Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Truth and justice?

Rev Dr Bernard Randall Source: Christian Today (Photo: Christian Legal Centre)

From Christian Today:

"A chaplain who was sacked after telling school pupils that they did not need to agree with LGBT ideology is seeking a judicial review into the dismissal of his misconduct complaint against the Bishop of Derby. 

"Dr Bernard Randall lost his job at Trent College, Nottingham, over his comments in a 2019 sermon and was reported to the government's terrorism watchdog, Prevent, and the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA). After an investigation, the Diocese of Derby's safeguarding team concluded that he was a safeguarding risk to children and he lost his licence to officiate. 

"Prevent, the TRA, and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) all said they would not be taking any action against Dr Randall. 

"Despite this, the Diocese of Derby has refused to renew his licence, meaning he remains barred from preaching." 

Full report here. See also Christian Concern video on X (Twitter) here. How it started here.

Orthodox beliefs are now regarded as somewhat quaint in the Anglican hierarchy as is Christianity among the political elite.

Truth and injustice prevail.

Postscripts

 [16.08.2024] When will bishops be held to account? "If you challenge the progressive establishment, prepare to be abandoned by the hierarchy of the Church of England" - Rev. Dr Bernard Randall

[17.08.2024] Christian Concern Press Release: "Patron of ‘Educate and Celebrate’ whose schools’ gender identity teaching led to Christian chaplain blacklisting charged with sexual abuse against children"

36 comments:

  1. I would suggest that the Cult of England, and the Cult in Wales, is quite possibly more harmful to real orthodox and authentic Christianity than those who profess either no or an alternative religion. As they are both fake pretenders and deceivers undermining the Word of God at every turn.
    The few good Christians who remain in both should probably seek to leave before their sanity is completely lost.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don’t think I’d want this minister working with my grandchildren in any teaching or pastoral capacity in a school. Seems the case that he was in the wrong Job.

    I can’t see there being any problem with him leading some evangelical church in the future. It seems a wholly disproportionate response for him to be unable to minister in any context.

    Pauline

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    1. Then don't let your children send your grandchildren to a church school.
      As school Chaplain he was exactly where he was supposed to be doing precisely what he was meant to be doing, proclaiming scripture, biblical and church teachings as handed down for more than two millennia.
      Presumably you would rather have them sent to a Stonewall school?
      Then again, with your viewpoint, I don't believe you have children or grandchildren. Far more likely to be an alphabet rainbow Trans wokery type pushing your deviant agenda.

      Delete
    2. He needs to give Nicky Bumble a call - that lot would have him in a heartbeat.

      Janice

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    3. Anonymous I totally disagree with you. Unfortunately accepted LGBT is legally recognised but it is not 100% accepted. Personally I am one who doesn’t accept LGBT and certainly not as a minister of faith

      Delete
    4. If you read the full employment tribunal report for this case, it’s clear the minister in question was given every opportunity to tone down his anti-lgbt preaching. In his arrogance, he decided to fly in the face of his School’s stance on the safeguarding of all pupils. The executive showed great tolerance and patience with him but he decided to plough his lonely furrow.

      Rufus

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    5. Good for him for sticking to the straight and narrow road.
      Rufus, Janice and Pauline not only sound like and come across as the same individual peddling his LGBTQIA+-&#£@!%π√§ perversions, he would doubtless also have the Rev Dr Bernard Randall kowtowing to every deluded teenage girl that self-identifies as a cat.
      Interestingly though, the alphabet soup have yet to add an F for "Furries" to their ever expanding acronym or a stripe of fur to their obscene rainbow rag.
      Not very inclusive of them, is it?

      Delete
  3. The full proceedings of his employment tribunal make for interesting reading. The man is a muppet. The school were tolerant with him and gave him plenty of opportunity to tone things down but he believed he was entitled to upset vulnerable students and stoke the fires of homophobia with his intolerant preaching. I agree with Pauline - he was in the wrong job.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63fc8d90e90e0740d3cd6eb8/Mr_B_Randall_v_Trent_College_Limited___others_2600288_2020_Judgment.pdf

    Rufus

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  4. Whatever your approach to LGBTQIA people and to furrys in particular, the one thing that absolutely will not help is to ridicule. So wise up CG, your comments are not helpful. Thank you.

