Aussie Saints

I smile at the hooplah surrounding the imminent canonisation of the Blessed Mary McKillop. As a dear friend commented to me, it is wonderful to think that our first Aussie Saint, according to the Roman Catholic Church, was once excommunicated by her Bishop - surely the most extreme action a Bishop can take against one of the faithful.

The church has done a great job of creating rules about something only God knows about - indeed the Christian Scriptures dare to describe all followers of Jesus as Saints.

I have become a great devotee to the idea of the Communion of Saints, and I have no problem with the idea of inviting those long dead to pray for me, just as I will ask my friends here present to pray for me. The thing that intrigues me is this idea that prayers to someone after they have died, followed by a miraculous event, are the only pathway to Canonisation.

I also wonder about the ability of someone to declare that their prayers for a miracle were absolutely and only directed to the one whose Canonisation is sought. If I was sick with terminal cancer and I asked my friends among the Communion of Saints to pray for me, how would I know whose prayer it was that God chose to listen to so that they would be able to get the credit?

And then there are the other kinds of miracles.

What about the thousands of miracles that happened in the lives of children at schools run by the Brown Joeys because someone cared enough to ensure thay had access to an education?

What about the miracles that have happened in the lives of women, inspired by Mary McKillop, who joined her religious congregation and carried on the work she began?

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands or even millions, of Australian men and women whose lives of faith and good works have brought miracles into the lives of others, and inspired many other people to live their lives in the same way, passing on the miracle of a life transformed by God. I trust that others will count me among them.

Church conflicts -musings on a tragedy that keeps on keeping on

The owner of this blog has graciously offered me space for a little musing about church conflict. It was this person who said recently "all church conflicts are unique because the factors influencing each person is unique, but all church conflicts are also fundamentally the same".

The story of the Church throughout history is the story of more conflict and more people behaving badly than will fit on the head of a pin.

I recently read a lovely book called "Blessed Among All Women" by Robert Ellsberg -a compendium of the lives of holy Christian women who, for the most part, were abused, vilified, excommunicated, martyred and betrayed -mostly by people in power in the Church. That they kep their faith in such difficulties is amazing -that no-one has ever, to my knowledge, stopped the church long enough to ask "why do we keep doing this?" is even more amazing.

Australia is about to have our first official Saint -the Blessed Mary McKillop, who was one such woman. Her bishop excommunicated her for a time!

I would like to suggest that conflict in the church has as its base the same root causes as all conflicts in the human society we belong to -power and money. Someone has power and is jealous that someone else is more popular or more succesful so that they get afraid and attack. Someone has access to the money and the presige and others want it for their own causes.

Of course we follow a crucified God who gave up power and money to show us what love is like so fights over power and money are horrendously obscene. Perhaps that is why most churches don't want to talk about conflict. They don't want to talk about their last conflict and so they are never able to learn how to work their way through the next one so that a better outcome is possible.

People are different therefore we will disagree with each other. Like married couples however, if we are to live together we need to learn to 'fight fair" and to make up before the sun goes down.

Do you know of any Church that has taken the issue of conflict seriously enough to examine its own conflicts and seek a way through them to a win-win situation?

(There are some historic Peace Churches -the Mennonites and the Quakers for example -who have some valuable things to teach us about conflict. To learn however we would first have to own up to the violence we inflict on each other>

Abuse in the Church

When we think of the church we find ourselves struggling with dissonance that we do not expect to have to deal with.

The Church, as the community of God's beloved people, should be a place in which we are able to live out the life in Christ we are called to live - a place to love and be loved, to care for others and be cared for, etc.

However, with all too great a frequency, we are confronted with the same fallen nature in the church as we struggle with within ourselves - it shouldn't be a surprise when you put it like that, but it always is. When we are confronted by violence and abuse within the community of believers our instinctive response is shock and dismay - "This shouldn't happen."

My most significant firsthand experience of abuse and violence in the church was initially shocking because of this. However, it was also shocking because what I experienced was first class workplace bullying by a person who had considerable form as a workplace bully - two of my predecessors and three subsequently have experienced the same, and a considerable number of other staff at the institution over the past 15 years have experienced the same.

