Christian Chaplain reported to anti-terrorism programme for sermon on LGBT ideology
A Christian chaplain at Trent College was fired and reported to the British government’s anti-terrorism programme for delivering a sermon in which he told pupils that it is acceptable to question and disagree with far-left LGBT ideology being taught at the school.
(Article by Kurt Zindulka republished from Breitbart.com)
Trent College, which claims to have a “Christian ethos”, invited the educational charity Educate and Celebrate to their campus in 2018, in order to make their school more LGBT-friendly.
Educate and Celebrate declared that their mission was to “embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your school.”
The head of the charity, Dr Elly Barnes, has openly stated that the purpose of Educate and Celebrate is to “completely smash heteronormativity, that’s what we want to do.”
The charity has been funded by the British taxpayer to the tune of £250,000, according to the Mail on Sunday.
The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall, who previously served as a Chaplain for Cambridge University before joining Trent College, performed a sermon defending traditional Christian beliefs following questions from a pupil on why pupils “are told we have to accept all of this LGBT stuff in a Christian school?”
In the June 2019 sermon entitled ‘Competing Ideologies‘ Dr Randall stressed the Christian ethics of understanding, grace, and kindness, but added that pupils should not feel as though they must accept teachings if they believe they run contrary to their faith.
“Now when ideologies compete, we should not descend into abuse, we should respect the beliefs of others, even where we disagree. Above all, we need to treat each other with respect, not personal attacks – that’s what loving your neighbour as yourself means,” Dr Randall said.
“You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit or must be Muslim – to both of which I’m sure most of you would quite rightly object,” he added.
Following the sermon, Trent College’s “designated safeguarding lead”, Justine Rimington, reported the chaplain to Prevent, the British government’s anti-terrorism unit which seeks to halt the radicalisation of young people.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Randall said: “I was terrified when I found out. I had visions of being investigated by MI5, of men coming to my house at dawn and knocking down the front door. What was I supposed to tell my family? It was crazy.”
“I had gone to such lengths in the sermon to stress we must respect one another no matter what, even people we disagree with,” he pointed out.
Derbyshire Police confirmed to the paper that the chaplain was indeed referred to the anti-terror programme by the school, however they ultimately determined that Dr Randall did not represent a “counter-terrorism risk or risk of radicalisation” and confirmed that the complaint “did not meet the threshold for a Prevent referral.”
Aside from reporting the chaplain to Prevent, the school also informed him that his future sermons would be reviewed and censored prior to their delivery in order “‘to ensure that… requirements are met,” according to Randall.
The charity Christian Concern reported that he was told to refrain from discussing “any topic or express[ing] any opinion (in Chapel or more generally around School) that is likely to cause offence or distress to members of the school body.”
“You will not publicly express personal beliefs in ways which exploit our pupils’ vulnerability,” the school also allegedly told the chaplain.
Ultimately, he was dismissed from the school, prompting Randall to sue for harassment, victimisation, discrimination, and unfair dismissal. His case will be heard by the East Midlands Employment Tribunal on June 14th 2021.
“My career and life are in tatters,” he said.
Detailing the lengths to which Educate and Celebrate pushed leftist ideology on the school’s campus, Dr Randall alleged that teachers were told to collectively chant “Smash heteronormativity” during a training exercise led by Dr Elly Barnes.
“The chanting was frankly bizarre and I felt uncomfortable,” he said, adding: “It was all very cleverly put together though – her rhetorical skills were impressive.”
Dr Elly Barnes, a former music teacher with ties to the Socialist Party of Britain, according to the MoS, founded and continues to run the Educate and Celebrate charity.
The charity boasts that it has worked with thousands of schools across the country in developing lesson plans, running workshops, and conducting training for teachers. The charity advocates for far-left positions on gender theory, such as banning the use of the words “boys” and “girls” in the classroom, and using so-called gender-neutral terms such as “they” and “zie”.
Educate and Celebrate ran into controversy in 2017 when it published a book that promoted the idea of using puberty blockers on children as young as 12-years-old. The charity is also alleged to have told teachers that it is acceptable to help children transition without the knowledge of their parents.
Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is helping Dr Randall in his legal efforts, said: “Who are the extremists in this story? The partisan agency who teach young children that they can be born in the wrong body, or the school chaplain moderately presenting what the Christian church has taught about marriage, sex and gender for the past 2,000 years?”
This article was originally published on Natural News and is reposted with permission.
Big Tech censorship has been expanding beyond just Conservatives… Christians are next!
While many of us have been warning about the coming persecution of Christians, I don’t think any of us thought that it would be ramping up so quickly. While we are luckily not facing physical persecution yet, such as beatings or death, we are facing censorship, deplatforming and even jail time in some instances. These are just the birth pangs of what is coming next.
While we still have a voice here at The GateKeepers, we are doing everything that we can to bypass the algorithmic walls put up by Big Tech and the Social Media companies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Our videos used to get thousands of views across all of our platforms, while now they are being throttled and hardly getting distributed at all. An added wrinkle is that, while our video content is seeing lower views, traffic to our website has never been higher. Over the past year we’ve seen a 700% increase in traffic, and it’s been amazing to experience this kind of growth. Because of this, we’ll be launching GKTV very soon, hosting all of our shows exclusively on our platform.
While The GateKeepers started out as nothing more than a blog for me to post my articles, it has now expanded into a podcast network featuring fifteen shows, a publishing company that has published three books over the past year and we are now hosting conferences on a regular basis. We’ve seen the addition of contributors to The GateKeepers such as Denise McAllister, Pastor Cary Gordon, Pastor Ken Peters, Dr Mike Spaulding, Dr Bobby Lopez and many other amazing Christian leaders. Our lineup of shows has expanded, as well, featuring shows such as The Shining Light Podcast, Conversations with Jeff, The Big Brown Gadfly, Battlefront: SouthGate and The Verum Monitae Report with Dr Mike Spaulding, in addition the the several other shows we also carry on The GateKeepers.
While we’ve seen some amazing growth and expansion, we are also working hard to make this be a long-term play, and with that comes with how to fund our work here. I’ve intentionally not turned The GateKeepers into a non-profit organization because I don’t want to become beholden to the government, and I also don’t want to be focused on sending out fundraising letters constantly begging for money like most non-profit ministries do.
Instead, we have our online book store, are hosting online conferences and have our Plugged In membership program. Right now we are funded exclusively through these three different avenues. We are especially excited about our Plugged In membership, as this brings so much added value to you as a thank you for supporting our work here at The GateKeepers.
Becoming a Plugged In member provides access to the weekly episode of The GateKeepers Podcast, the monthly episode of Connected, free access to all of our online conferences, the recordings from previous online conferences and 30% off in The GK Store. If you would like to support us by becoming a Plugged In member, click here.
However, we’ve also been getting a lot of requests from supporters asking how they can donate to help support The GateKeepers. We are extremely grateful for these requests, as this will help us to expand even further and provide more quality Biblical content. If you would like to help support to The GateKeepers, you can donate through PayPal here.