Part 1: United Kingdom

As many of you know, this past September I was invited to go on a two week tour throughout some of the United Kingdom to talk about my book and The Marin Foundation’s bridge building work. I started in Eastbourne, went to Brighton (from what I was told is considered the gay capitol of England), then on to Edinburgh (Scotland), on to London via Eastbourne, off to Derby and then finished in London again. Throughout this trip I spoke to two churches, a few home groups, a conference, at a university, to a group of Christian leaders throughout England, a small group of youth workers and to two of the most high profile gay Christian leaders as well.

I will be extrapolating on the broader overviews I took away from this trip regarding the GLBT-conservative religious relationship in the UK throughout this series, but for now here is a short video of me in Brighton outside of, what I am told, is the most popular gay club in the gay capitol of the UK. I think it’s a fitting start because that is where I started my immersion within the States. Yes, I can be a little sentimental. 🙂

Coming up in this series over the next few days are a couple video interviews with some young lesbians in Brighton and a gay Christian leader I met with in London, as well as some thoughts I was asked to write about the differences between the culture war in the States vs. UK, for a UK publication.

I will be back in the UK throughout the month of April speaking at Spring Harvest, one of the largest Christian conferences anywhere: over 45,000 people will attend throughout their five different sites, of which I will be ushered from site to site over the course of three weeks. I’m really looking forward to learning and interacting more with everyone in the UK to help this bridge building movement continue!

Have any of you ever had any experiences in the UK? And for the 9% of the readers of this blog who are from the UK, I would love to hear your input on everything as we go through this series!

Much love.