Cancelled by Woke Church of England - Calvin Robinson
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 2 minutes
Words per Minute
202.0889
Summary
In this special live episode of Trigonometry, comedian Calvin Robinson returns to the show to discuss racism in the Church of England. Calvin is a prominent conservative commentator who has been involved in the church for a number of years and is a regular contributor to publications such as The Daily Mail, The Independent and The Telegraph. He is also a regular guest on BBC Radio 4's Breakfast Time with Nick Clegg.
Transcript
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Your full Great Outdoors Comedy Festival lineup is here on September 11th through 13th at Arendelle Park.
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Three nights, five shows, huge laughs. September 11th through 13th. Buy tickets now at greatoutdoorscomedyfestival.com.
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Hello and welcome to a very special live episode of Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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and this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people we are here
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live with our brilliant and returning guest it's one calvin robinson welcome back man thank you
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thank you honestly the most referenced show that people talk to me about is your show they say i've
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seen you on trigonometry i first heard about you on trigonometry so it's good to be back on this
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show all right well you've managed to get yourself cancelled yet again in your life so you're back on
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the show. But it's been a busy time for you. And just before we get into everything that's
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been going on, for people who are not familiar, who are tuning in, maybe heard a bit of the
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story, don't know who you are, just give everybody a little refresher of your background, where
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you're coming from, etc. Who I am in 30 seconds. I've been training for the priesthood for
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Holy Orders in the Church of England for the last couple of years, reading theology at
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Oxford. I present and sit on panels on GB News and occasionally write in the broadsheets
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going around being provocative for the sake of it
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week because you've had some issues with the Church of England in which you were training.
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So just give everybody the whole story from the beginning.
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So I think you've hit the nail on the head there in that I do comment on the culture
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It's all about putting Christ at the center of everything that I do.
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And I fight the good fight for that reason, because I think that our society is running
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down the wrong direction, and it has been for the last few years.
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Unfortunately, I believe the church is also going down that path.
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in a time when there was a great need for people
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to have someone looking out for their spiritual well-being.
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You can no longer come in and pray for your parishioners.
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you can only come in if you've got a medical mandate
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um we've seen the church take on board critical race theory so this is something that i posed
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quite loudly in that they put out a report called lament to action which took on board a whole load
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of critical race theory language anti-white sentiments you know quotas for ethnic minorities
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all of this kind of stuff i said this is incompatible with our faith why i get that
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there's a there's a topic of conversation here that's not just national but global around black
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clients matter we have to be a part of it of course we do because we're a faith based on justice
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but we can't take on board neo-marxist ideologies in order to address the issue we can't you know
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the church they stood up and said we are institutionally racist without any evidence
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nothing to back it up just we are deeply institutionally racist these are the words
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of the archbishop of canterbury now i said to my bishop the bishop of london i don't think that's
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appropriate i think that's quite divisive because of course there's so much racism going on in the
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world and in the country and potentially in the church but that's individuals that's malicious
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or ignorant individuals that need you know they need the consequences of their actions need to
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be brought to them not the entire institution don't paint us all as racist unless you've got
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some evidence to back that up then i'll hold my hands up and say okay maybe it is but you know
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the sewell report came out the cred report that looked into racism and racial disparities in our
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country didn't find any evidence of racial institutional racism doesn't mean it didn't
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exist it didn't find any evidence of it so I tend to go along with the lines of that that racial
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disparities aren't necessarily a sign of racism but are things that we need to address on a wider
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picture what socio-economic factors at play tend to be geography class background you know education
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all of these things come into someone's situation not just their skin color and if we put it all
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down skin colour, we're dismissing the wider image, the wider problem, and we can't actually
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solve it. So I said this, and the very upper middle class, white, metropolitan, liberal
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elite bishop turned around and he said, Calvin, I can tell you as a white woman, the church
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is institution racist. And I'm like, okay, where do I go from here? Because it's very
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difficult, that level of not cognitive dissonance, but choice. It's a choice to take on board
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an ideology and not to consider other perspectives and part of the ideology is actually you know
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taking on board the lived experiences of ethnic minorities and I as an ethnic minority I'm standing
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up there saying I want to give you my lived experience they're saying no no no that's the
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wrong type of lived experience just as they're always saying you know you're the wrong type of
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black we want the black people that we can pat on the head and say good black person you're falling
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in line with our with our way of life and with our thinking I find it patronizing almost to the
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point of racism actually in order to prove their point that the church is institution racist
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they said actually calvin we don't want to hear your point of view and said we don't want to see
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you anymore you're gone so calvin how long has the church been following this path was it like
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a lot of organizations and institutions it all came to a head with george floyd and the blm
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demonstrations already had it already been going down that path for a while it had already been
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going down that path so i think it was 2017 when the abc the archbishop of canterbury stood up and
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And then they put out this lament-to-action report
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and pointed to his saying that in the General Synod as evidence.
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And then they recently put out a contested heritage report
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potentially harmful statues and monuments from their churches
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and said that this country is institutionally racist
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and it referred to the lament-to-action report as evidence of that.
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So it's a cyclical leftist approach to academia
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it's all anecdotal, it all points to each other.
