a reflection on the journey to genuine 'inclusion' for the Diversity & Inclusion Council of Uniting NSW/ACT

Thank you so much for the opportunity of sharing with you today.  Let me first acknowledge the Gadigal peoples of the land from which I speak, and their elders past, present and emerging.  I would also like to express my thanks for the work Uniting is already doing in terms of diversity and inclusion, including the vital encouragement this is to myself personally.   For genuine visibility of our human diversity is so critical and enriching, as I know from my own experience and the huge number of people who contact me, from all kinds of places.

joyfully receiving gifts

One of the things I have learned from First Nations peoples is the importance of genuineness of spirit and intent.    Back in 1986 in Alice Springs, Pope John Paul II put this well in sharing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  ‘Until your gifts have been offered’, he said, ‘and joyfully received, the Church in Australia will not be that which Jesus Christ wants to see.’   That challenging truth remains central not only to the Church, but to all parts of Australian life.  Until First Nations’ gifts have been fully offered, and joyfully received, with justice, then we will never be the country we can be.  That must be the underlying theme of all we do in terms of diversity and inclusion.  Yet those words apply more broadly, don’t they?   Until the gifts of Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, African, LGBTQ+ people, and all kinds of Australians have been offered, and – crucially - ‘joyfully received’, then we will not be what we can be.  ‘Joyfully’ is a key adjective.  What spirit and intent do we really have?  If we approach inclusion mainly as an obligation (politically correct or otherwise), we will have missed the point.  For one thing, anyone feels more likely to offer their gifts if there is likely to be a joyful reception.  We will never maximise the capacity of any organisation, whether a church, a nation, or Uniting, if we do not joyfully embrace the gifts we are offered.

What an opportunity we have as we emerge from, hopefully, the worst of what COVID-19 has done to expose the divisions and distinctions of wealth and power among us in Australia!  To build back best, fully, and joyfully, enabling diversity and inclusion is vital.  The character of our intent and its spirit is crucial.

weak inclusion - as a noun

In my experience, ‘inclusion’ can be a very weasel word, covering many continuing sins and PR appearances.  Organisations have at least three approaches.  The first is what I would call ‘weak’ inclusion.  It is better than obvious exclusion but essentially about degrees of permission to belong.   It is like a noun: it is somewhat fixed, concerned with quotas and boundaries, but really still involving social distancing rather than engagement.  At times and in places, the Uniting Church exercises this kind of inclusion.  You can belong as a minority, but are you really honoured, engaged, and joyfully received?  That too is where many First Nations people were in Anglican circles in Southern Queensland, including in Anglicare, until we began our Reconciliation Action Plan a few years ago.

medium inclusion - as an adjective

Secondly, there are ‘medium’ approaches to inclusion.  This is what I have experienced in moving into Uniting Church ministry.  It involves a genuine welcome, with some affirmation, openness to involvement, and certainly much kindness.  Whereas ‘weak’ inclusion is mainly being allowed to the table, this might even include being at the head of the table.   Other than Anglo ethnicities, and LGTBQ+ and other networks are also taken with some seriousness.  Inclusion becomes more like an adjective than a noun – it is about being inclusive, more dynamic than simply inclusion.  It is where the Reconciliation Action Plan was in the Anglican Church Southern Queensland when I left, and maybe, where Uniting is right now.  It is, however, only a happier, but not yet fully joyful stage.

strong inclusion - as a verb

A third stage of inclusion has a deeper spirit and intent.  This ’strong’ stage is not about even genuine welcome, but about revealing the gifts of all.  It includes affirmation but is really about celebration, led by everyone in our diversity when we are all truly empowered.  It is about inclusion as a verb: about active practice day by day; including like Uniting, as a dynamic community of living and belonging.  It is also wonderful for any organisation.  For we no longer have to work hard at showing we are diverse and inclusive.  We demonstrably are.  It is our very DNA.  Others see it, which also saves many promotional expenses!  The Uniting Church aspires to this, and at times manages it.  The most visible sign is the Covenant with Uniting Aboriginal & Islander Congress - although, even there, questions remain, including about resourcing and how voices are actually heard and make a difference.   Yet the Uniting Church as a whole is not there yet.  I sense however that Uniting can move into at least some kind of ‘stronger’ inclusion, where all levels of staff and operations see it as their own work.  That is another major shift, but ultimately, as it becomes more natural, it in fact requires less work from advocates and leadership than ‘weak’ and ‘medium’ inclusion – for it belongs to everyone, when everyone truly belongs.  True including thus also leads on to expansiveness.  

sea-change

We live in the tag end of some frankly rubbish times, when the very dignity of some human beings has been under question.  We have major policies of exclusion in Australia, including towards First Nations claims for justice, towards refugees, some migrants and the poor.  Currently, we also have hurtful bills of religious discrimination in federal and state parliaments.  Yet my belief is that these are rotten but passing times.  I see the journey towards Australian diversity and inclusion as like a sea-change.  The waves come in at different speeds.  Sometimes they rise high: as with the 1967 Referendum, the Apology to the Stolen Generations, Marriage Equality, and so forth.  At times they fade away and we think the tide has gone.  Yet it will assuredly return.  The key thing is to hold faith and make ready for the next big wave of Australian diversity and inclusion.  It will come, and those who are prepared can surf it.  Others who do not prepare will flounder.  For there is, let’s face it, no vibrant and really sustainable future for Australia without renewing our multicultural identity. Uniting is well placed to seize that time when it comes, if it continues to move more deeply into diversity and inclusion.  So, May God bless us all in this exciting journey!

