Courage


 * This article is about Courage, the UK gay-affirming evangelical group. For the UK branch of Courage International, a Roman Catholic organisation promoting abstinence, see EnCourage.

Courage is an evangelical Christian group ministering to gay and lesbian Christians.

Courage was founded in 1988 by Jeremy Marks. It initially promoted abstinence on the part of gay people, and was a member of the "ex-gay" movement Exodus International. It ran discipleship programmes with a view to helping people "come out" of homosexuality. However, practical experience proved this to be a counter-productive approach. In 2001, Jeremy Marks wrote in the journal Lesbian and Gay Christians, "I have come to the conclusion that we have been quite wrong to dismiss all same sex love (other than platonic) as sinful."

Since then, the mission of Courage has been to support gay and lesbian Christians who are in same-sex relationships, as well as those who still find a conflict between their sexuality and their faith. In particular it provides support to gay people who, like Jeremy Marks himself, are in opposite-sex marriages.

As a direct result of the New Approach, Courage took a "sabbatical" from Exodus International. and was forced to resign from the Evangelical Alliance.

In August 2012, Jeremy Marks announced that he was retiring from leadership of Courage, and that the organisation itself would be wound up, to be replaced by a new organisation called Two:23.