Times of Transition

By Lorna Forrester

When young Jack Cassidy leads most of his large 'Youth Church' to split from their parent body, Church Militant - he leaves the lead pastor devastated. Pete Forsdyke and his wife, Lillias are already trying to come to terms with their young 'son', Joe's desire to transition as a woman.

Set in the nineties, they had felt privileged and blessed to be leading a large and growing Charismatic church and network of linked churches in UK and abroad. But events lead to questions which can no longer be glibly ignored or dealt with by the old familiar 'proof text' formulae.

Then, as now, the times were changing and for many, life would never be the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorna Forrester
• Release date: Oct 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781916226418

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

1979 – Jack age 6

‘Dad, if Mr. Briggs wasn’t a Christian, is he in hell now ?’

‘Yes son, that’s what God’s Word tells us.’

‘But he was so kind and good and he loved music so much and wanted to share it with all of us.’

‘None of those things matter, Jack – he was a sinner, like you and me and he needed to be saved.’

‘Well may be God did save him, then. He tells us to always forgive so why doesn’t He always forgive sinners?’

‘He wants to, Jack, but they’ve gotta be willing.’

Jack brushed away his tears with his sleeve. ‘I did witness to Mr. Briggs, Dad, but he jus’ said that he knew about it already and he thought God understood how he felt about it.’

‘That’s just human stubbornness and pride, Jack.’ Bobby Cassidy shook his head and passed his son a tissue for the tears that wouldn’t stop.

‘Mr. Briggs wasn’t proud… He wasn’t. I can’t bear it if he’s in hell. I don’t ever wanna go to heaven if Mr. Briggs can’t be there… How can anyone possibly be happy when nearly everyone who ever lived everywhere, ends up in hell? I don’t believe it!’

‘You can’t argue with the Word of God, Jack. God says it, I believe it and that settles it.’

Out in the garden, Jack cried for a very long time that day. Sitting on the grass by the buddleias, he watched beautiful Red Admiral and Peacock butterflies and imagined Mr Briggs, who had so loved nature’s beauty, was sending them to comfort him and to assure him that he was not in hell.

1983 - AGE 10

Undoubtedly Jack’s sporting prowess saved him from being bullied as a sensitive, thoughtful and ‘nerdy’ boy. He was also fortunate in having a good and often self-deprecating, sense of humour. Of course he was teased for being different – a ‘goody goody’ and a ‘brain box’ but Jack merely laughed and came up with more ridiculous descriptions for himself and those who were doing the teasing. But when it came to real bullying of anyone or any group unable to adequately defend themselves, Jack was not soft or weak. When the bully was one person, Jack would wither them with scathing comments while removing the victim to safety. If the bullies were ganging up, Jack was usually able to recruit his football mates to act as protection. He refused to use violence – only action to restrain and defend.

Jack was instrumental in starting a school group of volunteers to act as peer mentors to listen and support people who were experiencing bullying or similar concerns.

* * * * *

‘You’re a stupid, thieving Pikey! Keep away from us. You can’t play here.’

‘Watch out Dave, here comes St. Jack’.

‘Who’s taking my sainted name in vain?’ yelled Jack, who had heard everything. ‘Ping – halo on’, he drew an imaginary halo over his head.

‘I’m not allowed to play with Pikies – you can’t trust ‘em.’

‘Chris, he’s just a boy who has a right to come to school and not be pestered by bigots like you,’ said Jack and turned to the new boy, ‘Welcome to Sunnilea Primary. What’s your name then, mate?’

‘Paddy,’ said the lad, keeping his head down.

‘OK.’ said Jack ‘This is Paddy – he’s not Pikey –

So go an get upon yer bikey!

Words like ‘Pikey’ –

Crikey, we no likey!

You wanna play football with us, Paddy?’

And so, a typical nasty situation was once again diffused.

It was the same for all the various other cruel labels which from time to time echoed through the play-ground. ‘Paki’, ‘spaz’, ‘fag’, ‘mong’, ‘sissy’. ‘lezzer’, Jack detested them all and every time he heard one of them, he would jump into the conversation, ridiculing the language and general gist of the ignorant labelling. Often his quick-witted responses or mimicry of the labellers would encourage the ‘hangers-on’ to laugh and ridicule them until the bullies would back down and slink off, feigning boredom. Jack was much admired and respected for this and kids remembered and were more careful. And some even understood and learned a lesson that would last a lifetime.

