{"id":67562,"date":"2018-01-24T08:30:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T13:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=67562"},"modified":"2018-01-23T18:27:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T23:27:31","slug":"church-times-christina-beardsley-the-decision-not-to-provide-a-liturgy-for-trans-people-undermines-the-churchs-claim-to-welcome-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=67562","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Christina Beardsley&#8211;The (House of Bishops) decision not to provide a liturgy for trans people undermines the Church\u2019s claim to welcome them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How much better, though, if the Church of England could authorise a form of prayer that busy clergy could take off the shelf when needed.<\/p>\n<p>As well as being convenient for clergy and lay minsters, authorising a liturgy for trans people would also demonstrate that the Church was serious about the welcome mentioned in part one of the motion, aware of trans people\u2019s specific needs, and willing to respond to their requests appropriately.<\/p>\n<p>That was the basis of the Blackburn Motion and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2017\/7-july\/news\/uk\/synod-s-welcoming-transgender-motion-asks-bishops-to-consider-liturgy\">it passed by a huge majority in all three of Synod\u2019s houses\u00a0<\/a>(Bishops, Clergy, and Laity) seven months ago. Since then, we have heard nothing, until last weekend when\u00a0<em>The<\/em>\u00a0<em>Mail on Sunday\u00a0<\/em>leaked the story that the House of Bishops had decided that a liturgy for trans people should, in the\u00a0<em>Mail\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>words, \u201cbe blocked\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A hastily issued\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2018\/26-january\/news\/uk\/special-liturgy-for-transgender-people-not-needed-bishops-say\">statement<\/a>\u00a0followed from the Church of England, in response to the leak, which insisted that it was welcoming to trans people, but would not be issuing a liturgy. Instead, clergy were advised to adapt the existing\u00a0<em>Affirmation of Baptismal Faith\u00a0<\/em>rite on these occasions and to be creative. Further guidance is promised later this week.<\/p>\n<p>Like many trans people, I am deeply disappointed, and not a little angered, by this outcome. I\u2019m sure that I will have further reflections once we hear the reasons for this decision, but here are my initial thoughts about what has happened and what we can learn from it&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2018\/26-january\/comment\/opinion\/ritual-transitions-and-liturgical-loopholes\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How much better, though, if the Church of England could authorise a form of prayer that busy clergy could take off the shelf when needed. As well as being convenient for clergy and lay minsters, authorising a liturgy for trans<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=67562\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,389,635,168,184,436,177,129,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-church-of-england-coe","category-coe-bishops","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-parish-ministry","category-pastoral-care","category-pastoral-theology","category-psychology","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67565,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67562\/revisions\/67565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}