Movement Magazine: Issue 162

movement
THE MAGAZINE FOR CHRISTIAN STUDENTS
ISSUE 162 AUTUMN 2020
Who am I?
INTERVIEW: ADRIAAN
VAN KLINKEN on
finding his identity as an
academic and a queer
Christian. PAGE 12
REVOLUTIONARY
GARDENING: Can urban
farming save the planet
and start a revolution?
PAGE 23
IDENTITY IN CHRIST?
Reflections from a
Hindu Christian on
spirituality and identity.
PAGE 34
BLACKNESS, QUEERNESS,
AND THE MISSIO DEI:
Augustine Ihm on
intersectionality and
liberation. PAGE 36

CONTENTS
EDITORIAL 4
NEWS 5-8
GROUP NEWS 9-11
REVIEWS 43-43
GROOVEMENT 44
INTERVIEW:
ADRIAAN VAN
12-16
KLINKEN
Leeds University professor talks
to SCM member Josh House
about discovering his professional,
Christian, and queer identities, and
how the three interact in his work.
WELL-BEING:
LOCKDOWN
PERSPECTIVES
Students share the highs and lows
of lockdown, how their faith has
kept them going, and what they’ve
learned about themselves.
HOME FROM
HOME
17-19
20-22
Reflection from SCM member
Debbie about attending our LGBTQ+
gathering, and an excerpt from
Lu Skerratt’s talk on queering the
eucharist.
REVOLUTIONARY
23-25
GARDENING
JOSH GREAR
How we have become disconnected
from our food systems, and how
taking matters into our own hands
can be a revolutionary act.
SHAPING
IDENTITY
SINCE 1889 26-28
SCM Friends share how SCM shaped
their faith and vocation, and why they
still support the movement today.
DENOMINATION
QUIZ 29
What Denomination do you really
belong to? To be taken with a pinch
of salt…
CAMPAIGN NEWS:
FAITH IN
ACTION
Find out what campaigns we’ve
been involved in, and discover our
new Daily Bread campaign focus!
CALLED
TO BE...
32-33
A sneak peak at the second edition
of our vocation resource with a
reflection from SCM trustee Feylyn
Lewis.
IDENTITY IN
CHRIST
30-31
34-35
Archuna Ananthamohan reflects on
his Hindu roots and Christian faith,
how others reacted to his pursuit of
Jesus, and what it really means to
find our identity in Christ.
THE LONG READ:
BLACKNESS,
QUEERNESS,
AND THE
MISSIO DEI
36-39
Theology slam winner and activist
Augustine Tanner-Ihm writes about
the intersection of his Black, Queer,
Christian identities, and God’s
mission to liberate the oppressed.
WHERE THE
FOUR RIVERS
MEET 40-42
SCM members’ contribution to the
Letters for Creation Project, a poem
about creation, evolution, and the
Imago Dei, with reflections from
organiser Soph and author Ellen.
2 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
3

Welcome to Issue 162
of Movement magazine!
First things first, I hope you’re well. It feels more important than
ever to check that everyone is okay. That’s why I’m so glad that
we’ve been able to fit some of your lockdown reflections into this
issue of Movement. SCM is all about its members, and we want
to hear how you’re doing!
The theme of this issue of Movement is identity. This is always a
relevant topic, but the events of this year – the resurgence of the
Black Lives Matter movement, the pandemic’s ability to separate
us from the things that make us who we are – have given identity
a greater importance. I am delighted to say that this year’s
Theology Slam winner, Augustine Tanner-Ihm, has written our
long read on identity and diversity within the Church. We also
have a fascinating interview with Professor Adriaan van Klinken,
author of Kenyan, Christian, Queer – a brilliant book about the
intersections of different identities.
We’ve also got an excerpt from our good friend Lu Skerratt’s talk
on “queering the eucharist” during lockdown, which was given at
SCM’s recent “Home” event. As well as hearing from unofficial
friends of the movement, we’re lucky enough to hear from some
of our SCM Friends. In this issue, we have a couple of reflections
from Friends talking about how SCM has shaped their identities.
Our identities are also intertwined with where and how we live.
Josh Grear has written a wonderful article for us about his
relationship with the planet, and how he expresses this through
urban gardening. We also have SCM’s contribution to Letters for
Creation, a poem written to discuss what creation means to us.
Finally, in addition to all of this wonderful content, we have our
usual news from across the movement, as well as some fun
activities for you to do in our revived Groovement section.
We hope you enjoy this edition of Movement! Feel free to get in
touch by emailing editor@movement.org.uk
NATHAN OLSEN
MOVEMENT EDITOR
Student Christian Movement
Grays Court, 3 Nursery Road, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B15 3JX
t: 0121 426 4918
e: scm@movement.org.uk
w: www.movement.org.uk
Advertising
e: scm@movement.org.uk
t: 0121 426 4918
Movement is published by the Student
Christian Movement (SCM) and is distributed
free to all members, supporters, groups, Link
Churches and affiliated chaplaincies.
SCM is a student-led movement inspired by
Jesus to act for justice and show God’s love in
the world. As a community we come together
to pray, worship and explore faith in an open
and non-judgmental environment.
SCM staff: CEO: Naomi Nixon, Operations
Manager: Lisa Murphy, Comms and Marketing
Officer: Ruth Harvey, Regional Development
Worker (North East) and Faith in Action
Project Worker: Emma Temple, Regional
Development Worker (Scotland) and LGBTQ+
Lead: Caitlin Wakefield, Regional Development
Worker (Midlands) and SCM Connect Project
Worker: Rob Chivers, Church and Community
Fundraiser: Simon Densham, Administration
and Finance Officer: Deanna Davis, Senior
Administrator: Callum Fisher.
The views expressed in Movement magazine are
those of the particular authors and should not be
taken to be the policy of the Student Christian
Movement. Acceptance of advertisements does
not constitute an endorsement by the Student
Christian Movement.
ISSN 0306-980X
SCM is a registered charity in England and
Wales, number 1125640, and in Scotland,
number SC048506.
© 2019 Student Christian Movement
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NEWS
GIFT
MEMBERSHIP
SCM has launched a new Gift
Membership scheme, with the hope
that more and more students will
be invited into this inclusive and
welcoming community. We have
been working behind the scenes on
this new way for people to join the
movement, and it has officially been
launched in August 2020.
We know that this year more than
ever, starting university will be a
daunting experience, and we hope
that our gift membership scheme
will help new students find a likeminded
community at university.
We also know that many of our
SCM Friends know young people
who they’d love to introduce to
SCM’s ethos and community. SCM
Link Churches also look for ways
to send off their young people well
and support them in the transition
to university, and ensure they have
the chance to flourish in their faith
in this new chapter of their lives.
Gift membership will enable soonto-be
students to be introduced
to SCM, receive a membership
pack, and then be able to join the
movement with their membership
fees paid.
SCM CEO Naomi Nixon said, ‘We’re
so excited to be launching gift
membership. Many people say that
they wish they’d known about SCM
when they were a student, so our
hope is that this will be a new way
for young people to be introduced
to us and discover our student-led
community where faith is deepened
and put into action.’
You can purchase a gift
membership pack for a student
or young person you know at
movement.org.uk/giftmembership
SCM ONLINE
COMMUNITY
During the COVID-19 crisis, the
SCM community have come
together to start a new initiative
of online events. When lockdown
measures were first announced, a
group of SCM students and staff
agreed that now more than ever,
SCM’s community was needed, and
we must find new ways of creating
that community for our members.
Initially, members met four times
a week for a programme of
prayer, bible study, social time and
theology, learning from each other
and sharing ideas, struggles, and
friendship online. This community
has now grown into a fully studentled
programme, and after a reduced
timetable over the summer, will
relaunch in time for university
freshers’ weeks in September.
SCM members have commented
that they’ve loved being involved
with the online sessions, and that
SCM makes a huge difference
to people seeking an inclusive
and justice-seeking Christian
community. If you’d like to get
involved, members can find out
about the latest events via our
Student Christian Movement
Facebook group.
4 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
5

