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From the Moderator

Some feel vindicated, some feel betrayed, and more generally there is an air of despair that we are in danger of losing our mission focus if the debate on homosexuals in leadership is re-ignited.

I was on holiday, visiting family in the United States, when the finding of the Judicial Commission was received. So I viewed the reporting of it and the responses from a distance. I was heartened to sense the maturity with which everybody who was engaged by the media responded. Thank you for that.
The finding was clearly communicated by the Assembly Executive Secretary, and is available in full on the church's website.

In this vulnerable moment I want to encourage you to consider three things.

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If you are responding to or commenting on the finding, please be sure that you read it very carefully and that you are faithful to what it says and why.

Let us not personalise the matter.  While the finding was reached from the consideration of an appeal on one person's application to be accepted as a student, we must not now "burden" the person with the issue at stake.

Likewise we must now give the National Assessment Work Group the "space" they need to carry out the instructions of the Commission with integrity, completely free of external pressure.

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Having said that, as the wider issues are debated again, I am drawn back to the unanimously agreed resolution of the 2002 Assembly:

"That Assembly, mindful of deeply held convictions and sensitivities on all sides and debates within the Church, urges everyone to respect all other persons, seeking to avoid depersonalising others, caricaturing their convictions or questioning their motivations"

May that be the atmosphere within which we work together. Let it also shape our prayer for each other.