Dear Sir,
It sounds as if one must give two cheers for the Bishops’ latest report on human sexuality. At least there has been no change in the doctrine of the CofE, but one feels concern about relaxation of discipline in this area. It is a pity about the vote in Synod.
I wonder how the Bishops would have responded to the following. Back in the 1970s there was a young chap attending our church, but then he disappeared. One evening I was catching the train home from Charing Cross and I saw the young chap concerned leaning out of the window. He opened the door and obviously wanted to talk to me. As we began, a piece of paper dropped out of a book of his. It was his list of gay pubs. It turned out that he was homosexual. Other chaps at church had talked to him about this, saying that it was not possible to be a Christian and homosexual. I spent the rest of the journey home doing my utmost to convince him that, while the Bible condemns homosexual practice, there is nevertheless no condemnation of homosexual orientation (and so such orientation is no barrier to trusting in Jesus).
Some months later, the local newspaper reported that he had been killed after driving his car into a tree. Many assumed that he had taken his own life. I felt that I had failed in my conversation with him, but subsequently realised that he had perceived that I had recently myself been struggling with the issue of sexuality, and he had wanted to run the issue past me to see if I said anything radically different from what others had said. But it wasn’t.
I was upset by this episode, and said that the church ought to provide more in the way of teaching on this issue (but, then, this was a taboo subject). When I expressed this, I was told that I was talking merely about something that might happen. But surely I was talking about something that had happened, such that there was every reason to suppose that there was a strong likelihood of something similar happening again.
I suggest that this episode does beg for the church to provide robust teaching in this area and should stick to it, rather than going soft on discipline in this area.
Yours faithfully,
