Felix Ngole Deserves Support from a Faithful, Courageous, ‘Confessing Church.’

Once upon a time, in a university Department meeting, I found myself defending a proposal I had made for a new M.A. course.

This was a course on the Oxford inklings; amongst whom were JRR Tolkien, C.S Lewis and Charles Williams. A book I had recently published had received a good review in the TLS, and got some favourable attention in America.

After I made the proposal to the meeting, there was silence. Then one by one a series of objections were made by my colleagues. I liked my colleagues. They were a creative hard-working and interesting group of people.

The questions came, and I answered each one and dealt with the objections, criticisms and hesitations. I had the strange experience of knowing that I had won the arguments but had somehow lost the meeting.

I decided it would be better to be frank. I asked my colleagues why, having won the arguments, as I thought I had, I appeared to have lost the discussion?

There was silence for moment and then one of the more passionate, effusive and honest, burst out unable to contain his frustration any longer.

“For God’s sake Gav, (knowing I was a priest as well as an academic, my colleagues always took care to use language they knew I would feel at home with, that was congruent with my culture and beliefs.)

– if this course had been about Virginia Wolfe and a host of supporting Lesbian fellow travellers, we would have been all over it in a supportive rash. But they are men. White men, white Christian men, white bloody Christian men who worked in bloody Oxford- for Christ’s sake (bless him for making me feel culturally included again). What did you expect?”

Resorting impotently to the bleeding obvious, I muttered “But that’s just prejudice; what’s more though, it’s prejudice you soon won’t be able to afford. You’ll need the overseas fees to pay your salaries.”

How wrong I was. The Government soon introduced compulsory student fees, and the universities were largely protected from the ravages of consumer demand.

But if I lost a good course, that was nothing compared to what has recently happened to Felix Ngole.

He was an MA student studying for a career in social work at the University of Sheffield. But he has been purged, and thrown off the course.

He made a Facebook comment from a Christian point of view.

In 2015, during a Facebook chat that followed a news story on Kentucky Clerk, Kim Davis, Felix expressed the view that “same sex marriage is a sin whether we like it or not. It is God’s words, and man’s sentiments would not change His words”.

Two months passed, and then suddenly he received an email from a university official telling him that his comments were being investigated.

In February 2016, he was summoned to appear before a Social Work ‘Fitness to Practise’ committee. They examined him and removed him from his MA course. He was expelled.

He has, thank goodness fought back, with the help of Christian Concern. His lawyers have made the point that the chairperson of the committee, a professor, was a long standing and an eminent LGBT activist.

Whilst they didn’t go so far as to accuse her of purging her department and her university of a social worker who happened to be a practicing orthodox Christian, they did point out that she had failed to ‘declare an interest’ as chairwoman of the committee; which is legalise for “we suspect you of prejudice.”

The prejudice of course is intended to be hidden by progressive cultural values; the expression and forced imposition of inclusivity, egalitarianism and gay-rights.

But they words are euphemisms. They don’t mean what they say.

What they really mean is something else.

Inclusion means “we are going to exclude Christians.’

Egalitarianism means “we are going to impose a hierarchy of values on you which has no room for Christians. Especially no room for you if you are a Christian who is male, and straight; and, we are going to put an end to free speech.”

Felix is black, but in the currency of oppression that is being exercised, that wasn’t enough to save him from the social offence of being Christian, straight and a man.

And ‘gay rights’ means, – we are going to pursue a policy that undermines the relationship between parents and their biological children, distorts the patterns of social relationship that have created the most stability and social glue, and socially, politically and professionally exclude anyone who dares to object.

This is a purge. It’s more than a purge, it’s a putsch, a political coup. Felix’s attempt to express himself in debate in university and in public was closed down. He was purged from his education and his chosen caring career.

Christians and democrats need to wake up. It is not just politicians like Fallon, (who got caught in the headlights) or Rees-Mogg who stared them down. It’s the small people too.

Where was the Bishop of Sheffield when a black, Christian would-be social worker was excluded from the most prominent university in the Diocese? Where was the Diocese of Sheffield when a Christian in public education was robbed of his right to free speech? Where are the bishops of the Church of England when yet one more orthodox practising Christian is mowed down by the progressive leftish convoy of attrition that they have hitched themselves to?

Perhaps they have been misled by the simplistic smearing of a pseudo-ethical icing on the toxic cake of egalitarianism?

But so far for Felix, as for so many Christian victims who have been robbed of their jobs or their freedom of speech, the bishops and Christian leaders remained silent.

Let Felix give you his warning:

I was born in Cameroon, under a dictatorship, where free speech was heavily censored. I had always been led to believe that in the UK people could share their beliefs and opinions without fear of persecution from public authorities. Of all places, I would expect universities to be places for free exchange of ideas and debate. It is shocking that, as a student, I can be thrown out just for believing in the Bible.

I find it unbelievable that the person presiding over the disciplinary panel was a ‘proud’ Lesbian and a veteran LGBT activist, and that fact was never disclosed to me.

I am also amazed by how the university has handled the visit of the controversial Islamic speaker.

