Blessed Imp
  • Home
  • About
    • why blessed imp?
    • community at PItt Street
    • pen and ink reflections
    • transgender journeying
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About
    • why blessed imp?
    • community at PItt Street
    • pen and ink reflections
    • transgender journeying
  • Blog
  • Contact

flourishing together

19/10/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
 It is (sadly) interesting to me that, whilst I am a lifelong Anglican, and one with decades of helping lead Anglican teaching and formation, my mother Church tradition rarely asks me to contribute to ways out of its neurotic obsessions with sexuality and gender, whereas others in other spaces do (‘a prophet is not without honour’ and all that?).

Here is a latest offering, with thanks to The Sisters of the Good Samaritan for the opportunity to offer a brief perspective on how flourishing LGBTIQA+ lives flow out core elements of Catholic wisdom down the centuries - not least in considering family, the Body, natural law, the imago dei, and God’s grace in Creation.
For:

‘this is about reclaiming Catholic emphases on the centrality of God’s grace in the diverse expressions of creation and incarnation, rather than imposing false ideas of sin and shame on those who are actually gifts to help lead us into greater life together.
LGBTIQA+ people of faith do not need welcome, or inclusion, for we are already at home with God, as family members and part of Christ’s Body, wholly natural, and imaging the divine in our diverse ways. What we do need is space to flourish, and thereby we can enable others to flourish also.’   See link to the article iFlourishing Together' in The Good Oil here - or text below...

Rev Dr Josephine Inkpin offers a perspective on how developing faith-filled pathways with sexually and gender diverse people will support the discernment and celebration of the gifts of LGBTIQA+ lives.

How long O Lord? The age-old cry for justice is heard increasingly from LGBTIQA+ people of faith even as wider society gradually changes. Meanwhile, significant opposition comes from faith quarters, with concerns for Christian life and teaching. Harsh things have been said and done. Many relationships are strained and both internal dialogue and Christian mission disrupted. Such controversies are unlikely to abate soon. How then can we best respond?

As both an ordained Anglican priest and a transgender woman, married to another female (priest), I am caught in the maelstrom. LGBTIQA+ faith voices are also all too often ignored in the so-called ‘debates’ about us. This a loss for both Church and wider world. For my perception is of a great sea-change happening.  Understandably, Churches may struggle with this, particularly with the pace of cultural change. Yet simply willing the incoming tide to stop makes too many Christians appear as ignorant as King Canute who famously ordered waves to retreat. Instead of resisting Creation, we do best to receive what the Spirit is saying to us. For we are being called into fresh discerning relationships, and particularly into receiving the LGBTIQA+ gifts which have been long denied but which can enrich us all.

How we frame the relationship between faith and sexual and gender diversity is at the heart of positive growth. Catholic authorities have, for example, recently issued several documents to guide the faithful, not least Catholic schools at the forefront of responding to the challenges faced by sexually and gender diverse young people. These recognise the pressing need to engage and typically also express goodwill and concern for LGBTIQA+ people.

Yet too often they are constructed as ‘others looking in’ on the lives and bodies of people who are themselves experts on their own lives and have spiritual insights to share. In dis/ability and other circles, the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’ has long been recognised as crucial. Yet when Catholic leadership rightly commends openness and engagement, as the Congregation for Catholic Education did in Male and Female He Created Them (2019), it is typically honored in the breach.  That same document, for example, contains no transgender voices or the weight of gender affirming medical and other research, confining itself to the old restricted circles of Catholic insiders. Not only is the depth of queer people’s pain thus hidden but, even more importantly for fruitful development, queer gifts are not received either.

Five core elements in Catholic, and wider Christian, teaching are among the most significant.

Firstly, LGBTIQA+ people of faith need to be valued as family, not as outsiders. This is the direction Pope Francis has encouraged the Church to move, recognising the realities of contemporary family lives and the need for a fresh spirit.

Such affirming relational language sits very uncomfortably with more legalistic language, not least official negative designations of LGBT people as ‘intrinsically disordered’. It offers more human and relational ways to engage, beyond what the Catholic ethicist Margaret Farley RSM has termed ‘pelvic orthodoxy’. 

Secondly, and linked to familial relationship in Christ, theology and ethics needs to return to Pauline understanding of the Body. For while, for example, misconceived attention is given to some people’s bodily dysphoria (typically rectified by following best practice transgender care), Churches seem unaware of their own bodily dysmorphia. 

