The Michael Knowles Show - FIRED and Called a "TERRORIST" for Preaching The Gospel | Rev. Dr Bernard Randall

Episode Date: May 15, 2021

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's even crazier than that. It's a sermon in a chapel by the chaplain in the Christian school. How did we get this far? As the state-established church of secular progressivism enforces its orthodoxies more and more each day in the United States, in Britain throughout the West, I am so pleased to be able to speak today with a heretic. someone who has questioned the dominant liberal regime and its deeply intolerant ideology of tolerance. That person would be the Reverend Dr. Bernard Randall, who was, until very recently, chaplain at Trent College, former chaplain at Cambridge University, graduate of Oxford University, but we will not hold those sorts of things against him. Dr. Randall, thank you so much for being here.

It's my pleasure. Absolutely delighted to talk to you today. I cannot say that I was surprised when I saw what happened to you. I was outraged. I was horrified. I was deeply saddened for the state of the anglosphere in the world. But I was not surprised that you were punished. You were fired from your position as chaplain. You were reported to a terror watch list because you sort of kind of defended the legitimacy of being a Christian in the modern world? Yeah, I mean, it surprised me quite how badly people took it. I think I would be fair to say, you know, I was doing my job, Christian chaplain, in a Christian school, and just trying to present the fact that, you know, Christian beliefs do vary from some of those political agenda.

identity politics kind of stuff, and that you're allowed to believe the Christian beliefs. That's all I was saying, along with where we have disagreements, respect one another. And I said respect one another about half a dozen times in the space of a sort of 10-minute sermon. That was the most important takeaway, really. But for daring to say, yes, you may believe the church is teaching on marriage. you may believe that biological sex is real and sometimes makes a difference. You may question whether the sort of gender identity stuff is really coherent. Does it make sense?

And if it doesn't make sense, look at other ways of understanding these things. For daring to say that, I was hauled over the colds, absolutely. So you were fired from your job, presumably, because you were at a radical leftist college that has no truck with Christian ideas. right? No, the foundation of the school is according to the Protestant and the evangelical principles of the Church of England. So the church as established by law in Britain, in England. And yeah, on paper, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do. My contract said, you will uphold and support the stated aims and purposes of the school. I did that. Yeah.

Certain people didn't like it. This happens in the United States as well. Puditively Christian institutions have been hollowed out by cultural revolutionaries. And so now if you espouse Christian orthodoxy or anything even vaguely resembling Christian orthodoxy, you will be punished for it. How did that happen to your former college? In fairness, I don't know quite how it got to the stage it got to. I suppose, I mean, Britain is as secular in many ways. as the US, I'm sure.

And because it's a fee-paying school, I guess the management, the leadership, thought we need to move in the direction of our customers, rather than being true to the Christian Foundation and saying, actually, we have something to offer, which is really valuable, and we'd like to carry on offering it, understanding that not everyone in the school is Christian,

and indeed there were pupils of other faiths and atheists and so on. So as a Christian champion, speaking to that audience, everything I say is kind of controversial. Just to say, God exists, he's controversial to some of them. I didn't think I was doing anything much more controversial than that, in fairness. Maybe ruffle a few feathers, fine, okay. That's kind of the job of a minister, isn't it, I think?

But no, that was not to be done. Yes, I thought it's the job of the Christian and the job of the shepherds to become very, very worldly. And when all the sorts of applause, no, maybe not. I think it might be the opposite of that. I want to get to the substance of your lecture in a moment. But am I correct in what I understand that you were not only fired, but you were reported to the anti-terrorism agency of the United Kingdom? That's right.

In the UK, we have this thing called prevent, which is to prevent extremism. And so anybody who's a danger of being a terrorist or radicalizing others can be reported to the police with a spot. special prevent unit, and there are units across the country. And I was reported to them. And fortunately, it didn't go very far. The unit, the police said, no, this doesn't meet the threshold for a terrorist, which I think is no great surprise.

