Gay Christians

"For more than thirty years the Christian churches have been actively debating the moral problem of homosexual behaviour. This hook is intended as a guide to that debate, but set in a wider context, with a good deal of historical information. It is also about people past and present, straight and gay, believers and unbelievers, saints and sinners, about how they have sometimes loved and forgiven one another and sometimes feared and hated one another. After a chapter providing important information for understanding homosexuality, the book examines the Old and New Testaments and the inter-testamental writings for what they have to say about homosexuality and points out the problems in interpreting this evidence. It then surveys historical attitudes to homosexuality in the Christian churches from St Paul to the Wolfenden report of 1957. Further chapters then show the various stages during which tolerance and understanding of homosexuals increased between 1957 and the Church of England Gloucester Report in 1979 and chart the decade of indecision between then and the present day. A final chapter marshals the arguments and discusses what might be the way forward which recognizes all the complexities of a very difficult subject."--Back cover.