Photo by Stefano Cagnoni

Benny Hazlehurst refelcts on a busy week at the Church of England’s parliament.

I spent most of last week at the February session of General Synod.  Around 500 members of clergy, laity and bishops gather twice a year to debate and make decisions on church policy and direction.

 I was there to represent Accepting Evangelicals and the LGB&T Anglican Coalition by helping to staff the Coalition’s exhibition stall.  It was a good opportunity to talk with Synod members, as well as meet old friends.

What struck me was how easy it was to talk to people about sexuality.  Most Synod members were very open to chat as I sat in the coffee room or bumped into them in the corridors.

And a surprising number of them were very supportive of what we were saying.

Then on Thursday morning, around 40 people gathered from across the country in an Act of Witness on the steps of Church House.  We were drawing attention to the 1,500 LGB&T clergy who faithfully minister in the Church of England despite often being treated with suspicion or prejudice.

There were several members of Accepting Evangelicals there including a man from Kent who had taken the morning off work to be there.  We greeted members of General Synod as they arrived for the day’s business with a cheery “Good morning”  and several bishops stopped to talk with us, expressing their support.

Although, Synod ended on Thursday, I stayed on another day join a delegation from the Anglican Coalition in meeting with the House of Bishops Review Group on Civil Partnerships.  The invitation to meet with the Bishops followed a  written submission which the Coalition sent to the review group and the meeting was constructive with real engagement taking place.

So whatever we might read in the church newspapers, there were many positive things happening in the Church of England’s parliament last week.  Not the kind of things that make the headlines – but the kind of things which can build a better future.

Australian survey reveals mission damage…

 An survey by Australian evangelical organization ‘Olive Tree Media’ has revealed the extent to which church teaching on homosexuality are turning people away from the Gospel.

The survey asked people who did not identify themselves as Christian to identify the  biggest blocks to belief for them.

Among doctrinal ‘belief blockers’ , Church doctrine on homosexuality came top of the list with 69% of respondents saying that it had a negative effect and 29% saying it was a complete block to faith for them.  This was ahead of the problem of suffering, doubts over the supernatural, and the doctrine of hell and condemnation.

Only reports of Church child abuse were a bigger obstacle at 76%.

But Olive Tree Media have tried to play down the significance of the survey results placing homosexuality as 9th in its list of problem areas.   The report summary can be downloaded at Olive Tree Media    or by following this link.

Upcoming UK events…

As I write this, the Church of England General Synod is meeting in London and AE is represented there at the LGB&T Anglican Coalition stall.  There is an Act of Witness planned for Thursday morning to remind Synod members of the many hundreds of LGB&T clergy who minister faithfully in the Church of England.  For more information please see the AE Blog from 2 weeks ago.  www.acceptingevangelicals.org/2012-01/london-act-of-witness-9th-february/

Places are still available at the Evangelical Fellowship conference in Worcestershire  at the beginning March where the conference title will be “From Prejudice to Praise” and the speaker will be Benny Hazlehurst.  For more information and booking details visit:  http://www.eflgc.org.uk/events.asp#Forthcoming

Also in March, Changing Attitude inn Canterbury and Rochester have invited Benny to lead a day on an inclusive theology of sexuality.  It is in Saturday 31^st March at All Saints Church Whitstable.  For more information see www.changingattitude.org.uk/find-a-diocesan-group/diocese-a-e/canterbury  or email AE member Rev Simon Tillotson at tillotsons@gmail.com

A night in Shropshire…

Talking of events, here is a review from Dave Griffin who invited us to go to Shropshire to speak.

“Accepting Evangelicals recently travelled to Church Stretton in Shropshire to speak at one of our Engaging Issues meetings.

This is a large discussion group which invites only knowledgeable speakers. It considers serious subjects and attracts participants from all persuasions.

