[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvC1_ToPbwg]

Christian teacher Joshua Sutcliffe faces disciplinary hearing

A respected Christian maths teacher at a school in Oxfordshire is facing discipline for ‘misgendering’ a student.

Joshua Sutcliffe, from Oxford, began working at the school in September 2015 and currently teaches children aged 11-18. He has achieved excellent results, with his Key Stage 3 students outperforming every parallel class.

But on November 2, a complaint was made that Joshua referred to a pupil as a ‘girl’, rather than the desired ‘boy’.

Although born as a girl, the pupil had self-declared as ‘male’. Joshua had not been given any formal instruction on how to refer to the pupil. An investigation began immediately, during which Joshua was prevented from teaching and forced to spend all his time ‘in isolation’ in the staff room. He is now suspended, pending a further investigation.

‘Transgender ideology is being imposed’

Responding to the disciplinary process, Joshua commented: “I have been shocked and saddened by the actions of the school, which, in my opinion, reflect an increasing trend of seeing Christians, people like me, being marginalised in the public square, and our beliefs punished and silenced.

“While the suggestion that gender is fluid conflicts sharply with my Christian beliefs, I recognise my responsibility as a teacher and Christian to treat each of my pupils with respect and dignity.

“I have never looked to impose my convictions on others, I just try to earnestly live out the gospel of peace.

“I have balanced these factors by calling the pupil by the chosen name and although I did not intentionally refer to the pupil as a ‘girl’, I do not believe it is unreasonable to call someone a girl if they were born a girl.

“The aggressive way in which transgender ideology is being imposed is undermining my freedom of belief and conscience, as well as the conscience of many people throughout our nation who believe that gender is assigned at birth.

“I have a deep conviction that we are all made in God’s image, male and female.”

‘A flood of cases’

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre which is supporting Joshua said:

“This case is one of a flood of cases we are encountering where teachers are finding themselves silenced or punished if they refuse to fall in line with the current transgender fad.

“We all know how much we change during our teenage years. It is vital that during those years we help our children to live in the biological sex they were born rather than encouraging them to change ‘gender’. If we encourage them to change gender it is not kind and compassionate; it is cruel.

“What we need is a culture in our schools which gives emotional support to children through puberty without encouraging them to make life-long decisions against their natural born biological sex.

“If we collude in the transgender delusion we do not serve our children well, we harm them.”

‘Discriminatory behaviours’

Following the week-long investigation, the school found that Joshua ‘misgendered’ the pupil, ‘demonstrating discriminatory behaviours’ and ‘[contravened] the school’s equality policy’. The school recommended dealing with the matter of ‘misconduct’ under the disciplinary policy.

Since the pupil started at the school, Joshua has tried to balance his sincerely held Christian belief that biological sex is God-given and defined at birth, with the need to treat sensitively the pupil. He avoided the use of gender-specific pronouns, and instead referred to the pupil by the pupil’s chosen name. Joshua admits saying “Well done girls” when he addressed a group of students including the pupil in question. The pupil became irate at this and Joshua sought to defuse the situation and apologized.

Bible club cancelled

Whilst working at the school, Joshua also began running a successful Bible club, which was attended by over 100 pupils before being shut down by the school 18 months after its inception. He was initially told by the Headteacher that the Bible club could not run without a register and a curriculum. Yet, after producing the required documents, the Head still insisted on cancelling the club. During this time, the school’s LGBTI club, mindfulness club, and Qigong club continued running without a register or curriculum.

Following a grievance meeting initiated by a deputy headteacher, it was found that the Bible club could continue running but only when the school was satisfied that it could be run in such a way that upheld the school’s policies. Determined to comply with the conditions and have the club reinstated, Joshua made numerous attempts over the following five weeks to follow instructions to reinstate the Bible club to be run in a way which upheld the school’s policies. After ignoring the issue over this period, the Head agreed to a meeting where the issues would be discussed.

International media attention

Since Joshua’s story hit the newspapers on Sunday, his case has been featured all over the news – on TV and radio as well as newspapers.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9_b49s-xVg?rel=0]

Copyright 2017, Christian Concern-All rights reserved

A Christian couple are to challenge a church primary school’s handling of a six-year-old boy’s request to be treated as a ‘girl’.

Nigel and Sally Rowe, who live on the Isle of Wight, raised concerns with the Church of England school when a six-year-old boy in their son’s class started to come to school sometimes dressed as a girl.