    Janice

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  5. Speaking of Justice, Metropolitan Plod are not fit for purpose, again.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qe1g4g751o

    Time for the utterly useless Mark Rowley to be sacked and forfeit his pension.
    It's hard to believe but he's been even worse than Cressida Dick.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Persecuting traditional orthodox heterosexual male clergy is de rigeur in Welby's woke dystopia.
    In stark comparison, the CofE still doesn't know how to deal with it's nonces.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5n2542q82o

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    1. It does seem that the CofE cannot get its house in order.

      It’s worth reading the employment tribunal for this case too. Whether he was a nonce, as you put it, it’s very clear he presented a safeguarding risk to young people.

      It’s time the clergy were regulated by an independent professional body like the GMC as bishops seem ill equipped to deal with HR issues around professional conduct. Fair to say that canon law around tenure doesn’t help them much.

      Rufus.

      Delete
  7. If he is an evangelical he deserves everything he gets. This cult/sect has ruined the Church in Wales and is now seeking to ruin the Church of England. See Justin the evangelical for details...
    Postie

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    1. Oh hang on here Postie. You can hardly blame protestant or Anglican evangelicals for the demise of the Church-in-Wales. That smacks of being somewhat envious of their growth and adherence to faith/scriptures while the C-in-W is in plummeting decline because its clergy have walked away from 'theology'. I too share the Rev. Randall's school-sermon message :: listen to the views of others, but chose your own path. Evangelicals would be sterner :: hear only the voice of the Bible in scriptures relating to LGBTQ etc. Anglican priests on the other hand each appear to be part of the LGBTQ flag-waving cabal.

      Delete
    2. Baptist Trainfan15 August 2024 at 18:47

      He calls himself "liberal Catholic", or more precisely, "Tractarian High Church", not Evangelical.

      Delete
    3. Read the tribunal. He preached the sermon on one day and it upset so many young people, parents and staff. He was asked not to preach it again the next day to an older audience, but he went ahead with very little amendment. Inept. Belligerent. Pastorally insensitive. No wonder the school furloughed him during COVID and then later made him redundant. He sounds like he was a complete disaster.

      Rufus

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    4. It takes one to know one.

      Delete
    5. @Rufus I know someone else who was asked not to say the things he did, and kept on saying them, for the sake of Truth. The result was that he was crucified.
      In the eyes of many he was, as you call it, a 'complete disaster'.
      Just a shame that so many of his so called followers could care less about Truth.

      Delete
  8. @ Rufus

    Its not what the Tribunal might have ruled - correctly or incorrectly - that matters Rufus. Core to the issue is what the school chaplain actually said (which he made available for your reading) that's the crux. I've read it and again, I stand with him. Sensible sort of chap in my view.

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    1. I disagree. The impact of his words caused distress amongst the staff and students, and when given the opportunity to be more sensitive he opted to ride roughshod over the feelings of yet more by delivering the same again. That’s indefensible and the school’s duty of care to those in its care meant that Randall had to be called to account for the fallout from his belligerency. Time and place.

      Rufus

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    2. Utter drivel.
      Which of the ten commandments do you quibble over with God or give God "and opportunity to be more sensitive"?
      Do you call God to account over his belligerency when he flooded the entire Earth (it's His Earth after all, he made it) or when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, or when he wanted a certain crucifixion to occur?
      Clown l.

      Delete
    3. Since you ask my opinion, I take the flood narrative in the Hebrew canon to be a reworking of earlier deluge accounts from Mesopotamia - Gilgamesh or more likely Atrahasis. I don't view the biblical flood as historical. Even more grounds for you to throw insult my way, but you did ask.

      Rufus

      Delete
  9. He didn't just preach once, but twice in 2016 and then again in 2019. On at least the first occasion the content was felt to be inappropriate for the age of the hearers. In 2019 he actually submitted his script for 'vetting' to Dr Ian Paul (a well-known Anglican evangelical) as he knew it would be controversial. The school was not unhappy with the discussion of sexual ethics per se but felt that chapel sermons, with no opportunity for comeback or debate, were the wrong place for this, however it could be dealt with 'safely' through PSHE or in the classroom. Dr Randall had been told not to preach in this way, but he did, thereby putting himself in direct conflict with the school leadership. It is this conflict and Randall's apparent intransigence, rather than his belief in traditional Christian values, which seem to lie at the heart of this matter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Back to front, Baptist.
      Dr Randall wasn't in conflict with the school leadership.
      The school leadership were, and are, in conflict with God, scripture and two thousand years of traditional orthodoxy.
      It's the school leadership that deserve to be sacked.

