John Parker’s story: Mermaids, leaving the C of E and now a church plant
John Parker
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
The minister at the centre of a transgender storm speaks to en
‘You are all now honorary Mermaids, whether you want to be or not.’ That was what the trainer said, and I did not want to be. Why not?
Parents told to ‘wake up’ to school sex ed
en staff
Date posted: 1 Nov 2020
Parents need to ‘wake up’ to what their children are being taught in sex education lessons, an ethical think tank is warning.
The Values Foundation (TVF) – which seeks to uphold the ‘centrality of faith and traditional family values in British education’ – was speaking to Evangelicals Now in the same week the government clarified its position on transgender ideology in the classroom.
Evangelicals in C of E face landmark sexuality fight
The Church of England has published a new set of resources called Living in Love & Faith (LLF) looking at marriage, sexuality and transgender issues.
Andrew Goddard reports:
Hate crime laws creep closer
en staff / various
Date posted: 1 Dec 2020
Hate crime law which could see people criminalised for things said in their own homes is on the verge of coming a step closer in Scotland, with hopes expressed by the Law Commission that England and Wales will follow suit.
MSPs will vote on whether or not to proceed with the controversial Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill in December. The proposed legislation has united churches, secular groups, comedians and the police in opposition to all or parts of it.
Harry Potter and the half-baked laws
en staff
Date posted: 1 Aug 2020
It was reported in June that the UK government intends to drop plans for allowing people who claim to be transgender to self-identify as such.
This proposal was first mooted by the government in 2018 (en September 2018). The result of the consultation has never been published*.
USA: deconstructing language
Breakpoint / The Gospel Coalition
Date posted: 1 Aug 2020
In mid-June, with a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of sex, also includes sexual orientation and gender identity.
The decision, Bostock vs Clayton County, involved three cases. In two of them, a social worker and a skydiving instructor claimed they were fired for being gay. The third case involved the firing of a funeral home employee (of Harris Funeral Homes) who, after being hired as a man, identified and presented as a woman.
USA: ‘hate speech policy’
Christian Post
Date posted: 1 Aug 2020
A video of a panel discussion including Walt Heyer, a Christian man who detransitioned back to his male birth sex, was taken off YouTube in June after it was deemed ‘offensive’.
Heyer, the founder of Sex Change Regret, was part of a Heritage Foundation panel last October, where he detailed his experiences with taking hormones and undergoing body-altering surgery to look more like a woman. During the panel discussion Heyer said that in the eight years he lived as a woman, he learned that, while he could change his appearance, sex is an immutable characteristic.
politics & policy
What’s on the horizon?
James Mildred
Date posted: 1 Sep 2020
With MPs and other elected representatives returning this month from summer holidays, it’s a good opportunity to scan the horizon and identify some of the key challenges ahead.
In part, this is to help you pray about some very serious challenges. But it’s also to prepare you for action. Needless to say, the issues below reflect some of CARE’s priorities and there are many other issues that space does not permit me to include.
news in brief
Open all Sunday
Downing Street is seeking to suspend Sunday trading laws in 2020.
The Times stated on 6 June that the government was drawing up measures in response to mass unemployment post-coronavirus lockdown, including ‘letting larger supermarkets open for more than six hours on Sundays’. It has since been reported that cafés and restaurants may also get the green light. Whilst evangelicals dispute whether the Sabbath is required (in light of passages such as Matt. 5:18, Mark 2:28, Col. 2:16-17, and Rom. 14:5), undoubtedly such plans will affect Christians as churches begin to reopen.
Asda, the Baroness and the Booker Prize
en staff
Date posted: 1 Aug 2020
In June, Asda sent an email to customers with information on diversity that included links to a book containing an account of a child involved in oral sex with an older person from an organisation which uses slogans linked to paedophiles.
After an outcry on Twitter about the materials produced by Diversity Role Models (DRM), Baroness Nicholson, a prolific tweeter and active member of the House of Lords contacted the CEO of ASDA, Roger Burnley. This resulted in both Asda issuing an apology, and DRM removing some of what it cited as ‘misinterpreted’ materials from the packs, which Asda said was at its request.
news in brief
Azerbaijan: fired
On 10 June, Baku Appeal Court rejected arguments that letters given to a Christian fired from his workplace were illegal.
Former parliamentary staffer Rahim Akhundov said he was fired in December 2018 on secret police orders because he is a Christian. Courts said he could not appeal earlier as Parliament sent the letter nine months late. He will appeal to the Supreme Court when he receives the written appeal rejection.
FREEDOM IN LOCKDOWN?
