Rico Tice and Paul Bayes: a Different Religion

Rico Tice, the public face of the Christianity Explored course, has resigned from Archbishop Welby’s evangelism group. He hits the nail on the head:

It’s a different religion. Bishop Paul Bayes [the Bishop or Liverpool] and I have a different religion and it’s around whether scripture is authoritative in terms of human sexuality.

Bayes recently declared that the Church of England needs to be more accepting of same-sex relationships. Tice continued his diagnosis, as reported by Premier Christianity website:

There’s a loss of nerve in the Church because the culture is getting more and more intolerant of people who hold onto the uniqueness of Jesus and his high and holy standards. So what’s happening is clergy are going with congregations, all of whom have a same sex attracted nephew or grandson – suddenly these relationships are there where people emotionally want to try and change position on those things because they have someone they love who is same sex attracted.

The Gospel offers an alternative world-view to the prevailing culture. Whereas it teaches us to love and show kindness to all, we are not to base our theology on family experiences or empathy for people we love. Conversely, we must stop overly focusing on practising gay people as though they are some special category of sinner: all people are corrupted by sin and are called to repent and find Christ. 

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