But the police officer did say this is wholly inappropriate in a school and wholly inappropriate in society, which says something about the state of the capture of the police by this sort of ideology as well, unfortunately, in this country. I'm glad that you got off the hook for your outrageous crime, but it does raise this question, what will happen next time, what will happen in a few years or, who know, at this rate, even in a few months. I want to get into the lecture itself. The lecture was called competing ideologies. This does not sound particularly provocative or violent as far as I can tell.

What's the thesis? What got you into so much trouble? Well, to start with, it's not a lecture. It's actually a sermon in a chapel. It's an act of worship of Christian worship in a Christian chapel in a Christian school, led by a Christian minister. No great surprises that I might say some Christian friendly things, I thought. But there we go. So the thesis was basically, in many areas of life, people have different sets of ideas, ideologies. And I used the example of Brexit. Some people wanted to leave the European Union in this country. Some people wanted to remain. Some were more interested in the sort of democratic rights of a sovereign nation. Some people more interested in the economics and, you know, making sure that jobs

were preserved. And there were two sides to that argument. And it's not as if one is right and one is wrong. It's just different ways of looking at the same thing. So I started with that argument, that sort of example, and said, and actually when it comes to some of these LGBT areas, although there are areas of agreement. No one should be discriminated against for who they are. You know, love your neighbor as yourself is absolutely crucial. Nevertheless, there are disagreements, such as on marriage, on biology and the way we talk about gender identity. And you're free to make up your own mind. You can hear someone out and go, no, that's not for me. And this was prompted by a pupil at school saying to me, how come we're told in a Christian school we have to accept

all this LGBT stuff, have to accept. And that was the thing that really struck me about that question, that people, you know, wanted to know what's going on here. What can we do? What can we believe? Well, I wonder, too, if someone in a madrasa would be told that they have to accept the LGBT stuff. It seems to me, perhaps I'm speaking out of turn, that there is a bit of a double standard here,

where the Christians are held to a different standard than other religious people. I think that's absolutely right. Christians are supposed to be kind and tolerant and, you know, love your neighbour sounds as if you don't want to ever possibly upset your neighbour. But of course, it doesn't necessarily work that way. Jesus was willing to upset people from time to time. Seemed to remember something about blasphemy and nailing him to a cross. I may be misremembering that possibly. But, you know, so it's a wide, secular misunderstanding of what Christianity is about. I think. They think it's just, you know, be nice. That'll do. There's a lot more to it. It's got a deeper heart and a deeper mind than that, which perhaps they didn't want to hear about. They just thought, oh, just tell the kids, be nice to each other. And that's enough. It reminds me of that famous line. I think it's from Niebuhr. You can correct me if I'm wrong, who said that so much of

the modern understanding of Christianity is that God without wrath leads a people without sin to kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross, which is not much of a faith left. Absolutely. I mean, you actually have to remind people there is a core to Christianity that isn't the same as any other faith. And at the start of every school year, one of my first chapel services, I would say, you know, I am unapologetically Christian. It's a Christian school. This is the sort of foundation that we try to run ourselves by. But the fact that I don't apologize for being Christian means you don't have to apologize if you are Muslim or Hindu or atheist or whatever. You do your faith position properly, sensibly, thoroughly, and I'll do mine thoroughly.

And that's, you know, no one is neutral. No one doesn't have a viewpoint, but together we rub up and work through these disagreements and, well, that's how it should work, but apparently not. Well, this, of course, gets to the question that is bedeviling all of us in the West today, which is that of tolerance and free speech. And what the radical left seems to be saying is that we cannot tolerate intolerance. And in a way, their argument is reminiscent of that line from Chesterton, who says there is a thought that stops thought, and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped. And the left is now saying, no, Dr. Randall, you are preaching intolerance, and therefore we cannot tolerate you. But I just wonder if, let's say, it is now unacceptable to question any aspect of the LGBT ideology

