Dear Giles,

It was great to meet up when I was in London last week even if only for an hour or so and to talk face-to-face as well as by these letters. You've packed a lot into your latest in explaining why you think my position is 'unsustainable' and I want to try and reply to each of those areas but first there is the crucial question we touched on and with which you open - 'are we condemned to an endless restatement without resolution?'. I also hope that is not so and believe that dialogues such as ours will - however slowly and surreptitiously - make some difference but exactly what and whether it will ever be 'resolution' I just don't know. My question is increasingly that given it is indeed 'unlikely that either of us will leave the church' what does it mean for us to be able to live together as the church, getting on with the sort of tasks you describe - teaching, worship, prayer, outreach, having our lives changed etc. What shape do such disciplines as love of neighbour, self-denial, bearing one another's burdens etc take?

Our fellowship group here at Wycliffe recently shared in a corporate lectio divina of Galatians 5 and among the verses I was struck by for their relevance to the Church of England and the Anglican Communion were the frightening verses - "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other”.

As I think I said over our drinks on Wednesday, I see the situation as one in which the challenge to me and those who share my views is how - given we believe that what is being proposed for the church is wrong and amounts to asking her to bless and commend what God has declared wrong - we share the gospel and minister with people like John and Mark, teach our views and uphold church discipline graciously while being open to correction ourselves. The challenge I see for you and IC is how to express your dissent as holders of a minority view and engage with the church while acknowledging its authority and respecting its mind, even though you believe it has indeed erred. It is a slight caricature but it sometimes seems there are those who wish simply to silence and excommunicate and those who wish simply to do what they personally believe is right with no regard for the wider church.

As we work more on that - which I'm sure Tanzania and General Synod will bring us back to - there does remain the substantive question and I don't think we can simply put that to the side especially as we each apparently think the other's position (though taking care to see the nuances and avoiding caricature) is unsustainable in some rather fundamental ways. I liked your four-fold categorisation so will reply using it.

Biblically, we could spend much time on specific texts but I understand you may not want to go down that path in detail. I guess my question is at a more general level: Given that it is undeniable that every biblical text referring to same-sex sexual acts speaks of them in terms that fit with a call for repentance (there is no parallel negative univocality in any of the other allegedly comparable issues you cite), on what biblical basis can the church not only refuse to issue that call but even do the opposite and commend contexts for such acts and say that the view such acts are wrong is biblically unsustainable?

Your argument here seems to be that it is on the same basis that I was content to hear my wife preach this morning despite 1 Tim 2.12 and so if I was consistent I would either refuse to attend such services or be as happy to bless a civil partnership as I am to hear a woman preach. I have to confess I don't see the logic here. Precisely because, as you say, 'the issues are different', applying the same method will likely lead to different conclusions. I wish to take each issue in its own right and be consistent in how I read and apply the Scriptures - as a whole and in their specific discussions of each issue. You appear somehow to know even before looking at the texts in detail that because your method leads to a particular view on women's ministry it must lead to a certain view on same-gender relationships and you therefore assume that I am inconsistent, unlike Mario Bergner or some of my more conservative evangelical friends in Reform.

So, I am not arguing that 'this question is methodologically separate from all the other questions of which we are both aware'. Rather I am trying to apply the same method - careful exegesis of biblical texts, in their context, faithful to the canonical witness as a whole and integrated into a biblical theology - and have been led to the conclusions I hold (on sexuality the same as Some Issues in Human Sexuality and Richard Hays in his Moral Vision of the New Testament) with varying degrees of confidence and tenativeness. My suspicion is that you are working with a different interpretive method to me. It seems to be one which privileges a certain understanding of 'inclusion' and 'love' as the heremenutical key to Scripture and heart of the gospel and then combines this with a particular understanding of sexuality and a framework that categorises such disparate issues as divorce, usury, slavery and women's ordination together. The result is you do not really need to do detailed exegetical work on Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6 in order to know the answers to the questions we face today about homosexuality. All this means that I'm afraid therefore that I simply cannot agree with what you hold to be beyond doubt - 'that a far stronger scriptural justification for the subordination of women to men can be made than any justification for the continued rejection of same-gender relationships'.

Theologically, there is I think more agreement between us. I too want clearly to say that any language here about being sinful must be universal and that we must start with our common humanity as those made in the image of God. I'd love to explore this more as I know that what I say and write is often heard as telling gay and lesbian people that they are 'existentially, ontologically sinful' in a uniquely depraved way. If that is indeed what I am saying then I agree with you that it is theologically flawed and unsustainable. I think however that the gap here is often more to do with different interpretations of sexual attraction and orientation and varied understandings of personal identity than to do with competing theologies of creation and fall in general. I am though intrigued as to how your understanding of sexual identity is related to your doctrine of creation. Is the biblical witness that we are made male and female now shown to be inadequate for understanding ourselves as sexual beings? Does it need to be complemented with further distinctions within created order on the basis of sexual orientation - gay male, straight male etc - for a Christian ethic?

I'm afraid I your critique relating to living in a provisional world and the wheat and the tares lost me. I think we are all agreed that there are patterns of behaviour inconsistent with Christian discipleship and that this is particularly important in relation to Christian leaders. As a result the church has certain teaching and discipline. But this is surely not to say that those who disagree with the teaching (in theory and in practice) or even those who are subject to church discipline are simply 'gathered up with the tares and cast into the outer darkness'.

