Title: In God's Image - Christian Witness to the Need for Gay/Lesbian Equality in the Eyes of the Church Author: Robert Warren Cromey Published by: Alamo Square Press, 1991 ISBN: 0-9624751-2-2 [trade paperback, 123 pages]
This is a powerful, perceptive, compassionate book written by a man truly moved with concern for people, especially those who are victims of injustice and, through our ignorance, relegated to the margins of common life.Robert Cromey is himself a man willing to change his views when confronted by truth. Thirty-five years ago, while serving as an assistant minister in a church of which I was rector, he came to me for advice. Robert was counseling a homosexual friend, hoping to help him change his way of life. Some years later, Robert told me that he had been shocked at my rather relaxed and permissive attitude toward the situation.
The past three decades have drastically altered common views of homosexuality: from sin, through sickness, to an alternate way of life unchosen by those engaged in it and honorable if practiced in a responsible fashion. Robert Cromey has been a foremost leader in furthering this understanding.
Cromey writes with a prophet's impatience of widespread cruelty and appalling hypocrisy, though sometimes offering little compassion for those who lag behind in the cause, including bishops who must function in a Church still unable to deal constructively with these issues. This book, based on personal experience with a largely gay and lesbian congregation, will certainly assist readers to face the question with more confidence and less fear.
Yet there is no false romanticism in the book, rather a keen understanding of the sin and brokenness in which we all share and the forgiving grace by which we obtain health and salvation - all based on an honest approach to the Bible.
The book underscores the truth that marginalized people rarely achieve justice and redress unless they fight for it themselves and calls on the rest of us to stand with them.
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