Storyteller's World

The New Testament reading set for Evening Prayer today was Acts 15.1-21, the account of that first Council of Jerusalem at which the apostolic church decided the terms on which Gentiles could be admitted to the church. There would be no requirement that They, the different ones, the aliens, would first have to become like Us, the blessed, holy, normal ones, before they could be considered part of God's people.

I fell to wondering why this Council hasn't been used more as a model in the argument about sexuality, and the place of gays and lesbians in the church. Perhaps it's because it would probably undermine the position of the traditionalists, the anti-gays, who tend to appeal so much to Scripture, when it suits them.

For what we have here is a three-pronged argument in favour of admitting the Others on equal terms. First Peter describes how the Lord directed him to preach the Gospel to Them, and how They responded in a way that clearly showed it was the work of the Holy Spirit bringing Them to faith and new life in Christ. Then Barnabas and Paul report all that God had done through them, in their work in many parts of Asia Minor. Then James uses Scripture positively, as a word filled with the grace of God, to give an account of how the events and experiences they have witnessed, fit in to God's continuing and developing revelation of a plan of love that embraces every person.

In our Councils too, what we sorely need is for people on all sides of the debate - but especially the anti-gays - to hear how God brings gay people to faith, and a desire for God, in spite of all the hatred and opposition of those who want to shut them out. Then we want testimonies of how God has worked with grace and power in the lives of gay people. Then comes the use of the positive, inclusive scriptures that underline how what we actually see in the experience of gay people of real faith, fits in with God's plan for an inclusive church for people of all kinds in this diverse, rainbow people.

But I suppose this is all too much to wish for. For the very idea of a continuing and developing revelation of God's plan is anathema to the 'traditionalists', for whom revelation is a fixed, locked, once-for-all and never-to-be-added-to-or-changed body of truths. Much more like a mausoleum, than a botanical garden.