because you will offend somebody who participates in that. What happens if a Muslim person quotes the Quran? If a Muslim person quotes the Quran, which says not merely to condemn someone who engages in that sort of behavior, but actually calls for violence against people who engage in that sort of behavior, is the Muslim person victimizing the LGBT person on the basis of his identity? is the is the LGBT guy victimizing the Muslim on the basis of his religious identity? Where does this end? How can we tolerate one another in this in this framework? I mean, that's the sort of big question, isn't it? I mean, it should be that well,

either someone has to give completely or actually ideally both sides are all different opinions, give a bid, and there's this space in the middle where we can agree to differ. We know that some of the things we say might be a bit offensive to others, but we live with that because that's the way that free speech has to work. I think what we mustn't have and what we seem to have developed is this sense that some people's feelings are more important than others. And that's some people are more valuable than others. That's a Christian value.

But that's the way it seems to happen. So when kids in the school were being taught about this stuff, one of the sessions talked about how can we be a more LGBT-plus friendly school? that's okay, I guess. What are the obstacles to being LGBT plus friendly? And then if a pupil is sitting there thinking, well, I'm a traditional Christian, I'm a Muslim or whatever, and I'm not totally happy with this,

am I the obstacle to being LGBT friendly? And how can we be LGBT allies? That's one of the questions they were asked to explore. Well, if we're being allies, but then that makes the enemy, am I the enemy because I'm not completely happy with this? and how deeply hurt is a person who thinks they're an obstacle and an enemy of what the school is trying to do? And yet, that pupil's feelings matter not one little bit compared to we mustn't hurt the feelings of LGBT pupils.

And that's not a sustainable position for a community to be in. Well, that's such a good point. I hadn't considered it, that the feeling of the Christian student at the Christian school, who is told that he is a bigot, who is told that he's hate. because he holds a very traditional understanding of human nature. I mean, even if you take the LBG of it aside for a moment, even just on this issue of the T of transgenderism, if you believe that your body has anything at all to do with who you really are, if, you know, perhaps you hold the traditional Christian understanding that we're body and soul together. We're not, not just one or the other.

Now you're told that you're a hateful bigot and you're no longer accepted even at a Christian school. Yeah, absolutely right. And you can understand that gender dysphoria is a real thing, and there are people who really suffer terribly, and for them sometimes that the least bad option is transition and medical treatments, and that's not a happy thing for anyone to go through. It's not easy. You can believe in that and be okay with that, but not necessarily believe that there's this thing called a gender identity, which is sort of some kind of soul inside, which is a male identity. or a female identity or whatever these other things are. And I would say people are free to describe themselves that way if they want, but don't make everybody else have to go along with your belief system. It's kind of like if I was talking to a Muslim, it was very fervent, and whenever he mentioned, Muhammad would say peace be upon it, which a lot of Muslims do. And that's fine if that's what you want to do.

But if that Muslim then says to me, if you're ever going to talk to me, you must say, Muhammad, peace be upon him. That's asking me to partake in his belief system. And I shouldn't have to do that. I might as a courtesy, but I shouldn't have to. And that's the problem that we have here. Right. You know, I actually noticed you're reminding me of this some years ago when Muhammad was in the news quite a lot. There was this tendency, even in the West, to refer to him as the Prophet Muhammad. And I thought, well, it doesn't really bother me if Muslims call him the prophet Muhammad, but I certainly don't consider him a prophet, and I'm not going to call him such, and you really oughtn't make me do that any more than I would try to change your speech

on a topic like that. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And if you start saying the prophet Muhammad, or you feel you have to say that, that's making a claim about him. And then it's only a very short step to Muslims saying, oh, well, why can't you just say the prophet Jesus? And when you say, start to take the steps forward in the discussion, you realize where it could end up. And actually, you need to be able to say, surely it's a liberal tolerance is you have your own beliefs and you're allowed to stick with them, respecting other people. You don't use slurs or whatever. But to say Muhammad is a million miles from a slur, as far as I can tell. Of course. You coincidentally, Dr. Randall, I have a book on this topic of speech, sort of how we got to this point. I have it

