Spong finds the Old Testament's homosexual prohibitions ignorant and "morally incompetent" expressions of "popular prejudices." With the New Testament, he disdains Paul's condemnations as "ill-informed" ravings from a zealot who, he hypothesizes, was a "deeply repressed, self-loathing" homosexual.

"The contending positions are mutually exclusive," he concludes, and "there can be no compromise." He dismisses conservative views as "frail, fragile and pitiful."

We began attending a local REC parish when the Episcopal parish we had been attending was taken over by the Bishop, following the abandonment by its rector and three quarters of its congregation. Half of these went with the rector to form a new Orthodox Presbyterian mission. The other half "discovered" the Reformed Episcopal Church across the street. It was described to me by one of the fleeing Episcopalians as "the Episcopal Church of the 1950's" in terms of its liturgy and atmosphere.

1. In the 21st century the Churches of the West have a greater understanding of sexuality as an orientation than they did even in the 20th century.

2. It is clear that God made some people heterosexual and others homosexual in orientation, and thus homosexuality, as an attraction towards the same sex/gender, cannot be wrong in itself, for God does not create evil.

At its meeting this spring, the Council of General Synod considered the request contained in the communiqué issued last February by the Primates of the Anglican Communion that the Anglican Church of Canada "voluntarily withdraw" its members from this meeting of the ACC. After considerable debate, CoGS decided that we should send our three members to the meeting, but that they should not participate in the proceedings. According, Bishop Sue Moxley, Rev.