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I get that people can take offence to anything,
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they're not there to say this was a perfect human being
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if you're a Christian you acknowledge that nobody's a perfect
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therefore he needs to be removed because this is
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white people are either overtly or covertly racist
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white people can only commit and white people cannot escape
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anti-Christian. All of this goes against our faith
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When we hear that there's neither Jew nor Greek
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or that we're all made of one blood, one nation,
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you know, the church has doubled down today actually
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we back our efforts to support our anti-racism task force.
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sure the better thing is for us all to just not be racist
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which is obviously the same as black and Asian minority ethnics,
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If you're not white, you're part of the same club.
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We all think alike, we vote alike, we talk alike.
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But the idea that 30% of every leadership position in the Church of England
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well, roughly 12% to 14% of the British population
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is ethnic minority status, but half of them are Muslim.
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Let's get some Muslims in the Church of England.
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One vicar held up a plaque recently saying we are all Muslims now,
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and I kind of think that's the way we're going.
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you've got a good chance of getting 30% of the shortness.
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But if you're somewhere up north or down south,
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But then they're also going down the routes of affirmative action
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and I don't think there is any discrimination that is positive
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of the Church of England, anyone could put themselves up
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and they're saying actually we need to co-opt some brown people
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ethnic minorities can't put ourselves up for election
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believe in a democratic process, so they have to
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that's you know calvin look we agree with you on this show with all of that completely whether
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it's where neither of us is churchgoers but we it's a principle i think that applies universally
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but what i think look people are allowed to have different opinions and if someone wants to believe
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in critical race theory that is entirely up to them right the problem with your case from what
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i can tell is your views were quite well known within the church and as you went through your
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training for which the church which the church subsidized to some extent as i understand
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actually people behind your back were having conversations by email which you've since
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discovered about how you must be prevented from advancing and and all of that and to me if people
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in the church of england believe in critical race theory or want to implement some of these
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progressive work ideas you know it's a free country do whatever you want the problem is
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when people like you start to be excluded now i know you'll have your strength of feeling about
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some of those ideologies as we both do as well my point is what i'm getting at is it's not so
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much the case that, you know, they had these ideas and you had different ideas. It's that,
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like with many other institutions now, and we see this across the board, your ideas are not allowed
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to be had, they're not allowed to be expressed, and you have to be pushed out. Talk to us about
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that. I will. I would go a step further and say if these ideas are counter-scriptural, they have
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no place in Christianity. So anyone can believe in critical race theory if they want to. I would
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say it has no place in the church. But my argument has been silenced, and it came to the end of my
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training i'm just finishing now and and i was put forward to a parish to be an assistant priest
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that's got taken that position got taken away and i asked you know why what's going on one of the
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bishops and i won't mention any names on here because i don't want to sue you i'm happy for
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them to sue me because i'll just release all the evidence and make it all public i don't want to
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sue you guys but one of the bishops said um you know it would be too turbulent to calvin because
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people might complain about your views i was like well i like to think my views i'm mostly christian
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and if you don't think they are, tell me which ones aren't.
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But if people are complaining about my Christian views,
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But anyway, show me the complaints and I'll try and improve my practice
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And they refused to show me, so I put in a subject access request,
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which enables me to see any communication about me within the church.
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And that was a big surprise because this was all new to me,
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that I saw from these communications that bishops had been talking behind my back
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for the last couple of years, before they even sent me to training.
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bear in mind they just paid 20 grand to send me to oxford and it's not their money it's the money
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that the poor old ladies in the pews that they've used to send me to oxford uh and before even
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sending me they decided that they didn't want me to be ordained and the biggest cause that i could
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see from the communications is calvin does not believe in institutional racist racism there
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calvin does not believe in institutional racism therefore we should keep an eye on his ordination
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process nudge nudge wink wink it's the kind of he does not agree with our politics therefore do we
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really have a place for him and that that worries me because obviously I've got a platform I can
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expose all of this nonsense but what about all the other conservatives what about all the whether
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politically or theologically conservative that have been silenced and pushed out and since I've
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spoken up I've had so many people like laymen there's you know people in the congregations
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but also clergymen priests that have reached out said you know this is happening to me I can't
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speak out because I'm reliant on the stipend you know I get starved out or I've been bullied out
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one of the bishops has come out today with a statement
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statements other than there's no place for Calvin
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a space that was taken away, and there are many priests
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that have offered me spaces to train with them since
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but anyway, that's the statement they put out, until today
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one bishop has put out a statement in the Church Times
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which is the mouthpiece of the Church of England
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because it's reliant on the money from the institution
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or my understanding of these conversations was incorrect
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I'm like okay sure I'll put all the information out there
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but I lost my train of thought on where I was going with it
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You're talking about the Church Times and the statement that they put out today.
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So before that, they were saying that there's no space for you,
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No, the thing I was going to ask you, Calvin, is I'm not a Christian.
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But I would have thought that if I think of priests or preachers off the top of my head
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I'd imagine quite a few of them would have had offensive views
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for some people in the society at the time in which they expressed them.
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Probably starting with Jesus himself, I would have thought.
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Let me pause you there before I forget what I've just remembered.
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I use the word upset, and I'm very upset about this situation.
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But the statement that the bishop put out through the church times,
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and bearing in mind they haven't put a statement out anywhere else,
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not in the Telegraph of the Times, the Mail on Sunday, the Express,
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but the church times put out a statement saying,
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I'm sad to hear that Calvin is very angry about this situation.