They say that their son, also six years old, came home from school upset and saying that he was “confused” by the situation.

Transphobic behaviour’

Nigel and Sally met with the headteacher and class teacher, and followed up with a letter setting out some of the questions that they had.

But the school’s formal response was “cold”, they say, and didn’t address their concerns.

In the letter, the school suggested that an “inability to believe a transgender person is actually a ‘real’ female or male” and “the refusal acknowledge a transgendered person’s true gender e.g. by failing to use their adopted name or using gender inappropriate pronouns,” was “transphobic behaviour”.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhgIvYFvmU]

Nigel and Sally are shocked at the suggestion that their child could be disciplined if he wouldn’t recognise the boy as a ‘girl’.

Given the confusion and anxiety experienced by their son, the couple decided to remove him from the school as the new academic year began last week. They informed the school citing its stance on “child gender ethics”.

Having actively supported the school over the past four years and helped to lead assemblies, Nigel and Sally describe the step as “deeply painful and very reluctantly taken.”

But they cannot contemplate returning their child to the school unless there is satisfactory resolution of the situation.

Challenging the guidelines

They now plan to launch legal action because they say that the school’s approach, and the legitimacy of guidance relied upon by the school, needs to be properly scrutinised in the courts.

Nigel and Sally say that they are taking action to challenge the “aggressive new gender ideology that is being rolled out across the education system to the detriment of children’s best interests,” and to safeguard the wellbeing of their own children.

The family is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre

Occurred again

Two years ago, a boy in the Rowe’s eldest child’s class decided that he wanted to become a ‘girl’.

From that point on, the child was treated by the school as a girl, causing concern to the Rowes and other parents.

Sally Rowe explains:

There was no consultation with other parents. Our son, like others, was struggling with starting school life, and with the school’s suggestion that young children can change gender. So, we felt that we could no longer allow him to attend the school.

The couple’s younger child continued at the school, only for a similar thing to happen.

Nigel explains:

Incredibly, a similar situation occurred again when our youngest son was six years old. A child, also aged six, would come to school one day as a boy, and on another day as a girl. Unsurprisingly, we raised our concerns with the school when our son came from school saying he was confused as to why and how a boy was now sometimes a girl!

The suggestion that gender is fluid, conflicts sharply with our Christian beliefs as a family. At six years of age children are exploring all sorts of new ideas and feelings. They do not have the emotional stability or maturity to make any life-changing decision, even if there was one to be made. This time we really felt that we had to challenge the school.

Transphobic behaviour

Nigel and Sally met with the school’s headteacher and class teacher, set out their concerns in a formal letter, and contacted the Diocese of Portsmouth and the Church of England’s Chief Education Officer.

In a written response, the school, having taken advice from the Diocese of Portsmouth and citing County Council policy, defended its behaviour.

In a section about bullying, the school made clear that it considered “the refusal to acknowledge a transgendered person’s true gender e.g. by failing to use their adopted name or using gender inappropriate pronouns” to be “transphobic behaviour”.

The letter from the church school continued:

Additionally, when a parent or carer raises a concern about the feelings of their child when spending time in the company of a transgender identified pupil, support work is aimed at answering the question: ‘How can we make your child feel better?’ rather than compromising the rights of the transgender child.

Direct clash

Nigel comments:

I am shocked by the suggestion, especially from a church school, that just because we question the notion that a six-year-old boy can really become a girl, we could be ‘transphobic’. I cannot contemplate my six-year-old son being disciplined and stigmatised as a bully simply because he believes that another six-year old born as a boy, is actually a boy.

As Christians, we believe that all people are valued and loved by God. But we also believe in the goodness of God’s created pattern of male and female. We certainly don’t have an irrational fear of those who are suffering from Gender Identity Disorder. In fact, we want to see them get the proper help that they need.

But the school’s behaviour has created a direct clash between our family’s beliefs, and the imposition of this new ideology. We, and our children, are being bullied into accepting a new moral framework which strongly conflicts with what we really believe.

Delusional, damaging and abusive

Commenting on the case, Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is supporting the family, said:

God has created humanity in his image, male and female. These are not arbitrary categories. It is not compassionate to encourage children to think that they can change genders. The loving thing to do is to help children embrace who they are as God made them, and especially to help those who experience confusion or anxiety about their identity.