While Jack’s friendships provided respite from the strict fundamentalist world of his family and church, they tended to be too superficial for the intense, deep thinker that he was becoming. Never close to his conforming and rather judgemental older sister, Lucy, he often felt alone and conflicted – tormented by his doubts and indecisiveness, seeing, as he did, both sides of every question.

Jack often wondered how he could really have been born into a family so very different from himself. However, when he was ten he did meet an older female cousin, a published poet and known to be a ‘bit of a rebel’ in her similarly ‘fundie’ Baptist family. Later the same year, Jack’s family invited his Canadian, maternal uncle Alfie for an extended period of convalescence after abdominal surgery with complications.

Unk, as Jack called him, ended up staying for nine months and later on, looking back, Jack felt that those nine months significantly changed his life.

Unk was a kind of Christian agnostic – a category unacceptable, of course, to Jack’s parents. They were unquestionably kind and generous towards him, attempting to minimise their usual high pressured ‘witnessing’. They did though, hope and pray that he would be converted.

Unk was asked to be very careful not to say anything which could damage the children’s faith and being a man of integrity and a great respecter of all faith, he tried hard to honour that request. He was enormously grateful for the family’s emotional and financial support and also for the treasured opportunity to get to know his nephew and niece.

Lucy, he found difficult. Try as he would, he could not discover a shared area of interest. And although he admired her musicality and tried to introduce her to Wagner, Vivaldi and even The Incredible String Band and The Grateful Dead’ – she showed no interest and always insisted on playing and ardently singing Gospel choruses, chosen to convict her beleaguered uncle. Unlike her parents, Lucy did not restrain herself from constantly witnessing to him. Indeed she felt his conversion to be her personal assignment from God.

Poor Unk found this incredibly difficult to handle. While respecting her deep sincerity and concern – he was far from the scientistic atheist which she believed him to be. Yet he could not freely communicate his nuanced understanding of Christianity without the risk of breaking his promises to Lucy’s parents. He had no choice but to avoid deep conversations with her as much as possible.

With Jack, on the other hand, although five years younger, Unk had, from the start, felt a kindred-spiritship. They shared a similar dry humour and sense of the ridiculous. Although both aware that this often bordered on irreverence, even blasphemy, Unk was amazed by the precocious sophistication and maturity of Jack’s approach.

The bond between them was multi-faceted and mutually satisfying. Unk felt he had found the son he had always wanted. Nothing was said but Jack knew and responded with a passionate devotion he believed would last a life time. He was right but tragically Unk succumbed to his multiple organ failures when Jack was only sixteen. After the nine months together, the pair never met again although they often wrote of their future holiday plans. Throughout High School the sporadic but lengthy confidential letters between them helped the lonely boy to feel a real sense of belonging. Unk walked a tight rope between expressing himself with integrity and respecting his sister and brother-in-law’s wishes. Fortunately Jack was brilliant at reading between the lines whether they were amusing satirical poems (called ‘pomes’) or names of helpful theologians cunningly dropped – but never forgotten.

Jack confided about everything and whether trivial concerns about school and relationships or controversial ethics and philosophical conundrums – they all were eventually answered in depths… sometimes thirty pages long. Jack became used to waiting literally months for a reply. At the other end Unk was struggling with failing eyesight to deal with book-keeping, developing and printing and with studio photography while his wife went out on wedding assignments. Everything took twice as long as it used to do. Writing to Jack was his ‘guilty pleasure’ but it had to be confined to odd, stolen minutes, here and there.

Jack knew little of the details … only picking up hints of Unk’s struggles… but enough for him never to resent the slowness of the longed-for letters.

The sudden death of Unk from kidney failure affected Jack much more profoundly than he was aware of at the time. The first major loss of his life, it remained the most significant for decades. Afraid of sinking into a pit of abject despair, Jack taught himself to disassociate from the pain and from all negative thinking about lost possibilities. He resolved to honour Unk’s memory by prioritising integrity, concern for others, social justice and respect for all. This strategy worked albeit there was a hidden cost in terms of a life-long tendency to deny hurt and loss – with a too easy ability to disassociate from them. Often proving practically useful, it also caused Jack to be less proactive for himself and loved ones in the face of danger and risks. His degree of detachment could be interpreted by others as strong faith, absence of neurotic anxiety – (which Jack sometimes claimed for himself) or just being comfortable allowing others full freedom and independence. In reality it was a kind of stunted fatalism and repression of deep feelings.

On balance, however, the impact of Unk upon Jack’s life was an enormous force for good. His ability to find joy, inspiration, hope and courage everywhere, his humour and his never-ending curiosity and passionate interest in life’s puzzles and intrigues – stimulated similar qualities in Jack and affirmed his self-esteem and sense of who he really was.

1987 – Age 14

‘I really, really don’t get it, Dad.’ Bobby Cassidy rested his oar of the little Centre Parcs boat. ‘What don’t you get, Jack?’

Jack frowned and lay back, trailing his hand in the water…’I don’t get how you can keep preaching that the Bible settles everything and all we have to do is believe it. But it’s just not like that…surely you must see that?’

‘It’s very clear to me, Jack. I have no problem with that at all. No need to complicate things so much.’

‘But even amongst the Christians in our Bible Club at school there are loads of things some people say are very important and other people don’t… It really makes me think that believing stuff is probably much less to do with it than church folk think… Jus’ sayin’ … ‘cos they all say – every one of them – ‘jus’ read yer Bible – it’s there in black and white.’ But it’s not though, is it? It’s not like that at all. Everybody sees something different. Always have.’

Bobby sighed. He felt really stuck and increasingly so these days with his ever-questioning, serious, young son. ‘I’ll look out for a book or two which might help you better than I can, Jack’.

‘Thanks, Dad, but I can’t understand why you have no problem with this. Everything you base your life on, everything you teach, depends on a particular interpretation of the scriptures. Even if there were absolutely no errors in translation or slight change of emphasis between the different languages and cultures and if there were absolutely no contradictions – it’s really at the level of interpretation that your whole doctrine of scriptural inerrancy falls apart. Whose ‘take’ is inerrant? If, as you keep telling me, the Holy Spirit protected the wording of at least the original documents, how come he let so many people come up with the wrong interpretation, while all the time being certain that they each are the only right way? And meanwhile, you assume that all those who don’t see it your way are heretics who will probably end up in hell? Years ago that bothered me but it doesn’t seem to bother you and the rest of the church folk, hardly at all. It still bothers me a lot, Dad – it bothers the hell out of me.’

His secondary school days had continued the pattern of providing a respite from church and home life. Very attractive to girls, Jack was quite friendly in a detached way with several. He always had a group of friends, a few really close ones, including girls but never an exclusive ‘girl-friend’. As he got older, he and his mates got more into rock music and drama than sport. The zeal of his primary days to attempt to get everyone ‘saved’ had not lasted long as he had soon seen it to be a futile pursuit.

With each year, Jack and his parents were less and less able to communicate. Within their own tight group of conformist church members, Bobby and Mary Cassidy were jolly and full of silly, wholesome jokes but in dealings with the world outside of that, they were quickly experienced as judgemental, proselytising and authoritarian. They understood absolutely everything through the lens of fundamentalist, literalist, biblical faith. Their reading was almost entirely confined to the evangelical publishing sector and the Conservative press. For Jack, whose nature was so accepting, tolerant and open, they were a constant source of embarrassment. He really hated conflict. Understanding as he did, exactly where they were coming from and why they said such strange and seemingly unkind things, he tried hard to restrain himself from arguments and point scoring which only upset all of them and never changed anything.

But concluding so early that he and his family had so little in common was a source of great sadness to Jack … one which he really did not speak of to anyone, even Unk. It was his first experience of dissemblance and identity concealment. This became second nature to him throughout his secondary school days. In order to avoid endless interrogation and lecturing from his Dad, he had learned, for the most part to avoid disagreeing and to behave in as conforming a manner as he could stomach, as far as church was concerned. Of course, with his school mates, he was completely different. The dissonance it set up in his mind was very stressful. Who was he really? Someone of integrity, honest