Freedom of Conscience

Chaplain Bernard Randall Trent College Nottingham

By sacking its Chaplain, Trent College, Nottingham, rejects fundamental British values

Trent College in Long Eaton, between Nottingham and Derby, is an independent Anglican school, which used to have a chaplain. He was the Rev'd Dr Bernard Randall, a former chaplain at Christ's College, Cambridge, who is, by all accounts, a…

Freedom of speech is under threat, so what do we do about it?

February 15, 2021
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In the great pyramid of liberty and the incremental progression of human enlightenment, freedom of speech is often celebrated as preeminent among civil liberties, but it was preceded by freedom…

Wanted: Christians who can cause a little more offence

December 18, 2020
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Would Luther have been a blast on Twitter? Historian Tom Holland thinks so. In an edition of 'The Rest is History' podcast, he observes: "What happens is that Luther obviously…

Manners maketh Man/Woman/Other

December 20, 2019
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At the State Opening of Parliament yesterday, television footage showed the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition leading a long line of their parliamentary colleagues into the Upper Chamber…

Decriminalising abortion: Labour abandons the Catholic vote

November 22, 2019
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A few weeks ago the Liberal Democrats deselected one of their candidates. Robert Flello, a practising Roman Catholic (and so opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage) was ditched just 36…

dr david mackereth court church of england transgender

Church of England guidance used against Christian in court

July 22, 2019
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There's something ever so slightly disquieting about this, but not for the reasons permeating the websites and chat-threads of Evangelical Christendom. Dr David Mackereth, who said in a Department of…

abortion same sex marriage northern ireland

Imposition or liberation? Abortion and same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland

July 16, 2019
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"If I was a Northern Ireland MLA I’d vote for equal marriage, just as I did in Westminster," tweeted former LibDem leader and committed Christian Tim Farron. "But I support…

Gay cake: why don’t CofE bishops care about freedom of religion?

October 11, 2018
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It was a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court. The queer case of the 'gay cake' has been rumbling on for four long years, and the highest court in the…

If Irish Catholic hospitals are forced to perform abortions, the Roman Catholic Church should close every one of them

June 14, 2018
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Well, that didn't take long, did it? ‘Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has hit out at socialist parties and groups in the Dáil, accusing them of wanting to “turn religious people into…

If a bigot can’t be PM, why should one be allowed to become an MP?

September 7, 2017
397 Comments

Jacob Rees-Mogg walks into a TV studio. Grand Inquisitor Piers Torquemorgan has wheeled out his rack; his beatific assistant Susanna Reid has greased up the Judas cradle. Heresy is not…

Right to Life: where do the Party Leaders currently stand?

April 23, 2017
274 Comments

Lord Alton has done a useful (and very interesting) bit of digging on how the current party leaders have voted over recent years on a series of Right to Life…

Gender justice and LGBT equality: Martyn Percy demands female cardinals and gay imams

April 5, 2017
453 Comments

In another 5,000-word essay, the Very Rev'd Professor Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, demands "a thorough and wholesale review" of discrimination in the Church of England. And by…

Ashers Bakery ‘gay cake’ appeal judgment: 11% of Evangelical Christians haven’t got a clue about religious liberty

October 24, 2016
660 Comments

It was very tempting to go with the affirmatory '89% of Evangelical Christians support freedom of religion', which would have been the wholesome, encouraging, Christian thing to do, right? But…

Vatican says UK is "better in than out" of the EU

January 24, 2016
674 Comments

"The Vatican wants Britain to stay in the European Union, the Pope's foreign secretary has declared." So writes the Telegraph, noting that Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with…

Should Christians in the public sector 'keep mum' to get on?

January 4, 2016
424 Comments

"Christianity is being subtly 'silenced' within the public sector in the UK because of a civil service culture which treats speaking about faith as 'not the done thing'," writes…

China abolishes the cross of Christ

August 13, 2015
77 Comments

China's stock-market has plunged: its GDP has crashed, the yuan has been devalued and economic confidence is in free fall. Another boom-and-bust bubble has burst: Mammon threatens another tidal…

The equality tyranny of the 'gay cake' judgment

May 20, 2015
440 Comments

"Equality as an aim in itself through government action is doomed not merely to defeat but to totalitarianism." So observed the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier this year at the…

Scotland's Roman Catholic bishops condemn Jim Murphy's hypocrisy

April 11, 2015
324 Comments

Another Pastoral Letter on the General Election – this time from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Scotland to their 841,000 worshippers spread across 452 parishes (which is an awful…

‘Gay cake’ case comes to court

March 26, 2015
359 Comments

This is a guest post by Peter Lynas – Director of the Northern Ireland Evangelical Alliance and a former barrister. Peter tweets at @peterlynas. _______________________ Today and tomorrow (26-27th March 2015), the…