At the last count, fewer than a million people worship regularly in the Church of England. I am one of those, having so far resisted the almost overmastering desire to extract myself from the Church’s increasing wokeness and ever closer conformance to – and infiltration by – the secular society it is meant to serve. My frustrations are usually vented by strident comments on social media and the occasional email calling individuals to task, but the straw which really threatens to break the camel’s back in my case is the Church’s obsession with ‘climate change’.
Why the Church of England is so vocal on a subject about which it clearly knows nothing is beyond me, but when it makes completely unsubstantiated statements in the public domain, easily capable of being refuted by facts, it is time to take action. One source of the Church’s outlandish statements in this regard is the Community of the Resurrection (CR) in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
Most people – even many churchgoers – think Religious Communities died out forever in the Reformation, but they actually staged a comeback in the 19th Century and to this day there are vowed monks and nuns, many ordained to the Priesthood, living in Communities as part of the Church of England. I came to know the one at Mirfield and it was therefore a great disappointment to witness CR jump on the woke climate bandwagon and promulgate in its official publication, CR Review, what appeared to be climate facts but which, in reality, were nothing more than personal opinions – although this was never once made clear.
I endeavoured to call CR to account and the Community was gracious enough to include in its publication my rebuttal of one offending article, although radically edited. I hoped this would be an end to the matter but no, CR continued to pump out articles and videos making outrageous climate assertions. Each time these appeared I contacted the Community with detailed facts, evidencing the untruthfulness of the statements, but, unlike on that first occasion, the Community became unyielding, refusing to publish any retractions even though the Superior later admitted to me “we are not climatologists”.
Matters came to a head earlier this year when yet another article appeared in CR Review full of inaccuracies and clearly written to scaremonger and possibly to influence voting (the local elections were just around the corner). Yet again, I provided detailed evidence disproving each assertion and once more CR refused to recede from its position. Having reached deadlock, I decided it was necessary to escalate matters.
My initial approaches were to those holding some degree of responsibility for the Community, its doings and its members. However, neither the Archdeacon of Halifax nor the Bishop of Blackburn, Chair of the Advisory Council for Religious Communities in the Church of England, had the courtesy to reply. The Bishop of the Diocese in which CR resides, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds, responded claiming that the Community was “not accountable” to him and making it apparent that his sympathies were entirely with the climate alarmists (unsurprising, given his own actions and public proclamations on climate matters). The appointed ‘Visitor’ to CR (a kind of overseer for the resolution of disputes), the Bishop of Lichfield, replied saying the matter lay outside his area of responsibility. Thus, the buck having been well and truly passed, the only route left to me was to raise a formal complaint against CR under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM).
With whom does such a complaint have to be lodged? The Diocesan Bishop. Yes, that meant the Bishop of Leeds, who originally said he had no accountability! Of course, I asked that he recuse himself because, in my view, he had already prejudged the matter. It appeared obvious to me, when he summarily dismissed my initial communication to him asking for help, that this Bishop is part of the Church’s groupthink on climate. I reasoned that he was never going to give me a fair hearing on this subject although, in truth, the chances of finding another suitable person in this woke Church who is not also part of the same groupthink are remote.
The Bishop chose not to recuse himself and pronounced his judgement. Interestingly, the fact that the Bishop of Leeds adjudged this matter apparently meant he did have jurisdiction after all. If he’d wanted to, he could have done something about my concerns from the outset before I was forced to utilise the formal CDM process.
The Bishop dismissed my complaint and gave three reasons.
First, he said it did not relate to Clergy discipline. This completely took me aback. If the matter of Ordained Priests, for whom the Bishop is responsible, repeatedly making untruthful statements in the public domain is not a matter for Clergy discipline then I don’t know what is.