I was asked to share something of our personal experience which included subtle rejection by some Christians. Not because my wife or I are gay but because our daughter is, and because we love her and accept her just as God made her.  And that makes us suspect in some quarters.

As I started to speak I was delighted to see a “friend” & his wife, who hold traditional views on homosexuality, from our old Evangelical church at the back.

At the end of the evening, after Benny’s excellent talk, most folk present were sympathetic but my friend’s response was that he was uncomfortable “surrounded by enemies” who disagreed with him.

My wife gently said to him later that it was exactly how we had felt many, many times!”

If you would like someone from Accepting Evangelicals to come and speak at your church or event, please email us.

God Bless and Keep You

Accepting Evangelicals

 Accepting Evangelicals member, Rev Simon Tillotson has recently changed his membership from Confidential to Open.

 More than that, he wrote to the Church of England Newspaper to make his growing understanding of faith and sexuality public.  His letter holds firmly to the need for salvation whilst challenging a traditional view of sexuality.  It has prompted a significant response, and there is a link to AE’s letter of support at the bottom:

 Dear Sir

In the response to Tony Cullingford’s letter about being on the roundabout concerning fidelity to Scripture as opposed to our natural desire to be compassionate and accepting of gay and lesbian people – I have also been on that roundabout.

 I dislike Liberal Christianity’s tendency to water down the experience of the Holy Spirit, the uniqueness of Christ as the fullest revelation of God , the work of the atonement freeing us from the curse of sin and death, the gifts and fullness of the Holy Spirit, and so on, as without these things Christianity quickly becomes something we do in our own strength, which robs it of its spiritual power. Songs of salvation of a loving God who rescues us from our own sinfulness and brings us into a personal relationship with Him must be sung in churches up and down the land and the gospel message must be proclaimed loud and clear that Christ died to set us free and rose from the dead to give us new life.

 At the same time, whenever I meet a committed gay or lesbian couple I cannot help thinking that they often show far more fruit of the Spirit than many evangelicals show. Practical pastoral experience comes up against my past evangelical background which sees every verse of scripture as authoritative and binding.

 These two parts of me, my evangelical convictions, and my pastoral experience of gay and lesbian people, have been in conflict with each other for several years and it is like Tony’s, a deeply personal journey, and has been, and still is occasionally, a painful and bewildering roundabout.

However, a view has slowly begun to emerge that a converted gay or lesbian couple, living faithfully together, is a far cry from the sort of flagrant sexual promiscuity that St Paul is thinking about in Romans 1. The language he uses does indeed describe sexual passion of a self-centred and controlling, lustful nature – very different from the loving, self-giving relationships I have encountered here in Whitstable.

I also believe that the church has a mission to faithfully enable gay and lesbian and transgender people to come to Christ and be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, just as much as heterosexual people. Pulling up the drawbridge, as so many churches do, cannot lead to this experience of coming to faith in Christ. Conversion, I know from speaking to gay and lesbian people, does not change sexuality apart from in one or two very rare cases which cannot be seen as normative. So providing we preach the clear gospel , and do not water down the heart of our Christian theology, I am willing to warmly embrace gay and lesbian relationships in their fullness, including sexual activity within that covenanted relationship. After all, I am convinced sexuality is not a choice that gay and lesbian people make, but is part and parcel of who they are – and a very precious part at that which should be celebrated.

However, the minute we use a liberal reading of sexuality in scripture to start backsliding into liberal relativism in other areas, then we open a minefield where so much of the work of salvation is undermined. Evangelicals are therefore right to be wary of undermining the authority of scripture in a wider sense. However, an intelligent reading of scripture will see that St Paul was given insight into precious pearls, but he was not God incarnate and neither was he perfect or right about everything.

Rev Simon Tillotson

Whitstable, UK

Click below for our letter of support – published 29th January 2012

Church of England Newspaper Letter – 29 Jan 2012

It will be a silent Act of Witness for the many hundreds of faithful LGB&T Clergy who minister in the Church of England despite the discrimination and suspicion which they often suffer.

