A BOOK upholding the orthodox Christian view on sexuality will be launched at General Synod on Wednesday.The book entitled God, Gays and the Church: Human Sexuality and Experience in Christian Thinking, contains testimonies of Christians who had homosexual orientations but now live out straight lives, and will been seen as controversial by more liberal members of the Synod who back same-sex relationships.
The testimonies are complemented by essays in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, genetics, and Biblical theology, and the book includes a foreword by the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt. The book is published by the Latimer Trust, an evangelical think tank for the Church of England.
The launch coincides with the first anniversary of ‘gay Wednesday’ at last year’s General Synod which saw a series of highly contentious speeches during a debate on the gay issue. The Rev Mark Burkill, chair of the Latimer Trust, said the book aimed to show the other side of the gay debate which is often overlooked at the Church’s parliament. He said: “There’s another side to the debate which was simply not heard at last year’s General Synod. “The book raises profound issues about Biblical teaching which need to be addressed, and aims to equip clergy to deal with these issues in a gracious, gospel-centred and helpful way.”
Chapters include whether same-sex attraction is innate and immutable and post-gay testimonies by Christians. In his foreword to the book, Bishop Scott-Joynt says he shares the fundamental concerns of the authors of the book after last year’s Synod debates.
He writes: “Our integrity, as a Church that is properly serious about doctrine and discipline, was gravely undermined...every Christian is called to have her or his ‘experience’ conformed to the teachings of Scripture, and then to those of the ‘great tradition’ of the Church down the centuries.”
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