Elaine Graham

Samuel Ferguson Professor of Social & Pastoral Theology, University of Manchester, chaired the conference.

Her opening speech to the Conference is here (word file) and (as .rtf file) here.

The Church and sexuality form a rich and heady mix for journalists and media commentators. But despite the very real troubles and debates going on in the churches at the moment, and the seriousness of much that is at stake, much of the press coverage looks predictable and one-dimensional.

She concludes: Inspired by Josephine Butler, maybe the day would come when the headlines would not be about the Church's timidity and discomfort about sexuality, but about its Passion for Justice instead!

Trevor Dennis, Vice Dean of Chester Cathedral, spoke on

The Bible - air balloon or millstone?

His opening words set out the challenge:

Some years ago in Salisbury Cathedral I heard a lecture by David Jenkins. I shall always remember how he began. He thumped the lectern and cried: “We have made God into a thug!”

And now we have turned the Bible into a monster.

The text of his speech is here (word file) and here as .rtf file.

It's not all sitting around listening to speeches.

Sometimes we sit around talking to one another.

[Top]

Now the comprehensive Broad Church is being replaced: by new definitions of the Church, and new, narrowerconceptions of its polity.

The Liberal vision of a less stringent polity is grounded in fundamental convictions about God and humanity, not least: God is very, very big and we are very, very small.

Adrian Thatcher

Professorial Research fellow in Theology, University of Exeter.

Justice for children too!

Children are sadly neglected in theology, and in the ecclesial polemics about sexuality, yet in the teaching of Jesus they are centre-stage.

I wanted to show how children have been marginalised amidst ecclesial incivilities,  to inquire why, and to return them to any discussion of the 'meanings' of sexuality.

Speech here (on Adrian's own site, where you'll find related items and much else of interest)

Martin Prendergast

Beyond Individualism: the ecology of sex and sexuality

June 2006 marked the 25th anniversary of the first diagnoses of HIV – the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. The idea of an ecology of sexuality offers a framework to grasp the issues: ' a change in any part of one of the tangled banks of life we call eco-systems can have broad and often unexpected implications for any living thing seeking to survive within them.'

The text of the speech is here (word file) and as a .rtf file here .

Small groups meet through the Conference