AS MY faith has deepened, I have tried to broaden the circle of inclusive love rather than guard the borders of what I once thought was Christian truth. Instead of holding the door firm, I wanted to push it wide open. I’d come to realise that Christianity is a permanent revolution, a state of being in which believers must challenge our preconceptions every moment of every day. The Christian belief is that the death of Jesus on the cross was the ultimate proof of love. It’s supposed to be a reciprocal relationship, a heavenly symbiosis, and, as such, requires specific actions on the part of the believer.
Forgiveness, self-criticism, and contrition; radical action to blanket the world with fairness; standing with those who need that love the most and seldom receive it.
It’s not easy, and it wasn’t supposed to be. It’s about a second chance, a lifeline thrown to humanity. It’s not about judgement but forgiveness; not about rejection but inclusion. The Jesus story is revolutionary in its most intimate sense because it dreams of peace, equality, and transformation.
I’d found that the loudest voices are often the most raucous, because they are convinced that they possess exclusive and infallible truth. It’s supernatural certainty that leads to intolerance, when faith should actually be a dialogue. For me, it felt downright disrespectful to interpret the Bible as a literal guide to daily living, or even as the inerrant word of God. It’s much greater than that — much more profound. It’s poetry, history, and metaphor, as well as the revelation of God’s will and plan. It’s anything but facile, and anything but a dry text to be referred to like some manual for the aspiring moralist.
The gospel, I now know, is about a first-century Palestinian Jew who grabbed the world and made it new. He demanded that we love God and love others as ourselves, and that we treat people the way we would want them to treat us. That’s the faith in all its terrifying simplicity. The rest, as it were, is mere commentary. Yet that commentary has often dominated the Christian narrative in public life. Loud and cruel obsessions with sexuality and reproduction, a support for the powerful rather than the powerless, an identification with Caesar rather than the rebel Jesus.
What I’d come to realise, and should have known earlier, is that Christianity shouldn’t be, but far too often has become, a sort of moral thermometer, or a checklist where we can tick off certain boxes and feel good, or bad, about ourselves. It’s all so much deeper and grander than that. I was confident in all this, but sometimes I wanted to retreat, to turn down the world’s volume.
Or, to put it another way, to get closer to the filters of God’s absolute love. The British playwright Tom Stoppard, not known for being a Christian or for defending God or faith, wrote in his usual pithy and delightful way, “Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God.”
With great insight, the strongly Christian novelist and children’s author George MacDonald wrote in the 19th century, “How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.”
I wanted my own crutch, or something resembling a desired haven. I could take most of the abuse, but there was an emotional denting that was far greater than any professional loss. The latter could be partly replaced, but the harm to the psyche cut deeper.
It was then that a friend suggested that I train for the priesthood. I thought he’d said “police”, and looked at him as if he were mad. “I’m 57, for God’s sake! And I could never have been a cop.”
No, he said — the priesthood. Not for me, I replied, not by a long way. “I’m not cut out for it, couldn’t tolerate years of seminary at my age, and my wife, my children, and my friends would think I’d lost my mind.”
But he kept on asking, and he wasn’t alone.
Some priests I knew said the same thing, and, before long, I thought there was some sort of conspiracy. I had lots of doubts, and didn’t know if I had the energy to spend what would be several years at university, taking courses while simultaneously working in churches, hospitals, and care homes, then another year or so as a deacon. Then there was the chance that, even after all that, I’d still be turned down.
I didn’t know if I had the calling or the ability and skill to do a job that was part public speaker, part social worker, part spiritual counsellor, part office manager, and part celebrant of the most profound ceremonies possible. Could I listen enough, could I care enough, could I do enough, and could I be enough?
I’M A deeply flawed, entirely inadequate person to represent Christ, but what I can try to do is attempt to explain him, show him, and then simply not get in the way. Christianity is the permanent revolution of breathtaking and roaring love, an encounter with the rebel Jesus that, in the words of the oath I took that day, calls us “to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely”.
Ordination is many things, but, at its core, it’s about practical grace. Feed the hungry, comfort the grieving, support the broken, sit with and listen to the frightened, struggle for the abused and mistreated. Love, peace, and hope. God. Yes, God. God is either everything or nothing, and, as I said the words of the oath, I trembled — literally trembled — before the steps of the sanctuary.
I know I’m merely one of myriad travellers on the road of faith, pilgrims looking to the shrine of the man who 2000 years ago saw through every lie, every hurt, and every injustice. For this wasn’t about me, but something far more significant and timeless.
When I stood with my four fellow deacons, shining new and clearly nervous, and looked into the faces of the congregation, I thought of my parents, who sacrificed so much for me, and of all of those I had lost and am confident I will see once again. Of Dad, who rejected religion, but by his love and selflessness reflected God and goodness; of Mum, who raised me in the moral certainty of kindness and care, but knew nothing of church. Dad would probably have repeated what he said when I became a Christian: “If it makes you happy, fine. But don’t talk to me any more about it.”
Thing is, I wish I could tell him, and my mum. I wish it very much. May their memory be a blessing. May my memory, please God, eventually be a blessing, too.
“Only in the agony of parting”, George Eliot wrote, “do we look into the depths of love.” I wasn’t sure what was before me, but I knew it would unwind by the day, and that I would meet in the future a pageant still in the making. I knew, I was certain, that each step I now took would not be in isolation. I would not be alone, but in the company of those far greater than me. And that gave me more joy than I can ever say.
And so it began. The first time I wore my collar in public, I felt so out of place and out of step. A thin strip of plastic around my neck took on the weight and size of a medieval necklace. I was tempted to take it off on the subway, but I’d made a promise to myself, and to God, to represent Christ and the Church in public and as a journalist.
Some people seemed to notice, but most not. Then a young woman approached me and, without introduction or niceties, started to talk about her friend who had just been diagnosed with cancer, how she should react, and what she should say to her friend in the weeks and months to come. She asked me if I would pray for her. I said I would.
I haven’t stopped praying since.
This is an edited extract from Heaping Coals: From media firebrand to Anglican priest by Michael Coren, published by Dundurn at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89); 978-1-4597-5259-7.