Responses to peers’ criticism of Bishop of Gloucester
From the Bishop of Gloucester
Madam, — I write in response to the letter from Baroness Deech and Lord Farmer (13 February).
The move by senior church leaders to use the language of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide to describe certain policies and actions by the Israeli Government in Palestine is not done lightly or loosely, but judiciously, and always with reference to international law and the respective UN conventions and treaties.
Contrary to Baroness Deech and Lord Farmer’s assertion, this does not reflect an over-fixation on Israel, but reflects the natural outworking of having a deep biblical commitment to standing up for the God-given human dignity of everyone, everywhere, and church leaders do indeed advocate for oppressed people in many different places across the world. Simply naming other places, however, as my respected peers Baroness Deech and Lord Farmer have done, fails to address the issues I am seeking to spotlight at this point and at this time.
Furthermore, the letter from Baroness Deech and Lord Farmer focuses on Gaza, which is rather strange, as my comments to the Church Times (News, 6 February) explicitly documented the deteriorating situation in the West Bank, which I and the Bishops of Chelmsford and Norwich witnessed yet again on our recent joint visit.
With regard to Gaza, it will be up to the International Criminal Court to determine whether the Israeli Government has committed genocidal acts in Gaza. Whatever the outcome of that case, nothing changes the fact that on 7 October 2023 there was a barbaric and heinous attack on innocent life which necessitated a proportionate response by the Israeli government. I have been clear about this in things that I have said and written.
Yet I, like many others, find convincing the September 2025 report by the UN International Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
This report analysed the statements made by Israeli authorities and the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces in Gaza, including imposing starvation and inhumane conditions for life in Gaza. It determined that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be concluded from the nature of the operations. To dismiss this report as evidence of institutional antisemitism is nonsensical and undermines our rules-based international system at a time when strongmen around the world are straining to free themselves of its shackles. Might does not make right.
To say that the Church should resist from arguing that the Israeli government should be held accountable under international law, because it risks widening rifts in our own communities, is cynically and dangerously to close down scrutiny. This only feeds the culture of impunity which the Israeli government has used to good strategic effect to advance its de facto annexation of the West Bank. It undercuts the courageous work that Israeli and Palestinian human-rights organisations do to document human-rights abuses across Palestine.
These organisations need our active support, not our silent sanction, and I, for one, will not be cowed into silence. Alongside other episcopal colleagues, I will continue to speak up unapologetically about what we have seen and witnessed on visits to Palestine and will do so responsibly.
I am very clear that the legitimate anger that many feel towards the Israeli government for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank can never be used to justify hatred, prejudice, or violence against Jewish people. That is always antisemitic and always abhorrent and must always be challenged. This was stated clearly and robustly in my interview and in my recent podcast.
Healing comes from facing injustices head on. This will require helping all parties to this conflict to face the past through truth-telling and accountability. As we have seen in other contexts, truth-telling can help to correct existing imbalances in power by bringing hidden uncomfortable truths to light in a way that disrupts the dominant narrative and forces a confrontation with structural violence and inequality. Without this, the prospect of rebuilding lives and fostering peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians will prove elusive.
RACHEL GLOUCESTER:
Gloucester
From the Dean of York
Madam, — The concern expressed in the letter from Baroness Deech and Lord Farmer would carry far more weight if it was not predicated on the idea that to criticise one nation’s immoral behaviour is inappropriate unless one criticises the immoral behaviour of every nation. It is not my place to speak for Bishop Treweek, but I imagine that she shares peers’ disdain of the other atrocities mentioned by them. That does not, however, weaken her very serious critique of the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank.
It is telling that the peers’ claim that the Bishop’s moral voice is being “applied selectively” is made in a letter that speaks only of the suffering of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas, and ignores the deaths of more than 72,000 Gazans (as compared with 1700 Israelis) during the ensuing war.
The peers also claim that we are “approaching a turning point in Israeli-Palestinian relations”. This is manifestly true, but not for the reasons that they state. In the wake of the Israeli Security Cabinet’s decision last week to approve measures that tighten yet further Israel’s grip on the West Bank, the Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich (himself a settler living on land that the UK Government considers illegally annexed by Israel), claimed with visible satisfaction that this would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” — echoing his Prime Minister’s stated opposition to any concept of Palestinian sovereignty.
I have yet to encounter anyone with the authentic capacity to address every single injustice through which the world is living. This does not diminish the truth and force of Bishop Treweek’s accurate and courageous words. People of all faiths should be grateful for her leadership.
