The Bishop of Oxford’s Sanctimonious Letter to Nigel Farage Shows How Out of Touch the C of E is
The Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, has got himself some publicity with his open letter to Nigel Farage. The Church Times ran a story on Friday under the headline: ‘Farage “stoking division for political advantage is deeply disturbing”, Bishop of Oxford says.‘
Croft put the open letter to Farage on his blog after the Reform UK leader held his press conference at Oxford Airport last Tuesday to announce his ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ plan to deport 600,000 illegal migrants. The bishop seemed miffed that Farage had not dropped by to pay his respects: Â
I was sorry not to meet you on your visit to Oxford this week to announce your party’s new policy on migration.
Croft suggested that Farage had somehow trespassed by holding his press conference in Oxford:
Our city seemed a strange choice for your press conference. Perhaps you had in mind that you were near the site of Campsfield House, opposite the airport in Kidlington. Campsfield House was an Immigration Removal Centre operated by Group 4 which closed in 2018. I remember vividly going to visit and meeting those detained in my early years as Bishop.
Rather in the manner of a Labour Government spokesman, Croft added: “The Government plans to re-build and re-open the site as part of its long-term plans.”
He then rebuked Farage for sins against globalism:
In order to achieve your aims you set out your intention to dismantle key legal frameworks: the European Convention on Human Rights; the UN Treaty against torture and the Refugee Convention. These frameworks give protection to us all; they are built on key principles of justice and democracy; they are fundamental to the world order Britain helped to build in the 20th Century.
The bishop reached the height of his indignation when he told Farage:
Most of all, I disagree profoundly with your attempts to politicise the questions of migration and asylum by deliberately increasing fear of the stranger in our communities. … To see any politician with a public platform seeking to play on these fears and stoke division for political advantage is deeply disturbing.
Finally, Croft accused Farage of disrupting his vital episcopal leadership in the Diocese of Oxford:
Oxford’s cohesion is built on complex networks of strong relationships between different faith and civic groups. I and my colleagues see and work with similar initiatives in Milton Keynes, Reading, Slough, Banbury and the other diverse communities which fall within the Diocese of Oxford. We are not helped by politicians who seek to stoke division for their own political ends.
Will Croft be issuing such a strongly-worded rebuke to former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw? Straw said last week that Britain should “decouple” from the ECHR to tackle illegal migration.
He told the Financial Times the ECHR was being “misused” to prevent migrant deportations:
There is no doubt that the convention – and crucially its interpretation – is now being used in ways which were never, never ever intended when the instrument was drafted in the late 40s and early 50s.
It is of course unlikely that Straw will get the same episcopal rebuke as Farage because Croft is clearly a man of the Left, as I observed when I was a vicar in Sheffield Diocese where he was Bishop before he got promoted to Oxford in 2016.
Since then, Oxford Diocese has experienced steep numerical decline. The diocese had an all-age average Sunday attendance of 42,500 in 2016. By 2023 that had fallen to 32,300. Attendances in all C of E dioceses have been severely hit by the Covid lockdown. But Oxford Diocese was declining before Covid. In the three years to 2019 its Sunday attendance fell by over 4,000.
Furthermore, the institution in which he is a senior bishop has been profoundly shaken by recent safeguarding scandals. Croft himself was criticised in a report in 2023 for mishandling an abuse disclosure in Sheffield Diocese.
Has not Croft got too many problems in his own backyard to be bothered that Farage did not drop by at the episcopal palace to kiss his ring and ask permission to hold a press conference?
At that conference a Daily Mirror reporter asked Farage how he would react if his proposals to return asylum seekers to countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea were strongly criticised by Christian leaders.Â
Farage said:
Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock. Given the types of people appointed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, that is probably the biggest understatement of the day.
Why does Croft think that his globalist agenda has a monopoly of Christian virtue? Does not the Government have a moral duty to prevent people from breaking the law through illegal migration and to protect the public from violent criminals?Â
Next time Farage visits Oxford and he wants to meet a Christian leader, he may be better advised to seek out a leader of one of the thriving Pentecostal networks which upholds counter-cultural traditional Christian teaching, rather than having tea with the globalist Bishop of Oxford.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
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I stopped when I read, “These frameworks give protection to us all…”, the man is clearly out of touch because he has completely missed the point that the so called protection is now only working for a minority of the population. He no doubt agrees with Starmer that people who dislike the kids b3ing assaulted and murdered are far right thugs and deserve all they get.