 Transgender ideology is being aggressively imposed on unsuspecting schools, parents and children. School classrooms, which should be among the safest environments for children, are rapidly becoming dangerous battlefields in a war over gender identity.

Vulnerable children are being used as pawns and will be harmed the most. The right response to gender identity confusion is not to fuel ambiguity and anxiety but to give children the tools they need to embrace their birth sex.

We need to expose this agenda for what it is – delusional, destructive and abusive. Children aged six years of age are far too young, emotionally and physically to consider issues as complex as identity, gender and sexuality. Schools should create a safe environment for all pupils, not foster confusion and uncertainty about gender amongst young children.

A Church of England school, especially, should hold to the biblical teaching that God created us as men and women, and that marriage is between a man and a woman, for life. The school should have consulted with all parents and taken their views into account, not just the views of one particular child’s parents. Schools are being let down by poor guidance, leaving them wide open to legal challenge.

Wellbeing of children

Nigel goes on to explain:

In basic terms, we believe it is wrong to encourage very young and vulnerable children to embrace the false promise of ‘transgenderism’. As Christians, we believe that Gender Identity Disorder is something that needs to be addressed with love and compassion.

But we cannot have a new ideology imposed on the primary school classroom. It is unfair both to the children in question, and other pupils and their families.In the end, it is immoral and cruel to encourage children at the age of six – yes – six years of age, to not recognise their birth sex. A child of that age is not able to fully understand these complex social issues. The safeguarding and welfare of many other children is threatened.

Our great concern is what will happen to schools across the country if this type of ideology continues. Will we have schools where there are no longer boys and girls? That’s why we believe this new social construct must be challenged – for the safeguarding of our children and the future of society – but people are being frightened into staying silent.

We can hardly believe that it has come to this, and it breaks our hearts to be in this position. But what kind of parents would we be if we weren’t prepared to protect the wellbeing of our own children?

At the end of the day, we are parents of very young children – just like thousands of ordinary parents up and down the country.

Nigel and Sally say that the advice that the school is relying on is “politically-correct” but damaging to children.

They say that the school’s handling of the situation did not show proper regard for the possible long-term emotional and psychological effects for the two young children seeking to ‘change gender’, or for the confusion and concern caused to other people by the suggestion that boys are not always boys, and girls are not always girls.

Copyright 2017, Christian Concern-All rights reserved.

Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds.”  (Jeremiah 14:14)

Prominent theologian Thomas A Howe once rightly observed that if we cannot trust the Word of God in earthly matters, then how can we trust the Word of God when it speaks on spiritual or heavenly matters?

One of the chief threats to authentic Christianity is post-modernity’s belief that we can create our own truths. If we mix this precept with the cultural zeitgeist of the day and political correctness, what we end up with is a toxic potion which threatens the very foundation of the Church.

From 7-11 July, the Church of England will convene its General Synod in York. Among the issues being debated will be Jayne Ozanne’s Private Member’s Motion on banning therapy for people with unwanted same-sex attraction. It reads:

That this Synod:

(a) Endorse the statement of 16 January 2017 signed by The UK Council for Psychotherapy, The Royal College of General Practitioners and others that the practice of conversion therapy has no place in the modern world, is unethical, harmful and not supported by evidence; and

(b) Call upon the Archbishops’ Council to become a co-signatory to the statement on behalf of the Church of England.’

Let me be very clear: Jayne Ozanne is acting in her exclusive capacity as a homosexual rights advocate, not on behalf of the Church, but in order to undermine the Church. Her disdain for authentic Christianity can be found in her published material on so-called ‘spiritual abuse’.

Spiritual abuse is a very serious matter, no allegation of which should be made lightly. But according to Jayne Ozanne, spiritual abuse can be just about anything found in orthodox Christianity that she doesn’t agree with: promoting purity before marriage, preaching that sexual expression belongs within life-long marriage between one man and one woman, or therapeutic help to deal with unwanted same-sex attraction.

Jayne Ozanne specifically targets Church of England churches belonging to the charismatic movement, such as HTB and Soul Survivor, as well as healing ministries such as Ellel and Living Waters. She appears to claim that spiritual gifts, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and even raising hands in worship, can be considered spiritual abuse.

