Pat Caddick reviews A Disreputable Priest: Being Gay in Anti-Gay Cultures by Ian Corbett. Gilead Books Publishing (Malton 2015). Pbk. 392 pages. £7.95.
This is a book that demands to be read – first and foremost by the church which is supposed to embody the love of God for all His creation, and by those of us, myself included, who are hampered by our inherited cultural baggage with regard to those who are sexually different, or who for other reasons are at the margins of society. The ‘disreputable priest’ of the title, is Ian Corbett, a man of huge intelligence and compassion, who found himself called to love and care for the dispossessed, the little ones, the minorities disregarded by society, and for those like himself of different sexual persuasion, who are misunderstood and irrationally feared and rejected. These are areas, Corbett feels, where the Anglican Church needs to be challenged in its refusal to take seriously its ministry to these minorities and in its political and social exclusion of indigenous native people. He sees the church as a ‘travesty of what the Body of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit should be’ and thinks it may be beyond reform; that it has to decay ‘so something new and better might arise from the ashes’. Corbett writes with a raw, brutal honesty, but with a rare grace and beauty, about himself and society. In a series of vignettes he explores his inner spiritual journey as he makes his outward physical journey in his ministry for the Anglican Church. A journey which takes him from the disaffected youth of inner cities Manchester and Bolton, to Ireland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and to the Navajo Indians of Canada and the USA. He finds himself rejected, expelled and unsupported in times of great need, by corrupt, politically motivated church officials – the very church which purports to practise the love of God. His support comes from those to whom he ministers and gives unconditional love; they return this love unquestionably, with great understanding. This was especially his experience in remote parts of Africa, where he still considers his spiritual home to be, but where he suffered his cruellest rejection from the church. There are many notable exceptions of love and honour towards Corbett within the church, such as bishops David Jenkins, and Desmond Tutu, to name but a few, who have mentored and succoured him, as there have been also deep, personal friendships along the way. Above all, it is his direct experience of the love of God who is with him always, in joy and sadness, ecstasy and profound depression. A God whom he experiences in silence, in prayer, in the splendour of remote natural wildernesses, and in music. Not in the church. The book opens with a love letter to Ndlovu, now dead, where the reader, totally unprepared, shares Corbett’s innermost personal feelings and emotions for a lost love. The book concludes with theological, philosophical and ethical reflections, bringing a certain healing. I end with one of the quotations in the final section, from Teilhard de Chardin: There is only one road that can lead to God and this is fidelity, to remain constantly true to yourself, to what you feel is highest in you. The road will open before you as you go.
Pat Caddick is a retired dentist and a member of SOF from its beginning.