I will try to read the rest of the article after I’ve had a walk to get some fresh aid to get rid of the nausea induced by this man!
As David Starkey has said a few times, British citizens already had the protections Croft is alluding to. The HRA etc. extended these rights to everyone in the world. It provides no benefits to Brits.
Excellent point!
Agree
There must be something in the Holy Water. These Bishops just don’t get it at all. They refuse to listen to the people (unless they are Grauniad readers). The Bishop of Oxford is making the same mistakes as the Archbishop of Canterbury, York and the Bishop of Gloucester. Dripping wet Lib Dems wannabee politicians with precious little life experience. As pointed out above, if they were doing something right their attendance numbers would be increasing. They’re not.
Catholic Church (I am Catholic) is just as bad. Preachy sermons from half wits on our obligation to ‘refugees’. Ignorant stupid arselings. Invading forces are not fleeing anything, it is a deliberate and planned destruction of this country – and here is the bloody irony – of the very churches they semonise from…..
I wonder if the fishermen of Rome and Canterbury, who throw their nets into African seas, are aware of certain data.
(In conjunction with a fellow commenter’s “African Pope”)
The older I get the more puzzling Life becomes.
It should not be puzzling. These so called Christians are anything but. They have lost all the elements of biblical teaching for which they presumably adhered to when they entered the life of a clergyman. Their understanding of Christian morality is in the toilet but they seek to speak out as if they hold the high moral ground. They should be defrocked and exposed as traitors to the Faith.
I Recently attended mass in a Hispanic community in Chicago. The mass was a celebration of the st. Rocco Society,(Sicilian) whose members (some) still live in this neighbourhood. St Rocco, as the story goes, was born into a wealthy family, but chose to shed his wealth and live amongst the poor, helping where he could. This is what the society is dedicated to, helping those in need. The mass was celebrated by 7 celebrants, speaking English, Italian, and Spanish. The priests and deacons were of Polish, siciian, phillipino, and American descent. Those in attendance were of a similar backgrounds, except for the Sicilian priest, we were all Americans. we all shook hands and hugged each other as we do during every mass. I am happy to say, on this day there were no sermons on the actions of President Trump, ICE, or illegal immigration. Politics were NOT part of the sermon. Kindness, aiding our fellow man, coming together as a community, however, were.
I agree but at least unlike the lying and treachery of the Uniparty politicians you know exactly where you stand with the high clerics. They may though be singing from a different hymn sheet if their jobs were to be subjected to a vote by their flock.
They stopped being interested in God and became social justice warriors a long time ago. They have embroiled themselves in social issues, on a basis of what would ‘Jesus do’, or the Good Samaritan perhaps. They believe the Bible when it says ‘For it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle* than a rich man to pass into heaven.’ Chastity and Poverty, always the drivers of Christianity. These Bishops are really irrelevant in a secular country like this, but while the church has swollen coffers and their garments are made of the finest cloth with gold and silver, they will not pipe down. Render unto Caesar what is Caesars.
*The eye of the needle may be metaphorical, or it may refer to a narrow gate in the Jerusalem wall. Opinions are divided.
“Render unto Caesar that which may be given away to people you would not normally donate to” – not quite the same is it?
It seems like the Church is not only part of the Establishment but is an active political supporter. I propose withdrawing all tax advantages.
The ‘render’ phrase is a reminder that God and the Kingdom of Heaven is for the clergy, not the everyday issues of life. However the religious types seem to think that their success in attaining St Peters favour at the Pearly Gates is, in part, as a result of their inveterate socialist meddling, lecturing the poor, while they enjoy riches. Keep your eyes up to heaven, my Lord Bishop. You are there to save our souls, not fill our bellies, and make sure everyone has an iPad..
I don’t think saving your soul can be outsourced, especially to a bishop, a Protestant bishop at that.
David Starkey has pointed out that you cannot run a country as you would your own life. Isn’t that is the other side to rendering unto Caesar?
The same can be said for running a Church.
They are Socialists: that’s why they fail. They run out of other people’s money easily and are prone to two tier processes, like policing. Most individuals are more cautious than organisations, if only because they are better able to keep track of what they have done and rarely get bailed outback to a comfortable life.
