I'm a Scrooge Obsessive

Yes, I know it's August, but I like to think ahead. Come the autumn and winter, I'll be blogging regularly about Ebenezer Scrooge, the "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner" of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Have a gander at the Ebenezer Scrooge Archive for tidbits related to the miser we all love to hate.

Bits, Pieces, Stuff

Some of my recent stuff around the interwebs:

Phantom Sequel Love Never Dies to Close - Shame. I loved Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, even if the story and lyrics were banal.

Actress Alice Playten Has Died, Aged 63 - I knew her best (well, only, to be honest) as the goblin Blix in Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy Legend.

Journalist Johann Hari Admits Making Stuff Up - left-wing columnist for The Independent has been nabbing already published quotes and making them look like they're part of his interviews. Indie editor Simon Kelner leapt to his defence, but it's getting worse for Hari by the day.

Oxford Comma Dumped: Goodbye and Good Riddance - my jubilation turned out to be premature, so I posted a follow-up: Oxford Comma Found Alive, Not Dropped.

Anti-Gay Speakers at Toronto Muslim Conference During Gay Pride Week - homophobia is alive and well in Islam

Oxford Comma Dropped

Yes, that archaic, unnecessary quirk of punctuation has gone the way of the dodo in the institution that named it. Oxford University has dropped the Oxford comma (article by yours truly).

Johann Hari's Non-Apology for Plagiarism

British journalist Johann Hari has apologized for making stuff up.

The gay, left-wing journo has enjoyed a reputation for incisive, hard-hitting interviews, chiefly at The Independent. Yesterday, Hari's reputation fell gracelessly apart under accusations of plagiarism and dishonesty.

Basically, he was cutting and pasting bits from other sources and passing them off as part of his own original interviews. He'd add extemporaneous details, such as "He lit a cigarette" and "She spoke faster," to make it sound authentic. I cited a few examples in my article about Hari yesterday. Writing in the New Statesman, Guy Walters provides some more examples from Johann Hari's 2006 interview with Hugo Chavez:

"I realized at that moment that I was saying goodbye to life," he says, looking away. "So it is possible that, after surviving, one has been a bit... imbued with that sense ever since, no?"

The problem is that these exact words come from a 2001 interview by Jon Lee Anderson at the New Yorker. So not only did Hari neglect to credit the source, but he also added "he says, looking away" to create the impression Chavez said this to him directly. And he does it again in the same "exclusive" interview:

Just as this is beginning to sound like sepia-tinted nostalgia, he adds, "I was in close contact with poverty, it's true. I cried a lot."

This time, the quote is lifted verbatim from Lally Weymouth's Chavez interview in Newsweek, published in 2000.

Before the revelations of Hari's practices broke, he first addressed the charge in a "clarification" on his personal blog. His justification was that he only occasionally uses already-published quotes from the same person when they don't express themselves as well in the interview. As long as they're making the same essential point, it's legitimate he says. Besides, everyone does it:

I called round a few other interviewers for British newspapers and they said what I did was normal practice and they had done it themselves from time to time.

Now Hari has made something of an apology in The Independent, under the headline "My journalism is at the centre of a storm. This is what I have learned."

His excuse now gets even odder:

[An] interview is not just an essayistic representation of what a person thinks; it is a report on an encounter between the interviewer and the interviewee. If (for example) a person doesn't speak very good English, or is simply unclear, it may be better to quote their slightly broken or garbled English than to quote their more precise written work, and let that speak for itself. It depends on whether you prefer the intellectual accuracy of describing their ideas in their most considered words, or the reportorial accuracy of describing their ideas in the words they used on that particular afternoon. Since my interviews are long intellectual profiles, not ones where I'm trying to ferret out a scoop or exclusive, I have, in the past, prioritised the former. That was, on reflection, a mistake, because it wasn't clear to the reader.

