It is no surprise that Steve Chalke rejected the biblical meaning of the cross, before then moving to redraw the herbaceous borders of sexual behaviours. The one will inevitably follow the other. Bishop Mouneer Anis at New Orleans, speaking from the floor, underlined the fact that the condoning of homosexual practice is only a presenting issue. TEC, and parts of the western Anglican Communion, have moved to a different Gospel, a different cross.

To reject the biblical cross is to move away from the holiness of God, to weaken the definitions of sin, to minimise the consequences of a life separated from the living God, ultimately an eternity of outer darkness, the horror of hell. There is nothing very much at stake. Complacency and compromise wins the day.

The liberal cross becomes a place of indulgence. The wrath of God expressed against the ugliness of sin, and being satisfied by the self-substitution of the sinless Son of God, - dying in my place, - becomes totally unnecessary. Understandings of sin are redrawn, to fit in with my own self-deceived preferences.

The two critical responses to the cross - 'My sin necessitated the death of the Son of God.' and 'The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me.' - being humbled into the dust, and being lifted to the heights, in repentant, amazed adoration and worship, - are radically reduced in meaning by the plastic cross of liberal Christianity.

There is no need for the miracle of the new birth, and often the cross becomes purely exemplary, as if unregenerate human nature can ever aspire to live the kind of life that God requires.

To come to the cross sounds good. The ground is level there. It is the place of reconciliation. Jesus speaks peace to the heart by means of his sacrificial death. But it cannot be a place of pretence and self-justification. It cannot be a place to argue with, and contradict the verdict of guilty, desperately guilty, uttered by a holy God against sin in all its shapes and forms, and against the devices and desires of the sinful human heart. Liberal Christianity is all about the life I deserve to live, on my own terms. The biblical cross concludes the exact opposite. I have been bought with a price, the costly blood of Christ. I'm now called to glorify God in my body. 'I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.' Galatians 2 v.20.

The Rev. Graham Cotter is the vicar of St. Andrew's, Buckland Monachorum Yelverton in the United Kingdom since 1984. He was with CMS in Isfahan, Iran from 1974-1975. He trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge 1975-1978 and is married to Christine, a New Zealander. They have three adult children.