In a radio interview on 10 January, Tim Farron MP, the former Liberal Democrat leader, said he had tried to push away the question of ‘is gay sex sinful’.
He was asked this question in a news conference during the 2017 General Election by journalists. Having had time to reflect, he has now said he had answered ‘foolishly and wrongly, by giving an answer that, frankly, was not right’ when he had said it wasn’t sinful.
While he said he could have tried to explain the Bible’s teaching on sex and sexuality, he said it would have been ‘naive in the extreme’ to expect journalists to give him a hearing on the theological details.
Different understandings
Part of the difficulty he found himself wrestling with was the different understanding of what sin constitutes for Christians and non-Christians. He said: ‘If you are a Christian you have a very clear idea of what sin is. It is us falling short of the glory of God, and that is something all of us equally share. Sin is something, Jesus excepted, we are all guilty of… But if you are not a Christian, what does sin mean? It is to be accused of something, to be condemnatory, and so we are talking different languages.’
Pressure
Farron said the focus on his beliefs stopped him getting his message across during the campaign. ‘It was a little bit like having your main advertising hoarding permanently damaged and vandalised,’ he said. Asked whether he had felt under pressure to deal with the issue while touring the country, he replied: ‘The bottom line is, of course, I did.’
