The sub-title of this book “Why gay clergy tolerate hypocrisy” certainly doesn’t pull any punches.
I think the strength of that word “hypocrisy” was what drew me in, too often I think those advocating an “inclusive” agenda within the Church pussy-foot around the current situation. Here it becomes a deeply personal as well as a complex and challenging subject. I have spent many years in various ways exploring my “vocation” within the Church of England and recognise the corrosive self-censorship which Maxwell identifies among her gay clergy had at one time become a part of my life.
It was a deeply troubling time in my life, I had an overwhelming sense of vocation to ordained ministry but I also found that in conscious and sub-conscious ways the only way to fulfil that vocation was to base it on a lie, a half-truth, a partial account of myself. How could I serve a God from whom no secrets are hid when there were certain friends that I quietly lost touch with in case they prompted an awkward question? And this was in a Diocese where the ordaining Bishop was well known as a strong support of gay inclusion in the Church. However for all his “support” he was still signed up to all the official messages of the House of Bishops.
Often the issues of gay ministry and women’s ministry are taken in the same breath and I would not for a moment want to diminish the pain and damage the Church has caused to women in the exercise of their vocations. However I think hypocrisy is an issue that particularly effects gay clergy – the ordination of women is pretty black and white, but it is clear that it is not unusual for gay clergy to find their Bishop will warmly support them and their same-sex partner in private while publicly denying their existence. I feel we need to get off the fence and call these Bishop’s out – at the moment I feel we are trying to make the omelette of gay emancipation without breaking any eggs.
But what is a Church that keeps such double standards worth? – it says one thing and then wilfully ignores that its ordained ministers don’t live by its teaching – why should any of the rest of us pay a blind bit of notice to anything it says while those who preach at us are happy to collude in lies?
I am honest about my cynicism – so reading about the experience of gay clergy in certain London deaneries (where they make up the majority of the staff because clergy with families simply don’t choose to live and work in those areas) makes me wonder. The senior staff in those areas know they have a deanery full of gay clergy and understand the essential role those gay clergy play in delivering the ministry of the Church – yet they seem unwilling to normalise the position of their staff by seeking the emancipation of gay clergy. Who does this serve? – are they perhaps fearful that once gay clergy find they have a secure standing in the Church the rule “beggars can’t be choosers” will no longer apply and gay clergy will become as reluctant as their straight colleagues to work in these “undesirable” neighbourhoods?
The account of the legal changes in the status of gay people in the UK over the last 40 years is amazing – given here in a clear and concise way. Maxwell’s research finished just before the Government started the process of providing for Same-sex Marriage – the far end of a continuum from “de-criminalisation” through to societal affirmation. And it is interesting that the changes to the age of consent which were revolutionary for me as a teenager now don’t even warrant a mention.
I also wonder if the picture that Maxwell paints is a little bit bleak, I infer that most of her interviewees were older. They were all to some extent “closeted” in a way that some of the clergy who appear on my facebook wall clearly aren’t. As I finished the book one of them was posting pictures of his fancy dress for a pride march…
It has been adapted from a PhD thetis and this does show, the structure is at times a little clunky, however this does not detract from the power and the importance of the content – I really hope that one way or another it finds its way in to the hands of every member of the House of Bishops – because whatever their views about sexuality they all need an urgent wake up call that we simply can not go on like this. The sad fact is that the vast majority of people who will read this will be those who are already frustrated by the Church’s status quo – and not nearly enough will be those who could stand up and contribute to a change of heart.
When a book deals with something so personal to oneself it becomes difficult to write about – there is a rawness and a nakedness in this which I am not altogether comfortable with – but given the subject of the book I feel compelled to live with a little nakedness rather than the comfort of concealment.
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