The Church of England General Synod has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion banning clergy from becoming members of the British National Party.
The motion, put forward by lay Synod member Vasantha Gnanadoss, was passed by 322 votes to 13, with 20 abstentions.
The House of Bishops will now be asked to formulate a policy similar to one adopted by the Association of Chief Police Officers in 2004 preventing police from becoming members of organisations that promote racism but more specifically the BNP.
Previous Synod debates have deemed support for racist parties or organisations “incompatible with Christian discipleship” and in recent elections, clergy have appealed to their parishes to vote for mainstream parties in a bid to prevent the BNP from winning seats on local councils.
Ms Gnanadoss told Synod that unless the motion were passed, “the day may come when the BNP or something similar will have gained significant power in our country and the Church will stand accused of having been feeble when it could have been resolute."I think we have to name names, we have to talk about particular political organisations and not just racism in general.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams
Last year, a list of 12,000 BNP members was leaked on the internet and included five clergy, one of whom was a retired Anglican priest.
Warning that the BNP was trying to posture itself as a Christian group, Ms Gnanadoss told Synod that passing the motion “would make it much more difficult for the BNP and other organisations to exploit the claim that there are Anglican clergy or Church representatives that support them”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, were among the Synod members who backed the motion.
Dr Williams said, “There is a theological issue, one of whether someone who accepts their policies can conceivably have the sensibility required of a Christian pastor who has responsibility for the whole parish.
"I think we have to name names, we have to talk about particular political organisations and not just racism in general.”
Dr Sentamu told Synod he was from the Baganda tribe but added, “The day I became a Christian I joined another tribe. It is the tribe of Jesus Christ and in that tribe all are welcome, all are invited, all are accepted. There is therefore now no Jew, Greek, slave, free, male or female, because all are in Christ. So how could you be a member of such a tribe and then seek another group to belong to that actually contradicts that very message?”
