Letters | 19 April 2018

Sit the snowflakes down

Sir: I was surprised to read Theo Hobson’s article about ‘snowflake’ Christians in the C of E (‘Holy snowflakes’, 14 April). What most struck me was the timidity of the clergy, who instead of explaining Christian teaching to their gay and other ‘snowflake’ parishioners, merely kowtowed to them by removing a collage depicting an exorcism. Clergy need to teach those who are easily offended that nowhere in the Christian Gospels — as my many readings tell me — does Jesus condemn gays. (That condemnation belongs to the Old Testament, where God commissioned Abraham and the Patriarchs to breed abundantly and build a nation. But as gay relationships do not produce children, they were forbidden as a waste of ‘seed’, along with the ‘sodomite’ practices associated with pagan temple prostitution.)

Jesus Christ’s central message in the New Testament, conversely, is one of grace, love and forgiveness for all, without regard to gender or sexual orientation.