Celebrating Reverend Jim Cotter: LGBTQ+ Advocate, Pastor, and Poet
I was bearing a heavy load,
angry but not expressing it,
grief-stricken but stuck with it,
hurt by those with power,
and by those who appeared to have none.
I broke under its weight.
I was helpless,
wordless,
Stripped to nothing.
–Rev Jim Cotter, Brainsquall, 2007
This powerful poem was written by Reverend James England Cotter known locally as Jim Cotter, an Anglican Preacher and one of the original founders of the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement in the UK. He is referred to in many articles as a wordsmith and in this case, the label is well deserved. Rev Cotter loved to re-write and re-interpret Christian texts so that they would reflect modern concerns, modern society, and encourage readers to embrace a kind and accepting God.
In the 1970’s Reverend Cotter didn’t simply Campaign for LGBTQ rights, he traveled the world re-writing liturgy and creating a place where Christianity and homosexuality could exist together. He was a contributor to a monthly column for Gay News under the heading, “Our God Too.” Born in Stockport in 1942, he went to Cambridge University and became a student and eventually the chaplain of Caius College, Cambridge, from 1974 to 1977. Hugh Dawes of the Progressive Christianity Network says that Rev Cotter’s three-year appointment as chaplain might have been extended but that, “Jim’s “coming out” alarmed some of the college’s senior members, and no extension was offered.”
In 1976 Rev Cotter became the honorary secretary of The Gay Christian Movement (now the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement). In 1977 he appeared with other ordained clergy on a BBC TV program Everyman on an episode called “The Lord’s My Shepherd and He Knows I’m Gay”. At the start of that episode, Reverend Cotter said: “As members of the Gay Christian Movement we are convinced that it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship.” This phrase was to become a rallying point for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement for the next 40 years. The Church of England currently allows homosexual ministers so long as they are celibate.
As a writer and poet, Cotter devoted his life to reconciling the Anglican faith with the LGBTQ+ community who existed within that faith. In his book Pleasure, Pain & Passion Cotter, agreeing with author R.M. Rilke, says that sexual love should be defined as being between two humans, not just between man and woman. That such a relationship should be, “…considerate and fulfilling, gentle and clear, “two solitudes” who protect each other’s uniqueness, and who know the appropriate space between them, and how and when it is right to touch and greet.”
He unrepentantly attacks both religious and social power structures that limit love, subjugate women, destroy the environment, and associate sex with shame. Cotter states that this subversion of natural love causes unbearable mental, physical, and spiritual stress. It is this stress that he speaks about in the poem above, and eventually this stress that compounded Cotter’s Bipolar disorder resulting in periods of institutionalisation which temporarily robbed him of his ability to speak or write. His complete acceptance of sexual love between partners, regardless of sexuality, as an act of God inspired many to look again at the divide between spiritual and physical love. He asks: “After making love, do you feel that you have had a bath, or that you need one?”
Utilising his love of wordcraft, Cotter set up Cairns Publications where he published almost 30 books and pamphlets. As a Theological counselor, he recognised the difficulty that a person suffering from parental abuse might have in calling God “Father” and reworked scriptures and prayer so that worship was not restricted by language. This work includes a re-writing of “The Lord’s Prayer” which is now included in The Prayer Book of The Anglican Church of New Zealand. It reads:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain Bearer, Life-Giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be.
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and home on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For your reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
In an address written by Brian Thorne after Cotter’s death, Thorne described Cotter as practicing his ministry under three stigmas: being openly gay in the 1970’s, being mentally ill to the point of being sectioned three times, and finally being a cancer victim diagnosed with, and dying of, leukaemia. The word stigma in this instance refers to the Christian meaning of marks corresponding to those left on Christ’s body by the Crucifixion. At first glance it is a strange comparison, but Thorne is recognising Cotter’s resilience and determination to share the word of God despite his own doubts and challenges.
Reverend Cotter’s homosexuality eventually caused him to take a break from the Anglican Church payroll and he practiced for almost 20 years as a free-range pastor. Reverend Cotter traveled, lectured, conducted retreats and broadcasts, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In 1997, Cotter visited a rarely opened church at Llandecwyn called St Tecwyn. It was there the idea of small pilgrimage places took hold and led him to establish a network of 33 unique, small, and out of the way churches where a modern person could engage in the act of pilgrimage. Examples of these beautiful places can be seen at www.smallpilgrimplaces.org. The purpose of the small pilgrimage was to create a religious space without walls, a silent walk with God through green places ending in a church where a warm greeting and a warm cup of tea could be had by all. Jan Waterson writes, “where people of different churches and faiths, and all people of good will, might find an atmosphere in which they could breathe freely, without feeling pressured into a pattern of belief that is no longer connected with their lives.”
