Why we should listen to Vicky Beeching
Vicky Beeching, Undivided: Coming Out, Becoming Whole and Living Complimentary from Shame (William Collins, 2018)
Jayne Ozanne, Just Love: A Journey of Self-Acceptance (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2018)
Andrew Atherstone writes:In a remarkable symbiosis, two new autobiographies take hitting the shelves from two of the Church of England's most prominent LGBT campaigners, published within a fortnight of each other. Although born a decade apart – Jayne Ozanne in 1968 and Vicky Beeching in 1979 – their stories have coalesced and brandish striking parallels. Both were nurtured within charismatic evangelicalism, both experienced deep psychological trauma partly equally a result of their conflicted sexuality, and both made a splash in the national press when they starting time 'came out', Vicky in Baronial 2022 and Jayne in Feb 2015.
Vicky was in one case an 'evangelical poster girl' (U196) who spent a decade touring American megachurches as a peripatetic worship leader with a devoted fan-base, and since the stop of her music career has built up an impressive media portfolio. Jayne has also endured a nomadic lifestyle, ofttimes 'living by religion' without secure employment, though her professional person expertise is in marketing and fund-raising with giants such as Proctor and Take a chance, BBC Television, Oxfam and the Tony Blair Religion Foundation. Both are accomplished media players and skilful communicators. Vicky'southward book is highly polished, with one clear line of statement prosecuted from beginning to end – more than of an extended essay than a full memoir. It volition sell briskly, written for the American market, with its references to 'semesters' at the Academy of Oxford and buying 'cotton processed' on Eastbourne pier (U86, 94, 184). Jayne'due south story contains far more details and tangents, but is equally fascinating and especially important for those interested in the current power dynamics of the Church of England and the General Synod.
Taken together, these autobiographies raise v major themes.
ane) Breaking the Mental Health Taboo
Their most positive contribution is the way they both speak frankly about mental illness. By revealing their inner turmoil, Vicky and Jayne take made themselves vulnerable, displaying their mental fragility to public scrutiny. This is an beauteous example to the church and to wider society. As Vicky memorably puts it, we need to help people to 'come out of the mental wellness cupboard' by breaking downwards the taboo surrounding mental disease (U269).
Their stories make harrowing reading. Vicky identifies every bit a perfectionist and farthermost workaholic, which resulted in excellent examination results as a teenager and place at the University of Oxford. She now sees that this piece of work obsession 'had deeper roots: I was trying to outrun my own pain' (U120). Oxford is inundated with workaholic students and the University's mental health services are always chronically overburdened. Later on college, Vicky launched into a highly stressful music career in united states of america, thousands of miles from her family, with a relentless touring schedule, frequent media interviews, constant jet lag, and nightly sleeping tablets. 'Everyone effectually me told me I was living the dream', she writes, 'merely in reality information technology looked like empty hotel rooms, heavy equipment, and endless pressure to grin, sing, say the right things, and go on quiet almost my utter burnout, and my sexuality' (U123). Earlier long she was 'running on absolute empty' (U136). This led to mental and physical plummet, including the onset of scleroderma (a skin status which can cause disfigurement), oft acquired by psychological and emotional triggers. Vicky hoped that coming out every bit gay in 2022 would lead to 'happily e'er later' (U254) but she was afterward diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and is currently on anti-depressants. She as well suffers with the debilitating effects of fibromyalgia and ME. Most biting of all, dealing with this mental anguish in undercover, without a church environment in which it could exist articulated, simply multiplied its furnishings. Equally she laments, 'Much of me existed behind an invisible wall, not able to talk well-nigh what I was really dealing with' (U121). It is a badly lamentable, heart-wrenching story, which should be obligatory reading for every evangelical pastor and every evangelical parent.
Jayne has besides suffered repeatedly with poor mental health. Sometimes this has been a struggle with depression, with periods when she was 'completely overwhelmed with sadness' (JL59). She describes one serious breakdown, which left her in heaps of tears collapsed on the floor and 'near not-functional'. She sought psychiatric treatment at The Priory in Roehampton, including 'scream therapy' to 'get in touch with our inner anger' (JL102-iv). But the almost truly awful was Jayne'south experience at a PROMIS rehab dispensary in Kent. In Christological terms she interprets it as 'a version of my own passion – allowing the earth to throw at me what information technology could' (JL113). Information technology is a deplorable, visceral business relationship, showing some of the depths of human brokenness, and Jayne deserves thanks for articulating it. She acknowledges that she was 'angry with God, very angry'. Rather than bottling information technology upwardly, she eventually realized that 'I merely needed to connect with the reality of my raw emotions and be one hundred per cent honest about where I was at. Then I realised that God could encounter me in that space, and we could walk forward together' (JL114-v).
