In 2022, the Executive and Trustees of Pilgrims' Friend Society clarified the charity's stance on issues relating to marriage, same sex attraction and gender identity in response to changing views within the UK church.

Pilgrims’ Friend Society runs care homes and housing schemes, but our charitable objects and purpose is to advance the Christian faith. We do this by making sure that we provide communities, built around our Basis of Faith, which are for Christians seeking to follow Jesus and the Bible.

We recognise that these matters are deeply personal to many people and so we want to be clear that
in our approach to this very sensitive area we seek to show grace and understanding, outwork our values of compassion, community, transparency, and excellence in all that we do, support people who are same sex
attracted and who are seeking to live lives in accordance with biblical principles, support people who are trying to live lives in accordance with biblical principles but for whom there is an incongruence between their biological sex and their sense of gender, not be hypocritical by applying one standard to these matters compared to other matters.

We seek to be clear and transparent about Pilgrims’ Friend Society’s stance on these issues so that all those who are connected to us and our work are clear on the organisation's position.

These Clarifications are rooted in our Basis of Faith, and in particular the first point which states that we believe that the teachings of the Bibile are our sole and final authority.

You can read the Clarifications below or you can download a fuller explanation.

Clarifications

1. We affirm God's love and concern for all human beings made in his own image
2. We repudiate all attitudes and actions which fail to recognise that all are made in the image of God.
3. We recognise that all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God
4. We rejoice that God showed his love in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us - so that if we repent, we might be each reconciled to God despite our fallen state
5. We accept that the only true hope for any of us is through faith in Jesus Christ. Unable to save ourselves, our hope must not be in "religion", our own works or how we believe we compare to others
6. Our earnest ongoing prayer is that the Holy Spirit will change us to be more like Jesus, and that Jesus's mercy, love, trust, and grace would characterise how we engage with other people.
7. Someone who fails to show the love of Christ towards others is acting in a way inconsistent with our Basis of Faith
8. We affirm that marriage is an institution created by God in which one man and one woman enter an exclusive relationship for life. Marriage is the only God-ordained place for sexual relations. We therefore believe that to condone sexual relations outside such marriage would be to reject our position on the authority of the Bible.
9. We affirm that at the moment of conception God created each person male or female and that we are called to live in our created state. We therefore believe that to condone rejection of that created state would be to reject our position on the authority of the Bible.

How the Clarifications work in practice

We require those who live with us or whose roles have an OR that they be a Christian to accept our Basis of Faith, therefore the primary bar to someone coming to live and work with us is a rejection of our Basis of Faith. In the context of marriage, same sex relationships and gender identity we have shown that we uphold a traditional view on marriage and sexuality as an outworking of point one of our Basis of Faith.

However, there are a number of important practical nuances which are outlined here:

1. Experiencing same-sex attraction is not a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
2. A person’s sexual past is normally not a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
3. Differences between a person’s biological sex and their sense of gender is not a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
4. Holding a different viewpoint on certain beliefs is not a bar to coming to work with us but promoting these viewpoints and therefore disrupting or undermining our communities may be a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
5. Being unrepentant about a lack of grace towards others, for any reason, including relating to a person’s same-sex attraction or their sexual past, would be a failure to live out biblical principles and therefore may be a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
6. Being unrepentant for any sin, (whether sins that are sexual or non-sexual – such as pride and hypocrisy), would be a rejection of our Basis of Faith and therefore may be a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
7. Hypocrisy regarding our own sins and those of others would be a failure to live out biblical principles and therefore may be a bar to working for us or coming to live with us.
8. Undermining Pilgrims’ Friend Society’s commitment to being communities of grace in which all who seek to live faithfully in accordance with biblical teaching are welcomed and affirmed may be a bar to working for us or living with us.