The Board of Deputies of British Jews launch formal complaint with CofE against Revd Stephen Sizer
The Board of Deputies of British Jews have issued this press statement:
In a move believed to be without precedent in modern times, the Board of Deputies has lodged a formal complaint against Revd Stephen Sizer under the Church of England’s disciplinary process – an Act of Parliament known as the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003.
The complaint is based on statements made by Revd Sizer that the Board regards as antisemitic and a series of instances where Revd Sizer has posted internet links to articles on racist and antisemitic websites.
The complaint must first be considered by Bishop Christopher Hill, the Bishop of Guildford, as Revd Sizer’s church in Virginia Water, Surrey, comes under his jurisdiction.
Board President Vivian Wineman said, “Making such a complaint about a Church of England minister is not a step the Board has taken lightly or without a great deal of consideration. This action sends a clear, strong message from our community that we will not remain quiet in the face of actions and remarks capable of being seen as antisemitic even where they are disguised as anti-Zionist attacks on Israel.”
Submitting the complaint on behalf of the Board of Deputies, Vice President Jonathan Arkush said, “The evidence disclosed indicates that Rev Sizer spends time trawling dark and extreme corners of the internet. Revd Sizer re-publishes items to support the target of his polemical writing, while at the same time introducing his readers to the racist and antisemitic websites from where he draws his material.”
You can find an Opinion Piece here which also links to the Complaint itself (PDF), Supporting Evidence (PDF) and an Appendix (PDF) of offending material.
Last December Rev Nick Howard publicly accused Rev Stephen Sizer of anti-Semitism on Harry’s Place, and in March Anglican Friends of Israel denounced Sizer; the Council of Christians and Jews did likewise.
Sizer responded with a Church of England and Church Times article on his blog.
Ultimately the Board of Deputies are seeking the following:
To anyone who asks what it is that we seek from the complaint, my answer is simple. If it is upheld, it will be a matter for the Church of England what action to take to address Revd Sizer’s conduct. But I can say that we are not seeking to have him stopped from his ministry or dismissed from his job. We only ask one thing, which is that effective measures are taken to prevent him from publishing or re-publishing material that we find to be not merely offensive, but antisemitic.
We don’t think that’s too much to ask.
We shall see.
UPDATE: Comments on Harry’s Place are worth watching.
Tags: Christianity, Israel
October 30th, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Idiots.
It’s taken, what, 60 years for us to move, from legal and extra-legal complaints against Jews for being “anti-German”, as a method to silence, harass and ostracise, to Jews making legal and extra-legal complaints about others for being “anti-semitic”, as a method to silence, harass and ostracise.
I don’t agree with Stephen Sizer’s views. He is, plainly, a political person engaged in a campaign to cause Christians in the UK not to support the state of Israel. As far as I knew, taking part in peaceful political activity is a “human right”, guaranteed under numerous “human rights” laws.
The whole purpose of this “complaint” is political; to silence him.
What on earth has possessed the Board of Deputies to do something so suicidal?
For Jews are losing ground, in politically correct poker. The “moslem card” outweighs the “Jew card” already, when it comes to privileges in our unequal society. What do the Board think will happen, if they establish this particular precedent, when the pro-Palestinian lobby gain even more power than they already have? Will pro-Jewish clergymen be silenced in the same way? Threatened with the loss of their jobs, their homes, their children losing their schooling?
You bet they will.
And the evil will be justified by “the crimes of the Jews” — in harassing “an ordinary clergyman who seeks justice for the Palestinians” –, just as it was in former times.
Hitler must be shrieking with laughter in hell. Do I hear faint howls of “I told you so! I told you so!”?
This kind of stupidity can only bear a bitter, bitter fruit.
And it’s too late now. If the Board “wins”, if Mr Sizer loses his job and his children their home, then the seed is sown, and the whirlwind inevitable. Yet if the Board is told to take a hike — as it should be, and as it would have been even 10 years ago, in more tolerant times — it will be a further sign that their power is slipping, and this will hasten the day when the pro-Palestinians start purging the clergy of “zionist” sympathisers.
In our unhappy land, there is no middle ground any more; it’s power against power, and winner take all.
Such is the unhappy consequence of “if it feels good, do it”, when it comes to politics.
October 31st, 2012 at 2:04 am
@Roger Pearse,
“In our unhappy land, there is no middle ground any more; it’s power against power, and winner take all.”
The problem has been that the middle ground has been occupied by the “if it feels good, do it” cadre, pushing reasonable political discourse into the wilderness of extremism.
