Wild, Bright Hope

Having completed the "Wild Bright Hope" Lent course I feel I have been on a journey. Clichéd perhaps, but the past six weeks have been so much more than disparate group discussions. The course has become a wonderful drawing together of so many thoughts and ideas: some new, some many years old, caught rattling around in my head waiting for an outlet. It's odd really, because it's "just" a book - and not even one I initially felt particularly inspired to read. As any parent navigating complex illness will tell you - or any family carer struggling to source additional answers or support, it's often "the hope that gets you", precipitating another descent into despair, and I've written about it many times before: - 

"Each time someone offers you a bit of hope your heart leaps. The adrenalin kicks in and you start to take your eye off the ball. That "ball" is coping, it's the hamster wheel of life where you know your niche and get on with it, where you understand your limitations and work within them. At whatever level, we all do this. But hope makes you look beyond, at what might be, the what-ifs, the maybes. It's dangerous territory."

In our modern society "hope" can become fear-inducing because it prompts us to embark on a journey where we dare to hope for change. Change we yearn for, change we desperately need. And what if that change fails to materialise? Unfulfilled hope can feel acutely painful. 

What this book has taught me is that hope doesn't necessarily mean focussing on desired, or even defined change. Instead, hope creates the space for change, it facilitates new perspectives which enable us to grow. To grow in our thinking, our behaviour and our interactions with others. Fear is thus a barrier to hope, preventing those new perspectives which create this space for change. Hope is therefore not a definitive movement towards desired change, it is an openness to new perspectives. And the catalyst required is human connection. Liberating stuff. 

Why the Church of England is Failing Women

The place and position of women within the Church of England, both within the clerical hierarchy and their accepted status within the wider congregation has been a controversial subject since the Reformation. Indeed, the Reformation in England was essentially institutional change to accommodate the needs of a man; women were incidental to its form and function, and it was never intended to accommodate women. The role of women in this patriarchal religious world has been to gauge orthodoxy, whilst defining their proper roles has been the focus of numerous church councils, theologians, and religious authorities. (Ruth Adam : "Reclaiming the power of women in the early church.") The early church focussed on the biological functions of women - capitalising on pre-existing pagan fertility worship which celebrated the fertility of the land and people, and the union of the divine masculine and feminine. Mary as the Mother of God was central to Catholic worship and women's subservient roles as procreators and carers were reinforced, a model acceptable to traditional pagan societies. Yet there is plenty of evidence women played a key evangelical role in the early church, albeit informally. (Smith : Women & their Roles in Early Christianity")

Photo by Mikail Duran on Unsplash

Small wonder that association of power and maleness led many women who aspired to play an unorthodox role to jettison their femininity, believing the patriarchally enforced myth that femaleness personified weakness. So powerful has this association been over the passage of time that this process is still played out in the West today with a powerful element of gender in eating disorders, and anorexia in particular. Certainly for female sufferers, arresting female development is exerting control over one's body and for many teenagers, whilst this might have little to do with their personal views on their femininity it feels the only part of their lives they have any control over. By losing weight, a girl loses her femininity. She androgenises herself. It is a deep and fundamental rejection of what is female and feminine, embracing the asexual and often masculine, whether intentional or not. Female hormones are no longer produced as body fat is depleted and curves vanish. Menstruation stops and the figure remains or returns to looking boyish. There is considerable evidence of women deliberating doing this in history. Female "anchorites" in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period used self starvation as a means of gaining a foothold in a male-dominated world, their views and opinions were given a level of credence otherwise denied to women at the time. 

Why Christianity must not lose its faith in the past.

I admit I struggled conceiving of a suitable title for this article. A faith which began over two millennia ago is likely going to be firmly rooted in the (very ancient) past, and having thus far stood the test of time surely it's pretty future proof? Yet in recent years the Church of England has demonstrated an alarming trend towards denial of the fundamental founding principles of our faith, with a kind of apologetic embarrassment leaving us with a "Christianity-lite" offer. Whilst wonderfully convenient and less controversial, this is becoming further and further removed from where we ought to be. A collection of books compiled over a period of five thousand years by a people in transition as the foundation of faith would not seem to offer an obvious modern handbook for the future. Except ironically it can and it should. 

What is holding Christianity back- and specifically the Church of England, is its insistence that creating a modern veneer for today’s worshippers can offer a new, relevant representation of the faith fit for today. I personally feel this is selling out; an enduring ethos and way of life should not need a shiny new wrapper to ensure its survival. It’s not how Jesus operated and it misses the fundamental point of our faith; that superficial acceptance of the world we live in is not the way forward. Standing up against the tide, however difficult, is the only option when following Jesus. 

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple

Benvenuto Tisi da Garofalo (c.1481–1559)

I might not be a Biblical scholar, but I'm pretty certain Jesus was a revolutionary- from overturning the moneylender’s tables in the Temple to riding a donkey through the side gate into Jerusalem in contrast to the Roman Governor arriving in pomp through the main entrance to the city. These are not the acts of someone hoping to go along with the status quo to achieve acceptance, they are confrontational acts designed to precipitate strong feelings. Jesus did not choose the easy path, he chose what he believed to be the correct one- and yet today convenience and acceptance triumphs daily in the CofE. The mental gymnastics required to avoid "offending" any person or group whilst simultaneously remaining relevant is astonishing. Ironically this is precisely what Jesus objected to; it is fundamentally UNChristian to avoid challenging something immoral, unethical or which causes persecution. Worse still, they have confused seeking justice and speaking out with persecution, in collusion with a "woke" agenda seeking to subvert society.