Author Archives: Andrew McFarland Campbell
Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 25 October at 7 p.m in Costa Coffee in Victoria Square. Please note this is NOT our usual venue. More detail….
Accepting Sexuality Annual Lecture: “Political Correctness gone mad or a Gospel imperative—changing attitudes in the Church and the world”
Accepting Sexuality’s annual lecture is on Friday 18 October 2013 at 8pm, at Belfast South Methodist Church, 238 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 6GF.
The title is “Political Correctness gone mad or a Gospel imperative—changing attitudes in the Church and the world” and the speaker is Ruby Beech, Vice-President of the British Methodist Conference 2007-2008.
For more information, please contact asgroup@btinternet.com.
Accepting Sexuality is an informal group of Methodists, ordained and lay, working for the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Church. Everyone is welcome to its events.
Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 27 September at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. More detail….
Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 30 July at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. More detail….
A Change to The Gathering
During the week I got a message from The Gathering, a gay men’s spiritual group.
The Gathering was formed in 2005 and since this time we have contributed widely to the LGBT Community and in particular the faith and spiritual aspects of the Community. Since The Gathering formed, the range of opportunities for gay Christians to meet, discuss and explore has increased; there’s a number of events during the year, organized both by churches and by other groups… Following the recent consultation and after careful consideration it has been decided to suspend the regular meetings of The Gathering.Many of the groups especially those within church’s did not exist when The Gathering first formed and it is most encouraging that a much wider and more mainstream selection now exists within the wider church community.
You can read the full announcement on The Gathering’s website.
The Gathering has been an important part of the LGBT fabric of Belfast over the past few years. The first LGBT Christian event I attended was their carol service in 2007, and I am very pleased to see that they still intend to hold their annual carol service.
Same-Sex Relationships: 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy Revisited
My paper on 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy was discussed on a Facebook group recently. One of the contributors made some interesting points about it, and I want to address them here.
I have read your article, and if I could sum up your thesis in one sentence, it would be, “1 Cor. 6:9-10 is vague and we cannot know with any confidence what it means; thus it is irrelevant to us.” It appears you are effectively marginalizing the Apostle Paul’s teachings on morality.
This is not an accurate summary of my position. The words malakos and arsenokoites, which are used in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, are essentially impossible to translate. We cannot know what they mean. This does not mean that they are irrelevant to us, and I am certainly not marginalising Paul’s teachings. In the paper I look at Christ’s teachings as well, and use them to understand…
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Faith, Pride, and Chat this Friday
Don’t forget Faith, Pride, and Chat, our informal social evening, is taking place on Friday, 26 July at 7 p.m in St George’s Church on High Street. More detail….
As Christ Loves Us
We have just read [in John 21:15-19] that, after the resurrection, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. To Peter’s confusion, the question was asked three times. Each time Peter answered in the affirmative. Jesus responded with “Feed my lambs,” “Shepherd my sheep”, and “Feed my sheep.”
Jesus wanted to make absolutely clear what he wanted Peter to do. He wanted Peter to look after the other early Christians, as a shepherd cares for his sheep.
Earlier on in his ministry, before the crucifixion, Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd. “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary.” (John 10:11)
As well as making sure that Peter knew he was to be a leader, Jesus was reminding him that he would have to make personal sacrifice, perhaps even sacrificing his own life, in his leadership role. As today’s reading said, Jesus “said this to hint at the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.” According to tradition, Peter was executed by crucifixion, but at his own request he was crucified upside down because he didn’t think he was worthy to be executed in the same way as his master. This is why the symbol of St Peter is an inverted cross, and there is at least one knealer in this church with St Peter’s cross on it, although it is quite common to see it turned upside down by mistake.
In this country, we are very lucky. By the grace of God, we don’t have to fear the kind of persecution that Peter did. So what do “feed my lambs”, “shepherd my sheep”, and “feed my sheep” mean to us today?
The answer to that comes in another passage from John’s Gospel, this time from the Last Supper. John 13:34-35:
Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other
For Peter, discipleship meant taking on the mantle of the Good Shepherd, even following Jesus in the way that he died. For us, discipleship means loving one another as Christ loves us.
Loving one another as Christ loves us.
