Nigel, thank you for this article and your continuing advocacy for theological approaches that are open to God. The Divine is precluded by selective, literal reading of scripture on the one hand, and on the other by unquestioning adherence to institutional dogma and tradition.

I too have argued along these lines in much of my writing, including articles on OLO. Many more of us who tread that path within the churches must let our voices take the message to the rest of the world. The general public has an inaccurate picture of Christianity sculpted by mass media.

Stephen Crabbe

It is a lazy, throw-away line to say: "Christians can be gay."

Oh, can they? Okay. I guess I better take your word for it. Oh, you take the Bible seriously? Oh, I guess you would know about such things.

Articles such as these are a dine-a-dozen. And they all come from self-identifying Christians who claim to take the Bible seriously. Of course "Christians" can be gay. Wasn't Hitler a "Christian"? And the terrorists (on both sides) in Northern Ireland, they were "Christians," right? For better or for worse, there exists no independent body charges with assessing and accrediting people who claim to be Christian and the seriousness with which they take the Bible.

"Love Upside Down," and indeed "Being Gay, being Christian," may be but a couple of volumes of a whole shelf of books that affirms the place of LGBTQ people within the body of the Church. But the shelf of books that affirm otherwise is more substantially stocked, to say nothing of the shelf of orthodox Christian thought over the past two millennia - writings by self-identified Christians who understand the Christian faith and the Bible (yes, they "take it seriously) differently.

I'm guessing Chris Ashton isn't an Anglican, or at least doesn't agree with the head of the Anglican Church.

Do Anglicans qualify as 'Christians'?

Thank you Nigel, for a thoughtful article. Too many people assume you have to be homophobic if you are Christian, and the fundamentalists get a disproportionate amount of air time on this issue. They do not represent all of us.

Christ's message of love and inclusion extends to everyone.

I suspect there are atheists who are homophobe too, y'know. So the whole purpose of these books under review will be to educate Christians on the content of their own religious texts.

Good luck with that.

And there's no point in trying to lay the blame elsewhere, crabsy:

>>The general public has an inaccurate picture of Christianity sculpted by mass media.<<

Most people I know take note of the words used by Christians on matters of Christianity. Are you suggesting that they are mis-reported by the media?

"PETER JENSEN: Because [Bishop Robinson's] consecration has occurred in defiance of God's teaching in the Bible, in very, very clear defiance of this"

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s981336.htm

That looks suspiciously like a direct quote, to me.

Everyone else, of course, will have to be educated out of their bigotry without the Bible's "help". How will they manage it, I wonder.

Pericles:

<<Most people I know take note of the words used by Christians on matters of Christianity. Are you suggesting that they are mis-reported by the media?>>

Well, mis-reporting does occur now and then. Selective reporting occurs more often. More widespread still is the failure to use the mass media to show the general public that LGBTQ people are not deemed to be "sinful" by God nor by many clergy and church-members.

The Jensen camp in Sydney have diocesan wealth at their disposal which other Australian dioceses cannot come close to equalling. That diocese also has a fundamentalist theological tradition unlike most others in the world-wide Anglican Communion. It has constructed a formidable media organisation to promulgate its exclusive, small-minded, mean-spirited view of the world. That is part of the explanation as to why the Australian mass-media report the Archbishop of Sydney far more often and in far more detail than they do any other Anglican Archbishop, including the Australian Primate.

Perhaps, as I say, if more Christians spoke and acted through the mass-media with a more loving, intelligent and inclusive message the Jensenesque face of the church could be changed.