Vicar who resigned as school governor over training around child’s gender transition explains how he left C of E

The minister, who looks after two parishes in the Diocese of Chelmsford, resigned from the Church of England and from his role a school governor. 

In a statement, he aimed to clarify the role the Bishop of Chelmsford, Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, had in his resignation. 

Rev John said: “For the last few years I have met with the Deanery and with the Bishops of the diocese to express my concerns over the Church of England embracing unbiblical approaches to matters of sexuality and gender.

“To that end I met with Bishops Stephen, Roger and Peter in March 2017 and a further meeting with Bishop Stephen in September 2018.

“Over recent years I, often together with others, have also entered into extensive and sometimes lengthy correspondence (most recently in December 2018), setting out my disquiet to Bishop Stephen.

“In a letter of September 2018, after a meeting with Bishop Stephen, I declared myself to be in broken communion with him; no response was forthcoming.”

He explained that the diocese ‘persisted’ in their approval, saying: “In my parish this culminated in the Diocese supporting unequivocally the ‘gender transition’ of a child in a Church of England primary school. As a governor of the school the welfare of that child and all the other children in the school was my responsibility and priority and I was deeply concerned.”

The former governor explained that his concerns surrounded safeguarding and the fact the Diocese were ‘complicit’ in preventing…