The Beautiful Story

 

The Beautiful Story is a 30 minute film made by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) in response to the liberal drift of the Church of England referred to in my previous entry, Hurt and unnecessary suffering.

According to the CEEC the Church of England reached a 'big and important milestone' with the release of their resource ‘Living in Love and Faith’, a 'new dialogue around human experiences of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage'. They write:

"We are now getting close to the point where we shall finally have to make up our minds about same-sex sexual relationships in particular, and this is going to affect every parish in the land, every ministry, every incumbent, and every PCC. One option for the future is that we simply accept that the Church has a range of views and that we must learn to live with difference. But that is a bit like saying that we don’t really need to make up our minds at all. And provided you don’t think about it too much, it sounds attractive.

"But is it possible to say and do a number of contradictory things at the same time? Think of the continued pain and confusion that will bring those most directly affected. ? Do we believe that sex outside of marriage is part of God’s design for human flourishing or don’t we? Can you affirm a variety of views, in the same congregation without doing more harm than good? Can the historic biblical teaching on sex and marriage that we inherited from the Apostles survive at all when the Church speaks with so many different voices?

"Most important of all, would it be right to lose confidence in God’s design for human flourishing at this critical moment in our nation’s history? " 

An accompanying leaflet (with a ‘road map’ of the video and discussion questions) is available from the CEEC website www.ceec.info.

An opportunity to get involved and have your say.