NEWS
CON-GRAD-
ULATIONS!
This year, SCM celebrated
graduation week for our members
with a Grad Ball and a week of
graduation activities. Graduation is
a rite of passage for our students,
and as this cannot happen in the
normal sense this year we looked at
new ways to mark this milestone.
Back in June we hosted the
Graduation Ball on Facebook that
included many dressed up selfies, a
whole discussion about grad drinks
and an impressive Spotify playlist to
party the night away to. In July Rob
did his best Alex Horne impression
for our graduation week tasks that
saw staff and students fashioning
caps out of recycled things around
the house, creating new memes
and making a graduation crowd
image. As part of this SCM Friends
sent us videos to cheer on and
bless our graduates as they step
out to whatever is next.
We would also like to take this
opportunity to wish the Class of
2020 well in all that they go on to
do, and to remind them that they
can remain SCM members for 3
years – so don’t go too far!
PEACE WEEK
In May, SCM’s online programme
teamed up with the Fellowship of
Reconciliation to spend a week
looking at Christian peacemaking.
On Zoom we ran a bible study, a
prayer session, and two workshops
to deepen our understanding of our
call as Christians to oppose war and
violence, and work for peace.
The first workshop looked at
conscientious objection, with the
privilege of having conscientious
objector Donald Saunders join us
for an interview. During the session,
Donald said, ‘The whole principle
of Christianity is against war. When
you get to an age where you have
to decide what you want to do
with your life… I couldn’t support
being put in a position of having to
kill someone else.’ We learned so
much from Donald’s reflections,
and it was a brilliant workshop.
Later in the week we looked at the
church as a place for revolutionary
peacemaking. We looked at
examples of churches who are
actively working for peace and
justice, and thought about how we
ourselves can respond to injustice
in our own churches.
SCM member Jack said, ‘SCM
Peace Week was a brilliant
opportunity for learning about the
story of conscientious objectors.
We also learnt about the theology
behind non-violent direct action.
It was also great to hear about
the work of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation.’
Peace week was part of our
campaign focus on Peace, which
we’ll be looking at during the next
academic year, as well as launching
our campaign focus on food
poverty and sustainability – keep an
eye on our socials for how to get
involved.
SCM STAFF
ARRIVALS AND
DEPARTURES
We’re sorry to say that in August
2020 Rach moved on from the
staff team to train as a Methodist
minister. Rach has been with
us since 2016, and has grown
SCM’s presence in the North-West
enormously, seeing new groups
emerging, as well as building
connections with churches and
chaplaincies in the region. She
has also organised all our brilliant
events, inviting excellent speakers
and ensuring every detail is taken
care of.
Rach said, ‘There is no way really
to sum up my time at SCM other
than these four years have been
a pleasure and a privilege, and I
wouldn’t have missed them for the
world. If it wasn’t that God was
calling me onwards to ordained
ministry I would not be leaving
my fabulous colleagues, students,
Chaplains, Church Leaders and
everyone else, and a job I’ve loved
and that has been a really good fit
to go on to something else which
feels even more who I am meant
to be. Thank you to each of you
who have journeyed with me and
hopefully see you soon, as SCM is
not the sort of community you can
leave, and I will of course become
a Member.’ We hope you’ll join
us in wishing Rach the best in her
training and ministry.
In February 2020, Deanna joined
the SCM team as our new admin
assistant. Speaking of taking on the
new role, she said, ‘2020... What a
time to start a new job! However,
with all the challenges and changes
we’ve all faced this year, I can
joyfully say that joining SCM when
I did has been a definite highlight. I
was lucky enough to meet a lot of
our members at this year’s national
gathering, was introduced to the
joys of Desk Yoga, along with an
endless supply of office snacks
and have truly been blessed with
such a creative, fun and supportive
team. There’s always great ideas to
bounce off from.
This has meant that the move
to working remotely as we went
into the strange times of lock
down, was a much less daunting
experience: with our lovely team
catch ups each day, mastery of
Zoom calls and the occasional
games afternoon. There is always
a sense of appreciation and
togetherness, even if we are
currently scattered all over the
country.
In my short time with SCM I have
felt such a warm welcome in every
capacity, been a part of a variety
of exciting projects and been given
the grace to get to grips with my
new responsibilities.
I’m confident in what the Lord
has in store for the future of
SCM, which has only increased by
being witness to its resilience and
versatility in this time.’ Welcome to
the movement Deanna – we’re so
glad to have you with us!
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MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
7

NEWS
GENERAL
COUNCIL
UPDATES
We also have some changes to
our General Council. Elections
were held at our AGM in March
for new members of our student
trustee board, as well as for
portfolio holders who represent
aspects of SCM’s work. Together,
General Council members form the
decision-making body of SCM and
ensure that student leadership is at
the forefront of the movement.
New trustee appointments included
Russell Frost and Patrick Ramsey.
Emilia DeLuca was also re-elected
for a second term as trustee, and
Tom Packer and Louise Dover will
continue in their roles as trustees.
As well as their trustee
responsibilities, Russell will
take on the South Regional Rep
portfolio, with Patrick taking on the
International Rep role. Nathan Olsen
was appointed to GC as Movement
Editor, Jack Woodruff was elected
to the Campaigns portfolio, and
Emma Atkins has taken on the role
of Disabled Students’ Rep. Jack
commented, ‘I’m looking forward
to starting my role on general
council as the campaigns portfolio.
Putting my faith into action is very
important to me, which is why I’m
super excited to start this role, and
to enable SCM members to get
involved with campaigning and
exploring ways to put their own
faith into action.’
On taking on the Disabled Students’
Rep, Emma said, ‘I’m really excited
to be joining SCM’s GC because
SCM has been really welcoming to
me since I first joined, I really felt
at home and I want to be able to
help to offer that to other students,
but especially to disabled students,
which is why I decided to take
the disabled rep. Often disabled
students can easily feel more out
of place than others, with so many
more considerations that we need
to account for to be comfortable
at events and in our daily student
lives.’
We’d like to take this opportunity to
thank our outgoing trustees, Alex
Akhurst, Feylyn Lewis, and Helena
Ripley for all their hard work and
dedication to the movement over
the past two years. Each member
of GC brings unique gifts to SCM,
and we wouldn’t be where we are
today without you.
If you’re interested in standing for
GC at our next AGM, get in touch
with a trustee or regional worker, or
email scm@movement.org.uk
COMING UP
We have lots of exciting events
coming up in the Autumn term,
as well as campaign actions,
new resources, and more online
workshops and events… keep an
eye on our socials to find out more!
Facebook: Student Christian
Movement
Twitter: @SCM_Britain
Instagram: @
studentchristianmovement
GROUP
NEWS
BIRMINGHAM
INCLUSIVE SOCIETY
Hello from Birmingham! The situation with COVID-19 led to
a very strange end to the academic year this year but we
found ways to carry on with our weekly meetings online
with our lovely Anglican and Methodist Chaplains. Members
of our committee took it in turns to run a different session
on Zoom each week and we explored topics including
prayer, poetry and diversity in the church. It has been
interesting to see how online meetings differ to real life
meetings. Although on Zoom we can’t have our normal
delicious meal together, it makes things like sharing different
videos and music much easier, allowing us to find new ways
to explore our faith together in these difficult times. With
it also being a challenging time for those graduating this
year, we participated in our Chaplaincy’s interfaith leavers’
service where we contributed our own prayer in what was a
really moving and well attended event. Looking forward to
next year, we have plans to (hopefully!) change our name
to Student Christian Movement Birmingham to feel more
connected to the national movement and we are currently
working on our exciting new branding! With Freshers’ week
fast approaching we are also starting to think about how we
can run engaging events online and welcome new students
to our group. Running some of the social SCM SOC sessions
recently has helped me with this and has given me a good
idea of what works well on Zoom. Bible Pictionary was a
definitely a highlight…!
REBECCA MANN
DURHAM
JAM
Along with almost everyone and everything in the world,
for the past few months JAM has had to move online,
which has brought its own unique joys and challenges.
Throughout Summer Term, we continued to meet weekly
for prayer and discussion, shared resources and prayed
together around the Black Lives Matter Movement, and
created our own JAM exam timetable, to continue praying
for and supporting one another even at a distance! Our
weekly meetings have covered a variety of topics, from
‘Racism and Protesting’, to ‘The Psalms’ and ‘Perspectives
on Worship’, to the more personal topics of ‘Dealing with
Uncertainty’ and ‘Setting Goals’ informed by our faith,
led by various members of our JAM exec. We also invited
one of the university’s chaplains Gavin Wort to speak on
the topic of ‘Dual Belonging’, particularly his experience
of being an Anglican priest and coming to know and learn
more about the Hindu faith. Despite pressures of exams
and the times we are living through, we managed to have
meaningful discussions (albeit over Zoom) and continue to
grow together over the term. Despite not knowing quite
what next year will look like, our new exec is excited to
start planning our Fresher’s week events and our meetings
for Michaelmas Term, as well as contributing to plans
for National Interfaith Week in November as part of the
Durham Interfaith Student Network.
MAYA CONWAY
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MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162 9

GROUP
NEWS
INCLUSIVE CHRISTIAN
MOVEMENT LEEDS
We’ve been busy building our little community of
wonderful SCM Christians over the last semester and
we’ve managed to sustain it throughout the year – given
that the we started it with only two members in Leeds
(both on committee) that has been a huge improvement.
All year we’ve run monthly themes to give us some
structure. We began this semester with the theme of
‘Living in Community’, holding an interfaith event with York
Christian Focus and a local vicar and local imam.
Until lockdown happened, we were concluding our month
on the theme of ‘The Church and Race’. In our last session
we held an audience with Augustine Ihm – who’s since
been on the SCM Podcast and whose article you can
read in this issue of Movement. He spoke to us about his
own experiences of Racism within the Church of England,
which we sadly realised was an appropriate theme to end
the year on. We also quickly recognised that we would
have to cancel our Easter retreat. But we continued to
meet online – for Taizé sessions and Bible Studies, and
even a couple of Zoom quiz nights.
At the end of the semester we were awarded Best Faith
Society at Leeds University Union, so we’re hoping that
we’ve left some good foundations for the incoming
committee. Since then they’ve already had a referendum
to change the name to ‘Leeds Inclusive Christians’. It looks
like they’re going to do great things, let’s hope like with all
SCM groups they can keep growing amongst the difficult
measures in place.
JOSH HOUSE
KEELE
CHAPLAINCY
As has been the case all over the country, we’ve had to
learn what it means to be a chaplaincy and a church during
lockdown. We fairly quickly adjusted to creating space for
worship online, with many members of our community
contributing to our ecumenical Sunday services on our
YouTube channel, including one who built the entire Chapel
in Minecraft in order to share that week’s reading.
Perhaps the hardest thing has been the feeling that the
milestones in our students’ lives have been taken away
from them, particularly for those who have finished their
time at Keele this summer. With a pleasing level of success
we moved two important events online; our chapel leavers’
group and the end of year Chapel Ball.
Through a video call we were able to bring together students
finishing their degrees to explore their time at uni, share
some of the advice they wished they’d known when they
started, and offer some practical advice about caring for
themselves and nurturing their faith in their lives after Keele.
The Chapel Ball, our usual end-of-year highlight, also
moved online. We stuck with our pre-lockdown theme and
celebrated ‘under the sea’ featuring a plethora of scuba
masks and mermaid tails, with one of our more eccentric
members joining the Zoom call from an inflated rubber
dinghy in his lounge! A virtual quiz, including identifying
the locked doors of Keele campus and a watery themed
music round helped round off a wonderful evening and an
unusual year.
NIALL HAMMOND
EXETER
SCM
Exeter SCM have met regularly on a Sunday evening on
Zoom since lockdown started. Last term, we met more
formally online for a bible study and discussion, led by
either the Anglican Chaplain or Baptist Chaplain. From
Easter Sunday to the end of term, we mostly followed the
Anglican lectionary reading for that Sunday. This began
with Matthew’s account of the Resurrection, the Emmaus
appearance in Luke 24 and the reinstating of Peter in
John 21, before passages from John 10 concerning the
Good Shepherd and John 14 concerning the Paraclete in
the lectionary, and one of our members led a study and
discussion on John 4 and the Samaritan woman, as well as
studies on Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. On the
last Sunday of term, we played Pictionary and other games
online before continuing over the summer.
During the summer months, we are still meeting online, but
less formally as we play various word games or card games,
followed by a short devotional and discussion at the end,
led by one of the chaplains. This is based normally on the
lectionary reading for that Sunday, and these consist of
some of the important passages from Matthew 13 onwards.
One Sunday, however, one member of our group led a study
on the Apocryphal book of 1 Enoch, which was of particular
interest to her. It was interesting to study and discuss a
non-canonical book. Another week we attended an online
talk from Exeter Cathedral.
JAMES BELL
10 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
11

