Editor’s note: Anglican Ink held publication of this article by Dr Gomes and contacted St Helen’s asking if they wished to comment or offer their perspective. The parish did not respond to our offer.
England’s leading conservative evangelical church has repeatedly rebuffed pleas from a pro-life organisation, claiming to have “suffice [sic] in-house resource,” even though it is unable to provide evidence of a single sermon on abortion in its online Media Library.
The Parish of St Helen’s in Bishopsgate, London, is reportedly the biggest, richest, and best known conservative evangelical congregation in the Church of England. According to the Charity Commission, its income for 2017 was £4.1 million.
It has a staff team of eight led by its Rector, the Reverend William Taylor, plus an associate rector, four curates and an assistant curate. As a conservative evangelical church, it does not ordain women or accept the ministry of female clergy.
From July to December 2018, Brephos, a leading evangelical pro-life organisation approached St Helen’s leadership pleading with Taylor and his team to address the issue of abortion in their preaching, teaching and training.
A string of emails between St Helen’s and Dave Brennan, Executive Director of Brephos, obtained by Rebel Priest, reveals a stubborn reluctance on the part of Taylor and his clergy to address abortion from the pulpit, send clergy for training or invite qualified personnel to equip the church on pro-life issues.
On 19 July 2018, Brennan wrote to the leadership of St Helen’s detailing the cruel and catastrophic destruction wrought by the abortion industry. “800 babies are intentionally killed every working day in the UK through a variety of procedures (poisoning, crushing, dismembering, decapitating),” and “many abortions are performed inside Christian women,” he wrote.
The email invited the Rector or “staff member, youth worker, women’s worker” to attend Breaking the Silence—a training day on 16 October in London. Brennan also offered to meet Taylor and his team to talk further. There was no response from St Helen’s Church.
Two months later, on 7 September, Brephos repeated the invitation and pleaded for “an hour” with St Helen’s leadership to demonstrate “the reality of abortion in the UK today, the biblical mandate for us to act, and a tried and tested strategy that makes a difference and saves lives.”
A month later and one day before the Brephos conference, Parish Administrator Ellie Davison wrote back saying that St Helen’s would not be able to send anyone to attend the Brephos conference as “Tuesdays is our in-house staff meeting and training day.”
Brennan responded the same day offering to personally visit St Helen’s, stressing he would do it at any time convenient. Again, St Helen’s did not respond.
On November 28, Brennan emailed four questions “to William Taylor for him to prayerfully consider.” He asked if Taylor was aware that “since my below offer to come and help with information and materials—for free and at his convenience” some 18,000 babies have been “violently killed in the womb in our nation, and the Church has remained largely silent about this?”
Brennan queried if there was help for the post-abortive women at St Helen’s asking Taylor “what he will say to Christ when asked what he did for these most vulnerable and helpless of people?”
A month later, on December 20, Davison responded saying that St Helen’s had “suffice [sic] in-house resource and pastoral support for this important issue.” However, Davison did not point to a single resource offered by the church on pro-life issues.
Brennan emailed back within half an hour: “I am astonished at the claim that what you are doing already is sufficient in the face of the genocide we’re living alongside.” He mentioned that when he typed “abortion” in St Helen’s sermon library the result was: “Sorry. Your search returned no results. The most I could find was a short mention in a blog in 2012 and it seems there might have been a talk in 1992—but I couldn’t actually access it,” he noted.
“In fact do you know what comes up first on Google when you type ‘St Helen’s Bishopsgate abortion’? Three clinics near St Helen’s where you can have your baby killed, funded by the tax-payer. Nothing to hep you or advise you to keep your baby. No Christian pro-life teaching or facts about embryology/abortion,” Brennan observed, adding that “over the 12 days of Christmas some 6,000 babies” would be aborted in Britain.
Rector William Taylor did not respond personally to a single email from Brephos.
A Rebel Priest investigation has revealed the veracity of Brennan’s claims, apart from a single journal article on “Abortion and our Attitude to the Foetus” published in 2005 by Churchman and written by Lee Gatiss, then Associate Minister at St. Helen’s.
We wrote to a senior member of St Helen’s Parochial Church Council asking if they had “ever heard a sermon on abortion preached at a Sunday service” or if the church had “at any point advertised or held a teaching session on abortion either through a special event, or a visiting speaker, or a study day, or a Bible study.” We received no response.
