Messy churches

Sir, Whilst I uphold the Christian ideal of marriage as a lifelong union, and have been married for over 50 years, I am profoundly relieved that the Church of England now allows the dedication of a marriage after divorce, where appropriate. Increased longevity puts a strain on marriage and we need a merciful, messy Church, because life is messy.

It would certainly be much easier for us today if God had created Adam and Eve only, or if the gay minority was prepared to remain invisible. Misfits when it comes to the norm for marriage, present Church teaching condemns them to a life of involuntary celibacy. When, despite the odds, they form loving, stable couples, the Church will only grudgingly acknowledge their relationships, in private. They ask for bread and are given barely a stone, despite the recommendations of the Pilling Report. Is it too much to hope that the Holy Spirit will use the promised two years of facilitated conversations to enable more Christians to imagine how things might be, perhaps taking a lead, as we are an incarnational faith, from the Olympic movement? As a Church, we suffer from a deficit of creative imagination!

Taking God and the Scriptures seriously enough to have studied theology and to have become a partner of the Bible Society, I rely on the Holy Spirit when I wrestle, as all must, with the many human ‘voices’ through which the Word is filtered. Am I required to endorse Paul’s slander against ‘all Cretans’? Should I go along with a humane practice of slavery, which is nowhere condemned in the Bible as a moral evil? I would be interested to know how much weight Alan Minchin gives to Jesus’ saying that he had more to teach his disciples than they were then ready to hear, and how much he is prepared to be disturbed by the Holy Spirit.

Peter’s Joppa vision, which led to the no-strings attached inclusion of Gentiles, was truly shocking in its day.

Serena Lancaster,

Broadwell, Moreton-in-Marsh