Author Archives: symonhill

Bishop welcomes walk of repentance for homophobia

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I’m delighted to report that the former Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, has expressed his support for my pilgrimage of repentance for homophobia. He said that the church needs to repent in relation to gay and lesbian people.

My pilgrimage involes a walk between Birmingham and London from 16 June to 1 July. I will be giving talks at churches along the way.

In an email that I received on Monday, Richard Harries said:

“It is very good that you are undertaking this pilgrimage of repentance. I very much hope it will have a wide influence. Repentance in the original Greek word means changing one’s mind, and rethinking one’s whole outlook in the light of God’s saving presence in Christ. That is what the church needs to do today in relation to gay and lesbian people.”

It is great to have Richard Harries’ support. I wish more church leaders would be prepared to take this sort of stance.

I have also been overwhelmed and deeply moved by the many messages of support I have received from a wide range of individuals and groups who have heard about my plans. They include a man whose Christian parents won’t accept homosexuality, a gay Methodist minister who used to be homophobic, a straight Muslim and a bisexual teenager. I thank God for the courage these people have given me as the date of my pilgrimage approaches.

For more information on my pilgrimage, please visit http://www.repenting.wordpress.com.

Pilgrimage plans published

Posted on by symonhill

It is now less than four weeks before I begin walking from Birmingham to London as a pilgrimage of repentance for my former homophobia. I’m delighted with the support and encouargement I’ve received and I’m very pleased to report that details of events during the walk have now been published.

Please click here to read about the events.  

As you’ll see, there will be three city centre events. These will be in Birmingham on the evening before I start walking (Wednesday 15 June), in Oxford around half-way (Sunday 26 June) and in London on the evening I arrive (Friday 1 July), which will be the day before Pride.  

I am still discussing events with churches in other locations, and details will be available shortly. In addition, a few churches and other groups have kindly invited me to meet them more informally or join them in worship.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me at symonhill@gmail.com.

To read more about the pilgrimage, please visit http://www.repenting.wordpress.com.

Christianity and homophobia in Britain today

Posted on by symonhill

Many thanks to Camden LGBT Forum, who invited me to speak at their event entitled ‘The Globalisation of Homophobia’ on 17 May  – the International Day Against Homophobia.

I spoke about homophobia in Britain today and its relationship with Christianity.  The text of my talk can be found by clicking here.

Privatising higher education

Posted on by symonhill

Last week, the universities minister David Willets rushed to deny suggestions that the government would allow elite universities to sell off super-expensive extra places to wealthy students. But the furore led to another proposal receiving very little attention – the suggestion that private companies and charities should be allowed to fund their own university places.

Both proposals appeared as suggested ways of providing an extra number of places in higher education, by adding places that would not be funded by the state. The shortage of places has arisen because of the government’s cuts and the hike in fees.

The National Union of Students, the University and College Union, the Student Christian Movement and students’ unions across the UK rightly condemned the plans. In the face of this outrage, Willets quickly backed down and said that he had no plans to allow the rich to buy extra space.

I’m delighted that the backlash against the proposal was so great. But to me, the other plan is even more alarming. Funding university places by charity seems to be taking us back to an age when working class people could receive formal education only because of philanthropy and not as a right. Allowing private companies to fund places would be likely to give them undue influence over the curriculum and other matters.

If you doubt this, have a look at the influence that corporations have already gained when they have become involved in higher education funding.

The multinational arms company BAE Systems provides funding for a number of courses, particularly in engineering. As a result, BAE representatives sit on a number of course committees. Undergraduate engineers at Loughborough University are offered bursaries by BAE – as long as they work for BAE during their industry year. Tom Taylor, who graduated from Loughborough in 2007, says that “elements of the course were tailored to BAE’s requirements”.

Allowing corporations to fund extra university places would dramatically increase this tendency. I can imagine oil companies offering places on courses in environmental science. This would help them to greenwash over the realities of their business as well as to have considerably more influence over those studying the issues.

This government is undermining the fabric of higher education in the UK. We must not allow them to privatise university courses under cover of solving the problems that they have themselves created.

Taking the ‘No to AV’ campaign to its logical conclusion

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The main arguments used by the ‘No to AV’ campaign are, if taken to their logical conclusion, arguments against democracy. Every one of their leading arguments could be used an argument against holding elections at all.

Firstly, they focus on the cost of AV. Their claim that it would cost £250m has now been thoroughly discredited, although it still appears on their website (the figure includes the cost of the referendum itself, as well as the price of electronic counting machines that no-one is calling for). But just as important is the reality that there is a cost to democracy. The No campaign may as well argue that we could save money by abolishing elections altogether.