Secondly, the Bishop said that it was not credible that a Priest “be disciplined for adhering to the policy and position of the Church of England on the matter of climate change”. He was effectively saying that because the Church happens to have made a policy on a subject (in this case on Net Zero and one which I believe to be completely erroneous and unscientific) then it is absolutely fine for Clergy to say anything they like echoing that policy, no matter how untruthful those statements might be.
Thirdly, the Bishop had clearly dismissed every single fact I used to counter the untruths in the article and its predecessors and justified this by making the bizarre statement that the facts in the case are actually “a matter of dispute and opinion”. This has to be the icing on the cake. That a Church of England Bishop genuinely believes factual, empirical and scientific evidence only happens to be somebody’s “opinion” is complete gibberish. A fact is a fact, capable of proof. Perhaps, after all, the Bishop isn’t really a Bishop and it is only his opinion that makes him think he is!
To say I was enraged by the Bishop’s dismissal and his outlandish reasons would be an understatement. He had not considered any other course of action open to him under the Measure or outside of it. These include, inter alia, an attempt to bring about reconciliation – which I would have welcomed – or giving advice or a warning to CR about its future behaviour. No, the case had been perfunctorily dismissed and the Church of England cabal had, as they always do, protected their own.
There is no right of reply to a Bishop dismissing a CDM allegation. The sole remaining option is to refer the matter to somebody called a ‘President of Tribunals’, setting out why one believes the Bishop’s dismissal was an incorrect decision. No further evidence can be submitted. So, as a last attempt to try and inject context, sanity and reality, I lodged my reasons – seven of them – with this grandiosely named personage. All the President (or, as it transpired in this case, the Deputy President) of Tribunals had to do was to refer the matter back to the Bishop and say, effectively, “you ought to think again”. That should have been a good enough steer for the Bishop. I therefore retained a shred of hope.
The Deputy President of Tribunals, who had the final say in the matter, turned out to be His Honour Judge David Turner KC. Hardly independent of the Church of England, he is a Licensed Lay Minster at the evangelical All Souls, Langham Place, acts as ‘Chancellor’ (essentially Judge in the Church Court) for the Diocese of Chester and has been closely involved in church litigation for many years. He ruled that the decision by the Bishop of Leeds to dismiss the case had been “plainly right” and went on to reveal some of his thinking behind his ruling.
Mr Turner referred to “the global climate emergency”, thereby presupposing that one actually exists (it doesn’t), wrote about climate legislation taking place elsewhere (a completely irrelevant point), climate being a “live issue” and a “public concern” (which it is only because of the wall-to-wall barracking by climate alarmists spouting their pseudo-science and unsubstantiated scaremongering) and, surprise surprise, the fact that the General Synod of the Church of England had voted to follow a “routemap for Net Zero carbon by 2030”.
The Deputy President of Tribunals really showed his true colours, though, when he quoted the long since debunked “97% of scientists” consensus nonsense. Mr Turner is clearly sold on this totally false regurgitation (the true percentage is 0.3) and on his belief that science works by consensus. Of course, if it is science it is not consensus and if it is consensus it is not science.
The Deputy President not once sought to open himself up to the possibility that the climate issues so beloved by the Church have never been based on provable, empirical science and clearly discounted all the evidence I submitted with my original complaint and my previous submissions (links to which I provided).
How is it that my facts are, in his eyes and those of the Bishop of Leeds, questionable and open to debate, whereas any so called facts used to support the Church of England in its ridiculous Net Zero policy are held to be sacrosanct?
In summary, Ordained Church of England Clergy have repeatedly made dubious statements in the public domain, the Bishop doesn’t care and believes facts are debatable and merely opinions (except, of course, those facts which suit him). The one person who might have steered the Bishop to a different conclusion has used his own belief in climate change nonsense to uphold the Bishop’s decision.
As the Church of England descends into a woke hell of its own making – and its absurd fixation on climate is just one manifestation of this – I wonder what the churchgoing statistics will be next time they are measured and whether they will, by then, be reduced by an additional one, i.e. me.
