My heart goes out to you

o/

Today marks a new week, so I would like to move on from the dramas of last week. But before I do, I thought it would be the right thing to share my stance with you here, and I would also like to take a look at some of the reactions because they would make a fascinating study in human psychology.

For those who are unaware of what I am talking about, because you have better things to do than browse social media or read the news from the legacy media: At the end of January, following the Inauguration and March for Life, I gave a talk in Washington D.C. at the National Pro-Life Sumit. You can watch the entire 10-minute speech on YouTube:

At the end of an encouraging pro-life speech, I gave a cheeky nod to Elon Musk, mocking the ludicrous response he received to sending his heart out to the crowd in his excitement at the inauguration. I sent my heart out to the wonderful audience at the pro-life summit. It was well received at the time and immediately afterwards. That is, until the hard-Left caught hold of it and decided to label me a nazi.

The story was covered in USA Today, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Independent, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Premier Christian News, Washington Times, Pink News, Indy100, MSN, Yahoo, Unilad, Metro, New York Post, The New European, etc. Some surprises like AOL - apparently that’s still a thing - and even the video games media: PC Gamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Gizmodo. As you can imagine, all these liberal outlets were incredibly charitable in their takes, or perhaps not.

As a direct response to the cancel culture bandwagon, the Archbishop of the Anglican Catholic Church, where I serve, removed my licence without so much as a conversation. I will not go into that further, as I believe in being obedient to one’s bishop and would like to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The statement I released on X was as follows:

For the record, in case it needs saying: I am not a Nazi.

I gave a talk at a pro-life event that seemed to go down well, I am pleased to have contributed to what I believe to be the most important of causes. The enemy hates that, of course, and the attacks have been plentiful. That is fine and to be expected.

The joke at the end was a mockery of the hysterical “liberals” who called Elon Musk a Nazi for quite clearly showing the audience his heart was with them. Context is key, but sometimes people ignore context to confirm their own prejudices. People see what they want to see.

My attempt at dry wit, in that typical British way, was not a joke at the expense of WWII, nor an admission of my membership in the Nationalist Socialist Party. That would be an incredibly ignorant and bad faith assumption to make. The responses are very telling, though. The people who understand, cheer - those who have eyes to see. The people who do not want to understand, reach for their pitchforks. They have found a new channel for their hated. They remain in my prayers; may the Lord soften their hearts.

Do not let the liberals distract from the real issue, the matter at hand, that we are allowing and enabling infanticide, and it must stop.

Whether a silly old cleric like me makes a poor joke is irrelevant. Do not be swayed and distracted by the enemy whispering in your ears. Focus on the light.

All human life is sacred. Imago Dei.

I will take the consequences as they come. Those of us in the pro-life camp adorn the full armour of God.

You can consider my joke crass. But I ask you to consider if your responses have been proportionate? 🤔

Point of Information:

I have not been defrocked. My licence was revoked. This means I cannot minister in ~250 ACC churches. I am still a priest.

Bishop Chandler Jones broke the news, but he is not my bishop, and he is not responsible.

Archbishop Mark Haverland revoked my licence. He is yet to have a conversation with me about any of this, but we can read his stance at http://anglicancatholic.org

Please do not send threatening or abusive messages to the bishops (or anyone else for that matter).

Be careful not to become the thing they accuse us of.

Good Christians expose and rebuke wickedness, sin and error; do not be consumed by it.

Media requests

I have had dozens of media requests, which I have politely declined until I have had the opportunity to speak with the Archbishop - who is still refusing to have a conversation. However, I did chat with my friend Laurence Fox about it all the morning after when it was all raw. You can find that conversation on Fox & Father:

I also ran through my personal feelings the morning of the cancellation on my Common Sense Crusade.

The responses

Not wanting to labour the point. I made a silly joke, I will accept the consequences for it. I have been cancelled before; I am a man; I can take it.

However, I would like to take some time to catalogue the responses because they alone make an interesting study. The people who would consider themselves the ‘good guys’ certainly do not demonstrate good behaviour.

One can argue whether I was right or wrong to make the gesture, but I have explicitly denied being a Nazi, and I would suggest no one who is being honest would assume I was. A half-black Christian priest, it is highly unlikely. So, what is the motivation behind the bad faith accusations? Is “Nazi” just a word they use to dehumanise people they dislike? Once they have targeted and dehumanised us, they can say/do whatever they like to us. There was another group of people in recent history who used this methodology…

Here are some of the responses I received last week by email and voicemail. Bear in mind this is disregarding the thousands of messages on social media, these people had to go out of their way to compose an email or call me:

They are the very thing they accuse us of.

Each abusive call, voicemail, email, and comment stores up treasures in heaven for me.🙏

As I said on social media at the time, I am feeling incredibly blessed by this.

Every time I get cancelled, I am reminded who my friends are. Thank you for all your kind messages of support.

Demons may be agitated, but my friends are my rock - so thank you!

The persecution of Father Calvin Robinson

Aaron Edwards wrote a particularly fair and balanced piece on 𝕏.

God bless each and every one of you. Friends and haters alike.