Another day, another statement from David Cameron, unveiling another 3% of the reality about his tax and investment arrangements. With more information promised, DC today admitted he could have handled things better. Being in public life is tough, you don't get to choose which bits of yourself or your life to present to the public. But the dribble of information, rather than a full and frank disclosure, looks like an attempt to conceal a secret, even if it isn't.
Justin Welby recently learnt, and today revealed, that his biological father is not the person he'd always thought it was. It's a deeply gracious statement, and I love the restatement of the core of his identity - I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes. God can turn a mistake into an Archbishop, and death into resurrection.
I've no idea how you think straight, let alone come up with the right thing to say in public, when you and your family are being sifted in the national media. My response would probably be closer to David Camerons than Justin Welbys - though the ABC has had a bit longer to digest the news and work out what to say about it. Under pressure, many of us are hedgehogs - curl up into a ball and wait for it to go away. Like Justin Welby's mum, a remarkable woman, we need a power greater than ourselves to help us face reality and overcome our weaknesses.
I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.
ReplyDeleteAnd what does the church have to say to that if it comes out of the mouth of someone who is gay, or suffers mental illness? Does it extend the same grace to them?
Exactly the same - 'in Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free (insert other binary categories here), for you are all one in Christ Jesus', Galatians ch3. For the Christian, identity in Christ is more fundamental than categories of gender, race or social class, and by implication any other form of labelling/identifying people.
ReplyDeleteFunny that, it's not what they said to Jeremy Pemberton...
ReplyDeleteLook, that is what some of your colleagues say, but is the opposite of what they do, which makes God out to be a liar, when He is not, but they are. There is no solution for this, except for disestablishment, to protect the vulnerable from abuse by charlatans sheltering in the hulk of a non-functional body.
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