Kevin Sims has been scrutinising climate related issues for the past eight years and tries to help debunk false information promoted by the mainstream media and others on the subject.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The straw that should be breaking the back of anyone still in the Church of England who believes what the bible says is true, is the church’s obsession with and adoption of the new “Living in Love and Faith” teaching. Like the ‘climate emergency’, it’s absolutely in tune with the zeitgeist, but contrary to what the bible teaches.
RC or CC is just as fanatical and pagan. I stopped my contributions to the CC. I actively have run ins with local idiot priests who are pagan-druid climate scam salesmen. I have openly challenged them all to public debates (no takers). I have confronted the Bishop, his office, no one cares. They are corrupt and follow Pope Simpleton the Globalist and pagan. They admit to watching the BBC and reading the Guardtard and believing all of it. It is a top down structure. They follow the anti-pope, money and their careers. The CC is proving itself to be as useless as the CoE. As Hitler sneered, the priests and bishops ‘will follow their pensions’. The CC made money from Rona. I am sure they are making money from the climate bollocks.
I really miss the Archbishop Cranmer blog; the writer would detail Kafka-esque situations like this with intelligent commentary and the Comments were a joy.
I can well believe all this about the Bishop of Leeds – he’s a rabid remainer and a cleric of my acquaintance summed him up as a ‘thug’. Unfortunately his ilk seem to be preferred candidates for promotion these days.
The Church Times is almost unreadable now, too. Take comfort that many of the front-line clergy probably don’t go along with it either, but they are leaned on to have a ‘green’ church.
If any of this rubbish is mentioned in the prayers other than in very general ‘care for the environment’ terms, the offender gets a piece of my mind at the exit.
Spot on Jane G. I am an Elder in the Church of Scotland and in a well known kirk where the Minister is a sensible fact dealing son of a farmer. However, I went back to the Somerset village church I was christened in last week and was appalled at the gobblygook that was being preached. I also always ‘discuss’ the sernon with the Minister and the Vicar in this case could not sustain his argument beyond about 2 minutes and sheepishly rushed off.
There will be no CofE soon as they are failing to abide by the Bible or its teachings – woke secular rabble and that is the clergy!
Church in favour of silly beliefs about the immediate end of the world due to human sinfulness? How could this possibly have happened?
I have always strongly been of the opinion that the Church of England should be disestablished and left to fend for itself outside the structure of the state.
If it can’t cope with that then it doesn’t deserve to survive and it won’t be missed.
On so many issues it is showing its age and disconnection from reality, as are all proselytising religions. So much of that which is bad in the world originates from the diktat of groupthink. A pox on all of it.
It’s almost impossible to fathom how the Church of England has managed to remain the established church for so long, disestablishment is the sort of thing discussed in Trollope novels. I’m sure there are some in the church hierarchy who would welcome the freedom from the state (the chance to ‘hold politicians to account’ as they would no doubt see it) but also a number who would find the inevitable loss of status demeaning. The Lords Spiritual would have to hop it, too.
No down side at all then.
I guess God just don’t cut it no more. Y’all need a new religion.
The new religion is called Climate Change.
I often think that the reason the Royals weigh in on climate change is because it is considered settled ground and is therefore safe to comment upon. It is also very natural for humans to want to be seen as ‘contributing’.
It’s sad that so many clerics don’t feel that they can contribute by preaching the gospel of God, or indeed by challenging un-Christian societal trends, like transgenderism, fear of death (Covid), etc.,
The great way about ‘contributing’ through the medium of climate change is that you can do so by holding meetings with Bill Gates etc, rather than meeting poor and smelly people.
Speaking of the Royals, what is Charles doing at COP28…He was supposed to refrain from weighing in on anything political…..No chance of GB News Royal sycophants holding him to account over that, they’re all too busy banging on about Royal racism row.
Don’t forget the Royals’ 25% share of the Crown Estates.
