Raise the Sails

Internationally, debates about sexuality, gender, and identity are intensifying. Activist-driven “conversion therapy” bans blur categories, redefine terms, and frame ethical, client-led care as harmful. As language becomes increasingly contested, the space for therapeutic choice,  scientific inquiry, and theological reflection narrows.

These shifts have real consequences. New identity vocabularies detach personhood from biology, collapse complex experiences into labels, and elevate feelings as unquestionable truth. Boundaries that once supported healthy development, relational maturity, and spiritual formation are being dismantled. Those seeking coherence, change, or biblically faithful pastoral care often find themselves marginalised.

Meanwhile, the Church faces growing confusion. Secular anthropological categories increasingly shape Christian discourse, diluting the biblical narrative and obscuring God’s design for identity, embodiment, and transformation. Yet across clinical, pastoral, academic, and advocacy settings, momentum is rising a growing movement challenging these assumptions, restoring clarity, and reclaiming a more truthful vision of personhood and hope.

This year’s conference, Raise the Sails: Refining Language, Restoring Boundaries, Rediscovering Scripture  Around Sexuality and Gender, calls us to build on this momentum. Drawing on research, clinical practice, pastoral wisdom, and lived testimony, we will refine our language, re-establish ethical and theological boundaries, and rediscover the Scriptural story that anchors identity and hope.