I’ve been loving the new 4Thought series on Channel 4, short personal stories of faith in 21st Century Britain. Last week saw 7 stories about Amazing Grace. Brilliant!

Unfortunately you can’t embed the videos, but I’ve created a playlist on YouTube which lets you watch them all in sequence. Click here to watch them and then tell me what you think.

And yes, one or two of you have noticed that I did a spot of filming two weeks ago…

… I took part in a brief conversation about “Gay Marriage”. The audio is now online, so click play below.

I got into a twitter conversation this afternoon on the subject of whether God hates sinners. The conversation was prompted by this Mark Driscoll video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, what do we make of that?

There are a number of verses in Scripture that seem to indicate that God does hate sin and sinners. For example, Psalm 5:5 says “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.” Psalm 11:5 says “The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”In Jeremiah 12:8 YHWH says “My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me; therefore I hate her.” In Hosea 9:15 he says, “Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them.” And of course there is the simple but powerful Romans 9:13 – “As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”"

Scripture even has psalms calling on those who love the Lord to hate evil (Psalm 97:10, Psalm 119:104, Psalm 119:113, Psalm 119:128) yet we flinch from ascribing such an emotion to God? Why is this? Is it not enough to see the Scriptures clearly showing God hating sin and sinners to accept that this is true?

Is our problem with this idea that God hates sinners because we have a very negative view of hate from our human experience of it? More often then not, human hate turns into unrighteous anger and the desire for vengeance. But the Biblical picture is very different. Because God is holy and righteous he can both love and hate in a perfect manner. God hates sin and he will judge it because he is holy and righteous. God saves sinners who he loves through the death of his son because he is holy and righteous. The two things, hate and love, are not mutually exclusive – they are the clear good aspects of a holy and righteous God. God is good because he hates sin and will judge it. If it were not so, if sin were not judged, then there would be no justice. God is good because he loves those he saves, who instead of having the wrath that is stored up against them exercised on them, are counted clean and perfect and holy in his sight through no action of their own.

And here’s my last question – if God doesn’t hate sinners, why does he judge them for their sin?

Or have I got it all completely wrong?

This is one of the best explanations of election that gets round the canard of “violating free will”. You’ll either love this or hate it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well what else are a father and his son meant to do on a day off?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gets me every time. For those who want to know, this was the opening sequence to episode 5 of series 2.

And very much on the same theme…

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been two months now since the new Government took control in the UK and I’ve been broadly very pleased with what’s going on. I am, on the whole, a big David Cameron fan. However all that changed yesterday. Questioned about a Facebook page expressing sympathy for Raol Moat, our Prime Minister had this to say.

It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community. There should be no sympathy for him.

Hmmmmm….

If you go to the Facebook page (you can find it easily if you really want to) you’ll read a number of messages on the wall. Some are offensive, make no mistake, but others are come from a genuine source of compassion for Moat. As we’re now learning, Moat may have been a troubled, violently aggressive man who was rightly locked up for physically abusing his child, but at the same time he was a wounded, at times extraordinarily emotionally aware, victim of circumstance who was reaching out desperately for help.

Yes, he was paranoid about the Police stalking him and trying to find reasons to put him away, but at the same time he was imploring social workers to help him understand why he responded so violently to things that happened to him. While none of this in any way excuses his attempts to murder three people (one of whom of course died from gun shot wounds), it should provoke us to question the Prime Minister whether Moat was simply “a callous murderer, full stop“. In contrast to this rather superficial analysis that David Cameron has presented to the nation, the evidence from the events and the aftermath of last week helps draw quite a different picture.

The impression that I have picked up from the media is of a man who flew off the handle in a dangerous way once he discovered the mother of his children living with another man. However, once he had committed his crimes of murder and attempted murder, instead of what most perpetrators of a “planned rampage” do, namely find a quiet corner and finish off their lives (see for example the case of Derrick Bird in June who fits the classic profile of such a killer), Moat retreated to a place of safety and familiarity, a place that he associated with comfort and security. In some senses the actions of Moat were similar to my toddler son, who when he’s done something wrong, knows it and realises his guilt, comes crying to either Gayle or myself and buries his head in our shoulder looking for assurance and forgiveness. These are the actions of a man whose last recorded words before he shot himself were, “I’ve no dad. No one cares for me”.

