I try to be
an evangelist at my local gym. The guys I work out alongside know I am a
Christian and they are interested in spiritual things. I would love them to
know God’s amazing love in their lives but despite my best efforts they are not
church attenders (yet!). When I talk to them about Church they ask me why the
Church doesn’t like people who are LGBT. My heart sinks, yet I know that many
other people share that perspective. Few issues have caused more controversy in
the Church than the question of how we approach same- sex relationships. I was
a youth worker in Northern Ireland during the peace process; there I learned
the importance of reaching beyond the safety of our own comfort zone to ask why
someone else holds a different view. We know Christians have different views on
these matters, there are different views within different churches; the
organisation I lead has a wide range of views. We need safe places for people
to listen attentively to each other, to share together and to try to build
trust and understanding. The Church of England’s ‘shared conversations’ are
designed to create such safe places and this book is a really helpful resource
for these conversations.
As we discuss
same sex relationships, of course we need to be faithful to Scripture and to
discerning God’s truth. But we also need to recognise that love and
relationships are the holy ground of other people’s lives. LGBT people are our
friends, our family, they live in our communities, and they share our
workplaces. This book is a resource that will stimulate and encourage us to form
questions in a new way so we don’t talk past each other or, worse, shout at
each other. You may agree with the book or disagree with it, but it will help
you consider how we can help LGBT people to know the Good News of Jesus Christ
in their lives. I am grateful to Andrew and his colleagues for this new book
and I commend it to you.
Canon Mark
Russell CEO Church Army Member of the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of
England
Amazing Love:Theology for Understanding, Discipleship, Sexuality and Mission edited by
Andrew Davison is published on June 30.
Up
to 10 free copies of Amazing Love available in the #AmazingLove tweetaway!
Love
is amazing and this week we want to share the love with up to 10 free copies of Amazing Love up for grabs! For your chance to win a
copy, simply follow @AmazingLove_DLT and retweet our tweetaway - that's it:
you've entered.
To
start the ball rolling we have 3 free copies set aside. After 50 RTs that goes
up to 5. At 100 RTs, it goes up to 10. So what are you waiting for? Get
retweeting and help us share the love!
Winners
will be selected at random from all retweets when the tweetaway ends at 5pm on Monday 20th June and will be notified by direct message (that's why we need you to
follow) to request contact details. If we don't receive your reply within 7
days, another winner will be selected at random. UK winners will be sent a
paperback copy of the book and non-UK winners will be sent the ebook as soon as
they're available.
This sounds like a much needed resource for the whole Anglican Communion of Churches. At last, reputable theologians are putting their academic reputations on the line to help offload the heavy burden of prejudice against intrinsically gay and other sexual minorities that has too long impeded the Good News of the Gospel for such people. Let's hope that the G.S. members will read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the material contained in this and other inclusvie literature now available.
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