Several things surprised me in the midst of this experience.

Firstly a colleague, whom I thought might support me through this, seemed to collude with my abuser and in some respects facilitated a form of secondary abuse or bullying on behalf of my abuser (I have discovered since that this is quite common).

Secondly, my Bishop also failed to offer me any support through this period of abuse, and indeed seemed to collude in the abuse by authorising a performance review of another part of my work that had nothing to do with the context in which my abuser was involved. He seemed to be carrying out part of my abuser's strategy or intention to really "destroy" me and my ministry.

I decided that since the Bishop was not going to find me any alternative employment, I should find something myself. When I subsequently found a position to go to and resigned my position, the Bishop saw fit to write an abusive letter to my future employer deploring his action in employing me without consulting him.

It was a great relief to be out of that position, but I found that the trauma lived on. So I thought I should bring these matters to the attention of those who seemed appropriate in the church.

A recently appointed body called The Professional Standards Committee seemed to have been set up just exactly for this purpose, so I prepared a very detailed submission of all aspects of my abuse and offered it to them for consideration. to give them their due, the took the matter seriously, they considered the issues raised at some length, but in the end decided that they were unable to initiate any action that might remedy the matter because the lacked jurisdiction - the statute they were set up under dealt specifically with child abuse and sexual misconduct by clergy. These were not involved in my case, so they could do nothing.

So I decided to speak directly to the Archbishop - he being the holder of ultimate authority in the Diocese. As we discussed the matter it was clear that he believed he would not be able to do anything effectively in this situation, so nothing was done.

Again I was left to work all this out by myself - and perhaps that is the way it should be, but you can see how this experience does not fit with the image of the church being a place of love, care and reconciliation.

The saddest thing for me about all this is that subsequent to my experience in that place, others have had exactly the same thing done to them and still no-one in the church seems able to act against the perpetrator of this abuse.

Violence in the Church

The General Synod of the Anglican Church in Australia gave it's Professional Standards Commission a task at the last General Synod - to investigate how they might bring issues of workplace bullying under the oversight of the PSC where they now can only consider issues of child protection and sexual misconduct.

On a shoestring budget the PSC has been gathering feedback from the Metropolitan Diocese and yesterday it was Perth's turn. The Perth Professional Standards Unit receives on average two complaints about bullying each week so this is not an isolated or insignificant issue.

About 25 people turned up to discuss this issue and perhaps even tell their own stories if they were given the chance. Most said they had been bullied. One confessed to having been a bully as well as having been bullied by others.

The facilitators tried a neat little euphemism that the group would not allow - "a misuse of power" instead of "bullying". In some ways the alternative phrase helps to distinguish bullying from a simple traumatic experience - both are painful, but one derives from an abuse that is intentional and systematic in the context of a power-based relationship - but I still prefer to have it named as bullying.

Two or three things struck me as I pondered this meeting and the issues it sought to address.

A Culture of Violence
It is sad to reflect on the observation that throughout the history of the church it seems to have been captive to a culture of violence. I don't imagine we could identify any one cause of this, but it is tragic that the followers of the Prince of Peace, who called them to love their enemies and pray for those who hated them, should be so oblivious to the contradicition they are living. The champions of non-violence in the Church have been great, but too few and far between.

I know that the church will always be just as "fallen" or imperfect as the members of it are less than what they know they are called to be by God's grace.

But if we know what we are called to be by God's grace, how is it that there seems to be so little passion and drive to eradicate the violence that pervades our church?

Living Out the Things We Pray for
One participant made a comment that has stuck with me. He made the observation that so much of the way we live together in the Church stands in stark contrast to the things we pray for in the words of the prayers in our Prayer Book. Our Prayer Book has many finely crafted prayers and they reflect both our core beliefs as well as our theology. But, when we utter these finely crafted prayers we fail, somehow, to let the truth of them enter into our being and transform the way we live in God.