We will congregate in Dean’s Yard by the entrance to Church House at 8:30am on Thursday 9th February in time to welcome General Synod members as they arrive for the day’s business.  There will also be an opportunity for prayer and to give leaflets out to people arriving at Church House.  The Act of Witness will end by 10:15am.

With the House of Bishops review group on Sexuality beginning its work shortly, this is an important opportunity to draw attention to the extent to which the Church of England relies on LGB&T clergy. 

Everyone is welcome and we warmly invite you to join us on the day.

The entrance to Dean’s Yard is through the arch next to Westminster Abbey by the Abbey Bookshop.  Follow this link for more information:   Deans Yard London, SW1P 3NY

The event is being organised by the LGB&T Anglican Coalition – www.lgbtac.org.uk

Please click here for an event flier.- General Synod – Feb 9th flyer

On one side of the argument, Stuart Walton wrote that “sexuality is mostly, perhaps even wholly genetic”.  On the other side Michael Davidson quotes research referring to “the weakness of genetic links”.

But are both merely blind alleys for Christians trying to understand how to respond to same-sex attraction and relationships?

The causes of homosexuality have been notoriously difficult to pin down.  Scientific studies into nature and nurture theories have each produced results which claim to point (albeit inconclusively) to one conclusion or another. 

In the same way, inclusive and conservative Christians have each pointed to Scripture with the same inconclusive results.  It would be great if we had a story in the Gospels of a man with a ‘demon of homosexuality’ being brought to Jesus, to see how he would have reacted – but we don’t – and no amount of Biblical extrapolation can prove conclusively how he would have responded.

Stuck in the middle are gay people, particularly gay Christians, constantly being debated over, talked about, preached at and prayed over – not to mention researched over.

The danger of this continued argument is that gay people (whatever their understanding of their sexuality or their moral framework) are dehumanised as a result.  They merely become subjects to be studied, debated or fought over.  Their voices become marginalised – their needs become secondary – their cries go unheeded.

It reminds me of the account in the Gospels where Jesus is asked why a man was born blind.  Was it his sin, or his parent’s sin, which caused his blindness?  Jesus, of course, cut through this blind alley of speculation, as he always did, to the person who was before him.  He simply made a paste for his eyes and the man was healed.  

And yet even this story has the potential to elicit a thorny question in relation to homosexuality.  Is it a disability which needs healing, or a created state which needs embracing?  The evidence on this is similarly inconclusive.  For every group that claims to be able to heal or re-orientate those with same-sex attractions, there are others who claim that they were damaged by such ‘reparative therapy’.

All of this should make us profoundly uncomfortable.  When we lose our focus on human beings created in God’s image in favour of treating them as mere subjects of debate and controversy, they simply become a problem to be solved.  There is nothing more dehumanising.

I know gay Christians who believe their sexuality is ‘God-given’ and to be enjoyed and celebrated as part of the fullness of life which Jesus promises. I also know gay Christians who feel that God calls them to celibacy as part of their discipleship of Christ.  Both have grappled with their sexuality and faith in a way which I can never fully appreciate or understand, as I have never had to walk in their shoes.   Both deserve to be listened to, not judged.  Both deserve to be embraced in the love of Christ without being ‘told’ that they are wrong and should change.   Both are part of God’s beloved creation who he loved so much that he gave his Son to die a slow and agonising death on a cross for their salvation.

We would do well to rediscover Jesus’s love and concern for the individual rather than getting carried away in inconclusive arguments which, at the end of the day, are as helpful as counting the number of angels on a pin-head, but much more damaging.

For many LGB&T Christians this is a significant step forward.  There was considerable disquiet about the ban on anything religious being associated with Civil Partnerships, and many have thought it was both unnecessary and unjust.

