As many readers of this blog will know I’m not a communicant of the Church of England, but it used to be an entity that I could respect to a considerable degree because of its work both in the temporal and spiritual fields. In my opinion it was good that England (not Scotland or Wales they are different with regards national churches) had at its heart an Established church which could issue moral guidance and could when needed act as to some degree as a speaker of the national conscience when required to do so. The CofE also acted as I saw it, as the nation’s ‘spiritual lightning rod’ at times of national crisis or tragedy or triumph. The Established church once did great deeds in order to help those who were poor in spirit or materially poor and although the church was born in a time of religious conflict, acted as a force of religious moderation and spoke out when it felt that government policies were harming the most vulnerable Britons. Because of my respect for what the Church of England once was, I am that rare beast a non Christian supporter of antidisestablishmentarianism. I saw no problem in having an Established church as it did what it did quite well and was not too intrusive into the lives of non Christians or atheists.
But, I’m not sure how long I can keep up the pretence that the C of E is now as much of a national moral compass that it once was. The Church of England seems to have been turned into the religious equivalent of one of these third rate universities dominated by social justice warriors. These institutions make increasingly lunatic Leftist statements or propose policy that gobsmacks people outside of the academic bubble. Like an SJW dominated university, the Church of England has swallowed so much academic Leftism that it has come to a stage where it doesn’t seem to come across a liberal or leftist policy that it doesn’t like, no matter how lunatic of damaging that policy may be.
In recent years the message that the Church of England has sent out to the world is not one of religious moderation or of service or of faith and good works, but one that is almost indistinguishable from what were once the fringes of the political Left. They have acted in ways and engaged in campaigns that have damaged and are damaging the spiritual and temporal life of the nation and of individual Britons.
The Church has campaigned for the entry into the UK of people that they call ‘refugees’ but anybody outside the Leftist bubble see are often a clear and present danger to ourselves and our children. The Church has bought lock stock and barrel the divisive leftist policy of identity politics that puts people in identity silos and sees them as a group rather than as individuals with singular talents endowed to them by their Creator. The Church has also rode roughshod over the idea of individual conscience. In today’s Church of England, those with differing scriptural views on such issues as women priests, sexuality issues or similar matters, views that they have a right to both hold and express, are at best sidelined or at worst pushed away from the Church.
Increasingly the Church of England is living out the statement, sometimes attributed to GK Chesterton, that ‘those who cease to believe in god will not believe in nothing but will believe in anything’. The Church seems to have stopped believing in anything worthwhile or lasting they are believing in anything that is fashionable and may for a short time feel good to those promoting it. The Church is on paths that it jumps feet first onto no matter how repulsive or wrong or unethical these paths may be. It seems that the leaders of the Anglican Communion cannot stop themselves from following these paths where the direction is set by the Left, and especially if it is based on emotion rather than fact.
A good example of a once great and good organisation embarking on paths that will bring nothing but misery and damage is the latest guidance from the Church of England’s education department about the issue of gender in schools. The guidance, ostensibly dressed up as an ‘anti bullying’ measure, will allow children, including nursery school children in the over 4,000 schools that the Church of England controls and manages, to ‘experiment with their gender identity’. The guidance goes on to say that no child should be bullied and that a boy who puts on a tutu or a girl who puts on a tool belt at dressing up time should not be criticised in anyway. If not criticising a child for putting on something gender inappropriate was as far as the guidance went, then I may not have that much of a problem with it. This because small children have vivid imaginations and do dress up in stuff that feeds into their imaginary worlds even if what they are dressing in is odd or wrong.
Unfortunately knowing the propensity of the modern Church of England to be over enthusiastic for various social fads and fashions, I doubt that this will stop at that point. This is likely to be the entry point into Church of England schools for all many of dodgy and dangerous gender ideologues and ideologies. I can well foresee a time in Church of England schools when children who are merely playing dress up, will find themselves and their parents pushed onto the Gender Identity Disorder treadmill by trans activists brought into schools. It’s also highly likely that in future Church of England schools will be teaching to very young and impressionable children the anti scientific dogma of ‘gender choice’. This is likely to end up with numerous familial and personal tragedies as children are convinced by gender activists and teachers only too willing to mindlessly parrot the views of said activists that they are born in the ‘wrong’ gender.
