FIRED and Called a ＂TERRORIST＂ for Preaching The Gospel ｜ Rev. Dr Bernard Randall
Summary
As the state-established church of secular progressivism enforces its orthodoxies more and more each day in the United States, in Britain, and throughout the West, I am so pleased to be able to speak today with someone who has questioned the dominant liberal regime and its deeply intolerant ideology of tolerance. That person would be the Reverend Dr. Bernard Randall, until very recently, Chaplain at Trent College, former chaplain at Cambridge University and graduate of Oxford University.
Transcript
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It's a sermon in a chapel by the chaplain in the Christian school.
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As the state-established church of secular progressivism enforces its orthodoxies more
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and more each day in the United States, in Britain, throughout the West, I am so pleased
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to be able to speak today with a heretic, someone who has questioned the dominant liberal regime
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and its deeply intolerant ideology of tolerance.
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That person would be the Reverend Dr. Bernard Randall, who was, until very recently, chaplain
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at Trent College, former chaplain at Cambridge University, graduate of Oxford University,
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but we will not hold those sorts of things against him.
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I cannot say that I was surprised when I saw what happened to you.
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I was deeply saddened for the state of the Anglosphere in the world, but I was not surprised
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You were reported to a terror watch list because you sort of, kind of, defended the legitimacy
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Yeah, I mean, it surprised me quite how badly people took it.
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I think I would be fair to say, you know, I was doing my job, Christian chaplain, in a
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Christian school, and just trying to present the fact that, you know, Christian beliefs
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do vary from some of this political agenda, identity politics kind of stuff, and that you're
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That's all I was saying, along with where we have disagreements, respect one another.
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And I said respect one another about half a dozen times in the space of a sort of 10-minute
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But for daring to say, yes, you may believe the church is teaching on marriage.
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You may believe that biological sex is real and sometimes makes a difference.
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You may question whether the sort of gender identity stuff is really coherent.
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And if it doesn't make sense, look at other ways of understanding these things.
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For daring to say that, I was, yeah, hauled over the coals.
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So you were fired from your job, presumably because you were at a radical leftist college
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No, the foundation of the school is according to the Protestant and evangelical principles
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So the church as established by law in Britain, in England.
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And yeah, on paper, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do.
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My contract said, you will uphold and support the stated aims and purposes of the school.
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Well, I did that, but certain people didn't like it.
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Putatively Christian institutions have been hollowed out by cultural revolutionaries.
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And so now if you espouse Christian orthodoxy or anything even vaguely resembling Christian
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In fairness, I don't know quite how it got to the stage it got to.
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I suppose, I mean, Britain is as secular in many ways as the US, I'm sure.
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And because it's a fee-paying school, I guess the management, the leadership thought we need
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to move in the direction of our customers rather than being true to the Christian foundation
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and saying, actually, we have something to offer, which is really valuable.
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And we'd like to carry on offering it, understanding that not everyone in the school is Christian.
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And indeed, there were pupils of other faiths and atheists and so on.
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So as a Christian chaplain, speaking to that audience, everything I say is kind of controversial.
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You know, just to say God exists is controversial to some of them.
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Didn't think I was doing anything much more controversial than that, in fairness.
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That's kind of the job of a minister, isn't it, I think?
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Yes, I thought it's the job of the Christian and the job of the shepherds to become very,
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very worldly and win all the sorts of applause.
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I want to get to the substance of your lecture in a moment.
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But am I correct, in what I understand, that you were not only fired, but you were reported
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to the anti-terrorism agency of the United Kingdom?
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In the UK, we have this thing called PREVENT, which is to prevent extremism.
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And so anybody who's a danger of being a terrorist or radicalizing others can be reported to the
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The unit, the police said, no, this doesn't meet the threshold for a terrorist, which I
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But the police officer did say this is wholly inappropriate in a school and wholly inappropriate
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in society, which says something about the state of the capture of the police by this
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sort of ideology as well, unfortunately, in this country.
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I'm glad that you got off the hook for your outrageous crime.
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But it does raise this question, what will happen next time?
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What will happen in a few years or at this rate, even in a few months?
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This does not sound particularly provocative or violent as far as I can tell.
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It's an act of worship, of Christian worship in a Christian chapel, in a Christian school
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No great surprises that I might say some Christian-friendly things, I thought.
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So the thesis was basically, in many areas of life, people have different sets of ideas,
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Some people wanted to leave the European Union in this country.
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Some were more interested in the sort of democratic rights of a sovereign nation.
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Some people more interested in the economics and making sure the jobs were preserved.
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And it's not as if one is right and one is wrong.
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It's just different ways of looking at the same thing.
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So I started with that argument, that sort of example, and said, and actually, when it
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comes to some of these LGBT areas, although there are areas of agreement, no one should
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Love your neighbor as yourself is absolutely crucial.