We also spoke to the Reverend John Dunn, a retired minister who had contact with St Helen’s in the mid-1980s. Dunn said he was “not aware of any material relating to what you ask, or indeed to any germane issue of the time,” although it may have passed him by. “All I do remember is that Church Society [closely associated with St Helen’s] ‘took note’ of synod documents which I understood to be shorthand for ‘We’re putting this on the shelf.’”
When asked why he was so keen to have flagship churches like St Helen’s dealing with pro-life issues, Brennan said: “In America, according to the Guttmacher Institute 2014 report, 1 in 8 abortions are performed on evangelical Christian women. We don’t have clear stats for the situation in the UK, but one can only reason that it is at least as common amongst evangelicals over here, given how much less we teach about abortion.”
“St Helen’s Bishopsgate attracts around 2,000 people every Sunday across its four services. A conservative estimate would have it that of these, some 300 either have had or will have in the course of their lifetime at least one abortion. But it’s probably much higher, given that St Helen’s doesn’t teach about abortion at all,” he pointed out.
St Helen’s is renowned for biblical preaching, opposition to the homosexual agenda in the Church of England, and outreach to international students and corporate executives in London’s main financial district. In November 2018, Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London designated St Helen’s a national resource church.
Mullally, a former midwife, describes herself as “pro choice rather than pro live [sic]” on her blog “although if it were a continuum I would be somewhere along it moving towards pro life when it relates to my choice and then enabling choice when it related to others.”
Offering an analysis of St Helen’s refusal to engage with pro-life work, Bishop Gavin Ashenden, former Chaplain to the Queen, told Rebel Priest: “There has been a strange lacunae in the ethical gaze of conservative evangelicals on this issue for some time. The wholesale slaughter of millions of infants in the womb has passed them by apparently unmoved. This cannot be due to a failure to understand the authority or meaning of Scripture.”
“I have sometimes wondered if the pre-born forfeit the defence of conservative Protestants because Catholics have been so clear about the horror of murdering our enwombed children. A touch of ecumenical aversion has blinded their otherwise alert consciences. I hope it is not so,” Dr Ashenden said.
According to Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern and member of the Church of England’s General Synod, nearly 9 million babies have been aborted since Britain liberalised abortion in 1967.
I have been deeply distressed by the hypocrisy of the so called evangelical leadership of this church. Shame on them… it is so exasperating that they cheapen the grace of God and trash the Son of God through their preaching of the selective gospel. What are they afraid of? Or is it all about power and money… like Judas selling the Son of God for thirty pieces of silver? Has William Taylor ever thought about how does the Lord feel about this extremely shameful action? How would he and those who support him answer the Lord when they stand before Him? If you call yourself a Christian, then stand up to that name or give up being a Christian.
Lydia, I suggest that you do further research before believing what is reported in this article.
I have just lodged another post with links to two sermons by curates of St Helens. The policy of this website is not to permit links, which is their right, so it may not get through, but suffice to say that there was at least one other sermon with an orthodox position on abortion at St Helens in 2012, and Lee Gatiss who was curate there in 2009 and has a high regard for the rector of St Helens was recorded as recently as 2017 being strongly against abortion. There may well be more such sermons, as St Helens seems to list their sermons by the bible passage they are based on, not by topic.
It also appears that the people reported in the article may have been less than truthful in their comments about St Helens. Note also my comment above about the google search.
The search engine in St Helen’s sermon/media library does searches by key words. I’ve used ‘abortion’ as a key word. The search says: “Sorry. Your search returned no results.” If I was a woman considering an abortion and looked desperately in St Helen’s library for biblical teaching by typing in a key word that is so explicit, what would I get? Nothing!
The article above very honestly mentions Lee Gatiss article in Churchman. If Lee preached on abortion and the sermon was on abortion why did the search engine not show it. Also, why did the Parish Administrator not point this out to Brephos? Why so much of a delay in replying to him? There are too many questions left unanswered. You are clutching at straws in your attempt to defend St Helen’s. It is also very clear that William Taylor has capitulated to Bishop Sarah Mullally regarding what Taylor said on homosexuality when Mullally was appointed.
Firstly Lydia, I am not “attempting to defend St Helens” – rather, you are attempting to defend the people cited in the article, who appear to have been less than accurate in a number of things that they told Anglican Ink. Why not accept that they also have some questions to answer, as does St Helens?
