We may have won many high-profile legal cases this year. But legal victories do not erase years of investigations, distress and career damage. Our CEO, Andrea Williams, discusses why continued support is so important in cases like these.
This year, we have achieved several high-profile victories.
The Darlington Nurses. Jennifer Melle. Bernard Randall.
Case by case, we are proving in court that the law protects Christians and others who speak truthfully about our created reality as men and women.
But winning the legal battle is often not enough.
Each of these clients – and many others – have also faced extended battles to save their careers, despite being vindicated through their legal cases.
They have each faced vexatious complaints to authorities that threaten to ban them from their professions. And these investigations then often drag on for months and even years.
These totally undeserved referrals don’t only put their careers at risk –they often lead to severe mental anguish.
It’s punishment by the process.
And it doesn’t matter that the complaints levelled against these Christians are baseless – they need our legal help to prove their innocence.
These accusations have had a devastating impact on many of our Christian Legal Centre clients who have been punished in this way, simply because they stood for what’s right.
And now we are facing a new threat that will multiply these cases, silencing and punishing pastors and parents who believe in truth.
Sleepless nights and panic attacks
Fellow nurse Jennifer Melle was suspended and faced investigations from the NMC after she refused to use untrue pronouns about a male paedophile patient.
She told the Daily Mail this week: “I was having sleepless nights. I’d burst into tears. If I had a panic attack when I was out, I’d have to sit down somewhere and I’d call [my children] to talk me through it.”
Jennifer speaks about the support her daughter gave her: “She could see me crying, spending all the time in bed. If I went outside, I was having panic attacks, in the supermarket, on the bus, in the street. She wanted me to be happy again”.
At Christian Concern, we do all that we can to support the Christians whose cases we back. But even we don’t see all the hardships they are put through because they stand for what’s right.
The NMC recently cleared Jennifer, but it doesn’t undo the undeserved suffering that was caused.
By God’s grace, he has used this evil for good, though. Jennifer’s trust in God is compelling.
Jenny Johnston, the Mail journalist who wrote a recent story said of Jennifer “Her faith in God soars above everything else”.
Jennifer told her: “I do feel brave because I do stand up for myself but maybe, in a way,I was the fortunate one. God used me for a purpose. For change to happen, someone has to say ‘No’.”
We need more courageous Christians like Jennifer who will stand for what is right.
But we also need help from the wider Christian community to make sure we can keep supporting these Christians.
The mental toll of being left in limbo
Bernard Randall lost his job as a chaplain after preaching a chapel sermon where he said that children shouldn’t feel compelled to believe in ideology.
He upheld the freedom for children to believe in the Church of England’s teaching on marriage, encouraging students to show respect for others and for their beliefs.
For this he was vexatiously reported to the Church of England and other authorities as a possible safeguarding risk.
Despite being cleared by secular authorities he was blacklisted by his own Church for upholding its doctrine.
After years of legal challenges assisted by our legal team, Bernard was recently given the safeguarding all-clear.
But years of delays where the Church failed to stand with Bernard completely stopped him from continuing his ministry.
There was never any substance to the complaint. But it has hung over him for years and stopped him from moving forward.
Bernard spoke openly about the mental toll: “Because of the way the Church has treated me, we can’t move on. Once, I started thinking about self-immolating on the floor of General Synod as a protest.
“The tears came when I realised they’d just put it down as an unfortunate incident, and then carry on in the same way as before.”
Bernard still hasn’t found a suitable role to pursue his calling.
His case demonstrates just how long and severe the effects of these groundless accusations can be.
Draft government bill would multiply these stories
That’s just two stories – I could think of many more that the Christian Legal Centre has supported over the years.
But the government’s draft ‘conversion practices’ ban would quickly multiply these cases.
The proposed ban would leave parents and pastors at risk of prosecution for upholding biological reality and for supporting people who are unhappy with their same-sex desires or behaviours.
Parents and pastors would be accused of controlling children and church members, meaning that even the most gentle and appropriate support would be claimed to be coercive.
For example, a pastor might teach faithfully at church about God’s design for marriage. At some point, a member with same-sex desires asks for prayer to resist those temptations and the church leader does so.
The member is grateful at the time but years later abandons the faith and rebrands this experience as coercive or ‘controlling conversion therapy’.
This isn’t just theory. These kinds of story are already being pushed by the media.
It’s even happened to us at Christian Concern. We were recently supporting a fringe event and display at the Church of England’s General Synod to warn about the problems with this kind of ban.
For this, we were branded a safeguarding risk and our display was banned.
It was the exact tactic that was used to push Bernard Randall out of ministry for all those years. There was never any valid safeguarding concern but it didn’t stop him being put through years of punishment.
We can’t fight this alone
Countless faithful Christians are at risk if we let the Government’s conversion practices bill go through.
I need your help to oppose this today.
Today I’m asking you to donate to our work so that we can head off these challenges – both on the legal front and through our parliamentary work.
Your support will help us expose the true consequences of this ban and protect many more Christians from going through the pain that Jennifer and Bernard have endured.
I trust that God will do what is right. Like in Jennifer’s case, God will always be there for us, using us for his greater purposes.
But my prayer is that with your help, we can stop the bill and give even better support to other Christians like Jennifer and Bernard.
I am so grateful for your partnership in the cause of Christ.
Could you make a donation today of £30, £60, £100 or whatever you are able to give so that we can stop these baseless complaints being used maliciously against Christians?
Find out more about Jennifer Melle