The cadre of middle grounders are perishing in their political absurdities with this political disintegration and in the absence of (mass) coherent political movements the result maybe a plethora of political factions in the U.K.
October 31st, 2012 at 2:55 pm
A bit apocalyptic, Roger. But, in a sense, I agree, albeit for different reasons.
I think the move misguided, and probably motivated by pressure from below, grassroots complaints, no overt political agenda.
There is much to complain of in Sizer, occasionally paleo- or classical antisemitism, more often a novel kind that manifests in conspicuous sins of omission and a tendency to stress the sins of one side while ignoring that of his ‘own’.
Personally I think patiently noting and cataloging all that is a better policy. I think Nick Howard’s argument ill constructed and inadequate (‘interfering Yank, sticking his oar in’, is what I thought, rather than ‘Jew’, which is clearly what you thought). While Sizer has linked to dodgy sites, it is surely the least of his sins.
I think the BOD isn’t really sure what it is doing. It is complaining, but to what end? I doubt they seek his being fired, more likely that he be addressed by his superiors on the matter.
What will happen is that they will be ignored, since Sizer is swimming in his own element, and his prejudices and tendencies are likely a good deal shared. It’s not as if you’re especially sensitive to his bigotries, is it?
Rather nasty is your insinuation of ‘Jewish power’. Unattractive in a patristics scholar. There are some aspects of the church fathers I think better not emulated.
But, it’s your own business.
The BOD probably feels it ‘has to do something’ because of a volume of complaints. Always a bad motivation. Like many a bumbling British political institution, it likely has no clear strategy or goal in mind at at all, beyond being seen ‘to have done something’.
All it serves to do is make Sizer cannier. He’s already assiduously deleting all the dodgy things he has written from past blogs.
Better to have left him alone, rather than drive the more overt expressions of his prejudices underground.
Having said that, I think I do now think I see what’s motivating the BOD: they see the tendency of characters like Sizer, and the reception they enjoy, in promoting a narrative that is, essentially, pro-Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian, but (often deeply) anti-Jewish, nationalist.
In the long run that is potentially an existential threat not only to the Jews of Israel, but also the Jews of this country, since it is premised on a fundamental unwillingness to see justice in the Jewish position (albeit couched in the language of ‘justice’), something that would make any Jew feel insecure.
The BOD is probably trying to see whether anything can be done about this in a gentlemanly fashion, institution to institution (they aren’t calling out the police, as Sizer did for Joseph Weissman). If it can’t, then it is probably indeed a sign of the times, a sign of coming chill that, as you intimate, bodes ill for Jews here, not only in Israel.
The apologetics for the Islamist, explusionist antisemite, Raed Salah in which Sizer played a sizable part, was one such moment.
I have a more tactical view: keep an eye on Sizer, keep your enemies in plain sight.
October 31st, 2012 at 3:31 pm
If you want to encourage hatred for Jews, just carry on suggesting that no-one is allowed to criticise The Chosen People or anything they do. Trust me, everyone will hate you.
Live and let live.
October 31st, 2012 at 3:33 pm
@Goy, it’s all a sad state of affairs. There is so much hatred on every side these days. Ah, for happier times, when “it’s a free country” was the standard response to some outrageous assertion, rather than “you bigot! I’ll have the police on you!” as seems to be endemic today.
October 31st, 2012 at 3:39 pm
[If you want to encourage hatred for Jews, just carry on suggesting that no-one is allowed to criticise The Chosen People or anything they do. Trust me, everyone will hate you.]
a) I have not suggested any such thing, nor would I.
b) Roger, Roger. Your term of reference, ‘chosen people’, as though that is what the BOD is saying, or even thinks. I am astonished, really. It may say more about you than them. It suggests how you think of yourself, and your own.
November 1st, 2012 at 10:53 am
Deleting things from online articles as pointless as there is always a trail. For example, deleting a post from blogger does not always delete it from its RSS feed. Google has a cache that people can screen print.
If someone says something then they have to stand by it and be willing to defend it. otherwise they just look silly.
November 1st, 2012 at 12:12 pm
@zkharya,
“In the long run that is potentially an existential threat not only to the Jews of Israel, but also the Jews of this country, …”
The U.K. reached that threat tipping point long ago with the importation of millions of (pro-Palestinian) muslims destabalising and influencing the indigenous political agenda.
Crazy to think or demand that they would have discarded their third world theopolitical baggage at the frontier.