Healing ministries singled out by Ms Ozanne in her published material facilitate ministry for all aspects of our broken human nature (including our sexuality). They take seriously Jesus’ John 10:10 claim that He came to bring us life, and life to the full. We surrender our broken desires at the foot of the cross, and He, faithful to those who wholeheartedly seek Him, will bring about healing. But it requires saying ‘Not my will, Oh Lord, but yours be done.’ It is little wonder, then, that Ms Ozanne would claim such ministries are operating abusively.

But the larger question here is why someone participating in the General Synod is even permitted to pursue a Private Member’s Motion which would do enormous damage to the Church’s teaching on biblical sexuality.

There are any number of valid reasons that an individual would seek help with unwanted same-sex attraction – loving Jesus passionately and wanting to be faithful to Him and His teaching, maintaining a heterosexual marriage and preventing a family breakup, or to maintain vows of religious celibacy, to name only a few.

The notion that therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction is harmful and lacking in evidence is simply not true. There is a modern-day adage that no one wants to do any research, they just want to be right. Sadly, this sentiment seems to pervade Jayne Ozanne’s proposed Private Member’s Motion.

Just this year, The New Atlantis, devoted an entire journal to the subjects surrounding sexuality and gender and published the extensive findings of Dr. Lawrence S. Mayer and Dr. Paul R. McHugh of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

These findings refute many of the claims made by LGBT activists. They state that sexual orientation is not an innate biologically fixed trait; that sexual orientation can be particularly fluid throughout adolescence; and that environment, not genetics, plays the largest part in determining same-sex attraction.

It’s a hard truth, but I believe that one of the reasons we have same-sex ‘marriage’ in this nation is because the Church remained silent. By doing so, whether willingly or not, she was complicit in the mainstreaming of homosexual behaviour.

This same Church is now giving a national platform to ideologies which want to destroy biblical Christianity. The Synod is also to debate a motion called ‘Welcoming Transgender People’, which will consider introducing transgender ‘baptisms’ to ‘reaffirm’ those who have decided to identify as the opposite gender to which they are born. This is nothing short of a heretical assault on God’s creation ordinance and the very meaning of baptism.

These ideologies are a poison seeping into the very roots of the Church, and if left unchecked, the roots will rot. We must recognise Jayne Ozanne’s Private Member’s Motion for the deception that it is, and the existential threat that it poses.

Love does not mean celebrating our neighbour’s behaviour no matter how much it offends God’s Word. Love sometimes means flipping a few money changers’ tables in the temple.

This is precisely the task we have before us, to cleanse the proverbial temple. I urge all members of the General Synod to stand against this Private Member’s Motion and all that it represents.

Here is Andrea Williams speaking about the truth of marriage at the General Synod

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5Dk0CSAyrM?rel=0]

Copyright 2017, Christian Concern–All rights reserved.

In this piece, Dr Joe Boot, Christian Concern’s Wilberforce Director, discusses William Wilberforce’s life, the claims of Scripture, and understanding the times we live in. 

The Word of God declares that “out of the heart spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). In Scripture, the heart is the religious centre or religious root of the human personality. Therefore, human beings are religious by nature. That is to say, we are all worshipers of something. We either worship the living God, or some created thing takes the place of God in our lives. It is then in terms of that object of worship that people seek to know the full sense (meaning) of things.

People look in every direction to try and find some unity of meaning in their experience – some ultimate truth by which they can interpret and evaluate the “issues of life.” But when this is not done in terms of God and His Word- revelation, people are confronted with a serious problem from which there is no escape. The thoughts of man cannot find anything in temporal reality that can account for, and give meaning to, all created reality – only a transcendent personality is able to do that.

The Scriptures teach that the kind of total structuring-truth that man seeks about his life is not a  number of separate pieces of information, that can only be understood rationally by analyzing discrete ‘facts’ of experience.

Rather The Truth, the root unity of all meaning, is Jesus Christ; in His life and testimony (John 14:6). Jesus Christ reveals the order and structure of things: who we are, who God is, and the meaning of the whole creation. Fallen people do not simply ‘accept the facts’ as though they are self-interpreting; the evidence does not, in fact, speak for itself. Rather, we all interpret human experience in varying degrees of faithfulness to, or rebellion against, God’s creation and word-revelation.

The religious rebel against the living God arranges his data and invents his ideas so that he might feel safe without God – that is to say, outside of Christ man lives The Lie (Rom 1:25). Such a person’s goal is obviously not the knowledge and glory of God and his kingdom. Having cut himself off from The Truth, sinful man inevitably casts about for some other governing religious principle by any other name. As such, spiritual wandering and uprootedness is always characteristic of our anti-Christian age.

