The letter to the Galatians is among the earliest letters of S Paul which we have, The Galatians were a tribe with Celtic connexions who lived in the North of Asia Minor round their capital Angora, presumably mainly concerned with breeding fluffy bunny-rabbits, and I believe the letter was addressed to them. Some scholars put the addressees among the theatres and marble-adorned markets of the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor; we cannot be sure. Paul probably wrote to them in 55 AD. He had spent some time with them a few years earlier, and had been followed by missions of a different Jewish- Christian sect who insisted on obedience to Jewish law: for instance, that you could not be a follower of Jesus without undergoing circumcision. This made Paul very angry, and he splutters in this letter, about his qualification to preach and teach, and about the abolition of the old Jewish law in favour of Christ. It is a natural part of this message that he should tell us that the grace of Jesus is available to everyone, all those to whom he was preaching. We cannot doubt the fervour of his conviction on this occasion.
But on many other occasions, Paul proved himself a child of his time, in assigning an inferior position to women. He did not want them to show their hair, which seems to have been a particular object of passionate desire. He did not want them to threaten the traditional leadership of men by taking the chair at church meetings. How can he have written so lyrically about equality, when accepting that women should be inferior, and that slaves should be obedient to their masters?
The answer, of course, is that it takes more than a glittering phrase to change society, and more than a glittering phrase to change you, even if you composed it yourself. I hope that my grandchildren, who have been very well brought up, believe in gender equality and racial equality; they are used to racial variety at school and to gender variety among their parents’ friends; but I was not brought up that way. For me, this is a transitional period, in which my intellectual acceptance of certain elevated propositions has to struggle against inbred objections of a purely emotional character indeed where basic instincts struggle against one another, and often fail to adopt the generous approach inculcated by our text. But you need not waste your time worrying about the problems of those born in the twenties of the last century. They will, by definition, fade away.
The question is rather: is this open-minded generation being taught a false doctrine or a true one? I fear that far too many are being taught, not of course, in this church, to appear open-minded and tolerant while at the same time for them Christianity is a matter of obedience to strict rules, not about circumcision, but about who is to say the prayers or to take up the collection plate, when the truth is that God loves every person, whatever their gender, their colour, or their income. Paul was right in this, however confused he may have been later. I believe that God is love, and that this means that he loves each and every person, whether they are servants, without pay or a visa, that is slaves, kept for cooking or sex, or wives in the same state. I believe it is wrong to deny education to those who want it and wrong to deny people the opportunity of service in any form, simply because of their gender.
You may say that you have no objection to the denial by some Christians of such a comprehensive policy as long as others can maintain it. Thus, for example, the Church of England may maintain diversity, while that of Nigeria demands conformity to a narrow creed. The trouble is that the leaders of the Church of Nigeria are demanding conformity from us, and that elements within our own church are promoting the same opposition to comprehensive love. I am against such efforts to divide our church, but I do not know how they will end.
Of course, the Church of England is endowed with a very creaky machinery. I think we can trust the General Synod of England, in general terms, to turn the wheels of its committees so slowly as to delay any efforts to promote a split a very long time. The Anglican Communion, on the other hand, is based on mutual trust, which is not the same thing at all: the ball of string can easily unravel, and the threat is enough to have impelled the Archbishop of Canterbury to warn us in measured tones last Sunday. We must all, all those who care for the unity of the Church of England, work consciously to maintain tolerance within the Church of England and frustrate those who wish to divide it. I believe that the Church of England is not going to split, simply because we are after all used to papering over the cracks of dissension, and are willing to stand back from the brink. I fear that there are elements on the Anglican Communion who do not see the advantages of agreement and relish the use of power for its own sake, The Church of God will suffer, and no doubt the cause of intolerance in Nigeria will benefit.
But in the end, God will win. That will eventually mean that his love for every human being will be accepted as the foundation of human society and we shall all be ashamed of thinking of other people as if they were inferior,. whether in Church or on the Underground. I do not know how long it will take, but that day will come.
Amen
Alan Goodison