James Miildred
Date posted: 1 Jun 2020
There’s a mighty argument brewing in Scotland over free speech. With a global pandemic going on, you might think the Scottish Government was too busy with its response to that to be introducing controversial new legislation. But the coronavirus has not stopped the Justice Secretary from pushing ahead with plans to remove Scotland’s old blasphemy laws and replace them with new hate crime laws.
The new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill removes the centuries-old Scottish blasphemy laws and replaces them with new legislation.
Child teaches CPS the law
The Christian Institute
Date posted: 1 Jun 2020
In April, the Crown Prosecution Service pulled its LGBT hate crime guidance for schools following a legal challenge by a 14-year-old girl.
The guidance warned schools they could face legal action if they do not allow transgender pupils to use the toilets and changing rooms of their choice. It also claimed that children could be guilty of a hate crime for ‘rejecting someone’, ‘not wanting to work with them’ or excluding them from a friendship group.
Creeping Orwellianism
Various
Date posted: 1 Apr 2020
A High Court judge ruled in February that police acted unlawfully in their investigation into so-called ‘transphobic’ tweets, and suggested there was a creeping Orwellianism at work.
Humberside constabulary visited former policeman Harry Miller’s workplace after a complaint was made about tweets he sent challenging transgenderism. Miller founded the organisation ‘Fair Cop’ to challenge the police’s actions, arguing that the recording of non-crime ‘hate incidents’ was unlawful and that the police had breached his freedom of expression.
news in brief
Algeria: trying to stay open
An order to close a church building in the city of Oran was issued in 2019 but was not conveyed to the pastor until the middle of January.
This action prevented an appeal being made at the time. The church pastor’s lawyer notified the judge of the delay and it is hoped that the church can still appeal within ten days of receipt of the order.
The CPS’s hierarchy of hate
en / childprotectionresource.online/
Date posted: 1 Mar 2020
At the end of January it was reported that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) kept a document to deal with LBGT bulling and hate crimes in schools from public view.
The CPS claimed that due to the content involving ‘real life’ stories that the document was not initially given a wider audience beyond teaching staff who could access the materials (if they registered with the CPS). The CPS would not have included details that could identify a child to teachers. This appeared to be an excuse to keep a controversial document away from the eyes of parents. This is in keeping with the UNESCO suggestions of 2018 (see en January 2020).
Confusion reigns at the Royal Sussex
Brighton and Hove News / en
Date posted: 1 Feb 2020
The NHS trust which runs the Royal Sussex Hospital apologised to a rape survivor for including her letter requesting a female-born medic for a breast-screening appointment as an example of transphobia, it was reported in late 2019.
Gay-rights campaigner Clare Dimyon requested a natal female to perform a mammogram for her in 2018. In August 2019, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust published its new trans policy. It included the letter as an example of ‘highly discriminatory’ correspondence from patients which should be referred to the hospital’s equality diversity and inclusion team. Her name had been redacted from the letter.
SURRENDER OF THE FAITH?
en staff
Date posted: 1 Feb 2020
On 17 December the deeply controversial appointment of Stephen Cottrell as Archbishop of York was announced.
Carefully selected quotes from his speech to the press1 present a picture of an evangelical whose focus is on Christ. ‘What binds us together is … our faith in Jesus Christ. It’s our baptism and belonging to each other which is what really matters.’ However these quotes are removed from their context, and the context provides an entirely different view of the incoming Archbishop.
The beginning of the end of safeguarding?
en staff
Date posted: 1 Jan 2020
A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) document from 2009, updated in 20181, appears to be the driving force behind the end of effective safeguarding of children. The document teaches masturbation to small children and promotes gender ideology.
The 140-page treatise encourages early exposure to the details of reproduction and self-stimulation. Binary humanity is accepted as an outdated idea.2
news in brief
Facebook ban
Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, an activist for sex-based rights, and an opponent of transgender ideology, was permanently banned from Facebook in November.
Citing ‘safety and security reasons’, Facebook deactivated her account, stating that the decision was final. Known as Posie Parker, she had been temporarily banned for noting facts about biology and campaigning against the mutilation of children’s bodies by medication or surgery. She is not a Christian, but her clear message that people are born male and female also resulted in a YouTube interview being removed from the site.
Sex and self-affirmed gender: a crisis of truth
If you read the recent Spectator headline, ‘Let’s kick ‘gender identity’ out of school’, you would be forgiven for assuming that it was a guest post written by a staunchly conservative religious leader.
In fact, it was written by Debbie Hayton, a transgender teacher and journalist. Hayton came to national prominence last year as a result of incurring disciplinary action from the LGBT committee of the Trades Union Congress. To Hayton, a trans person, it must have felt like a cruel irony to be denounced as transphobic by so-called ‘cis-gendered’ (ie non-trans) members of that committee for doing little more than to don a T-shirt that bore the slogan: ‘Trans women are men. Get over it!’