However, this characteristic of wandering and being divided in thought should not be descriptive of the Christian. William Wilberforce, one of the important founders of modern evangelicalism, once wrote,

The grand characteristic mark of the true Christian…is his desiring to please God in all his thoughts, and words and actions; to take the revealed Word to be the rule of his belief and practice; to let his light shine before men; and to in all things adorn the doctrine which he professes. [1]

In this statement we get a sense of the radical religious root unity that motivated this great man’s faithfulness. He had insight into the reality that his faith, by the Word of God, must direct every aspect of his life and thought. This driving motive gets to the core of what transforms the Christian who has grasped their true relation to God, His word, and their calling as His people in the world.

By contrast, in the unbelieving West today we have attained a level of apostasy from the Christian faith so radical that it has become self-conscious and evangelistic. We have, with eyes wide open, turned our backs on the faith that deeply influenced and nurtured the life and freedoms of Western nations for generations – and made us, by grace, a blessing to others.

That apostasy has spread to all sectors of society and revolutionized Western culture, from education and law, to politics, media and art. The late American scholar Evan Runnernoted in the latter third of the twentieth century:

We are called upon to live out our lives in dark and terrifying times. From the time of the French Revolution on, our days have been filled with mounting confusion on all sides, with revolutions and acts of violence that seem only to increase in tempo, in range and in intensity. For more and more people life appears to lack any meaning.

Even in the churches great numbers of people have accommodated themselves to secular ways of living and thinking, so that the power of Satan to deceive is mighty in the world. We can understand the words of Groen Van Prinsterer, who said: “Modern society, with all its excellences, having fallen into bondage to the theory of unbelief, is increasingly being seduced into a systematic denial of the living God.” [2]

The result of this systematic denial has been the steady moral neutering of several generations and, tragically, the casting adrift of the human personality, the heart of man.

It has led to the absolutization of the subjective feeling aspect of human experience so that now, in a malleable, plastic world, “I feel, therefore, I am.” We are being told there is no essential self; the human person and the human family are mere social constructs. We are only what we make and define ourselves to be in terms of a radical autonomy. [3]

Man is reduced to little more than mere artifice and is conceived of as bound by nothing outside or beyond him.

This radical relativism has gripped us to such a degree that to notice, or worse, to point out how created reality conflicts with anyone’s inner, personal fiction is seen as rhetorical violence or hatred. There is to be no judgment, except the condemnation of Christianity as the form of oppression that must be shaken off and disposed of.

For many years (at least until the 1960s), the cultural modus vivendi in the West was the attempt to retainmany of the outward forms and public morals bequeathed by Christianity, whilst subverting the central truth and power of the faith by denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ and authority of His word for the social order. This perspective was called secularism, and at best it was, for a season, moralistic. But, inevitably, it steadily disallowed the influence of scriptural truth in public life.

Now, secularism has logically given way to a more radical humanism in which a general recognition of, and grudging appreciation for, our Christian heritage has largely turned into a real loathing and hatred. Concurrently, overtly pagan forms of religious expression are privileged over, against the gospel. At the same time a humanistic political utopianism has supplanted the scriptural teaching of the kingdom of God. Because of all this we live in a time when the outlook appears, on its face, grim.

By this reflection, we are not driven to looking back with a naïve nostalgia to some imaginary past, where we once had an overtly and robustly Christian cultural order that was radically transformed by the gospel. Even in the West, such a clearly and consistently Christian culture is yet to be historically realized.

We might reasonably say that Western nations were profoundly influenced by Christianity, and have had broadly Christianized institutions. But certainly no one in the last four generations has ever lived in a Christian culture, and in the past our nations fell well short of a Christian culture, that clearly rejected attempts at a synthesis with humanistic religion – emanating from the philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome.

This is important to notice in response to those (and especially to misguided Christians) who, in the face of the challenges confronting us, would claim that we are living in a post-Christian age – and so we should abandon our efforts at gospel-cultural reformation in terms of Scripture and just accept that Christianity has lost the so-called ‘culture war’ – that we should recognise that we are, and will remain, just one among many reticent and humble applicants for religious accommodation. Such people miss what William Wilberforce well understood in his eschatological hopes for the success of the gospel, and what the theologian Loraine Boettner has pointed out:

[T]here has never yet been a truly Christian age, nor has so much as one nation ever been consistently Christian. The age in which we are living is still pre-Christian.

