A chaplain’s vindication

Dr Bernard Randall’s seven-year ordeal is one of the most extraordinary and disturbing cases I and the team at the Christian Legal Centre have ever had the privilege of being involved in.

Here was a Church of England chaplain, preaching in a Church of England chapel, in a school with a Church of England ethos, giving a sermon rooted in Church of England doctrine. 

He encouraged pupils to think, to debate, and to love their neighbours. He did not bully. He did not harass. He did not incite hatred. He did what a Christian minister is called to do.

For that, he was treated as dangerous.

He was forced out of his job, reported to Prevent for “religious extremism”, referred to safeguarding authorities, dragged through years of litigation, and blacklisted by the Church from the ministry he loved. Had he preached in a Church of England place of worship during those years, he could have faced prosecution.

This is not merely the story of one man being wronged, grave though that is. Bernard Randall’s case exposes something far deeper: the rot that has taken hold in our institutions.

Our schools, our judiciary, and even the Church of England have bowed the knee to an extreme gender identity ideology which is not merely contested, but profoundly anti-Christian in its assumptions about what a human being is. 

In doing so, they have not only compromised, but torn apart, the very Christian beliefs that shaped these institutions and made them and Great Britain, truly Great. 

The tragedy is that Bernard said nothing radical. His sermon, Competing ideologies, was pastoral, careful and Anglican. It came after Trent College had invited in Educate and Celebrate, an organisation whose stated aim was to “smash heteronormativity” and embed Queer Theory throughout school life. Staff were encouraged to chant slogans. Children, including those in nursery, were drawn into a programme that promoted a highly contested vision of identity and human nature.

When a pupil asked why this was being taught in a Christian school, Bernard answered as a Christian chaplain should. He told pupils they were free to think critically. He said they should treat everyone with dignity. He explained that Christians believe human beings are made male and female in the image of God.

That should have been unremarkable. Instead, it was treated as a safeguarding concern.

This is the extraordinary inversion now taking place across institutional Britain. Those who uphold Christian teaching are portrayed as extremists. Those who question ideology are treated as threats. Meanwhile, the ideology itself is smuggled into schools, workplaces and public life under the language of inclusion, diversity and safeguarding.

Safeguarding, keeping our children safe, properly understood, is vital. But in Bernard’s case, it was misused. It became a weapon. The Diocese of Derby concluded that biblical teaching on marriage and even “the Church itself” could be a risk factor. Pause and consider the seriousness of that. A Church of England diocese treated the doctrine of the Church of England as a safeguarding problem.

That is institutional self-loathing. It is a church forgetting what it is and what it is for.

The Church of England should have defended Bernard immediately. It should have recognised that a chaplain in a Christian school must be free to articulate Christian doctrine. 

Instead, it joined the pile-on. It blacklisted him, demanded he submit to a psychological assessment by someone whose work included assessing serious offenders, and left him shut out of ministry for years.

Secular bodies repeatedly found he had no case to answer. Prevent did not pursue him. The Local Authority Designated Officer did not uphold concerns. The Teaching Regulation Agency and Disclosure and Barring Service concluded there was no case. 

Eventually, an independent safeguarding review found the allegation unsubstantiated and that there were no ongoing safeguarding concerns. But even then, the sour taste left in the mouth is that they still believe he is wrong, that he has thought wrong, in holding to the Church’s own beliefs in a school setting. 

The Church persisted. That is the scandal.

The judiciary, too, has major questions to answer. Bernard’s original Employment Tribunal ruling was later found to be “unsafe” after one lay member of the panel had made anti-Christian and anti-conservative comments on social media. 

The comments were discovered while the same lay member and judge presided over another one of our cases involving a teacher who raised safeguarding concerns about an eight-year-old child socially transitioning. In a rare development, the tribunal panel collapsed after a recusal application for apparent bias and this significantly helped Bernard’s own appeal. 

This matters profoundly. Christians must be able to trust that when they enter a courtroom, their beliefs will be understood and protected, not caricatured. The courts should be guardians of freedom of conscience and religion. Too often, however, those  who love Christ and his moral code find themselves treated as though their beliefs are inherently suspect and judged and found wanting in the courtroom. 

The school, meanwhile, lost sight of its own purpose. A Christian school should not outsource its moral and spiritual formation to activist groups. It should not marginalise its chaplain for upholding its stated ethos. When Christian institutions import ideologies that deny the Christian account of creation, embodiment and truth, they should not be surprised when conflict follows.

Bernard Randall has now been vindicated. The employment judgment against him has been overturned as unsafe. Trent College has reached a legal settlement. The safeguarding blacklisting has been overturned in substance. He is free to apply for Permission to Officiate and to work again in education.

But seven years have been taken from him. Seven years of ministry, livelihood, reputation and peace. No settlement can restore that.

His case must now become a turning point.

The Church of England must repent of its cowardice and confusion. Schools must recover the courage to protect children from ideological capture. The judiciary must ensure that Christians receive genuine impartiality and that biblical beliefs are not treated as evidence of extremism.

Above all, our institutions must remember their foundations. The Christian faith gave this nation its understanding of human dignity, conscience, truth, justice and freedom. Tear those roots out, and the institutions remain only as hollow shells, bureaucratic, fearful and easily captured by the ideology of the moment.

Bernard Randall stood when others bowed. His courage has exposed the rot. Now the work of reform and reconstruction must begin.