In that sense Moat is no different from you or me. Though the scale of his crimes in the eyes of the law might be more serious then the ones you or I have committed, in a spiritual sense we’re all just the same. “All have sinned”, says St Paul, “and all fall short of the glory of God”. When we attempt to single out one person’s sin and demonise them for it, often such an approach is accompanied by a refusal to accept our own situation of falleness and judgement by God. But of course, St Paul reveals the wonderful truth straight after this record of condemnation, reporting that those who are under sentence of death “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”. That’s the heart of the gospel, that the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon believes.

Of course the work of the Devil is to prevent us from realising the great salvation we have in Christ. Sometimes he does this by convincing us that we’re not really sinners, that what the Scripture tells us separates us from God is in fact good and holy, and in doing so the Devil helps us walk the path towards judgement and hell. Other times he keeps us from God by making us believe that we are too evil, too sinful for forgiveness and love, preventing us from coming to Jesus and receiving the salvation that is free to all who repent and accept him as Lord and saviour. And sometimes he does both at once, making us condemn others unreservedly and convincing ourselves that since we’re not actually as bad as that evil paedophile/murderer/arsonist/rapist/fraudster that we’re therefore actually quite good.

So do I have sympathy in this case? Well, I certainly have sympathy for those who were the direct victims of Moat’s crimes and their families and friends who have suffered much these past two weeks. I have sympathy for the men and women of Rothbury and Northumbria who have had their lives disturbed and have lived sometimes in fear of what might happen next. I have sympathy for Moat’s family, who through no fault of their own have been on the end of a barrage of compassion and condemnation from those they live alongside.

And Raol Moat? Yes, I have sympathy for him, because like so many of the broken people I meet every day he was obviously a unique mix of fallen nature and good intentions. While like all of us he is responsible for his actions, like all of us his actions often came from subconscious responses to wounds in the past.

And finally, do I have sympathy for the Devil, the Satan, the one who tempts us to think things that are not true, to believe that the spiritual realities are not what they really are, to make us condemn when we should forgive?

Who knows, but I think I’ll give David Cameron one more chance.

And I think that resolves the “what happened to dinosaurs” question as well!

Fascinating piece in today’s Telegraph on how some people change their sexual and emotional preferences later in life.

While “late-blooming lesbians” are not uncommon in history – the married writer Virginia Woolf had an affair with the poet Vita Sackville-West – the phenomenon of mature women switching sexualities is now attracting academic scrutiny.

One study even indicates that as many as two-thirds of women who feel lesbian attractions may have changed their sexual orientation over time.

The findings appear to pose a challenge to the scientific consensus that a person’s sexuality is determined more by their genes than environment.

Christan Moran, a researcher at Southern Connecticut State University in the US, said that many women who develop lesbian feelings in later life refuse to “come out” for fear of society’s reaction.

Women in long-term heterosexual relationships, especially those with children, face even greater problems reconciling themselves to their new identities, she said.

Following interviews with more than 200 married lesbians, Moran concluded that there is “great potential for heterosexual women to experience a first same-sex attraction well into adulthood.”

She added that late-blooming sexuality was often wrongly dismissed as repressed lesbians finally coming to terms with their true feelings.

Most research ignored “the possibility that a heterosexual woman might make a full transition to a singular lesbian identity … in other words change their sexual orientation.”

Describing the emotional torment suffered by many late-blooming lesbians, Moran added: “To leave a heterosexual marriage in favour of lesbian identity is to abdicate enormous and undeniable privilege.”

High-profile examples of women leaving their husbands to pursue same-sex relationships include Portia de Rossi, the Ally McBeal actress who married the US comedian Ellen DeGeneres in 2008, nine years after divorcing a man.

Further evidence for the idea that female sexual orientation is less concrete than men’s comes from Lisa Diamond, professor of psychology and gender studies at Utah University.

She tracked nearly 100 women who felt some degree of attraction to the same sex; most described themselves as either lesbian or bisexual, while others declined to be labelled.