A non-apology. He doesn't think it's wrong, just (regrettably) unclear. Except Johann Hari doesn't write a simple, straightforward intellectual profile. He adds ephemeral details to give it a Gonzo-style edge. He doesn't want to just convey the intellectual ideas; he wants to draw us into the emotions of the interview and the personality by making us believe he was actually there, experiencing the story as it was told to him.

My remaining question, now Hari has kind of confessed in a roundabout sort of way -- ish -- is what of all the other journalists he claims to have spoken to? The British newspaper interviewers who, according to his initial explanation, do exactly the same thing as a matter of routine? Are they willing to come forward? Or was their presence, too, an embellishment to drive the point home?

The Origins of David L Rattigan

I adopted the pen name David L Rattigan in 2003, when I was a young gay man desperate to escape the closet but too afraid to own what were, to me, the three hardest words in the world: I am gay.

"Rattigan" comes from Terence Rattigan (1911-1977), the gay British playwright. His works -- which fell out of fashion in the late 1950s but seem now to be the subject of renewed appreciation --often featured vulnerable, shame-filled characters trying to repress their supposed sexual failings; characters like the tragic classics teacher Andrew Crocker-Harris in The Browning Version and the haunted Major Pollock in Separate Tables. It was never difficult for me to look at these creations and recognize their gayness.

I was blogging almost daily back then, but I never revealed to my readers why I had chosen the name Rattigan. The choice was a faint cry for someone to recognize me and affirm me. I hoped, not entirely consciously, someone would make the connection and do for me what I was struggling so fiercely to do for myself.

Then there's the "L." Do you know what it stands for? Neither do I. I have some ideas, but I've never been certain. I like to imagine David L Rattigan as my alter ego, a part of me I still don't completely know myself. I've a feeling the "L" will always be mysterious to me.

The Good Writing Blog

I've started gathering my thoughts on what makes good writing, along with practical tips about the craft. Visit, bookmark, subscribe to -- and, of course, learn from -- the Good Writing Blog.

Here's a few sample articles to get you started:

How to Pitch an Article to an Editor

Writerliness and Being Writerly

Formal v Informal Style in Writing: Knowing the Difference

And, if you're just starting out in the freelance world, here's a handy article I wrote a few months back on how to become a published writer.

Bah, Gremlins!

I've been busy writing in a few different venues lately and, as it's the Christmas season, I've written a couple reviews of my favourite festive films.

First is Scrooge (1970). It's usually the first movie I get around to when December hits, and I still feel rather warm and fuzzy when the titles begin and I remember my first glimpse of the movie, back when I was a wee lad of five or six. Read the review here: Scrooge (1970): Film Review. I also penned a related piece, Who Was the Best Scrooge?, in which I review a handful of different actors in the role, including Alastair Sim (of course), Michael Hordern and Seymour Hicks. And lovers of linguistic trivia may find this article interesting: What Does 'Bah, Humbug!' Mean?

The second seasonal film is Gremlins (1984), which has a fun mix of holiday nostalgia, dark comedy and monster mayhem. Read the review here: Gremlins (1984): Movie Review.

Will Love Never Dies Survive Surgery?

You'd never get away with all this in a play,

But if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue ...

So went the lyrics to Prima Donna, a song in the original musical The Phantom of the Opera, now almost in its 25th year in London's West End. Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to have taken this bit of advice literally for his sequel, Love Never Dies, which has just undergone some major revisions, less than nine months after its opening.

The story of Love Never Dies, much to the chagrin of several die-hard "Phans," is far-fetched and out-of-sync with both the Gaston Leroux novel and Lloyd Webber's first show. It turns out (spoilers ahead) the Phantom shared a night of passion with Christine before fleeing to New York, and the result was a child. Now married to Raoul, who, over the course of a decade, has become an embittered drunk, Christine runs back into the Phantom's arms, and 10-year-old Gustave's true paternity is revealed.

With a few show-stopping numbers and some big set pieces thrown in, Lloyd Webber thought he could get away with this improbable story. And he probably still thinks he can, because the revision of the show hasn't changed any of the major details (you can read about Love Never Dies changes here).

