Synod votes to ban clergy from joining the BNP
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, addresses the General Synod yesterday. Anglicans have become increasingly concerned that the British National Party is portraying itself as a mainly Christian organisation
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The Church of England has voted, in an emotionally charged debate at the General Synod, to ban clergy from becoming members of the BNP.
Anglicans have become increasingly concerned that the British National Party is portraying itself as a mainly Christian organisation. Yesterday's vote represented a clear desire to distance the Church from any far-right nationalist sentiment.
The proposal to ban the BNP was put forward by a lay synod member who works for the police and received backing from the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair. The motion does not immediately forbid clergy from becoming members of the BNP but it does ask the House of Bishops to formulate a policy comparable to the one adopted by Britain's police forces which forbids their members from supporting the BNP. The motion would also effect some lay church staff.
Vasantha Gnanadoss, a civilian who works for the Met and the ban's architect, urged synod members to vote in favour of the motion in order to make it "much more difficult" for far-right organisations to portray themselves as ideologically Christian or claim that they had support within the Church.
She said: "If supporting organisations like the BNP is inconsistent with Christian discipleship, it seems obvious that clergy and others who speak for the Church should not be members."
Last year, a list of 12,000 BNP members was leaked on the internet. Five Church of England clergy members were on the list although none was a serving Anglican priest at the time. Others members on the list showed clear Christian affiliations, including bell ringers and cathedral tour guides.
Although previous synods in 2004 and 2007 said racism was incompatible with Christian values, this is the first time that the Church has specifically approved a ban on political membership. Under current guidelines there are no restrictions on members of the clergy or those working for the Church from joining a political party.
If the ban comes into effect, Anglican clergy will join police, prison guards and immigration officers as being one of a few professions where being a member of the BNP is forbidden.
The motion was passed overwhelmingly and without any of the three amendments which would have watered down the ban or removed specific reference to the BNP. When the vote came in, it was revealed that 322 members voted in favour of a ban compared to just 13 against and 20 abstentions.
The motion was also passed despite concerns that it will not be legally enforceable. William Fittal, secretary general to the Synod, has warned that human rights law may make a ban on the BNP impossible to enforce because the party is not politically proscribed. Supporters of the motion managed to argue that a ban should be looked at regardless of its legal enforceability.
Simon Darby, the deputy leader of the BNP, reacted angrily to yesterday's vote and accused the Church of England of being "un-Christian". "It's a witch-hunt," he said. "You can't have an organisation passing itself off as Christian while embarking on thoroughly vindictive and un-Christian behaviour."
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Comments
There is nothing 'down to earth' the BNP's policies, desires and outlook -- not on British soil. Here in Britain we have anti-neo-nationalist earth.
Judas' all of them.
Brown's mad vision of a Globalised World is fired by his Marxists beliefs and is a con to destroy British Society as Nu Labour want a Marxist world with no national boundaries and no religion.
Even if it is not legally enforcable it puts the message across that the BNP has no link with the CoE and any claim made by the BNP otherwise can and would be clearly refuted by the symbolic ban.
Mark, London
This insidiouse party must not be allowed to continue its racist, Nazi ways by a whispering campaign and turning the people stupid enough to listen to thier deeply disturbing lies. Ably assisted by this government and the medias fear mongering.
Isn't it funny that so called democracy only works when bad people want to rule the world!
This is how Molsley and his black shirts started, the Hitler youth and all the bad stuff that started the war that was fought to prevent people like these from ever getting to power again. The veterans of both the WW1 and WW2 must wonder what has gone wrong with the world, many of them lost friends, brothers and sisters to make this country free, and not to allow the rise of Nazism again, if you read about what happend leading up to the second world war, the similarities are so close it is like deja vue.
We must fight to keep Britain BNP free, by fighting seats in elections and getting someone else in and not voting anymore onto the councils, and for God sake people who support them in anyway you are all starting to sound like a lynch mob not something to be proud of at all and certainly not British.
Down the centuries, time and time again people have resorted to violence in order to fight for their rights; put bluntly, they become terrorists. The nationalists in Northern Ireland, for example would still have one vote per household if they had not resorted to vioence. I hope I'm wrong, but I feel that with these BNP members gradually being squeezed by threats of not being able to keep their jobs in the church, police, prison service, immigration service, etc, we are creating a ticking bomb.
Why should it come as any surprise that there are racists amongst the faithful of the CoE? After all, we already know they have plenty of misogynists (who oppose the ordination of women bishops) and homophobes (who kicked up a stink about the ordination of the American gay bishop, Gene Robinson, and who never seem to miss an opportunity to express their vicious, Old Testament intolerance of homosexuals).
Let's face facts; for all their smug, self-righteous, holier-then-thou piety, many Christians are basically deeply unpleasant people with deeply unpleasant ideas and beliefs, racism being only one of them.
If the Synod finds this reality embarrassing, and wishes to airbrush the image of its institution to conceal (though not remove) these ugly blemishes, then it should at least try to be consistent in its - supposedly principled - moral stance on bigotry and intolerance; it should not only forbid membership of the BNP, but also expressions of ANY form of intolerance, including resistance to the ordination of women bishops, and the naked homophobia of many in its ranks. And regarding the latter, it is deeply ironic (though I suspect the irony is lost on the CoE) that homophobia seems to be particularly vehement and nasty amongst Afro-Caribbean congregations and African bishops - as the recent schism over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion has clearly exposed. It seems that the CoE is all for protecting ethnic minorities from racism, and yet is not prepared to protect the gay minority from the homophobia of ethnic minorities (especially when the latter fill its pews in such large - and growing - numbers). So it appears that, in this case, what is sauce for the goose is evidently not sauce for the gander.
But then, I suppose it's asking too much for the CoE to be morally consistent, isn't it? We have come to expect no better from these silly, muddle-headed old fools in frocks.
What you bizarely describe as a "muddled idea of race, or nationality, or country" is what has always been known to previous generations of our people as love of country, patriotism - it's a natural and healthy instinct, evolved to enable us to have a sense of place and protection. Your instincts appear to lie with the idea of the global village - that will lead to insecurity, destruction, mayhem and war. Good fences make for good neighbours.
The same religion of peace that advocates stoning women to death and hanging gay men.
How can they call themselves Christians when condoning these barbaric practices.
As for the BNP, why is it not racist to have a Black Police Association, an Asian Police Association but it is racist to want a white police association.
It's high time the church stopped meddling in politics and concerned it's self with what it is paid (handsomely) for.
Before anyone starts throwing racist remarks at me, let me just say that I am not a member of any political party, nor would wish to be, but would just like a level playing field.
The BNP is a legal political party and as such should have the same rights as other political parties to participate in elections.
But this is the new democracy.
As Henry Ford said all those years ago, "You can have any colour you like as long as it is black".
Eric (France)