Secondly, why use hyperbole by saying they “very honestly” mention Lee Gatiss’ sermon in 2005, if they failed to mention a more recent one?
“If I was a woman considering an abortion and looked desperately in St Helen’s library for biblical teaching…”
Sorry Lydia but I don’t take that seriously. A person who is truly concerned or in moral anguish over abortion is going to be doing searches in a sermon library. She is going to be talking to people. I know this from personal experience with friends.
“Also, why did the Parish Administrator not point this out to Brephos?”
One would have to know the whole history of their dealings to answer that. But so far, Brephos has as many questions to answer as St Helens.
“why did the search engine not show it.”
I have no idea. But we do know that both Lee’s and the later sermon did refer to abortion, and the search engine did not show them. So that means there might well be more sermons, possibly many more, that did mention abortion which the search engine does not show. I suggest caution before rushing to judgment.
You don’t get it, do you? The article is nowhere making the claim that St Helen’s does not preach on abortion at all. You are attacking a straw man.
“The article is nowhere making the claim that St Helen’s does not preach on abortion at all.”
Are we reading the same article? I mean the headline at the very top claims that “Abortion is a no-go area” at STH.
I would suggest that this article is very strongly claiming that STH does not preach on abortion.
Otherwise please explain how something can be a “no-go area” and still be preached from the pulpit.
You simply don’t understand genre do you? As I’ve said in another comment, if this piece is false, the Rector of St Helen’s could simply have responded to the editor of Anglican Ink and said so! “Heavens no” he might have responded, “St Helen’s is a go-go area for abortion. We protest outside abortion clinics in our area every day of the week.” Also, as I’ve suggested earlier, if the article is very strongly claiming that STH does not preach on abortion, then it is libellous and STH should sue for libel. Correct?
And let us continue the Pharisaical hair-splitting exegesis of this piece while countless babies are slaughtered on St Helen’s doorstep, yeah? Just shows how lop-sided your priorities are.
Homer, I understand this is an emotional issue and one you clearly feel strongly about. So I hope we can disagree in a civil manner.
However my point wasn’t whether STH should have responded, or whether they should sue for libel.
I was simply pointing out that the article strongly suggests that abortion is not dealt with from the pulpit at STH, contrary to your assertion. I note you did not address this point in your reply.
So again, if I am wrong (and I cetainly I have no monopoly on being right) please explain how something can be a “no-go area” and still be preached from the pulpit.
Because the genre of a headline is different from the article. A headline is meant to grab attention. In a news story the ‘core’ is contained in the lead paragraph: “England’s leading conservative evangelical church has repeatedly rebuffed pleas from a pro-life organisation, claiming to have “suffice [sic] in-house resource,” even though it is unable to provide evidence of a single sermon on abortion in its online Media Library.” This makes the ‘news claim’. The story isn’t about preaching; the story is about Brephos approaching St Helen’s, the church making a claim to be doing enough, Brephos challenging that claim and attempting to demonstrate it by searching their database of sermons. The reporter, Gomes, then verifies Brephos’ claims. The scope and remit of the story are very limited and if you take this to court, no serious judge would be able to prove libel on the basis of a headline, because in the field the genre of a headline is understood. You will notice that this is not an opinion piece; it is strictly reportage.
But you are still locked in your obsession to prove this wrong while the issue at stake is the genocide of unborn babies, correct?
With all due respect I disgree, and bear in mind I did in the (admittedly distant) past edit a student newspaper with a circulation of 6000, so I know a little about this stuff.
It isn’t an issue of genre. You are simply arguing that the headline of an article isn’t part of the article, therefore we can ignore it. Sorry that just isn’t so. If you read the article, you read the headline. If you read the article the headline is the first thing you read. The article is published under the editorial control of Anglican Ink. Anglican Ink determines the headline.
Additionally the article is explicitly flagged on the front page of Anglican Ink as “Op-Ed” so believe that it is indeed opinion, not reportage.
Look you are free to disagree with me on these points and if so we may agree to disagree, but hopefully you can understand where I am coming from.
The shocking fact that you have chosen obstinately to quibble over a form of words when blood is being shed on an industrial scale and a crime against humanity is being committed–gives me plenty to understand where you are coming from. If the Nazis were slaughtering Jews outside St Helen’s; if slave traders were selling slaves in Central London, you’d be doing exactly the same–quibbling over a form of words with Dietrich Bonhoeffer or William Wilberforce. There is no point in anyone appealing to your humanity. I pray you will examine your hard and calloused heart before God and your attitude to the sanctity of life.