So we not only live in ways that contradict our Core Values as followers of Jesus, we also fail to live out the life we seek by God's grace through our prayers.

Safe Workplace - Safe Communties
I think that the enormity of the task of changing the CULTURE of the church from one that uses, colludes with and even endorses violence to one that reflects bot the example and teaching of Jesus about Non-Violence should not be underetsimated by the PSC.

Similarly, I think the PSC will somehow need to make provision in any policy for the fact that the Church is not just a workplace - which is the way we have become accustomed to talking about bullying. This is important because while those people working in Anglican Agencies such as schools or welfare services are indeed in workplaces, clergy are officers of the church and therefore cannot be regarded as employees, and therefore do not carry out their duties in workplaces, and much also happens in the context of congregational members who are volunteers, not employees.

Any policy outcome of this process needs to recognise that the church is both a Workplace and a Community and that the principals of non-violence must govern all levels of our life together, and that all who participate in this community we call the Anglican Church of Australia, must, by some means, bind themselve to live together in this way.

The PSC needs to be able to clearly articulate what standard of life we are called together to live out, and then have the authority and resources to respond to those who do not behave appropriately.

I will write some more later about my own experiences of abuse in the church.

Last Sermon for a While

I am preaching at my church tomorrow for the last time for a while.

I returned to the parish at the beginning of 2005 and, not long after, became their regular presider/preacher on a fortnightly basis. This continued when a priest was appointed as Priest in Charge about three years ago. I was happy to offer this ministry as my gift to the parish - I have a Monday to Friday job elsewhere so Sunday Services were not a necessary part of the deal.

The gift grew to leadership of the worship team having oversight of the themes for worship through the seasons of the year and regularly providing music once a month - when I was not presiding.

About a year ago the Priest seemed intent on disempowering two Deacons who were members of the congregation. Both were passionately involved in the establishment of a community garden on church property, and each saw this as their gift to the ministry of the parish, offering a place for people from the community to learn to live more sustainably and in more harmony with God's creation. The trump card for the Priest was to invite the denominational structures to consider the land being used to develop this community garden as available for social housing if they needed it. The effect was to say that the Community Garden was now no longer a ministry priority and this had been done without consulting those most closely involved. We were in open conflict with our priest.

By Christmas time the hostility was palpable and steps were taken to mediate a reconciliation. Unfortunately, the Priest managed to portray themselves as a victim rather than accepting that they had perpetrated an abuse of power, and since no-one had done WRONG no-one was in a position to APOLOGISE. An apology was offered in May, nearly six months after the event, but it was not signed and the Priest, while present when the apology was made to at least one of the Deacons, was not in any way engaged in it - they did not apologise for the hurt and abuse they had been the instrument of.

A fake consensus was arrived at but the Deacons did not feel appeased, so I began withdrawing my labour. I reduced my fortnightly presidency to once a month in May. In June I relinquished my leadership of the Worship Team and in September I decided that I would not be available for the Presiding Roster once the current roster expired - November. At no stage has the Priest seriously engaged my in an enquiry about why I am doing this. I had offered explanations that before this I had felt like I had a half-time job over and above my regular job, and that I just felt like a needed a rest for a while, but anyone could see that something was up. If the Priest had asked me what was up I was tempted simply to reply "Go figure!!!"

So, I preach tomorrow for the last time in a while.

The lectionary reading is from Mark 12:38-44 - a great little diatribe against hypocracy, particularly among the scribes and pharisees. Fortunately, rather than being an invitation to take pot shots at various hypocrits we might see around us, I think that Jesus is actually inviting us to point the bull-dust detectors at our own lives, calling us into that level of self-examination that enables us to clearly articulate what we might ask Jesus to make whole in our lives when confronted daily with the question he asked James and John and the son of Timaeus - "What do you want me to do for you?"

Someone I heard of recently has meditated on this question daily for the past 14 years. I think it will take me as long to even begin to let it get through. I certainly have been tantelised by it for the past wo weeks - Go Jesus!!!

What do you want me to do for you?