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And that's in line with when I've had conversations with them
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saying, look, I find this all very disappointing
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And I say, look, Calvin, it's not what you say.
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So I'm not one of these people that's very shouty
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don't you think what's very interesting is i would see you as a classical conservative
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and to be religious means a lot of the time you are conservative by nature so in many ways you're
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just reflecting the views of your parishioners who are both religious and conservative i don't
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understand what is controversial about that trying to i'll draw both of your questions together
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because i think jesus christ was controversial i think he rebuked people quite often said
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you're wrong on that you know he was polite but he was he was very abrupt so that's wrong this is
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the way because he is the truth and you know he actually he did get quite angry at times and
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turned up the tables in the temple when money laundering was going on um i do think his
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statement was controversial i think his whole message is controversial it's actually the most
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scandalous message in human history that god came to earth as man incarnate and died for our sins
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for our salvation it's quite out there I don't know if we can tell the story without being
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controversial and you know the bishops say you've got to appease everybody you've got to
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be more peaceable and I don't think you can appease everyone I think it's a divisive message
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and we're here to warn people of what's to come and to warn people away from badness and point
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them towards goodness to point them towards Christ it's quite simple but it is divisive
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it is controversial. I completely agree with you. But let's focus on that point about your views.
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How have we got to a place where a person can have mainstream conservative opinions that reflect
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his parishioners and at the same time be forced out of the church? Because small c conservative
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views are, there might be mainstream and there might be in the majority, but of course it's a
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silent majority still. And the very vocal minority of the liberal elites or the woke people is seen
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as the the normative and we i mean we know it's not because you get so many people contacting you
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on a daily basis to say what their views are but when all you see in here in the mainstream media
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and in politics is that liberal elite perspective a metropolitan liberal perspective people start
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to believe it is the appropriate one to have in a public space and you know people have compared
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me to other uh trainee priests that have been uh going through similar stuff so there's there's
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and again I won't mention any names, but he put out a statement saying
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Like 30,000 people put a petition together to say,
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please don't ordain this man because he's a racist.
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The church not only ordained him, they've encouraged him, supported him.
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So this guy is getting ordained, you're getting kicked out.
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He sees anyone that's white as racist and sees this country as racist.
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I think individuals are racist and they need to be held responsible for actions.
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Because, you know, I've watched a few like Yuri Bezmenov lectures about demoralization and all of that.
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And I can't help but think that if the church is going down this path,
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we really have got to a point where all the institutions and the systems and the structures
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that were designed to keep the good things about the society that we have in place.
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Now, look, no one, I certainly wouldn't argue that society doesn't need to move forward
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and adjust to the times and grow as technologically we grow
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and embed all of that into how we live our lives.
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But I also think tradition and history and past
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And yet we are seeing across every industry now, it seems,
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that are undermining and destroying those things.
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I think we can go down lots of different routes in life,
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but that's how they get you to say well it's 2022 of course xyz should be the case as if like
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because it's this year we're better than everyone in the past of course we should think this but
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uro bezmanov was absolutely right as was gromsky as with this whole idea of the long march through
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the institutions and the centuryism it has taken place you know i can see it in front of my eyes
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we're talking about the church today so i'll use that as an example out of 116 bishops only one of
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them overtly put their for their case for brexit the rest of them were either silent on brexit or
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So there's massive disconnects between them and the
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entryism and what's going on and how they're going to
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our public bodies. In the church, it's not just
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the bishops, it's the people who select the bishops.
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Technically speaking, Her Majesty the Queen chooses the bishops
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One individual, a civil servant, puts forward the names,
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and this is because Gordon Brown was embarrassed
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and responsible for bishops in the Church of England,
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And obviously our monarchy is now constitutional,
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So this civil servant, who's just retired after 17 years,
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has been putting forward liberal names for bishops constantly over the last two decades,
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and that's why they're all of a groupthink, you know, they're in an echo chamber of a groupthink
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mentality. But don't you think, Calvin, that this is a perfect example that church and politics
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shouldn't mix? The church shouldn't get involved in politics in any shape or form?
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Yes and no. I think, you know, the reason we have the Lord's spiritual in the House of Parliament
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is because they're supposed to be the moral compass of the nation, and if the government
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is putting forward something that's anti-christian the lord spiritual actually is supposed to say
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well you know this this is a more moral case um because it's still supposed to be a christian
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country whether people want it to be or not but they're not doing that they are getting party
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political and the bishops are campaigning against government policy because it's conservative you
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know like the rwanda plan and saying it's ungodly and then they're moralizing that the special
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covid medicine and say you have to be a good christian you have to take this um so did they
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really say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be a good Christian, if you love your neighbour,
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you will take the special medicine. That's inappropriate. That's overreach.
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Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's wrong. You know, people should have an individual right
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to make a choice based on the data available. For that particular medicine, there wasn't
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a lot of data available, so I understand why some people chose not to take it. But the
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church has no place to say, to be a good Christian, you have to. That makes me sick.
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but it's all over the place it's in every issue it's in trans it's in race it's in gender it's
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in sexuality do you think part of the problem is that and look we're not just talking about
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the church of england here we're also going to invoke my boys the catholic church you look at
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the history of a lot of the church and there's quite a lot of you know how can we put this real
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serious crimes committed and do you think part of this is just guilt looking back and saying
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we've really messed up here we need to really make sure we're hot on all the subject matter
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and all these political topics so that no one can ever accuse us of being racist sexist etc
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perhaps but i think they need to look at they need to get back to the core message what is
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the church for what's it about it's about jesus christ it's about evangelizing it's about
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the truth, the way and the life. It's as simple as that.