coming out next month. It's called Speechless. I notice you have many, probably more worthwhile books behind you in your office, but I'll have to send you a copy in any case, because I do fear that this ideology is, it's really just running only in this one direction. So I have to ask you, are we going to fight back? And I'm using the we a little liberally here. Are you going to fight back against this injustice that has been done to you? I am fighting back. I am taking the school to court to claim for discrimination and unfair dismissal, and we'll see what comes of that. And I'm really pleased, actually,

that this story has got a lot of attention in the UK, but also across the world, yourselves, obviously. And it's because of the extremeness of saying this guy should be reported as a potential terror threat, it's allowed people to see just how far the people who buy into this identity politics, just how far they might be willing to go. And I didn't get arrested this time, but how soon before someone is arrested for something as innocuous as what I said, unless now we stop and we say no, no further, we must actually stand up

for just real tolerance, not the pseudo-tolerance that the identity politics people seem to talk about. too much. Right. And of course, I suppose throwing back this argument of we can't tolerate intolerance that you hear so often from the left, you might go back to Chesterton's observation that there's a thought that's the only thought that ought to be stopped. Our understanding of tolerance in our civilization derives from Christianity. If you abuse this tolerance to chase Christianity out of a Christian school in a Christian country, goodness gracious, you've undermined the whole system. Yeah, absolutely right. I think one of the things is that this sort of identity politics has a lot to do with postmodernism, which doesn't believe there's any truth. Whereas Christianity says there is truth. You know, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. He doesn't say, I am the opinion, the feelings and the lived experience or something, whatever it might be. That's not what Christians believe. And yes, the Christians, truth matters, truth exists. And you can also talk about Jesus being the log-on. of God, the word, the reason, the logic, the thinking about it of God. And if we don't think about

it, how are we going to get to the truth? And if we want the truth, we have to think about it to get there. And that all goes together with these core liberal values, which, yes, they are founded in the Judea Christian tradition. They're not found anywhere else in the world's history, as far as I can tell. So, Dr. Randall, where can people support you, you know, get updates on the case, support your legal defense, the case that you're bringing now against this school? Well, I'm being supported by a really great organization called Christian Concern here in the UK, and they are providing the lawyers for me, which unfortunately doesn't come cheap, but they are working pro bono. And if this wasn't for the public good, I don't know what is.

So you can see more about me on their webpage, Christianconcern.com slash Bernard. so easy enough to remember, I hope. And there's lots more information. There's the text and my sermon is on there. And there is a donate button as well. If anybody is willing and able to help us fight this really, I think, very important fight at this time. Well, I look forward to hearing the whole sermon because, you know, as I'd seen a clip of it and I have seen some news coverage on it, but actually my understanding was that it was just a typical university lecture. But it's even crazy than that. It's a sermon in a chapel by the chaplain in the Christian school. How did we get this far? I would highly recommend that people head on over to Christian concern, follow Dr. Randall,

and also support this legal effort because it's about a whole lot more than just you, Dr. Randall. This would seem to me to be really what the whole fight is about here to maintain any semblance of our culture and the things that we cherish in our civilization. I totally agree. I think, you know, this is this is one of those points where if you don't stand up and be counted, if you don't draw the line in the sand, whatever metaphor you want to use. You know, not now, when. Right. You always hear about, Michael, is this the hill you want to die on? And I say, look, I don't intend to die on any hills. But the reason that one might consider dying on a hill is because eventually you run out of hills and eventually you've just lost the whole battle. So absolutely, we must take a stand here. Bernard Randall, sorry that this has happened to you, but in a sense, I suppose it's a bit of a Felix culpe, you know, it's a kind of a happy thing because this is a, this could be a real moment when we, when we stop this momentum and start pushing back to reclaim our culture. I really hope so. And then it will have been worth it for all the hardship and the pain that it's

caused. Yeah. Dr. Bernard Randall, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you.