Instead of valuing LGBTIQA+ members of the Body (aka God’s family), suspicion, isolation, and even amputation, is commonly practised. St Paul, in contrast, is clear: “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts we consider less honourable, we are to treat with greater honour.” (I Cor 12:22). 

We need so much more than passive ‘inclusion’, the limited goal of even some of the better Christian approaches. The way forward is actively discerning and celebrating what is of God in LGBTIQA+ lives, just as the best Catholic theology has always actively discerned and celebrated God’s grace in all kinds of human contexts. Not doing so is to ignore the Catholic principle of ‘development’ and to follow conservative fideist and biblicist tendencies into narrow sectarianism against the world.

For, thirdly, to engage constructively with sexual and gender diversity today, means to develop approaches which use Natural Law properly. Too often those purporting to follow natural law have ignored the rich resources of both decades of mainstream medical and scientific consensus and also LGBTIQA+ lived experiences.

Doing so not only condemns sexually and gender diverse people to further unnecessary pain and dislocation but dishonours the Church itself and its claims to seek the truth of God. Thankfully, the Catholic Church widened its understanding when it finally received the insights of scientists like Galileo and Darwin. Today it needs to do so with other fruits of contemporary knowledge.

Fourthly, in listening to God in LGBTIQA+ people themselves, we can open ourselves to a deepening of our understanding of the imago dei in God’s creation of human diversity. Too much opposition to LGBTIQA+ people rests on narrow ideological conceptions of the ‘ideal’ human, which reflect the interests of those insistent upon them rather than the actual experience of God in Christ Jesus.

As dis/ability theologians similarly encourage us, we need to start with Christ, who, as the great gay poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, “plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his.” 

If, as the Gospels reflect, God is indeed found among the “little ones”, the “blessed”, who suffer and are marginalised, can we not see Christ incarnate afresh in sexually and gender diverse people today? 

If so, fifthly, we move from seeing LGBTIQA+ people as part of the Fall to part of divine Flourishing. Again, this is about reclaiming Catholic emphases on the centrality of God’s grace in the diverse expressions of creation and incarnation, rather than imposing false ideas of sin and shame on those who are actually gifts to help lead us into greater life together.

LGBTIQA+ people of faith do not need welcome, or inclusion, for we are already at home with God, as family members and part of Christ’s Body, wholly natural, and imaging the divine in our diverse ways. What we do need is space to flourish, and thereby we can enable others to flourish also.

Thankfully, we are beginning to see some signs of this, including the recent decision of Flemish Catholic bishops to offer blessings to previously excluded queer couples. Meanwhile, we have decades of queer theology and affirming scholarship to draw upon, together with well-informed groups such as New Ways Ministry in the US and Rainbow Catholic agencies here in Australia. Next year also sees Sydney host World Pride: an opportunity to join with groups such as Acceptance and Equal Voices in offering space and building fruitful relationships.

This also flows with the best of contemporary faith development, and not least with receptive ecumenism, which has rightly emphasised how we need to insist less on our differences, or even our commonalities, and instead receive the gifts of others different from us, without which we, too, will not flourish.

In 1986, speaking to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Pope John Paul II expressed this beautifully, saying: “the Church herself in Australia will not be fully the Church that Jesus wants her to be until you have made your contribution to her life and until that contribution has been joyfully received by others.” The same can be said for LGBTIQA+ people, and others still on the margins.

As Pope Francis put it, in his 2021 World Communications Day message, “Come and see (Jn 1:39) is the simplest method to get to know a situation. It is the most honest test of every message, because, in order to know, we need to encounter, to let the person in front of me speak, to let his or her testimony reach me.”

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    My main sermon & spiritual reflections can be found here

    My main transgender website is here

    Author

    Jo Inkpin is an Anglican priest serving as Minister of Pitt St Uniting Church in Sydney, a trans woman, theologian & justice activist.  These are some of my reflections on life, spirit, and the search for peace, justice & sustainable creation.

