding. Unity through, and because of difference. It has so much to say to the Church of England today, on a day when the profoundly disappointing House of Bishops’ Report on the Shared Conversations is presented to General Synod.

There will be those who crow and preen about the report’s conclusions - for they have “won”. There will be those on the losing side who campaign, vocally, for something different and speak - as, indeed, I have done - about “betrayal” by the bishops.

St Benedict told us to “treat every guest as if he were Christ himself”. Years ago, working in the Norfolk Broads, my parish visitors’ centre displayed that quote over the serving hatch. Staffed entirely by volunteers from the church, day in, day out, people from an enormous variety of social, financial, educational, and sexuality backgrounds worked, together, to provide a service for visitors. It was a great example of how we can ‘be Church’ together, effectively, and powerfully, as a force for good.

It’s a far cry from the situation today, which is born of inherent dishonesty. Most bishops today hold no strong views on anything at all - that’s why they’re such infuriating people to deal with. The idea that they might, corporately, have come up with a strongly held view on gay marriage is beyond laughable.

In churches too, views are less than polarised. Most worshippers are agnostic on the question of gay marriage - whatever they think, they don’t think it strongly enough to bang on about it to others, or try and oppress anyone else’s beliefs.

Where, then, does all this anger come from?

It all stems from the power grab which took place in Synod back in 2010. At a time when parishioners in ordinary churches were at their most apathetic, the powerful evangelical and ultra-conservative wings mounted a (successful) power grab. Synod’s members are now, disproportionately, those who take a hard line on human sexuality, in a way that the average Christian in a rural church (rural communities now being totally beyond the visibility of bishops) simply aren’t.

Add in the vocal bishops of GAFCON, and there is a heady mix of powerful - and loud - people, who simply must be catered for by the Church, no matter what the impact on church communities throughout the UK.

Why, then, do we not tell these tyrants to bugger off? Because they’re the people who bring all the money to the Church. Without the shallow, crowd-pleasing, ‘give-us-10%-of-yer-income’ megachurches, the C of E would be bankrupt. Where there is money, there is power, and power corrupts.

The slightly ineffective but honest, genuine, heartfelt sort of people in the Church are unfortunately not those that tend to give much of their money - not, at least, until they die - so that voice on Synod has been lost. Those with long memories will remember the ‘muddlers’ so characteristic of Synod 20 years ago. These were the people who found the middle ground, mainly out of desire not to cause offence (something the present Synod rather lacks). The muddlers have never been more needed than they are now. But they’re all gone.

What’s left is simply not credible. Don’t tell me the present, homophobic stance is “what most ordinary Christians around the world” think, because it isn’t. How do I know? Because I’m not a bishop. I talk to “ordinary Christians” and the Bishops’ report is emphatically not what they think.

Because the ordinary folk with whom I do disagree express their view honestly, but with heart, decency, and compassion. I’m able to understand where they’re coming from too - so I’m able to respect their honesty. And whilst we may not agree, I don’t like them any less for it. Perhaps I recognise Jesus’ face in them. But I don’t recognise it in the hard-line views expressed by our ecclesiastical masters.

I can’t recognise the face of Jesus in anyone who lies, politicks, and pretends that the view they espouse is down to some deeply held theological view. Apart from anything else, the modern generation of bishops understand so little about theology and liturgy, I’m quite surprised they were able to come to any view about “what the Bible says”. I can’t recognise the face of Jesus in cowards. I can’t recognise the face of Jesus in those who claim to believe in something they don’t, just because it’s politically expedient.

This whole debate is about money, power, and influence. Tomorrow, we won’t see many ordinary people represented in the debate: whether those who are against gay marriage, or for it. What we will see is the Church of England’s cowardice being perpetuated in capitulation to those who, for the time being, pay our bills.

But they, too, will grow old, and die. And who will replace them? No-one. Because whilst the Church of England gazes at its own navel, an enormous number of atheists who - without even realising it - carry on being decent people and ‘treating every guest as if he was Christ himself’ will be doing so without being part of our Church, which they’ll increasingly see as bigoted, out of touch, and irrelevant.