God and real faith is too much work and intellectual effort. As the book of Sirach (wisdom literature) states (from roughly 200 BC) – ‘the intelligent man ponders the parable’. Not so with these losers. Easier to be ‘woke’, a climate warrior, a justice soldier, spouting bumper stickers and inane platitudes from hating Drumpfs, to climate and gender. CoE pews are emptying, there is a reason why.
There are some excellent clergy, not that I have met many, just as there are some excellent nurses and doctors. And they not only carry out their duties well, they have the burden of being within a dysfunctional infrastructure that is ridiculed by the public.
Farage has consistently lagged behind public opinion when it comes to immigration. Even now, a policy of deporting 600,000 people is hopelessly inadequate. The bishop has clearly been brainwashed by the BBC.
I don’t think you can wash something you don’t have.
Which – it surprises some – is how democracy is supposed to work. Of course when it’s what the people want, that’s “populism” (bad), only when it is what the elites want and imposed on the people, is it “democracy”.
The problem with public opinion is that it is split down the middle between those who think immigration is a disaster, and those who think its wonderful. I don’t think he’s lagging behind so much as revealing more as public opinion is shifting. Its a movable feast. He has to form ideas that will win a majority with deliverable policies. Some things will go too far, some not far enough. The alternative is more UniParty. All that said, Reform is the best hope we have that we can stop and reverse the damage being done to our nation and its peoples. There are proposals I’m not sold on yet, and there is doubt as to how much Reform can get done anyway against the Blob. We wouldn’t read this site if we weren’t a bit sceptical, would we..?
There are people in the US who faintly praise what Trump is doing but lament that he is flailing around too strongly in doing so.
I suspect Trump is ‘flailing’ because anything less will be subverted and rendered ineffective by the Blob.
A warning for Farage – a mere electoral success will not be enough on its own to correct the course of the UK. Reform will also have to flail around for a long time. Yet remember that Farage eventually inspired the Brexit Referendum (even though Brexit itself was subverted and rendered ineffective by the Blob).
Social division… us against them, us being the “workers” them being the “bosses” – is the core of Socialism. The “worker” v the “bosses” of the 1945 Marxist-Socialist Labour Government, is past its use by date, overtaken by the prosperity brought by capitalism, so a new divide in society had to be created, but the essence has remained, the “victims” v the “oppressors”. This has broadened the scope. Victims are all the freaks and those at the fringe of society, aggregated with “other cultures” and races, the oppressors are White people. Unsurprisingly when the electorate thought it wise to install New Labour in 1997, its Socialist modus operandi of social division swung into operation with mass immigration to create an underclass and to “rub the noses of the Right in multiculturalism”, with speech legislation to punish and silence and who dared complain. The victim list has grew and continued to grow under Continuity New Labour from 2010 onward as the difference between Labour and Conservative is, tomayto, tomahto. Social division was well established before Nigel Farage and Reform UK. But then part of Socialist doctrine is always make haste to accuse your opponents of what you are doing or intend… Read more »
Steve Sailer calls it the coalition of the fringes
I am hard of hearing, courtesy of the Army, and so I now tend to pay a lot more attention to faces, the eyes in particular. This man has the aspect and friendly eyes of a cornered feral outhouse rat.
I hope more people leave the CofE because of this
Thanks to Mr Mann for this interesting article
Are there any left in the C of E?
A few seem to go in my corner of the Home Counties. Mainly older people, probably the same lot who have been voting Tory here since time immemorial but who switched to Greens and Lib Dems in sufficient numbers to let Labour in
There are certainly few if any Right..,
‘they are fundamental to the world order Britain helped to build in the 20th Century’
Therein lies the problem – these global treaties etc are from the last century and the world – unlike the Bishop – has moved on rendering these things out of date.
Quick questions to His Protuberance: What is the total population of Africa? Will they all fit in the UK? All right – not all of them then – how many, your Grace, how many can these islands take? Give us a number.
Spot on! Jesus sent his disciples out as messengers to All of Humanity.
He did not tell them to bring All of Humanity back to live in the disciples’ villages.
And also which ones are to be the lucky ones? Hard choice to make, Bishop? You and your ilk will undoubtedly leave that to others and then castigate them for their choices.
1) “Tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Evil preaches Tolerance until it becomes dominant, then seeks to silence the Good.”
— Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia
2) “The whole asylum system is POLITICAL DECEIT.”
— Gavin Ashenden, former Queen’s Chaplain
3) The Catholic Popes have all exhorted the nations built by Ethnic Europeans = White People to feebly submit to Mass Third World Invasion, especially by the Muslim Army, while failing to house a single Third World Fake Refugee within the vast fortress of the Vatican. The current Ethnic African Pope is continuing this Globalist agenda, though he has not yet stooped to kneeling before Muslims and kissing their feet.
No one here has ever heard of him. He must be from the other place.
It’s always deeply funny when these clergy go on about international law and protection for all.
In accusing Farage of creating fear among the diverse communities, they conveniently forget that Jesus told his followers to go nowhere among the Gentiles and to sell their garments and buy swords. Weapons that were used in a dust up in Gethsemane. Jesus must have been far-Right. Ought the Bishop to be disturbed by his Lord? The real one, that is, not the liberal 21st century idol.
The world order that this bishop – the Bishop of Blairism – refers to was actually the British Empire. It was dismantled in the 20th century by the USA. Then Washington acquired to itself the right to intervene – invade – in any country that wasn’t a democracy in Bush’s Freedom Agenda. A naked bid for US hegemony that overturned the banning of aggressive war at Nuremburg.
So much for international law bringing safety to all. And now that other plank of the global order post 1945 is being dismantled in Palestine.
The Church of England – and that includes a lot of the congregations – has become an adjunct of the New Left.
Yes, as Welby required, they all serve a Common Purpose.
Well done for remembering what Jesus said about swords, as people should also remember that, far from being a Wimp who just sat outside the Temple wringing his hands, he rolled up his sleeves and charged in there, overturning the tables of the moneychangers, and lashing them with a whip to drive them out of the Temple!
This Bishop of Blairism will know that the collect for today declares that God shows Himself in pity and mercy.
Strange then that the British state, which the Bishop thinks responsible for the international order that protects all, is demonstrably content to see abused white British girls as the collateral damage – the necessary loss – to maintain the community relations of diversity and multiculturalism.
Of course if he had stopped to kiss the bishops ring that would have created another safeguarding issue.
And maybe a health issue
Only to be expected from one of Welby’s Common Purpose graduates.
Should go on a Gaza cruise with Greta.
Where’s Bishop Croft’s Open Letter to the Pakistani Muslims living in Oxford who were responsible for gang raping many of the city’s young white girls?
Anyone got a copy? I’d like to read what he had to say.
So would this fecking eejit care to explain where our human rights are?, only its my understanding that part of the echr is safety in your country, and we no longer have this, freedom of speech, again gone, freedom to oppose the government, gone, I’m sure many others could add more, this eejit is part of the reason that the Church is failing, completely out of touch, and getting involved in politics, sort your own backyard out first!!.
Has the Bishop had anything to say about the innocent Christians being slaughtered by Muslims in Africa on a regular basis?
The Oxford bishop, similar to pope Leo forget their domain and their job is their congregation, the people who form their congregation. One would think both religious leaders would have their hands full retaining their current congregation, encouraging their attendance at Sunday services, ensuring the safety of the congregation’s children around the world, from the hands of pedophile priests. And yet, like pope Leo, this Oxford bishop finds the time and need to preach to Nigel Farage about the issue of illegal asylum seekers. Fascinating. My advice to Mr. Farage. Turn the other cheek.
Did anyone else notice how when interviewed by Trevor Philips the bishop suggested that “escaping the climate crisis” was the first reason to think of when considering why there are so many asylum seekers? The bishop needs to spend time learning how and why it is the insane climate POLICIES pursued by so many “western” governments, led by ours, which are responsible for mass emigration from the less developed world. With the LOW COST, RELIABLE and UNIVERSAL power provided by fossil fuels come decent transport, good hospitals, proper schools and all the things which make life better for the world’s poorest people and gradually diminish the oppression of women (sadly by “religious” theicracies) and encourage their education instead of endless child-bearing. Governments and banks in the developed countries actively fight against the very fossil-fuel powered electricity which wiuld help to lift ever more millions out of poverty and ignorance.
This sort of idiot is what finished the Church of England for me. That, and the king becoming the grand mufti
What a Richard the Bishop appears to be!