Living in love and faith? The construction of contemporary texts of terror
Alex Clare-Young is Co-Chair of the Open Table Network. They advise our Trustees on theological, pastoral care, and safeguarding issues in consultation with the Trustees and the Network Co-ordinator.
Alex is also a minister in the United Reformed Church, currently ministering to an online community called Churspacious, and with the trans community. Alex's first book, Transgender. Christian. Human. was published in 2019 by Wild Goose.
WATCH Alex’s video intro to the Open Table Network [2.5 mins}
A MEMBER of the Coordinating Group of Living In Love And Faith (LLF), the Church of England’s suite of resources on identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage, has published an academic article drawing on professional expertise and lived experience to critique the LLF process.
Revd Alex Clare-Young served on the LLF Coordinating Group from February 2019 to November 2020 when the LLF resources were published. Alex is a trans-masculine non-binary minister in the United Reformed Church (URC), currently with a radically inclusive, social-media-based church called Churspacious. They are also Co-Chair of the Open Table Network, and a consultant for OneBodyOneFaith and Creating Sanctuary.
Alex’s article, Living in love and faith? The construction of contemporary texts of terror, was published by the academic journal Theology & Sexuality on 6th August 2021. Alex is completing doctoral research at the University of Birmingham into the identities, lived experiences, and theological understandings of trans people.
In this article, Alex draws on theory around identity, dialogue, and safety, as well as personal lived experience, to highlight the unequal power dynamics of the membership of the LLF process, and critique the use of personalizing argument in the response of conservative campaign group Christian Concern’s response to the LLF resources and individuals represented in them, including Alex, who received credible threats to their safety as a result.
Alex writes that there needs to be a shift in the responses of Christian denominations to sexuality and gender if LGBTQ+ people are to live in hope, rather than fear. This shift, Alex argues, must be away from ‘a lack of meaningful dialogue with LGBTQ+ people’ which is not ‘as potentially transformative as participatory dialogue.’
The Church of England’s website suggests that the purpose of LLF is:
to enable the Church of England churches across the country to participate in a process of learning and praying together as part of discerning a way forward in relation to matters of identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage.
Its aim is to move the Church of England toward a ‘radical new Christian inclusion’, with the potential of speaking into a new future for LGBTQ+ church members based on justice and safety. However, Alex describes their experience of ‘a clear lack of attention to inclusion’ in the construction of the LLF Co-ordinating Group, and the four Working Groups on Biblical Studies, Theology, History, and Sciences, which informed the compilation of the LLF resources. These groups were disbanded after publication of the LLF resources in November 2020. Alex suggests this lack of attention to inclusion is also present in the Next Steps Group, formed in November 2020 and made up entirely of bishops, whose task is to ‘Plan into the future as discernment leads to decision-making in 2022.’
As a URC minister, Alex expected that, with the publication of the LLF resources in November 2020, their role in LLF would be over., since ‘the discernment process following the release should be an internal dialogue within the Church of England.’ Unfortunately, one of the most prominent early responses to LLF made gracefully backing-out impossible.
A video entitled ‘Ben John reacts to the Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith trailer’, released by the conservative campaign group Christian Concern on the 13th of November 2020, spliced the LLF trailer video with sections of comment by Ben John, an employee of the Wilberforce Academy - an educational establishment linked to Christian Concern.
Alex and their wife Jo appear in the trailer wearing clerical collars, next to landmarks in our hometown, and are fully identifiable. Ben John’s commentary disputed Alex’s identity as a transmasculine non-binary person, and the validity of their marriage and ministry, which police investigated as a hate incident. Alex’s article contains details descriptions of the anti-trans speech used against then in the video, and the justifications given by representatives of Christian Concern for this. Responses to this video included credible threats to Alex’s home, vocation and life, as well as to members of their church. Media attention minimized the seriousness of this and led to suggestions that Alex was attempting to challenge free speech and oppress the creator of the video. Alex argues:
The creation of the video displayed the same unequal power dynamics as the LLF process, whereby opinions were prioritized over lived experience, those who held normative identities assumed positions of control, and a wide range of academic understandings were ignored.
In conclusion, Alex asks:
How, in the light of the power dynamics of LLF and the responses to it, may what follows be a time of discernment and transformation, rather than an unsafe, and far from Christian, power struggle?
Alex’s article is an articulate expression of their professional expertise and personal lived experience. Read the full article here (academic subscription required) OR read free on Alex’s blog.
[CONTENT WARNING: This article contains details descriptions of anti-trans speech used against Alex].