About five years ago, I was attending a synod (a council of the Church); one of the items for discussion was ‘sexual identity’ – always a controversial issue in the dear old C. of E.. The Synod Member seated next to me was from an evangelical parish (a ‘church plant’ that well-known nearly ‘megachurch’ outfit Holy Trinity, Brompton) from just down the road from my own. He stood up and spoke – with great force and profound emotion – about just how deplorable are all forms of unjust discrimination against sexual minorities. I’ll be honest: I nearly fell off my seat!

‘Fundamentalists’ should be ‘on notice’: the Church is changing. Maybe rather too slowly for some tastes (my own included) – but changing it is (as it has always done throughout its 2000-year history); and this may be one reason why the ‘homophobic portions’ of the church are making so much noise just now. For all its many faults, Christianity is a diverse and dynamic affair, and all attempts definitively to trap it in some kind of mean and rigid ideology are ultimately doomed to failure. (And if I didn’t believe that, I would become a virulent opponent of ‘religion’.)

I think a church reaches a ‘healthy place’ when it stops banging on about ‘sexuality’ and instead values people’s ‘essential qualities’. I’m fortunate in attending (and ministering in) a church where a 93-year-old widow of a priest describes an elderly and devoted gay couple as ‘two really lovely people’ (which they most assuredly are) … in other words, she (though in many ways really quite ‘conservative’ in her theological outlook) is looking beyond ‘sex’ and seeing ‘people’.

Seeing and listening to that hymn brought back memories of what I am now missing. To hear a full beautiful choir sing is simply beautiful. I do get lost in nostalgia for a few minutes during the video, but as soon as it is over I am back to the reality of they way it is, not the way I would like it to be. And the way it is is hateful.