Vicar bars liberal bishop over gays

Bishop's views are an affront to the Bible declares priest threatening breakaway for parish.

An evangelical vicar in Kidderminster is so incensed with the liberal views of his local bishop he is threatening to turn his church into a missionary outpost of dioceses in Africa or South-east Asia.

An evangelical vicar in Kidderminster is so incensed with the liberal views of his local bishop he is threatening to turn his church into a missionary outpost of dioceses in Africa or South-east Asia.

The Rev Charles Raven has astounded mainstream Anglicans by banning the Bishop of Worcester from St John's parish church, claiming that the bishop's "unscriptural" views on gay priests are an affront to the Bible and his parishioners.

He has refused to let the Right Rev Peter Selby conduct a confirmation ceremony due to take place later this year and says that St John's will ditch the Worcester diocese altogether if the stand-off continues. Instead, it will affiliate to one of two new bishops based in Rwanda and Singapore whose views are more conservative.

"I can foresee a situation where I become a missionary priest of an African or South-east Asian diocese," said Mr Raven, who has already held talks with the Right Rev Chuck Murphy from Rwanda and the Right Rev John Rogers from Singapore.

The two conservative bishops, both American evangelicals, were consecrated in "irregular" ceremonies at the start of the year by the Primates of Rwanda and South-east Asia, causing consternation among the Church authorities.

Mr Raven hopes that one of the Americans - whose status within the church remains unclear - will conduct the Kidderminster confirmations.

The vicar, 42, a banker in his former life, is maintaining his defiant stance despite an intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose officials have suggested he hand back his ecclesiastical licence. He claims they also told his church wardens to join a different Christian denomination.

"Many ordinary people will find it very hard to understand how it is that clergy who seek to be faithful to the teaching of the Bible, the Church of England and the wider Anglican communion can be expected to leave while their bishop continues, unrebuked, to be backed for his public support of homosexual practice," he said.

By lay standards, Bishop Selby's views seem mild. He has not actively campaigned for the ordination of homosexual priests. But nor has he ruled it out, and he has so far refused to sign the 1998 Lambeth resolution on sexuality which said that same-sex unions are unliturgical. He wants the church to enter a dialogue with the gay Christian movement.

This is more than enough to anger the vicar of St John's and the hard-line Reform grouping of Anglicans that is backing his fight. Reform is fiercely opposed to homosexual relationships between clergy, or to the church weddings of gay partners. Although relatively small, claiming to have around 400 members among the clergy, it is well organised and vocal.

The Bishop of Worcester is not the only target: Reform has also picked out the Rt Rev Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, and the Rt Rev Martin Wharton, Bishop of Newcastle for criticism.

The Newcastle diocese has a history of disputes with conservative evangelicals. The latest run-in came last summer when Ed Moll refused to allow Bishop Wharton to ordain him, claiming the bishop holds pro-homosexual views (despite the fact that he signed the Lambeth declaration).

Instead, Mr Moll, now a curate at St Oswald's parish Church in Newcastle's Walkergate district, was ordained in a Scarborough Hotel by a retired bishop. At the root of the disputes in Kidderminster and elsewhere is the question of church authority.

Mr Raven and other evangelicals believe they are free to conduct their ministry according to conscience rather than to church rules and, to support their case, they can often point to growing congregations - in contrast with most Anglican parishes.

A spokesman for the Church of England said: "To exercise any ministry in the Church of England a cleric needs a licence or permission from the diocesan bishop or the archbishop." But Mr Raven has promised to carry on with or without formal church permission. His licence expires in two years.

The row over the Kidderminster confirmations is gathering force. The Bishop of Worcester did not want to comment on Mr Raven. But a spokeswoman said he still hopes to take the service, now scheduled for June, and is waiting for the St John's parish to give him a date.

Mr Raven has other plans. "I'm not going to conduct these confirmations in a hole-and-corner way," he said. "There will be a bishop there. But I can't make any announcements just yet."