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They just need to return to the book. Return to the Bible.
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Do what it says in the Bible. Promote those messages.
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needs to be disestablished. Maybe it needs to be
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if they want to look after the spiritual well-being,
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And, Calvin, do you think maybe an alternative explanation
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we know that the Church of England is not doing well
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Do you think there's maybe part of it where they sort of like,
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everyone wants to capture young people nowadays,
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television comedy everyone young people you know we've got to get to the young
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people and and so maybe if we go woke we're gonna get the young people to
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join the church they're all now and if we've got a trans flag on on top of the
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spire then then then everything then then we're gonna get the people to come
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in and pray which they're not doing 100% it's the same as the BBC isn't it it's
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like attracting an audience that doesn't actually exist they're trying to be
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overtly work they're trying to be very liberal progressive and think this is
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the young people want let's attract these you know let's get the trendy young people it's like
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that i'm one of you fellow kids it's that whole thing isn't it it's so cringe it's embarrassing
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and the church shouldn't be trying to chase the societal norms anyway on any of these issues
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because the church should be counter-cultural it should be an alternative to put it scripturally
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it should be a shining light in an ever-darkening world around us because people are sick and tired
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a lot of people are sick and tired of what's going on around us we're sick and tired of being lied to
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you know being told there are 99 genders or you can identify as a horse if you want to
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these i'm using a ridiculous example but this is stuff that's actually going on people know
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the truth they know that it's just male or female people know that well if being white doesn't make
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you a racist and being black doesn't make you a victim and when they get sick and tired of what's
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going on around them this day they should be looking towards something different alternative
00:25:53.440
but if the church isn't offering that where are they going to go well this is why people end up
00:25:56.640
up in these stupid things like Extinction Rebellion. Because not only are people looking
00:26:00.040
for a truth rather than the truth, people are also looking for a sense of belonging,
00:26:06.100
a community, a place to be, a family. And if these wacky groups are offering it and
00:26:10.440
the church isn't, they're going to join the wacky groups.
00:26:12.620
What really bothers me about this situation as well, Cameron, is like, as I said, I'm
00:26:16.120
not a church goer. I don't go to church. It's not an important part of my life. But
00:26:21.080
I also, I don't want to live in a society where it was the same, right? People should
00:26:25.380
be allowed to have christian conservative views like we have christian conservatives that work
00:26:30.460
on the show right and we have arguments and disagreements over the dinner table as we talk
00:26:34.760
about this stuff and it's interesting and it's the spice that adds to the mix right difference
00:26:40.100
but it seems to me like all the institutions they they've all got to be the same way right
00:26:45.700
and there would have been a past in the 1930s or 40s where it was the other way around it was all
00:27:02.320
very strong opinions on these things, but that doesn't mean I'm right
00:27:18.200
amongst themselves and said, well it looks like we're right on this
00:27:22.560
That's how they're affirming that they are right.
00:27:25.620
They're not saying, actually, here's an ethnic minority within the church
00:27:28.040
that has a different perspective to what we're used to.
00:27:30.380
Let's take that one on board too and look at the wider picture.
00:27:32.820
It's like, no, this is a right-wing loon, so we must be right.
00:27:36.760
I just can't believe, because you've never been someone
00:27:44.780
So I then look at it and then go, well, why did they bring you in?
00:27:49.860
why have they invested all this money in order to you know to give you this training and wonderful
00:27:55.860
education at oxford in order just to basically prevent you from being ordained it doesn't make
00:28:01.620
any sense no it doesn't because i suppose for them to say no they'd have to be open and honest
00:28:06.500
at some point but they've never been open or honest with me even now when i sit down and have
00:28:10.080
conversations with the bishops it's all it's very political it's you know have you ever spoken to
00:28:13.920
someone where they can give you a hundred words you still don't get a meaning from it yeah i'm
00:28:18.020
like, I don't know what you're trying to tell me.
00:28:21.940
what I mean, and I mean what I say. And I really
00:28:23.920
respect when other people can do that. But when they're
00:28:25.940
talking around a subject and getting more political, it tells
00:28:28.060
me they're actually a politician, and they're not a
00:28:32.020
open and honest. At the beginning, they could have said, look,
00:28:33.840
we don't think you're a good fit for the Church of
00:28:35.980
England. We're not going to take you forward to training.
00:28:39.960
case or something. They might be afraid of that
00:28:41.920
kind of thing. But even now, they've not said, look,
00:28:47.760
we don't like your views it's how you say them like they lie around the topic oh they say you
00:28:52.160
know come back in a year time or two years time and see if things have changed like you know my
00:28:56.460
stance on these issues you know what kind of person i am you know what i stand for you don't
00:29:00.620
seem to like any of those things i don't know if they're going to have changed in a year's time
00:29:03.820
just be honest and say we don't want people that are conservative politically or theologically in
00:29:08.680
the church we are looking to go forward as they call it in a liberal progressive way if that's
00:29:12.580
your preferred route just tell me do you think there needs to be some kind of legislation
00:29:19.260
from the government and i know that you're probably not very this is the lefty and
00:29:25.120
it is yet the government regulates regulate it um but i think it's come to a point now
00:29:33.060
why is it acceptable to discriminate against somebody with legitimate political opinions
00:29:40.720
but you can't discriminate against race, sex, gender,
00:29:46.200
Why is it absolutely acceptable to disagree with somebody,
00:29:49.920
to say to somebody and discriminate against them
00:29:53.720
because they have different political opinions?
