I cannot quite believe that I first wrote this three years ago; it seems like yesterday. As with the debates on sexuality, the debates in the Church of England seem to be becoming intractable. The more we debate the question, the further we are from a common mind, and the more entrenched the views become. And, also as with sexuality, the Church appears to be failing to engage with the one vital resource that it has at its fingertips: scripture. What we find in the New Testament is a deliberate description of the apparently effortless diversity of the community of those following Jesus. Yet it was not in fact 'effortless'; the heated debate about gentile inclusion shows that, at one level at least, this diversity was hard-won. But the basis of it was the ultimate biblical vision found in the Jewish scriptures: that 'all nations' would be drawn to the God of Israel; salvation is 'from the Jews' (John 4.22) but it is for the whole world. And this diversity wa
"The pain of betrayal" is just another phrase until it happens to you. When it occurs, you no longer think of the word's meaning, you think about how it "The pain of betrayal" is just another phrase until it happens to you. When it occurs, you no longer think of the word's meaning, you think about how it feels to be: Double-crossed or Stabbed in the back