The new version has apparently changed some of the lyrics, however. How grateful I am for that, for Glenn Slater's original libretto ranged from adequate to terribly banal. Even the best-sounding lyrics were flawed. "All America was there/Beggar next to billionaire," sang Madame Giry in the prologue (which has now been removed) -- except no billionaire existed in the United States until after WWI.

Giry then sang, "Every fantasy set free/Sodom rising by the sea" -- sounded catchy, but what a clumsy and inappropriate metaphor. Nothing fantastic or mesmerizing about Sodom, no matter which way you interpret the Bible. There was rape and social injustice, perhaps, but nothing particularly fun or enchanting. Even in popular culture, Sodom tends to be used as a metaphor for squalor and degradation, as in the brutally disturbing Pasolini film Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. The metaphor is made all the sillier by the next number, which likens Coney Island not to Sodom but to a "little slice of heaven by the sea." Which is it? Ugh.

Other times, it is far too obvious that lyrics are being mangled to fit the tunes; unsurprisingly, since Lloyd Webber composed the melodies first and asked Slater to fit the lyrics around them. "Ten long years living a mere facade of life" -- "of life" simply fills space here. What else do you live but life? Here's another sample:

And the genius that designed it wears a mask!

A mask?

A mask!

But what's behind it?

What's behind it?

What's behind it?

What's behind it?

What's behind it?

Yes, the lines are so good they really deserve being repeated that many times. Oh dear. Later on in the same song we get this:

And a concert hall that's bigger than the Met!

What's inside it?

What's inside it?

What's inside it?

What's inside it?

Other songs, such as Look with Your Heart and the title song, Love Never Dies, are disappointing just in their banal sentimentality. It's not the simplicity that's the problem -- simplicity can work -- but that's it's so unbearably twee. Would it come as a surprise to know that before collaborating with Webber, the Slater was best-known for Disney films? Perhaps he excels at writing lyrics for children (I mean that sincerely), but I think it makes him a poor choice for this production.

I hope the new version has fixed some of the most noticeable problems with the lyrics. I admit, I'll still like the show, because, for all its faults, Lloyd Webber's score is stunning. He still has what it takes to write a hit musical. While Love Never Dies could never be a rival for The Phantom of the Opera, I predict it will survive, flaws aside.

Benefits of working for a content mill

The world of freelance writing is changing fast, and the emergence of the so-called "content mill" is a major feature of that change.

TW Anderson has written rather glowingly about working for Demand Studios, an online media outfit that provides content for websites such as eHow, Answerbag and LiveStrong. DS populates the sites by hiring freelance writers to churn out regular articles following a rigorous style and format. Writers can pick and choose from thousands of titles; they write up the article, submit it, and they're paid a flat fee when it's accepted.

The DS set-up is a typical content mill model. But this style of creating content has its critics. The main criticism is that it is low-paid. To give you an idea, a standard-length eHow article (300-400 words) pays $15.

Anderson errs on the side of unabashed optimism with his assessment of working for Demand Studios, but he makes some salient points.

First, it should be said that although DS's fees are on the cusp of what's acceptable for a professional freelance copywriter, they are generally a few notches above the competition. Break Studios, for example, pays as little as $8 for 700 words. That makes DS fees two to four times as high as BS (no pun intended).

The big factor to consider is how much time and effort is saved writing for a content mill like DS. Suppose I charge a client $40 for an hour's work. At first glance, that seems a much better prospect than making $15 to $30 in an hour with DS.

But what about the savings? With a private client, I spend twice the amount of time unpaid. There's the time I spend searching for leads. When I find a lead, there's the time I spend emailing back and forth to get the job. Once I've secured the job, there's the time I spend on the phone to discuss the requirements. Even after the job, you still have to deal with invoices and the regular annoyance of chasing up unpaid bills. So a $40-an-hour job ends up being a $20-an-hour (or less) job when all the extra work is figured in.