INTERVIEW
ADRIAAN VAN
KLINKEN
Adriaan van Klinken, author of ‘Kenyan, Christian, Queer: Religion, LGBT Activism, and Arts of Resistance
in Africa’, is Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds, and a gay Christian.
In this interview, Joshua House – a recent graduate from the University of Leeds and outgoing Secretary
for Inclusive Christian Movement Leeds – speaks to Adriaan about his identity; about his upbringing in
the conservative Dutch Reformed Church, coming to terms with his sexuality and navigating questions of
identity throughout his research and professional life.
Arriving at a semi-detached house in a Leeds’ suburb on
an overcast Wednesday afternoon, I realise that my mental
image of Adriaan van Klinken does not match this – of him
living in a quiet corner of this busy city. You see, Adriaan
pushes against conventions, he doesn’t suit them; whether
that be his upbringing in the conservative Dutch Reformed
Church, his academic status as not-quite-a-theologianbut-not-quite-a-social-scientist-either,
or his suspicion of
labels, be that for God, sexualities or anything else.
But upon the emergence of a tall figure in one of his
characteristically bright shirts, I begin to see how this
works. His back garden is immaculate – ‘It’s kept me sane
throughout lockdown!’ he tells me, and it shows. Returning
with tea, he’s brought me some tasty Dutch biscuits sitting
on a decorative plate, likely a souvenir from one of his
many research trips to Zambia, South Africa or Kenya.
Even though we’re in suburban Leeds, Adriaan’s extensive
experience of travelling is clear. Meeting him, you begin to
realise that there is so much more than meets the eye and
so many facets to his identity. Boxes simply don’t work for
him – although that he knows – and this understanding of
Adriaan only becomes clearer as our conversation unfolds.
Adriaan was raised in the South West of the Netherlands,
or as Adriaan puts it, ‘On a literal island,’ he continues,
‘it’s now connected to the mainland via bridges, but it still
has an island mentality. Saying that, Rotterdam is only 30
miles away, which is not a huge distance but you still need
to go off the island to get there’. The picture he paints is
one of seclusion from mainland culture, ‘When I go back
now, I think it’s kind of a nice place, it’s quite pretty’, but
it’s also dominated by a ‘Dutch Bible belt culture’. He says,
‘People always have this idea of the Netherlands as this
liberal progressive country. But they don’t know that the
Netherlands has its own Bible Belt. It’s dominated by a
conservative form of Dutch Protestantism’. That was the
world of Adriaan’s upbringing, ‘It meant, very practically,
going to Church twice on a Sunday and the sermon would
typically be 45 minutes, and then in between that we were
supposed to go to Sunday school for another hour. In that
sense Church was very important, and the whole Sunday
was Church.’ He makes a point of how ‘slow and dramatic’
the Hymns are, simply Psalms put to music – for a moment
he looks like he’s about to break out into song. He doesn’t.
Reflecting on this culture Adriaan describes it as
conservative, ‘Ultimately Dutch Reformed culture comes
in ‘fifty shades of grey’. The one I grew up in was not the
most conservative, but still very grey’. Clearly not a fan
of this grey worship, Adriaan says, ‘In my teenage years,
I discovered Evangelical Christianity. It seemed to be a
12 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
13

lot happier and more exciting, so I grew into that.’ In fact,
this change became influential on his career path, ‘I never
became a radical fundamentalist Evangelical, but I went to
all kinds of Evangelical Christian stuff. I think that kind of
inspired my initial decision to do a degree in Religion and
Social Work’. He admits that the ‘social work’ component
is better translated to ‘pastoral work’, and explains, ‘My
undergraduate degree was actually at a Christian University,
an evangelical institution, and the degree was basically
preparation for jobs in Christian Ministry and education.’
Adriaan never got ordained and found himself pursuing
academia instead. That’s not to say he lost his interest in
Christianity, especially Evangelical or charismatic forms of
worship. Rather, that continues today and is reflected in his
burgeoning Academic career.
that was the beginning of an intellectual journey in which
I started to negotiate and reconcile my sexuality and my
faith.’
Deciding to pursue an MA in Theology at the secular
Utrecht University, Adriaan described some of those lurking
frustrations. ‘I think I wanted to study Theology in an
environment that didn’t take everything for granted – the
stuff that I had started to question’, he puts it frankly, ‘I
wanted to study in an environment that was more critical and
more rigorous’. Here he began doing a significant amount
of theological legwork; his first published journal article was
based on an essay written at Utrecht. ‘Something queer,’ he
describes it, ‘about the maleness of God and homoeroticism
in the relationship between God and man’.
Raised in a such a conservative culture, I ask how he came
to realise his sexuality. Adriaan begins by setting the scene,
‘I was surprised that I always had a lot of female friends but
that I was never attracted to them, or fell in love with them,
or whatever. But I don’t think at that stage I ever explicitly
wondered whether I was gay – just because being gay was
not in the dictionary or part of the culture’. I’m struck by the
ease with which Adriaan talks about this, although I might
be projecting some of my own experiences with Evangelical
Christianity. ‘It was only when I went to University to study
in another city, leaving my parents’ house, the town and
the island, that I was exposed to it’, says Adriaan, ‘it wasn’t
even a very cosmopolitan city, especially at a Christian
University. It was just a different environment.’
Although not a simple journey, Adriaan seems very at peace
with it; we have a picture of a young man who is considering
a ministerial career but is realising his own sexuality. For
Adriaan it seems to stir a kind of self-assuredness – but not
the arrogant kind, something that was already there. ‘While
I was studying at this evangelical institution I still remember
that I wrote an essay about homosexuality in the Bible in
a very careful way – and if I were to read it today I would
think: ‘Oh come on! Why so careful?’ But in my context and
background it was kind of groundbreaking’. He seems to
identify the turning point to around that stage, ‘I gave a
presentation about the essay in class and half of them were
upset… annoyed… frustrated… or whatever. So, for me,
Throughout that process he became particularly influenced
by Utrecht’s Centre for Contextual Theology. ‘Contextual
theology is a way of theologising which explicitly takes into
account the social, political, cultural context out of which
it emerges’, he describes it, and it seems as though it was
therapeutic for Adriaan, ‘It put into context or perspective
the very normative Christianity in which I was raised,
the kind which claimed to be true and which had truth.
Acknowledging contextuality helped me to put that into
perspective, and I realised that there are multiple ways of
being Christian, reflecting diverse historical, cultural, social
and political contexts. I’m not in the business of judging
whether they are legitimate – I’m interested in understanding
them’. It’s a very open view of Christianity and a stretch
from his upbringing. But he goes further, ‘All theology is
contextual!’ and this is crucial to his personal faith. As a
Christian he’s suspicious of the Church’s historical power
in deciding what we believe, taking for example the Creeds.
‘My basic premise for thinking about God is that God is a
mystery, and in that sense, all of our truths about God are
attempts to make sense of the divine, based on our limited
experience and understanding. But we can never claim that
they are the whole truth.’
Adriaan’s interest carried him through his Masters and
even provided the opportunity for him to spend a semester
in South Africa where he wrote his Master’s dissertation.
Adriaan on his book launch tour
Combined with his interest in Contextual Theology and now
experience of life in South Africa he says of that time, ‘I
realised that the real vibrancy of Christianity worldwide
was not in Western Europe, but in other parts of the world,
including of course, but not only, Africa’.
Since that point Adriaan’s work has focussed mainly on
African Christianity, Pentecostalism in particular, and
sexuality. Eventually he found himself dipping his toes
into anthropology for field work in his PhD, quite the
methodological move away from Theology. ‘My PhD was
an ethnographic study of a Catholic and Pentecostal
Church in Zambia, and in my dissertation I set up a
conversation between both case studies, regarding the
debate within African theology and theologians on issues
of Gender, Sexuality, Religion and explicitly HIV. I read up on
anthropology and had an empirical component, but it had a
conversation with African theology as well.’ Adriaan found
himself in a situation where he was trained in Theology but
had to deeply engage with Anthropology, in the end finding
himself an uneven fit for both boxes. ‘It’s funny. For quite
a number of years, I’ve thought that as an academic I had
to be a social scientist or anthropologist, even though all of
my degrees are in Religious Studies and Theology. So I’ve
been trying to write and do research as an anthropologist
and I’m not sure whether it was ever really that successful’.
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MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
15