      Delete
  10. Baptist Trainfan16 August 2024 at 10:10

    If my last post came through as written by "Baptist Comment", that was a mistake!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Christian Badger16 August 2024 at 11:25

    At last - some clear anaylsis from Baptist Trainfan

    ReplyDelete
  12. This one came up on another blog I look at - Thinking Anglicans. Somebody who apparently knows this priest professionally posted there to be careful assuming the situation is all as one sided as it’s being presented, as he ended up in ‘significant disputes’ with authority figures in two different dioceses in past posts about things not related to doctrine and beliefs.

    I never take anything on face value so looked him up myself in Crockford’s where it’s easy to see the Dioceses concerned - very different in culture and main church tradition. Then I asked round among my contacts and found it seems to be true - a curacy that ended prematurely, and being appointed to an incumbency that was then ‘downgraded’ to an assistant curate appointment by the Bishop after appointment but before licensing. Whilst being conscious I don’t know him, my impression from what I’ve been told is of a somewhat turbulent priest, who doesn’t always respond well to authority and who tends towards being convinced of his rightness in all things, not just doctrine.

    The poster on the other blog mentions the judicial review may be underway, so if that’s the case, I’m going to err on the side of caution and not say what I think about his current case, including my views on the Diocese, given what’s been reported here about the decisions of the other agencies. But I’m going to be cautious in casting him as any kind of martyr for a cause.

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  13. Baptist Trainman and Fr. Duddleswell, thank you for your very considered contributions. It's obvious that you've read the various reports on Randall and done some research before offering your contribution to the debate. I for one appreciate that. I'm not sure the reporting of Christian Concern is without bias, so far better to go to sources like employment tribunal reporting where the narrative is factual. That's how I came to my opinion, which very much accords with both yours.

    Rufus

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    1. As an aside Rufus - an observation without taking sides - you might be less confident of the authority of the Employment Tribunal service (generally adjudicated by independent lay members) to reach correct or proper decisions if you knew the increasing and concerning number of cases which are overturned on Appeal ... before even reaching Judicial Review. Even the Justice Department has raised concerns as it has done with the Parole Board. Rev Dr Randall ought perhaps to have simply threatened his Bishop and Diocese with legal action and awaited the large hush-money cheque so much part of the CofE way of disposing of matters these days. Four clergy of my knowledge from the Diocese of Bangor alone threatening Employment Tribunal received not just nice pay offs but transfers to better appointments outside Wales !!!!

      I do wonder if you have vested interest in this matter?


      Delete
    2. No vested interest just a thirst to keep myself well informed.

      Rufus.

      Delete
  14. Baptist Trainfan16 August 2024 at 17:22

    I can't claim to have read the entire Tribunal report in detail as it's more than 70 pages long! But I've read a good chunk of it and scanned the rest. I also saw the post on "Thinking Anglicans".

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  15. Baptist Trainfan16 August 2024 at 21:26

    Dr Randall was initially dismissed by the school because it "was convinced that [he] had used his position of authority to undermine School policies that he did not like, ... had lost the trust and respect of staff, pupils and parents ... and did not see himself as part of the staff team and was only answerable to Canon law". He was subsequently reinstated, under conditions, before being made redundant, allegedly because the school (an independent fee-paying one) had suffered financial hardship during Covid, had to make cutbacks, and felt that a Chaplain's teaching role could in fact be well covered by others. Dr Randall believed that this redundancy had been "artificially orchestrated" in order to get rid of him - however the Employment Tribunal did not agree.

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    1. With that degree of accuracy and factual recall, you’ll soon be barred from this site. The general readership here don’t take too kindly to being presented with incontrovertible evidence. Black is white.

      Rufus

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    2. Ironic, Rufus. Given that you have been presented with a Holy Book of incontrovertible evidence, from which you choose to only believe the parts you choose.

      Delete
    3. It's much worse than that.
      Where in the good book does it say it's OK to lie with a man like a woman and sodomise each other?
      It's not merely selective beliefs but make it up as you go along whilst doing your damnedest to corrupt the Church and other people whilst screaming "homophobic" at anyone that won't play along with the queering.

      Delete

  16. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/16/church-england-dropping-word-church-more-modern/
    Church of England is dropping the use of the word church.
    Will woke Welby's minions rename it the Community of England?
    Bewildered

    ReplyDelete