Secondly, the No campaigners argue that AV is too “complex”. This insult to the intelligence of British voters (who are quite capable of ranking candidates in order of preference) has been undermined by the reminder that the Tory Party does not use first-past-the-post for electing its own leader. The Tories seem to be saying that they’re clever enough for complexity – but we’re not. They may as well argue that democracy is too complex for the public to grasp and we would be better off trusting an hereditary class to rule us instead.

Thirdly, they suggest that there would be lots of coalitions under AV leading to “politicians’ fixes”. Both academic studies and the experience of Australia have called this claim into question. But even if it were true, the argument ignores the reality that a single-party government without a mandate from the majority of the population is itself a fix. The argument comes down to stability. It is argued that coalitions are unstable. By the same token, it could be argued that public opinion is unstable. Dictatorship would be so much more orderly.

Fourthly, a number of No campaigners keep repeating their claim that AV would help “extremist” parties to get elected. They have yet to explain why the BNP are campaigning for a No vote or why they think so many people would give their second preferences to the far-right . But the way to defeat racists and homophobes is to campaign against racism and homophobia, not to manipulate electoral systems. The No campaign are saying that under AV, the wrong people would win. By this logic, all elections should be abolished in case the wrong people are elected.

The No campaign’s arguments are based on a failure to trust people to make their own decisions and to govern themselves. The same arrogance and contempt for the public inspired the nineteenth century opposition to votes for women and working class men.

In contrast, to vote Yes for AV is to vote for an improvement that marks a step in the right direction, taking us closer towards the day when people really are trusted to govern themselves.

That’s why I’m voting Yes.

Kate and William are our equals

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BBC Radio 4, so often a voice of intelligence and relative impartiality, began this morning’s news with the extreme bias and simpering tones they reserve for reports on the Windsor family. It was announced that Kate Middleton would be “transformed” from a “commoner” into “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge”.

I hope that Kate Middleton and William Windsor have a very happy marriage. Marriage is about love and commitment, not about privilege and hierarchy. If Kate Middleton has been “transformed”, it is because she has become a married woman.

She has not become somebody else. Her blood has not turned blue. She has not stopped being a human being, equal in value to you and me. All that’s happened is that her grandmother-in-law has said she should be referred to by a medieval title.

I continue to be amazed that so many otherwise caring, respectful, intelligent people can demean themselves by happily addressing somebody else as “your royal highness” or “my lord”. I respect those who consider they are doing so out of necessity, such as lawyers committed to justice who call judges “my lord” when they would rather not. But the acceptance of such titles in a supposed democracy, and the self-contempt implied in them, has never made sense to me.

It has made even less sense since I became a Christian. Christ is my lord, my king, my queen. Early Christians died for refusing to say “Caesar is lord”. They wouldn’t acknowledge an earthly monarch even when this led to their deaths. How much do we insult their memory if we idolatrously recognise another lord simply out of habit or acceptance of social norms?

When William and Kate’s engagement was announced, some said it was a sign of “social mobility”. This is laughable. An upper class man is marrying an upper middle class woman.

The government talks of social mobility while slashing public services, education and the welfare state, driving wider the already vast gulf between the poorest and richest in our society. The very phrase “social mobility” implies a few individuals being allowed to move through a hierarchical system. We don’t need social mobility. We need equality.

We cannot achieve equality and uphold human dignity while grovelling in front of privileged individuals. We are not subjects. We are not servants. We are not “commoners”. We are human beings, created in the image of God. 

Latest plans for walk of repentance for homophobia

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I’m delighted to report that the starting venue for my pilgrimage of repentance for homophobia has been confirmed. I will begin with a talk at Carr’s Lane Church in central Birmingham on the evening of Wednesday 15 June. I will then begin walking from there the next day.

I will then pass through towns and cities including Coventry, Leamington Spa and Oxford before arriving in London on 1 July, the evening before Pride.

I am very grateful to Carr’s Lane for their hosting offer, and to my friend John Cooper for his help with arranging it. I’m very pleased, partly because it’s great to have another venue confirmed, but also because the starting venue is particularly significant. A number of individuals, churches and groups in the Birmingham area have been really supportive and encouraging, so are likely to help in promoting the event.

I admit that on the whole I have found it harder than I hoped, or even expected, to find churches willing to host talks in some of the places I am visting. In a few places, there have been supportive individuals who have told their church about my pilgrimage and found that there has been more oppositon than they had hoped.