Much enhaced by the royalties payable for electricity cables running from the offshore turbines, onto land and eventually into the Grid.
A really nice little earner that used to go to Charles, now presumably William.
Numerous other bits and pieces.
If our new beloved Foreign Minister, Lord Hug a Husky’s father in law; Sir Reginald Sheffield, was picking up £1,000 per day a decade ago, (rain hail snow or blow) for eight modest wind turbines in a corner of his estate, just imagine why The Firm might be keen.
Only Anne, the Princess Royal, dismisses Global Warming as obvious bollocks, following her late lamented father.
As if he intended to do that. It’s a pity nobody at COP asked him about his failed climate predictions.
I think it is to hide the fact that the Crown and Church own so much of the wealth of this Country and always have. So Charles makes money from the green scam with wind farms and lithium mining and the Church from its vast property portfolio.
All we need to know is that neither have released their land to build refugee cities for all the migrants they keep encouraging to our shores!
A ‘left footer’ here – it’s not just the CofE. Our lot seem just as bad – maybe worse. But our bishops don’t wield secular power. Roger Watson wrote an interesting piece a short while ago about his experience with RC bishops which caused me to rethink the regular donations to CAFOD that are called for. My family have found less overtly climate- catastrophist/woke charities to support now – I’ll not say which charities as it might attract unwanted attention from woke stirrers.
What mandate from the Lord does the church have to pontificate on matters of science? —————-NONE.—- Ofcourse most on this website are aware that climate change is about everything else except science. So that is why the church is getting involved. To the church “climate change” is just another social justice department, but apparently they have nothing to say about the justice involved in keeping the worlds poor in a perpetual state of misery where about one billion do not even have electricity and another billion only have enough to power a fridge. ——–Because they are denied coal and gas and are bribed with money for turbines and solar panels. When you tell poor people they cannot use coal and gas, what you are really telling them is that they cannot have electricity and that is a diabolical disgrace, and is the REAL injustice that the church somehow manages to ignore.
The religious, as a general rule of thumb, believe in faith and conformism. Non conformism has been condemned as heresy through the ages. This makes ‘people of faith’ much more susceptible to social desirability bias.
‘Social desirability bias occurs when respondents give answers to questions that they believe will make them look good to others, concealing their true opinions or experiences.’
Social desirability bias is common within socialist countries
‘….social desirability bias becomes more prevalent in collectivist societies’
Robertson and Fadil, 2009
The Britain of 2023 is a socialist fascist collectivist construct ruled by a never changing (no matter the government in power) bureaucratic elite of functionaries who dictate the ‘bien pensant’ view of the moment.
The Church of England is no different.
So when are the lawsuits coming for the Church of England for pushing the vaccine propaganda?
RC as well. I have had many battles with RC priests and the diocesan Bishop and his office over the stab murders. They simply don’t care. They were paid to comply, priests who preached against it were silenced and removed. Mother Morilla Head Sister of the Tyburn convent who said they were drowned in prayer requests for the dead post stabs, likewise removed.
They follow orders from Pope Idiot (climate moron and globalist). CoE is similar in its hierarchy (Welbytard). These silly ignorant priests and bishops follow their money and their careers. When these Churches begin to preach Arianism or Atheism don’t be surprised when 95% of the hierarchy happily follow suit.
The Tyburn Convent were vocally supportive of at least one of the Lockdown Marches, when it passed in front of their location in Hyde Park Place. However, videos of the events have recently been removed by YouTube.
Surely if you’re content to believe in a god, in the virgin birth, that Christ was sent by God to save man. In the 2nd coming and the rest of it, you shouldn’t have much trouble believing in climate change?
It seems perverse to demand the church accept your science as ‘gospel’, so to speak, yet you accept their gospel as science.
The climate is God’s will….What will be will be, enjoy life. Now that would be a Church worth joining.
