Tag Archives: sexuality
What is Queer Theology?
Queer theology reminds Christianity that at its core it is, or should be, about love. The God we worship is in God’s very self a community of love, the God whose love spills out in Creation, the God who became human out of love for us, the God who goes willingly into exile with God’s people, the God who remains with us on the margins when the centre rejects us. Continue reading
Sermon: Trouble-making and scape-goating
But if the outsider was no longer an outsider, the insiders might need to examine their own lives. Without a contrasting ‘baddie’, the insiders might not seem to be as good as they had imagined. If there was no longer an external enemy to draw people together, the differences between them would become more obvious. They would no longer have simply been able to rely on being part of a community created by what it was not: a community made up of people who wear clothes and live in houses and do not need to be chained up. Continue reading
Reflection: Notes from 20 years of the Uniting Church’s sexuality debate
I remember that moment and the Presbytery’s unanimous, unquestioning endorsement. Continue reading
Good and Bad Evangelism
I wish more churches could understand how important a message of love is to people, and how little most of us need to be reminded of our sins. Continue reading
Reflection: Why I support Marriage Equality
today silence feels like cowardice. And if me being open about who I am can help even one young person feel better about who they are, then it’s worth it Continue reading
Prayer of Confession for the Depressed
“Do not fear. I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name. You are mine”. Continue reading
Prayer of Confession and Lament in Response to the Massacre in Orlando
… without every single one of us your rainbow shines less bright. Continue reading
Competing Claims for Justice: Sexuality and Race at the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, 1997
Basically, I wrote this article as a way of working through my own pain and anger at what happened in 1997. But the fact that it was published in a peer-reviewed journal shows, I hope, that it is also a conscientious piece of historical writing. And so I offer it to anyone interested in sexuality and the Uniting Church. Continue reading
The Conclusion to my PhD Thesis
Looking back at my thesis, which I wrote in 2003, I wonder if my conclusions were accurate. Ten years’ on, what do other people think? Conclusion The (homo)sexuality debate in the Uniting Church in Australia began before the Church was … Continue reading
The Uniting Church discusses sexuality
Recently, in the course of a conversation on Facebook, someone suggested that the Uniting Church hadn’t done any biblical and theological reflection before accepting that presbyteries can ordain people in same-sex relationships. My experience as an historian is that the … Continue reading
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