"By the rivers of Babylon..."

Our fifth perspective on the impact of the Prayers of Love and Faith comes from Wales.

It is very personal and it is possible that some may be able to identify the author.

Please respect their anonymity and vulnerability when commenting or sharing.

From the outset, let me be clear to all who read this account; I do not write from the vantage point of someone who has reached a height, and wants others to reach it with me. I associate with the Apostle Paul who stated to the believers in Corinth that I am very much “the least… [And] but by the grace of God, I am what I am.”

The reality is that I am a wounded soldier, like many of us are wounded by life, by the decisions of others, as well as our own, wounded by people, wounded by the Church. My hope is that someone reading this may find a fragment of encouragement in their search for what the Lord wants, and is doing, in the storms of life, winded by our experience; that though life may feel in the lowest ebb and darkest valley, that there is a route out and a light at the end of your tunnel.

In the lead up to ordained Anglican ministry, you know and believe it is a lifelong commitment. Some approach it as a career, with a desire to climb the ladder to Bishop, Archbishop and so on; but most, like myself, simply want to serve the Lord, and preach the Gospel, to see lives transformed by Jesus, and for the people of our parishes to grow more to love him and his word. It was not ever going to be easy. Training in an evangelical college, one of the Formation tutors remarked to me towards the end of my time there that I was the most conservative evangelical of any student, perhaps as a warning.

I had always felt like an outsider. Growing up to follow Jesus, but recognising also my Jewishness, had always meant I never truly fit anywhere – both outside and inside the church. This continued as I went through the discernment period for ordained ministry. During my Diocesan interview, knowing my Jewish background, one of the senior clerics asked me, “I was listening to the radio this morning and Israel was mentioned, what do you think of the state of Israel?” Slightly rattled, I answered as best as I could.

Just over three years later I was ordained – the outsider, the one who could never fit, the one who always felt in every situation and location, the imposter syndrome, always looking for something, somewhere to be a home – had I found my ‘home’? Underneath, I knew once again that my existence was to be, like Moses, a stranger in a strange land, never truly fitting the glove, always having to ‘fight’ for what I believed in, in an increasingly liberal, anti-Gospel church. As much as I hoped for, and longed for, a home, I knew that my purpose and reality could only be to be a ‘stranger.’

Following curacy, I was given responsibility to serve and lead four rural parishes; congregations who had never experienced an evangelical vicar, most of whom did not know their bibles. In less than a year Covid came along, and challenges increased, as for so many of us. In 2021, the Church in Wales Governing Body voted to permit the blessing of same-sex relationships within churches; clergy could refuse, but parishes could not, and bishops could come, or choose someone to come, into your church buildings to perform these for anyone who wanted them, without the consent of the parish priest. At that point, we could not, in good conscience, go along with this.

Every diocesan event, every training day, reinforced my ‘otherness’ – the idea that to be ‘orthodox’ and faithful to the Formularies is what it means to be Anglican was for the birds – in fact, quite the opposite was true. You were made to feel like a pariah – retreating to the fortress of your parish, wanting just to be left alone. But you were not; instead, email after email, expectation after expectation, to tow a party line, and to the then bishop, a very political party line.

Some argue that parishioners on the ground do not really care about what is going on in the bushy areas of Bishops’ Palaces and Governing Body/General Synod motions – a bit like Westminster is so distant, so are those places of decision-making for regular people. There are pensioners, like Roland, who simply cares about his local church, and strives to keep it open.

But the often-overlooked reality is the need for clergy to be constantly shielding their congregations, gathering their church members “together like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Matthew 23:37), protecting them from the overreach of liberal idealogues and hungry wolves.

More than that, the call to do what has been asked, by those above, ultimately ends in dishonesty between cleric and congregation and a break down in integrity, or indeed between cleric and bishop. You either speak of your anger, pain, and lack of ability to tow the line, or you ‘honour’ those with power over you by hiding your pain from your parishes. Every evangelical, whether in the privileged position of serving a fully evangelical parish, or in the very different circumstance of liberal middle-of-the-road ministry, has to make the decision, be true to the word of God, or be true to the leadership to whom you swore an oath to serve, follow and obey.

My experience is that many evangelicals choose to use the “in all things lawful and honest” part of the vow as a get out clause, allowing them to stand in opposition to their bishops and to justify remaining in the structures, no matter how anti-Gospel their bishops or denomination may go. Whilst I must, as tough as it can be, respect this position, it was not possible for me. If you cannot serve and follow with integrity the vows you make, then they become somewhat meaningless. Not only that, but you then continue to prop up the very establishment that is undermining you and Gospel ministry. We had to leave – as a family, under God, we could not stay.

This was no easy decision. First, the practicalities – a comfortable home, and a stipend which covered expenses, and more, was to be lost, and a new house to be found. This would have been tough enough without, secondly, the incredible burden one feels for those who you are serving, leaving them behind. Are you failing them? Are you failing the Gospel? What will they be left with if I go? The biggest tug on your heart is when you realise that they are not ready to go with you – that their attachment to the local parish building is too strong to allow them to see the truth of the challenge of the Gospel. Making this decision, you know that the majority think you’re wrong. Fellow evangelicals, most of whom stay, many of whom drill into you that you are turning your back on ‘The Church’ and that is to what you were called, without realising it, demand something else from you – a love that is unshakable, and a pain that is undeniable.