He understands his position today as somewhat of a hybrid
profile, comfortably working across and through these
various academic disciplines and fields, but it was not an
easy journey to arrive at that point.
Throughout this whole process of growing into an academic,
Adriaan has been finding his feet. One point that we discuss
is how he’s experienced being a gay man and researcher
‘in the field’ – and he has his reservations about this term
– mainly about how he can be honest to the people he
works with. In initial research trips for his Ph.D. Adriaan
had discomfort about how he was conducting himself,
‘In these Pentecostal churches where I did my previous
research I’ve always had to subscribe to an implicit norm of
heterosexuality and I could never be open about myself’, or,
‘In Zambia there was a very explicit homophobic discourse
in the country and in these churches, so I had to deal with
those questions and I could never be honest about myself’.
Putting it plainly, Adriaan said, ‘I felt disingenuous because
I was asking people about their lives but I couldn’t be open
about my own’.
in question ends with an intimate meditation on the body
of Christ, in which all members share in each other’s
suffering and joy – a theology of embodied vulnerability and
solidarity’.
STUDENT
LOCKDOWN
PERSPECTIVES
Restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic
have changed so much about the ways we live our
lives and connect with our faith. SCM members
Josh Mock and Victoria Turner share the highs,
lows, and lessons from life under lockdown.
Adriaan’s most recent book Kenyan, Christian, Queer:
Religion, LGBT Activism, and the Arts of Resistance in
Africa is the culmination of these concerns and has been
the subject of overwhelming academic attention with
multiple journals holding roundtables for it. But as Adriaan
says, ‘I couldn’t have written this book five or ten years ago
– partly because the experiences that triggered the writing
of the book, and to write it in the way I did, were relatively
recent, such as my diagnosis with HIV in 2016.’ The book’s
four case studies (about Christian LGBT activism in Kenya)
are interspersed with ‘interludes’ where Adriaan explicitly
reflects on his role as researcher, in a surprisingly honest
and revealing way, which is what makes Kenyan, Christian,
Queer so unique. It was during the process of doing research
for the book, in 2016, that Adriaan was diagnosed with HIV.
‘It made me think deeply about how my own identity, and
my body, is enmeshed with the identities and bodies of the
people I was researching and writing about. I realised that
I could not write about their stories without including my
own story. So I decided to explicitly write about my own HIV
status, how I contracted it, and to reflect on its significance
for me personally, intellectually, and politically. As feminist
scholars have argued, the personal is political. The interlude
Having the freedom to explore his own concerns, Adriaan
says, ‘The book brings together my interest in African
Theology, Cultural Studies and Queer theory. With this book
I tried to take the methodological freedom to write in the
way that I wanted to write, and not bother about academic
conventions and disciplinary boundaries.’ It’s clear that this
project is something of a homecoming for Adriaan, of a
long process of coming into his place in academia, and it
makes for a candid and honest read which is accessible
for both academics and students. Adriaan with his natural
self-assuredness puts himself in a very vulnerable place,
but he pulls it off. He’s proud and surprised by its reception,
but he’s particularly humble about it. Now he’s established,
with what might be called a professional identity, I ask him
directly; if he isn’t an anthropologist or theologian, then
what is he? ‘In terms of professional identity…’, and with
a characteristically frank, but articulate and thoughtful
response, Adriaan says after a pause, ‘Well I don’t like
boxes. So let’s call it queer – thinking outside the box.’
16 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
17

Sitting at home
with not much to
do, I found that I
had a lot of time
to keep up-to-date
on global current
affairs and I
couldn’t help but
feel overwhelmed
by the injustices
around the world.
Times of difficulty are often make or break
for people’s faith; it either brings us closer
to God or makes us question their existence
altogether. Though lockdown was a gruelling
experience and not one that I wish to glorify
as “an opportunity to take time out and
reflect,” my faith definitely grew stronger.
Sitting at home with not much to do, I found
that I had a lot of time to keep up-to-date
on global current affairs and I couldn’t help
but feel overwhelmed by the injustices
around the world. Government policy meant
that thousands of coronavirus deaths could
have been prevented, but it was deemed
that the economy was more important. The
extrajudicial and unjust killings of George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others by US
police officers and the ensuing suppression
of peaceful protestors revealed the depth of
white supremacy and how it is far from being
resigned to history. Reports showing that
people from ethnic minority backgrounds
are more likely to die from COVID than white
people, often because of social inequality,
made me feel uncomfortable to live in such
an unfair society. But rather than giving in
to despair, these injustices reminded me of
why I follow Jesus and what my Christian
faith is all about. Being a Christian means
showing the love of God for the world and
the message of Jesus through protest,
dismantling systems, standing up for the
marginalised, and fighting against social
inequality. Lockdown reignited the fire that
fuels my Christian life.
I found it really hard to be hopeful for the
future in a world full of uncertainty and
relentless bad news. Feeling hopeful felt
ridiculous, naive, unrealistic. But that is to
fundamentally misunderstand what hope
is. Theologically, hope is not about simply
wishing for things to get better but instead
about defiantly saying that in the face of
injustice God’s kingdom will prevail and
we have a part to play in building a better
world. I discovered the writing of Jürgen
Moltmann, who in his book Theology of
Hope wrote:
“Faith, wherever it develops into hope,
causes not rest but unrest, not patience but
impatience. It does not calm the unquiet
heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man.
Those who hope in Christ can no longer put
up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer
under it, to contradict it. Peace with God
means conflict with the world, for the goad
of the promised future stabs inexorably into
the flesh of every unfulfilled present.”
Being hopeful does not mean sitting and
waiting. It means empathising with the
oppressed and fighting for change in the
knowledge that God’s love is stronger than
any unjust system. Lockdown showed me
what true hope is and I will take this with me
on the rest of my journey with Christ.
I am a massive extrovert. I never stop talking,
I am always busy, jumping from one project,
idea, meet-up, to the next and I absolutely
live for heated discussions, drama,
conferences, lectures, being distracted…
you get the picture! So the fast transition
from usual me, to lock down me, was a bit
of a shock. I also usually have a pretty tough
five-six times a week training schedule by
fighting competitively with Taekwondo and
Kickboxing, which obviously also stopped. So
my mind, and my body, have had to adjust to
living quite differently.
I believe this experience has finally enabled
me to realise the importance of having
mental space. Dipping in and out of thought,
projects, and issues keeps me excited and
engaged but also taking time in between
them all and dwelling on things has brought
me deeper into my relationship with Christ by
being able to understand the ‘other’ better,
and also myself better. I feel more connected
to the Body than before lockdown. I have
heard my Black brothers and sisters speak
frankly and powerfully, I have taken time to
read the theological books I have never got
round to reading – Bonhoeffer is a new hero
of mine, and I’ve been able to worship with
people who inspire, challenge and nurture
me more regularly than I ever could have
imagined. Instead of just being angry about
why people think differently to me I have
spent a lot of time trying to understand why
this may be the case.
Rowan Williams always says when he meets
somebody new he always asks ‘how can I
love this person and what can I learn from
them.’ Taking time away from my usual
schedule and business and encountering
things differently (maybe not less) has
allowed me to really practice this. How,
when I am in a conversation about Israel/
Palestine, can I not be angry about what I
believe is a question with the wrong agenda,
but be grateful that someone else has a
different balance in personality to me. How
can I not be upset when somebody seems to
be prioritising the economy over the safety
of people, but realise that I know nothing
and have no interest in understanding the
economy and see that it is a necessity that
the economy functions to also keep people
safe. And a non-religious one, I’ve been doing
workouts every day with a famous Instagram
influencer who is constantly shamed for
having a little plastic surgery and being the
typical ‘Essex girl’ kind of personality. And I
realise I probably would not be friends with
this person in real life, but her workouts are
amazing. I find her funny and motivating and
not intimidating and these daily endorphins
have been something that really have helped
me during lockdown.
I am genuinely really excited to meet and
hear more people who are different to me
and I can thank lockdown for allowing me to
go beyond myself when I have had to spend
so much time with myself.
VICTORIA TURNER
I believe this
experience has
finally enabled
me to realise the
importance of
having mental
space... taking
time... and
dwelling on things
has brought me
deeper into my
relationship with
Christ by being
able to understand
the ‘other’ better,
and also myself
better.
JOSH MOCK
18 MOVEMENT Issue 162 MOVEMENT Issue 162
19

HOME FROM HOME
After the success of our first ‘Home’ LGBTQ+ gathering in 2019, we held an
online event this year with speakers and workshops, and chance to get to know
other members of the SCM community. SCM member Debbie reflects on what
she got from the event, and we share an excerpt of Lu Skerratt’s excellent talk.
In 2019 SCM held their inaugural ‘Home’ event for LGBTQ+ students in Manchester, which I attended
and loved, so I was very pleased to hear that it was happening again this year. Because of Covid-19, it
took place on Zoom and while it was a shame not to be able to see everyone in person, only having to
travel from my bed to my laptop instead of from home to Manchester made it all much easier.
The keynote was by Lu Skerratt, a non-binary Anglican, and this was my highlight of the day – they
talked honestly, engagingly and thought-provokingly about queering the Eucharist, especially
in a time of lockdown. Typically there were technological problems but fortunately Lu had the
foresight to know that might be the case! I’m not sure I can successfully give anything other
than a flavour of the talk, but I’m still thinking about it now. What does it mean to celebrate
the Eucharist, as Christians, as queer people, as people isolating (or some combination of
the above)? For me, queerness, the Eucharist and SCM have one main thing in common
and that is community, so the main question is how we can recreate that in situations
where we can’t be in community with one another, either because of social distancing
or because, for queer people in particular, we are too often locked out or turned away
from those communities. Home was a real chance to be a community while isolating.
The second session was on LGBTQ+ people of faith led by SCM members – it was
really interesting, and I learnt new things and gained some book recommendations,
which is always a good thing, although my bank card would disagree! It felt relevant
and important – taking a look back at some of the different people helps us see
where we fit into that, and maybe helps us to work out where and what we
should be doing, as well as keeping us informed about our community’s past.
Finally, we had time for ‘social space’ – there was a choice between chat
and compulsory/organised fun! I chose the organised fun option and we
played online Pictionary, which I was very bad at but enjoyed a lot.
Thank you to everyone involved in organising the event – whenever
people ask what SCM involves part of my answer includes ‘a truly
inclusive community’ and it is events like these which really show
why. Bring on Home 2021!
DEBBIE WHITE
EXCERPT FROM:
QUEERING OUR
EUCHARIST
(KITCHEN)
TABLES
LU SKERRATT
One of the most important parts of the Eucharist
service is what can be understood as the
transformation. This is when the priest asks
for the Spirit to be poured out onto the gifts of
bread and wine so we may also be transformed
in the image of God, and so God may transform
our lives also. The Spirit searches our hearts;
comforts us; holds us; turns our lives upside
down; helps us to pray when we can’t find the
words; gives us wisdom; and sends us out to live
authentic lives in the world. It is part of Christian
discipleship regularly to acknowledge our need
for this, and to put ourselves in a position to try
and receive this sacrament, this outward sign of
inward grace.
However, I don’t think that the Spirit can be
constrained or only called down upon those
who have special permission to do so. It’s pretty
complicated, which is why I think God is also in
or can be within the movements and the rituals
we have created for ourselves as we try and
make sense of such a new way of worship when
20 21