Hi Lydia.
I understand you feel strongly on this issue and if the approach I have taken distresses you than I apologise. Please let me explain my perspective. You are of course free to disagree.
I do feel strongly that trying to characterise the ministry of STH based on a single word search is a gross distortion. There are thousands of hours of ministry that go on in weeknight small groups, weekends away, one to one readings and numerous other activities. You simply cannot demonstrate anything about the ministry of a church simply by searching for a single word in a database not designed or organised for that purpose. There may be ways to judge how a ministry is doing in this or other areas which are close to your heart, but this is not the right way to do it.
Therefore I do feel it is appropriate to push back against attempts to mischaraterise what goes on at STH (I am no longer a worshipper there but did attend for over ten years). And when people try to correct the misconceptions this article has raised I feel it is appropriate to speak up in support of them. Hence my decision to engage in this discussion – it would have been much easier to remain a passive observer.
Perhaps it is better to leave this discussion here, but hopefully you can have some udnerstanding of what I am trying to achieve.
I don’t understand how you can take a headline so literally? I agree with Homer. We read countless headlines almost every week about some part of England or France turned into no-go areas by Muslims. So does that mean that every single person in the zone has to be a Muslim and I should find fault with the news report because I happened to see a white Christian couple doing their shopping for exotic Asian food there (as I have seen by the way). Does it mean that there is a fenced off zone and you are required to recite the Islamic creed before the Shariah police can allow you to enter? Don’t be ridiculous. It simply is a journalistic way of saying that by and large St Helen’s do not want to touch the topic of abortion–doesn’t mean they won’t make passing references to it now and then.
“In fact do you know what comes up first on Google when you type ‘St Helen’s Bishopsgate abortion’? Three clinics near St Helen’s where you can have your baby killed, funded by the tax-payer”
Well, I have just done that, and nothing of the sort comes up. No abortion clinics appear on the page at all. Instead, there are a mixture of articles, some from St Helens, some about it.
Have you seen the screenshot? I’ve done the same and here’s what came up: Marie Stopes UK Central London, Marie Stopes UK Waterloo, BPAS Southwark and St Helen’s with the word abortion under every entry with a strikethrough sign.
The screenshot shows paid google advertising by those clinics, which St Helens is powerless to prevent. It is not part of a google search.
I have just done the google search again, and there is nothing on it about abortion clinics. So let me repeat: The statement in the article above is incorrect.
Are you using Windows or Mac?
Windows
I wonder how carefully the various protagonists referred to in the article actually searched on the St Helen’s website? I came across this sermon from 2012, which appears to be pretty orthodox evangelical teaching: “2) Should Christians protest against the abortion clinic down the road?
Yes, but not by firebombing it. … We should be appalled at the current state of the law on abortion, and its failure to protect the lives of unborn children. But in our protests against it, we must stay within the law. We may protest taxes, but not by failing to pay them (cf. Mark 12:13-17). We may protest against abortion clinics but not by lawless means.” [Link removed per Comment Policy]
The article also refers to Lee Gatiss, who was curate at St Helens up until 2009. Although he wrote an article about abortion back in 2005, I note that his views don’t seem to have changed, as he stated in 2017: “where abortion or infanticide was viewed with horror rather than as a right or a way to make a
living, and where Reformed Christianity was honoured as the national creed – I suspect we
would think now of such a world as almost fantastical. And we would think it highly desirable
if it was possible to move from where we are now, to such a world.” [Link removed per Comment Policy].
Looking at the St Helens list of sermons, I note that it doesn’t seem to group them by topic, but by the bible passage they are taken from. Hence, the fact that “abortion” doesn’t come up in the title doesn’t mean it isn’t the subject of teaching.
This token comment in a sermon not on abortion hardly counts as a substantive protest or teaching or apologetics on abortion, does it? Oh my, my, the couple of sentences really frightened the pro-abortionist, didn’t it?
Perhaps there are not all that many pro-abortionists who sit in St Helens and listen to the sermons. There may well be more who are same-sex attracted or who are a bit tight with their money.
David, there appears to be hidden agendas going on here.
