In November 2013 the Church of England published The Pilling Report on human sexuality which contained a number of recommendations for the church – you can read the report itself here. The report recognised that there are a range of views about this issue in the church and proposed that the church embark on a two year period of facilitated conversations on these issues. This week the House of Bishops went away for two days to begin this process.
At St. Luke’s we also want to engage in this discussion as we recognise that there are a range of views within our own congregation and across our city and so we invited Sean Doherty and Steve Chalke to help us with this.
Sean Doherty is a lecturer in theology, is same sex attracted and has a wife and children and he believes that the Bible teaches that sex is for marriage between a man and a woman.
Steve Chalke is a national church figure and founder of the Oasis Trust whose understanding of the Bible has led him to write and speak in support of same sex relationships.
They each gave a 15 minute talk from their perspective and then had a conversation with each other and you can hear those talks and the following conversation here An Inclusive Conversation 1
We then opened the conversation up to questions from the audience which you can hear here An Inclusive Conversation 2
We apologise that the audio on Sean’s microphone is sometimes very low.
Emily Jeffery from BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey was at the event and did a short interview with Steve Chalke afterwards. You can hear her report here BBC Radio Inclusion report
Please feel free to comment on this post or contact us by email at St Lukes if would like to continue the conversation.
Glen Poole has written an interesting reflection on the evening here.
If you’re interested in further discussion about this there is a symposium in London on Saturday 18th October. You can get details and book a ticket at faithandthought.org.uk.
In April next year the Oasis Trust is holding an Open Church conference entitled The church, sexuality, mission and the future. You can get more details at Oasisuk.org
