Sadly, but unsurprisingly, we learn that Roy Clements has now set up a website which, he says, 'must now serve as both my confessional and my pulpit'. We recognise the danger of giving it the oxygen of publicity but ignoring it is a problem too. The home page begins by explaining that Dr Clements was for 20 years ' Senior Minister of a prominent church in Cambridge, England. Eden Baptist Church was well known for the quality of the biblical preaching found there. Many hundreds of university students were drawn to its pulpit week by week.'
It continues 'In the suimner of 1999 I made two big decisions. The first was to leave this very successful ministry. The second was to tell my wife and a few Christian friends for the very first time that I was gay. The consequences have been apocalyptic in every sense of the word. In an attempt to neutralise the damage I might do to the evangelical Christian cause, pre-emptive public statements 'outing' me were made to my church and to the media. A half page article ... appeared in the Times newspaper. My reputation within the Christian circles in which I was once lionised was shattered.'
The site currently has six further pages. Dr Clements appears to be standing by all he has previously written but with the addition of a 'pro-gay' line. He reveals that Christian Focus and Kingsway continue to make his books available but IVP refuses to, though he hopes to supply copies himself. He unfairly claims 'Christian bookshops stock an enormous amount of rubbish and heresy in my experience, but tell them an author is gay and everything he has ever written is removed from the shelves.' The website pages are vintage Roy Clements - forceful argument; persuasive style; contempt for fundamentalists and the browbeating of evangelical antagonists. What some have appreciated from his pen in the past will perhaps be read in a new light when it is seen how far he has now gone.
Open Letter
He has written an open letter to Brian Souter, the businessman campaigning against the repeal of Clause 28 in Scotland beginning 'I am a married man with three children, one of them still in secondary school. 1 am an evangelical Christian. 1 am also gay'.
It makes five points.
1. The family is important but civil legislation, even if it promotes homosexuality cannot strengthen or undermine it. - So why bother to comment on legislation?
2. 'It is the infidelities of heterosexual men and women that are principally responsible for the escalating divorce statistics.' - But not in Dr Clements' own case.
3. Children should be protected from sexual exploitation but keeping them ignorant does no good. - Can Dr Clements be ignorant of the sorts of materials the gay lobby plans to introduce once Clause 28 is repealed?
4. Legislation to seek to reduce homosexual practice is undesirable as the moral consensus has changed and most psychologists accept that homosexuality is usually a matter of nature rather than nurture. Thus suppression of these desires can only lead to harm. It is this myth that fuels much of what Dr Clements is now saying. There is no real reason to suppose some are 'born homosexuals'. If it were true the biblical way is still to do all we can to discourage homosexual practice. It is not the only sinful urge that needs suppressing.
5. It is folly to waste millions on this even if the Bible forbids homosexual practice. Stick to the gospel and forget about law, he says, ending bitterly and blasphemously 'Do you really think you will hear the Master's Well done for this investment of your 10 talents? I fear it is much more likely you will hear him say: I was a gay teenager, and you wouldn't let my teacher talk to me about it.' - To hear such pietistic antinomianism from such a man is very sad. For a professing evangelical to pervert the Lord's words in this way is shocking.
On the same page Dr Clements claims 'Singling out homosexuals for statutory negative treatment is not justice, it is discrimination. Christians have every right to challenge the morality of homosexuals if they wish. But in a secular state we have no right to try to reinforce those moral judgements by civil legislation unless we can prove that homosexual behaviour does harm to the community.'
Then follows a rant about the way evangelicals have destroyed all credibility they might have had with the gay lobby.
Living with our fallibility
The most substantial page on the website is the first part of an essay 'Living with our fallibility'. Cleverly written, its thesis is that having made mistakes in the past, Christians cannot be sure they are right about homosexuality now. With Arianism and transubstantiation he gives examples of professing Christians being woefully unbiblical. He then tackles cosmology, making the risible statement that 'The evolutionary emergence of the species over millions of years now rests on such a mountain of scientific evidence that the vast majority of Christians accept that the seven-day creation story of Genesis 1 cannot be taken literally any longer. Only the most blinkered of fundamentalists still adhere to a young-earth theory.'
Next he offers an equally distorted summary of changing thinking with regard to racism and slavery. This all leads up to two paragraphs concerning 'sexism and homophobia'. On the latter he says, disingenuously, 'The Christian attitude toward homosexuality has been transformed too from one of unconditional condemnation to qualified acceptance. This change remains extremely controversial but the parallels with earlier debates in which the Christian community was eventually forced to acknowledge they had erred is conspicuous. It is quite possible that within the next couple of decades those texts which are still widely quoted to prove the moral repugnance of homosexual relationships will be reinterpreted by the majority of Christians, just as texts have been in the case of slavery and the ordination of women.'
It has been this writer's opinion that in the past aspects of Roy Clements teaching were unbiblical and dangerous. Today this is more obvious than ever. His powerful intellect cannot be denied but he has been sadly misled and now seeks to mislead others. It is the sort of thing that the Bible warns us about and leads us to expect. We must be on our guard against all forms of error. Only the Lord can save us.
This article appeared in Grace Magazine in July 2000