He continues,

That the progress of the church through these years has been slow is due to the fact that Christians in general have not taken seriously Christ’s command…. The Great Commission is addressed not merely to ministers and missionaries, but to all Christians everywhere…. The command applies to parents rearing their children, to children in regard to their parents, to individuals in whatever relationship they stand to their neighbors or business or social champions, to those who teach in the schools, to employers and employees in their mutual relationships, to writers, to newsmen, to statesmen, to Christians in general regardless of occupation or station in life. [4]

If it is true – I believe it is – that we are not in a post-Christian age, but a pre-Christian one, then world history is still moving toward the morning of gospel renewal, not falling off into the night of despair.

Jesus Christ is Lord; He governs history and calls His people to be more than conquerors through Him, making disciples of the nations by faith and obedience. A pre-Christian age means difficult times – when people’s hearts may fail them for fear, but history awaits faithful men and women, enlivened by the Word-revelation of God and filled with His Spirit, who will go to battle for His glory as Christ makes darkness flee away.

To face our times with courage, we must recover an applied faith for all of life. May God grant us such faithfulness that we would be gripped by the radical and transforming power of the Word of God in our lives, and rediscover, by the unfolding of that Word by the Spirit, our calling as a redeemed royal priesthood in Jesus Christ. The great question every Christian must grapple with in our time, is that of the relation of the powerful Word-revelation of God to our life in the world. The answer that we arrive at will determine the course of our nation’s future.

1] William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, (Glasgow: William Collins, 1833),378.
[2] Evan Runner, Walking in the Way of the Word: The Collected Writings of H. Evan Runner (Grand Rapids: Paideia Press, 2009), 168, emphasis added.
[3] See Jim Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
[4] Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1957).

© Copyright 2016, Christian Concern

A Christian student, who was expelled from a university social work course after expressing support for biblical teaching on marriage on his own Facebook page, is to seek further legal action after losing his appeal against the decision.

The decision to expel Felix Ngole means he will no longer be able to continue his studies at the University of Sheffield, and pursue his desired vocation as a social worker.

‘May have caused offence’

Felix, a second year Masters student, decided to appeal after he was told that, by posting his comments on Facebook, the Committee believed that he “may have caused offence to some individuals” and had “transgressed boundaries which are not deemed appropriate for someone entering the Social Work profession.”

His action would have an effect on his “ability to carry out a role as a Social Worker,” the Committee said.

Felix is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre as he considers his next steps.

University’s decision ‘proportionate’

Felix has now been told by the Appeals Office that submitting the posts in question on social media was “inappropriate”, in light of the professional conduct outlined in the Health and Care Professions Councils (HCPC).

The letter from the Appeals Office then claimed that Mr Ngole had not “offered any insight or reflection” on the “potential impact” of his postings, or on how the social work profession may be perceived by the public, based on what he had posted.

For this reason, the Appeals Committee ruled that his expulsion was “proportionate”.

‘Ended my training for my chosen vocation’

Commenting on the university’s decision, Felix said:

Like every other student at university I use social media to communicate and express personal views. In my Facebook posts in question, I simply expressed support for the biblical view of marriage and sexuality. However, I was reported to the university for these views and they unilaterally decided to end my course. In so doing, they ended my training for my chosen vocation in life.

I shall be seeking further legal action as my case raises all sorts of legal questions as to whether Christians can any longer hold traditional biblical and moral beliefs and still enter mainstream professions such as social work, medicine, teaching and law in this country.”

Targeted over Facebook comments

Felix made the comments in question last September on his personal Facebook page, in connection with the case of Kim Davis, the marriage clerk from the US state of Kentucky, who expressed a conscientious objection to issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples.

Felix expressed support for Kim Davies’ freedom and in the course of the discussion explained biblical teaching on sexual ethics.

Nearly two months later, he received an email from a university official telling him that his comments were being investigated and summoning him to a meeting the following Monday.

Following further meetings, he was told that the Faculty of Social Sciences Fitness to Practise Committee had ruled that he should be removed from the course. 

‘This case raises fundamental issues’

Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said:

The university’s decision reflects a worrying trend throughout Higher Education institutions, which is to censor any view that may be deemed ‘offensive’.