Over the course of a decade two-thirds of the women changed their sexual orientations, with some bisexuals deciding to redefine themselves as lesbians, while women who previously classified themselves as lesbians switched to heterosexuality.

The research is contained in Prof Diamond’s recent book Sexual Fluidity.

I’m sure most of you know already the events yesterday at General Synod. Three different amendments were presented to the Women Bishops legislation, each of which designed in their own way to provide some statutory recognition and protection for those who cannot accept the theological viability of Women Bishops. The Clone has a summary over at Stand Firm which is well worth reading.

Over the course of the day, Synod voted to note the report of the Revision Committee which we have written about previously. The Committe, remember, were unable to agree on legislation to provide statutory protection for dissenters and ended up recommending a Code of Practice – a solution which both Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals had pointed out (on numerous occassions) were simply insufficient and reneged on previous guarantees and promises made by General Synod.

Next, debate and voting moved to 3 amendments put forward by various parties. In some senses these provided a range of choices for Synod.

The first (512a), advocating for seperate dioceses, was defeated; 134 in favour, 285 against and 8 abstentions. The vote for was, perhaps, higher than had been expected and caused renewed interest.

The second amendment (513a), called for an equivalent of TEA (Transfer of Episcopal Authority) – ie a woman diocesan bishop would, at request of a parish, transfer her authority to a male bishop suitable to the parish. This was defeated in houses Bishops 10-28-2 (aye-no-abst), Clergy 52-124-3, Lay 73-118-4.

Finally, amendment 514a was put forward by Canterbury and York. This was seen as a middle ground, essentially providing for a “sharing” of authority between diocesan and alternate bishop. The mood in the chamber was, some have reported, conciliatory – on both sides, it might be noted. However the amendment was defeated in houses with Bishops (25-15-0) and Lay (106-86-4) voting in favour, but clergy voting against 85-90-5.

Further amendments lapsed through lack of the 40 members needed to call a discussion and vote.

What now? Neither anglo-catholics, conservative evangelicals or those who recognise they need protection, have got what they want. What will happen next?

I think that what is going to happen is this – the legislation will fail.

Why do I believe this will happen? Because as the legislation currently stands the current provisions of Resolutions A, B and C are torn up and even though the Measure instructs Bishops to introduce a scheme that transfers episcopal care to another Bishop, that Bishop can be anybody the Diocesan chooses (rather than the current “flying Bishops” who are agreed to be acceptable to dissenting parishes). Furthermore, the proposed Code of Practice is not a legally enforceable document so it can be safely ignored if so chosen. This means that dissenting parishes have to put up with whatever is offered to them (for example, a retired Bishop who is a liberal and happily ordains women) or shut up. Anyone can see that that is not acceptable.

And I think a number of members of Synod see that as well. They are members who are in favour of women bishops but want to see adequate protection for dissenting parishes and clergy. They are not low in number and they realise that this so called “inclusive” legislation is in danger of excluding very many people.

I want to suggest that these people will vote “no” on the final vote. The reason why the Measure might then fail is because the final vote will need a two-thirds majority in all three houses. Let’s just do some quick maths.

Take the vote on the Archbishop’s Amendment and reverse round the figures (since those who voted “yes” to the amendment are most likely to vote “no” on the final Measure).

That’s a clear fail.

Now of course, no-one expects the vote to go like that. Many of those who voted for the Archbishops’ Amendment will happily vote for the un-amended Measure. But some won’t. Some (I hope) will see that Synod has to give more protection for traditionalists then the Measure currently provides.

This table shows you what the smallest levels of “no” are in each House to prevent the Measure passing (assuming the same people abstain).

What does this mean. It means that it requires at least the following numbers of each House who voted for the amendment to “switch” their vote on the final measure in order for the whole thing to pass.

I suggest that the chances of the vote failing at the last hurdle are greater then some might think, especially given the fact that the most conservative amendment (separate dioceses for dissenters) received the support of 32% of those who voted (remember it needs just over a third – 33.3% – to say “no” for the whole measure to fail). Given that the votes don’t always fall equally in each House, the chances that the final vote will fail in one or more House (I would suggest in the House of Bishops or Laity is most likely) is not insubstantial.