In a League of our Own?
'Millions of people are living in a spiritual desert. They would look in vain to the Anglican Church for help. It is too preoccupied with whether its bishops should be allowed to go around sodomising other men. Yes, the Anglican Church is irrelevant. It is little more than a post-Christian, liberal democratic party with a hymn thrown in.'
Those were the painful words of Paul McGregor, writing to the Independent this week before the Anglican primates gathered to discuss the issue of gay clergy. It set a depressing, if somewhat familiar tone.
Every cloud of witnesses has a silver lining, however, and we've the Bakers of Pratts Bottom to thank for reminding us, on the same letters page, of another perspective shared more soberly throughout the country.
'We live in a small village just outside of London and recently started attending our tiny local parish church,' they report. 'We have been so impressed by all the hard work and positive impact the church has had on our local community.
'It produces a directory of local information, runs groups for parents, toddlers and children after school, youth clubs, coffee mornings for the elderly and local fun events, collects for oversees and local charities, offers support and help for people who are sick and in need of comfort, looks out for new people moving in.
'Without this vital group of hard-working and dedicated volunteers, the village would not have the great sense of community it does. Thank God for local Christians and churches.'
Thank God, we might add, for the Bakers.
It's sad that both Church and 'world' focus so intensely on sexuality, especially when such an issue threatens to rent in twain the Anglican Communion. Those of us who care about the Church (and how it looks) might like, more positively in this troubled week, to remind ourselves that the Bible doesn't contain a league table or 'hierarchy' of sins, even though it often seems that way.
Meanwhile, those outside the fold could acknowledge that a church is deeply precious to any locality, and be slower to dismiss Christian communities when they enter times of soul-searching.
Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." His words should not be used as an excuse for 'anything goes'; but they're a useful place at which to stop, and start, to think, before our beliefs harden to bigotry or prejudice.
And they apply whether we are forming opinion within the church, or, indeed, without.
Brian Draper
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