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The culture wars over transgender issues have caused some notable casualties, Harry Potter editor J. K. Rowling added, though many other people who suffered mistakes simply went about their daily lives. “I’m obviously not in the same league as J. K. Rowling,” says the Rev. Bernard Randall. “He’s a decent person. It’s just me. “
But for the 48-year-old father, the personal burden of being involved in the war has been just as traumatic. After causing a stir in June 2019 when he delivered a sermon in the chapel of his own school in Derbyshire, where he was chaplain, inviting – “quite polite”, he says – pupils to reflect on the formation of the Church on sex and marriage, he was sacked, banned from leading anywhere in the Church of England and referred to a variety of official bodies ranging from the head of coverage appointed by local authorities (the “LADO”), national education regulators, and the government’s anti-radicalization program, Prevent.
The three of them saw no explanation as to why they could act in his support, much to his relief, but he was still faced with the prospect of never painting again or pursuing his devoted vocation in ministry. “Who will give me an assignment when I don’t have references?”from a former employer and I carry all kinds of baggage with me?
He tells me from his home in Nottinghamshire that “he’s not angry, just disappointed. The loss of my wife and daughter has literally kept me in one piece. “
All with one day of education in September 2018. I had already completed three years at Trent College, Long Eaton, Derbyshire, an independent boarding school established as an explicitly Anglican base in the late 19th century.
The Reverend Randall, a former chaplain at Cambridge University, had turned to the schools because he sought to inculcate in young people some of the devout literacy that was so lacking in college students.
Before students returned for the new term, they piled up to hone their skills by attending an Educate session.
It had been named in a list of useful resources by Valuing All God’s Children, a 2014 Church of England report on education, though it has no religious attachments itself.
“Some elements of what we were told are correct,” he recalls, “that we shouldn’t tolerate bullying, for example, and things related to diversity, but I found that his references to “destructive heteronormativity” [the assumption that the maximum or all other people are straight]] didn’t sit well with him in a Christian school.
A High Anglican by upbringing, but one who has become more “mainstream” in his ministry, the Rev Mr Randall is no Evangelical firebrand. Instead, he is gently insistent on making plain his own view that it is “absolutely right the Church is more relaxed about people being gay or same-sex-attracted, or whatever words you want to use, than it used to be, and that the vitriol that used to be poured out on gay people was abhorrent”.
But at the same time he emphasizes that his church’s “past and healthy” formation does not allow same-sex marriage, nor does it allow those who have sex with other people of the same sex to be priests. A point of view that he tried to bring to the table in discussions with the senior managers of Trent College about how far to go in the implementation of the Educate program.
He considered some of the things they stood for, though not all, to be “problematic. “Even so, he soon learned that, as chaplain, despite the school’s stated philosophy, it excluded him from the emergent plan, “because, as one user told me, you might not agree. “
It should be noted that the school later questioned whether anyone had used those precise words, as well as other facets of the rate that oppose them. “I don’t quite forget they said that,” he insists, adding that he wasn’t the only staff member who “wasn’t impressed” with Educate’s program
So were you worried that some kind of reflection was about to take place?Among the spaces he and trans activists would disagree on are biological sex as opposed to gender, and what he would call sex reassignment and what they would call an intrinsic “gender identity. “”.
“I would be wary of the word ‘brainwashing,'” he begins. “What a school does is lie to children. You replace your gender. It comes from a specific worldview that includes an unconditional trust in this thing called gender identity. Once you start lying to kids, all sorts of bad things happen.
No policy document has ever been circulated to Trent College to give it the opportunity to file a formal objection to the implementation of the Educate program.
“Every summer semester, I would ask scholars to recommend topics for religious services. A 10th grader asked me, “Can you know why we’re told we have to settle for all this LGBT stuff in a Christian school?That sounded like a very smart question to me, and that’s what I quoted in my sermon.
When I ask him, he admits that “having to accept” is “a very strong way of saying it,” but at the same time claims that his sermon “didn’t say right or wrong, nor did it condemn all homosexuals. “. ». Instead, “it allowed for a much more impartial and balanced debate: freedom of conscience, freedom for what is important. I was fully aware that many LGBT activists belonged to the “non-debate” school.
He was, he says to this day, “a Church of England chaplain who told pupils at a Church of England school to think about the Church of England point of view. ” Nothing with that? Well, more than three years later, an employment tribunal ruled that using words like “you might believe” was “persuasive and inappropriate. ” For his part, he believes that “all sermons are intrinsically intended to be a little persuasive. “
After delivering the sermon twice, court cases were brought up, and he added that he said it was OK to be homophobic.
A meeting was called for the following week with the deputy director and the coverage officer. “I didn’t know there were any details about the coverage. So, I found it pretty scary. Endorsement can destroy people’s careers. I’m not in an intelligent frame of mind in the assembly. I’m angry. That’s not fair.
The result led to his immediate suspension, pending an investigation and disciplinary hearing that took place before the start of the school year for the summer.
The verdict is delayed during the long holidays. That summer was “desperately hard” at home, three-quarters of a kilometer from school, he recalls with a grimace. In September 2019, a few days before his return, he was personally handed a letter announcing that he had been fired. Trent College for “gross misconduct”.
“A part of me was surely disappointed and a part of me wanted to laugh at this nonsense. How can this happen to me? How can this happen to anyone?”
He appealed the dismissal, and to his “huge surprise”, was reinstated in autumn 2019 by an internal panel. He was, instead, given a written warning, had his teaching timetable (delivering lessons in classics and religious education) axed, and had to agree that any sermon he gave was to be vetted before delivery.
When the Covid lockdown began, the former suspended it, then restructured it and fired it in December 2020. However, the ordeal continued. Now that the safeguarding of his local diocese of Derby is at stake, his investigation is “still ongoing” and, he fears, is in a bind, as the bishop’s advisers find it not easy to admit errors of endorsement before moving forward and he sticks to his positions. That he hasn’t done anything wrong.
And while that stand-off remains, he cannot take his place at the altar. “I am deemed to be too dangerous.”
Some priests find tactics to circumvent such a state of liturgical vacancy in private, but not the Rev. Mr. Randall. “I say my prayers through myself, but a service needs a congregation. “
In September 2022, the Labour Court ruled against him on the grounds of unfair dismissal. He considers that it was partial and partial. He appealed.
“It quoted all sorts of documents at length but only 20 words of my actual sermon, and without context. They didn’t engage with what I had said and I find it hard to see that as fair judgement.”
It has also, together with the activist organisation Christian Concern, taken legal action against Trent College and its principal, alleging victimisation, harassment and discrimination on religious grounds.
How do you make ends meet?” A secular position that is not what I want to do. I teach arts and humanities at a university. My wife works part-time as a music administrator, but she noticed a significant drop in our income.
But that’s not the point,” he continues. The bottom line is that we can’t plan for the long term because I don’t know what I’m going to be allowed to do. ” Or at any rate, it’s permissible to say so. , either as a chair or as a professor.
“After everything that happened, my confidence is very low. “
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