00:30:02.700
I don't like the protected characteristics idea.
00:30:09.180
You know, political ideas could be a protected characteristic
00:30:13.000
as long as it's used as a defence and not as a weapon.
00:30:15.780
And, you know, Kimmy Baden-Lock's really good on this
00:30:17.200
and saying it's been used as a sword far too long.
00:30:23.700
It's not always interpreted in the way it's intended.
00:30:26.300
Calvin, we're going to get questions from you guys in a second,
00:30:29.140
so send in the super chats if you want us to pose your questions
00:30:35.480
is, do you think there's a problem for religion in general and for the church in particular?
00:30:39.580
Because what you're talking about as the role of religion is to articulate and pass down
00:30:45.900
certain, let's call them from your perspective, truths.
00:30:49.680
Things that are true, they are the word of God, and there's a rigid certainty to them.
00:30:56.540
Yet the world that we now live in increasingly is very subjective.
00:31:00.740
It's your lived experience, it's your feelings, it's your truth, it's your...
00:31:06.060
And so there is an inevitable contradiction between those two positions
00:31:11.040
and it seems that the church is now moving in that direction.
00:31:14.780
And you are one of the people who's going, no, no, no, that's not the role of the church.
00:31:18.260
Do you think that is the conflict at the heart of this?
00:31:20.140
I do think you're spot on there and I think that's why a lot of people are lost
00:31:23.120
because it's helpful to know that there is a universal truth that we're striving towards
00:31:26.840
or the pursuit of knowledge, whether you're Christian or Enlightenment,
00:32:01.920
the church has changed its teaching on homosexual marriage
00:32:10.580
The church has just stopped talking about these issues.
00:32:14.440
The doctrine remains the same because the Bible remains the same.
00:32:18.700
All that's happened is the church has become embarrassed about the faith
00:32:22.400
because it doesn't want to be seen as bigoted or whatever
00:32:28.500
and now people don't know it anymore and that is such a good point because the reality is
00:32:33.280
if you're going to interpret the bible in in its most in its most literal in its most honest way
00:32:39.560
you can't possibly be woke they're fundamentally incompatible absolutely that's why we have the
00:32:45.860
problem we have because people have stopped returning to the bible including the hierarchy
00:32:49.180
of the church of england but you mentioned is this the end for the faith in general i don't
00:32:52.980
think it is i think there are many many solid christians in this country not as many as there
00:32:58.000
used to be but I think a lot of that is people are always nominally Christian and because it was
00:33:02.860
the dumb thing as a Englishman you were Christian whether you went to church or not you're just a
00:33:07.260
Christian and now it's not the dumb thing it's not the you know it's quite unfashionable to say
00:33:10.900
Christian so all those nominal Christians have moved away from they're no longer in the data
00:33:14.560
but if the actual Christians the practicing Christians still are thriving and the problem
00:33:20.840
we have is the monopoly of the Church of England because it's established you know Anglicanism
00:33:25.680
is a broader movement than just the Church of England,
00:33:33.740
on all the churches and on all the institutions
00:33:39.260
And I think that would be helpful for people of this country.
00:33:41.720
As well as Roman Catholics and other denominations,
00:33:47.140
if it wasn't all down to the Church of England.
00:33:49.620
All right, so before we go to our audience questions, Kevin,
00:33:52.260
what is the future for you then with all of this?
00:33:54.700
because whatever people think about your views,
00:34:12.660
which there's a lot of going on at the moment, right?
00:34:29.460
I know you're going to be hosting your show on GB News and you do other stuff,
00:34:33.440
but I think the church is where you want to be.
00:34:41.940
I love having a platform and I love using GB News to spread the good news,
00:34:45.280
but I don't think I'd ever be a full-time broadcaster.
00:34:47.700
I'm called to ministry, and I get to do that partly through broadcast,
00:34:53.640
And I also think there are a lot of people in this country
00:34:56.480
that feel that the Church of England has left them
00:35:05.100
So what I'm going to do is plant a church in London
00:35:12.840
We can worship together on a Sunday, have a good time,
00:35:19.060
Well, we're going to come back with all your questions
00:35:25.340
and we'll see you back here in a couple of minutes
00:35:29.640
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Hey Francis, what do you think is the best way to advertise a business?
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that's going to be promoted on a dying medium like TV.
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Why would I do that when I can advertise on ITV3
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for the measly sum of 20 grand and be watched by six people?
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Because Trigonometry now has over 350,000 subscribers
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and gets 2 million views and downloads a month.
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and we'll promote your brand on one of our episodes.
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We make our ads funny and engaging to the point
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on marketing at triggerpod.co.uk. That's marketing at triggerpod.co.uk.
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Advertise with us and we'll get your business cancelled.