With Demand Studios, there's none of that. You just log in, and the only unpaid time is what you spend searching the database for titles. Once you've found a title, you research, write, edit and submit. Once you're used to the style and format, you can manage at least a title or two in an hour. Payment is automatic once an assignment has been accepted.

Is the system perfect? No, and few freelancers want to stay with a client like Demand Studios forever. But is it unreasonable? All things considered, it's a fair deal.

How to Become a Writer

A guide to the basics of being a published writer.

Do you write, even if just for your own pleasure? Congratulations: You are already a writer. But perhaps you are thinking about taking it a step further, sharing your work with others, getting published and establishing yourself as a professional writer. This short guide will take you through the essential steps towards fulfilling your writing goals.

Step One: Write

It sounds obvious, but always dreaming and never accomplishing is easily done. The editor and best-selling novelist Sol Stein said that a writer is "someone who cannot not write." Write regularly, setting aside ... Read more at Suite101: How to Become a Writer

'Climategate' arguments take nasty turn

There has been invective on both sides of the climate debate, and never more than since so-called Climategate, the scandal rather euphemistically dubbed the "Climactic Research Unit hacking incident" by Wikipedia. The scandal is that climate researchers at the University of East Anglia were caught manipulating data in an effort to bolster scientific evidence for anthropocentric global warming.

In the immediate aftermath, the media was full of environmentalists, global warning campaigners and scientists trying desperately to downplay the controversy, alongside climate change deniers having a field day hailing the revelations as a harbinger of the wholesale collapse of the man-made global warming theory.

Neo-conservative commentator James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph blogs has emerged as one of the most popular (and vitriolic) online voices decrying climate change and keeping Climategate alive. His tone is generally both strident and nasty, if tongue-in-cheek - not just on this, but on any politically charged subject.

On Sunday, George Monbiot of The Guardian reports, Delingpole overstepped the mark severely by publishing an email correspondence from a member of the public to a Conservative Party parliamentary candidate, along with the name and address of the sender. The email was described outlandishly as "nauseating," and a case of "stalking" by "eco-bullies." He suggests a suitable response to the email would be "f--- off," and asks which "disgusting eco-fascist organisation" might be sponsoring the emails. According to the article, several Tory candidates have received "similar" emails, suggesting they were part of a campaign.

Delingpole's description alone is worrying. Stalking? Bullying? Disgusting? Nauseating? Eco-fascism? Worthy of an F-off? All conclusions extracted from one email? You might be surprised how placid and inoffensive the actual email was:

From: XXXXXXXX
Date: 2010/1/22
Subject: Conservation Query
To: XXXXXXX

Dear Edwin Northover,

I was concerned to note the results of a survey of 140 Conservative candidates for parliament that suggested that climate change came right at the bottom of their priorities for government action.

I hope you can reassure me that you recognise the importance and success of climate change action by the UK government at home and internationally.

Can you clarify that:

You accept that climate change is caused by human activity?

Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020?

Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change?

Kind Regards,

XXXXXXXX

I am quite dumbfounded. Regardless of the scientific rights and wrongs of climate change, why such a wildly disproportionate reaction to a person exercising his perfect right to ask some questions of a potential parliamentary candidate? Perhaps it was part of a campaign. And? Is this illegal? Is it morally objectionable? Is it deserving of such an unfettered attack? He later says his concern is that it may be "concerted campaign by a green lobby group, masquerading as the work of concerned individuals." However, the two are not mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible to be a concerned individual and join a collective campaign in a course of action.

But, of course, it gets worse. Delingpole published the name and address of the email's sender. A Google cache of the article shows the name and address missing, but this is a cache of a later version. Only a few lines down the thread, the first comment to mention the identity of the correspondent assumes everyone already knows it from the article. Further down, another commenter quotes from the article, and the name and address remain intact. Eventually, Delingpole himself says he published the details, but later removed them.