DOMINIC BARRINGTON
York
Living in Love and Faith process and the next steps
From Susannah Clark
Madam, — Everyone at the General Synod last week was so focused on gay sexuality issues that zero mention, pretty much, was made about the acute needs of trans people and the pastoral care of them and their families in the Church. To be frank, we were sidelined and erased from the discussions on Living in Love and Faith (LLF), as we have been for the past four years.
And yet, gender identity was supposed to be an important part of LLF, which was not only about human sexuality. Trans people gave themselves in interviews, spoke about their suffering, reopened trauma. We were part of LLF, too.
Successive leads of LLF have confessed that they were overwhelmed by the demands of the same-sex crisis: a working group on trans people in the Church and their care was promised in June 2021. This summer, it will be five years later, and it has not materialised.
In 2022, the Next Steps group told me that “further work on gender identity and transition is currently on pause.” When I asked the LLF lead bishop again in 2024, he said: “We have been totally absorbed with the PLF and questions of marriage. And as you know, LLF was intended to be about so much more than this. . . it is certainly the case that there is no working group on pastoral support for trans people.”
In 2025, I was told by the new lead: “We are having to place almost our full focus on seeking fuller use of the PLF (alongside appropriate pastoral reassurance). However, I recognise that this is not an adequate situation given the pastoral needs and care for trans people that you rightly remind us of.”
This latest group of sessions epitomised this marginalisation again. Barely a mention of trans people, who are currently being monstered and vilified by the media, with increased abuse and threat on the streets.
Now it is being proposed that “Gender” will be lumped together with “Sexuality” in a single working group, which may drag on for years. What guarantee is there that the pastoral care of trans people won’t get sidelined again? What is needed is a separate working group — involving actual trans people with lived experience — to work not through theological differences, but to develop practical ways that local parish communities can find reassurance about ways they can offer safety and support.
That support extends to parents, partners, and children of trans people, too. It is about practical compassion. The crisis for trans people and their families is now, not in five years’ time. A stand-alone working group — as promised — could address practicalities urgently. It is very much needed. It was needed five years ago.
In the outworking of LLF, we got marginalised and almost erased. It has been all about “the gays” these past four years. I understand. I am married to my gay wife. But, as a trans person, actually . . . excuse me . . . trans people are here, too.
SUSANNAH CLARK
Address supplied (Towcester, Northamptonshire)
From Canon Stephen Mitchell
Madam, — The Revd James Grayson and your anonymous writer are wrong (Letters, 13 February). The Church does not base its decisions on scriptural teaching alone. Reason, tradition, and the mind of the Church through its synodical structures also play a part.
If it is felt that same-sex long-term relationships are as valid and deserving of blessing as heterosexual ones, then not to put this directly to the Church is immoral.
Would it be right in the name of church unity, or supposed lack of consensus, to delay bringing in equality of gender or race or the abolition of slavery?
Yet, excuses are found for not putting straightforward moral questions to the Church, even at the end of the LLF process. If, after a decision, there are those who find the outcome difficult, that must then be dealt with.
Failure to ask the obvious moral question of the Church and then act quickly and decisively to implement the decision as sensitively as possible reflects weak leadership, moral cowardice, and reluctance to allow the Spirit to move in the Church.
STEPHEN MITCHELL
Great Waldingfield, Suffolk
From Mr Nigel Edward-Few
Madam, — There used to be one LLF bus going nowhere. The only difference now is that there are two.
NIGEL EDWARD-FEW
Chesham, Buckinghamshire
Don’t give up chocolate for Lent if it’s Fairtrade
From the Revd Suzanne Fletcher
Madam, — I know that many decide to do something extra for Lent, but it is a time when many choose to make a small sacrifice for a few weeks. For lots, this means giving up chocolate, which has the added benefit of making our Easter celebrations that bit sweeter; but have people considered the impact of that choice on the millions of cocoa and sugar farmers who rely on our chocolate consumption for a living?
Don’t give up on the Fairtrade farmers this Lent. By pledging to make sure all the chocolate that you eat this Lent is Fairtrade — and talking to others about your choice — you can help to support farmers around the world to have a better life, a fairer wage, and better working conditions. Think about it.
SUZANNE FLETCHER
Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees
Story of a book signing
From George Featherston
Madam, — I see the Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley, has given Kenneth Williams’s story another run (Notebook, 13 February).
Sorry: the original incident was in 1964, when Monica Dickens was signing her books in a Sydney shop, and a customer said, “How much is it?” Dickens heard this as “Emma Chisit”. This was picked up by the author Alastair Morrison (1911-98), who promptly came up with “Let Stalk Strine”, a phonetical glossary of the Australian language.