Mr Ngole has worked with those who identify as homosexual in the past and has always treated them with respect, never discriminating against them. There is no evidence that Felix’s biblical views would have negatively impacted his work.

We have become used to registrars, nurses, teachers, magistrates and counsellors being disciplined in their jobs for acting according to conscience, but this is the very first time a Christian student has been stopped even before he enters his chosen vocation to help others – simply for holding traditional Christians views on marriage and sexuality.

This case raises fundamental issues which is why taking further action is vital.” 

© Copyright 2016 Christian Concern

Photo courtesy: Christian Post

Felix Ngole has commented on his case, describing his shock at being expelled from university for defending his biblical faith. In his comment piece below, he raises concerns about the way views are being increasingly censored, and the impact this can have on individuals’ lives:

“The way that I have been treated raises very serious issues about the way students in English universities are being censored in their views and beliefs. If the personal statements of students on their own social media pages, and amongst their own ‘friends’ are now to be used to judge whether they are ‘fit and proper people’ to serve in professions such as law, medicine, teaching and social work, then very serious questions need to be asked about the freedoms in the UK.

A university is not the proper body to judge whether a potential student is a fitting person to join a professional body. That is for the professional body concerned. If universities are now to scrutinise their student’s social media accounts, then students should be warned about that at the very start of their studies, and should be given the opportunity to decide whether it is the sort of university they want to attend.

If each university is making its own, arbitrary decisions, who is monitoring these decisions and how can students ensure that, across all universities, there is good, fair and equal assessment of such issues?

However, there is a far more serious issue at stake. Further education is a time when all students should be helped to explore their beliefs, through interaction and debate. If they are ‘censored’ from even sharing their ideas or beliefs as part of a discussion on Facebook then how can that happen? Even the Soviet Union did not restrict students like this.

If these sort of judgemental procedures were in place when David Cameron and other Cabinet ministers were in Oxford, and some were members of the Bullingdon Club, one wonders whether they would have been prevented from continuing their courses as well!

The university claims my views are discriminatory but I am the one being discriminated against because of my expression of Christian beliefs. I wonder whether the university would have taken any action if a Muslim student who believes in Shari’a law, with its teaching about women and homosexuality, had made moderate comments on his Facebook page. I don’t think so.”

Mr Ngole said:

“I came to this country because of the opportunities I thought this great nation offers. This country once led the world in freedom and justice and is iconic in my homeland of Cameroon.

So many of us in Cameroon aspire to the kind of possibilities that we believe only Britain can give us. We think of it as a nation that protects freedom of speech, religion and our ability to be who we want to be.

It, therefore, came as quite a shock to find myself expelled from a prestigious Russell Group University just because I had stood up for someone’s right to exercise freedom of conscience at work.

The case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky Clerk who felt herself unable to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples found herself in jail for contempt of court, was all over the media. There was a lot of discussion about the case on and off the university campus.

I entered into the discussion on my personal Facebook account. I wanted to defend her; because she, like me and millions of others across the globe believe that marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman.

Studying for a Master’s degree in Social Work, you’re constantly reminded of the importance of fairness, of treating everyone equally and of not discriminating against anyone. I chose the course because I come from a nation where I have witnessed poverty and hardship. I have been given a chance in this nation; I have a personal and vibrant faith in Jesus Christ and am motivated to serve people in my community and in my work and to give back to this country.

Just because I disagree with a homosexual lifestyle, it doesn’t mean to say that I won’t act in a professional, kind and compassionate way when dealing with homosexuals. We all disagree on many, many issues; governments rise and fall off the back of that process via the ballot box. If my freedom to express my opinion is removed on this matter, then why not on any and all other matters where the present government disagrees?

The University of Sheffield didn’t seem to want to give me a chance. If you hold that kind of opinion they seemed to say ‘you’re not fit to be a social worker’.
They couldn’t see beyond that; they couldn’t see the irony of their own intolerance of my views.

If this is the way the system operates then it means that people like me and followers of Christ everywhere will be ‘barred from professions’; deemed ‘not fit for practice’.

What a shame when I believe I have so much to offer; a heart and a willingness to get on with the job, people and to facilitate the existing laws. The new political orthodoxy coerces and compels a ‘way to think and a way to speak’ – if you disagree you’re left out in the cold.

