Date: April 9, 2005
Location: The First Baptist Church of Pittsfield., Massachusetts
Sponsoring Region: The Conference of Baptist Ministers in Massachusetts
Narrative of the Day:
There were 15 clergy present. The lectio divina process went well. There were several insightful responses. The session in the afternoon went well. There was a good diversity of views on homosexuality. Most people talked about a biblical basis for their views. One person was concerned that the bibliography was not complete. This person had been involved with a program of transformation of homosexual people to heterosexuality, and saw nothing about such programs on the bibliography. There was some talk of sexuality being on a continuum from strong heterosexuality to strong homosexuality, with people fitting in somewhere between the two. It was also presented that there are only about 4 – 5 % of the population that is homosexually oriented, therefore why are we spending so much of our resources and time dealing with this? There was a lot of energy in this group, and the dialogue was lively. There was a comment from one person whose spouse had attended a larger Jerusalem Council that a smaller group is better because every body gets to join in the dialogue. The Facilitator, George Daniels, did an excellent job