Facts, the whole facts and nothing but the facts. Ish…
It appears that the post below has caused a little bit of a stir. For example, Pete here says
I was a little taken aback this morning to read of a couple of posts about the deselection of a Methodist lay pastor as a councillor in Tooting on the grounds of his Christian faith. Â The posts, both from Christian bloggers, make the point that this is Labour’s anti-Christian, secularist agenda.
The original blogs are here (Archbishop Cranmer) and here (Peter Ould). Â Peter’s headline says “You can’t make this stuff up” – well in fact you can and it seems it is all made up! Â Cranmer’s vituperation is pretty blunt and completely WRONG!
After an afternoon of tweets, blogposts and emails, and now being home after two funerals and other pastoral matters, I can confirm that the facts actually are
- Cllr George Reynolds is a Methodist Lay Preacher, which involves working on Sunday was a Methodist Lay Preacher but has now been ordained into the AME Church of Zion
- It is claimed that Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh insisted that her councillors canvassed Sunday morning
- Cllr Reynolds explained that he had prior work commitments so couldn’t join them
- MP Siobhin McDonagh had him deselected as a Council candidate Reynolds was deselected at a Labour Party meeting. Siobhan McDonagh did not personally deselect him and indeed she has no power to do so.
So straight away I have an apology to make, and that is to Ms McDonagh, as not only the article I quoted but my own bullet points suggested that she had been intentionally involved in removing Mr Reynolds. That is clearly not the case and I was wrong. I’m sorry. I should have checked the facts before I posted.
Here’s what we do know. Firstly, Reynolds clearly believes that he was deselected (by Labour Party members) because he wouldn’t canvass on Sundays. Jonathan Bartley has posted that a friend of his has spoken with Reynolds:
“Although he was a Methodist lay pastor and a local preacher, he has recently been ordained as a minister of the AME Church of Zion and no longer holds any office with the Methodist Church. In his opinion this is why he was deselected – he refuses to canvass at all on a Sunday – but no one has directly told him that this is the reason.”
Whether Methodist, AME Church of Zion, Anglican or whatever, Reynolds believes that the Labour members who deselected him didn’t like his “Sabbath stance”. It would be interesting to get a report of that meeting to verify whether that claim has any substance.
Secondly, in the same blog post Jonathan claims that contrary to the impression given by Cranmer, McDonagh is a committed Catholic Christian. To support this he cites her support for allowing Anglican clergy to be MPs and her membership of the Christian Socialist movement.
If I’m brutally honest, her support of Anglican clergy being allowed to be MPs isn’t really an issue that defines her faith credentials. I’m far more interested in how she votes on issues around the sanctity of life, key defining positions at the moment for the Roman Catholic church which she says she is a part of. Here the website “The Public Whip” can help us see if McDonagh votes like a Christian or not.
What it reveals is that she absented herself for the May 2008 vote on reducing the age limit for abortions from 24 weeks to 22 weeks. In fact she was absent for the whole two days worth of debate on a number of matters of ethical concern to her as a Roman Catholic. Previously though she voted in favour of the whole Bill on the 20th of May 2008 (at the second reading) and she then supported it again on the 22nd of October for its third reading. She also voted “aye” back in 2000 on the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Regulations that further opened the way for experimenting on embryos.
I want to suggest, unashamedly, that these are not the actions of a devout Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic Cabinet ministers like Ruth Kelly made very clear stands on these kind of issues showing publicly what they believed. I’m not sure I can find anything on the web (and I would love to be corrected on this) where McDonagh makes the same kind of clear statement in favour of the sanctity of life. As Jonathan Bartley summed up his blog piece, “The facts about Siobhain McDonagh speak for themselves.”
Some might think it wrong that I make sanctity of life issues defining for Christians, but then if an MP who claims to be a devout Roman Catholic can’t bother turning up to Parliament to vote against murdering babies (because that is what abortion is), I’m not sure we should let her use that label without challenging it. Yes, personal experience informs my opinion on this, but I make no apologies for that, and you’ll hear more from me on the subject as the Election draws near.
With enormous respect, the article is not 'completely wrong'.
If you would care to read the three updates, you may have a clearer picture.
Dismisssing the entire article on the basis that Cllr Reynolds has moved from the Methodists to the AME Church of Zion is not credible (not least because AME is a Methodist denomination). And incidentally, nowhere did His Grace say (as you stated) "MP Siobhin McDonagh had him deselected as a Council candidate". That is not within her remit (or that of any MP): the invention was yours. However, it is not unreasonable to expect that her loyal workers should be granted the same church-attending rights as she appears to enjoy. They are not. Local party members require all candidates to canvass on Sundays for their own election and for that of Ms McDonagh. Even the source, Miles Windsor, does not directly blame Ms McDonagh (though he comes near). It is evidently a local cabal who have conspired to deselect Cllr Reynolds. Ms McDonagh may be unaware of what is being done in her name, but as the MP she is not detached.
The important thing is not what Cllr Reynolds has or has not been told directly (persecution is cleverer than that): it is what he believes to be the real reason for his deselection that is the issue, and what persuades him that this is the case.
His Grace has never met Cllr Reynolds. But since (at least) two other Labour councillors agree with Cllr Reynolds' assessment of the situation (and have emailed His Grace to say so), your total rejection of the veracity of story is in haste.
Your Grace,
I have not rejected the veracity of the story, merely the idea that McDonagh was integral in assuring that Reynolds was deselected. I stand by the suggestion that McDonagh is not the blemishless Christian MP that Ekklesia seem to want us to believe.
I don't think we have suggested that McDonagh is blemishless anywhere Peter? Nor, as you suggest above, have we defended her Christian faith. We have merely highlighted some of the religious activities that she has been involved with, and the views that she has expressed about Christianity. This was in order to show that Cranmer's claim that she is in some way anti-Christian, is completely absurd.
Can I suggest "an exercise in the fundamentals of accuracy" perhaps?
My recent post Monarchists are missing the point
But as I have blogged Jon, her voting record demonstrates that when it comes to the crunch her "faith" may not exactly be as important to her as you suggest.
PS your blog does weird things! Why did it automatically bring up my colleague Symon Hill's article under "My recent post Monarchists are missing the point " ?
That is because I am very clever, allowing you to login with your twitter account AND my site to spot that that means you are the Jon Bartley of Ekklesia, so why not let everyone know Ekklesia's latest blog post?
Can you feel the (Comment)Luv?
Thanks for this, Peter. On your last para, I am in complete agreement. There is no greater issue, to my mind, than the murder of the unborn. Let's make it very clear how many people who claim to Roman Catholic (and hope to garner votes as a result) are no such thing, particularly when it comes to the defence of the most vulnerable in our society.
Peter – 'personal experience informs other people's opinions in a different direction as well'. I certainly know of one family who had a late stage abortion because they loved their unborn child. I was proud to bury her and pray with them in their grief.
I'd love to know the circumstances, but at the risk of sounding overly harsh, can you explain how murdering the child was a loving act?