Preface
Preface
The first of these two pieces is an expanded and rewritten version of an address given in All Souls' Church, Langham Place, London in October 1977 at the first London rally of the Nationwide Festival of Light. Members of the Gay Christian Movement demonstrated at the rally, and it was not the easiest of situations in which to speak. I shall not soon forget the sensitive and to my eye inexpressibly sad faces of some of the "gays" who sat on the church carpet in front of me as I talked. It seemed clear to me that, as being a hippy is no guarantee of being happy, so being "gay" is no passport to gaiety, and some parts of my address were called forth on the spur of the moment by my desire to share the joy of knowing Christ with them particularly. I overran my time as a result, but still failed to say all I had intended. The additional material is inserted here, cast in the same rhetorical style as the rest.
The second piece was written in 1974 for a symposium produced by the Latimer House Church and Community Working Party under the title Focus on Leviathan: Problem Areas for Christian Citizens. The book failed to find a publisher and the authors have since cannibalized their chapters for use elsewhere. A shortened version of mine appeared in Third Way (April, 1977). Here it is revised and printed in full. It backs up some of the bolder generalizations which I have ventured to make in the address.
J. I. Packer