EXCERPT FROM:
QUEERING OUR
EUCHARIST
(KITCHEN) TABLES
CONTINUED
so much has changed, or such an old way of
worship when so much has changed. I don’t
know about you, but I understand queerness
to be rooted in fluidity and transcendence. Like
God’s love, the presence and the movement
of Christ through the Eucharist has distinct
similarities with how queer experience has a
remarkable capability to move beyond all of the
boundaries, the constraints, the constructs and
norms that have tried to order the world in one
particular way.
The very fact that there are as many different
ways to be queer, as there are queer people,
highlights this. There is no code or particular
way, one just is, carrying all their joys and their
sorrows, their love and their pain with them. In the
way that binaries and patriarchy have attempted
to keep society in a certain shape where all are
ordered depending on their value, the Eucharist
has this amazing ability to disrupt the status
quo. As Mary calls out in the Magnificat: ‘He has
shown strength with his arm. He has scattered
the proud in their conceit. He has cast the mighty
down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things. And
the rich he has sent away empty.’
REVOLUTIONARY
GARDENING
Josh Grear shares his findings on how we have become disconnected
from our food systems, and how taking matters into our own hands
can be a revolutionary act.
GIVE PEAS
A CHANCE
Through the act of sharing a meal, a holy
meal, God is inviting us in, so that there are no
conditions. Because wherever you come from,
however you are, whatever your story, you have
a place at the table.
22
MOVEMENT Issue 162
MOVEMENT Issue 162
23

You may well be
asking yourself,
what is guerrilla
gardening? In
short, it is the
act of growing
and gardening
in public spaces
that don’t belong
to you, without
permission.
A few years back I was studying for my
Masters and working on my dissertation.
It had a pretty fancy title: Exploring the
potential for Urban Agriculture as a
politically emancipatory human rights
social movement. Now before I start, I
should confess – I am a bad gardener. I
am trying to get better, but if my plants
are anything to go by, when I have kids… I
really need to up my game.
Why, then, did I write a dissertation on
urban agriculture? Well, its certainly not
because I am a keen gardener looking
to make my hobbies and interests more
important. I started to think about urban
agriculture and especially guerrilla
gardening during my undergraduate. At
that time my mum was involved in setting
up a guerrilla gardening collective in Bristol
as a part of the Incredible Edible network
and she sent me a link to a TED talk by Ron
Finley aka the ‘Gangsta Gardener’. By now
it’s pretty old, but if you haven’t seen it, I
cannot stress enough how important that
talk is.
You may well be asking yourself, what is
guerrilla gardening? In short, it is the act of
growing and gardening in public spaces that
don’t belong to you, without permission.
It can be anything from beautifying with
flowers, to growing food, filling potholes
with plants, to planting wildflowers on an
unused grassy verge. My interest is how it
can be used to grow food.
I was a grassroots youth and community
worker, and I began to see how
transformative and powerful
growing food in urban spaces
could be. Ron Finley and Pam Warhurst
(from Incredible Edible) shared a vision
that went beyond growing food in your
garden or allotment into something that
was socio-economically and politically
subversive. Their shared vision, one that
captured my imagination so much, looked
beyond the individual growing food for
themselves, toward growing food in public
spaces for the common good. Growing
food in communities can affect the health
of the community, the socio-economics of
the area, increases biodiversity, educates
the community about food, and builds
community resilience. All this alone
makes urban agriculture a compelling and
powerful tool for local communities.
But why stop there?
Barack Obama has a fantastic story that he
told during his first presidential campaign.
We haven’t the space to tell the whole
story but it crescendos with a mantra: if
one voice can change a room, then it can
change a town, and if it can change a town,
it can change a city, and if it can change a
city, it can change the nation, and if it can
change the nation, it can change the world.
I believe that the ‘simple’ act of growing
food can change the world. Our food
systems are part of a global power structure,
a structure that exploits and oppresses in
the global south for the privilege of global
northern consumption and the economic
benefit of an incredibly small group. That
oppression takes form in the guise of land
grabs, environmental degradation, poor
working conditions, unpaid labour, and so
much more.
However, its is important to note that
growing food is not some benevolent rescue
mission performed by the powerful on behalf
of the meek – absolutely not. In the Global
North, we are all incredibly vulnerable and,
for the most part, completely disconnected
from our food supplies. We are beholden to
a tiny minority of big agri-businesses, and
their only concern is profit. Growing food is
about mutual emancipation. We are at once
complicit in the global food system, but also
victims of it.
Growing food, then, is about an act of
solidarity and interdependence. In the global
south there are some fantastic movements
that have emerged to resist domination in
the name of food. Via Campesina are one
such group that work internationally to
articulate the rights of peasants to retain
stewardship over the land they live on and to
grow food for the needs of their community.
It makes clear that the relationship they hold
to the land is key to their identity and their
humanity.
The eagle eyed among you will see that
there are some pretty interesting theological
and biblical themes that emerge connected
to land, who we are as humans made in the
image of God, stewardship, and not least
issues of social justice and oppression.
Throughout the bible there is a constant
shadow cast over the Israelites; that
shadow is the various empires that emerged
throughout the course of history. There are
numerous examples that we encounter
through God’s story; the Babylonian,
Egyptian, and then later the Roman empires.
God’s story with the Israelites throughout is
a consistent message of liberation for the
oppressed and dominated. God promises
the Israelites land, and freedom to live out
God’s distinctive desire for the world. In
the global south, corporate land grabs and
environmental degradation are doing huge
harm to people and planet, and in the global
north a similar pattern of privatisation of
space and subjectivity to food systems that
we have little control over. I believe that
guerrilla gardening provides us an opportunity
to join in God’s work of an inclusive Kingdom
by transforming our communal relationship
to land and space for the common good.
Our relationship with food, like so many
things, reflects our relationship with God’s
creation and with God herself. I believe that
guerrilla gardening is a practice that can truly
traverse global divides and through which
we can discover a deeper sense of unity,
that is rooted in our learning from brothers
and sisters who are demanding a different
vision for the world, rooted in justice and
care for creation. Growing food for the
common good is a great way to join in with
God’s revolutionary work in the world.
Viva la revolution.
Josh currently works at
Christian Aid supporting
engagement with children
and young people. He has a
Masters degree in Human
Rights, Culture, and Social
Justice where he explored
social movements and
systemic change.
We are beholden
to a tiny
minority of big
agri-businesses,
and their only
concern is profit.
Growing food
is about mutual
emancipation.
We are at once
complicit in
the global food
system, but also
victims of it.
VIVA LA
REVOLUTION
24 MOVEMENT Issue 162
MOVEMENT Issue 162
25

WHO
AM I?
SHAPING IDENTITY
SINCE 1889
SCM is a movement of students past and present – our members stay connected to SCM
throughout their lives, and often go on to become ‘Friends’ and regular supporters of
SCM’s work. This is in no small part because SCM shapes people’s faith and life in a
lasting way – here, two SCM Friends share how SCM has had a lasting impact on them.
I can say with confidence that my time
with SCM as a student profoundly
influenced who I am and what I do
now. I first became involved in the
movement whilst undertaking my
undergraduate degree in chemistry
at the University of Southampton. As
with many people going to university
for the first time, I was full of questions
and trying to establish who I was. It
was a time of challenging what I’d
been told to believe and working out
my own faith. My local SCM group
provided the space to do this with
people I trusted. These people saw
me through this formative stage of my
life and I was able to support them on
their journeys too. As a result, I remain
close friends with many of them nearly
15 years later.
As I came towards the end of my
time as an undergraduate, I was still
grappling with the questions of who I
was and what I was going to do with
my life. Having developed an interest
in my final year research project
and not willing to give up being a
student, I took the only logical course
of action and started a PhD. At the
same time, I became more involved
with SCM nationally and attended
several discussions on vocation. I
felt that for many of the people
around me, vocation was about a
calling to ministry, and occasionally
I thought that this might be my path
too. However, following my election
as a trustee of SCM, I found myself
getting involved in the financial side
of the movement. More surprisingly
perhaps, I found myself loving it. It
was a bit of a shock at first. Could it be
that SCM had helped me to discern my
vocation as an accountant? It seemed
an unlikely story. But the more I did,
the more I enjoyed. Others around me
found it baffling to understand what
enjoyment I found in something they
found quite dull. But my journey had
taught me that trying to pursue what
made other people happy was going
to leave me disappointed. It gave me
the confidence to say that I’d really
enjoyed my 8 years of chemistry, but it
was time for a change.
Leaving university, I was successful
in gaining a place on a finance
graduate scheme and retrained as
an accountant. That was 8 years
ago. Now as a senior accountant in
the public sector, I can confidently say
that I really enjoy what I do (at least
most of the time). The skills I learned
and the questions that my time in SCM
prompted me to answer have enabled
that. I continue to give financial
advice to SCM as a member of the
trustee advisory body, the Council of
Reference. I’m grateful to be able
to give back to the movement that
gave so much to me. I continue to be
proud of the work that SCM does to
support students in asking those very
important questions: who are we and
what do we do next?
Andy Treharne is an accountant and
an SCM Friend
26 MOVEMENT Issue 162
MOVEMENT Issue 162
27

