over the last couple of years i’ve written pretty regularly for the Age, which is one of melbourne’s daily newspapers – it started as writing articles for the faith column, turned into some feature articles over christmas and easter, and now involves some opinion pieces in the editorial section. i love writing for the paper. it pushes me as much as working in the prisons does. i love the interaction with readers afterwards – people who email and tell me their story… people who want to disagree, and who will email to start a conversation about that. i had over 100 responses to one recent article – the conversations which ensued derailed my life for a week.
the circumstances by which the opportunity to write came about were quite random, and they don’t matter except to say that i was approached as an individual, not as someone who works with the uniting church. the writing isn’t part of my job, or this project.
The church has had a mixed relationship with the media – most of our interaction is defensive, or, at best, issues based. i’ve had countless conversations with people who want to warn me about how ‘the media’ are not the nice people they seem to be, that i need to be careful, that at heart they’re ‘out to get me’. which is ironic: having foolishly googled my name after that same recent article, the harsh, cruel and unfairly personal reactions were from those on christian forums and on denominational websites.
one thing those forums do get right is that my writing doesn’t express traditional christian doctrine… it’s not bounded by orthodoxy, and i have stated a few times that i’m not convinced by the creeds or some of the other traditional beliefs. and for this reason, we decided this week that my byline in future articles will simply be ‘cheryl lawrie is a melbourne writer’, rather than ‘cheryl lawrie works with an alternative worship project in the uniting church’.
it sounds small, but it took a lot of conversation to come to that point, and it does feel like we lose something in the change. but it will remove the temptation for people to dismiss the uniting church based on disagreements with the thoughts i write.
a few people have asked recently why i don’t see myself as part of the emerging church. It’s for a similar reason. it’s not because of a disagreement with the emerging church, it’s because the emerging church claims very strongly its place within orthodoxy and traditional theology. that’s not where i find my home. i find i have to wriggle and squeeze my theology into a virtually unrecognisable shape in order to fit into the credal statements – even with feminist and liberal critiques and interpretations. they don’t fit the same space as my faith.
i’m not saying this to be controversial. i’m saying it because i want to honour those who read what i write, and then have the courage to email me [a complete stranger] to tell me they too are dipping their feet in the edge of this vast and endless sea, that they’re not sure where it will take them either, and that they’re looking for company as they search for something beyond what they’ve been told is the truth they have to believe.
[At some point the church will, quite fairly, make the call that as this is a project of the uniting church, it really needs to hold to the traditional doctrines and creeds of the church. And i'll cheerfully hand over the privilege of working within it to another... and keep creating sacred spaces myself, because i don't do this because i'm paid to. Until that time, the space between now and then stretches out as pure gift...]
You’re right Cheryl – we do lose something. We lose yet one more pointer toward a sense that the Uniting Church is a place which is safe for asking questions, for exploring ‘unorthodox’ (I hate the whole ‘orthodox’ label!) ideas and expressions of faith. It’s a shame…
yes, you’re right.
though i do have to say that being the one who was the visible face of that particular pointer, it comes with a cost. i’m looking forward to not being the recipient of the pent up anger and disapointment of those who don’t want the uniting church to be the things you suggest.
Fair enough Cheryl. No one person should have to take on the world’s vitriol.
I’m glad you’ve made it simpler.
=) Blair
It is indeed fair enough – but I suspect Blair that it was less the world’s vitriol than the church’s – which makes me sad.
Hey Cheryl,
I am so proud of you and proud of the UCA for giving you the opportunity to explore and share the journey with us – by us I mean we who read your blog (not the UCA). I’m pleased that the identifier has been dropped if it protects you from the passionate angries who are always looking for targets for their fear. You don’t have to put up with it!
BTW remember that for every harsh response to your precious words, there are many of us who find them as healing as phoenix tears (there is a Harry Potter reference for every situation – and you introduced me to him so you should know!) – forgive us when we fail to let you know how encouraged we are by you.
Robyn
it’s funny, i never thought you so very unorthodox…
which makes me think about how creeds can be used as maximal statements of orthodoxy rather than minimal – the end of belief rather than the start of it. i have a mental image of centred-set and bounded-set diagrams. a bounded-set approach to the creeds says, “everything inside this boundary is the creed, everything outside is not, and you must believe all of it and not any of those other things.” a centred-set creed is ‘fuzzy orthodoxy’, where some things are definitely held as the centre, and there are things further out that we might hold to less, or take a percentage of. but there’s no hard boundary to be in or out of orthodoxy.
i find myself wondering about the trinitarian nature of ‘orthodox’ creeds – since i think that the trinity is an abstraction of how we have experienced god and may or may not be god’s actual structure [which may not be conveyable to humans in any other way], the creeds become an aide-memoire within a particular framework which i would want to rewrite. and yet i don’t feel that my potential rewrite is anything other than orthodox, ie factual and christian. i think orthodoxy is about truth about god, so i’m open to the ‘unorthodox’ in case it contains truth.
steve – the fuzzy / bounded thing is great. i need to think about it more, but haven’t got head space at the moment. maybe over a beer at greenbelt?
to be honest, the thing that bemuses me most is when people [especially those who have never met me, and obviously haven't done any research on me] speak with far more certainty than what i have about what i think and believe. i don’t recognise myself in any of their comments!
some people do research, of course… a friend told me that someone ended up at her website by googling ‘cheryl lawrie false prophet’!!
but there’s a whole broader question i’ve been thinking about in terms of faith and doubt. one of the most patronising things christians can do is assume that anybody who doesn’t ascribe to ‘orthodoxy’ [of whatever version] is doubting. doubt assumes that the thing in doubt is the right point to which we should return. i’m not doubting it. i just don’t believe it. and i don’t want to end up back there.