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Nevertheless, there are disagreements, such as on marriage, on biology, and the way we talk
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about gender identity, and you're free to make up your own mind.
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You can hear someone out and go, no, that's not for me.
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And this was prompted by a pupil at school saying to me, how come we're told in a Christian
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And that was the thing that really struck me about that question, that people wanted to
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Well, I wonder, too, if someone in a madrasa would be told that they have to accept the
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It seems to me, perhaps I'm speaking out of turn, that there is a bit of a double standard
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here, where the Christians are held to a different standard than other religious people.
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Christians are supposed to be kind and tolerant.
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And, you know, love your neighbor sounds as if you don't want to ever possibly upset your
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But of course, it doesn't necessarily work that way.
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Jesus was willing to upset people from time to time, seem to remember something about
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But, you know, so it's a wide secular misunderstanding of what Christianity is about, I think.
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It's got a deeper heart and a deeper mind than that, which perhaps they didn't want
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They just thought, oh, just tell the kids, be nice to each other.
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You can correct me if I'm wrong, who said that so much of the modern understanding of
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Christianity is that God without wrath leads a people without sin to a kingdom without
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judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
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I mean, you actually have to remind people there is a core to Christianity that isn't
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And, you know, at the start of every school year, one of my first chapel services, I would
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say, you know, I am unapologetically Christian.
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This is the sort of foundation that we try to run ourselves by.
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But the fact that I don't apologize for being Christian means you don't have to apologize
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if you are Muslim or Hindu or atheist or whatever.
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You do your faith position properly, sensibly, thoroughly, and I'll do mine thoroughly.
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But together, we rub up and work through these disagreements.
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And well, that's how it should work, but apparently not.
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Well, this, of course, gets to the question that is bedeviling all of us in the West today,
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And what the radical left seems to be saying is that we cannot tolerate intolerance.
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And in a way, their argument is reminiscent of that line from Chesterton, who says there
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is a thought that stops thought, and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped.
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And the left is now saying, no, Dr. Randall, you are preaching intolerance, and therefore,
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But I just wonder if, let's say, it is now unacceptable to question any aspect of the LGBT
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ideology, because you will offend somebody who participates in that.
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But what happens if a Muslim person quotes the Quran?
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If a Muslim person quotes the Quran, which says not merely to condemn someone who engages
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in that sort of behavior, but actually calls for violence against people who engage in that
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sort of behavior, is the Muslim person victimizing the LGBT person on the basis of his identity?
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Is the LGBT guy victimizing the Muslim on the basis of his religious identity?
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How can we tolerate one another in this framework?
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I mean, that's the sort of big question, isn't it?
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I mean, it should be that, well, either someone has to give completely, or actually, ideally,
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both sides are all different opinions, give a bid.
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And there's this space in the middle where we can agree to differ.
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We know that some of the things we say might be a bit offensive to others, but we live with
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that because that's the way that free speech has to work.
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I think what we mustn't have, and what we seem to have developed, is this sense that some
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people's feelings are more important than others.
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And that's, you know, some people are more valuable than others.
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So when kids in the school were being taught about this stuff, one of the sessions talked
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about how can we be a more LGBT plus friendly school, well, that's okay, I guess.
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What are the obstacles to being LGBT plus friendly?
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And then if a pupil is sitting there thinking, well, I'm a traditional Christian, I'm a Muslim
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or whatever, and I'm not totally happy with this.
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That's one of the questions they were asked to explore.
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Well, if we're being allies, but then that makes the enemy, am I the enemy?
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And how deeply hurt is a person who thinks they're an obstacle and an enemy of what the
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And yet that pupil's feelings matter not one little bit compared to we mustn't hurt the
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And that's not a sustainable position for a community to be in.
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I hadn't considered it that the feeling of the Christian student at the Christian school
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who is told that he is a bigot, who is told that he's hateful because he holds a very traditional
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I mean, even if you take the LBG of it aside for a moment, even just on this issue of the
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T of transgenderism, if you believe that your body has anything at all to do with who you
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really are, if perhaps you hold the traditional Christian understanding that we're body and
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soul together, we're not just one or the other.
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Now you're told that you're a hateful bigot and you're no longer accepted even at a Christian
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And you can understand that gender dysphoria is a real thing.
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And there are people who really suffer terribly.
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And for them, sometimes that the least bad option is transition and medical treatments.
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And that's not a happy thing for anyone to go through.
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You can believe in that and be OK with that, but not necessarily believe that there's this
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thing called a gender identity, which is sort of some kind of soul inside, which is a male
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identity or a female identity or whatever these other things are.
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And I would say people are free to describe themselves that way if they want, but don't
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make everybody else have to go along with your belief system.
