MINISTRY OF SILLY WALKS

A man claiming to be a Christian has embarked on a walk from Birmingham to London to 'repent' of what he describes as his 'homophobia.'

Symon Hill, who is said to be the director of a fringe group called Ekklesia, will take 17 days to saunter the 160 miles to Hyde Park, where he will join the London 'Gay Pride' march on Saturday 2nd July. The 30-something writer says he has been 'training' with his friend Chris for his arduous under-10-miles-a-day stunt which will occupy some three hours a day.

Hill's "pilgrimage of repentance", as he describes it, began last night at Carr's Lane Methodist Church in central Birmingham. Two other churches have agreed to give him a platform along the way as he goes about 'challenging the Church as a whole to repent of homophobia and to think differently about sexuality.'

EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

Hill claims to have imbibed homophobic attitudes following his conversion to Christianity in his 'late teens.' In a blog post 'Why I'm Walking' he says how ashamed he is at voting against the ordination of practising homosexuals as ministers in his early twenties.

He writes: 'I also harmed my own integrity by suppressing feelings that seemed to go against the human construction that I imagined to be God's rules for my sexuality.' It does not take much reading between the lines to conclude that the poor man is carting some emotional baggage down the byways.

It is difficult not to liken Hill's stroll to the Ministry of Silly Walks of Monty Python fame, (don't forget to right-click and open in a new tab or window) in which John Cleese strutted about trying to look important in a bowler hat.

SUB-CHRISTIAN SUPPORTERS

Indeed, it is hard to take any of Hill's stunt seriously at all.  He is supported by 'eleven national organisations' but when you look at them, they are the usual pro-gay sub-Christian suspects, including the dodgy Ekklesia (of course), the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Accepting Evangelicals, Bisexual Index, Changing Attitude, the Student Christian Movement, 'Inclusive Church' and Greenbelt Festival.  Ultra-liberal churches and Quakers complete the mix.

Even the two prominent individuals supporting him have a chequered past. Bishop Richard Harries, now Lord Harries, has opposed every Christian initiative and supported every move of sexual license in the House of Lords, voting for easier divorce, and relentlessly for homosexual men to have legal access to teenagers. The other is Peter Tatchell, so avid a supporter of paedophilia that he contributed to a book called 'Betrayal of Youth' ('BOY' - get it?) published by the Paedophile Information Exchange in the 1980s.

REPENT OR BACKSLIDE?

The very foundation of Hill's enterprise is shaky. After all, even though repent means to 'turn away from', can you really repent of righteousness or do you backslide from it?

What next will Symon be urging us all to 'repent' of? Will it be of trying to be holy as God is holy? Or of loving one's neighbour as oneself? Or urging those of us in faithful marriages to repent of our lack of adultery? Should we repent of 'all goodness and righteousness and truth' (Eph 5:9) or of 'love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,' (Gal 5:22)?

Of course, in the intervening thirteen years, Symon Hill has not exactly been idle in promoting left-wing causes. He has written for the Guardian, the communist Morning Star, the Quaker publication 'The Friend' and Third Way.  He is a signatory to the Common Wealth statement of Christians committed to what they see as economic justice and opposing the government's cuts. He organised a "Church Crawl" in 1998 to raise Christian awareness of depression. He later oversaw media relations for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and was part of the team that took the UK government to court in 2007-08 over BAE's Saudi arms deals. We might agree with some of that, but, to be frank, Hill really has had to scape the bottom of the barrel for anything not screamingly right-on in his politically-correct past.

SYMON SAYS; OR JESUS SAYS?

In defending the stunt Symon Hill wrote: "As Paul repeatedly tells us, Christ fulfils the Law and makes it possible to live by God's Spirit. It is this Spirit, not the values, priorities and prejudices around us, that we are called to follow." And this is said without a trace of irony as he slavishly trots along after the pro-gay spirit of the age.

And furthermore: "I believe that Christians should speak up for sexual ethics rooted in the values of Jesus." Now, what is it that Jesus specifically said about sexual ethics? In Mark 10:6-8 we read:

"But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh."

And being 'one flesh' in the God-ordained complementarity of union between the two sexes and in its expression in sexual intercourse is something that a pair of homosexuals can never do.  Churches should be reaching out ministering the salvation and healing power of Jesus Christ to the poor individuals trapped in homosexuality, not encouraging them on their walk to hell.  Whatever happened to 'pulling people out of the fire' these days?

WRITE OR EMAIL the churches hosting Symon Hill to protest against their support of what Almighty God sees as an abomination. The participating churches are as follows:

Carrs Lane Church Centre,
Carrs Lane,
Birmingham,
B4 7SX
Email: information@carrslane.co.uk

The Reverend Carla A. Grosch-Miller
Saint Columba's United Reformed Church
Alfred Street
Oxford
Oxfordshire
OX1 4EH
Email: minister@saintcolumbas.org

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
235 Shaftesbury Avenue
London WC2H 8EP
Email: church@bloomsbury.org.uk