The move has prompted much media interest over the weekend with live debates on Radio 4, and a whole host of newspaper articles.  For a roundup of the media coverage, (and the continuing legal battles) Thinking Anglicans is a good place to start.

Individual congregations will, however, need to permission of their denomination to register.  Several denominations have indicated who this must be:

Church of England – General Synod

Church in Wales – Governing Body of the Church in Wales

Methodist – Conference of the Methodist Church

Roman Catholic – General Secretary of the Bishops Conference

What has not been made clear however, is whether those denominations will be asking their governing bodies if such permission would be granted.  In the case of the Church of England, the press office has gone further and said that “The Church of England has no intention of allowing Civil Partnerships to be registered in its churches.”

On the other hand, the Church of England’s House of Bishops has also announced who will be taking part in the long awaited review group on Civil Partnerships.  The group will be reviewing the Pastoral Statement which the CofE  issued on Civil Partnerships in 2005, and will be made up of:

The Bishop of Sodor and Man - The Rt Rev Robert Paterson (Chair)

The Bishop of Portsmouth -  The Rt Rev Christopher Foster

The Bishop of Dorchester – The Rt Rev Colin Fletcher

There is growing evidence that significant numbers of Church of England churches would want to register for Civil Partnerships so…

Why not email them and ask them when General Synod will be asked if it will give permission for churches to apply to Register Civil Partnerships? 

(For email addresses – follow the links above)

For those who are not familiar with Fulcrum, they are theologically conservative on sexuality but are open to hearing other perspectives.  The publication of this article by an anonymous Anglican vicar is evidence of that and we warmly congratulate them for their openness to listen to the views and experience of others.

Do read the comments as well – which have been made in the same spirit and include several from evangelicals who are advocating a more open evangelical approach.

Well done Fulcrum!

To read the article follow this link: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/?677

The UK Government will lift the ban on Civil Partnerships taking place in religious buildings next month and churches in England and Wales will be able to apply to register partnerships in the new year.

That is the central message of the report which has just been published by the government following its recent consultation.  Accepting Evangelicals contributed to the consultation alongside 145 other organizations, and we successfully argued for a structure which would allow churches to opt in whenever they were ready to do so.

Churches will, however need to get the permission of their appropriate governing body.  For the Church of England this is the General Synod, and for the Methodist Church, the national Conference.  Although General Synod has not debated this issue, a spokesperson for the CofE said that this means that Parish churches will not be able to apply for registration.

We will treat all replies in strictest confidence, but we would be interested to hear how many churches would like to opt into this new legislation, if it were permitted.

You can read the full report at  http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/equalities/lgbt-equality-publications/civilpartnership-response

Same Sex Marriage debate….

Also rising up the agenda in many countries is same sex marriage.  Scotland has begun its consultation;  The British Prime Minister has announced a consultation for 2012 on introducing legislation for same sex marriage; the Australian parliament is considering marriage equality; and of course, many States in the USA are continuing their debates.

While much of the debate on this issue revolves around equality laws, Christians will want to press for a faith based theological debate.  Accepting Evangelicals is has been encouraging  theological reflection on marriage for some time.

Follow the links to read ‘Towards a Theology of Gay Marriage?’ published in the Church of England Newspaper earlier this year, or listen to Australia’s ABC Radio National documentary on same sex marriage (which we contributed to).

What do you think?  Let us know….

Speaking Events…

There are a couple of opportunities to hear our Secretary, Rev Benny Hazlehurst talk about Accepting  Evangelicals over the next few months.

The first in next Tuesday 22nd November  in Church Stretton, Shropshire  when Benny will be speaking with the title ‘Confessions of a Pro-Gay Evangelical!’ – follow this link for more information or email Dave Griffin

The second is at Evangelical Fellowship’s Spring Conference next March, where the theme is ‘From Prejudice to Praise’.  For more information please follow this link and scroll down to EF Spring Conference.  Members of Accepting Evangelicals are welcome to attend.

