On Thursday I had an ‘SOS’ phone call from a friend asking whether a group could possibly hold a conference at our church in the centre of Glasgow on Saturday. The reason for such a last-minute request was that the group – Hands Up Scotland (HUS) – had just been told it was no longer welcome at the venue it had hired months before.
I discovered that Hands Up Scotland is a group of parents, teachers and university lecturers with various education-related concerns. These include the politicisation of Scottish education, the sexualisation of children through sex education, the promotion of transgender ideology and the lack of transparency around resources being used in schools that are created by third parties.
It had arranged a conference to discuss all these concerns and possible ways to respond. The noted sociology professor Frank Furedi would give the keynote address. Other speakers included current and former teachers, parents, feminists and university academics.
But we live in an age of cancel culture. And sure enough it had struck again.
Some people at the venue – Civic House here in Glasgow – found the planned agenda to be “in opposition to the values held by our team and staff members who comprise part of the LGBTQ+ community” and refused to staff it.
I was happy to be able to help by making our city centre premises available instead. Like many Christians, I know what it’s like to be ‘cancelled’ for speaking about truth so I’m sympathetic to those who are attacked for simply trying to have a reasonable discourse.
And these are hugely significant issues. Naturally, people will have all sorts of views on them. For the record, I share many of the same concerns being raised by Hands Up Scotland. But that’s not the point. The point is that our overall understanding of any subject matter benefits from being exposed to different views. Ideas are presented, debated, challenged and – ideally – refined. And in a democratic society we should be able to air different views to achieve this. This is even more important when we’re talking about how Government policy is implemented, as was the case with this conference.
I believe that parents have God-given authority over their children. It is also written into law that parents, not the state, are ultimately responsible for the education of their children. And it is a simple fact that many parents today are deeply troubled by what they see (rightly, in my view) as the harmful ideological indoctrination taking place in schools – sadly, perhaps even more so in Scotland than elsewhere. It is to be expected that they will want to do what they can to protect their children, and it is a Christian duty to encourage them in this.
Sadly, as the U.K. Supreme Court pronounced some years ago, the Scottish Government has a tendency towards the totalitarian. Indeed, this is especially so when it comes to the young. In that ruling, which struck down the Scottish Government’s notorious ‘Named Person Scheme’, the judges memorably said: “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world.”
Christians, and all decent people, have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable and we are glad to stand with those who want to protect children from exploitation.
The Bible tells us that God cares for children, and the Lord Jesus welcomed them. The Christian Church has always given a voice for those who cannot defend themselves from exploitation and harm; not least children, whether in the womb or in their years of vulnerability as they grow and develop from birth to maturity.
We stand with families against all those who would seek to capture children through harmful ideologies and damaging indoctrination.
Making rooms available to them when another organisation refuses is the very least we can do.
William Philip is Senior Minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow.
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Scotland, and Glasgow in particular, were once known for irreverence, disputatiousness and intellectual enquiry. How far my country has fallen. I’m a non believer but well done William Philip for demonstrating to so-called ‘progressives’ how an open and free society ought to work.
I am a believer, but most of the ‘non-believers’ I know will thank you for standing up for our children.
Hear hear!!! Mind you I’d like to know where the Anglican Church has been for the last 2 and bit years? Masking up and hiding under their beds as far as I can make out.
Good work, Mr Philip. If your church were nearby, I would become a member of your congregation. As it is, I have found for many years that churches have no interest in anything other than dogma and worshipping false idols. Jesus of Nazareth would (in my opinion) be dismayed at the things done in his name…
And that is so true.
It matters not a jot that this is against religious teaching, it’s a fundamental assault on childhood and the age of consent.
These people need to be stopped, by any means necessary.
✅ 👍
We should remember how close we came, under the Blair government, in reducing the age of consent to pre-puberty. There are a disproprtionat number of people (mainly men) among the political class whose focus is disgusting to most voters.
And now in the week just passed Jeremy Hunt has appointed Patricia Hewitt as advisor to our ‘conservative’ government.
We really do need to watch and pray and protect our children.
Staff members of venues-for-hire being able to dictate which people may or may not hire the venue by threatening impromptu-strikes is decidedly a case of the tail wagging the dog. These people have no authority to interfere with legal activities of other people and that they claim to practice certain sex acts certainly doesn’t confer any to them.
The venue claimed that the agenda was in opposition to the values of members of staff who are part of the LGBT community. Did they consider the values of staff members who aren’t LGBT and may well share some of the concerns being highlighted by the conference? Of course they didn’t!
My guess would be they don’t have any: Should they – through some oversight – managed to get hired, they’ll be bullied to hell until they leave again.
You can listen to the Tron’s sermons via podcast, It’s called Tronline. I highly recommend their teaching.
Very well done, Dr Philip and your congregation there. It is so vitally important for today’s generation of children and young people (and of course for future generations) that they are protected from harmful ideologies, and encouraged to live wisely. When I take primary and secondary school assemblies, I see wonderful children and young people in front of me, and I think – What a world it is into which they are growing up! May all of us with any influence with the young lead them towards what is true, honourable, just, pure, lovely and commendable.
Perhaps the Civic House needs to do a purge of the judgemantalists who are biased and hold such poor values. Get rid!
Oops spelling – judgementalists.
In a train one day there were 2 young girls of about 15 in the seats in front of me, and as often is the case, young people have not the tact to keep their personal conversations a bit quieter so others cannot hear and so they were not keeping their voices down. They were speaking about sex in a way that was clear had been picked up at school . They spoke of being attracted to the same sex, and saying things like ” I think I sometimes fancy girls” or “I am not sure whether I am gay or bisexual or some other gender”. —-I think you get the idea. Their conversation was immature, and that can be expected from young people of that age, but there was something sinister about the fact that their conversation and the ideas within that conversation had clearly come from what they had been hearing in school. They clearly had not grasped reality from fantasy in their interpretation of the nonsense they had been hearing, and this is a cautionary tale.
These policies originate with the UN. What started as an organisation to try and prevent war has become an organisation to impose Global Communism.
Unesco: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-health-and-well-being/cse-campaign
The UN is a direct continuation of the league of nations and the only wars it was ever supposed to prevent where European landwars involving Germany. All permanent members of the so-called security council have continued to make war all over the world whenever it suited them and many of the other members as well.
I’ll openly admit.. there are some subjects, in the absence of clear data and facts I’m inclined to ask – tell me what to do! (and by that I mean.. point me in the right direction, to investigate and make an informed decision).
On this issue though, in my gut I know I’m right. Putting my faith aside which also teaches us such a thing as tough love – ‘he who spares the rod spoils the child?’ When you’re unable to consent it’s best leaving it to those who can. Leave the kids alone, leave their innocence alone.
We’ve already good reasons to delay sex-ed until a specific age, why go changing this with so much uncertainty? This whole “gender” issue is progressing so quickly we’ve no idea the long-term impacts. Now we want to go teaching this min[e/d]field to kids? Let alone the more extreme gender affirming, puberty blocking, literal surgery that will now have to be covered as a result if we’re to go down this road?
For those who haven’t the gut instinct, for whatever reason, it’s not difficult to imagine the absence of that same instinct in a child – and we want to go confusing them further and ask them what they [think they] want?
Many parents, even those who are aware of and concerned about the propaganda their children are being exposed to at school, seem ill-prepared to counter it. I applaud this conference and Dr.Philip’s support of it. I note that there’s a useful “Resources” page on the Tron church web site, but if any materials from the conference itself have been made available to a wider audience, it would be useful to know.