Less
than a week after one of the Queen’s Chaplains spoke out against an Islamic
Prayer denying the divinity of Jesus Christ being read out in a Scottish
Cathedral, the senior churchman has tendered his resignation from that office.
Former
Chaplain to Her Majesty the Reverend Gavin Ashenden announced his resignation
on his personal blog on Saturday night, anticipating that a BBC Radio 4
segment on him and the controversy surrounding the Quranic readings in a
Scottish Cathedral to be broadcast on Sunday morning would reveal his
resignation despite his requests to the contrary.
Remarking that the decision
to step down was “the most honourable course of action” and had come
after years of “attempts to silence or defenestrate me”, Rev. Ashenden said he had spoken out in the
past on controversial matters as a “matter of integrity and
responsibility”
Earlier this week Rev. Ashenden called
the decision to allow sung prayers
from the Quran in a Scottish Cathedral service that demands Allah is worshipped
and denies the divinity of Jesus Christ, “blasphemy”, and said the
Cathedral should apologise to persecuted Christians worldwide.
In a
letter published in The Times, the Rev. said: “Quite apart from the
wide distress (some would say blasphemy) caused by denigrating Jesus in
Christian worship, apologies may be due to the Christians suffering dreadful
persecution at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“To
have the core of a faith for which they have suffered deeply treated so
casually by senior Western clergy such as the Provost of Glasgow is unlikely to
have a positive outcome”. In an article for the Jersey Evening Post titled ‘The
Choice is Between Jesus and Mohammed’ penned shortly afterwards, the priest
called the decision to choose that particular Quran reading to be read on
the Feast of the Epiphany a “glowing cherry of offence to the iced cake of
incompetence”.
Now
his opposition to the Muslim prayer in a British Cathedral has brought the
churchman’s tenure as a chaplain to the Queen to a premature end.
Rev. Ashenden said he’d had a conversation “instigated by
officials at Buckingham Palace”, and it had been made clear that he could not
continue to speak out on faith issues of the day, as his position as one of 32
Queen’s chaplains could compromise the political neutrality of the Monarch.
While
he had defended himself from such charges in the past by asking “in what way is
a priest defending the faith on behalf of a monarch who was Defender of the
Faith, incongruous or improper?”, the clear choice between silence while
enjoying a “public honour” and speaking the truth had to be made. He told BBC
Radio 4:
“I
think it’s clear to me that accepting the role as a chaplain to the Queen does
not give one a platform where one can speak controversially in the public
space. So, in those circumstances one has to choose between whether one wants
to accept an important honour or whether ones chooses to continue a debate
in the public space.
“I
am fairly clear in my own mind that my duty to my conscience, to my
orders, to my understanding of Christianity and my vocation, is that I’m
supposed to be speaking out in the public space on behalf of the Christ I
serve”.
The
Reverend Ashenden has been a target of controversy for his outspoken views on
faith in the modern world for some years. The Independent reported in 2015 on his remarks on Islam, which he said
“invites people to violence”, and that passages in the Quran “tell you to
kill your enemies”.
When
warned his comments could be found offensive by practicing Muslims, the Rev.
replied: “If they are offended by my quoting the Koran they are not offended by
me, they are offended by the Koran”.
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