If you would like Benny to come and speak at your church or event, please email us.

New AE Cards…

New advertising cards for Accepting Evangelicals are now available for church notice-boards, information stands, etc.  They are available free from Accepting Evangelicals although donations are always welcome.  Email us  to order cards and please include your name, address, together with how many you would like us to send.

Beware of Imitations…

When you are passing on details of Accepting Evangelicals, please make sure you give them the correct web address.  http://www.acceptingevangelicals.org/

That is because Christian Voice – a vocal anti-gay group – has bought the web domain name www.acceptingevangelicals.org.uk  and redirects all visitors to their website.

It is a sad thing that another Christian organisation feels the need to try to mislead people in this way, and divert people who are looking for a more inclusive Christian approach.

Please do not be misled!

And finally, just in case you missed them…

here are some of the recent posts on the AE Blog:

• Well worth reading – with links to two articles including ’10 things I’ve learned about gay people in 10 years – a Christian perspective’
• Books – Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality – by Jack Rogers.  A review of this significant book.
• Bible Focus part 4 – Romans 1 – the last in our series on Bible verses which have been used to condemn same sex relationships

God Bless and Keep You

Accepting Evangelicals

Over the last few months we have been looking at the Biblical evidence for condemning same-sex relationships and found that it is not as clear cut as many of us have been told. 

As we have seen, Bible verses taken out of context in Leviticus 18, 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy do appear to take the same approach as the clerk in Little Britain’s ‘Computer says no’.   But context is vital to understanding Scripture, and usually, when something is prohibited in the Bible, there is a Biblical explanation for why.  The verses we have looked at so far do not provide that.  There are no reasons, no explanation, just ‘Don’t do it!’ – whatever ‘it’ is….

The one exception to this is Romans 1.  Here finally, there appears to be some theology going on – some attempt to explain the purposes of God and the waywardness of human nature.  The central verses are 26 & 27:

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

The passage is often used to explain why same-sex acts are wrong.  For many Christians, it explains how people became homosexuals – that homosexual attraction is the result of a perversion of natural, God-given attraction and emotion. Such desires are the result of exchanging natural feelings for unnatural ones.  It is the rationale behind ‘homosexual healing’ which seeks to re-orientate homosexuals into heterosexuals by a combination of prayer, confession, forgiveness and self-discipline.

But wait a minute…  Verse 26 begins with the words “Because of this…” – which means that we should ask ourselves ‘Because of what?’  And as we read back in the chapter, we find a very different rationale emerging.

So why had God given them over to shameful lusts? 

In Romans 1:18-25 it is clearly because …

They knew God through creation, but neither glorified him nor gave thanks to him (vs 18-21)

They exchanged the glory of God for images & idols which they served and worshipped (vs 22-25)

In Romans it is idolatry (worshipping other gods) which leads people to God’s wrath, shown here as in so many places in scripture, by God abandoning them to the consequences of their own choices – and the homosexual lusts which Paul is describing are the result of the rejection of God and morality.

But this does not describe the LGBT Christians I know.  They have not exchanged the glory of God for created idols.  They are prayerful, devout, committed Christians, worshipping God faithfully, and giving him the glory. 

I remember the day when this light dawned in me for the first time!  I finally saw what my gay Christian friends meant when they told me that they did not recognize themselves in the Biblical passages which condemned homosexuality – and indeed what I read now was not describing them.

But there is more – as we then read the next few verses of Romans 1, the picture becomes even clearer:

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (vs 28-31)

Do gay Christians fit this description?  Have they become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, envy, murder, deceit and malice?   Are they gossips, slanderers, God-haters, inventing ways of doing evil? Are they senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless?

For anyone who has gay Christian friends, the answer is a resounding ‘No!”  This does not describe them, so how can it be that Paul is writing about them?  And if he is not writing about them, then yet again the Biblical proof texts we have been given simply do not apply to the loving same-sex relationships we see today.

