when is a religious ceremony necessarily non-religious?

Rather a lot of heat has been generated over the regulations to allow religious premises to be used for conducting Civil Partnership ceremonies, which come in to force this week, I think.

The gist of the so-called 'Ali Amendment' (named after Lord Ali, who proposed it), is that Civil Partnerships can be conducted in religious premises, if the couple in question wishes it, and the relevant faith community allows it.  The new regulations implement this law.

However, this is ill thought out, because the law also determines that a Civil Partnership cannot be conducted within the context of a religious service (just as, at a Civil Wedding, prayers and mentions of God are strictly regulated, and generally prohibited unless in a very vague sense in a poem, etc.).  By some oversight, that provision didn't get repealed.

Various groups - such as the Quakers - are overjoyed at this provision.  Others, much less so.  They are particularly concerned that the option of hosting these non-religious religious ceremonies might get turned into an obligation by equality legislation.  The Anglican lawyers think they're off the hook because the arrangements under which the CofE conducts weddings are very far removed from Civil Marriage - so no dint of inequality arises, because there is no direct comparison anyway.  [This seems to dwell on the letter, rather than the spirit of the law!].

Other churches feel themselves in a more vulnerable position, because both their ability to conduct weddings and the new opportunity to conduct Civil Partnerships (albeit without a religious service while the Registrar is present) are both licenced in the same way with the local Registrar's office (albeit via separate applications).  Though they couldn't be compelled to do something for which they are not licenced, it might be discriminatory for them not to apply for a licence, I guess.

All this seems Pharisaically hypothetical to me. The idea that two people are going to launch a lawsuit to enable them to host the 'happiest day of their lives' in premises where they are manifestly unwelcome seems remarkably far-fetched.  I suppose that after being turned down, some particularly vindictive person might seek damages - but to what end?

Perhaps it would be better to spend time not seeking safeguards, but in looking at what sort of damage this kind of argument does to the message of the gospel.  Jesus pronounced a lot of woe on religious leaders trying to uphold their legal system: to the rest of the population, not so much.  "Love your neighbour" he said - and who is my neighbour?

literally

Nice ::  (h/t Karl Hand).

disappointed

Wycliffe Hall is next door to my College.  Its Principal gives a surprisingly candid interview.  I'm disappointed, but not surprised, by much of what he says.  I'm uncertain as to why he is proud that Wycliffe Hall is a part of the University of Oxford, given that he rather clearly doesn't share the University's present values, on a range of topics.

A wise man said that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.  I wonder if that's relevant here?

blogger gone crazy

blogger is screwing up my blog layout.  I don't know why.  Sorry for the inconvenience.


[edit]

I think it's now fixed.   Please let me know if there are still problems with comments.

Review: Fall to Grace

Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, and Society
Jay Bakker with Martin Edlund


Amazon tells me I bought this book in January, so the fact that I've just finished reading it is a matter of some embarrassment, but that seems to be my common complaint - too many books on my 'to read' pile.  So perhaps I'm missing the boat with this review - many others reviewed the book long ago.  But it's a good book, so here goes.

Bakker's surname will perhaps ring bells: his parents Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Televangelists in the name of "Praise the Lord (PTL) Ministries".  Probably more wholesome than some, the whole thing collapsed in the late 1980s, with stories (well-founded, sending Jim to jail) of financial irregularity, and stories (well-founded) of marital infidelity.  Jay was 13 at the time, went proverbially "off the rails" - meeting his dad out of prison, he describes himself as "eighteen, pierced, and a raging alcoholic".  His dad tried to help him reform - but instead he found himself digging a deeper hole.

Perhaps he over-plays that fall - I guess others have fallen further - and yet, it is an essential part of his tale.  Through the patient help of a friend or two, and the help of a "twelve-step program", he not only cleaned up his life, he discovered a real revelation of God's grace.  In place of the Christianity he thought he had received (despite some insightful pastoral wisdom from his mother, described later) founded on sin, guilt, and judgement, he learned instead a story of grace, of love, of acceptance.

Following this autobiographical introduction, he explores in rather more detail this theme of grace, tracing it through Paul and other biblical authors.  With the zeal of a convert, he describes both the theology and the way it's worked out in his experience.  He explores the ways in which the message of grace embodies the gospel so much better than the preaching of morality.  In one sense, it's pedestrian stuff - but so often it isn't lived, it's just theory.   Bakker puts this grace-laden gospel into practice, in the Christian community he now helps to lead, which meets in a bar and ministers to many on the fringes of polite society - precisely the kind of people that Jesus hung out with.

Besides this general interplay of theory and practice, of theology and a lived-out gospel, he spends a few later chapters exploring the outworking of this line of thinking in a few more detailed topics.  In particular, he revisits the way that the church has treated gay people.  Not only exploring the theology, he describes experiences in a national mission/conversation attempting to dispel fears and misconceptions (and his disappointment at the way Rick Warren and Saddleback church treated them).  He describes how and why the church he serves - Revolution Church - is gay-affirming.  He describes how this approach makes a difference for individual Christians.

This book is on the one hand an immensely personal book - the story of Jay Bakker's journey into understanding God's grace (I'm sure he wouldn't claim to have arrived yet).  And on the other, it is a gentle tour of one of the absolutely central themes of the gospel - one that too often we overlook because somehow it is too generous, too outrageous, too loving, too much at odds with our cold hearts.  His penultimate paragraph is this, it sums up the book rather well:

Grace is all about acceptance.  By accepting grace we accept God, we accept ourselves, we accept each other.

You probably gathered that I rather liked this book.  It's all about God's grace.  What's not to like?

on the protesters

Anne Atkins on Newsnight: "if the protesters had encamped outside St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, instead of St. Paul's, they'd have been evangelized within five minutes".  How true! Would they still be in place, one wonders?

I genuinely don't know what to make of the protests.  It seems that the poor erstwhile Dean and Chapter are confused also.  It has been amusing to see politicians of every stripe trying to put their oar in, and entirely failing to understand what the issues are.  The letters to the Daily Telegraph never fail to amuse - and miss the point, it seems.

Followers of Christ are called to seek justice for the poor - but whether that is the same thing as finding common cause with those camping in front of St Paul's is, well, unclear.

by their fruits

alternative title: to whom would Jesus send a cease and desist notice?


Apparently, Mars Hill Church in Seattle has set its lawyers on to Mars Hill Church Sacramento.  The combination of the name and logo is claimed to be too close for comfort.  We're not talking about hamburger franchises here, we're talking Christian congregations. I nearly swore there.  Sorry.

I was going to reproduce the logos here, for comparison, but that turns out to be difficult for silly technical reasons. You can see them here:

http://marshillsacramento.com/
http://marshill.com/

Is really the fruit of the gospel that Jesus had in mind?  Are these Kingdom values?   Somehow it's not surprising, but it seems desperately sad.