I am shocked by this new evidence. As far as I can see, the university is guilty of appalling double standards.

Students go to university to discuss, debate and learn. We are seeing people banned from speaking at debating societies, and pressure groups banning anyone who dares to disagree with the liberal agenda being set by them. My case highlights the complicity of the liberal elite in this worrying movement.

Instead of banning Christian students, universities should concern themselves with the increasing censorship of Christian belief and lack of religious literacy. Britain has led the world in education and is now in danger of becoming a laughing stock.

Chillingly, it is more serious than that. We can cope with being a laughing stock. We can’t cope with having freedom of speech or freedom of employment removed from us.

The problem with being an accommodationist to a political movement that publicly wills your destruction, is that you become what Lenin dismissively described as a ‘useful idiot’.

In the 1930’s in Germany, another ideological state tried to seduce the Church into being complicit, by asking them to support a few values they were attracted by. But it was only to sedate their Christian consciences and gain their acquiescence until the political climate had changed to one strong enough to silence all Christian opposition.

Bonhoeffer saw what was really happening and refused the sedation.

He gave birth to the ‘Confessing Church.’

Felix Ngole and other victims of the progressive left, still camouflaging itself in euphemisms, deserves support from a Church that will speak out in defence of its faith, and the freedom of speech which is always a precondition of sharing that faith.

If we don’t have the equivalent of a ‘Confessing Church in the UK’, for Felix and so many others, past and to come, it’s time we did.

Call to Educate Not Indoctrinate

A poll of Conservative councillors conducted by ComRes earlier this year shows a significant gap between grass roots opinion and the actions of central government when it comes to matters of personal morality. It amounts to a call to government to stop indoctrinating children and concentrate on the business of educating them.

Nearly 9 in every 10 respondents want the government to focus on the economy and Brexit instead of the liberal causes espoused by the Department for Education and enforced by Ofsted. There is an equally clear point made on the issue of parental rights – nearly 80% think that parents, not the state, should decide how and when their children are taught about adult relationships.

In addition, 62% felt there was an undue focus on political correctness and gender identity. It amounts to a clear message from the grass roots. Schools should educate not indoctrinate. Personal morality is the province of parents. The state has no right to use education as a social engineering mechanism by embedding liberal ideologies.

There are plenty of other people saying this, too, of course. The problem is that growing numbers of concerned parents are actually afraid to speak, because anyone who voices an opinion contrary to that of the liberal glitterati is immediately labelled as homophobic and prejudiced. More than half of the poll respondents think that making toilets in schools unisex in order to conform to transgender policy is wrong, but try saying so.

For parents this is an impossible situation because both they and their children find themselves labelled as intolerant bigots in need of reprogramming. And so, the education service can continually reinforce its own righteousness in saving future society from toxicity and hatred. Suddenly Nineteen-Eighty Four seems less dystopian and more prophetic.

Ofsted, in its self-appointed role as the Ministry of Truth, committed to rooting out all thought crime, also comes in for criticism. More than half of those who responded to the poll think that ‘Ofsted appears biased in favour of an ideological left-wing agenda’ and 38% supported the idea of Ofsted being scrapped altogether, replacing it with an accountable, objective service. There are plenty who would agree with that.

On the issue of content in the proposed Relationships and Sex Education, there was an overwhelming call for the teaching of traditional marriage. This might be expected in a poll of Conservative councillors, but it is a view amply supported by the evidence. As David Cameron said, ‘Family is where people learn to be good citizens, to take responsibility, to live in harmony with others. Families are the building blocks of a strong, cohesive society. This isn’t a hunch. A whole body of evidence backs it up.’ So why are successive governments ignoring the evidence?

On one issue the respondents were almost unanimous – respect and consent in relationships. There is a problem with this, though, when it comes to definition. Evidence says that children don’t possess the cognitive skill to accurately judge the speed of an oncoming vehicle until they are about 14. The law says they can’t drive a car until they’re 17.

To protect their health and wellbeing, they can’t purchase alcohol or cigarettes until they’re 18. So by all means teach about consent, in the same way that schools teach about the dangers of substance abuse, if the age of consent in taught and enforced. Consent as the pundits would have it taught is merely as a means of self-defence so that children and young people can engage in sexual activity at ever-younger ages and ‘stay safe’.

Christianity is often seen by its opponents as a list of rules drawn up by a narcissistic God who just wants to spoil our fun. But actually, the rules are there for our own benefit. We are born biologically male or female. It’s empirically proven that a strong, secure marriage is most likely to lead to happiness. Children are raised most effectively in loving homes with secure parental relationships, and with both a mother and a father to give them a rounded perspective.

So the evidence is there, and it all goes to prove that living in accordance with God’s design for humanity really is the best way to live.

An Amazing Story of Sacrificial Love

500 Miles, Two Best Friends, One Wheelchair

“If you have those moments in your life where you just know inside and out it’s something you’re supposed to do, I just knew. I just knew,” says Justin.

