If there is a creed that I've always had, it is this: that I might be wrong.  That one day I might wake up and disbelieve everything I have thus far believed about God.  It has never happened, at least not totally.  But what I believe has changed, sometimes subtley, sometimes quite significantly, over the years.  At times I've been ridiculed for what I have believed.  At times I'm been pitied for what I believe.  At times I haven't been sure quite what I believe.  But always there remains this central conviction: I might be wrong.

Along with a lot of UK Baptists, ministers and otherwise, I am today saddened by this article and the underlying implications.  I am sad because of what it says, sad because it suggests that a minority should give way to a majority, even when the minority view is ostensibly respected and permitted.  I am sad for my LGBTIQ friends and acquaintances for whom this is another kick.  I am sad for all true Baptists who seek to live in a reconciled diversity.  I am sad that unity seems to depend on uniformity in a tradition that claims it does not.

So I was grateful to be directed to this sermon by a transgender Baptist minister in the USA.  It is the only sermon that has ever made me cry - and they were good tears.  Allyson's story isn't my story, but there were resonances and parallels along the way.  She has a courage I lack, and uses language I wouldn't, but she speaks prophetically and with the humility to declare "but I might be wrong".  Please take half an hour to listen...