If you spend any time at Telegraph Blogs (personally, of the political commentators, I've only found one author I respect), you'll have noticed that no matter how objectionable their content, the commenters the site attracts are far, far more extreme. In my experience, the average commenter votes BNP and would happily set back gay rights to some time in the 1950s.

So it is unsurprising that a disturbing and vicious attack followed from Delingpole's irresponsible post. Within a couple of posts, a commenter had identified the address on Google Maps and posted a photograph of the emailer's house. If I were that man, I would feel very threatened by this. I imagine Delingpole would feel similarly intimidated if a bitter enemy had posted details of his address and photographs of his house online.

Soon his phone number too was posted, and other commenters were posting other personal details.

Ironically, amid all this, someone chimes in to condemn the email as "intrusive and abusive lobbying."

Within a few hours of the post, a commenter was claiming to have personally telephoned the man in question:

I tried to telephone XXXXXXX on the number helpfully posted in this blog, but he’s out until tomorrow. Perhaps he is out ‘tackling climate change’? – anyway his missus didn’t seem to know where he was.

Delingpole later interrupts:

It’s a bit late but I’ve taken out the bit where the sender of the email is named. And I really think it’s wrong to ring up the chap or bother him. It’s not him I was getting at. I’m after the green organization which encouraged all this mass letter-writing.

Did Delingpole not notice that half his followers were unhinged enough to abuse the information he'd so carelessly published? Anyone to the left of Enoch Powell could have predicted this outcome.

Eventually, the entire discussion thread and the original post were removed.

I find this very worrying. James Delingpole, who has the affront to make hysterical claims of bullying, fascism and stalking, is himself engaged in a very nasty piece of bullying.

And how did he get hold of this email sent to Edwin Northover, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Leyton and Wanstead? Did Northover himself pass this on?

I have read the Telegraph daily since the mid-1990s. I've always found the quality of the journalism very high, but the shrill, hysterical, increasingly extreme right-wing tone of Telegraph Blogs has left me with much less faith in the newspaper. Delingpole's outrageously misjudged, vindictive post has finally stepped over a line. The Telegraph ought to ask some serious questions of this incident.

And the Conservative Party should be asking some questions of its candidate Edwin Northover to determine his part in this farce.

[Edit: In the thread, Delingpole admitted to publishing the name, but not specifically the address. However, the user theunbrainwashed posts what appears to be a direct quote from the article, which includes an address. This still suggests Delingpole was the first to supply the address.]

[Later edit: This thread confirms that both were published. I am really baffled by this. Either Delingpole had a deliberate aim in publishing the man's name and address, or he experienced a spectacular lapse of judgment. What journalist overlooks such details as a private name and address?]

People-watching

I recently came across this short poem I wrote a few years ago, and thought it was rather sweet, if a bit twee. I share it here as it might raise a smile:

People Watcher

I am a people watcher:
I stare at them from nooks;
Peer down into my coffee-cup
If anybody looks.

I love to guess their story,
Delve deep into their minds,
Look hard into their faces,
See what lies beneath the lines.

I see their past, their loved ones,
Their homes, the books they read;
Send up a thought, unconscious prayer,
For what it is they need.

I am a people watcher:
I glance as they go by,
And duck behind my Telegraph
If they should wonder why.

I opened the closet door, I found grace in the room

Last week, I wrote about "coming out" - coming out gay, coming out liberal among Christian friends, coming out as "David L Rattigan," my writing alter-ego.

It provoked a mixed response among friends, but there was one particularly gracious response that stood out. It was from a Pentecostal pastor, a fellow Bible College student and the wife of my former Principal, no less. If anyone were to take offense at my often-harsh assessment of my days as an evangelical Pentecostal, it would be someone closest to the situations I wrote about. So it was a welcome surprise that Alison recognized my integrity and greeted my story with openness and understanding.

She has given me permission to post from an exchange we shared on Facebook. In it, we discuss my Pentecostal days and my sexuality, and I think the discussion exemplifies a "generous space" (an expression I owe to my friend Wendy Gritter) we all need to find ourselves in if we're to live together.

Alison began:

I've just spent some time reading your open letter and a couple of the links to your writing which is, of course, challenging to those of us who haven't shared your journey. I thank you for your intellectual honesty and ability to analyse. Also for not misrepresenting the Christianity of your past and my present and not, therefore, having rejected it out of hand. There's a lot of ongoing discussion which could be had - my own thinking re sexuality attempts to be faithful to biblical revelation which I still believe to be God's word (with all that implies); my hermeneutics are very influenced by a feminism which makes me, I think, more liberal than many of my fellow Pentecostals, but wouldn't take me nearly far enough in your estimation, I have no doubt.

I am uncomfortable with the anti-homosexual rhetoric of much of my community but retain a belief that God's intention for sexuality includes the element that both genders should be involved. That men and women together make up the image of God seems to me to be important: faithfulness; vulnerability; give and take; complete openness to the other are all expressed in sexual intimacy with one person for life - sex is to that deepest of human relationships what worship is for the human and God. But I also have to acknowledge that all those things are possible in a gay relationship and that heterosexuality is no guarantee of healthy sexuality.

I am therefore much less sympathetic to heterosexual promiscuity and abuse than to homosexual monogamy or monoandry (is that a word? - it should be). And probably feel that the current controversy re sexuality is analogous to the NT example of meat offered to idols, to which Paul's response in Rom14 is not to attempt to convince those on the other side of the fence (though you know which side he is on and that he is firmly convinced he is right!) but to accept that we all must stand before God and follow our own conscience with regard to how we act. Notwithstanding Rom 1, maybe a 21st century Paul would include sexual orientation issues as a 'disputable matter' (14:1). Thanks also for the Tillich quotation re grace; an unexpectedly lucid Tillich-ism (sorry, I always struggled to read him and usually fell asleep - liked this bit though!)

Let mercy triumph over judgement.

I responded:

Hi, Alison. I sensed from our conversations that you were definitely one to "live and let live," and that you were the sort of person who would be open to other people's stories - but still I am surprised you are so liberal compared to your Pentecostal peers.

I am so warmed to hear that you don't feel misrepresented as a Christian by the things I've written. I look back with a genuine affection - if ambivalence at times - on my days as a Pentecostal, and even though I have some harsh criticisms for evangelical Christianity, I strive to be evenhanded. It means all the more to me that you sense no malice in my writings, since if anyone is going to interpret me as unfair or spiteful, it would be someone so close to the situations I wrote about - an Elim pastor, a Regents member of staff or the wife of the RTC Principal!

Re: homosexuality, I agree that even from a perspective that treats the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, there is room to ask how someone like Paul would answer *today's* questions, and whether he might answer them quite differently from the questions of *his* day.

I can see a real honesty in the way you approach the sexuality question. One thing that led me initially to question the traditional teaching on sexuality was that so many Christians seemed to rely on slandering and misrepresenting homosexuals. It occurred to me that if homosexuality was wrong, surely the case could be argued without recourse to all kinds of myths, slurs and pseudo-science. (I'm talking about the old standards here: gays are a risk to children, being gay is just about sex, there's no love in gay relationships, all gays are promiscuous, being gay is a mental illness, the "lifestyle" is dangerous and ends in early death.)

You seem unprepared glibly to repeat the same deceptions and half-truths, and that's wonderful. When you show a grace like that, I can live with you being on "the other side of the fence," just as you've shown you can live with me as I am.

PS The Tillich quote comes from a sermon found in The Shaking of the Foundations. I've never persevered with Tillich's heavier academic writings, but I've really enjoyed his sermons. That particular one is called You Are Accepted. You can read it online here.

Facebook comments became too restrictive by this stage (the above exchanges had to be posted in tiny parts), so Alison wrote a full-length 'Letter to David' in reply:

David, thank you for the warmth I perceive coming from you. I was bold enough to write that i didn't think you had rejected our brand of Christianity out of hand, so I am cheered by your reference to genuine affection and I can affirm that I did not read malice in your writing, though there was, of course, lots of criticism.