How has my faith
identity been
shaped by SCM?
It’s given it a
depth, a breadth,
and an openness
that I only hope
continues to grow.
It introduced
me to Christian
traditions and
theologies that
I doubt I would
have otherwise
encountered so
early in life.
October 1984. Warwick University. The
spirit of Germaine Greer still just about
stalked the English department corridors,
and Simon Mayo had not long finished
spinning the discs at student radio station
W963 (“Bring-ing the cam-pus together”).
I’d been to Taizé over the summer
with some Anglicans from our local parish
church, and I’d recently felt called to be a
Methodist minister and had started training
as a Local Preacher. First, though, I had a
degree to get and university to experience.
I knew I wanted to find the MethSoc, but I
also wanted to find an ecumenical group on
campus. I’d heard about the CU, but I wasn’t
sure it was for me. Praise the Lord, then, for
the Christian Society – C-Soc – which later
became Warwick SCM, part of the Midlands
and West SCM Region. Three years of
creative worship, lively debate, challenging
Bible study, ecumenical education, social
awareness, strong prototype Fairtrade
coffee and even stronger veggie chilli,
and I was ready to apply to work for SCM
as a Regional Secretary. Three more years
of that, based in Bristol and Birmingham,
led me to Queen’s College in Birmingham
and training for ordained ministry in an
ecumenical setting. Thirty years later, and
the papery bits and pieces on the pinboard
above my desk in the manse still include
SCM postcards. Once an SCMer…
How has my faith identity been shaped by
SCM? It’s given it a depth, a breadth, and
an openness that I only hope continues
to grow. It introduced me to Christian
traditions and theologies that I doubt I
would have otherwise encountered so early
in life. Having been part of SCM meant
I arrived at theological college aware of
feminist theology, liberation theology and
gay and lesbian theology (as it was) in a
way many of my contemporaries were
not. It made a concern for social justice a
core part of my Christian faith, and when
I left college and started in circuit ministry,
it meant that I automatically sought out
ecumenical colleagues and ecumenical
ways of working.
SCM introduced me to the Iona Community
and its rich worship tradition and emphasis
on peace and justice, which continues
to inspire me. It gave me an awareness
of being part of a significant heritage in
the history of the church worldwide and
rooted me in a community far bigger than
Methodism. In SCM, I learned that size isn’t
necessarily important, but that commitment
and co-operation are. SCM gave me skills
that have been part of my faith identity
and practice as well – chairing meetings,
taking minutes, facilitating small groups,
organising events, using IT and the ability to
keep going for hours, fuelled only by coffee
and Chocolate Hobnobs (other biscuits are
available).
SCM is needed more than ever in the HE
world today, and those with a faith identity
shaped by SCM are needed more than
ever in the world. The support of Friends is
essential. Keep me signed up, please.
Jennie Hurd is a Methodist minister and an
SCM Friend
Find out what denomination you really
belong in with these seven questions.
1. Your Sunday is incomplete without…
a. Electric guitars and drumkits
b. An organ and choir is more your jam
3. Hymns by John Wesley are…
a. The absolute best
b. Hymns by who?
5. You like your sermons…
a. Short, sweet and to the point
b. At least 40 minutes, as much
exegesis as possible
7. Incense reminds you of…
a. A Sunday service
b. A Wednesday yoga class
2. An hour of silence makes you feel…
a. Peaceful and connected to God
b. Stressed and full of existential dread
4. Your beliefs come from…
a. Conscience and experience
b. Scripture and tradition
6. Worship leaders usually wear…
a. Whatever they like, skinny jeans are
a staple
b. Colour coordinated liturgical robes,
the more gold embroidery the better
Answers
If you answered mostly A or mostly B, you are probably a…
Christian! You love Jesus and should join whichever
denomination works for you. SCM has been proud to
be an ecumenical movement for over 130 years –
you’re welcome here!
28 MOVEMENT Issue 162
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29

CAMPAIGN NEWS
FAITH IN ACTION
Despite spending more time at home and less time taking to the streets than ever
before this year, SCM has not stopped taking action for justice. Here is a roundup of
the campaigns we’ve been involved with so far during 2020.
DIVERT MILITARY
SPENDING
In May SCM joined calls from Peace Pledge union and
Fellowship of Reconciliation to divert military spending
away from warfare and towards healthcare in light of the
urgent support needed for the NHS during COVID-19. This
online day of action saw individuals and organisations from
different areas of society coming together to support the
day of action on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtags
#DivertMilitarySpending and #HealthcareNotWarfare.
CLIMATE
COALITION’S
EARTH DAY
SCM has been a member of the Climate Coalition since
2017. We support their work bringing together voices from
across society to tackle climate breakdown and call for
climate justice. On the 22nd of April we joined the Climate
Coalition and organisations and people around the world to
mark Earth Day 2020 by creating green hearts at home.
CLIMATE VIGIL
In April, SCM members joined communities from the
Extinction Rebellion Faith Bridge for a peaceful prayer vigil.
The vigil saw people of various faiths pray continuously
throughout the 40 days of Lent. At first, this action was
taken in London outside Parliament to demonstrate the
urgent need for climate action from our government, but
a few weeks in we had to move the action online due to
COVID-19 restrictions.
However, the vigil was still a blessed time of prayer and
community, with daily prayer Zoom calls and a full rota
of people praying in their homes for action on climate
breakdown. A group of 14 SCM members filled an entire 24-
hour slot, setting up prayer stations at home, reading bible
passages, painting, walking, and meditating for climate
justice. The action brought our community together, and
there was a real sense, despite being socially distanced, of
people gathering from different walks of life to reflect on our
hope for real change on this issue.
Jack, our new campaign portfolio on General Council, said,
‘I feel really proud of what we’ve achieved, thank you for
organising and everyone for taking part.’ SCM member
Ellie tweeted that they were ‘Thankful for Christian Climate
Action and SCM for their leadership and community during
this Lent vigil.’
We’ll be joining in future actions for the climate in
conjunction with Christian Climate Action and the Fellowship
of Reconciliation, so look forward to similar events coming
up later this year.
PPU said of the campaign, ‘Money diverted from military
budgets could contribute towards NHS and social care costs,
initiatives to assist those losing their jobs, and support for
people whose mental health is affected by isolation. In the
long term, we need to shift “defence” resources away from
preparing for war and towards tackling serious threats to
human security, including pandemics, epidemics, poverty
and climate change.’ They also tweeted, ‘We’re delighted
that SCM Britain have declared their support for the
#HealthcareNotWarfare campaign.’
This action was part of our wider Peace campaign focus,
which will continue for the next academic year, so keep an
eye out for more peace resources coming your way soon!
THE DAILY
BREAD CAMPAIGN
We are excited to announce that food justice will be our
new campaign focus for 2020-22. We will look at everything
from food poverty in the UK, to sustainability of food
production, to the effects of our food systems on those
in the Global South. The campaign will be launched this
academic year, so watch out for more resources and events
coming your way. For now, you can start by reading about
the revolutionary effects of Guerrilla Gardening on page 23!
The organisers of Earth Day said, ‘With COVID-19 causing
public health lockdowns around the world, Earth Day, the
planet’s largest civic event, went entirely digital for the
first time in its history. On every continent, in dozens of
languages, humanity celebrated our shared home. We
resolved that after the COVID-19 pandemic ended, we
would restore our Earth to a cleaner, fairer, better world for
everyone.’
Earth Day has been an annual event since 1970 and has
seen landmark legislation passed as a result of protests
around clean air, clean water, and endangered species. In
2016 the United Nations chose Earth Day to sign the Paris
Climate Agreement.
This year, the campaign focused on rebuilding greener
after COVID-19, with calls in the UK for a green economic
stimulus including jobs in sustainable industries, sustainable
public transport, and using what we have learned from the
urgent legislation around lockdown restrictions to call for
huge changes in legislation around climate protections.
Head to twitter for the Climate Coalition’s declaration for
green and fair recovery, and news on actions in the run
up to COP-26 climate talks which will now take place in
November 2021.
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Called
to be...
SCM’s vocation resource Called to Be… has recently been re-published
with new content from Christians living out their vocations in ways that
don’t necessarily follow the conventional path of ordained ministry. In
this extract from the resource, Dr. Feylyn Lewis reflects on where she
has seen God at work through her academic career.
You can find the full resource at
www.movement.org.uk/resources
VOCATION RESOURCE
I spent much of my childhood as a young carer for
my disabled mother. It was a profoundly isolating,
frightening, and traumatic experience, yet God has been
so faithful to take care of me and my family. Growing
up in the United States, I didn’t meet any other young
carers. I wasn’t even aware the term “young carer”
existed until my Masters counseling program, when
I chose to write a developmental psychology minithesis
on young adults who provide care for their ill
family members. This is when I discovered a wealth
of research largely stemming from one world-renown
academic: Professor Saul Becker in England. Around this
same time, I had been searching for PhD programs. My
search primarily focused on very sunny locations like
Southern California or the beautiful mountain scenery
in Denver, Colorado. Coincidentally—or perhaps in
hindsight not so coincidentally— my developmental
psychology professor was also my mentor. Thankfully,
my mentor told me I had been conducting my search
for a PhD program all wrong. He told me that I should be
looking for programs where I could find academics with
my research interest. With a chuckle, I told him, “Well,
that’s England”. Winking, my mentor replied, “Well,
that’s where you need to go”.
Long story short and four years of many sleepless
nights later, I completed my PhD research on the
identity development of young adult carers in the United
Kingdom and the United States under Professor Becker.
In the two years post-PhD, I’ve been working as a
research fellow where I lead a six European nation study
on the mental health well-being of adolescent young
carers.
It’s been a phenomenal journey. I’ve found myself
traveling the world being asked to share my life story
as a young carer and my research. I’ve presented
my research to the European Parliament and to
Congressional representatives in Washington D.C. I’ve
also been incredibly privileged to hold the precious
life stories of the hundreds of young carers I’ve met
around the world who, like me, felt alone and lacked
support. My mother once gave me this word from God
about my time in England: “God-ordained, God-fueled,
and sustained by the favor of God”. What a true word
that’s been! The joyful mountain tops of success have
been just as real as the pain of the valleys, and, like any
journey, I’ve often felt like giving up. In fact, other people
have even suggested that the challenges facing me are
insurmountable and that I should quit! However, I’ve
seen God orchestrate my life so many times, through so
many people, that I can’t deny the Lord is at work.
I’ve also learned to follow God’s voice especially when
you’re the only person hearing God say, “Walk this way”.
That doesn’t mean that I’m always confident I’m hearing
God speak, nor does it mean that I’m always confident
that I’m making the right choice. In actual fact, I’m
very often unsure. Nevertheless, I have learned to take
every decision concerning my life path to God, and pray,
cultivate His presence through worship, and seek wise
counsel from those individuals whom I trust, admire, and
respect. Whilst I’ve often felt alone, this hasn’t been a
journey made in complete isolation— and I don’t think
God intended it to be so. In all of the beautiful things
that I’ve seen God do in my life, I recognize that God has
used both me and others to carry out His plans. I don’t
know how everything will play out in the end, but I know
it will be good.
You intended to harm me,
but God intended it for good to
accomplish what is now being
done, the saving of many lives.
Genesis 50:20
Dr. Feylyn Lewis is a research fellow at the University
of Sussex, and has just finished serving as BAME Rep on
SCM’s General Council.
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33

