by Ruth Dunster

 Like many others, I became a member of the Church of the Jellybean in my early teens, desperate for certainty and an anchor. Ecumenism/ecumenical were not words I remember hearing. ‘Stay away from the Barley Sugars – bunch of unholy social workers!’ were words I do remember hearing.

Of course, I ended up, eventually, in the Church of the Barley Sugar. And ‘interfaith’ and ‘ecumenical’ are words I see a lot in our church bulletin. And with Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, there are active Barley Sugar interfaith people for whom it is a joy to sit down and eat, and talk – talk about Gxd’s love, Gxd’s justice, Gxd’s longing for peace and harmony and human flourishing. And with the Churches of various people, we meet and we talk about our Biblical origins, our vision for a future of hope – sometimes, on very special occasions, we even worship together. In conversation with her Minister husband and the local Catholic Priest, my good friend Elspeth found herself discussing the inspired idea of a Church Crawl. So, a week before Christmas, people are invited to meet in one of the City Centre churches and sing a couple of Carols. And then walk on to the next church, to sing a couple more. And then on to the next ... ending with tea and mince pies in the last church. This I call inspired ecumenism – actually setting foot in each other’s churches for something other than a funeral! But some Jellybeans politely declined.

Ruth Dunster is an independent theologian living in the Scottish Highlands, and an activist campaigning for action on the Climate and Ecological Crisis. She uses the mystical term Gxd to denote the Divine, on the basis that the ‘God’ word has been tainted and abused by the civilisation of Christendom. She also uses ‘they/them’ pronouns for the Divine in a move away from patriarchy.

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Image:  Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash