In A Conversation Waiting to Begin, Oliver O’Donovan, one of the most respected moral theologians in the UK, evaluates the current debate in the Anglican Communion and asks whether we have actually begun to ask the right questions.

O’Donovan argues that we need to understand how and to what extent sensibility with regard to homosexuality has emerged in specific historical conditions, and how the conditions may require, as an aspect of the pastoral accommodation that changing historical conditions require, a form of public presence and acknowledgment not hitherto known? These two questions come together as a single question: how are we to understand together the particularity of the age in which we are given to attest God’s works?

‘O’Donovan is one of the preeminent Christian theologians of our time. Here he brings to bear his acute mind, deep faith, and broad pastoral sensitivities on one of the most pressing challenges facing our churches today.’ Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology, Whycliffe College, Toronto

Professor Oliver O’Donovan is Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh.