Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Are you confident about orthodox Christian teaching about sex, sexuality and marriage? Are you happy talking about it, and find it easy to communicate it persuasively in our contemporary culture with its approach to gender identity? Do you understand how Western culture reached its current position, and see both the positives and the problems in …
This is a guest post from John Pike, making the case that loving, faithful same-sex relations were known in antiquity, amongst other kinds of same-sex sexual relationships. John is a GP in the Bristol area whom I know online. We have had some very interesting discussions in the context of our having quite different views …
Will Jones writes: It rarely takes long in any discussion about a controversial ethical issue amongst Christians for someone to bring up slavery. Slavery is the great exemple of how Christian thinking has changed on a key ethical issue. Christians in the past permitted slavery, practised slavery, defended slavery. Scripture clearly permits slavery in certain circumstances, …
The General Synod of the Church of England (of which I am a member) met last week in York, and there were many good things about it. We spend most of Saturday afternoon exploring some exciting developments from the ‘centre’ offering resources to dioceses and churches in the task of evangelism and the making of disciples. …
Glynn Harrison and Andrew Goddard offer some reflections on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) in the light of the forthcoming Synod debate and a recent paper by Michael King and Robert Song. 1. We are grateful to our colleagues and friends Michael King and Robert Song for their observations on the effectiveness and potential harm …
Peter Ould writes: In the upcoming Church of England General Synod in York, a motion around “conversion therapy” will be debated. The motion is proposed by Jayne Ozanne, the revisionist activist, and is accompanied by a Royal College of Psychiatrists paper in her name (though it is necessary to point out the fact that Ozanne has …
There was a brief report in the Daily Mail online that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, believes ‘that the Church of England will need a miracle from the Holy Spirit to solve its long-running row over gay rights.’ The Most Reverend Justin Welby said the divisions cannot be healed by human hands but only …
It is fairly common in discussion about church relations to cite Jesus’ so-called ‘high priestly’ prayer (John 17) and his concern ‘that they should be one’—not least because Jesus himself connects the unity of his followers with the oneness of God himself, and in both Christian and Jewish contexts this is a fundamental truth about …
One of the most difficult debates facing General Synod when it meets in July arises not from the main business agenda, but from a diocesan motion from Blackburn Diocese, which will be proposed by Revd Chris Newlands: That this Synod, recognising the need for transgender people to be welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, …
The Scottish Episcopal Church has been moving in the direction of recognising same-sex marriage as equivalent to traditional marriage from a theological and ethical point of view for some time. At last year’s Synod, it discussed a change to canon law to remove reference to ‘one man and one woman’ in marriage, which it then …
David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, wrote a curious piece last week on the power of feelings. The piece begins with a straightforward observation about the power of feelings in the debates about Britain’s role in Europe. The Leave/Remain divide operates at different levels. During the campaign there were many arguments and claims made on both …