The Gospel for this Sunday told the story of the blind son of Timaeus, sitting by the Jericho Road when Jesus, Son of David, came by.

Everyone knows what a preacher is going to say about this, but I wasn't happy to go there. The phrase that stuck out for me as I read and reread it was the question of Jesus "What do you want me to do for you?"

In the context of this narrative I would have thought that was bleedingly obvious but again I wasn't content with the trite answer to that.

The reason was that last Sunday we read the story of James and John asking Jesus if they could ask him a favour. He responds to them with exactly the same question "What do you want me to do for you?"

Why were these two stories side by side immediately preceding the Narrative of Holy Week and the Passion?

As I struggled with this question it seemed to me that if I was to interpret the question that the son of Timaeus asked in response to the question of Jesus was not so much about his specific need to SEE and more about his general need to be WHOLE then how we should respond to the question became much more open to real conversation.

Every one of us can answer the question of Jesus with the statement "I want to be WHOLE," but the content of that wholeness not only will be different for each one of us, but will change from day to day, as we struggle with how to be the people God wants us to be.

An acquaintence of my wife said she had meditated on this question every day for the past 14 years. Here is a life's work.

Here is true discipleship!

The Case for "Faith" not "Belief"

American theologian Karen Armstrong published a piece with the Washington Post by this title at this URL in which she she wishes to push people out of the confines of their logical and propositional approach to Faith.

She says "When we are talking about God, nobody has the last word because what we call God lies beyond the reach of speech. It also violates the Western rationalist tradition: a Socratic dialogue was a spiritual exercise and, Socrates insisted, would not work unless it was conducted throughout with gentleness and courtesy. Nobody 'won' the argument: a Socratic dialogue always ended with participants realizing that they knew nothing at all, an insight that was indispensable to the philosophic quest."

How often have you seen Christians debating matters among themselves, thinking they were following the best rationalist traditions, but at the same time seeking to verbally belt their opponants into pulp in order to win the argument?

While I "live and move and have my being" in an Anglican tradition these days I can remember being part of the Churches of Christ tradition where it was proudly proclaimed to me that there were certain "Facts of the Faith" that were indisputable. It seemed to me at the time to be a convenient piece of double talk and left me somewhat puzzled about what the problem was with having to believe something for which the rational realm had not viable explanation.

I have for some time used a term for such matters of faith - TRANSRATIONAL - and until recently thought I had invented a word. However there was a school of Futurists in the early 1900's who developed the term and by it I think meant what we nowadays talk about as "counterintuitive" that it goes against common sense.

Since then, others like me have wanted to add a nuance of meaning that allows for you to know something is TRUE without FACTS or LOGIC to back you up in that conviction. Some might say such a position was IRRATIONAL because they couldn't see it as RATIONAL. I would want to say it is TRANSRATIONAL because it transcends the rational realm.

I still struggle in the company of those who want everything about the faith to be able to be expressed in propositions or rationalistic terms. For me there is more to life and faith than that.

What do you think?

The Go-Between God

A man, greatly respected in Nyoongar circles and church circles once told me of the place of the Djitty Djitty in their law.

When someone is killed by another and it is not possible to be sure if it was accidental or intentional, one of the elders takes on a special role to determine whether or not the family of the deceased will be given an opportunity for "pay-back".

This elder becomes the Djitty Djitty and meets with all members of the families involved to try and work out what happened. If he is still uncertain a special ceremony is arranged by which the family of the deceased is able to throw some spears as if in pay-back at the person involved in the death of their family member. However, the Djitty Djitty and the person who may have caused the death intentionally, enter into an elaborate dance with the Djitty Djitty leading the other with the words "When I go this way, you go this way; when I go that way you go that way." The Djitty Djitty goes-between the family with the spears and the one who may deserve pay-back. He is generally very skillful at ducking the spears and so long as the person copies his movements exactly they will be safe.

This ancient Nyoongar practice is such a wonderful echoe of what many believe about the work of Jesus that it has inspired me in the special place the Djitty Djitty has in my life.