Book Review - Disclosures by Michael Ford

by Joel and Martin

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Disclosures: Conversations Gay and Spiritual, ed. by Michael Ford (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2004)

This book provides an effective antidote to the media frenzy of the past year. Where the media has focussed on the sensational disclosures of senior Anglican clergy, and tended to polarise opinion, this book takes a more reflective, long-term view of the relationship between sexual orientation and faith. For one thing, Michael Ford has interviewed twenty-five people for this book, and he presents their stories with an evident respect for their unique backgrounds and for the different choices that each of them has made (this includes the use of pseudonyms for some of those interviewed, as he explains in the introduction).

As a collection, Disclosures is refreshing because it looks at the lives of lesbians as well as gay men (whose experience has tended to be at the forefront of media attention of late), and of lay people as well as clergy. Of particular interest to members of YLGC are the stories of ordinands and clergy, whose sexuality is at once a source of wonder and of fear at various points in their lives. No less than three former ordinands speak of Henri Nouwen's writing as a source of encouragement - certainly an endorsement of his work, coming as it does from people struggling to maintain integrity in an often confusing environment.

If anything is clear from the stories in this book, it is that these are people of character. Many of them speak with honesty about situations peripheral to their sexuality, which helps the reader to see them as whole people. Difficulties specific to lesbian, gay (and bisexual) Christians will probably be familiar to most of us. Perhaps predictably, these centre on the responses of church and family. Fortunately, not all of the responses described are negative, nor are they set in stone. Time and change are presented as sources of hope, and some of the stories in this collection prompt one to give thanks for changes that have already come, or that appear to be on their way.

The overwhelming effect of these stories is to encourage the reader with a sense that they are not alone. 'We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses' (Hebrews 12:1). This sense of community is strengthened by moments of recognition or feelings that the reader has shared similar experiences as the people interviewed. Also worth noting is that there are many positive role models (male and female, single and in relationship) with whom the reader can identify.

If the 'disclosures' in this book differ from those of the media in being voluntary (rather than forced) and healing (rather than damaging), they also represent openings rather than 'closures'. Coming out is presented as a journey through difficulties to wholeness, rather than a destination in itself. As one person remarks, 'a closet is a wardrobe' and 'any plant that grows in a wardrobe emerges as a pale shadow of itself. Gay people have to live in the full ray of the sun, in the fullness of truth, as much as they possibly can' (p. 63).

The stories contained in this volume generally seem to end on a positive note. Often this takes the form of a reflection on the individual's successful integration of sexuality and spirituality with a personal sense of calling, or even of improved relationships with their family or church. Other interviews look forward to developments that they hope will soon take place in the Church, and not a few of those interviewed are actively working towards such changes.

Not all of the chapters are so up-beat, however. One priest, for example, talks frankly about the loneliness of celibacy (chapter 16), while another person describes the loneliness of the gay scene, 'after promises of a second encounter, there were the unreturned phone calls. I felt used and deceived, cheap and naïve. I realised I wasn't loved at all' (p. 165). A lesbian priest in the Church of England says that she lives in fear of being found out (chapter 13), and another woman in the American Episcopalian church describes her similar emotions. Finally, chapter 7 tells of a man growing up Catholic in Northern Ireland, who now describes himself as an atheist, largely as a result of his negative experiences in the church. His story is a challenge to all churches, because of the alienating effect they can have for lesbian and gay people.

Disclosures reflects some of the diversity of Christian traditions, as stories from Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Pentecostal contributors stand alongside Anglican ones - and African, American and British perspectives are all included in the scope of the book. Having said this, the book seems to focus predominantly on the experiences of Catholic and Anglican clergy (for obvious reasons, given recent events and the current climate in both Churches). There is a secondary focus on individual gay or gay-affirming congregations in California. Speaking very much for myself, I feel that these stories read more like narratives of escape than of journey or critical engagement with the world. I suppose that my sympathies lie more with those who have faced up to confrontation, than with those who have run away from it. I realize that there is a place for gay churches, but it saddens me if these miss out on the diversity of experiences and backgrounds that can be found in mixed congregations.

James Alison makes a similar point, when he says that the real need is not for a gay theology, but for a Christian theology 'worked out with honesty from a gay perspective, starting from where one is' (p. 127). What he means is that we as LGBT people have something important to say to the church as a whole, and that our personal disclosures will inform the ways in which we and others can think about God and ourselves.

Joel

It was with great anticipation that I opened Discolosures. Here, I hoped would be experiences which spoke deeply to my own journey of faith and sexuality, of both the intense closeness and absense of God in which those liminal moments between life and wilderness, which can so often characterise the gay Christian journey, would be 'disclosed'. To some degree my expectations were met; we meet in Ford's account the diversity which I have found in YLGC and the wider gay Christian community, from pain to wholeness and denial to freedom. As Joel notes (above), the stories range all the way from Catholic to Protestant, from Africa to the Americas, and importantly are both from male and female perspectives . Yet that said, about halfway through the book I found myself stranegly dissatisfied. Each new story I would begin with a sense of great hope that in it would be the character who would really spring to life in my soul and give meaning and affirmation to my own story. It never happened, and if I look for a reason I think it is that these diverse lives and testimonies are each condensed and strait-jacketed into five or ten page biopics which, though rich in anecdote and wisdom, failed to engage me at a more profound level into the lives of the characters. Looking again from the YLGC perspective, few are in our age range and they reflected more a journey well underway and reflected upon than the fitful and painful first steps of the gay Christian life.

I recommend Disclosures nonetheless for its courage to go beyond dry theologising and touch upon real lived lives of Christians across the world, struggling in various ways to find God and meaning in the mess of the Church and human existence. The journey is not always a smooth road, and the destinations, if even there is one, may differ or remain obscure. We are not alone where Christ goes before us in the glory of the saints.

Martin