There is plenty that is cringeworthy in Pentecostalism certainly; I can't defend excesses though I sympathise with people who are genuinely trying to hear from God and often make mistakes. Actually I don't have to sympathise with those people: I am one! Ah well. I happen to highly value the American prophetess about whom you have written and don't consider her to be extreme. I don't remember the particular prophecy about banks etc. so can't comment on that. As far as her workshop session goes, I was part of that and know that from her angle it was an introduction to teaching people to listen for God's voice. To give Christians the confidence that they are able to hear from God more than they think is, in my pastoral experience, an important thing. We do have the mind of Christ and most sincere Christians who wonder if they have anything to say which might be used by God to speak to others need to be given the confidence to speak out. Then there is the process of weighing and discernment which is where the Christian community and sensible leadership comes in.

What is indefensible is the sort of rhetoric which you mention which 'demonises' gay people. But (oops maybe I am approaching a defence? call it an attempt at explanation?) most evangelicals don't know any gay people personally (that's to say they don't knowingly know any ...) and when one's information comes from media which, referring to any kind of sex, is more concerned with titillation than information, they are afraid, uncomfortable and suspicious. Also there is the concern that society is concerned with equality to the detriment of Christian sensibilities and we are presented as less tolerant than we really are.

Still, I am happy to affirm that gay and straight (don't like that term) people probably: think about sex as much (or as little) as each other would rather not be defined by their sexuality - it is part of a person not the whole are capable of long term commitment and loving relationships often sin sexually.

I'm not sure of the value of vicarious repentance, but as part of a Christian community whose members have often made hurtful comments to you and others, I'm sorry.

BUT ....

I value relationships where I can genuinely disagree with someone without personal abuse intruding and I sense I have one here. I agree with you that if I think homosexuality is wrong then I should be able to justify that position "without recourse to all kinds of myths, slurs and pseudo-science." So here's the beginning of such an attempt.

For me the first two chapters of Genesis are foundational to a meaning of sex. Male and female are made in the image of God and as such express that image most fully when they get their relations right. I argue against many men (including church fathers) that women do not possess God's image in a secondary sense, but just as much as men; against some radical feminists I would insist that women need men too! Gen2 describes the creation of one being which is then divided into two. "For this reason" men and women have sexual relations, thus restoring the original (one flesh) complete image of God. The one-flesh relationship must therefore include the two. Not only that, it is a productive relationship: the two become one who then bear offspring.

So our sexual ethics must reflect our view of God. Promiscuity and prostitution are wrong because we must not create a one flesh relationship casually (1Cor6). Sex outside marriage is wrong because it should entail complete giving of oneself to the other for life, as God has given himself to us and we to him. That's the ideal: God knows that we are also sinners and Jesus said it was because of hardness of heart that Moses allowed divorce. It is no accident that there is so much sexual sin in the world as it is the one area which directly attacks the image of God in humans and when we get it right it is so good.

The danger of what I just wrote is that people will think I mean that single people or infertile people as well as homosexuals are somehow less than God's perfect image. That would be a gross misinterpretation. Man and woman as one flesh says something about God. But every individual also bears God's image and is precious.

There it is - a very imperfect offering which I hope does not wind you up too much!

I must thank you for recognising grace in my previous comments and hope there is just as much in the above. At root, though I'm clever enough to have been an academic, I am really a pastor who finds that my ethics have to work in practice. You said you thought I am the sort of person who would be open to other people's stories; thanks again. I believe it is a pastor's lot to listen more than she speaks, support and value. Please take these two long responses to your original letter not fundamentally as an attempt to (re)convert you to a particular point of view, but as the sort of serious response you deserve. To do less would have been to value you less.

Anyway will shut up now. I hope this has not been too polemic.