00:39:24.680
Hello and welcome back to the second half of the interview where you get to ask your questions
00:39:31.060
to calvin robinson that was very smooth by the way you just went you had your thumb up for about
00:39:36.120
two seconds and then you went hello and welcome back to anyway we're going to take your questions
00:39:42.160
if you want to ask a question of calvin send in the super chat we're also going to do a bunch of
00:39:46.920
questions from locals if you're not already on locals as a supporter make sure you get on there
00:39:51.080
but anyway fire away francis okay so the first one is from napoleon blown apart what does faith
00:39:56.760
offer that atheism cannot everlasting life simple as that i mean if you don't believe in something
00:40:04.140
greater than yourself um where do you get your humility from or where do you get your
00:40:07.780
accountability from but also christ offers us everlasting life in god so i think that's something
00:40:12.620
to look towards it was actually one of the points i was going to make when we were having the
00:40:17.420
conversation earlier because as a for the 50th time non-church going person the one thing that
00:40:22.740
appeals to me about a faith-based structure is the reminder that you're not the center of the
00:40:29.720
universe and that there is something above you and that is important whether you believe in
00:40:36.600
in a bearded man in the sky or not that without that human beings are lost and they you know we
00:40:44.140
find ourselves in a very dark place very quickly but if you if everything's subjective and you get
00:40:50.480
to choose your own everything and there's no truth,
00:41:00.180
and they depend on the state to solve all the problems.
00:41:03.480
And on the right, we tend to be more individualistic
00:41:13.780
And again, we are in the same problem as the left.
00:41:16.380
So the faith meets somewhere in the middle, actually,
00:41:20.480
And we all have our own rights and responsibilities,
00:41:22.640
but we're all also obliged to take care of each other.
00:41:29.920
And I think with most arguments, there is a bit of a nuance.
00:41:32.400
And the faith provides the nuance for societal issues.
00:41:35.480
And I think that's one of the problems with our societies.
00:41:44.960
That just ultimately means you're going to become very miserable.
00:41:47.700
Yeah, that's just what is narcissism, isn't it?
00:41:51.540
That's what a lot of these issues that are arising at the moment is,
00:41:54.100
that people are putting themselves at the centre of their own universes.
00:41:58.900
They have nothing higher than themselves to humble them.
00:42:01.600
So, of course, everything just gets blown out the window.
00:42:05.560
and the mental health crisis is shooting through the roof.
00:42:09.260
Well, so we've got a ton of questions on locals.
00:42:12.520
So usually we just do two and put them out on locals only,
00:42:15.020
but instead we'll do a bunch from locals as well.
00:42:20.620
So this one is from Short Bird, and she says, I'm going to do her question in reverse order
00:42:27.660
because the question is fairly interesting and provocative, perhaps.
00:42:30.900
But she also says, just wanted to say that although my ideas on aspects of life differ
00:42:36.180
massively from Calvin's, I really like him and wish him all the best.
00:42:43.560
But she does say, why does Calvin not believe in women being ordained?
00:42:54.960
If it's not in the Bible, then it shouldn't be happening.
00:42:58.040
People try to make it about equality and human rights
00:43:04.040
and all that kind of stuff, but it's not about that.
00:43:10.360
The roles between men and women are very different.
00:43:13.720
We've seen more and more men transition into women
00:43:24.200
There are physiological differences between men and women.
00:43:29.680
Because Christ chose men to be his bishops, to be his apostles.
00:43:43.120
And he had very important women in his life, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
00:43:46.700
um you know he didn't say to her you will be the first pope he chose peter that there's a reason
00:43:54.500
behind that okay so next question is actually a very good one from clank he says or they say
00:44:03.240
how should christians today find communities of people who aren't ideologically biased and are
00:44:09.160
open to intellectual discussions does this mean expanding your church beyond london
00:44:14.920
um well so the first part of the question turn off the internet the internet is is the devil's
00:44:23.220
playground the internet is why we are so siloed and tribalized and so set against each other
00:44:28.700
because we find our own little group we find people that are like us think like us and we
00:44:32.420
interact in that little echo chamber you know i'm just talking about the right as much as the left
00:44:36.080
on this because we find a comfort zone and we're not used to engaging with people that are different
00:44:40.140
to us anymore whereas the answer is to go to church you've got young and old black and white
00:44:45.100
male female it's the hub of the community it's your next door neighbors who might be in an entirely
00:44:50.280
different line of work to you from an entirely different background that's what's important
00:44:53.660
that's where you get diversity just go to good old-fashioned church turn off the internet i know
00:44:58.820
i'm saying this on a broadcast on the internet yeah don't turn it off stay stay right here but
00:45:03.660
the second part do i need to go outside of london i think i'll probably start very local i don't
00:45:08.680
everything else stream at first because i just want people to be and to come and be at least
00:45:12.600
be centered in a place eventually i might do some broadcast as well but we'll see yeah and bloody
00:45:18.200
skies on local says is the reason for the creep of wokeness in the church of england anything to do
00:45:22.600
with them now having to hire or not sack agnostic or atheist vicars he says it was rather surreal
00:45:28.440
having a conversation with the vicar that conducted my father-in-law's funeral about his lack of faith
00:45:42.600
They should not be putting that onto the parishioners.