Identity
inChrist?
Faith has played a pivotal role in Archuna Ananthamohan’s life, medical interests and
activism. His poetry and writing explore faith, justice and life itself. Here he explores his
identity as a Hindu Christian, and what it means to find an identity in Christ.
inChrist?
When I was six years old, I would majestically illustrate the
Ramayana with the joyful aid of my Crayola crayons and a
fiercely boundless sense of imagination. I had attended a
Church of England primary school, where the vast majority
of pupils were ethnic minorities. Most did not come from a
Christian family. It was a multi-faith school and, for me, it was
a multi-faith family. Every now and then, a lady called Elise
would visit our school to give assemblies. She was part of
the local parish church and would share wonderful stories
about Jesus, emphasising his teachings of compassion and
his parables of love. My heart would stir.
Every time I heard about Jesus’ life and teachings, I would
experience an intense form of joy that would sing from the
very depths of my soul. The choral hymns on the television
and radio would fill me with awe. The parables would feed
me with questions. And, above all else, the sight of Christians
helping and caring for the community would sustain my
pursuit of Christ.
Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me’ (Matthew
19:14, NIV). I was that little child. And in the end, it was
neither the promise of a literal Heaven nor the threat of a
literal Hell that would draw this little child to Jesus. This little
child, whose parents were laid-back Hindus, did not come to
Jesus through a desperately defined exercise of the mind.
He did not come to Jesus through spoon-fed proof-texts
or questionable apologetics. He had come to Jesus through
Love. It was this divine Love, the little boy had realised, that
had been the source of every loving work and every faithful
deed. And it was this Love that would
change this little boy forever.
Sadly, not everybody would share
the same enthusiasm about my faith
journey as I had done. My family
would soon adjust to my interest and
pursuit of Christ. However, most of
my difficulties would in fact arise at
secondary school. Throughout my
time at secondary school, people
would judge me for taking an interest
in Christianity. Some people had felt
that my decision to become Christian
was somehow an endorsement of the
grave historic atrocities that had been
committed by the imperial ‘Christian’
religion. Others felt that my interest
in Christianity may have come out of
a desperate desire to be white. Both
judgments were poisonously offensive
and untrue.
Why must my ethnic and cultural
identity be irreconcilable with a
Christian identity? I found this
particularly perplexing given that
Christianity, the world’s largest religion,
had followers from all over the globe.
Furthermore, a significant number of
Tamils had always been Christians.
It felt like their contributions to the
Tamil struggle against the Sinhalesesupremacist
Sri Lankan state had
offensively been erased.
By contrast, my earliest experiences
of British conservative evangelicalism
felt very inclusive in terms of race. The
Gospel, after all, was for everyone.
Evangelistic organisations such as
South Asian Concern recognise how
we can still engage with our South
Asian heritage and pursue a Christian
faith. Indeed, I am still discovering
more expressions of the Christian faith
found in South Asian and Tamil culture;
Clement Vedanayagam, for instance,
has become renowned for using Indian
classical music as a medium to convey
his Christian faith. The marvellous
Twitter account ‘Indo-Christian culture’
has also affirmed the reconciliation of
these identities.
Unfortunately, South Asian Concern
and other evangelistic settings’
approach to faith would soon lead
to another crisis of identity. When
I was about seventeen years old, I
had found other Christian friends at
school. Given how some of my other
classmates had reacted badly towards
my interest in Jesus, a space that was
welcoming towards Christians had felt
like a breath of fresh air. My Christian
friends had invited me to attend one of
their Christian holiday camps. During
the camp’s Bible study, I asked, ‘What
about people from other faiths? Can
they still experience God?’
Predictably, the young lad running the
session quoted John 14:6: “I am the
Way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through
me.” In hindsight, I should have asked
him whether he knew and understood
other interpretations of this verse. Given
the miserable conformity of that camp,
I don’t think he would have. I myself
have since come to discover more
liberating interpretations. However, at
the time, their reading of this verse
invalidated the experiences of God
I’d had prior to becoming a Christian.
I started to look down on my parents’
Hinduism, deeming them to be ‘lost’.
And I felt that, compared to the white,
upper-middle class Bible camp that I
had attended, I was inferior. I started
to think that my Hindu spirituality was
demonic. I was gaslit, and it poisoned
the way I experienced my faith.
Today, I consider myself both a Hindu
and a Christian. Both traditions serve
one another and enrich my faith. In the
past, I was told that the only identity
we should have is an ‘identity in Christ’.
However, the people who would tell me
this came from cis, white, privileged
societies. ‘Identity in Christ’ had
become a coded way to dismiss ‘Black
Lives Matter’, validate transphobia, and
justify deeply harmful rhetoric about
‘same-sex attraction’. It has resulted in
the perpetuation of colonialism, which
underscored the Christian exclusivism
that I had experienced.
And yet, throughout Scripture, we see
how Jesus would celebrate the most
marginalised identities and recognise
their sanctity. Finding my ‘identity in
Christ’ has been the realisation that
I was made in Love. For marginalised
people, this has meant to reject the
ways of the world and the systems
of domination that oppress us and
desecrate our bodies. And as we shed
our hierarchical illusions and selves,
we instead open up our hearts and
minds to the reality that we are all One
with each other. This, in my view, is
what happens when you find your true
identity in Christ.
Archuna Ananthamohan is a poet,
writer and filmmaker. He is the
founder of ItMatters, a global network
of young creatives who use the Arts to
explore mental health.
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35

THE LONG READ
BLACKNESS,
QUEERNESS, AND
THE MISSIO DEI
Earlier this year, Augustine won the Church Times
Theology Slam speaking on theology and race in the
wake of recent waves of Black Lives Matter protests.
Here, he unpacks the intersections of his Black, Queer,
and Christian identities, and explores God’s mission to
liberate all from oppression.
I was 8 years old when I realised that in the Black community, being gay was
the worst thing you could ‘choose’ to be. I was 15 years old when my 27-yearold
transgender cousin was murdered by an unidentified man late at night. The
Chicago Police Department did not do an investigation into her death. I was 16
years old when I came to the conclusion that I’m not heterosexual. At the time
my world was turned upside down.
I never grew up in the Black Church. I became a Christian in a predominantly
white church, therefore my experience of the Black church is more as a visitor
than a worshipper. But the Black Church shaped how Black folks think about God
and each other. How we do theology is always considering our understanding
and surroundings.
African American theological hermeneutics were shaped by many years of many
of us not being able to read or write, but relying on the pastor to truly testify
the words of the Lord for Black folk, and the Black literal interpretation of the
Christian text and queerness as it relates to our community will continue to be
shaped in a negative light. This understanding is not too different from the Black
Queer British Believer’s experience as well.
Being Black and queer
was never something that
would be considered as
positive. After all, it was
“gay” that meant “weird,”
“strange,” “bizarre,”
“unworthy,” “disgusting.”
The community, church,
and culture all expressed
a certain way that Black
men and women should
express themselves.
Homosexuality and Transgender identities were always framed to be something
that was outside our community. Outside the cultural understanding of what
it meant to be fully human. Gender and sexuality were framed as an innate
framework and if you deviate from this then you are disrespecting the natural
being of humanity and in effect rejecting your blackness. It was seen as something
that ‘white’ people participate in. Being Black and queer was never something
that would be considered as positive. After all, it was “gay” that meant “weird,”
“strange,” “bizarre,” “unworthy,” “disgusting.” The community, church, and
culture all expressed a certain way that Black men and women should express
themselves. The Black man should be hyper-masculine, expressing almost
animalistic uncontrolled urges to reproduce. He should work physically hard in a
blue-collar career. While Black women are to be feminine, but only a little. They
are supposed to be loud and opinionated, and frankly difficult to live with.
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37