I still fervently believe that faith, and the Church, have something to offer the world. We’re at our best in the ordinary places - villages, rural communities, impoverished urban areas, and cathedrals - where we deliver real ministry to real people living real life. We’re at our worst when we lack the courage to stand up to the rich, and the powerful, and speak truth to power. 

The bishops don’t inhabit real life. Synod doesn’t inhabit the real world. And so, inevitably, the Church will die.

That, ultimately, is the saddest thing of all.

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“There are only children, women, and men to be loved”

God can chase away the “fear of terror” and “the economies of injustice”, said the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas sermon. Clearly the House of Bishops didn’t get that memo, if the snappily-titled, ‘Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations’ is anything to go by.

With the kind of blunderingly incompetent timing only the Church of England can perfect, the report was published on Holocaust Memorial Day: surprisingly fitting, given that the report serves to marginalise and persecute an entire cross-section of society.

This unfortunate coincidence led me to reflect on how injustice can spring not only from evil intent, but from good people lacking the courage to do what is right. The Weimar Republic was a properly constituted social democracy, in which Jewish people were truly free. It took less than two years for Hitler to stir up an undercurrent of anti-immigrant sentiment (not dissimilar to that being espoused by Donald Trump in the present day) resulting in the introduction of the laws (passed with common consent) that would eventually lead to genocide.

If Holocaust Memorial Day teaches us anything, it should teach that the arbitrary labelling of an entire ethnic or social group as ‘evil’ or ‘sinful’ can have grave consequences. And that all those with a voice have a responsibility to speak out, and not to become lazily complicit in the persecution of others.

It is hard to see how the Church’s stock term for gay relationships, “intrinsically disordered”, is much different to the Nazis’ “untermenschen” – which led, in turn, not only to the extermination of Jews, but Roma gypsies, the mentally ill, and the disabled; the sterilization of deaf people; and the imprisonment of homosexuals... anyone perceived as a threat to the established order. As soon as a society starts placing emphasis not on unity, but on ‘difference’, trouble almost certainly lies ahead.

The one glimmer of light in the darkness is that no one takes any notice of bishops any more. The extent of their incompetence, their betrayal, and their sheer out-of-touch-ness has led most thinking people – Christians and atheists alike – to completely disregard their hand-wringing pronouncements. As a gay Christian friend said to me: “I’ll f*** whoever I want; and the Bishop of Norwich can go f*** himself”. Offensive? Yes. But it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment. And easy to understand the anger felt by many who were asked to place their trust in the bishops, and willingly did so. 

So it is easy to laugh this off: in one sense, nothing has changed – in spite of the many hours of ‘shared conversations’. And I doubt that the bishops’ self-serving “please have sympathy with us, wrestling with these important questions we were too cowardly to address” will have any lasting effect, other than to further weaken any confidence ordinary Christians have in their Church leaders.

 But the report is important, in three crucial respects:

 1.     Though much has been achieved in recent years, in terms of equality for LGBTQI+ people, learning about and coming to accept one’s own ‘otherness’ or ‘difference’ remains as painful, confusing, and isolating an experience as it ever was. Even in these enlightened times, over half of secondary school students have witnessed homophobic bullying amongst their peers; and 58% do not feel their school is a welcoming place for LGTBQI+ people. Over half of young gay people self-harm (compared to 1 in 12 for young people in general). LGB teenagers and young adults are twice as likely to attempt suicide than in the population as a whole. 

It’s clear, therefore, that any negative messages absorbed by young people have the potential to cause immense harm. In spite of the rising levels of secularism in the UK, there will still be many young people involved in church life – or exposed to it as a result of the beliefs and views of family members and friends. Can ordinary Christians really sleep at night when our Church, instead of caring about and supporting such people, demonises them? I doubt the decision to produce a glossy brochure about how to be nicer to gay people (the only tangible action to result from the report) is going to provide much comfort to anyone contemplating self-harm, particularly when the central conclusion is that anything other than a heterosexual relationship continues to be deemed a sin.  

