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The Friend
March 22, 1963
Radio Comment on "Towards a Quaker View"
Listeners to "Christian Outlook" on the BBC's Network 3 on March 14 will have heard the understanding and discriminating review given there of TOWARDS A QUAKER VIEW OF SEX (Friends Home Service Committee, 3s. 6d.) The speaker was the Rev. Dr. Derrick S. Bailey, of Wells Cathedral, himself a well-known writer on sexual relationships.
The review included a full summary of the contents of the essay. Dr. Bailey added his opinion that here was a pioneer contribution to Christian thinking; that if read as a whole and in a spirit of good will it could not fail to illuminate; that with one exception (the passage on "triangular relationships"--a momen of real confusion, he thought) accusations in the Press and elsewhere of "muddled thinking" appeared to be unfounded; and that there was no justification for the cry that here was condonation of a lowering of standards.
On the contrary, the essay commended a personal search for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in place of legalistic system of tests of conformity to external rules. And if this might appear to some to legislate inadequeately for a largely non-Christian public, and to take too little account of considerations of public policy, it must be borne in mind that the essay addressed itself primarily to Christians, and more specifically to members of the Society of Friends.
