Meet our Patrons - John Bell intro
Channel: Open Table Network
Date: 2021-03-22

Watch the recording of our Q&A in April 2021 with John, in conversation with OTN Co-Chair Alex Clare-Young here [60 minutes - includes British Sign Language interpretation]: https://youtu.be/zxqzF6pwb30

Here is John's message to the Open Table Network:

Hello, I'm John Bell and I feel very privileged to have been asked to be a patron of Open Table.

I am a minister, but I don't have a parish. I'm employed by an ecumenical association called the Iona Community. My home is in Glasgow, but I work all over the world – in churches and colleges and at conferences, sometimes on issues of liturgy, sometimes in social justice.

I like the name Open Table because if the Christian church were prohibited to use the cross as its symbol, the table would be a good substitute, given that there's around 20 occasions  in the Gospels where Jesus shares food with people, and it's never a closed shop.

I have known enough people, myself included, who have felt the censure of the church because of something we can't change - our sexuality. And I believe that there have to be places where people can have it affirmed that diversity is part of God's plan. If it can happen in personality, mentality, physicality without controversy, we should also allow for diversity in sexual orientation. 

Having moved in my life from fearing I was gay to not wanting to be anything other than gay, I'm keen to encourage other people to feel the same way about themselves, and Open Table is a good place to help that to happen.