We are not a hate group. But friendly-fire from other Christians is hurting our gospel work

Oct 7, 2021 by

By Andrea Williams, Premier:

An Oxford college has apologised for hosting a Wilberforce Academy conference. Andrea Williams believes the apology, and subsequent criticism from other Christians is unjustified.

Earlier this week Premier Christianity published an opinion article by Sr Dr Gemma Simmonds entitled ‘Oxford University apologised for holding a Christian event. But was it really an attack on religious freedom?

The article addressed the recent Christian Concern training event, the Wilberforce Academy, held at Worchester College for which the College’s provost and former Chairman of Stonewall David Isaac issued a public apology for having allowed the event to move forward.

The article was rife with mixed messaging. On the one hand, it championed free speech, decried the cancel culture, and argued in favour of debating controversial moral and theological questions within the confines of academic settings like Oxford University. On the other hand, among the same paragraphs which addressed Christian Concern’s purported views on topics like Islam and counselling for unwanted same-sex attraction, Simmonds conjured up images of Nazism, fascism and other activities she viewed as hateful.

In seeking to give her arguments moral authority, she paints herself as a protagonist, driving out the proverbial money changers from the temple, in her narrative young people in front of a church handing out literature with a historically extremist perspective, and educating her relatives, who had been in concentration camps themselves, about the horrors of Nazism. She then argues that love should be the overriding principle when discussing the gospel, implying, whether intentionally or otherwise, that this was not the case during the Wilberforce Academy.

Read here

Read also: Is this the most persecuted 31 year-old in Britain? by Sam Hailes, Premier

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