Dear Rowland,

I was searching around on the internet for hermenutical conversations around father's day with an eye towards my sermon in two weeks time and stumbled onto your site.

I enjoyed it very much and especially appreciated the conversation of Jesus in the bar in San Francisco! I know that this must've been a hard one to write: I had rather the same feeling last month when I was invited to talk to our local gay men's support group about Christianity and homosexuality. I'm an American pastoring for a year in a Church of Scotland parish and I've been saddened to see that no one from the C of S is reaching out to gay and lesbian communities here, so I was really glad that I was given an opportunity to tell this group that God loves them very much and show these new friends of mine where it says that in the Old and New Testaments. I realized that for almost everyone in that room that they had shut the door on God when the church tacitly shut the door on them, and were not willing to let themselves be hurt further. I was deeply moved to hear the questions that were asked and I'm hoping that the seeds that were planted will someday bear fruit.

I relied quite heavily on Daniel Helminiaks book "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality" (a new edition has just been published) and can recommend it as a careful, scholarly book on the subject. Daniel was educated at the Scot's College in Rome and a catholic priest, along the lines of Henri Nouwen.

God's blessings on you this Pentecost!

[Name withheld]