For Justin Skeesuck, it would be the epic adventure he and lifelong friend Patrick Gray had talked about for years: a 500-mile trek on the legendary El Camino De Santiago. For centuries, people have been making the pilgrimage that traces the steps of James the apostle from the foot of the French Pyrenees to the Santiago de Compostela cathedral on the west coast of Spain. Every year, roughly 250,000 hike the trail, but very few do it in a wheelchair.

Justin says, “I just say, ‘Hey, do you want to go across 500 miles in northern Spain with me?’ And his answer was, ‘Yeah, I’ll push you.’”

Patrick says, “I didn’t have any other thought than, ‘Yeah, I’ll push you.’ Cause we-we’ve just shared so much of life together and it was just one more opportunity to build more memories.”

It’s a friendship that started forty years ago. Together, they have supported one another through tournaments, graduations, milestones, and even disease.

In 2004, Justin was diagnosed with Multifocal Acquired Motor Axonopathy, an autoimmune disease that has slowly robbed him of all his motor skills, and will eventually take his life. It has left him completely dependent on his wife Kirstin for daily care. But Patrick didn’t give it a second thought.

Patrick says, “We didn’t think about the challenge. We had no idea how difficult it was going to be. It was just, ‘Okay. The decision’s been made, it’s important to him so it’s important to me, we’ll figure it out.’”

The hike is a 5-week trek that traverses mountains, rivers, and desert. Training and preparing for the trip would take two years. Overcoming the doubt that crept in every now and then, took prayer.

Justin says, “Pat would be completely freaked out. I would be more calm and just kinda like “Okay, we’re going to get through this.” And then, you know, I would be then freaked out and he would be calm as well. Luckily we’re never in the same cycle together.”

Patrick adds, “Yeah. We felt like two hamsters on wheels, but they were going at different paces. Different points, and different points in time.”

Justin says, “But we had never – we’d never prayed so hard, I think, ever…EVER together.”

Then, in June of 2014, they said goodbye to their families in Boise, Idaho, and boarded their flight to Paris, France. With them was a film crew, documenting their journey to raise awareness for Justin’s disease. Two days later, as they made their way up the Pyrenees Mountains, reality set in.

Patrick says, “The trail it’s kind of cambered, and it pitches one way or the other. And so we’re always on a little bit of an angle to the right or the left. And so Justin’s constantly having to move back and forth to shift his weight, while communicating to me what he’s going to see coming up.”

Justin remembers, “We had some very steep declines and we had safety harnesses attached to me and two or three people would have to get behind Patrick.”

Justin says, “My wheelchair weighs about 250 pounds with me in it and the weight of gear and-and the chair itself and whatnot, so it’s quite, it’s quite heavy and it’ll pull you straight down – straight down a hill, and it’s very slow-moving going up.”

“There were moments where we literally thought, ‘This might be it for the day.’ Like I – ‘we’re done,’” says Patrick. But as only good friends can, they kept each other going.

Patrick says, “The dynamics that we just kinda just embraced vulnerability, accountability, kind of unabashed honesty about where we’re at, what we feel. If we don’t agree with something, just throwing it all out there and being okay A) saying it; and B) being okay receiving it, has just created this-this dynamic that exists where there’s no fear. There’s no fear within out relationship. And that, I think is-is where God has really been able to mold us into kinda one unit.”

Justin says, “We took our expectations off the table, and however that played out is however it played out. And if he just needed a listening ear, it was a listening ear. If he needed somebody to laugh with, somebody to laugh with. If he needed somebody to cry with, he needed somebody to cry with. I just wanted there for him.”

But their honesty and trust wasn’t the only thing that got them through the journey.

“God was with us every step of the way,” says Justin.

Patrick says, “Someone would show up out of nowhere. You have those call them angels and-and-and whether they’re angels or not, you know, I don’t know, but they’re people that God’s using. We met people from 27 countries. We had over 100 people help us. So at least 100 moments or periods of time where people were placed in our path for a reason.”

With God and the help of complete strangers, Justin and Patrick finished their pilgrimage in 35 days. Looking back, they have come to appreciate their friendship even more. For them, it’s not about sacrifice or humility. It’s about love.

Patrick says, “This whole journey has revealed to me the truth that we are so much better together than we are alone.”

Justin says, “We’re meant to live life together and that’s where God calls us to be. It’s way more exciting, way more fun, pushes you in ways you never thought you could go or who you could be as a person.”

‘Patrick says, “So often the beauty that-that God wants us to see is within one another. The opportunity for provision is in one another. The opportunity for experiencing God’s love is the love he’s pouring into our wife, or our husband, or our children. It’s community. It’s embracing others and loving them in just a recklessly, you know, passionate way.”

Since returning from Spain, Justin and Patrick founded Push Inc — an organization that helps groups and individuals achieve their dreams. Together, the two have co-written their first book, inspired audiences as motivational speakers, and are eagerly awaiting the documentary aptly titled, “I’ll push you,” which will be released this October.

Justin says, “You can see God at work, you can! You can see God at work right in front of us. When you ask God to take control of your life, hold on! Because you’re in for a wild ride.”

Image Credits: I Will Push You.com