00:46:01.860
i mean that doesn't that just say a lot though about the state that the church is in
00:46:08.420
where you've got a vicar who doesn't even believe in what he's saying so what's the point
00:46:13.220
i know i think i feel like you can get by if you don't believe if you are agnostic or even
00:46:18.140
atheist you can get by in the church it's when you're affirming the faith that they get worried
00:46:22.480
it's back to front it is completely back to front it's it's very it's just very very sad
00:46:28.840
Okay, so next question is from Cabeza de Brasil, which means...
00:46:45.680
Okay, and the question is, who is your favourite church father and why?
00:46:51.120
And what would they say about the culture today?
00:46:56.960
and I don't think he'd have anything nice to say about this,
00:47:03.560
Aquinas was very anti-woke on a lot of these issues.
00:47:10.200
and they're very affirming in their Catholicity,
00:47:13.340
in their Christianity, and very counter-cultural.
00:47:54.980
it is indeed i was going to say calvin do you think the church has got an image problem in that
00:48:02.620
if you make fun of another religion that is seen as punching down but we see it with stand-up for
00:48:12.280
instance if i went out and did a load of jokes on stage about islam things are going to get quite
00:48:17.740
spicy to put it mildly and not just from from muslim people it's going to be from people
00:48:53.880
I understand there's probably been a few years of overcorrection
00:49:00.640
but we've reached a point now we've got to come back
00:49:04.300
and we've got to be proud to be British and proud to be Christians.
00:49:12.780
Someone called Woman on our local, so she's a bigot,
00:49:19.180
would you rather be enjoying yourself with 10 atheists from the free speech union
00:49:23.100
or 10 Christians from the higher echelons of the Church of England?
00:49:32.460
Francis, do you want to do another super chat while I pick out some more local questions?
00:49:46.720
So, neo-Marxists are going after freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
00:49:50.960
Shouldn't the Church of England be worried that freedom of religion is next?
00:49:57.820
And then the second part of that question is, are you worried, Calvin?
00:50:03.420
We've seen with the conversion therapy bill, they want to ban prayer.
00:50:08.680
You know, freedom of religion is going downhill.
00:50:16.820
the only things that are additional really are therapy and prayer
00:50:26.920
at the moment if you have a young man for example
00:50:34.180
I want to live a celibate life until I'm married to a woman
00:50:44.200
It would be illegal for the person to pray for them.
00:50:53.600
It's about not being able to support people in conversion,
00:51:09.700
We're going around persuading people not to be...
00:51:12.040
Actually, we're sending them straight off to get their bits chopped off
00:51:19.340
because there is no such thing as a trans child.
00:51:22.600
If an adult wants to make a decision to do something with their body,
00:51:25.360
But for a child, they should be supported and loved
00:51:29.280
And to have their body mutilated is an offence.
00:51:36.760
where freedom of worship is being threatened in this country.
00:51:42.040
but you could be reported for a hate crime in your own home for preaching the gospel
00:51:48.180
if someone finds it offensive this is the way we're going
00:51:52.040
I mean it it is incredibly worrying I find that bill shocking I find that bill absolutely shocking
00:52:02.800
and the thing that I find possibly even more shocking is that there hasn't been a massive
00:52:06.340
furore about it well even worse than that a load of people signed a petition against it saying look
00:52:11.360
these are the dangers of it you're going to make it illegal for people to pray for people
00:52:14.020
or even illegal for someone to give someone therapy if they choose to take it the church
00:52:19.940
and a vast majority of the hierarchy of the church petitioned against the petitioners saying you guys
00:52:23.680
are bigots and xenophobes and racists and homophobes and transphobes it's like no we're standing up for
00:52:28.800
scripture and you guys are actually actively opposing us what is going on well calvin very
00:52:34.580
much on that point and this is a conversation that we often have in here with our chrizo friends
00:52:39.440
um ebl who's a big supporter of us she says uh how does the church of england stay relevant in
00:52:45.860
the society that has changed immeasurably over the last 50 years in terms of social norms
00:52:50.040
and how people view themselves and the world around them where does it stand firm and where
00:52:55.260
does it need to bend and this is the conversation we often have because you know some christians
00:53:00.320
have a very sort of that hard line interpret like you perhaps you know this isn't in the bible this
00:53:06.000
isn't in the bible but the church does change over time i think we'd all recognize that the
00:53:10.280
church now is not the church of a thousand years ago right for shame so you you actually think we
00:53:15.700
should go back a thousand years relevance is irrelevant it's not our job to be relevant to
00:53:20.340
the secular world around us because like i said progress isn't linear so we make mistakes you
00:53:25.000
know rome fell in the end and i feel sometimes it feels like we're at the fall of rome again
00:53:28.940
in our western society where we don't we're up is down bad is good uh right is wrong so we shouldn't
00:53:34.760
be chasing these norms we should not be trying to be relevant we should be static we should say
00:53:38.440
this these this is the faith passed down to us from the apostles who christ chose this is our
00:53:45.100
this is our universal catholic faith apostolic faith and we are here to evangelize based on
00:53:50.820
scripture not based on any anything else and we do worship we still worship things but we worship
00:54:02.340
In particular, the acquirement of material goods and possessions.
00:54:05.720
People believe that if they have wealth, success,
00:54:22.260
If Jesus Christ came to us today, he'd be cancelled.
00:54:28.080
they'd think he was too outspoken and bigoted and all of these things,
00:54:30.900
that they'd probably shout crucify him, crucify him, just as they did 2,000 years ago.
