Please note that our conference will now be at St Mary Islington, Upper Street, Islington, London (rather than Union Chapel as mentioned previously).

Rowan Williams and Elaine Storkey will be speaking on 'Being Disciples'. Full details and online booking available on:

www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/events/2007/islington.cfm?doc=180

Worth booking now - looking forward to seeing you.

woohoo!

would be nice to know if anyone else is coming to this.......

x Jody

Online booking for Fulcrum Conference Islington 2007 is now available. It really is worth booking early to be sure of a place...

Details of the Conference are on:

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=180

Online booking is on:

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=186

Please consider emailing these links to friends.

Thanks for your comments earlier, George, about the Future of Fulcrum session during the conference. The leadership team has noted your concerns on this issue, and also our own  position. The conference session is likely to be wider than one particular issue. Hope you find that the 'Goddard 2 Goddard corresponding theologies' series is proving a fruitful dialogue.

I thought you may wish to know, from me, that I am a Fulcrum  Forum participant, who can support some heterosexual relationships (where they exhibit faithfulness, love, practical holiness of life, etc).

As a Fulcrum member who can support some homosexual relationships (where they exhibit faithfulness, love, practical holiness of life, etc) I can foresee two possible opposite pitfalls for this discussion.

On the one hand, the leadership might feel that we need to keep things carefully focussed on the current issue with Mainstream etc and not confuse the issue by ranging too widely. This might lead to ruling out of the debate issues that were felt to be peripheral to the current issue. And that could lead to a certain amount of frustration on the part of some Fulcrum members - I am thinking here of people whose contributions to the forums show they hold a similar view on homosexual relations to myself.

On the other hand, if the debate is made too open, then we could find ourselves too much taken up with this issue, to the frustration and exasperation of those members who are quite clear that they hold firmly to a traditional orthodox view of homosexual relationships, and to the detriment of trying to heal the split within the evangelical fold that has been precipitated by the recent events.

I have no idea how one gets round this, but I think I want to put in a plea that the conference does at least recognise that (while the final paragraph of the What is the Evangelical centre? web page expresses the official Fulcrum view), there are members who count themselves fully evangelical but who at the same time do not believe the scriptures rule out all same-sex relationships.

(In passing, I wonder if anybody has any idea how many Fulcrum members do take this approach. Indeed, I wonder how many evangelicals as a whole do so, even if they have never openly declared their position? My guess is that it is a slowly growing number, but that is only a guess.)

George Day

Rowan Williams will be the speaker at our next Fulcrum Conference Islington on Friday 27 April 2007, on the theme of Discipleship. We are very grateful to the Archbishop for accepting the invitation from Fulcrum and for fitting this into a very busy schedule. It would be good to book the date in dairies now. 

The conference will meet during the afternoon and evening, 10 minutes up the road from St Mary Islington at Union Chapel, Upper Street. Nearest station is Highbury and Islington. More details and booking facilties will be available later.