The errors of presumption

This morning we attended our church’s 9am service. Branded as being the quieter and more traditional of our three Sunday services, it’s one that I rarely go to, and this morning I had my eyes opened.

Very near the beginning of the service, the band leaders decided to open in prayer against gay marriage. They cited their joining with the Coalition for Marriage campaign, asking us to pray for the upcoming reading of the Bill in Parliament, for boldness for the MPs in speaking out against gay marriage, and the upholding of historic and Biblical marriage as defined by God.

It was a long prayer, with lots of ‘amens’ and exalted righteous language. It took me a great deal of willpower and grace not to walk out of the church at that moment.

I am a Christian who disagrees with the Coalition for Marriage campaign and am actively pro gay marriage. To what extent my sense of horror about this morning’s prayer is rooted in my disagreement with the argument against gay marriage, I’m not sure, but what made me really angry was the presumption with which the prayer was prayed.

I suppose this is complicated for Christian leaders and churches, who have to take a stand against certain issues and developments, whether or not all its members agree. I am fully aware that it may just be because I feel very strongly about the issue of gay marriage and the way that the church is engaging with it, that this is a source of frustration for me. Maybe this prayer really was the right way of dealing with things if their position is right.

But what I really want to come out and say to these people who speak out so openly in this way for the Coalition for Marriage is this. I am a Christian who loves and tries to follow Jesus, and I am for gay marriage.

I am sure there are other Christians like me. How many there are I’m not sure - more often than not I feel the isolation of being a minority in this area. But sometimes I just want to stand up and ask: Can you not be a Christian and support gay marriage? Because I think you can. I am, and I do.

The trouble with prayers like the one we had to sit through this morning, and churches jumping on board with the Coalition for Marriage, is that they are not representative of all Christians’ views. There are people like me who are made to feel, and are represented, as holding a wholesale opinion that they do not have, purely by virtue of being part of a church. On a wider scale, people in society then see all Christians as a group who all reject gay marriage, when this is not true.

It is churches’ presumption that all Christians have this viewpoint that angers me and that I think is wrong. This is the problem with the Coalition for Marriage mobilising churches to campaign against gay marriage. Churches are made up of individuals, and not everyone agrees. People who don’t agree are then made to carry the weight of the anti-gay marriage expectation in church and outside church. I’m not sure in which context this is more unpleasant.

When we were in Buckingham, our vicar put a petition for the Coalition for Marriage at the front of our church. This angered me because of the presumption: “Well, if you go to this church, and you’re a Christian, then you must uphold this view of marriage and you must be against gay marriage. Sign this petition - of course you will!” I wanted to tell the vicar that if he was going to put this petition at the front of the church, for equality and integrity purposes, he should put a petition supporting gay marriage right next to it. I would sign that.

I am a Christian and I support gay marriage. I have reasons for believing what I believe, just as people have reasons against gay marriage, which I disagree with. Just like many of them, I love Jesus and am doing my best to follow him with my life. It is only right that my view should be respected and not made to be what it is not. It is insulting, untrue and lacks integrity.

I don’t want to go into the language of the prayer that upset me, as my husband graciously and wisely told me to try not to get too angry and to remember the positives. All I will say is that it is not helpful to simplify issues like this with the presumption that everyone agrees, your opinion is the righteous, Biblical and God-ordained one, and that as Christians who follow God we should all pray for the other side to fail. Why can we not pray for guidance and truth to win, pray for God’s hand to be over the developments and not assume that we are certainly right? If not, why can people not just preface their views with the fact that it is only their view and that if you are a Christian who is not part of the Coalition for Marriage, you aren’t the infidel who is substandard in some way?

I couldn’t stop thinking about what someone outside of the ‘Christian fold’ would think sitting there for the first time, hearing that prayer. Or even more awfully, a gay person.

For now, I won’t go into my thoughts and arguments why I think gay marriage should be supported. I just want people to know and respect that Christians can be for gay marriage. And that is ok.