Tuesday, February 10, 2009

synod and racism

Having grappled with tackling a friend's racist comments yesterday I am very pleased to hear that synod decided to make clear that ordained or lay ministers should not become members 'of organisations which contradict the duty to promote race equality'...one small step!
For updates on Synod do pop onto the Church Times Blog

4 comments:

just Gai said...

I'm not a great fan of banning. Besides surely it shouldn't be necessary. If we can't trust our clergy not to join such organisations then there's something far wrong with the church. What are we going to ban them from doing next?

Ellen Loudon said...

I am not all that pleased with banning in general however the bnp is really insidious and people need clear instruction that they are not just a political group with reasonable intentions to keep britain british...they really are fascists and membership of such groups are not compatible with ordained or lay ministry. So, I am in favour of clarity. Having said that I might change the word banned in my blog as I am not sure it is a useful term...I stand corrected. xxx

just Gai said...

This 'ban' will prevent clergy from joining racist organisations but will not necessarily prevent them from harbouring racist attitudes or indeed voting from such organisations, both of which are far more dangerous. Maybe I'm being naive but I would hope that no one who is suspected of having extreme racist views would ordinarily be allowed to enter or continue in the priesthood.

Ellen Loudon said...

too right...but they must have slipped through the net for them to need to put this into place...shocking really! xxx