I’m just me. What frightens me is that I’m perhaps just one of many. I’m the one who found the Christian Legal Centre and they encouraged me to fight my case. I was all for just letting it go and quitting my dream.

I realize that would have been a mistake. How many have just let their dreams go because of the new cultural Marxism that censors and punishes any view that does not accord with the new orthodoxy of the law and state.

So I am now taking my case forward for students just like me everywhere; for social workers, teachers, nurses who love and are motivated by the love of Jesus to continue to be free to work in this nation that I love, Great Britain.”

Click Here and Here For More Information…

Photo courtesy: The Telegraph

Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern and a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, has issued the following statement in response to the Archbishop Justin Welby’s Presidential Address to the General Synod on Monday (15 FEB):

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s presidential address at Synod addressed the aftermath of the recent Primates’ gathering in Canterbury, in which a compromise was reached between two diametrically opposed groups: those who hold to the Bible’s teaching on marriage and sexuality – and those who do not.

That meeting was not a success, and it is disingenuous to suggest that it was. It did not tackle the fundamental issue and instead it tries to keep us on a path that can never secure true unity.

It failed to challenge an overarching relativism which allows human ideas and current cultural trends to override God’s unchanging Word.

The Archbishop’s analysis reflects an approach that prizes the appearance of institutional, formal unity over true, organic unity. But without organic unity, institutional unity will crumble and collapse as we have already seen.

Real unity can only grow in the soil of truth. No amount of institutional scaffolding can substitute for healthy soil.

God’s pattern for marriage and His teaching on sexuality is not peripheral. Our approach to it tests our understanding of the authority of Scripture and the Gospel itself..

The underlying issue is whether the churches will submit to God’s Word.

An approach to unity which, as long as the institution is upheld, allows an ‘agreement to disagree’ on Scripture’s authority, is counter-productive and doomed to failure.

Unless there is a shared submission to God’s Word, we are not on a shared journey to a shared destination, and no amount of institutional scaffolding will take us there.

During his speech, the Archbishop spoke of the necessity of “unity which relishes and celebrates the diversity of freedom and [human] flourishing within broad limits of order.”

What we saw at the Primates’ meeting, and have seen for several years, is not true unity.

Members of the Communion who hold opposing views on the key issue of marriage will simply continue to co-exist in deep disagreement. The Archbishop himself admitted that members are in “very different” places theologically.

We know these conversations will continue, and we know that liberal members will continue to push their agenda under the guise of ‘love and acceptance’. Yet true love and compassion does not discard or distort God’s good patten for human flourishing.

Only a fortnight ago it emerged that a new ‘Anglican’ campaign group, LGBTI Mission, has been established, in order to pressure the Church of England to accept clergy in same-sex ‘marriages’. It demands that same-sex ‘marriages’ be considered equally valid to marriages between men and women.

How will the Archbishop address these increasing attempts to deviate from the standard God has set out for us in His Word?

The Scriptures outline God’s pattern for marriage as between one man and one woman. This is designed as a beautiful reflection of Jesus’ love for His church, an expression of intimacy and communion, in covenant.

Jesus promised He will come back for a pure and spotless Bride. Yet the Bride of Christ will not ‘flourish’ under compromise.  The Archbishop of Canterbury emphasized the need for a balance between order, freedom and human flourishing.

But what freedom is the Archbishop speaking of here?

He is right in reminding us that Jesus came to set us free. Yet true freedom is freedom from sin, which is found in repentance and the surrendering of human desires to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not freedom to continue holding to disobedience of the Word.

Obedience to the Word of God is vital if the Church is to flourish.

If the Church compromises the Truth we are are not fit to evangelize. How can we evangelize with a watered down gospel that reflects the spirit of the age that is less appealing to many than the running club?

Obedience to the true Gospel is worth living and dying for: as Jesus predicted his death he said:

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels”.

We are not preaching a true Gospel message, if the teaching of the Bible on such a vital matter as marriage and sexuality is compromised. There can be no relevance if the truth is truncated.

The Archbishop spoke of the picture of humility that Jesus painted through the washing of His disciples’ feet. But in that humility and servant-heartedness, we must point people to truth. Archbishop Justin failed to speak of truth or of objective revelation from God. It is as if truth has been relegated to a ‘process of discernment’ not a matter of scripture, canons and creed.

This is a capitulation to the ‘spirit of the age’, not the Spirit of God who has spoken in Scripture.

Article originally posted here.