As the parent of a small boy I’m absolutely horrified at the Church of England’s decision on this matter. The Church of England schools should have been a refuge for parents (not just Christian parents) from the monstrous cesspit of indoctrination and political correctness that the State schools in the United Kingdom have become. Sadly this is no longer the case. The importation of the dangerous and false ideology of gender choice worries me greatly. What happens for example if a boy, as they can do sometimes say ‘I like pink’ or if he puts a tiara on his head at dress up time and shouts out ‘princess’ in a school dominated by gender ideologues? Will the school see it as I and many other parents would see it, which is just childish dress up, or tell him the truth as I would do which is that ‘only girls can be princesses boys are princes’ (which is factually correct). Or, more worryingly, will the school immediately reach for the phone and call in the trans activists and quack doctors who believe in paediatric gender dysphoria? My guess and one which is sadly more likely to be correct, is that the school will not respect parents views on the dodgy gender ideology and will put the unfortunate child on a path that he would be unable to give informed consent to and which may condemn him to a lifetime of misery.
The idea that schools, especially church schools, should be telling children the appalling lie that they can choose and change their gender, is doomed to failure and will create tragedy for children and families in the future. Not only is telling children the lie that they can choose and change gender morally wrong in itself, but the gender ideologues who have infested the Church of England will be using our children as laboratory rats in order to promote their dogma. Exposing children to gender ideology is to be quite frank child abuse.
I come to this issue and criticise it not because I come from a place that hates or despises transsexual people, far from it, I have had many Trans friends and at one point in my past had a post op Trans girlfriend, but from the logical position that when it comes to children we should endeavour to do no harm to them. Forcing this gender ideology on children is harmful to them. It results in confusion for the child at best and at worst puts the child on a path that will see them sterilised, inappropriately medicated and mutilated. My position is that although there should be no problem for adults over the age of 21 and well past the hurricane of puberty in creating for themselves a simulacrum of the opposite gender, this abnormality needs to be kept away from children. Children are far too easily persuaded by adults that a course of action is right when it may in reality be completely wrong and allowing children to make life changing and irrevocable decisions about their bodies is absolutely and completely wrong. We have rules and customs that keep children away from things that are harmful until they are of such an age that they can make sensible judgements. Many societies do not allow children to drive, buy alcohol, work at certain jobs or engage in sexual activity until they are a certain age, usually late teens, mainly because people younger than these ages do not know how to make sensible judgements. If we don’t allow three year olds or eleven year olds to drive, use firearms, go down the pub or get married then why on earth are we allowing such young people to ‘transition’ from one gender to an approximation of the opposite one? Children and young people are incapable of making such life changing and irrevocable decisions about gender and assuming that they are, as the gender activists and now the Church of England do, is giving children a power that they are not qualified to exercise. If I took my three year old to a shooting range and gave him a loaded shotgun and pointed him in the direction of the shooting positions, I would be both a criminal and a bad parent because I let him do something highly age inappropriate. Giving a vulnerable child the ability to consent to brainwashing, medication and mutilation which is what the gender ideologues are offering, should be viewed in the same way.
Sadly in the United Kingdom we cannot expect our government to hold the line against these dangerous gender ideologues. The governing British Conservative Party is now conservative in name only and is marching fully in lock step with the science and biology deniers of the gender choice movement. We cannot appeal for the government to step in and restore sanity because gender choice lunacy has for many years been making inroads into the civil service and into party politics and gained an influence that it does not deserve.
If we want to see sanity preserved and the gender ideology challenged using facts then we have to step up to the plate and do it ourselves. We should start by protesting this lunacy and informing others who may be unaware of the promotion of gender identity in schools, of the problems that this gender choice propaganda is causing.
To this end I would like to draw readers attention to a petition that has been put up on a Christian based petition site calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury the Right Reverend Justin Welby to stop the promotion of this dangerous and unscientific gender ideology in Church of England schools.
You can find the petition via the link below:
http://www.citizengo.org/en/signit/115050/view
We have to speak up about this abominable and ultimately doomed and counterproductive policy on gender by the church. If we do not speak up then it will be our children and our neighbours children who will be the casualties of a policy that is going to do great wrongs to many people.