    Further sermon & spiritual reflections at:
    penandinkreflections.org


    My main transgender website is at:
    transspirit.org

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    Categories

    All
    1 John
    2 Corinthians 5
    2D
    360
    ABC
    ABM
    Aboriginal
    Abuse
    Acland
    Activism
    Adnate
    Advent
    Affirmation
    Affirming
    Affirrming
    Aidan
    A.J.P.Taylor
    Alan Webster
    Alex Pittaway
    All Saints
    Ancestors
    Angel
    Anger
    Anglican
    Anglicanism
    Anglican Overseas Aid
    Anglicansim
    Anglicare
    Angligreen
    Anna
    Anne Askew
    Ann Loades
    Anthony Venn Brown
    ANZAC
    Aotearoa
    Apology
    Apostolic
    APSA
    Archbishop Of Canterbury
    ARRCC
    Art
    Artist
    Asylum Seekers
    Athanasius
    Attention
    Augustine
    Aunty Mary MItchell
    Aunty Rose Elu
    Australia
    Australian Collaborators In Feminist Theologies
    Australian Women Preach
    Authority
    Avrom Satzkever
    Azim Khamisa
    Baghdad
    Baha'i
    Baptism
    Barnard Castle
    Basis Of Union
    Battle Of One Tree Hill
    BCP
    Beach
    Beauty
    Bendigo
    Berlin
    Bernie Taupin
    Bible
    Bidjigal
    Billy Bragg
    Bio-technology
    Birth
    Bisexuality
    Bishop
    Blackadder
    BlackLivesMatter
    Blessed Imp
    Blessing
    Bob Dylan
    Body
    Bonhoeffer
    Border Crosser
    Bouddi
    Breath
    Brene Brown
    Brexit
    Bridge Building
    Briisbane
    Brisbane
    Britain
    British
    Brittany Higgins
    Brixton
    Brooke Prentis
    Bruce Boase
    Buddhist
    Buderim
    Bunnings
    Bunya
    Burstows
    Calvin
    Cameron Venables
    Campfire
    Canberra
    Candlemas
    Candles
    Canoe
    Carnival Of Flowers
    Cathedral
    Catholic
    Catholicity
    Celebration
    Celtic
    Central Coast
    Chalice
    Chalsie Van Wyngaardt
    Chanel Contos
    Change
    Chaplain
    Charles
    Charles Gore
    Chartres
    Chequerboard
    Children
    Chipping Camden
    Christ
    Christian
    Christian Feminim
    Christian Feminism
    Christian Socialist
    Christina Beardsley
    Christmas
    Chumbawamba
    Church
    Church Of England
    Civil War
    Clergy
    Climate Change
    Collar
    Colonialism
    Colour
    Columba
    Coming Of The LIght
    Coming Out
    Communion
    Community
    Community Of Aidan And Hilda
    Compassion
    Comprehensiveness
    Conflict Resolution
    Congregationalism
    Congregationalist
    Conscience
    Consecration
    Contemplative Prayer
    Contemporary
    Corinne Ware
    Coronavirus
    Country
    County Durham
    Courage
    Courtney Act
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    Creation
    Creativity
    Cromwell
    Crook
    Cross
    CSG
    C.S.Lewis
    Culture
    Cunnamulla
    Cuthbert
    Dadirri
    Dales
    Dangerous Women
    Darkness
    Data
    David Brown
    David Jenkins
    Death
    Deaths In Custody
    Deborah
    Democratic
    Development
    Dialogue
    Discrimination
    Diversity
    Dolphin
    Dorothy McRae McMahon
    Dorothy McRae-McMahon
    Dragonfly
    Drama
    Dream
    Dreaming
    Durham
    Earthweb
    Easter
    Easterfest
    Ecology
    Ecopella
    Ecumenical
    Ecumenism
    Eddie Izzard
    Education
    Elder
    Elenie Poulos
    Elizabeth Stuart
    Elton John
    Emigration
    Emmaus
    Empathy
    England
    English
    Enlightenment
    Equal Voices
    Eric Hobsbawm
    Erin McBean
    Ethics
    Eucharist
    Europe
    Evangelical
    Evangelism
    Experience
    Faith
    Faithfuily Me
    Faithfully Me
    Family
    Fasting
    Father
    F.D.Maurice
    Fear
    Female
    Feminine
    Feminism
    First Nations
    FIve Lands Walk
    Flag
    Flag Washing
    Flesh
    Flourishing
    Football
    Footwashing
    Forgiveness
    Formed Faith
    Foucault
    Francis
    Franciscan
