Surrey Gospel Partnership and the Stephen Sizer Antisemitism Scandal
In December 2022, Stephen Sizer was found guilty of antisemitic activity by a Church of England tribunal. The tribunal banned him from “exercising any of the functions of his Holy Orders” for a period of twelve years. Sizer’s antisemitism had been tolerated for more than a decade by his fellow evangelical leaders.
This article is part of a series about the failure of evangelicals to address the Sizer scandal. Previous articles have focussed on Church Society, the Church of England Evangelical Council, Christ Church Virginia Water, and Evangelicals Now.
The premise of this article is that, just as it’s sometimes necessary to take disciplinary action against an individual within a church, so it’s sometimes necessary for a Bible-believing fellowship of churches to take action against a member church. Ultimately, if the church in question remains unrepentant, it ought to be excluded from that fellowship.
Evangelical Disciplinary Proceedings Following Sizer’s Conviction
After Stephen Sizer’s antisemitism conviction in December 2022, John Stevens of the FIEC publicly stated that the FIEC church which Sizer had been attending would initiate disciplinary proceedings. Stevens indicated that if Sizer failed to comply with church discipline, there might at that point be grounds for excommunication. (Sizer withdrew his membership from the church either before the disciplinary process began, or before it was completed.)
As discussed elsewhere, Christ Church Virginia Water (CCVW) has supported Sizer both during and after his pastorship. It follows that if Sizer deserved post-conviction discipline in the evangelical context of his FIEC church, CCVW should face discipline in its own evangelical context: Surrey Gospel Partnership (SGP). And if CCVW remains unrepentant and keeps refusing to apologise to the Jewish community, SGP should exclude CCVW from its fellowship.
Correspondence with the SGP Churches
With that in mind, the fifteen SGP member churches were all contacted in January 2023. The email closed with the following words:
Jonathan Arkush, a former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, asked this week, ‘how former vicar Stephen Sizer, found by a CoE tribunal to have engaged in repeated acts of unbecoming conduct, could have been tolerated by the Church for so long and why his conduct was unrecognised for what it was: anti-Jewish racism?’ That question seems relevant to the churches that have partnered with Christ Church Virginia Water over the past decade. I hope you will agree that now more than ever it is essential for CCVW to repent and apologise.
None of the churches replied, even to acknowledge receipt of the email.
In March 2023, a follow-up email was sent to the pastor of each SGP church (the January message had been a group email). This time one response was received: a friendly email from a pastor who said he wasn’t an insider and had “no influence over what SGP decides”. In reply, the correspondent asked the following questions: “If I had shown you evidence that Christ Church Virginia Water was preaching in favour of same sex marriage, wouldn’t you have contacted someone in the SGP to urge it to take action in response? Or would your reply to me have been the same — that you’re not an insider and have no influence?” No response was received.
The Way Ahead
This is not a complicated issue. The evidence of cooperation between CCVW and Stephen Sizer is clear: CCVW enabled Sizer’s antisemitic conduct financially and in other ways, and it has never apologised for doing so. If the SGP churches disagree with the tribunal’s verdict, they should carefully and publicly explain why they disagree. But if they agree with the verdict, they should require corporate repentance from CCVW and an apology to the UK Jewish community as conditions of CCVW’s continued membership.
