The Church of England’s treatment of former school chaplain, Rev Dr Bernard Randall, deserves to be described as evil.
The Christian Legal Centre is rightly calling for Dr Randall to be restored to ministry after statutory authorities found that he did not pose a safeguarding risk.
But the Church of England should have backed him in 2019 over the sermon that led to him losing his job at Trent College, an independent school in Nottinghamshire with a long Anglican tradition.
Incredibly, the school referred Dr Randall to the government’s anti-terrorism programme, Prevent, for preaching a sermon to students in which he said they did not have to agree with LGBT ideology.
Prevent, as well as the local authority designated officer on safeguarding (LADO), the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA), and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), all decided there was no need for action against him. The Church, however, has left him without a bishop’s licence to minister since he was made redundant by the school in 2020.
On July 27, The Mail on Sunday reported on Dr Randall’s continuing exclusion from C of E ministry after the controversy over his sermon: “After falling into a bitter dispute with the school's bosses, he was sacked, then reinstated, only to be made redundant during Covid.
“Despite being cleared of wrongdoing, Dr Randall, who is married with a daughter, was unable to get another job in the Church.
“The Right Reverend Libby Lane, the Bishop of Derby - the Church's first female bishop - refused to grant him a licence or permission to officiate because her safeguarding team decided he could pose a risk of harm to children. It raised concerns about how Dr Randall 'would speak to and support someone who came to him if they were struggling with their sexuality'.”
The paper reported on a meeting Dr Randall had in June with church officials in his local Diocese of Derby in an attempt to get his licence back. He met with CofE safeguarding adviser Lee Elliot and the Bishop of Repton, Malcolm Macnaughton.
The paper reported: “Bishop Malcolm read a statement which claimed the chaplain remained a risk based on what he might say in future sermons. Mr Elliott referred to Dr Randall's Christian beliefs as 'your views'.
“Dr Randall responded by saying that his sermon reflected official CofE doctrine, not personal opinion. Mr Elliot went on to claim that saying 'things that are controversial ... could significantly lead to harm', before abruptly ending the meeting.”
How can anyone who has read even one of the New Testament Gospels suggest that followers of Jesus Christ should not say “controversial” things? Matthew’s Gospel describes Jesus getting embroiled in controversy as soon as he was born. Matthew chapter two describes how the Holy Family had to flee from Israel to Egypt because the Roman puppet King of Judea, Herod ‘the Great’ (c.72-c.4 BC), wanted to have the infant Jesus killed. Herod, becoming increasingly paranoid as he aged, was convinced that public opinion might consider Jesus to be the rightful Jewish Messiah because Bethlehem, the Judean town where Jesus was born, had Messianic associations.
Matthew’s Gospel later describes the adult Jesus causing controversy with religious leaders in Galilee for going to a party with “sinners” (Matthew 9v10-11). Towards its end, Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus delivering a sermon in which he described the religious leaders in Jerusalem in these “controversial” terms:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthews 23v27-28 – New International Version).
Apart from one missing word, no one has so far described the C of E’s treatment of Bernard Randall more accurately than the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, Andrea Williams. Calling for his reinstatement to ministry, she said:
“Rev Dr Bernard Randall has been cleared by every statutory safeguarding authority, yet the Church of England continues to treat him as a risk without presenting any evidence or allegations.
“This is a clear abuse of process and a violation of his rights under both ecclesiastical and civil law. The Church must now act to correct this injustice and restore his ministry.”
The missing word is evil because that is the right term to describe the C of E’s weaponisation of safeguarding to exclude a minister who upholds Christ’s teaching on the exclusively heterosexual nature of marriage as Almighty God created it.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