As “Homer Simpson” admits below, many facebook entries by members or former members of St Helens have stated that the parish does in fact preach against abortion.
Yet more energy is being expended on continuing to attack St Helens, rather than attacking abortion.
This raises serious issue about the motivations of some people.
Thanks Michael. I have just re-read the article carefully and I am a bit mystified at the badgering of an orthodox evangelical ministry which is obviously teaching the Bible and encouraging its members to obey it.
The point Lydia, is that I was able to find it by searching, whereas apparently Rev Gomes and others could not, before they decided to mount a flame attack on St Helens.
In any case, there have been many already going online to point out that St Helens does in fact deal with abortion from the pulpit and in teaching.
I suggest you and Rev Gomes take the energy that you have been using to attack St Helens, and instead use it on dealing with abortion.
Jules Gomes and his congregation are at the forefront of fighting abortion on the Isle of Man. [Edit: Link removed per Comment Policy.]
Yet if you apply the same standards that you and others have applied to St Helens, no he isn’t. St Helens has been attacked because there is little evidence on the internet of what they do – the same is true of Jules Gomes and his congregation.
The same would be true of my diocese (Sydney): Not much of what we do is apparent on the internet, yet we are in the forefront of the fight against abortion in Australia.
Michael, as far as his congregation is concerned, it appears to be “no evidence” rather than “little evidence”.
I have looked at the website of Saint Augustine’s Isle of Man, and I cannot find a single reference to abortion. It appears that the complaint that Rev Jules Gomes has made against St Helen’s Bishopsgate applies with even more force to his own church.
Yes, but if you type ‘HOMOSEXUALITY’ you get at least three sermons and if you type in’GIVING’ you get over a dozen sermons! Just shows you where the emphasis of St Helen’s lies. Preaching on giving is more important than preaching on abortion. Where the heart is there also is your treasure.
Dr Gomes’ piece does refer to the article written by Lee Gatiss so why are you complaining about that?
I was not complaining – rather, I pointed out that I found at least one more sermon on abortion, more recent than Gatiss’, which apparently Jules Gomes didn’t bother looking for.
In any case, why is any of this relevant? You have already admitted that members and former members of St Helens are pointing out that it does in fact preach and teach against abortion. Just because its search engine is inadequate – so what?
Why aren’t you spending your time working against abortion, instead of on attacking a godly congregation that stands up for the truth?
All Godly congregations like individuals have their weak points. Perhaps being challenged is healthy.
Being challenged is healthy, being vilified is not. Particularly when the attacks come from those who appear to be more interested in church politics than in actually combatting abortion.
I think the point is they were offered training on the subject by people extremely experienced and knowledgeable about it – why did they not take it up? An obvious response would be to tell all your staff members about the training day and invite the chap to come and talk to you. Why did they not do that?
Why would they? Brephos is a virtually unknown organisation, and there have been many cases of scam groups or liberals in disguise taking in the unwary. Wise churches are always careful before committing to anything, and both staff and members at St Helens are fully occupied with various aspects of gospel ministry. They cannot be expected to immediately endorse an unknown group.
And after this exhibition of open attacks on a godly congregation, I doubt either Brephos or Jules Gomes will be trusted by other churches either.
I was wondering, while reading this article, about a seeming organized or orchestrated attack against this prominent evangelical parish. I perceived a note of ‘shaming’, but then contemplated the sound and godly work of mature Christian faith and sound discipline of Dr. Gomes and Dr. Ashenden – both of whom I admire greatly.
The repeated lack of response to requests over time made to St. Helen’s is baffling and seriously troubling, but it might have been a bit more even-handed to have included other like-minded parishes in order to ‘parse out a broader evangelical response’ to this issue… unless there was a specific interest in St. Helen’s alone.
But regardless of either point, this is indeed a very troubling exposè that needed to see the light of day. The point of God’s judgement(s) regarding abortion is spot on, and many of us “moderns” who love the Lord might rightly and justly be trembling in great fear come Judgement Day.
Abortion is indeed a modern day holocaust that we need to face-down eye-to-eye. Yet we have the tools and opportunity for confession, repentance and restoration under which Christ came and shed His blood FOR each of us, “under the throne of the heavenly grace.”
The point is that St Helen’s is the CofE’s conservative evangelical flagship in a way no other church claims to be. They could have gone after All Souls but it is not complementarian in the same way as St Helen’s. If a church which so much money and staff and power and a church that holds a firm line on homosexuality is refusing to substantively engage with abortion, that says a heck of a lot.
