THE CONGREGATION OF ST FAITH
About Us	The Congregation of St Faith claims a space within the universal Church of God. Its faith and hope finds a spirituality secured within Orthodoxy's mysticism, the Roman Catechism's conscience clauses and the English church's reason. We believe that at the beginning a plurally-sexed humanity, including fe/male, was created in the divine image of one unlimited loving-relationship configuration of equality. Hebrew scripture's two quite different versions of human creation included a primordial equality through the plurality of one God : 'Let us make humanity in our own image' … male and female God created them. ^1 If the Divine initiated the first binary option with its implicit hierarchy and bifurcating potential, it was by the command “ do / not ". Being created in the image of the Divine included divine 'free choice'. If no options were available in Eden, creation in the image of the Divine becomes unstable. Hebrew relationship, often interpreted as ‘marriage', became doomed to domination inequality. In our time, inheritance of distresses, from others similarly affected, has impacted love of God, neighbour and stranger. Simultaneously, the availability of ways to discharge the effects of distress, such as actualising anger/rage, crying/sadness, shaking/fear, laughing and non-repetitive talking, all within a safe environment, has healed. CHRISTIANITY'S CONFLICTED SCRIPTURE A division exists between the gospel and certain Pauline texts where scripture splits over sex and sexuality. The male and married "overseer" was founded and instated in the first letter to Timothy. ^2 This might, at first sight, seem to resonate with gospel accounts of "The Twelve", or at least the 'satanic rock'. In fact, the "father in heaven" might also lend support to the male becoming God after "God became man", to borrow from Daly; who has described the deadly sins of male domination to include processions, professions and possession. Regarding 'possession', adultery was symptomatic of marriage. Marriage benefited wealth-inheritance through the hard-heartedness of human-possessions: slavery-style relationship exposing inequality's limited love. ^3 'Processions' were conceived as parades to deceive and coerce be-ing into endlessly-repeated dead and deadening circles, often assisted by mirrordom's distorted reversed images, such as those found in the fairy tales of men. Such repetitive circular processions, movements and behaviours find a parallel in gender's repeated 'performance' of the sex-binary accompanying inequality, despite strengthened strategies resisting violence against women and girls (VAWG). Gender theory deconstructed the sex-binary, noting creation’s birthing indeterminately-sexed individuals as the gospel and older traditions record. It has also critiqued the criteria determining, or regulating, sex by questioning “what is a woman, what is a man and who decides"? Where both "sex" and "gender" are viewed as cultural constructs, "gendered-identity", if not identity itself, becomes troubled. Both gender deconstruction, with its implications for identity, and critiques of marriage have harmonised with the gospel. One resolution has viewed identity identifying I.D. (imago Dei). In other words, identity as involving being created in the image of God; to connect with a wider spirituality. In contrast to exclusive male-leadership, Simon son of John later required reprogramming for a shepherd-novitiate. Non of The Twelve appeared able to stand at the cross. Instead, Martha had received the resurrection-revelation. ^4 Subsequently Lazarus had experienced and Mary had anointed, death-defying power. Finally, the divinely-commissioned apostle to the apostles conveyed news of the resurrection. In contrast to marriage, the gospel's Reign of Love embraced the Nazarene's fourfold relationship, banned marriage in three gospels and celebrated undefined / unlimited relationship(s), as more authentically imaging the be-ing of love, in the Fourth. ^5 Divorce had abolished marriage: Moses 'wrote this command because you were so hard-hearted. It was not like this from the beginning' where God, who is love, was characterised by equality. And so marriage's monetary inheritance, generating the wealth-inequality potentialising war-mongery, had no place in the Temple. Camels would find it 'easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the Reign of Love'. 'Do Not Marry, I Am The Resurrection and with you always'. ^6 Hierarchy was up-ended by child-priority; ‘father’ had been banished from earth. ‘Family' were all who manifested the Reign of Love. Unregulated loving-relationship configuration(s) occasioned the flow of wine. Celebration of the good news of such 'excessive life', for the Reign of God is ‘inside of you', guaranteed eternal life through participation in the divine gift of flesh and blood. ^7 Paradoxically, this way of loving life risked sacrifice of life. Proclaiming the good news of the Reign of Love would end unequal relationship to restore Eden-like equal relationship. In fact, the Divine became human so that humanity might become Love-like. ^8 Moving beyond god-the-father opened up transcendence by participation in Be-ing, the Good who is self-communicating, and who is the Verb from whom, in whom and with whom all true movements move; according to Daly. 1. Gen 1:26-7 2. 1 Ti 3.2 3. Exo 20:17 4. Joh 11:25 5. Joh 11:5, Mar 12:25, Mat 22:30, Luk 20:35, Joh 2:1 6. Mat 28:20 7. Joh 10:10, Gk. 'perisson', Luk 17:21, Gk. ‘entos’, Joh 6:51, 54 8. Athanasius, De inc.54, 3: PG 25, 192B