Your Christians are so unlike your Christ

I've been umming and ayeing about this post for ages, and have finally been spurred into action by Caron's post on the campaign against openly gay clergyman Scott Rennie gaining the ministry in Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen, and LPW's further reflections on the matter.

I shall preface the lot by saying that while I don't consider myself a Christian (I was baptised in the Anglican Church of St Laurence, in Chorley, but was six months old at the time so didn't really have time to reflect - or have much of a say - on the matter). But then, I'm not sure what I am. There's a sort of smugness about humanism that grates with me, plus I find something slightly odd about how a lack of religion, in fact a distrust of religion, is somehow being shaped into... wait for it... a religion. I'm not an atheist as there's a finality that comes with atheism and that doesn't sit well with me either. But I'm not a theist either - the idea that there's one (or several) all-powerful beings looking out for me just unsettles me - and I recoil in horror at most organised religion: I've always thought that morality is too personal a concept to have it dictated to you by an ancient book or a bunch of guys who happen to be at the top of a particular faith's org chart.

Anyway.

It's the Scott Rennie question that I want to talk about. Despite the congregation at Queen's Cross being quite happy with a Rennie ministry, a rather loud group has basically decried his assumption of the post as the end of civilisation as we know it, simply on the grounds that they do not see a gay man as being capable of preaching the Gospel. Frankly, I thought the Gospel was all about love and tolerance so I'd have thought that a gay man was no more or less suitably placed to preach it than anyone else, but these hardliners disagree. I suppose that if you believe Lot's wife really was turned into a pillar of salt, you'd probably reckon that it was all for nothing if a gay man were to join the clergy, but even so, it'll come as no surprise that I suggest that they have misread their Bible. I would argue that they have skimmed through the bits about forgiveness, about loving the sinner regardless of what you think of the sin, about not judging lest ye be judged, and my personal favourite, letting he who is without sin cast the first stone. I would argue that if, in the Gospel they follow, the Christ they claim to worship was willing to forgive (or ask his Father to forgive) his executioners, then they can let slide the fact that their minister is involved in a consensual, mutually-fulfilling relationship with another man.

But then, the hardliners' reaction to homosexuality seems to go beyond logic. Gay couples marrying? No, that's destroying the sanctity of marriage, it would seem. Leaving the Britney Spears precedent aside, it simply doesn't work: divorce is a fact, and permitted in the Church to whihc the complainers belong. Civil marriages are a fact. Is my sister's marriage less valid, because the wedding was held in a hotel and with not a clergyman in sight? Or my cousin's marriage?

This is of course a rhetorical question, and there's a trap lying in wait for any attempt to answer it. If the answer is no, it's just as valid as one held in a Church, then I would ask why the 'sanctity of marriage' only applies when it's a barrier to same-sex marriage. If the answer is yes, then I'd respond with rage, questioning why the my sister's strong relationship with her husband, why the hard work she puts in raising her children, and the love she shows to them - a brilliant young son with tonnes of potential, and an absolute angel of a baby daughter - is somehow undermined simply because they didn't go through certain religious rites.

No, there's a strong strand of Church opinion, that gay marriage and gay adoption (which is beneficial from a purely utilitarian perspective of giving a child a stable, loving home regardless of the genders of those caring for him or her) should not be advanced simply because they don't like it. Yet when anyone objects to any of their practices, they're being bigoted, and attempting to secularise society, leading us into an age of godlessness. And in high places, actions that they disapprove of are simply swept under the carpet, rather than challenged openly. I believe that Scott Rennie would not be in this situation had he climbed the clerical ladder before coming out. In that case, it would simply be hushed up. That's the hypocrisy of the situation.

Nevertheless, there are times when the LGBT community could maybe hold back from fighting various battles. So a Church objects to gay marriage - why would we want to have a relationship blessed by someone who objects to it when it can be truly celebrated by someone else? So a faith-based adoption agency doesn't want a gay couple to adopt - why would we want to co-operate with an organisation that sees us as second class, when there are plenty that see us on our merits? So a bigoted B&B owner won't give us a double room - why would we want to pay money to sleep under a bigot's roof? We may win the vote, we earn the law but we'll never win the argument and we'll never win their respect. There is such a thing as a lost cause, and whether we like it or not, we have to accept that we are just 6% of the population, and that makes us just a little bit 'other' and what's 'normal' to us can never be seen as 'normal' in the eyes of society at large. Viable? Yes. Valid? Yes. Acceptable? Yes. But normal? Forget it. That's why there will always be bigotry, always be mistrust, always be hostility, but we can earn the support of those who will listen to us and support us without screaming in the faces of those who won't.

Which brings me back, in a way, to Scott Rennie. I don't understand why he would even want to do the job he seeks, when members of his own Church despise him so, simply for who he is. It wouldn't be too unreasonable of him to say, "Bollocks to this, I'm going somewhere where I'm welcome". Yet he won't do that. Neither did Bishop Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire.

And that's why they have my respect: they have chosen to fight the fight. They have chosen this battle, and it is the right one. This is more than a choice about where to get married, which adoption agency to talk to, which hotel to pick. This is about doing something you feel born to do, and the bigots - these so-called Christians - are standing in Scott Rennie's way. Yet he presses on. I would probably call it a day.

In many ways, Scott Rennie is a walking, talking example of what Christianity is supposed to be about (hence the quote form Gandhi in the heading). Its founders preached forgiveness; sought tolerance; encouraged diversity. Rennie will doubtless forgive his detractors - they will not forgive him. Rennie shows a tolerance they will not. And he's an example of the diversity Christianity celebrated, yet they reject. I put it to them that they are the ones who have perverted the faith, not Scott Rennie's supporters.

Yet whether or not they have reason on their side (and they do not), they will attempt to win by volume.

By simply being himself, however, Scott Rennie is a shining counter-example to us all, of what things could be like. I wish him luck, and hope that a vision of a tolerant Christianity for everyone prevails at the General Assembly.