I've always loved the first of May.  Maybe it is the Celtic and European blood in me, or the feminine, or the longing for justice and the appreciation of those who forged the struggle, or the family birthdays which fall this month, or simply the rising sap of life and creation itself - all topped off by those champagne breakfasts I enjoyed on this day in Oxford - but I adore it.  Of course  it 'works' so much better in the northern hemisphere - 'oh to be in Paris now that Spring is here', as the old song has it? (and indeed I've been blessed to be in that beautiful city of liberty in May on a number of occasions).  Yet it is such a gorgeous symbolic celebration of veriditas - greening - in so many senses of the word.  It rings for me, sings to me, dances in me: with joy, with hope, with transformation...

'When someone starts talking about principles, watch your back!'  This was one of many 'bon mots' I learned from Geoff Garner, my delightful supervising vicar when I was a curate in the East End of London.  Partly what he was saying was that when human beings become agitated, for or against a controversial proposal, humanity  and genuine love go out the window.  So called 'principles' and 'values' become used as weapons: at best providing insulation from genuine engagement, or, often, simply being used to harm others.  Geoff himself knew well to his cost how this worked.  As a founding member of LGCM (originally the Gay Christian Movement), as an inter-faith adviser to the Bishop of London, and in the open and humane way he ministered with others, he was frequently a target of others' internal difficulties and defensiveness.  For Geoff, and for me, this is far from how Jesus lived, taught and acted.

Last weekend I spoke at the Toowoomba Marriage Equality event, sharing my own, positive, perspectives on what is too often an area of Christian 'principled' resistance and denial (click here for my address on that occasion).  At the meeting, I was once more struck by the qualities of love, joy, and kindness so many LGBTI+ people have for one another and others.  Since then, I have once more been overwhelmed by the generosity and warmth of fellow marriage equality supporters with whom I have corresponded.  This, I believe, reflects the immense wellspring of love within the LGBTI+ community which still longs for full release.  It is a powerful contrast with the spirit of some Christian circles which persist in turning their backs on this wonderful source of renewal for us all.

Most certainly, there is also Christian discomfort about marriage equality which is neither bigoted nor defensively armed with principles.  One of my close Anglican colleagues for example is wary of marriage equality legislation because they feel some advocates are themselves equipped with principles (such as exaggerated 'rights' discourses) which they can wield like aggressive weapons.  Perhaps, but I saw none of this last weekend in the keynote addresses of Marriage Equality leaders such as Shelley Argent and Rodney Croome.  Instead they spoke with humour and humility about those things which touch all our lives: love and family, pain and joy, being valued, recognition and relationships.  These are not abstract principles but the realities of life which bind us together.

One Christian leader who has upbraided me since last weekend accuses me, among other things, of being infected by humanism.  It is one accusation - unlike many others - which, with qualifications, I am happy to own.  For a healthy Christian humanism is surely an antidote to picking up the weapons of principle.  Like my mentor Geoff Garner, I see in Jesus the embodiment of the humane as well as the the holy, someone who stood not on principle but in the power of love: in that sense being both fully human as well as fully revealing of the mystery of divine love which transcends all our human differences (male and female, Jew and Gentile, and all the rest - including queer and straight).   

Julia Baird, in a recent article, reflects, in a typically incisive and balanced manner, on the challenges of discerning what is 'free' speech and what is 'hate' speech in the marriage equality debate.  My sense is that part of the answer is in returning with prayerful discernment to the Christian injunction about 'speaking the truth in love' (Ephesians 4.15).  Too often this can mean Christian justification for simply being mean, aggressive, demeaning, or worse.  When I hear or read the words 'I just want to say this to you in Christian love', I am also instinctively tempted to duck for cover, just like Geoff Garner.  It is hardly that I do not care about truth and truth-speaking.  Part of my problem is that parts of the Church do not really want to explore truth and sometimes actively seek to silence the truths of others.  No, the heart of the matter is what we mean by love.  Is it truly an openness to genuine truth-seeking and the fresh insights of the Holy Spirit, or is it only a cover for ego and group fear and defensiveness?   Whatever our views on marriage equality - and, sadly, the debate is likely to go on in the Church as a whole for ages after it is settled in Australia in law - when we come to 'speaking the truth in love', perhaps we need to spend more time on that last word love.  It is too easy to leap to principle without love.  For those of us who share in pastoral care, the ability to share a prophetic word is also important.  Yet we need to be kind and compassionate in how, as well as what we say.  For me, much maligned 'political correctness' often seems really to amount to no more than being polite and respectful to others - precisely the opposite of the Pharisaism, wielding principles like weapons, which Jesus so abhorred and transcended.  We are not all agreed, not will we be, with or without a plebiscite.  Most Christians however, for and against, genuinely seek to honour God and our conscience.  So let us seek the truth indeed, but let us be gentle with it.