Conversion Therapy
New legislation is proposed by the Westminster Government to ban conversion therapy. According to NHS England, “Conversion therapy – sometimes called ‘reparative therapy’ or ‘gay cure therapy’ – tries to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity”. NHS England and other professional bodies have warned that all forms of conversion therapy are “unethical and potentially harmful”. In practice, conversion therapy means trying to suppress someone from being homosexual, or from living as a different gender from their sex as recorded at birth.
The legislation will include “coercive therapies” and “talking therapies”. Coercive therapies such as exorcisms, physical violence, food deprivation and worse are clearly wrong. However, the talking therapies that LGBTQ+ activists want banned include prayer, preaching and pastoral conversations. This would mean criminalising those who offer caring advice to possibly confused young people. The activists seek to bring those counselling against homosexuality into the category of perpetrators of hate crime. Jayne Ozanne, a member of the Church of England Synod and lately a member of the Government’s LGBT Advisory Panel, claims that prayer can often be seen as conversion therapy. She attacks the biblical view that homosexual acts are sinful. The BBC has said, “Conversion therapy involves treatments ranging from psychotherapy to religious teaching and discussion”.
In the state of Victoria in Australia, a law banning conversion therapy has already been passed. Pastor Murray Campbell, who attended one of Victoria’s training seminars, said, “We were informed that no person’s sexuality or gender identity is broken or sinful, and to suggest so contravenes the intent of the new laws”.
The UK consultation document says that it will not interfere with normal religious practice. It therefore does not go as far as the activists would wish. “Parents will remain able to raise their children with the values of their faith, and simply expressing the teachings of a religion will not constitute conversion therapy”. Also, “Talking conversion therapy could not be reasonably understood to include communication such as casual conversations, exchanges of views, private prayer or pure speech acts”.
This sounds encouraging but there are still concerns about lack of clarity. For example, what is meant by private prayer? It cannot mean secret prayer. Does it mean family worship? Whatever is meant, it doesn’t include public worship and prayer.
The Scottish Parliament is, of course, also active in this area. Holyrood’s Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice (EHRCJ) Committee warns that Scotland must not delay putting an end to conversion practices by waiting to hear the UK Government proposals. The Committee agrees that new legislation should not restrict ordinary religious teaching or the right of people to take part in prayer or pastoral care to discuss, explore or come to terms with sexual identity in a non-judgmental and non-directive way. However, the Christian Institute pointed out that 7 of the 10 members of the EHRCJ Committee had signed an End Conversion Therapy group’s pledge and that some had tweeted in support of the activists.
This is another example of anti-Christian elements seeking to curtail the work of the Church. What could be at risk is the freedom of preachers to declare the whole counsel of God, including warning against sin and exhorting people to repent.
FRD
The Prelatic Spirit
Mrs Anne Dyer became Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney in the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2018. Accusations of high-handedness, autocratic centralisation and bullying soon surfaced – including the dismissal of a music director and the suspension of a priest – to such an extent that, in March 2021, the Primus (principal Bishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church asked Rev Professor Iain Torrance, former Moderator of the Church of Scotland, to conduct an independent review of the situation in the Diocese. It was promised that the review would be made public, but at its appearance in August it was suppressed, until an outcry in the denomination led to its publication in September.
The review was remarkably frank, exposing how unsuitable Mrs Dyer is for her position of ecclesiastical authority (leaving aside the fact that she is a woman in that position and that diocesan bishoprics should not exist). It concludes with the recommendation that “for the good of the diocese, [Mrs Dyer] be immediately granted a period of sabbatical leave and step back permanently from the diocese”. So far, Mrs Dyer and the College of Bishops have disregarded this recommendation. The prelatic spirit, which has caused such trouble in the history of the Scottish Church, has not gone away. “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church” (3 Jn 9-10).
Meanwhile, another prelate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has appointed
a homosexual, “married” to another homosexual, to the highly important role of Secretary for Appointments. This involves overseeing the appointment of bishops, deans, and the filling of other senior positions in the Church of England. Homosexual marriage is not permitted in the Church of England but the Archbishop has chosen to ignore this. It is said that the appointment may be challenged at the General Synod. God has given a plain warning of the evil and danger of sodomy: “even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7).
DWBS
Church Information
Meeting of Presbytery (DV)
Asia Pacific: At Gisborne, on Friday, April 15, at 2.30 pm.
Jewish & Foreign Missions Fund
By appointment of Synod, the first of the year’s two special collections for the Jewish & Foreign Missions Fund, is due to be taken in congregations during March.
W Campbell, General Treasurer
Acknowledgement of Donations
The General Treasurer acknowledges with sincere thanks the following donations:
Bookroom Fund: Anon, £41.
College & Library Fund: Anon, £41.
Jewish & Foreign Missions Fund: Anon, £2000 per Rev KMW; N Pearce, Cymru, for diaconal aid for Zimbabwe, £140; Friends from Australia, for the work of the gospel in Zimbabwe, £570.
General Fund: Anon, Ps 60:4, £160; Anon, St Andrews, £200.
Congregational Treasurers acknowledge with sincere thanks the following donations:
Dingwall: Anon, £792.78.
Edinburgh: Friend, Cymru, £140. Communion Expenses: Friend, £100 per Rev DC.
Glasgow: Anon, £80; Anon, in lieu of church door collection, £600. College & Library Fund: Anon, £20. Eastern Europe Fund: Anon, £80, £80, £80. Home Mission Fund: Anon, £35, £15. TBS: Anon, £10. Where Most Needed: Anon, £90, £40.
Greenock: Anon, £40, £40. TBS: Anon, £40, £20.
Inverness: Anon, £1000 per Rev KDM; Anon, for magazines, £40.
North Tolsta: Anon, £20. Door Collection: Anon, £20, £50, £100, £20, £80. Where Most Needed: Anon, £100.
Perth: Anon, £120, £1029.60, £1029.60.
Portree: Bus Fund: Anon, £20. TBS: Anon, £2000, £300.
Raasay: Anon, for property maintenance, £1000; MacLennan family, “In memory of our father”, £100 per AB. Where Most Needed: Anon, £40 per AB.
Shieldaig: Eastern Europe Fund: Anon, £80.
I delight to take faith as the cordial assent and consent of the soul to the promise of the gospel.
Hugh Binning