The stress, the pain, the heartache was too much for me to bear. I doubled down on my work, hoping, striving towards a reality that maybe the people who I served, who I loved, who I gave so much for, would love the Lord enough to see that we could thrive outside the broken structures. I burnt out, I made some fundamental mistakes, whilst being governed by my desire to not let anyone down. Life took a dark turn. As I wrote to the bishop, informing them of my resignation, I had nothing left to give. The years of self-sacrifice, of trying to shape myself into the glove they made for me, of feeling let down, and of feeling like a let-down, the feeling of being unsupported, of so much expectation I felt on my shoulders – these had taken their toll. And in the midst of all of that, I lost sight of what the Lord might be doing, or wanting to do, in me. So filled was I with the need to show everyone else that I could keep going, that nothing was wrong, that I wasn’t a failure, I inadvertently stopped drinking at the “wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). Yes, I was trying to point others to him, but I was failing to go to him properly myself.

I was a wounded soldier, but this was only magnified when, as I saw out my last three months, following my letter of resignation, I faced the full brunt of church discipline in the most tragic of ways. Accused, separated from my people when I needed and wanted to coach them through my leaving, I finished my period of ministry under a dark cloud of the unknown, utterly broken, hurting, as close to inwardly dead as I had ever known. In amongst my own weakness, for which I am not ignorant or unaware, the Church in Wales had nigh on destroyed me, and they did not care.

The structures which I had given my life to had worked their hardest to destroy me, whether this was intentional or not – I will let the reader decide their own conclusions on this matter. The institution had revealed itself only to be exactly what I knew, that rather than being led and underpinned by the Gospel, it was in fact the opposite. Those who remained could not know and experience what I did unless they had the unfortunate reality of living it. Their remaining continues to be as a gaping wound of my soul – only because I love so many of them so dearly, and yet they continue to willingly give their lives to, and prop up, the institution which should be living for the Gospel, but chooses openly, and behind closed doors, to go against it; and is the institution that I, selfishly, feel totally betrayed me, and those I love. It is a choice to love these people, and it is costly.

Whilst he may not have been a Christian, I was struck by this quote by the author Thornton Wilder, “In love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve.” I am wounded, I am not alone. You may be wounded. There is that part of me that wants to be angry, and in that anger, to fail to love those who have remained, who, as much as my heart longs not to entertain the thought, seemingly turn a blind eye to the injustices of the mainstream structures, and by extension unwittingly turned a blind eye to my suffering. Perhaps they feel I have turned away from them, run away from the fight. But I did fight, and I am fighting, fighting to live, to breathe, to understand the Lord’s meaning in my life, and in the seemingly faltering ministry he has given me. I am now in secular employment – I have done some preaching in non-conformist local chapels – but my heart, my mind do not know really where I am, or what I am. My father, a Messianic Jewish believer, encouraged me by saying that my calling is undeniable, and it is God’s calling, not the Church in Wales’ calling. I think he is probably right.

In Church in Wales ministry I was trapped, afraid, over-worked, under-supported, and always facing immense pressure and expectation. This is true of many church leaders, not least faithful men and women within the mainstream structures – I have the utmost compassion and love for them, despite the disdain that sometimes comes back, not least on social media. My reminder to them, and to each of you, is that the faithful Church is far bigger than the structures of the Church of England and Church in Wales. The seeming arrogance that we, as Anglicans, are ‘The Church’ is no longer true, if it were ever so, but one of many. The Church in Wales, and increasingly, clearly, the Church of England, are becoming the modern spiritual equivalent of Babylon. Doing so with great care, and not wanting to take the translation to our experience today too far, I am reminded of Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion… How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” Our eternal hope is the presence of the Lord, but for now we wait, and as I drive regularly past those that were my church buildings, I do weep. I weep for my people, I weep for those left behind, for those who face an eternity away from the Lord because they are led by wolves. I weep, because the structures that I grew to love in times of old, are now Babylon, and I long for Zion. I long for spiritual Zion, and deep down in the Jewishness of my soul, I long for Jerusalem: “If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill” (Psalm 137:5).

Until that day, knowing that Daughter Babylon is doomed to destruction, I attempt to “sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land” (verse 4). Upon the Lord’s return, the true Church shall rise, and we shall be surprised by those who we see, and those that we do not. I cling to the hope of the One who made all things, and provides, in all things, his ability to work. I do not understand his ways, and I cannot fathom so many of those who claim to belong to his Church. I am a wounded soldier – many of you are too, whether or not you are able to speak it, and to be heard. I hear you. I hear your cries and heartbreaks in my own. I understand the deep sense of rejection and pain; but most importantly, the Lord hears you. He knows you; he loves you, he chose you… before the foundation of the world. He is not surprised by your weaknesses, or mine, nor by the injustice of those who have sought to wrong us. He has not abandoned us, and he will not start now; so, “I will call upon your name, and keep my eyes above the waves; when oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace, for I am yours and you are mine.” May the Holy Spirit lead you into all truth, to the place where you, and I, can trust him beyond measure, to walk upon the waters wherever he would call us.

Leaving the Church in Wales, the plunge of the unknown, I continue to search for the Lord’s ultimate goal for my family, and for me, but I believe I can say in full sincerity, despite the pain and fear, “You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where feet may fail; And there I’ll find you in the mystery; in oceans deep, my faith will stand.” [1]

He lives. May he live in me, and in you, my brethren.

[1] https://hillsong.com/lyrics/oceans-where-feet-may-fail/

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