To fully appreciate the power of that statement, we should ask “What does discipleship not mean?”
In my mind, the first and foremost thing that discipleship does not mean is hours of Bible study. That is not saying that it is not a good thing to read and try to understand the Bible, but the Christian who spends many hours in dry dusty libraries—as I have done, and I enjoy doing—is not a better Christian simply because of that study. The Christian who, because of circumstances, opportunity, inclination, or other reason, does not spend hours engaged in Biblical study is not a worse Christian simply because of the lack of study. Being able to open your Bible and find the 4th chapter of the Book of Habakkuk is not a measure of someones Christianity.
Discipleship does not mean anger. There were plenty of synagogues in Palestine in Jesus’ day. I think that pretty much all of them taught things that Jesus disagreed with. Did he camp outside them, waving placards with Old Testament quotations on them? No. He preached his message to whoever would listen, and in love he welcomed all those who came.
Discipleship does not mean holding a grudge. In today’s reading, Jesus appointed Peter as the new shepherd of the church. He appointed Peter. The man who had, a few weeks previously, denied him three times. In love, Jesus forgave.
Discipleship means love. Love for one another, as Christ loves us.
Peter fed the sheep with his ministry. When we love one another as Christ loves us then we are becoming like Christ. In our own small ways, are acting as shepherds for each other. It is with Christ-like love that we feed each other.
This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.
This is the text of the meditation given at 15 minutes with Christ on Saturday 29 June 2013.
Faith and Pride 2013
Every evening during Belfast Pride Week (Friday 28 June to Saturday 6 July) we will be holding our short reflective services, 15 mins with Christ, at 6 p.m. in St George’s Church in High Street. We will also be going, as a group, to the launch of Belfast Pride on Friday 28 June, meeting at 7 p.m. in Costa Coffee in Victoria Square.
Supporting the Parade
Rather than walking in the parade, we will be standing on High Street, behind a Faith and Pride banner, holding pro-gay signs and cheering the parade on. The participants in the parade will then see our message of accepting, inclusive Christianity where love is love, regardless of gender. The parade starts at 12 noon on Saturday 6 July. Our group will be assembling from 10.30 at St George’s Church on High Street.
If you are Christian and would like to be involved, please contact us using this form.
“Don’t think I have come to make life cozy”
Here I am sitting while wearing the pink hooide. The principle is the same though. Photo: Michael Carchrie Campbell
Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy.
Hard words indeed. In fact if they weren’t said by Christ himself, we might question whether or not they were actually Christian at all. Christ is about love, and meekness, and compassion, yet he said “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God.” (Matthew 10:34-39)
Very hard words.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” That is a quote, not from Jesus Christ, but from Winston Churchill, but I think it helps us understand today’s reading.
If you have enemies it means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life. There are many things a Christian must stand up for, and therefore being a Christian can sometimes mean you attract enemies. Your life is not cozy when you have enemies.
You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution [, said Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:10-12.] The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
There are things you stand for when you are a Christian—things like love, and compassion, and meekness—and because you stand for those things people sometimes don’t like you.
Between us, my husband Michael and I run Faith and Pride. We believe that you can be gay and Christian. That is what we stand for when we stand in our pink hoodies. As you can imagine that attracts a certain amount of negative attention, both from the Old-Testament-placard-waving and tract-distributing Christians that everyone in Belfast is familiar with, and from gay people who are aggressively secular, the gay people who would prefer that Christ is completely absent from Pride Week.
I won’t lie. That negative attention can be very wearing at times.
Don’t think that I have come to make life cozy.
Those aren’t really hard words. Like everything else Christ said, they are words of compassion. Like Winston Churchill, Jesus knew that standing for something means you make enemies. He warned us about that. When your life as a Christian is difficult, because of your Christian stance on any issue, we can be comforted in the knowledge that these difficulties were not unexpected. “What it means [said Jesus] is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds.”
Being a Christian isn’t always easy. Walking as Christ would have us walk, turning the other cheek and forgiving seventy times seven is hard in and of itself. Somewhat oddly, that meekness sometimes gives us enemies. When those enemies make our walk difficult we should remember that, because it is a Christian walk, all heaven applauds.
Faith and Pride 