Our list of welcoming congregations has been updated here.
If you would like to add your parish to the list, please contact president@changingattitude.org.au
Welcoming Congregations
Reply
Marriage Equality
Changing Attitude Australia currently does not hold a formal position on Same-Sex Marriage. While committee members do hold strong opinions on the matter, we believe that a formal position should come from a survey of members views. So in coming weeks we will send out our December newsletter with a link where you can have your say, so we can then speak on the matter representing a majority of our members.
If you are not currently a member, you can download a membership form here.
If you do not currently receive our newsletter and would like to, please email president@changingattitude.org.au
‘Five Uneasy Pieces’ Launch Success
The Hon. Michael Kirby
This afternoon marked the launch of the a book The Honourable Michael Kirby described as “a wonderful book” that “gives comfort and strength”. ‘Five Uneasy Pieces: Essays in Scripture and Sexuality’ is now available for purchase from ATF Press and is an important contribution for anyone who has wrestled with the meeting place of scripture and sexuality, and its impact on faith.
The afternoon was Introduced by the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral Mark Burton, followed by background from the books compiler Nigel Wright, and with a colourful reflection from one of the essayists, Dean of Bendigo Cathedral Peta Sherlock.
The Rev. Richard Treloar, The Very Rev. Peta Sherlock, The Honourable Michael Kirby, Ms Megan Warner, The Rev. Dr Gregory C Jenks, The Very Rev. Dr Mark Burton
Changing Attitude is proud to have been given permission by the authors of the essays, and ATF Press, to publish short extracts of the essays for personal use but also for use by study groups, churches, and schools. The extracts can be FOUND HERE.
‘Cause still has a long way to go’
Follow the link to read ‘The Age’s’ story on ‘Five Uneasy Pieces: Essays on Scripture & Sexuality’, edited by Fr Nigel Wright, and including authors Meg Warner, Peta Sherlock, Richard Treloar, Alan Cadwallader and Gregory Jenks.
Religion’s homophobic scratch and sniff
This piece first appeared in the online publication Eureka Street. Republished with permission.
BY BARRY GITTINS NOVEMBER 21, 2011
Attracted
Attracted to the other and/or drawn to the same,
we all bathe in the splendour of allure.
Reverse polarity provides an alien to abjure.
A goat to scape. Foes to shame and blame.
As pharisaical ghouls lobby for the status quo,
the legal ‘bann’ of variated love,
cynics note the dessicated unions blessed above:
divorce could prove a universal blow.
Tendrils of distaste and hate recoil in a tiff,
fear and loathing rile at others‘ joy.
Witness demagoguery’s old yet newly minted toy:
religion’s homophobic scratch and sniff.
Vile denunciations and allegations waft,
across the vast expanse of space and time.
Flatulent Dutch ovens of bigotry aloft fly,
as adult, equal love’s tagged ‘sin’, not raft
to finding solace, as surely as the Made
seeks the Maker’s consoling deeps.
Suicide and ostracism, hidden, slowly creeps;
onwards upwards deathwards. Passions fade.
Semantics fly, with rites and rights a puritan’s lament.
Literal application to words rimed with years;
Words that wedge the other as the focal point of fears.
Church, mosque or temple: bodies exercise their bent
to non-hetero matrimonials defy.
Sordid ‘sacred’ words lose lustre in the Light.
Condemning comes not from Love, but spite.
What weight of misery typifies the cry
of adults drawn to other adult lives?
What hideous hypocrites act to censure Love?
Where can Grace dwell? Where is God? In? Above?
Absent when loathing and rank hatred thrives?
To thwart the needs and sorrowful dreams
of frail and potent figures, near and far,
the sexual Luddites wreck the engines of reform to mar
the would-be dignity and fragile schemes
of those who would be openly joined in view
of human, God and faith-besmirching church.
These haters soldier on, blindly fouling the search
for ‘home’ and kindling hearth. They must construe
a valley of dry-boned hopes. Make of love a tower
of denial. Their ‘keepings off’ round robin game
of demonising, skewering pain; can we name
latency, jealousy, envy, misuse of power?
Who and how an adult loves — who another gains
as adult lover, soulgazer, oasis, keenest friend —
leaves no grounds for judgment or fear. In the end
God wipes away their tears. Stills their pains.