    Frederick The Great
    Freedom
    Friendship
    Fundamentalism
    Funeral
    Future
    Gadigal
    Gallipoli
    Garden City
    Garnet Lehmann
    Garry Worete Deverell
    Gary Worete Deverell
    Gateshead
    Gay
    Gayby Baby
    Gender
    Generosity
    Generous Love
    Geoff-garner
    George-monbiot
    George-tyrrell
    Georgie-stone
    Gerard Manley Hopkins
    German
    Germany
    Giabal
    Gift
    Gilbertines
    Gkchesterton
    Glebe
    Glennie
    Glenn-loughrey
    Glory
    God
    Godmother
    Good-friday
    Goodwill-committee
    Gosford
    Gospel
    Government
    Grace
    Grace-jantzen
    Grace-tame
    Grafton
    Grandparents
    Gratefulness
    Great-dividing-range
    Green Faith
    Greening
    Grief
    Guardian Australia
    Gutierrez
    Handyman-blues
    Haniff
    Harari
    Harmony
    Healing
    Heart
    Heather-johnston
    Hell
    Henry-viii
    Hills-hoist
    History
    Hitler
    HIV/AIDS
    Holding-the-man
    Holiness
    Holly-zwalf
    Holy-saturday
    Holy-spirit
    Holy-week
    Home
    Homophobia
    Hope
    Hospiltality
    Hospitality
    Humanism
    Human Rights
    Idahobit
    Idahot
    Iftar
    Imagination
    Incarnation
    Inclusive
    Inculturation
    Indigenous
    Insights
    Interfaith
    Inter-faith
    Intersectionality
    Intersex
    Iona
    Iraq
    Irealnd
    Ireland
    Isaiah
    Islam
    Isobel Bishop
    Jacob
    Jacobs-ladder
    Jamaica
    Jan-berry
    Janice McRandal
    Jan Morris
    Jantzen
    Jarowair
    Jellurgal
    Jennifer-herrick
    Jerusalem
    Jesus
    Jesus Christ
    Jewish
    Jim-thompson
    Joanna-macy
    John-17
    John-arlott
    John Ball
    John-donne
    John-main
    John-maynard
    John Odonohue
    John-seed
    Jonathan-sargeant
    Joseph
    Joseph Brodsky
    Josephine-bedford
    Josephine Butler
    Journey
    Joy
    Judas
    Judith
    Julia-baird
    Julian-of-norwich
    Justice
    Jyllie Jackson
    Kader-attia
    Kaleidoscope
    Kate Gleeson
    Kathe-kollwitz
    Kathy-galloway
    Keir-hardie
    Kenosis
    Kingdom-of-god
    Kings-cross
    Kookaburra
    Labyrinth
    Lambeth Conference
    Lament
    Land
    Lansbury
    Laughter
    Laura Marling
    Laurence-freeman
    Law
    Lazarus
    Leadership
    Lent
    Lesbian
    Les-rub
    Leveller
    Lgbt
    Lgbti
    Lgbti174c3e037c
    LGBTIQ
    Liberal
    Liberation
    Liberty
    Life
    Light
    Lilian-cooper
    Lincoln
    Lincolnshire
    Lindisfarne
    Lismore
    Liturgy
    Lock-the-gate
    London
    Loss
    Love
    Love Of God
    Luke
    Lust
    Mabo
    Macculloch
    Macquarie University
    Magna Carta
    Magnificat
    Male
    Mamabishop
    Maori
    Mardi Gras
    Margaret-mayman
    Marge-piercy
    Mark-copland
    Market Rasen
    Marriage
    Marriage Equality
    Martin-luther
    Martin-luther-king
    Martyr
    Mary
    Mary Follett
    Mary-magdalene
    Mary-oliver
    Masculinity
    Maude Royden
    Maundy-thursday
    Mavis Rose
    May-day
    Mcc
    Mcdonnell
    Mcg
    Medieval
    Meditation
    Megan-defranza
    Meiling
    Melbourne
    Melinda-tankard-reist
    Men
    Meredith Knight
    Messy-church
    Methodist
    MIchael Ramsey
    Middle Ages
    Middle Axioms
    Middle-east
    MIdnight Mass
    Milton
    Mining
    Ministry
    Minster
    Mission
    Monarchy
    Monk
    Mosque
    Mother-eagle
    Movie
    MOW
    Multuggerah
    Mural
    Muslim
    Mystery
    Mysticism
    Myth
    Naidoc
    Nandjimadji
    Nathan Tyson
    Nation
    Natural Law
    Nauru
    Needlework
    Neighbour
    Nepal
    Newcastle
    Newcastle Upon Tyne
    New-creation
    New South Wales
    New-year
    Non Binary
    Non-binary
    Nonviolence
    Norman
    NSW
    Nsw Ecumenical Council
    Nun
    Nunc Dimittis
    Oikoumene
    Olive Schreiner
    Onebodyonefaith
    Onlyness
    Oprah-winfrey