I had a similar row, albeit on a smaller scale, around a decade ago with my local church who had enthusiastically joined up to Operation Noah, which encouraged children to believe that we were imminently about to be inundated by the rising oceans. More recently, I notice as a disinterested non-participating observer at various “fellowship meetings” (outside the standard church services) that climate catastrophists are over-represented at these meetings, which regularly end with a prayer pleading for the end of “global heating”.
However, the Church of England is scarcely alone in the field of religious organisations that jumped on (or were seduced into) the Climate Bandwagon. For example, here is a list of statements of faith from various global religious organisations: https://interfaithpowerandlight.org/faithclimateactionweek/resources/religious-statements-on-climate-change/
Diversity rape of the day:https://www.steynonline.com/13949/diversity-rape-of-the-day
Thanks for the link. I’ll summarize it here:
Fifteen year old German girl gets raped by at least 9 men from 8 different ethnic backgrounds over the course of two and a half hours in a public park in Hamburg. One sent to prison for 2 years and 9 months, suspended sentences for the other 8. Left-leaning German MSM justify this by referring to the perpetrators as victims of oppression by the majority society. People critical of this accused of attacking the rule of law and general hostility towards migrants.
—
Multicultural business as usual. What’s still missing is that someone proves the judges and media acted in this way because they’re really all covert Nazis. Someone will doubtlessly feel inclined to.
How absolutely infuriating! To be faced with such a self-satisfied wall of idiocy. It actually becomes quite scary that supposedly intelligent people have been so hoodwinked by the climate scam. Its a form of gaslighting when they won’t look at facts and don’t know the difference between scientific fact and propaganda.
Well done for trying!
Very interesting and good for you taking this as far as you could.
The Catholic Church is going the same way.
I was fuming about the Church’s attitude during lockdowns. A Christian attitude would have been open doors, providing comfort.
And now the climate narrative….
i may well go the same way as you, however for me Christian values are important. Will we see break-away churches?
Make no mistake. Welby is Satan’s acolyte.
Agreed
Climate alarmism is another religion. The Church has decided its creed must be followed even if it destroys society. Logic and common sense has never been a part of any religion.
The CofE has completely been taken over by “Climate Change TM”. I have an objection which should be obvious to everyone who goes anywhere a church. The teaching of the Cristian Church is that God is omnipotent, all seeing and hearing. If were are wrecking creation, the Church might like to refer to the Israelites and Egyptians, the action of God (7 years of drought and starvation) as a punishment to the Egyptians for enslaving the Israelites. I suggest that rather than boiling to death, it is likely that the lack of faith of the Christian Churches will lead to their destruction, (again several good Bible stories about worshipping idols AKA electric cars etc) via the useless virtue signalling brigade. God is there you know, and offers endless proof day to day. We call this Science, but the heathens cannot see or understand that which they call “the science”, so it is all a case of misplaced faith.
The churches think God created CO2 is our enemy and man created prayer wheels are our friend. How can they get it so backward?
Here’s an example of how ‘well’ wind performs, just when we need the energy:
https://twitter.com/latimeralder/status/1730859123925799016?s=19
This is their ‘gift’ to the elderly and poorest!
I am just so impressed by this guy’s persistence. Whenever you get a piece like this there are always nasty dogmatic atheists who leap in with comments like “well if you believe all that mumbo jumbo what do you expect”. What is far more corrosive to my faith is that so many within the Church seem to have abandoned their critical faculties to embrace positions which, until 5 minutes ago, were regarded as inimical to the Christian understanding of life. To paraphrase St Paul’s letter to the Romans they have exchanged the truth for a lie and worship the creation rather than the Creator. As a fairly recent RC revert I’ve been amazed at how far and fast we’ve fallen and it seems the same across denominations. It really is time to have some explicitly Christian organisation upholding an orthodox perspective in matters like climate, race and gender and pushing back on the advance of cultural Marxism within the Church.