Like every marginalized group, Black communities and LGBTQIA+ communities
have safe spaces. They are spaces of inclusion that foster safety, belonging,
and sometimes family. These two groups often experience similar rejection and
discrimination but at the same time can fiercely be opposed to each other. Many
Black churches and communities feel an uncomfortable resonance when the
Queer community uses the fight for gay rights and equates it to the fight for Black
rights. At the same time, queer communities often exclude or do not engage
Black people because they have already made up their mind on their personal
views about their personhood. When you add the Christian community in with
the Black Community and the Queer community it then becomes muddy water
of complication and complex identity. Father Jerel Robinson-Brown, an Anglican
minister in London, writes about this intersectional approach to identity in a
chapter in the Book of Queer Prophets.
have become a normalised euphamism for discrimination. The rainbow cannot
be a sign of joy and peace if it doesn’t recognize the missing colours. It ceases
to be a rainbow.
For many Black Queer
Christians, this balancing
act of understanding
their identity can feel
overwhelming, if not
traumatic. A feeling of
constant rejection and
in a world that people
desperately want to feel
cared for, loved and
accepted.
Imago Dei
For many Black Queer Christians, this balancing act of understanding their identity
can feel overwhelming, if not traumatic. A feeling of constant rejection and in a
world where people desperately want to feel cared for, loved and accepted. A
sense of identity is something that we all crave. This is a part of our humanity
and how God has created us to be. It’s the same sense that the prophets of the
Hebrew Scriptures continued to cry out for. It is the acceptance that Esther looked
for in her leadership and it’s the acceptance that we all look for with our friends,
families, and faith communities. The Psalmist tells us that “we are fearfully and
wonderfully made”. This image of the Creator of the universe handcrafting each
of us to be who we ought to be is the doctrine of Imago Dei.
Queer people need to examine the onslaught of anti-blackness not just in the
overall culture but in their homes, night clubs, and brunch clubs. Blackness is
polyphony. It’s multi-textured and free from one dominant voice and way of being.
Blackness moves and creates. It bends and shapeshifts and resists normativity.
It’s queer.
Missio Dei
As Black Queer Christians, and those who are queer or just Christian, must
remember, the mission of God is that everyone would know and love Christ
and his creation. This mission is a community venture. This means making sure
people who feel othered are brought in.
Professor Anthony Reddie wrote, ‘Over the years I have come to the firm belief
that one’s commitment to full inclusion of LGBTQ people, whether conceptually
or in more activist terms, represents the litmus test for one’s authentic praxis
as an advocate of Black Liberation theology’. The mission of God is to liberate
us, and Black theology teaches us that God is the God of the suffering and
the resurrection. That God desires us to be liberated from the suffering of the
oppressor, and that God wants to truly liberate the oppressor from their evils. In
this way, God’s mission is to liberate and reconcile. The question for the Christian
and the Queer and the Black folk is, are you ready to take on this mission?
The mission of God is
that everyone would know
and love Christ and his
creation. This mission is
a community venture.
This means making sure
people who feel othered are
brought in.
Augustine taught that true freedom is not a choice or lack of constraint but being
what you are meant to be. Humans were created in the image of God. True
freedom, then, is not found in moving away from that image but only in living it
out. This acceptance is something that, if you have been around the Church long
enough, you know God desires for you. The question is, does his people?
My early childhood experiences of queerness were negative, and now as an adult
they have been negative; but I’m a prisoner of hope. I believe we don’t have
to allow this narrative to stay for the next generation. I believe we serve God
and emulate a faith that continues to evolve and calls us to repent for the past
conscious and unconscious evils we are party to. I hope that we can help others
who feel othered. The Black Queer child of faith will grow up with fewer barriers,
and know their worth in Christ and in their respective identities.
Missing Colours of the Rainbow
The Queer community at times can make Black folk feel inadequate. Statements
on media platforms for gay men saying, “No Blacks or no Chocolate” can
attempt to make a Black man feel unwanted and dehumanized. At the same
time, statements like, “She is pretty for a black woman”, is so normalised that I
doubt a reader has never heard that statement, and it is in our queer vernacular.
Black trans women are being murdered without mass protest or even a column
in Gay mass media. Queerness should not be hostile to the experiences of Black
folk or blackness. But in the mainline queer practices in media, relationships, and
friendships, Blackness overall has become identified with otherness. Preferences
Augustine Tanner-Ihm is MA Student in Theology at St. John’s College, University
of Durham. He is a writer, speaker, theologian, educator, presenter, and justice
activist.
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Students from across the movement entered the ‘Letters for Creation’ project this summer.
Soph, who organised the group, tells us why the project was important to her, and Ellen,
the author of the poem, helps us dive into the metaphors and imagery she used. You can
hear the full poem, read by SCM members, on our Facebook page.
Where the Four
Rivers Meet
An Introduction
In 2017, the Archbishop of Canterbury invited senior clergy
from across the Anglican Communion to share their thoughts
on what caring for God’s creation meant to them. Letters for
Creation is a follow-up project, which invites young people
to reflect on what it means to them to care for the world
around us and how they want their voices to be heard in the
call for climate justice. It’s a creative project that serves as
an opportunity to amplify the voices of young people on the
topic of climate justice. Letters can take a traditional or more
creative form. At SCM, we decided to come together and
make a film of members reading a poem that was written by
one member.
Young people have been at the front line of climate action
in the last few years. In February 2019, thousands of young
people across the UK left their classrooms and took to the
streets to stand up for their futures, chanting: “We need
change and we need it now”. Since then, young people
have been regularly protesting and lobbying politicians. I
believe that young people care so much about climate action
because they are tuned in with God’s call for us to care for
the His Creation. This is the model of faith and action that we
should base our lives on. God’s creation is a gift, one that we
have been tasked with the stewarding of. This provided the
inspiration for the final line in Where the Four Rivers Meet,
“this is our thing to bear”.
Selected letters from the project will be curated into an
exhibition that will be launched digitally later this year,
followed by a travelling exhibition that we hope will tour a
number of UK cathedrals, COP26 (the UN’s climate change
conference), and the Lambeth Conference in 2021. To find
out more about Letters for Creation, check out the web-page.
SOPH MITCHELL
Ideas and Inspirations
Where the Four Rivers Meet is set in Eden and starts with
a tree. Roots are embedded in the earthly soil while the
branches reach up to heaven, a physical link between the
two like Captain America holding back the Winter Soldier’s
helicopter in Captain America: Civil War.
I based Where the Four Rivers Meet on three big ideas which
I hold as part of my personal theology. The first of these was
a function interpretation of the Imago Dei. This is the idea
that humans’ being made in the image of God is not to say
that there is something about humans which images God
in some way (such as intelligence or rationality) but rather
that the image of God is a responsibility given to humans
to care for creation around them. This particularly comes
out in the second stanza, where I specifically reference the
image and how being made in the image makes creation
and its flourishing ‘my thing to bear’.
The second idea is that of a positive relationship between
Christian theology and evolutionary biology. Specifically, I
wanted to reference the long process by which life on Earth
emerged and the ancestry of the species Homo sapiens. I
brought this out in the third stanza, referencing earthly life’s
oceanic origins and that humans are, however distantly,
descended from those first underwater organisms.
The third idea is that of universal redemption – that
everything, human or not, will go to heaven. In stanzas
four and five, I reference earthly (biological) death and a
heavenly life after death. Just as all life on Earth ends up
as dust, so too will all life on Earth share in a heavenly life.
ELLEN LESSER
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Where the Four
Rivers Meet
REVIEWS
THE BOOK OF
QUEER PROPHETS
‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders…’ (Hebrews 12:1)
Rooted down and still standing
against a battering wind, and I swear
something like that is holding heaven and
Earth together: this is my thing to bear.
Lending its limbs to a flighty
parent who carries on despite my staring:
I, made in the image of the Almighty,
which makes this my thing to bear.
So family – ancestors, distant – teem
in the depths but I am no longer welcome there.
I feed my children further upstream
but even from here, this is my thing to bear.
Then, foaming at the mouth, it crashes
on the shore: and all this is fair
and just and where our ashes
will one day end up – which is my thing to bear.
So this is where the four rivers meet:
at the crossroads of all this and a human prayer.
And every one has its seat
in heaven: this is my thing to bear.
Being an LGBTQ+ person of faith can
be disheartening, difficult and even
dangerous. SCM changed my course;
suddenly, I wasn’t alone— I met
wonderful Christians whose faith and
queerness enriched each other. I began
to see that the ‘life in all its fullness’ that
Jesus promises was far more colourful
than I could have imagined. Picking
up The Book of Queer Prophets, I was
once again aware of being surrounded
by a kaleidoscopic cloud of witnesses,
saints and prophets, whose queerness is
a beautiful reflection of the creative love
of God.
From Pádraig Ó Tuama’s poetic
reflections on his path from selfhatred
and isolation to freedom in
community, to Amrou Al-Kadhi’s
wonderful realisation of the poetry and
intrinsic queerness of Sufi prayer, to
Jarel Robinson-Brown’s breath-taking
letter to his nephew – bittersweet with
pain and hope – reading this book is
an astonishing privilege. The stories
contained within it are vignettes of
sacred, precious queer lives, each one
touched by discrimination and abuse,
but also held in love.
So often, the conversation about gender,
sexuality and the church is treated
as a philosophical issue; real lives are
sacrificed for the sake of ideas, ‘truths’
which seem to me to stray so far from
the all-embracing love of God. I charge
anyone who reads The Book of Queer
Prophets to take such an approach
again. To the queer person of faith,
this book holds healing in its pages.
To the ally, it offers fuel for empathy.
To the non-affirming, it is a prophetic
challenge, to turn from hate towards
love. May many be courageous and
humble enough to heed it.
MOLLY BOOT
The Book of Queer Prophets
Ed. Ruth Hunt
Hardcover
IBSN 978-0008360054
MOVEMENT Issue 162
43

REVIEWS
WE NEED TO
TALK ABOUT
RACE
Lindsay’s aim with this book is to
prompt white majority churches in
the UK to start seriously thinking
about issues of race. This book is not an
auto-ethnography, biblical exegesis,
theological argument, or a political
polemic, but a snippet of each. Cleverly,
after each chapter Lindsay also provides
specific questions to readers of his book,
for people of colour, the white church
leader, the white church member and a
general question, encouraging the reader
to think about these issues further in
their own context.
Lindsay does not shy away from
depicting the difficult, beginning his
book with a racially charged attack
at age fourteen, and the church’s nonresponse
to his suffering. In contrast,
later on he praises the solidarity of a
Newday youth camp held in Norfolk,
who stopped their day’s events to
pray for a young black man killed in
London. This, Lindsay exclaims, is a real
understanding of the body of Christ.
This book is a really good starting
point for delving into more Black and
liberation theology, or Black literature
in general, a pretty good bibliography
is added which incudes some of my
personal theological favourites, Anthony
Reddie and Michael Jagassar, and the
currents greats of Reni Eddo-Lodge and
Akala (must reads) who also feature a
few times in this book. Missing however,
for me, were any non-Western black
authors- Kwame Bediako, Lamin
Sanneh or John Mbiti or Mercy Amba
Oduyoye would have been great
We Need to Talk
About Race
Ben Lindsay
London, SPCK, 2019
IBSN 978-0281080175
additions to the conversation. But, as
mentioned, this book was designed to
be a springboard and Lindsay should
be praised for eloquently bringing
the Black experience of exclusion in
Britain’s churches to the forefront. He
explains why so many migrant churches
have come about, the importance of
recognising the legacies of slavery,
the necessity of seeing Black leaders
to inspire younger generations, white
supremacy and structural racism in the
UK system, and explains how white
people can really help the cause as allies.
Brilliantly, he also includes female
Black voices, including the Rev Dr
Kate Coleman, whose interview shows
incredible strength as she overcame both
racism and patriarchy to become such a
well-known leader in the Baptist Union
and beyond.
If you are wanting a strong introduction
into how Black Lives Matter is relevant
to our churches, this is the book to read.
VICTORIA TURNER
GROOVEMENT
WORDSEARCH
BODY, CHRISTIAN, CHURCH, DIVERSITY, ECUMENSIM, FAITH, GALATIANS, GENDER, IDENTITY, INCLUSION,
INTERSECTIONAL, JUSTICE, RACE, SEXUALITY, VOCATION.
44 MOVEMENT Issue 162
MOVEMENT Issue 162
45

scm_britain
student christian movement
Grays Court, 3 Nursery Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3JX
t: 0121 426 4918 e: scm@movement.org.uk w: www.movement.org.uk