This idea of searching out and questioning patterns of belief followed Cotter to his final post as a vicar, at St. Hywyns Church in Aberdaron, near the tip of the Llyn peninsula in Wales. This is famously the place where Welsh Poet R.S. Thomas created some of his most loved poems. Here Cotter created a book and a film called Etched in Silence. The formatting of the book includes Thomas’s poetry and Cotter’s reflections on that poetry, but Cotter’s work appears on the margins allowing a large blank space after each poem where readers and writers can record their own thoughts. Cotter’s poetry here is about place, and it moves on its own small pilgrimage through the landscape around St Hywyns. The book is still sold in the church today with proceeds going directly back to the property, but more importantly, it opens the poets and poems up for new creative voices. By some accounts, his time here in North Wales was some of the happiest time in Reverend Cotter’s life.
In July 2008 the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, admonished Reverend Cotter at Aberdaron for organising a blessing of a civil partnership between two women. Cotter stated that celebrating the civil partnership of two women, “was a day of great delight and healing”. Reverend Cotter commented that he’d done the blessing with the knowledge of his congregation and with the same religious standards he applied to heterosexual couples. He stated he’d been blessing same-sex services for the last 30 years. He said, “When an archbishop tells me that, as an ordained member of the Church, I cannot celebrate and bless a civil partnership in a church, but that I can argue for a change that would allow that, it frankly feels both patronising and chilling.”
His response to the reprimand was to compose The Service of My Love, which is a liturgical and pastoral handbook for Lesbian and Gay Weddings. When asked after the reprimand whether he would continue to bless same-sex partnerships he responded, “It depends on who is asking.”
Our research and Interviews with Cotter’s colleagues and friends revealed that he like to eat well but not to cook, he valued deep conversation over small talk, he practiced his sermons to the point of performance for fear of stuttering, and loved liturgy but hated overly rigid religious readings or practices. He was unabashedly himself and had a sense of irreverent humour that occasionally shocked. Hugh Dawes recalls Cotter saying he was looking forward to heaven because the sex would be better there. Dawes says, “I looked back at him somewhat circumspectly, but he repeated that again.”
Reverend Geoffrey Hooper of Bangor told us that he attended a retreat for gay ministers that Cotter had organised and that it had positively changed his relationship with himself. He says:
For me, and scores of others of my generation, it was Jim’s contribution during the mid to late 1970’s which was nothing less than revolutionary within orthodox Christian circles. He, effectively, put his head on the block by arguing – morally and theologically – for an accepting and normative attitude towards same sex relationships. He was very aware that if he had not spoken out in the way he did, bravely and honestly, his preferment within the establish church would have been very different, for before he would have been considered to be potential bishop material. But his integrity and conviction gave him strength to make his stand and take the risk. He decided to work independently, free of financial support from – and constrictions of – the church, by establishing a raft of income strands through counseling, speaking engagements and writing. He was not prepared to take the hypocritical route of “not see and not say” which was demanded by bishops and colluded with by most gay clergy.
For those of us struggling, ordained and lay, he gave courage by reframing the gay case publicly. Because it was our lived personal experiences as committed Christians (lay and ordained), we already knew this was the only authentic way we could live positively and honestly: true to our same sex nature, loving in same sex relationships.
It is difficult today to realise just how radical a message his was, within the prevailing systemic ecclesiastical ethos. For me, it was manna in a desert: bread, when most bishops were forcing stones down our throats. I had just faced these realities within a marriage with two children and knew these realities only too intimately. Lighting upon, first, Jim’s writings, and then attending one of his workshops, gave me endorsement of the inner truth I had just acted out, and gave me encouragement to continue on my own parallel path. For so many of us, Jim was acting in a truly prophetic role.– Interview, Reverend Geoffrey Hooper, 2021
Reverend Cotter and Cairns Publishing moved to Llandudno at the end of his life. Here, Cotter enjoyed good food, excellent conversation, and amazing friends. Although there is so much of his work to ponder and reflect on, it is his encouragement to talk to one another about pressing issues, not as adversaries but as friends, and to remember that when we are speaking, we are not listening that sticks with me most. He says, “Without dialogue, there is no discovery of truth, without story, I will never hear other people’s truth, and without humour, truth will be distorted by solemnity and self-righteousness.”
Llandudno Museum and Gallery is currently collecting stories and information about LGBTQ communities, events, and individuals in Llandudno and North Wales. We are hosting an interactive poetry event with Pan Saville on Friday, February 25th, 2022. We invite LGBTQ+ poets and allies to come to listen and contribute to this session.
Book tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/on-the-side-of-caution-an-interactive-poetry-reading-with-pan-saville-tickets-253052315287
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