So who was Paul writing about? 

The answer of course, is staring us in the face – Rome!  The epistle is, of course, a letter to the church in Rome – the centre of the Roman Empire – the seat of power.  It was also the centre of Roman religion, politics, the Emperors & the ruling classes.  These ruling classes were famous for their ruthless greed, intrigue and debauchery – and it was this pagan society about which Paul was writing.  Roman society and Greek culture were the environments in which Paul saw homosexual activity, alongside all the idolatry of the Greco-Roman world.  It was not born out of love, or orientation, but out of pagan practices, greed, lust and abuse of power.

Needless to say – this is not the same as a loving, faithful, self-giving, same-sex relationship.

It is true of course, that homosexuals can embrace promiscuity and immorality, just like anyone else.  It might even be argued that in the moral vacuum which the Church has created by condemning all sex between homosexuals, we are responsible for pushing the gay subculture in that direction, resulting in some of the more extreme expressions of same sex sexuality.   But heterosexuals are by no means immune from such temptation, as witnessed by the exponential rise in pornography over the last 30 years.  That does not make all heterosexual expression wrong – neither does it make all homosexual expression wrong. 

The Christian faith rightly stands against pornography and debauchery because it impoverishes our humanity, transforming people into mere objects of lust.  But the church has always encouraged and blessed expressions of mutual love and self-giving – the ultimate expression of which is marriage.

Romans 1 does not condemn LGB&T people seeking to give and receive love in a mutual life-giving relationship.  In fact it has nothing explicit to say about it at all, in common with the rest of Scripture.  And if the Bible does not condemn loving faithful, committed same sex relationships, why does the church condemn them?

I began this series with a comment on my blog, calling on me to look at the clear and numerous Bible verses which condemn same-sex relationships.  Having done so, it is clear that what the Bible condemns is not those loving committed relationships which groups like Accepting Evangelicals are advocating.  Simply repeating the mantra ‘Bible says no’ is not an option.  The few verses of Biblical evidence which exist are at the very least unclear, rooted as they are in the context of historical cultures very different to our own.

And yet the church has used these half dozen verses to place a burden of judgment and shame on LGB&T people which the rest of us would find impossible to bear.  If we continue to do so, we will be no better than the Pharisees who Jesus reprimanded. “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4)

Where same-sex relationships of love, faithfulness and commitment are concerned, the Bible does not say no – and neither should we.

For the earier posts in the series, click on the links below:

Bible Focus part 1 – Bible says No?

Bible Focus part 2 – Leviticus 18

Bible Focus part 3 – Corinthians & Timothy

He is the Professor of Theology Emeritus at San Francisco Theological Seminary and former lecturer at Fuller Theological Seminary.  He was the Moderator or the 213th Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA and is a life-long committed Evangelical.

In the early chapters of this book, he defines an evangelical as someone who accepts 3 propositions:

1. People can and should have a relationship with God through trust in Jesus Christ.

2. The Bible is the final authority for salvation and living the Christian life.

3. God’s grace in Jesus Christ is such good news that everyone should hear about it.

He was also someone who was deeply concerned about growing acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the church in the 1990’s and who joined other conservatives in speaking out against such developments.

But in the years that followed his view changed and this book charts his story of this radical change through listening to LGB&T Christians, study of the Bible, and reflecting on church history.

It is a mixture of personal testimony and theological study.  It encourages readers to develop their understanding of Biblical interpretation, church order, and of how the Bible has been misused many times in history to justify prejudice and oppression.  It seeks to draw a line between being an Evangelical and being a Fundamentalist.  And it concludes with 3 brief Bible studies around the theme of “All one in Christ”.

Also useful in the second edition is a Study Guide for groups who want to use the book to study and discuss the issue.  Although set in the context of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, there is something here for all Christians seeking to grapple with what the Bible does and doesn’t say about sexuality, ministry, marriage and the will of God.