‘Five Uneasy Pieces’
ATF Press
Invites you to the launch of
Five Uneasy Pieces
by The Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG
The Chapter House, St Paul’s Cathedral, 179 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Wednesday 30 November 2011
4.00pm to 5.30pm
‘The “uneasy pieces” of this book are well-written, challenging and stimulating.They come from the pens of Australian biblical scholars within the Anglican communion, who are skilled in both exegesis and hermeneutical theory. Each essay addresses the question of homosexuality in the Bible, looking at passages in the Old Testament and the New Testament which are often used as a basis for rejecting homosexuality in Christian ethics. Each essay argues, on the contrary, that there is no biblical warrant for condemning either a homosexual orientation or a faithful and committed homosexual relationship. The book, as a whole, makes it crystal clear that both sides of the debate take seriously the Bible as the inspired word of God, and both are seeking to discern the Scriptures in order to hear God’s voice speaking to us today.’
Dorothy A Lee (Dean of Trinity College Theological School, Melbourne)
‘I do not regard these chapters as “Uneasy Pieces”. I regard them as full of ease and grace. We should feel uneasy about translation of words that bring cruelty and unkindness to vulnerable minorities.’
Hon Michael Kirby, AC CMG (Former Justice of the High Court of Australia, 1996-2009)
‘These Five Uneasy Pieces are uneasy as to the topic they canvass: the handful of Biblical texts which are most often used to pronounce on the wrongness of homosexual activity. They demand a lot of the reader, calling us into serious textual study of Biblical material from Levitical proscriptions to Pauline vice lists. They are honest, naming the social and theological complexities of the worlds in which the Biblical texts were written and are now read.
And they are hopeful, showing Anglicans how disciplined reading of the Bible on the subject of human sexuality can be liberating for both straight and gay Christians who want to live together with a spirit of generosity in the 21st century Church. Read this book in a group, with conversation partners, taking your time with the complex and fascinating material. The five pieces may be uneasy, but they will be very rewarding.’
The Rev’d Dr Elizabeth J Smith (Anglican Diocese of Perth)
To assist with catering please RSVP to
ATF Press
(08) 8271 4438 or hdregan@atf.org.au by 20 November 2011
New Book: Coming out in NZ
Outspoken
Coming Out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
Liz Lightfoot
• Highly topical as the Anglican Church debates issues surrounding homosexuality internationally
• Gay and lesbian Anglicans, including ordained church members, describe their experience of coming out in the Church
The Book
In 2007, I underwent a crisis of sexual identity. I was married, with two young children, when I became attracted to another woman. The hostility I encountered at the Anglican church I was attending made me curious about other people’s experiences. It seemed to me imperative that stories of being gay in the Church be heard, especially in the context of the current maelstrom within the Anglican community in which the Church has been encouraged to undergo a ‘listening process’. This book is the result.
Outspoken presents the narratives of eleven people who have come out in the Anglican Church in New Zealand, including two ordained church members. The author has written a general introduction, plus an introduction to each individual story and reflections on it. The book closes with a Postscript that discusses truth and the Church; community, belonging and rejection; ideas about hell and damnation; the theology of denial; and the implications and ramifications of the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach.
The author notes that ‘People’s lives are sacred ground and the area of sexuality is one where people are arguably at their most vulnerable.’ She hopes that this research will contribute to community building within the Anglican Church.
Contents
Introduction / The Narratives: Edward, Janet and Eleanor, James, Matthew, Naomi, Fiona, Gareth, Rob, Karen, Simon / Postscript / Appendix
Author
Liz Lightfoot is the daughter of an Anglican priest. She grew up in Liverpool and immigrated to New Zealand at the age of thirteen. Currently, she lives in Hamilton, where she works as a freelance editor and writer alongside being a mother of two. She is a liturgist within her church community and her work on this book was supervised by Dr John Paterson, Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Waikato’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
Publication details
In-store: May 2011
Religion / Gay & Lesbian / New Zealand Social Studies 230 x 155 mm, 176 pp approx
ISBN 978 1 877578 08 3, $40.00, £18.50 UK approx
Newsletter
We are planning a monthly, or there a bouts, newsletter. If you would like to receive the newsletter by email, please email president@changingattitude.org.au with the subject line ‘CAA newsletter’