Grace to you,

Alison x

True to her signature, I found grace in Alison's words. I responded thus:

I'm really glad we're having this conversation. You have a lot of grace, and as someone whose experience of evangelical Christians has all too often been graceless, I cherish that openness.

Thanks for your exposition of Scripture, which I didn't find too polemical! For you the Bible is primarily the (infallible?) Word of God; for me it's primarily the word of humans. So biblical arguments may inspire me or lead me to reflection, but they'll never be authoritative in the same way as they are for you. The biblical idea of the image of God in humans strikes me as a beautiful way to view ourselves and our relationships, but I'd want to extend the metaphor to other kinds of human relationships. Since Eve was formed from Adam's side, perhaps Genesis contains the suggestion of androgyny in Adam. From that, can we ask whether two males joined together might adequately reflect the image of God? This is just a thought.

Onto the American prophetess. Following the lead of social scientists, I don't dismiss religious experiences such as prophecy out-of-hand as simple fakery. I think some of those experiences could be valuable. I regard them as "altered states," temporary "alternate realities," or "heightened states of awareness," but also I believe they originate in the human psyche, not the supernatural. My major problem with these experiences in Pentecostal circles is not the experiences themselves, per se, but how they are interpreted for and by the community. I think I would be more comfortable with Pentecostal prophetic experiences if they were framed as indirect impressions of where God might be leading, viewed more tentatively as subjective experiences and open to critical exploration, rather than being considered the "voice of God," or direct "messages," or "words" from God.

I know there are pastors and teachers who try to various extents to emphasize the provisional nature of prophecy, but in my experience the effect is often nullified by the language of "words," "messages" and "voices."

Alison couldn't see my point about androgyny in Genesis, so I elaborated:

I think the androgyny point actually originated in rabbinical interpretation, but I could be wrong.

What I mean is that Adam had in him both male and female. I guess you could interpret that as either very anti-feminist (man is complete without woman) or radically pro-feminist (Adam was *neither* male nor female, so gender distinctions postdate creation).

The exchange continued somewhat, but it widened to include other commenters' points, so I shall leave it there.

Since I've outed myself as Rattigan to friends who only know me by my "real" name, perhaps I should step a bit further out of my closet for readers who know me only as Rattigan. I won't reveal my name (though it probably wouldn't take a great deal of detective work to find out), but I will share a bit more about my background, to put the above discussion in context.

I spent 1993 to 2001 in the Elim Pentecostal Church, which I think I'm right in saying is the second largest Pentecostal denomination in the UK (it is to Assemblies of God what Foursquare is to Assemblies in Canada and the US). I earned my theology degree through Regents Theological College, the organization's official Bible college. Despite being a conservative denomination, the college gave me a fairly thorough theological education, which introduced me to the full array of biblical criticism and alternative, non-conservative Christian and non-Christian ideas. (Not that everyone approved. I remember my decidedly anti-intellectual pastor warning me in advance of the heretical ideas that were "floating around" at Regents. Many pastors, and even some students, scoffed at the college's increasingly academic emphasis.)

I think the broad scope of my education this was partly the result of my choice of classes - I opted for the more academic modules, such as New Testament Interpretation, Philosophy of Religion and Contemporary Theology. Had I chosen just the more pragmatic subjects, such as Evangelism and Missions, it would have been quite easy to coast through college without ever encountering non-evangelical approaches.

Ironically, then-Principal William Atkinson's NT Interpretation classes were ultimately the most formative in my later liberal approach to the Bible. I think this is a credit to his ability to teach without simply imposing his own biases on students. I recall raising laughter by hugging William enthusiastically as I stepped up to the platform at graduation - but it was an embrace of genuine affection, which remains today.

Against this background, it's been a risk to share my changed perspective, my writings and my journey with friends, acquaintances and colleagues from those days. But I opened the door and I found grace.

New-look davidlrattigan.com

If you're looking for words, look no further, because I deal in words - quite well, even if I say so myself.

Check out my newly redesigned website, and if you need copy, drop me an email and hire me!