A personal evaluation of what went wrong with Methodist & other responses to Orlando

There has been a lot of discussion on social media around the hurt caused by the initial prayer offered by the Church of England yesterday and by the initial official response issued by the Methodist President and Vice President as well as the prayer offered by the URC.  In the case of the CofE there was a later joint statement by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury which sought to repair some of the damage. It was welcomed by many, but also seen as ringing slightly hollow in terms of the difference between the words and level of hurt many within that many within that Church have experienced as a result of the policies and actions of the church.

In contrast to this the contributions of LGBT+ Christians, particularly Ric Stott and Rachel Mann were welcomed and widely shared. Indeed by the end of the day their two contributions had been combined into a very moving and visually attractive prayer.

To be fair at times there was a coming together of the welcome and unwelcome. The Methodist initial statement included as links below the CofE prayer which had caused so much pain with the one by Rachel Mann which had been balm to many.

As I followed what was going on and felt the pain caused along with others I struggled to understand what had gone so wrong. Those releasing the statements and prayers which had caused the pain by their omission were seeking to give solace and respond in a compassionate way, of that I was sure. However, in not understanding a crucial aspect of the context their words were painful.

I was reminded of a quote I understand is drummed into the students studying where I live, “a text without a context is a pretext”.

So what had gone wrong in their, and others, reading of the context and what might we be able to learn from this.

Firstly, I believe those responding had read the context in a hegemonic way. That is they had read it in terms of those impacted being “like them” – predominantly white, middle class, heterosexual, middle-aged and cis. This context was not one where these were the dominant social characteristics of those most directly impacted. Most importantly those impacted were LGBT+ and many were Latino. Whilst one might hear as a defence these responses were put together before all the information was available the key piece of information, “that this took place in a LGBT nightclub” was there from the beginning.

Secondly, I believe that the responses which were lacking focused on seeing “community” in term of a physical, geographical location. The community impacted in this case was not only the geographical area of location but the LGBT+ community, which is a global community. This illustrates, I think, that the institutions are rooted in modernist understandings of community, rather than those linked to our current networked communities, which are far more based on identity. The formal discussions around these changing understandings of community have tended to revolve around digital/ online faith communities and fresh expressions within our institutions. We need to catch up on understanding the world we live in now. Our responses to tragedies need to be focused and context specific rather than generic.

Thirdly, I worry that those initially responding were doing so based upon media reports which were seeking to frame the story within a particular hegemonic way. Until Owen Jones walked out of the Sky studio so much discussion had sought to  frame this as a “terrorist” attack and to straight wash away the fact that a hate crime could also be a terrorist attack, the two did not need to be separate and that when the LGBT+ community were targeted that was relevant. As a prophetic community we need to be ready to think through the messages we are getting from the wider media as well as those we are contributing.

Finally, I think we need to think about the audience our messages are going to be read by and how they will be read. Again I think that this is where part of went wrong was hegemonic understandings that are held by some. I believe these statements would have been checked and published by people with similar outlooks and that is why nobody appeared to pick up why others might be so hurt was going out. We need to ensure that the teams we have working within the church are as diverse as possible and that in situations such as this we have people in place to check what is going out from an EDI point of view.

Between beginning to write this and posting it on my blog the Methodist statement has been expanded with some excellent statement and material by London Chair, Micky Youngson, an ally who gets it. This has changed the piece totally. I have then also updated this post because the media department have again updated the response so only Micky's material is showing and the original response is now a short link at the bottom. It's been a fascinating exercise in seeing how media responses change according to how understanding develops.

So where do we go from here, bearing in mind that Micky's material has been added later after a lot of the initial damage had been done and however much that original response is changed and the media department seek to erase it they cannot erase our memories of it? Well, I think that it would be useful if the president or vice-president and the media department were to apologise, admit that they had got it wrong and explain why. We are a faith that believe in confession and repentance, to illustrate this now I think could be very powerful.
*as a post script to this I have just seen a beautiful prayer on the President's face book page which expresses his care for the LGBTQI community. I have no doubt that this is an honest and heartfelt prayer and was very moving.
The president and vice president statement has been updated with wording which explicitly addresses the hurt caused they say
""We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQI brothers and sisters, and acknowledge the pain caused when we fail to live out the love of Christ for all. We are desperately sad that hurt has been caused by the statement made yesterday, which was an immediate response to assure people of our love and prayers for those affected by this tragedy. The murders in Orlando were an abhorrent tragedy, possibly the largest targeted killing of the LGBTQI community since the Second World War. God's love is for all. As Christians we are called first and foremost to love all. We stand in together with gay and straight men and women, and continue to hold the LGBTQI community, the victims' friends and their families in our hearts, thoughts and prayers."

I for one want to thank them for these words and that we, who were hurt by the statement yesterday, have been heard.