The underlying causes of poor mental health are, of grade, highly circuitous and difficult to discern. In her ain situation, Vicky identifies her struggles with sexuality as the root problem, a class of fragmentation: 'Inside, I felt equally though I was psychologically existence ripped in two' (U150). This single message comes across in every chapter – hence the title Undivided – and past the cease nosotros are left wondering whether there is any manifestation of stress and anxiety which cannot be attributed to evangelical doctrine. Jayne is more nuanced. She speaks of herself as 'broken on the inside', but acknowledges, 'My issues effectually sexuality were just function of a big complex jigsaw' (JL116). Whatsoever the diagnosis, both these books nonetheless prepare a positive example by helping usa to talk frankly about the turmoil of mental illness and to pause the great taboo. They sit helpfully alongside a growing trunk of similar literature, frequently from pioneering women, such as Katharine Welby-Roberts' I Idea There Would Exist Block (2017) and Emma Scrivener'due south A New Day (2017). Here are brave voices the church needs to hear.
ii) Loneliness and Singleness
Both Vicky and Jayne identify loneliness equally a major part of their mental ache. Perhaps with a deliberate nod to the championship of Radclyffe Hall'southward famous novel, Jayne writes of 'the deep well of aloneness … endless isolated nothingness filled with continual pain' (JLl7). She calls loneliness 'a beast that has stalked me for a very pregnant part of my life, and withal does. … True friends are difficult to discover' (JL38). Even as a school child she felt 'incredibly alienated and isolated', with lilliputian self-conviction and bullied for existence brilliant (JL40). Reflecting on her struggles over gay identity, she recalls: 'But if the days were solitary, the nights were fifty-fifty more and so. I yearned for love. My longing formed a gaping hole that would eat me upwards at times. Effort equally I might, no amount of prayer would fill it' (JL133).
Vicky also felt 'the icy grip of loneliness' and contemplated ending it all by throwing herself under a London Underground train (U7). She had made her career 'the sole focus of my life', but it was 'no longer filling the hole in my heart that it one time had. Behind all the busyness, my loneliness grew and grew' (U117). Her workaholism – 'the next gig, the adjacent aeroplane ride, the next hotel, the next rehearsal' – was a 'lifestyle I'd created to drown out my inner sadness and loneliness' (U152). This sense of dislocation was heightened by living as a Brit abroad, in a strange culture, 'feeling less and less as though I belonged anywhere'. In a tragic development, she was happiest when on aeroplanes: 'Information technology felt like a strange limbo, only up there, in the in-between, where no one quite belonged to the people effectually them, I experienced the closest matter to peace that I had' (U122-3). She describes herself equally 'anxious, lonely, full of shame, and constantly on border' (U142).
And worst of all, the church oft feels the loneliest place to be. Listening to some of the most egregious examples of evangelical preaching and crass pastoral insensitivity, Vicky exclaims: 'Everything in me wanted to interrupt those awful sermons and shout that LGBTQ+ people aren't just out there, just in hither as well – within the church – and that I was one of them' (U150). Why is the church then slow to model deep community, honesty and loyal friendship? As Jayne protests, 'True friends are difficult to find', but that ought never to be the instance amongst Christians. And so Vicky asks the killer question, 'could I face a life of solitary singleness for ever?' (U112), as if the just plausible solution to loneliness is to observe a sexual partner. The complaint is well made in a marriage-obsessed church building. Ed Shaw navigates a better way in The Plausibility Problem (2015) and Sam Allberry's Vii Myths about Singleness (2019) will help us farther, but the church needs to tackle the loneliness epidemic as a matter of urgency past offering a better story—ane that is explored in Kate Wharton'southSingle Minded.
three) Guilt, Shame and Sexual Purity
1 of Vicky's strongest words – picked upward by the subtitle of her autobiography – is 'shame'. It falls from her pen again and over again. Her memoir is nigh 'the battle I've fought to brand peace with who I am and to unlearn a lifetime of shame and fright' (Uix). As a teenager, homosexual desire 'caused waves of shame to crash over me' (U3). Her feelings were 'laced with anxiety and left me feeling dirty and ashamed … as always, nagging shame and fear plagued me every bit I thought about my orientation' (U22-4). When she was romantically attracted to a girl, 'I shut the feelings downwardly at once, as guilt and shame rushed in' (U33). She was 'breaking nether the weight of shame and anxiety, believing I had to keep this secret forever', surrounded by 'a wall of shame and fear'. 'Shame swallowed me upwards like a ascent tide', 'I felt more ashamed than ever' (U36-40). 'How fearful and ashamed I was nearly being gay', overshadowed past 'a cloud of worries and former shame' (U192-3). And much more of a similar nature.
