The Archbishop of Canterbury was “plainly wrong” after he repeatedly tried to block a serious complaint of misconduct being investigated in relation to the “egregious” blacklisting of a gender-critical chaplain, a leading lawyer has ruled.
The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall, 52, was sacked, reported to the national teaching regulator, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), and the government’s counter-terrorism programme Prevent. His ‘crime’? Preaching a sermon on identity politics in which he told children that they could question teaching on LGBT relationships.
Despite being cleared of wrongdoing over the 2019 sermon, he remains barred from preaching after a decision by the Bishop of Derby, the Right Reverend Libby Lane, the church’s first female bishop.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby has repeatedly refused to allow Dr Randall, who is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre, to bring a misconduct case against Bishop Lane, despite being told by a KC that this decision was “plainly wrong”.
Dr Randall’s sermon, which you can read here, was a model of fair-mindedness, reminding the pupils that no-one has a monopoly on moral truth, whether it’s traditional Christians or LGBT activists, and stressing how important it is to approach ethical disagreements with humility, tolerance and courtesy.
The chaplain said he devised the sermon after Educate & Celebrate (E&C), a third-party inclusivity training provider that encourages toddlers to question their gender and advises primary school pupils on “how to break the binary and be gender inclusive”, worked with the school to ensure LGBTQ issues received appropriate representation in policies and codes of conduct.
Previously a university chaplain at Cambridge, Dr Barnard, who believes in the importance of biological sex, was particularly concerned by an E&C presentation which was attended by teachers, at which they were exhorted to shout the slogan “smash heteronormativity”. Willingly or otherwise, they did so.
As he commented to the Mail in 2021, he felt the language used by the instructor was “revolutionary Marxist in style”. “There seemed,” he said, “to be an emphasis on instruction rather than suggestion.”
In response to a request from a pupil, Dr Randall then delivered a sermon to pupils on the possibility of reasonable disagreement, even on the most contentious topics.
During this sermon – titled ‘Competing Ideologies’ – he encouraged pupils to “look at some of the claims made about gender identity, and think that it is incoherent to say that, for example, gender is quite independent of any biological factor”.
“You should no more be told you have to accept LGBT ideology,” he added, “than you should be told you must be in favour of Brexit, or must be Muslim.”
Following his dismissal by the College, Dr Randall was blacklisted by the Church of England’s (CofE’s) Derby Diocese. Under the watch of the Bishop of Derby, Rt. Rev Libby Lane, the Diocese’s safeguarding team categorised him as a “risk to children”.
A safeguarding report then concluded that Dr Randall’s CofE and Biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality was a “risk factor”, which resulted in him being reported to the government’s terrorist watchdog, Prevent.
The safeguarding team recommended to the bishop that his licence to officiate should not be renewed, not because of his sermon or anything he had done, they claimed, but because of what he ‘might’ do if he was approached by a churchgoer who had questions and concerns about human sexuality.
The diocese even concluded that the Bible’s teaching on marriage was also a “risk factor”.
After the refusal to renew his licence, in July 2022 Dr Randall brought a complaint of misconduct against Libby Lane.
“The nub of my case,” Dr Randall argued, “is that the bishop discriminated against me on the grounds of my orthodox beliefs on gender and sexual orientation.”
The complaint also included a safeguarding complaint against the Bishop, alleging that her conduct was abusive.
On 21 December 2022, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to agree that a formal investigation should be undertaken and dismissed Dr Randall’s complaint saying it lacked sufficient substance. He ignored the safeguarding element, despite his clear legal duty to pass it to the National Safeguarding Team.
Dr Randall requested a review of this decision to dismiss and on 5 June 2023, it was largely reversed by Gregory Jones KC, acting on behalf of the President of Tribunals for the CofE.
The barrister found that the findings of the ‘core group’ in the Derby diocese who dealt with the safeguarding investigation into Dr Randall: “Do not in my view support any finding of a ‘safeguarding’ issue as defined by the [safeguarding] Guidance.”
Focusing on the chaplain’s sermon, Jones KC said that because “it is not said that the sermon was in conflict with the Church’s doctrine”, any finding that Dr Randall would “pose a risk of harm to young children” would need to be carefully explained.
This, however, had not happened. “The Guidance points to the need to have credible, identifiable or believable evidence to support a safeguarding concern or allegation,” he said, before asking rhetorically: “Where has the [safeguarding team] identified such “evidence” in the present case?”
In one particularly revealing passage from the judgement, Jones KC said that he “cannot exclude the possibility that when pressed to give clear reasons, elements of doctrinal dispute [i.e., regarding Dr Randall’s orthodox Christian beliefs on human sexuality and gender] … might emerge such that doctrinal matters might have improperly influenced the [safeguarding team’s] decision. I therefore consider that at this stage the complaint has sufficient substance to require more details investigation”.
In conclusion, the barrister described Dr Randall’s case as “egregious”, the Church’s error as “gross”, and the Archbishop’s decision to dismiss the gender critical chaplain as “plainly wrong”.
The review of Dr Barnard’s case was then passed to Dame Sarah Asplin, the CofE’s President of Tribunals, who had to consider whether it was appropriate to convene an unprecedented tribunal (known as a Vicar General’s Court) to rule on the complaint.
In a short review, and with the full report and justification for her decisions not being disclosed, Dame Asplin said that she did not think the Bishop of Derby had a case to answer, apparently putting the blame for failings on other Church officers. There has been no disciplinary action against anyone else involved.
Since that judgment in February, Dr Randall has said that he has heard nothing and there is no sign of him being given his licence back.
As a result of his frustration, he is now launching a judicial review against Dame Sarah’s decision.
“In my case, safeguarding has been weaponised as a political tool against a theological position which is wholly consistent with the Church’s doctrine,” Dr Randall said.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: “No evidence has ever been presented that shows that Bernard is a danger to children. From the beginning this scandalous blacklisting has been because of the beliefs that he shares with Jesus, the Bible and, officially, the Church of England.
“Because of the archbishops’ and bishops’ departure from the Bible’s teaching on sexual ethics they are scapegoating innocent clergy who uphold it.”
