INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH STUCK IN PC TIME WARP

Cranmer's Curate thanks the Institute of Ideas very much for inviting him to be part of the audience at a 'Question Time' event at Sheffield University on Monday evening and for giving him a nice glass of wine beforehand.

Defying the cynicism of post-Christian Britain, the speakers went out of their way to be thought-provoking and unconstrained by political correctness. The evening was attended by students from various Sheffield secondary schools, who had been participating in a debating competition during the day.

'On the panel' were Dr Rhiannon Vickers, senior lecturer in politics, University of Sheffield; Kim Knott, professor of religious studies, University of Leeds; David Harsent, award winning poet and TV scriptwriter; Dennis Hayes, Professor of Education, University of Derby and founder of Academics for Academic Freedom; and Bill Carmichael, former news editor of the Yorkshire Post and now a journalism lecturer at Sheffield University. In the chair was Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project.

The subject of religion came up. Called by the chairman as the gentleman in 'the religious garb', a dog-collared cc tried to make the point that an evening of free speech like that occasion would be inconceivable without the English Bible - God's gift to the nation through an Evangelical Christian, William Tyndale. Your curate suggested that this fact was being airbrushed out of educational syllabuses by political correctness. How many school pupils have heard of William Tyndale? This comment was greeted sympathetically, a strong contrast to how similar comments are greeted at meetings of the institutional church.

Your curate recalls the atmosphere of disapproval which met his comment at a recent deanery synod that Evangelical businessmen who contribute generously to net-giving churches that generally disapprove of remarriage after divorce have nothing to be ashamed of. He also recalls the shocked reaction to a comment at a diocesan lecture at Sheffield University a few years ago when your curate drew attention to Article 18 and the fact that the Church of England officially teaches that Jesus Christ is the only Name under heaven by which people must be saved. Your curate was even accosted by a Church Army captain after a speech at a diocesan synod and accused of 'ruffling feathers'.

It seems that parts of the world are wanting to shake loose from the grip of political correctness whilst the institutional church seems to be stuck in a time warp of 1980s' student politics.