Newcastle Cathedral is being confronted over a weekend-long LGBT festival that includes a panel discussion on “Queering the Church”.
Coinciding with the city’s pro-LGBT march, the Cathedral is hosting four panellists including a Church of England curate who identifies as ‘non-binary genderqueer transgender’.
Colin Hart, The Christian Institute’s Director, said such festivals lead people away from the good news of the Gospel.
Between Friday 19 and Sunday 21 July, the Cathedral is hosting six LGBT events.
These include a communion service with an LGBT emphasis, marching with others in the city centre and “LGBT History Telling”.
The Pride Panel will see C of E curate Bingo Allison, Proud Catholics founder Isabel Hill, bisexual Revd Rae Caro and Bi Pride UK’s Karen Pollock discuss how the church can go “beyond tolerance to inclusion”.
Colin Hart said: “The message of the Gospel is that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Instead of repenting of sin, this festival celebrates it.
“Anglican doctrine is that homosexual acts must be repented of. The Cathedral authorities and the Bishop of Newcastle don’t seem bothered.
“In a place of worship, and even at a Holy Communion service, there is to be what amounts to a blasphemous celebration of sexual activity outside marriage.
“The event seems designed to mock the orthodox Christian belief that sexual activity is exclusively within the confines of marriage.”
I fully support their challenge. It is utterly disgraceful and the Bishop responsible for Newcastle should publicly recant of allowing this. Will he or she care to speak on the matter here? Do they have the moral and spiritual courage to do so??
If they want to hold a festival in the cathedral then let it be one of repentance.
Fr. K
I will second your motions.
The great shame here is that the Church Institute is having to do the work of the entire House of Bishops- who have taken vows before God to “drive out strange and erroneous doctrine” (or words to that effect) and by their total inaction, have abandoned the communion of the church and by their silence are supporting this new pagan religion.
If I am correct in my geography, this is technically the responsibility of the Archbishop of York. So, will he do anything to end this blasphemy? Or is he cowed into submission by whatever great evil has overtaken the diocesan bishop and the dean and the rest of the House of Bishops? For that matter, the entire College of Bishops- its not like we’ve heard from any of the suffragans either.
But can we not hope Alpha? It is my earnest prayer that just one bishop will speak out, or that God will raise up a faithful priest to the Episcopate who will do so.
By all means, iTo, do feel free to provide practical solutions for people on the ground, as opposed to spending time grading everyone else’s comments.
Please feel free to demonstrate to all of us how to save souls practically.
I did read your to Father K’s comment.
I don’t see your comment to Father K as anything other than a personal opinion, expressed in a condescending way (“Come, come, Fr. K….”) and I certainly don’t see it as contributing to “saving souls practically.”
Trouble is, if recent reporting is to be believed, Roman Catholicism is chock full of homosexuals in the priesthood and even in (especially) the higher curia. Besides, Rome obscures the gospel of justification by faith.
Agreed. My Roman Catholic neighbour and I frequently work together and along with our respective congregations support each other’s endeavours in the gospel.
So just what is a non-binary, genderqueer, transgender person?
I”m an orthodox American, Anglican, and my Bible declares that God created male and female, in His image. Narrow is the way….and Jesus proclaimed, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Way, and NO ONE comes to the Father but by ME.”
Sodom and Gomorrah is alive and well aka The Church of Satan. This is another example of the Father of Lies blowing smoke in people’s eyes. They truly cannot see The Truth – only the Gospel of Nice. Ghastly. What a mess.