00:54:36.200
John Bryce says, do you think wokeism is now irreversible, irresistible, sorry,
00:54:41.280
or are there effective strategies for pushing back against that ideology?
00:54:44.980
I see lots of people describing wokeism, but few discussing how to actually resist it.
00:54:49.960
You know, I'll say the same thing I said last time I came on.
00:54:52.260
We all need to stand up. We don't need to stick our heads above the parapets.
00:54:55.180
Some of them will get chopped off, but that's a risk we have to take.
00:54:57.380
we have to be martyred for the cause and if we all stand up they cannot cancel all of us but
00:55:01.400
until we stand up they're going to keep pushing back and they are the vocal minority and they're
00:55:05.420
the loudest voice in the room so we need to drown them out because we are the majority
00:55:09.280
well i agree with you completely and there was a question from somebody on locals
00:55:13.440
about how you became motivated or what inspires you to do that to stick your neck out just had
00:55:21.560
enough really had enough yeah right even when i was teaching i was writing publicly about the
00:55:27.320
left-wing indoctrination that i was seeing and you know there are other people that call themselves
00:55:30.740
secret teacher or this and that and not wanted to disclose who they were i thought no i'm gonna
00:55:34.200
own this this i've truly believed what i'm seeing in schools is wrong and i'm going to put my name
00:55:38.960
on it and that's what led me to where i am today and we see of course there's this big twitter
00:55:44.160
account uh libs of tiktok or whatever which exposes what a lot of in america teachers are
00:55:50.000
saying and what they're teaching their kids is that some of i mean it probably wasn't quite as
00:55:54.800
extreme when you were teaching but is that the type of thing that you were starting to become
00:55:58.700
aware of absolutely it's abhorrent but i think if people if parents saw what was being taught in
00:56:03.680
schools they'd be going nuts but of course we just send our kids off and trust it's all going
00:56:07.760
right it's going to be rosy dory and they're just going to teach them the abcs and the ones plus
00:56:12.320
ones equals twos but no two plus two now equals five and and the teacher is telling the kids about
00:56:17.940
their own sexuality and and what underwear they're wearing today and i'm not even making this up this
00:56:31.780
talking about sexuality, and he wanted to come out
00:56:38.680
Do you know, ten years ago, if someone had done that,
00:56:40.380
whatever their sexuality, you'd go, that's a nonce?
00:56:44.800
This is a big problem in the left. There's a lot
00:56:50.640
We used to think it was illegal and nasty and wrong, and now
00:56:54.360
And this is what I mean when I say progressivism isn't
00:56:58.520
what was that play that Lawrence helped get cancelled?
00:57:14.460
Calvin wouldn't want to be associated with any sort of...
00:57:22.220
a meltdown about this. I'm going to get someone
00:57:28.220
bit more left field. It's from the King's Lobotomy
00:57:48.100
common ground to be made here. And this was what
00:57:57.800
against some vegans and most of the arguments were sound.
00:58:01.040
I don't agree with them, but they were sound arguments.
00:58:03.620
And this woman got up, I can't remember her name
00:58:05.660
or where she's from, but she said that eating meat
00:58:08.660
is colonialist, white supremacy, racist, sexist.
00:58:25.580
There's nothing to be gained from listening to this lunacy.
00:58:33.000
Obviously, he had to stay in support of Michaela.
00:58:34.940
But there has to come a point where you say, enough is enough.
00:58:37.980
I'm not going to entertain your lunacies anymore.
00:58:45.640
And Cameron, we've got a question from our big supporters, Rez and Pez.
00:58:49.260
and i think it's she that says mr robinson will atheist be welcome in your church would be quite
00:58:56.000
happy to debate the old testament teachings as an ex-born again christian now i warn you
00:59:00.700
ronnell is pretty feisty so i love it everyone is welcome in my church church should be welcome
00:59:06.540
and inclusive to everybody but welcome what about non-christians everybody but they're welcome to
00:59:11.780
be changed through an experience with christ that's that is true inclusivity it's not about
00:59:16.520
watering down my values or the church's values or christian values to make anyone else feel
00:59:20.140
comfortable or do not offend people they are welcome to come but they're welcome to become
00:59:24.760
to be joined and changed through an experience in christ a mycroft by the way says please just
00:59:29.380
send love and support for our calvin you're like the nhs man every thursday we're gonna bang some
00:59:35.360
pots and pans for you and punished opinions as well uh with the two quid super chat says what
00:59:40.980
of the problem of apostolic succession in church i have no idea what that means but
00:59:44.680
That is another issue. So the way that Christ chose the apostles, because it's a faith rooted
00:59:50.940
in tradition. So the Bible is the word of God, but the Bible comes from tradition. It comes from
00:59:55.540
many different stories put together. And it was told through word of mouth before it was written
01:00:01.020
down. And as the apostles started to die out, we started to get these things written down.
01:00:05.700
But the apostles have handed this tradition down to us in form of the Bible and other
01:00:16.300
it's said that it's handed down from the apostle
01:00:19.440
to the next person, to the next person, to the next person.
01:01:09.220
Because the one thing I suppose I would imagine
01:01:14.600
you would be welcoming of people with different opinions
01:01:23.060
There's an appetite for it in terms of conversations on YouTube
01:01:32.000
but I know you'll come out of it stronger and better.
01:01:40.680
We'll be back with Raw in literally a couple of hours,
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