By confirming the talk at Carr’s Lane, I am of course announcing not only the starting venue but also the starting date. It’s just over two weeks before I’ll arrive in London, meaning my initial estimate that the walk would take around three weeks has turned out to be a bit inaccurate.  I hope the slightly shorter time won’t lead anyone to conlude that the walk is less meaingful!

There are now three events confirmed for my pilgrimage, all in city centre churches. The other two are in Oxford (Sunday 26 June) and London (Friday 1 July).  I am very close to confirming with one other church, and still talking with a few others. I am also pleased to have received an offer from a church that may not be close enough to the likely route. I am working out whether it will be feasible to vary the route in order to visit them.

For more news on my pilgrimage, please visit http://www.repenting.wordpress.com.

Bad arguments against voting Yes: Misleading maps

Posted on by symonhill

If you’ve received a leaflet from the ‘No to AV’ campaign, you may have noticed a map of the world showing that only three countries use the Alternative Vote system. But there are lots of things the map does not show.

The rightness or wrongness of AV does not depend on how many countries use it. Nonetheless, I admit that the experience of other countries is relevant to the debate.

However, the map is just one of many misleading items to feature in the leaflet. While it accurately depicts the countries that back AV, it fails to tell us how many use First-Past-the-Post (FPTP).

Many thanks to James Elford, who contacted me via Twitter to send me a link to a more detailed map. This one shows that FPTP is used by only a few more countries than AV. You can see it at http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=7166.

I admit I haven’t examined this map in detail or checked its categorisation of each country’s electoral system. But I accept its general point about the misleading nature of the map used by the No campaign.

A yet more detailed map would show us how many more countries use forms of proportional representation. I would much rather have a proportional system than either FPTP or AV. But the referendum is not asking us whether we want AV. It is asking us to choose between AV and FPTP. This is a very different question.

Churches should not uphold monarchy

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 I appeared on Channel 4 on Wednesday (13 April), suggesting that a monarch should not be head of a church. I spoke for just under two minutes, as one of a series of short clips in which people with different views responded to the question “Should the queen stand down as head of the Church of England?”.

The clip can be viewed by clicking here.  My Ekklesia colleague Simon Barrow blogged about it here.

The 4thought website also shows the others expressing views on the issue.

4thought is on after Channel 4 news every day, featuring a different religious or ethical question every few days. 

It felt rather odd to be interviewed for over an hour and then see the result edited down to less than two minutes. However, I’m very grateful to the people at 4thought, who have managed to edit me very fairly and summarise my view very well.

My concerns about the Church of England’s links to the monarchy are partly about symbolism, but also the practical consequences of that symbolism. The royal link implies an endorsement of values of hierarchy and privilege at odds with the teaching of Jesus. This constrains the Church’s ability to speak out for independent and radical views and values.

Of course, the monarchical ties are only one factor among many that constrain the Church’s progressive voice. Like most of the other factors, it is a legacy of Christendom – the time when Christianity was linked to wealth and power, holding considerable sway over society. As we move away from Christian privilege in a multifaith society, we can welcome post-Christendom as an opportunity to look again at Jesus’ radical teachings. The injustices of monarchy are the last thing we should be holding on to.

Walking to church

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 Last Sunday, I walked to church. What makes this unusual is that the church in question was six miles from my home and I would usually travel by train or tube.

Walking there was a great experience, not only because it helped me to get in training for my pilgrimage in June, but because it was great to see so much of London in such nice weather and to remind myself of how good it feels to walk relatively long distances.

I’m sorry to say that in over six years of living in London (in four different parts of the city), this is the first time that I have walked from home to central London. I had a satisfied feeling as I arrived at places to which I have never previously walked from home – London Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral, the First Out cafe in New Oxford Street and finally Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, where the minister Simon Perry gave a helpful sermon about violence in the Old Testament.  

This is the church that will also mark the end of my pilgrimage for repentance for homophobia this summer. I will speak at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church on the evening of 1 July, the day before Pride. By that point, a six-mile walk is unlikely to feel like a long distance. While my training is now progressing more rapidly, I’m aware that I really need to pick up the pace before I begin the pilgrimage from Birmingham in around two months’ time.

I’ve just read an article about pilgrimage by Adam Weymouth in the March issue of Third Way. He is walking from England to Jerusalem, which makes Birmingham to London sound rather feeble by comparison. I was struck by his description of the realities and benefits of pilgrimage:

“I saw the destination as a framework, a crucial part that would distinguish the journey from a directionless wander, in the same that an artist fixes his [or her] ideas within the confines of the canvas. But in engaging with that painting, with that line on the map, spaces are created that allow much deeper ideas and experiences to emerge.”