INDEED it does! Thanks for your reply. This also explains the ‘bent’ of Drs. Gomes+ and +Ashenden.
But since there is no evidence that St Helen’s is “refusing to substantively engage with abortion”, it doesn’t say anything at all.
We have already seen that (i) the statement in the article about a google search for “St Helens Bishopsgate abortion” showing abortion clinics rather than church teaching is incorrect; (ii) reliance on a search of the media library is misplaced, because there are materials there on abortion which the search does not show and therefore there may be others; (iii) a former parishioner of St Helens has already been on this thread (see below) pointing out that it is not accurate to say that St Helens does not preach on abortion.
Lifenews had a report estimating that abortion is the leading cause of death in 2018, with 43 million world-wide.
I am quite shocked by the response of the so-called conservative evangelical vicars on Facebook to this very revealing piece. Every single argument they make is a straw man. For example, the case is repeatedly made that people can cite instances of St Helen’s vicars preaching on abortion. However, in his news story, Gomes is merely reporting the efforts of Brephos to communicate the seriousness of the issue with St Helen’s and St Helen’s completely lukewarm response. The article above nowhere makes the claim that St Helen’s does not have sermons with tangential applications on abortion. So Gomes’ critics making that point are really attacking a straw man.
“the case is repeatedly made that people can cite instances of St Helen’s vicars preaching on abortion.”
That is not a straw man at all, Homer. It goes right to the heart of the matter. If as the members of St Helens state, that church does frequently preach on abortion, then this article accomplished nothing except to attack an orthodox evangelical church.
I have some experience in the area of libel. If the detractors of this piece are arguing that it is intentionally untrue or erroneous or misleading — these are very serious charges. In that case, we have a very simple solution. Why don’t they bring libel charges against the author and editors (the piece has also been published on other websites)? Because, having read through the piece a number of times, with my legal hat on, I cannot find a single word that would count as libel. The critics of this piece need to stop evading the real issue–the genocide of unborn babies–and their lack of substantive response and protest to this genocide.
Why would Christians bring libel charges against another? Do you normally advocate disobedience to scripture>
As you admit, many people have posted on facebook that St Helens does preach against abortion, frequently.
So the article, instead of focussing on the real issue (abortion), has wasted everyone’s time and energy by attacking a godly evangelical church.
Amen on the libel charges. We shouldn’t be doing that.
I don’t knwo anything about the parish, or the Brephos organization (beyond that it appears brand new), or what Jules Gomes reasons might be for posting a piece with so little research (should there not be testimony of several other groups, history of the parish’s contributions to organizations, history of its votes in diocesan meetings, etc).
But I know statistical manipulation when I see it-
What that is saying is that in some poll in the US, 1 out of 8 women having an abortion in the US is identified (by who?) as an Evangelical Christian. He extrapolates from that, through some legerdemain unknown to mathematicians, that 3 out of 10 women (300 out of 1000, assuming 1/2 of the congregation is male) in an Evangelical parish in England have had or will have an abortion. And states that as a conservative estimate.
Now, Dr. Gomes is a very intelligent man, and I don’t understand why he did not take the time to do the math, since I am sure he sees the errors in this.
This is too important a subject for sloppy journalism. And speculating on the moral stance of the women of the congregation based on statistical fantasy is both insulting and quite probably false.
Don’t you know the difference between a news story and a PhD dissertation? Also what gave you the impression that Guttmacher Institute is an evangelical organisation and an evangelical Christian is making the claim that “1 in 8 abortions are performed on evangelical Christian women”. This is from the 2014 report of the Institute not from Dave Brennan. Another straw man which does not detract from the main point of the story: St Helen’s are unable to demonstrate any substantive opposition to abortion and have rebuffed a pro-life organisation who approached them with an exaggerated claim or a lie saying they have ‘sufficient in-house resources’.
You say you know nothing about St Helen’s and yet you are able to authoritatively assert that Brennan’s estimate is wrong. Brennan has clearly stated this is an estimate. So why are you carping?