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And it's kind of like if I was talking to a Muslim who was very fervent and whenever he
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mentioned Muhammad would say, peace be upon him, which a lot of Muslims do.
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But if a Muslim then says to me, if you're ever going to talk to me, you must say, Muhammad,
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And that's asking me to partake in his belief system.
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I might as a courtesy, but I shouldn't have to.
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You know, I actually noticed you're reminding me of this some years ago when Muhammad was
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There was this tendency, even in the West, to refer to him as the Prophet Muhammad.
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And I thought, well, it doesn't really bother me if Muslims call him the Prophet Muhammad.
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But I certainly don't consider him a prophet, and I'm not going to call him such.
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And you really, really oughtn't make me do that any more than I would try to change your
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And if you start saying the Prophet Muhammad, or you feel you have to say that, that's making
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And then it's only a very short step to Muslims saying, oh, well, why can't you just say the
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And when you start to take the steps forward in the discussion, you realize where it could
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And actually, you need to be able to say, surely it's a liberal tolerance is you have your own
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beliefs and you're allowed to stick with them, respecting other people.
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But to say Muhammad is a million miles from a slur, as far as I can tell.
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You coincidentally, Dr. Randall, I have a book on this topic of speech, sort of how we
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I notice you have many, probably more worthwhile books behind you in your office, but I'll have
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to send you a copy in any case, because I do fear that this ideology is, it's really just
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So I have to ask you, are we going to fight back?
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Are you going to fight back against this injustice that has been done to you?
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I am taking the school to court to claim for discrimination and unfair dismissal.
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And I'm really pleased, actually, that this story has got a lot of attention in the UK,
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but also, you know, across the world, yourselves, obviously.
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And it's because of the extremeness of saying this guy should be reported as a potential
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It's allowed people to see just how far the people who buy into this identity politics,
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And I didn't get arrested this time, but how soon before someone is arrested for something
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as innocuous as what I said, unless now we stop and we say, no, no further, we must actually
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stand up for just real tolerance, not the pseudo tolerance that the identity politics
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And of course, you know, I suppose throwing back this argument of we can't tolerate intolerance
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that you hear so often from the left, you might go back to Chesterton's observation that
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there's a thought that stops thought and it's the only thought that ought to be stopped.
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Our understanding of tolerance in our civilization derives from Christianity.
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If you abuse this tolerance to chase Christianity out of a Christian school in a Christian country,
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goodness gracious, you've undermined the whole system.
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I think one of the things is that this sort of identity politics has a lot to do with post-modernism,
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You know, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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He doesn't say, I am the opinion, the feelings, and the lived experience or something, whatever
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And yes, for Christians, truth matters, truth exists.
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And you can also talk about Jesus being the logos of God, the word, the reason, the logic,
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And if we don't think about it, how are we going to get to the truth?
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And if we want the truth, we have to think about it to get there.
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And that all goes together with these core liberal values, which I guess they are founded
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They're not found anywhere else in the world's history, as far as I can tell.
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So, Dr. Randall, where can people support you, you know, get updates on the case, support
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your legal defense, the case that you're bringing now against this school?
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Well, I'm being supported by a really great organization called Christian Concern here
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in the UK, and they are providing the lawyers for me, which unfortunately doesn't come cheap,
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And if this wasn't for the public good, I don't know what is.
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So, you can see more about me on their webpage, christianconcern.com slash Bernard.
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There's the text and my sermon is on there, and there is a donate button as well, if anybody
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is willing and able to help us fight this really, I think, very important fight at this
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Well, I look forward to hearing the whole sermon because, you know, as I'd seen a clip
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of it, and I have seen some news coverage on it, but actually, my understanding was that
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it was just a typical university lecture, but it's even crazier than that.
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It's a sermon in a chapel by the chaplain in the Christian school.
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I would highly recommend that people head on over to Christian Concern, follow Dr. Randall,
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and also support this legal effort because it's about a whole lot more than just you,
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This would seem to me to be really what the whole fight is about here, to maintain any semblance
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of our culture and the things that we cherish in our civilization.
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I think, you know, this is one of those points where if you don't stand up and be counted,
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if you don't draw the line in the sand, whatever metaphor you want to use, you know, not now
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You always hear about, Michael, is this the hill you want to die on?
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And I say, look, I don't intend to die on any hills, but the reason that one might consider
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dying on a hill is because eventually you run out of hills, and eventually you've just lost
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Dr. Bernard Randall, sorry that this has happened to you, but in a sense, I suppose it's a bit
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of a felix culpa, you know, it's a kind of a happy thing because this could be a real moment
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when we stop this momentum and start pushing back to reclaim our culture.
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And then it will have been worth it for all the hardship and the pain that it's caused.
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Dr. Bernard Randall, thank you so much for being here.