Vicky's basic line of argument is that evangelical teaching about sexual intimacy binds young people into a culture of shame, from which they demand to interruption complimentary. Afterward coming out, when she began to date women, she constitute it difficult to express concrete intimacy because too many evangelical sermons had 'lodged deep in my psyche, creating a Pavlovian connection'. She could not 'shake off the feelings of shame' and was 'overshadowed by guilt'. Only it was non just shame about being gay, but 'fearfulness and anxiety continued with sexual attraction in general' after '3 decades of indoctrination' (U241-3). Vicky'southward protest is not just at evangelical views of homosexual relationships, simply evangelical views of sexual expression more broadly. She offers a catalogue of straight couples whose marriages have fallen apart because of their sexual inhibitions and hang-ups learnt from the church building youth group.
Information technology is undoubtedly the case that many evangelical churches demand to teach nigh sex more positively, and that the topic has been badly handled by many a youth leader. The American 'purity organizations' like Truthful Love Waits come in for particular criticism, non only from Vicky but as well other insiders such as Linda Kay Klein in her new book Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free (2018). Of course these movements take a long history, equally shown in Sara Moslener's Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (2015). On the other paw, evangelicals have too led the way in educational activity very frankly nearly the importance of satisfying sex lives for married couples, as analysed in Kelsey Burke'due south Christians Under Covers (2016).
Vicky complains that for evangelicals to teach immature people that sexual practice is for marriage damages them psychologically. And here we come to the nub of the issue. These autobiographies reveal that what is at stake is not simply 'equal marriage', but the whole fabric of sexual purity every bit taught in the Scriptures. Jayne frankly confesses that in her view sex before spousal relationship is allowable for Christians, provided they are truly 'committed to each other'. Her non-Christian beau Geoff was naturally 'stunned simply delighted' when she suggested they begin sleeping together (JL98). She argues that only 'a rare few' are given 'the souvenir of celibacy' (JL243). Vicky put is more than starkly, telling her grandad: 'I believe the Bible says celibacy is e'er a choice, never a demand' (U228). In her opinion, Living Out'southward call to celibacy is 'extremely damaging' (U178). These accounts give the clear impression that neither Jayne nor Vicky believes that sexual intimacy with their girlfriends should be reserved for marriage.
So where does that leave us? This is far broader than a debate nearly aforementioned-sexual practice relations or LGBT inclusion. How would our ii authors counsel a young Christian couple, seriously dating and keen to take sexual activity? Or what would they say to a couple who have had sex, outside marriage, and come to them for pastoral advice, feeling burdened with guilt and shame? The ethic appears to be, fright not, alive gratis. So what and so are the God-given parameters for sexual expression? We demand an answer from Vicky and Jayne. The Scriptures teach, of course, that a sense of guilt and conviction of sin is a fruit of the Holy Spirit'southward ministry (John 16:eight). And the only true remedy for 'living gratuitous from shame' is to run to the cross of Christ and to lay down our burdens at that place. The gospel always provides the answers to our deepest human needs and longings, and the church has wonderful news to tell of God's gracious dealing with our hidden fears and shame. Here is a real pastoral and evangelistic opportunity.
4) Hearing God'due south Voice
A fourth question, underlying both autobiographies, is how we hear God speak. Vicky writes: 'I needed to step out and be my authentic self. … I knew God'due south vocalism was the one I must follow' (U182). And once more, on coming out to her parents: 'I'd but take a very meaning pace toward greater actuality as I trusted God's leading and moved forward in obedience' (U202). But how do nosotros discern God's phonation and how practice we measure godly obedience? Vicky'southward love for the Bible comes beyond consistently through her story, and she is explicit in her want to process these questions 'with God, not without him, request for answers and listening for his vocalisation' (U166). She attempts to build a case for the holiness of same-sexual practice relationships based on Acts ten, where Peter in his vision was 'asked to follow heaven'southward inclusive agenda' (U169). Vicky concludes: 'only one voice ultimately matters in fourth dimension and eternity – God's voice. … God was letting me in on a new perspective, one of radical acceptance and inclusion. … God had spoken' (U171-2). Her exegesis is superficial and her conclusions are wrong-headed, simply her basic methodology is audio – only by rigorous and prayerful wrestling together with the Scriptures can we hear God'south directions for godly living in the church building.