    Ordination
    Ordination Of Women
    Orlando
    Orthodox
    Oscar-romero
    Oscar Wilde
    Owl
    Oxford
    Pacific
    Pacifism
    Pain
    Palestine
    Palm Sunday
    Pankhurst
    Parents
    Paris
    Parish
    Parliament
    Passion
    Pastoral-care
    Patrick-cheng
    Paul
    Paul-kelly
    Peace
    Peace Day
    Peasant Rebellion
    Penny Jones
    Pentecost
    Peter Catt
    Peter Coleman
    Peter De Waal
    Peter Maher
    Pethick Lawrence
    PFLAG
    Philippines
    Pilgrim
    Pilgrimage
    Pilgrim College
    Pitt Street
    Pitt Street Uniting Church
    Play
    Poet
    Poetry
    Poland
    Polarisation
    Police
    Politics
    Pope Francis
    Pope John Paul II
    Positive Life
    Post-Enlightenment
    Potsdam
    Power
    Prayer
    Prayer Book
    Preaching
    Presbyterianism
    Presbytery
    Presence
    Pride
    Priest
    Principle
    Privilege
    Promise
    Prophetic
    Proselytism
    Psalm
    Pure Land
    Puritan
    Queensland
    Queer
    Qu'ran
    Race
    Rachel Lane
    Racism
    Radical
    Rain
    Rainbow
    Ramadan
    Rangeville
    RAP
    Reconciliation
    Reformation
    Refugees
    Religion
    Religious Freedom
    Remembrance
    Renewal
    Repair
    Reparation
    Repentance
    Republic
    Resilience
    Resistance
    Restorative Justice
    Resurrection
    Rhett Pearson
    RI
    Ritual
    Robin Hood
    Rodney Croome
    Roman
    Rome
    Rosa Luxemburg
    Royal Commission
    Royalism
    Running
    Sacrament
    Sacrifice
    Salvation
    Sandra King
    SBS
    School
    Science
    Scotland
    Scottish
    Scripture
    Season Of Creation
    Secularism
    Seder
    Segregation
    Service
    Sexism
    Sexuality
    Shakespeare
    Shame
    Shannon Novak
    Sharon Roberts
    Shelley
    Shelley Argent
    Shoah
    Sibyls
    Silence
    Simeon
    Simplicity
    Sin
    Singapore
    Singing
    Sister Angela
    Social Justice
    Society Of Friends
    Solidarity
    Solomon Islands
    Songline
    Sorel Coward
    Soul
    Spiritual Direction
    Spirituality
    Spirituality Wheel
    Spong
    Sport
    Stanhope
    State Library
    Statement From The Heart
    St Brigid's
    Steffan Van Munster
    Stewardship
    St Francis College
    St Hilda
    St John's Cathedral
    St Luke
    St Luke's
    St Mark's
    Stonewall
    Story
    St Paul's
    Straightsplaining
    Streets And Lanes
    Stroud
    St Thomas
    Stuart Soley
    Subversive Memory
    Suffering
    Suffrage
    Suffragette
    Sufi
    Surgery
    Susan Cottrell
    Sydney
    Sydney Carter
    Symbol
    Table Top
    TACAPS
    Taize
    Talitha Fraser
    Tea
    Teacher
    Terrorism
    Thanksgiving
    The Glennie School
    The Green House
    Theology
    Thomas Berry
    Thomas Merton
    Toowoomba
    Torres Strait
    Tradition
    TRAMS
    Trangender
    Trans
    Transfiguration
    Transformation
    Transgender
    Transition
    Trasnition
    Treaty
    Trees
    Trust
    Truth
    T.S.Eliot
    Uluru
    Uncle Colin Isaacs
    Uncle Darby McCarthy
    UNESCO
    Uniting Church
    Unity
    Ursula Le Guin
    USQ
    Ut Unum Sint
    Vancouver
    Venerable Master Chin Kung
    Veriditas
    Vicar Of Bray
    Violence
    Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
    Vocation
    Voice
    Voluntary
    Volunteers
    Waiting
    War
    Warriors Chapel
    Warsaw
    Water
    Watershed
    WCC
    WCCM
    Wedding
    Weird
    Welcome
    Wellspring Community
    Welsh
    Whitby
    White
    Whitechapel
    Wild Goose Publications
    William Bartholomew
    William Blake
    William Temple
    Winter
    Wisdom
    Witness
    Women
    Women In Harmony
    Woods
    Word
    World Council Of Churches
    World Pride
    Worship
    Woy Woy
    Young People
    Youth
    Yuggera

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly