#MoreThanEqual Patron greetings June 2023 - Paul Bayes
Channel: Open Table Network
Date: 2023-06-11

At our 2023 national gathering in Cambridge on Saturday 11th June 2023, we heard messages of support from two of the Open Table Network's patrons. The second was from the Right Revd Paul Bayes, former Bishop of Liverpool, whose allyship and advocacy have been a catalyst for the Open Table Network's growth from one to many communities since 2015. Paul shared a brief reflection on the theme of our event - More Than Equal. Here's what we mean by that: https://opentable.lgbt/our-blog/2023/5/5/more-than-equal

He said: 

'Hello friends, my name is Paul Bayes. I'm a retired minister in the Church of England. It's my privilege to be associated with the Open Table Network, and I want to bring you greetings and encouragement today. I'm sorry I can't be with you myself in person. 

'I want to bring you those greetings, and that encouragement, in a darkening time. It seems politically in England that many people are in the business of weaponizing Christianity so that a right-wing agenda can be pursued. That is a distasteful and a sad thing - it's a reflection of what happens far more in the United States, and it means that those in the LGBT+ community, and particularly our trans siblings at this time, find themselves in the spotlight, and are seen as the opportunity for conservative people to gain support by victimizing. You know that, you know it better than I do.

'It's in such a dark context that I want to encourage you in the Network to sustain your common life. Advocacy is great and very important but, more than anything, what will make us more than equal is this - is the sight of a community of people who, in the face of fear and marginalization and attack, are living lives of mutual delight, and lives of courage. That's what I see when I look at the Open Table Network - it's what I saw when I was in Liverpool, and connecting with the Liverpool Open Table in particular.

'I have a prayer for you: the prayer is simply that that courage and delight, those two things together. courage and delight, will be sustained as the skies darken. Courage on its own just can make for grumpy advocates, but with delight, with the sense that God has chosen you to be who you are to bring teaching about delight to the whole Church, I think you've got a gift that we all need. So I wish you joy for this national gathering, and I will continue to pray for you, for those two things - for delight and courage.

'As they said in the French Revolution, 'the bread is rising'. The bread is rising! The reason all this opposition is coming is because the world is changing, and you, friends, are at the cutting edge of that change within the church and within the world. The kind of shrill, increasingly shrill voices of opposition to any change within my own Church of England
indicate how frightened people are by the fact that the world is changing. But the world IS changing, and you are at the edge of that. So may God bless you in that, and in all you do. Thank you.'