Jayne's narrative paints an altogether different motion picture. Although she speaks of her 'passion and respect for scripture' (JL138), it is almost entirely absent from her account. Much prayer is evident, and testimony to many miraculous God-ordained 'coincidences' concerning job offers, gifts of coin and unexpected encounters. Just for guidance she lays out metaphorical fleeces like Gideon, and often operates on a 'sense' or gut-instinct of what God wants her to do. She listens for a 'very clear internal voice, which I have always associated with Mr God' (JL130). Much of her life, she explains, has been 'determined past "the witness in my spirit" of what I believed was the Holy Spirit. I just "knew in my knower" that some things were either right or wrong' (JL232-3). Sometimes when she feels 'very hot' she takes it as 'a sign of the Holy Spirit at work' (JL160). On living with her showtime serious girlfriend (the relationship lasted v½ years), Jayne reflects: 'despite what I had been taught – that I was living in the deepest and darkest of sin and walking away from all that God had for me – I felt closer to God than I had ever done before. He was still there in my thoughts, in my dreams, whispering in my inner ear …' (JL227). This may owe something to charismatic experience, but it is more than like the Quaker inner light. That inner vocalization, in any of u.s.a., is no sure guide to God'due south desires. Merely Scripture, not our guts, can evidence u.s. God'southward will for the Church of England. So it is no surprise to observe that our understandings of wedlock and sexuality are incompatible if our starting points are so far apart.
5) The Gospel: Be Yourself?
Since coming out, both Vicky and Jayne have experienced a deep freeze in their relationships with the evangelical community. Vicky'southward music sales took a nose dive when she was excluded from the megachurch worship circuit. As she puts it, they 'slammed the door in my face' and 'left me out in the cold' (U224, 226). Others have met with a similar reaction, similar fellow evangelical musician and LGBT campaigner Jennifer Knapp, told in Facing the Music (2014). The prominent American ethicist David Gushee discovered afterwards publishing Changing Our Mind (2014) that he had crossed a 'line in the sand'. He writes in his autobiography that he experienced 'the ashy chill of evangelical nuclear winter', having his proper name deleted from 'the invitation list of pretty much the entire evangelical world' (run into D.P. Gushee, Nonetheless Christian: Following Jesus Out Of American Evangelicalism, 2017). Likewise later coming out, Jayne felt like she was 'living in exile', equally a leper, excluded from the church. She was somewhen nurtured back at Littlemore parish, nigh Oxford: 'The church many not have running water, toilets or heating, but it has gallons and gallons of unconditional honey' (JL236). In terms of their human relationship with evangelicalism, Vicky has at present cut the string, but Jayne continues to place herself, and to campaign, as 'a gay evangelical' (JL240).
But these church party labels and loyalties are non important. What really matters is the about fundamental question: what is the evangel, the gospel message? What would Vicky and Jayne say to their new secular friends at Stonewall about the phone call of Jesus Christ? Jayne concludes succinctly: 'the nearly important truth we must embrace is that God loves u.s., unconditionally, simply as nosotros are' (JL242). Amen to that! John 3:sixteen says something similar. Many gospel sermons begin with that splendid affidavit. But what next? How then should nosotros respond to this God of beloved and his phone call on our lives? What does Christian transformation look like? Vicky summarizes her central bulletin in a different way: 'What is crucial, though, is this: we demand to honey and accept who we are. It's almost making peace with ourselves' (Uxi). She concludes, with typical clarity, 'God longs for united states of america to merely be ourselves' (U264). That is a remarkable motto, more akin to a pep-talk from a life coach, and shows the theological gulf between her current position and the gospel as she originally received it. Jesus does not say, 'Be yourself'; he commands usa to 'Be born once again.'
These two autobiographies are powerful accounts of personal anguish and compelling stories which deserve wide engagement. They are worth reading in parallel with the personal narratives of women who have moved in the opposite direction, from homosexual lifestyle to evangelical conversion, like Rosaria Champagne Butterfield'southward The Hush-hush Thoughts of an Unlikely Catechumen (2014), while Jackie Loma Perry's Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was and Who God Has Always Been (2018) is eagerly awaited.
Andrew Atherstone is Latimer research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and a member of the Church of England'due south General Synod
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