People who understand themselves to be transexual, asexual, non-binary, bisexual, gay or lesbian are not making an ideological statement but seeking simply to express who they understand themselves to be. They have not made a choice driven by an ideological principle. They are simply honoring the fact that they are part of the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God…
Paul talks about the body of Christ as a communion of different gifts. But it is also a communion of differing politics, strong options and perceptions for things about which people care deeply, and diverse cultural backgrounds and assumptions about race, sexualities and genders, about faiths and nationalities. Rabbi Johathan Sacks reminds us God has gifted us with the dignity of difference.
.. a meaningful, genuine and effective apology starts with saying sorry. Period. It is very tempting to want to explain why, or to indicate that one didn’t mean it to cause harm, or to refer to social mores at the time and so on. This undermines the effectiveness of the apology. Anything that sounds like self-justification doesn’t help those to whom the apology is directed. This is one of the costs of being prepared to make an apology. And reminds us to remember that the apology is for those who have been hurt, not those who are doing the apologising. The words of the apology therefore need to be clear and unequivocal; free of any desire to save face, to qualify or justify.
I hope the Church that will benefit from the work of our new bishop will be more like the Australian River Red Gums. Sometimes their life-giving water cannot even be seen – only a track of rough, gnarled shady sentinels indicating secret channels winding across our outback landscapes. Their roots delve to the depths for the huge created sea below. Their foliage has supplied shelter, material, food, and medicine for many thousands of years for our first inhabitants. Those ‘red gum churches’ shared God’s love, long before the ‘God boxes’ arrived!
“.. the liberating goal of all the woman theologies is not reached by simply integrating women into a society and a church where patriarchal structures, androcentric theory and privileging prevail as the norm. This ‘add woman and stir’ recipe isn’t working, it has never worked and will not work while women are taught to disregard their gifts to try to fit into the male defined world.”
“Christians are nothing if not a narrative people. We engage with story each and every time we meet for worship and whenever we go to Scripture. The story becomes the bedrock for healing and ‘setting relationships right’. Story moves the people from individual experiences to shared experiences; from individual guilt to shared guilt; from individual responsibility to shared responsibility. This movement empowers those storytellers to move from hurt to solutions. Out of the shared story and the shared embrace of the issues emerges shared commitment to new ways of being. Forgiveness emerges. Restoration emerges.”
“How have we come to this: as Christians whose faith commits us to be active peacemakers in Jesus’ way? How has it come to pass if I talk about peace from the pulpit, I may be subjected to abuse, hatred and threats of violence? We are faithfully required to share peace from the position of powerlessness, humility and vulnerability and instead, we comprehensively fail, embedded as we are in a church flourishing among the established powers and principalities of the ruler of the world .”
“While working in the Holy Land, I distinctly remember reading a six-word sentence written by a historian. The words are these: There are no exits from history. I believe these words are pertinent to us here in Australia, where our history is haunted by the historical killings carried out against its Indigenous people. A history of which so many Australians are ignorant, or we continue to avert our gaze from its reality.”
The Life Work of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England Today: Some Factors in Occlusion. An essay by the The Very Revd. Prof. Martyn Percy, former Dean, Christ Church, Oxford
by the Rev’d Dr Lucy Morris In today’s world, the concept of singleness is rich,
A sermon from Vivienne Hayward, Darwin Cathedral. On January 6, 1941, the newly elected President
ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTJeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17By Rev’d Dr Lucy Morris