The Anglican Church is big on guilt and shame. We begin our services not with joy, but by getting on our knees and confessing our sins. LGBTQI+ people experience shame and guilt long before they come to self-acceptance: they don’t need their church to accentuate that. What they do need is love, compassion, and tenderness. 

In this sense this isn’t, primarily, an argument about same-sex marriage. Those who want to get married will do so, and they are unlikely to give the tiniest of damns what some miserable bishop thinks about it all. But continuing to define something as perfectly natural, unchosen, and ‘received’ as sexuality as a ‘sin’ and a ‘lifestyle choice’ is unspeakably damaging and intellectually facile. 

2.     I am yet to hear any convincing moral argument as to why homosexuality and same-sex marriage are ‘wrong’. The bishops’ report is couched in complex ecclesiastical language. These are people for whom any moral question is addressed not through an examination of conscience, but detailed argument about the translation of a particular word from the Greek, or the interpretation of an obscure sentence from Scripture. Their theology is grounded in the academic, not the practical. Their analysis is rooted in a ‘problem to be solved’, not a ‘people to be ministered to’. It is about head, not heart. 

Most normal people don’t think or feel that way. Our relationships with God are a complex, messy business, that involve prayer, thought, soul-searching. They are, in essence, emotional, not academic problems. Trying to find an academic solution to an emotional problem is doomed to failure. The bishops resemble no one as much as the Scribes and Pharisees, so intent on dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s of their rule book that they forgot who their laws were there to serve. It took Jesus to not only challenge the law, but to claim himself as the fulfilment – the human embodiment - of it, for things to change. 

The bishops’ position on sexuality (gay and straight) is remarkably inconsistent. If they were to enforce their Biblical ‘rules’ correctly, they should take as hard a line with straight couples who have sex before marriage as they do with gay clergy who refuse to submit to the requirement for celibacy. The notion of sex solely as a vehicle for procreation is hopelessly outmoded. But it continues to be applied to people in same-sex relationships, but not those in straight relationships. The day a bishop swears faithfully that he only has sex with his wife to produce children, and never for pleasure, I might be more persuaded by his insistence that his gay clergy colleagues must abstain from sex altogether. As an aside, it’s always struck me that churches would be happier places if there was much *more* sex going on, not less. 

3.     Leaving aside the impact of the report on present-day Christians and churchgoers, it is hard to conceive the extent of the damage this issue will do (and is doing) to our mission, our outreach, and our tradition of Benedictine hospitality. Most people under 30 these days will either decide (as LGBTQI+ people) that faith is not for them, or (as straight people) be unwilling to engage with a Church that views their friends and colleagues as sinful or disordered.

27th January 2017 is the day the Church forgot to love. Its laws have taken precedence over the decent, honest, loving actions most churchgoers instinctively know to be right. Desperately clinging on to power and dominance has been signaled as being more important to Church leaders than the care of souls. It has forgotten the words of Henri Nouwen: For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women, and men to be loved.

LGBTQI+ people will not go away. Those whose faith is strong enough to allow it, will stay, and will fight. Gay clergy will marry, and offer improvised same-sex blessings, in defiance of the bishops. The bishops will respond with increasingly strong sanctions and punishments. Let us not forget, it is from these small beginnings of struggle and defiance that a good man – the best man – Jesus, was led on the road to crucifixion, showing a courage and determination noticeably absent in Church of England bishops. It was from a decision to label Jews as second-class citizens that a train of events was set in motion leading to the slaughter of six million of God’s people. Discrimination and injustice rarely lead to positive consequences.  

And it is from this report by the House of Bishops that more young and frightened LGBTQI+ people will feel a little less safe in the UK than they did this time last week. For a Christian Church that, surely, is unforgiveable.