Savitri Hensman | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | University College London |
Known for | LGBT activism Writing |
Savitri "Savi" Hensman is an activist and writer based in the United Kingdom. She was one of the founders of London's Black Lesbian and Gay Centre.
Hensman was born in Sri Lanka but moved to the United Kingdom at the age of two, growing up in Hackney. She studied chemical engineering at University College London, graduating in 1982. However, she was later unable to find any work in chemical engineering, so instead, joined a lab as a research assistant. [1]
Hensman helped to launch the London's Black Lesbian and Gay Centre in 1985. [2] At the time, the centre was supported by the Greater London Council and housed in an annex of Tottenham Town Hall. In the late 1980s, Hensman joined the Haringey Council's Lesbian and Gay Sub-Committee and was involved with the campaign against Section 28. As well as this, Hensman was involved in the Positive Images group and Haringey Black Action (late 1890s). [3] Hensman worked for many years and is currently an involvement coordinator in health research. [3] As a member of the Christian Church, Hensman campaigns for a more inclusive community, writing on the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in religious communities. [4] [1] [5] [6] In October 2018, she wrote an LGBT briefing paper that was presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury. [7]
Hensman is a regular contributor to Ekklesia, who published her first book in 2015. [8] She has also written for The Guardian, as well as writing poetry. [9] [10]
In 2016, Hensman joined King's College London as the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Coordinator for the Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care, South London (CLAHRC). [4] She worked with researchers, service users, carers and communities in order to accumulate research that reflected the views and priorities of local people.
In 2019, Hensman was featured in the University College London (UCL) Queer Tapestry, a project which celebrated the history of UCL's LGBTQ+ community. [11] The tapestry was created by Robert (Bob) Mills, a professor of history of art who leads the LGBTQ+ network. [12]
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Formally founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.
The Church of England is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the origin of the Anglican tradition, which combines features of both Reformed and Catholic Christian practices. Its adherents are called Anglicans.
The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers.
Since the 1990s, the Anglican Communion has struggled with controversy regarding homosexuality in the church. In 1998, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops passed a resolution "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". However, this is not legally binding. "Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion, including the Church of England, though it commends an essential and persuasive view of the attitude of the Communion." "Anglican national churches in Brazil, South Africa, South India, New Zealand and Canada have taken steps toward approving and celebrating same-sex relationships amid strong resistance among other national churches within the 80 million-member global body. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has allowed same-sex marriage since 2015, and the Scottish Episcopal Church has allowed same-sex marriage since 2017." In 2017, clergy within the Church of England indicated their inclination towards supporting same-sex marriage by dismissing a bishops' report that explicitly asserted the exclusivity of church weddings to unions between a man and a woman. At General Synod in 2019, the Church of England announced that same-gender couples may remain recognised as married after one spouse experiences a gender transition. In 2023, the Church of England announced that it would authorise "prayers of thanksgiving, dedication and for God's blessing for same-sex couples."
George Leonard Carey, Baron Carey of Clifton is a retired Anglican bishop who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, having previously been the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
The Anglican Church of Australia, formerly known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, is a Christian church in Australia and an autonomous church of the Anglican Communion. It is the second largest church in Australia after the Catholic Church. According to the 2016 census, 3.1 million Australians identify as Anglicans. As of 2016, the Anglican Church of Australia had more than 3 million nominal members and 437,880 active baptised members. For much of Australian history since the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, the church was the largest religious denomination. It remains today one of the largest providers of social welfare services in Australia.
The blessing or wedding of same-sex marriages and same-sex unions is an issue about which leaders of Christian churches are in ongoing disagreement. Traditionally, Christianity teaches that homosexual acts are sinful and that holy matrimony can only exist between two persons of different sexes. These disagreements are primarily centred on the interpretation of various scripture passages related to homosexuality, sacred tradition, and in some churches on varying understandings of homosexuality in terms of psychology, genetics and other scientific data. While numerous church bodies have widely varying practices and teachings, individual Christians of every major tradition are involved in practical (orthopraxy) discussions about how to respond to the issue.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are located in South Africa, and one each in Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Saint Helena.
The Anglican Communion Primates' Meetings are regular meetings of the primates in the Anglican Communion, i.e. the principal archbishops or bishops of each ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion. There are currently 38 primates of the Anglican Communion. The primates come together from the geographic provinces around the world for discussion and consultation. As primus inter pares of the communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury chairs the meetings, with the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) serving as secretary.
The legal status of same-sex marriage has changed in recent years in numerous jurisdictions around the world. The current trends and consensus of political authorities and religions throughout the world are summarized in this article.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+)-affirming religious groups are religious groups that welcome LGBT people as their members, do not consider homosexuality as a sin or negative, and affirm LGBT rights and relationships. They include entire religious denominations, as well as individual congregations and places of worship. Some groups are mainly composed of non-LGBTQ+ members and they also have specific programs to welcome LGBTQ+ people into them, while other groups are mainly composed of LGBTQ+ members.
The Anglican realignment is a movement among some Anglicans to align themselves under new or alternative oversight within or outside the Anglican Communion. This movement is primarily active in parts of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Two of the major events that contributed to the movement were the 2002 decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada to authorise a rite of blessing for same-sex unions, and the nomination of two openly gay priests in 2003 to become bishops. Jeffrey John, an openly gay priest with a long-time partner, was appointed to be the next Bishop of Reading in the Church of England and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church ratified the election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay non-celibate man, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Jeffrey John ultimately declined the appointment due to pressure.
Justin Portal Welby is a British Anglican bishop who, since 2013, has been the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England. Welby was previously the vicar of Southam in Warwickshire, and later served as Dean of Liverpool and Bishop of Durham. As Archbishop of Canterbury he is the Primate of All England and the symbolic head primus inter pares of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
David John Atkinson is the former Bishop of Thetford.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
Ruth Elizabeth Hunt, Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green is a Welsh administrator who was Chief Executive of UK-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans equality charity Stonewall, the largest LGBT equality body in Europe, from 2014 until her resignation in 2019.
Elizabeth Jane Holden Lane is a British Anglican bishop and Lord Spiritual. Since February 2019, she has served as Bishop of Derby in the Church of England, the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Derby. From January 2015 to 2019, she was the Bishop of Stockport, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Chester. She was the first woman to be appointed as a bishop by the Church of England, after its general synod voted in July 2014 to allow women to become bishops. Her consecration took place on 26 January 2015 at York Minster.
The fifteenth Lambeth Conference was an assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion convened by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, between 27 July and 7 August 2022. It was the first Lambeth Conference to be held since 2008.