Originally a newspaper column, it was published as a popular book by “Afferbeck Lauder” with illustrations by “Al Terego”, and was followed by a similar volume on West End London dialect, Fraffly Well Spoken. The complete set is still in print and, with its gentle social satire, very funny. As its blurb says, “Tiger look and start toggon Strine!”
GEORGE FEATHERSTON
Redcar, North Yorkshire
Safeguarding training
Madam, — What happens when the retired cleric becomes the vulnerable adult? Do they need training, or is it time to call it quits? Who looks after the person then (Letters, 30 January)?
I have PTO in Oxford diocese.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
Synod move threatens flowers’ power to do good
From the Revd Mark Edwards
Madam, — The General Synod’s decision to encourage seasonal and local flowers in Church of England worship is clearly motivated by a sincere desire to honour God’s creation.
Nevertheless, parts of the debate risk reducing sustainability to a narrow and domesticated concept, while overlooking the human and economic consequences beyond our own borders. This is especially striking given Synod’s repeated and commendable concern for global poverty.
A significant proportion of the flowers used in British churches are grown in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and Colombia. In these regions, floriculture is not a luxury industry, but a vital source of employment, providing income, healthcare, education, and stability for families and communities, particularly for women. Exporting flowers is the backbone of local economies. Reducing demand in wealthy countries risks removing one of the few reliable routes out of poverty available.
How does a Church that rightly speaks about justice, development, and the dignity of work reconcile that concern with policies that may, however unintentionally, undermine livelihoods in poorer parts of the world? Environmental stewardship cannot be separated from economic justice without distorting both.
Moreover, the assumption that local flowers are always the more sustainable choice does not stand up to scrutiny. Flowers grown in the UK out of season often depend on heated greenhouses and high energy inputs, while flowers grown naturally in warmer climates and transported efficiently can have a lower overall environmental footprint. Distance travelled is an easy metric, but it is a crude moral guide.
The idea that things produced locally are automatically morally good, and that things produced abroad are automatically morally questionable, arrived at without properly examining the real environmental and human impact, is deeply flawed.
Well-intentioned choices may push communities abroad further into poverty.
MARK EDWARDS
Dinnington, Newcastle upon Tyne
End the suttee of Welsh assistant bishops, please
From the Rt Revd David Wilbourne
Madam, — Last Saturday, the Assistant Bishop of Bangor conducted his final eucharist in Bangor Cathedral, introduced by the Dean as “a bitter-sweet occasion”. Bishop David Morris celebrated brilliantly and preached powerfully and graciously, the Archbishop of Wales blessing him for what was euphemistically termed ‘”an uncertain future”
I left my post as Assistant Bishop of Llandaff in 2017 for a similar uncertain future. The Church in Wales, simply as a duty of care, should look again at the role of its assistant bishops to spare them being burned on their Archbishop’s funeral pyre.
I accepted the post in 2009 on the basis that the six Welsh dioceses were considering forming a permanent archiepiscopal see, logically in Llandaff, home of the capital of Wales. In the event, all six dioceses, including Llandaff, threw the proposal out. Dioceses clearly enjoyed having a ticket in a lottery with a one-in-six chance of hosting an occasional Archbishop, but didn’t want to be lumbered with one on a permanent basis.
Nearly two decades on, revisiting this proposal seems the least worst solution to avoid further episcopal castaways. As Oscar Wilde might have said, “To lose one assistant bishop called David may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”
DAVID WILBOURNE
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
The charge that Evangelical theology is abusive
From the Revd David Phypers
Madam, — I wonder how Professor Adrian Thatcher arrives at the view that Evangelical theology and practice lead directly to patterns of harm (Letters, 6 February). Andrew Graystone made a similar charge in Bleeding for Jesus and then, more accurately, identified the loneliness of boys at public school and their need for a father figure as a more significant factor.
Seventy years ago, my father wouldn’t let me anywhere near Cubs and Scouts despite many of my friends’ joining, because he was aware of the widespread abuse that existed in the Movement at that time. I don’t think Cubs and Scouts leaders were noted for their Evangelical zeal; nor was the former Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball.
I’m sorry, Professor, if you don’t like Evangelicals very much, but please don’t try to blame us for all the current ills of the Church of England.
DAVID PHYPERS
Chaddesden, Derby
Derogatory effect of an Ein- instead of an Ep-
From Mr Peter Kettle
Madam, — I think Einstein would be surprised to find what he had “provided” — inter alia, “the thrill of forbidden sex” — to people (Comment, 13 February).
PETER KETTLE
London SW19
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