I wonder whether there is a Fulcrum view of the new press release from Anglican Mainstream, and the letter (presumably that of September 16th) presented at Lambeth Palace on December 29th?

If, as claimed, it was signed personally "by over 1700 people, including 290 clergy and two Bishops from 260 churches in 38 dioceses" it hardly covers the mainstream  of evangelicals in the C of E.

And what is the mainstream? Who is in and who is out?

Dear 867

Where do your thoughts and feelings leave you? Not alone! Be encouraged.

Yes such a conference as I propose would be very hard to do, and would probably need to begin with repentance for stridency and worse. But isn't the hard thing the very thing that Jesus often calls us to do? Please see if other people can support the call for this kind of conference.

I think a proper evangelical approach is 'We think we're right. But then you think you're right and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. I can't rule out the possibility that you might be right. I can't go along with you at the moment. But I accept your desire to move ahead with this (homosexual practice) development as part of the family. We'll have to come to some arrangement that allows you to go ahead as you believe you are being led, and also allows us not to go down that road. We won't be so united as before, but we affirm that we are still brothers and sisters together."

How does that sound?

Roger Harper

Alan Storkey seems to be saying "Homosexuality is not a fixed orientation - so the Church should not treat it as such. But homosexuality is not the only, nor even the most serious sexual moral issue confronting us now."

Amen to both these statements. There are a number of good arguments to see the push towards same sex marriage as not of the Holy Spirit, and Alan presents one of them. As evangelicals we hold to the possibility and necessity of change. To adapt Just as I am, I come to Just as I am, I stay is a travesty both of the hymn and of Biblical morality. Knowing the evidence that homosexual desire is not fixed and is influenced by culture, helps us to argue this more confidently.

The trouble with this argument, we must also recognise, is that, by and large, Christians have failed to enable people to change their homosexual inclinations, even when the people concerned have deeply wanted to become normal  heterosexual. More work needs to be done on how we flesh out our belief in the ability of the Holy Spirit to bring about this kind of change.

It is also true that our focus has been too much on homosexuality and we have allowed the practice of drifting into cohabitation before or instead of marriage, with virtually no coherent Church response. Even the sex education in our Church Secondary Schools presents how to use a condom and not the approach of the Romance Academy seen on TV this year. It is good that Alan is drawing our attention to this.

After 2 Amens, I would also like to offer 2 criticisms.

Firstly Alans tone is still too strident. At the beginning he looks to a process of public debate followed by an outpouring of humility. Why that order? Surely the humility should come first. In this season we celebrate the One full of grace and truth, in that order. We too should be people of grace and truth in that order. A huge problem with the approach of Conservative Evangelicals is that they put truth before and even at the expense of grace, not necessarily in what they argue but in the way that they argue it. Acknowledging the flaw in our argument, as above, would be one way of beginning to be more humble. Refraining from using such language as As anyone half awake knows& The bluster of the gay lobby is not good enough, would also be a good step. Even if proponents of same sex marriage do not themselves adopt a graceful attitude, that does mean that opponents should follow suit.

Secondly, like many sermons, Alans article has good points but is weak on the so what? So what does this mean for the Church where we are now? Does it mean that we continue to fight as we have been doing, surer of the high moral, and sociological, ground? Or does it mean that we recognise that we are blowing this issue up out of proportion, and need to spend less time and energy on it? It would be helpful for Alan to work out the implications of what he is arguing.

Alan, in his second point, has, I think, begun to express a sense that homosexual practice is not a Primary Issue. Mainstream say that it is  and that therefore we should seriously consider breaking fellowship over this issue. If some people are fixating on homosexuality to the virtual exclusion of other crises shouldnt we be addressing this by challenging or at least debating if homosexual practice is a Primary Issue or not? Or all the issues Alan lists 'Primary'? Why are we not breaking fellowship with liberals over them?

Fulcrum is in a unique position to hold such a debate, in as much grace and humility as we can find. PLEASE can we do this? A conference open to ordained and lay, UK and overseas, specifically addressing the question: What do we do in the Church when we disagree on an issue such as same sex marriage? Tom Wright has argued that this is the question before us. So far NEAC and Fulcrum have refused to address it squarely. We need to do this soon.

Roger Harper

Karen Springer writes: "It is becoming increasingly difficult for ordinary lay people in evangelical parishes to wade through some of the "stuff " being presented to them by some groups."

Surely that applies only in "some" evangelical parishes. The "stuff" she has become concerned about emanates mainly in parishes linked to Reform or where clergy have that affiliation. It may even depend on which theological college a clergyperson trained at!

There must be many parishes where laity do not have this problem.