You are the person coming up with shoddy research. The Guttmacher Institute is far from evangelical or conservative. Rather an independent media bias organisation states: “The Alan Guttmacher Institute is a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States. The Alan Guttmacher Institute affiliates to the left of center politically, but provides excellent sourcing and factual information. We rate this source left-center and factual.” (5/15/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 8/18/2017)
The Guttmacher Institute is definitely NOT an evangelical organization. But Mr. Brennan (from Brephos} is quoting their stats to justify his comment on 300 members of the parish having an abortion in their lifetimes.
Estimates need to be based on something.
Yes, his estimate is based on his knowledge of Christianity in England and his work among Christian evangelical women and churches and his extrapolating statistical information from the number of abortions evangelical Christians have in the US. I’d do the same if I was estimating how many hours evangelical Christians in the UK spend a day watching TV.
But the more serious issue here is: while we are having this discussion hundreds of babies are being slaughtered on St Helen’s doorstep. St Helen remains silent. If the Nazis were killing 50 Jews a week in Central London, would you be quibbling about ‘estimates’? This attitude is shockingly Pharisaical.
Moreover, if this piece is flawed it would have been extraordinarily simple for St Helen’s to write a single sentence and clarify this to the editor George Conger. “Anglican Ink held publication of this article by Dr Gomes and contacted St Helen’s asking if they wished to comment or offer their perspective. The parish did not respond to our offer.” Dr Gomes is intelligent you write; from what I have seen of him on Anglican Unscripted, Dr Conger and Dr Ashenden (who is quoted here) are doubly intelligent.
St Helen’s does not “remain silent”. I know that for a fact.
You have done many posts putting your bovver boots into St H. Have you ever critiqued another church about this? If so, where is the proof?
I wonder of anyone has considered the possibility that St Helens, as with other churches, teaches its people the truth from the Bible and they then go out and put what they have learned into action. Unless there is some way of knowing the number of times members of St Helens have, say in the past five years, spoken against abortion, written to politicians, sent letters to the press, made online comments, and so on, there is no way of knowing the extent to which St Helens is dealing with the issue.
That seems to be the fundamental weakness in Jules Gomes’ article, David.
Apparently the sin of St Helens is that it is not “sufficiently public” in its opposition to abortion, yet we are given no idea where that line is drawn.
Personally I think the approach you have outlined is likely to be more effective at changing public opinion, than American-style picketing. I do take every opportunity I can to make my views known, but these are not easy times for Christian believers in Britain
If the matter under discussion were not so serious it would be amusing to see people trying to find how many times a particular word comes up in sermons (assuming that all the actual words used from the pulpit are accessible at all other than in sound recordings). A searcher may find words and phrases such as the value of life, born and unborn; termination; womb; foetus; conception; sin; responsible sexual relations; consequences; and on and on. Each of those could be a reference to the sinful extinction of life before birth, but the word “abortion” may not be there at all. My comment may a bit foolish, but I respectfully suggest that it may be in the same vein as the comments it is commenting on.
I think you are spot on David. The search engine used by St Helen’s is rudimentary. It is not a comprehensive search, that is, it does not return every occurrence of a word within all the documents searched. It only returns items where the word occurs in the title, speakers name, bible book, or “tag”- that is, a word tagged to the file. *This is spelled out on the main media page above the “quick search” feature. As this article (see bottom of the article above) which is given tags by Anglican Ink- in this case “abortion” and “Church of England”. But if a word is not used in the title of the article, or the article is not so tagged, their search will return zero hits.
I set up the search engine in exactly the same way shown above, and searched “sin”- I got a total of 23 hits, all of which had the word “sin” in the title. It might be helpful to have a list of the tags, if any, used by St Helens to sort their online library-which might give a hint as to where to look, but lacking that, short of a word by word reading of a substantial sampling of the available talks, I don’t see any way to determine how often any particular subject is addressed.
Perhaps a better approach would be to attend St Helen’s for a period of time, or interview some of the parishioners. Or one might offer to volunteer one’s skills in data base management to assist St Helen’s by reading all the sermons, or individual keyword searches, at a minimum, in their extensive library, and applying the appropriate tags to each sermon to make them easier to index and locate by subject matter.
I assume that a search engine can’t look for words that have been spoken, unless technology has moved way beyond my ken.
Dear Mr McMahon, it turns out that the website of Rev. Gomes’ own congregation (St Augustines Isle of Man) has nothing on it about abortion.
I am mystified as to why he would attack St Helen’s for having only a couple of sermons about abortion on its website, when his own church website has none at all.