Part of the current teaching is against 'the sexual expression of same-gender love' and you ask how these breach the two great commandments. A full answer would be rather long(!) but in outline - knowing how unsatisfactory this will sound - I guess I would say something like this. Love of God is shown in obeying his Word (both law and gospel), fulfilling his good purposes for us, heeding his warnings about conduct incompatible with life in his kingdom, respecting his ordering of creation and the gift of marriage, resisting ungodly desires. Love of neighbour is shown in, seeing others as ultimately belonging not to themselves but to Christ, honouring others' bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, respecting someone as male or female (I think part of the thinking in Rom 1 is that in sexual relations with the same sex we are exchanging the truth about ourselves as sexually differentiated beings for a lie), protecting and nurturing the gift of friendship love between people as something free from sexual expression. I suspect you will again agree with most of these but then apply them differently but I hope the claim is not totally implausible that in the light of Scripture as a whole the Church has been right to conclude that these broader ethical principles lead to a negative stance on same-gender sexual relationships. I guess my question in return might be to ask you to explain in what way you think the sexual expression of love between two people within the bonds of affinity breaches the great commandments.

On revelation again I can agree that God's revelation is supremely in Christ and that the Spirit leads us into all truth and I am cautious about the language of 'inerrant'. However, I do accept - in the words of the Evangelical Alliance basis of faith - "The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct”. I am therefore rather wary about too sharp a distinction between 'matters of morals' and 'our salvation' but that may be for another time….

Pastorally, thank you for sharing the vivid real-life stories you did. Among the most powerful lessons I've learned in recent years through involvement in this discussion is the importance of acknowledging goods that exist within same-sex partnerships and the losses that result from refusing any form of fellowship with those Christians who take a different view from me. Your two examples illustrate and reinforce both those lessons but - as I think you accept - they cannot be the foundation of a whole theology of sexuality. And, yes, there are of course other stories of God at work through a more conservative approach in various ways. I am, I hope, aware that 'we are dealing with real people's lives, faith and loves' and that - as you powerfully remind me - 'we have to tread carefully, lest we tread on their dreams'. But again that must shape the tone and ethos and spirit of what we say but it cannot give us the substantive content and just because something said is unwelcome does not mean it contains 'nothing positive'. I would hope I could recognise and be positive about, for example, the constancy, generosity and compassion that John and Mark show to each other and to their boys which may well outshine that shown in some marriages and traditional family structures. But I don't think it follows that I should bless their civil partnership or commend all aspects of their relationships. I wish that was not felt as 'rejection by the church' and don't think it need be given that there are evangelical churches which have openly gay and lesbian members, some in relationships, while maintaining the position I do.

I'm not surprised you were unsure how to answer my 'integrity' question as to be honest I'm not sure exactly what it is but feel it is important. When we chatted it became a bit clearer as we spoke about 'two integrities' over women's ordination and I said my problem is that although I support that stance there I cannot do so here on this issue. It strikes me that - in describing my view as 'unsustainable' - you may have a similar problem.

Part of my difficulty relates to the final, ecclesiastical point. A minority view needs first to convince the wider church that its position has integrity as a genuinely Christian position rather than just a position genuinely held by some Christians. Lambeth 1998 and numerous other councils have made clear that this has not yet been achieved. While of course councils may err (General Conventions of one province at least as much as Lambeth Conferences) and historic minorities have become majorities that does not mean we are free to assume councils have erred whenever they disagree with us and that a minority position we hold will be proved right in the future and win the day. I am surprised you think 1978 and 1988 were 'very much more positive'. I think the 1988 one resulted from the rejection of a much more 'positive' one (from your perspective) moved by Bishop Moore of New York and the 1978 one clearly reaffirms heterosexuality as 'the scriptural norm'. So 1998 was clearer and firmer but also fully in line with earlier Lambeth resolutions. It resisted pressures from a small number of bishops concentrated in a few provinces to change Anglican teaching and reaffirmed traditional sexual ethics as biblical while encouraging further study and listening and pastoral sensitivity.

Whether the 'council' of Primates meeting next week will listen and show pastoral sensitivity to one another we wait to see. The signs are not good. It probably won't surprise you to know that my own outlook and hopes are roughly in line with those expressed by what Jim Naughton on his blog calls "the odious trio of N. T. Wright, Graham Kings and Michael Scott-Joynt”. In responding to TEC and supporting Windsor bishops within TEC the Primates have to give a clear signal that we are sadly in the final paragraph of the Windsor Report where it says "We would much rather not speculate on actions that might need to be taken if, after acceptance by the primates, our recommendations are not implemented. However, we note that there are, in any human dispute, courses that may be followed: processes of mediation and arbitration; non-invitation to relevant representative bodies and meetings; invitation, but to observer status only; and, as an absolute last resort, withdrawal from membership”. Anything less than that would be to abandon all the slow but significant work of the last three and a half years.

General Convention not only failed to implement the recommendations (and the wording of 'implementation' in that paragraph makes clear that these were never simply suggestions to be modified or selectively heeded). They also elected as their new Presiding Bishop someone the Windsor Report addressed in para 144 when it invited bishops who authorised same-sex blessings "to express regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached by such authorisation” and stated that "pending such expression of regret, we recommend that such bishops be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion”. The Presiding Bishop's status within the Primates' Meeting must, therefore, be seriously in question and not simply because of the 'posturing and power play' that is undoubtedly also present nor of course because she is a woman.

I hope that whatever difficulties lies ahead for us as churches as a result of decisions next week we can nevertheless move forward as a communion in relation to the covenant. My prayer is that we find ourselves able to walk back together again through reaffirming what we have in common and committing ourselves to patterns of life and decision-making that indeed do show how - despite our disagreements - we Christians love one another. And of course that at the personal level we and others may be able to build (in the name of an internet community where I first learned the importance of dialogue over this) 'bridges across the divide' rather than find ourselves burning bridges.

All the best,

Andrew.