Flatulence: BNP Vicar at Baptist Church

Seismic Shock draws attention to a pro-BNP blog which reports that the BNP’s “Rev Robert West” has given a sermon at a historic Baptist chapel in a Leicestershire village:

The congregation, larger than is usual, joined in with the hymns and prayers and listened intently to Rev. West’s readings from the Old Testament – Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:1-8, and from the New Testament: St. Mark’s Gospel,1:1-11, and his inspiring sermon which followed. He opened by explaining that this was a Gospel Church.

Malachi 3:1 begins with “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me”; maybe West sees himself as John the Baptist to Nick Griffin’s messiah.

West, as I’ve blogged in the past, runs a British National Party front-group called the Christian Council of Britain; he rails against “multi-racial” society, and he claims that the story of the Tower of Babel is actually about God’s wrath against humans for failing to “spread out”; obviously a polite way of saying that God objected to race-mixing. He is ordained in an obscure “Apostolic Church” denomination, although an established group with this name disavows any knowledge of him. The pro-BNP blog – Leicestershire Community Voice – tells us that “He was Ordained nearly 30 years ago by the Episcopic Church”, a botched way of saying he has an “Episcopal” background of some kind. In 2007 West brought American anti-gay fanatic Paul Cameron to the UK. Seismic Shock also notes that West is standing for election for the BNP in the next European election.

So, why was West allowed into the pulpit at? Although the building is historic, I’ve been unable to find any details about the current congregation or minister, if there is is one. The chapel is, though, listed as being under the control of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. Various tourist pamphlets on-line tell us of a museum open at the site on Fridays and Saturdays, but rather curiously it appears to be closed on Sundays. Might that explain why a congregation “larger than usual” turned out for a BNP harangue? Alas, while Leicestershire Community Voice gives us some pictures of West pontificating, there are no views of his enraptured disciples.

UPDATELeicestershire Community Voice has since removed identifying details that identify the location of West’s sermon, but I’ve dug up some clues as to why and how this event occurred.

14 Responses

  1. I think Barton in the Beans is a little hamlet:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton-in-the-Beans

    you couldn’t make the place name up.

    I feel a bit sorry for anyone who actually went there from the hamlet thinking it was a normal church service.

    Maybe Rev West is preparing the way for The Return of St. George.. although I wonder if he knows St George was a dark-skinned foreigner!

  2. […] 16, 2009 · 1 Comment Update: Barthsnotes has […]

  3. West, as I’ve blogged in the past, runs a British National Party front-group called the Christian Council of Britain.

    Why is that berated but not the Muslim Council of Great Britain or the Asian Council of Great Britain. Why is it wrong for a white association in a predominately white country but it’s OK for the minorities.
    Of course there will be no sensible argument put in answer to this, only jibes of racist and nazi.

  4. I’m not sure how they can seriously connect the dots between far-right wing thinking and Christianity, it takes some seriosu levels of denial and cherry picking to do so.

  5. Episcopic?

    Which presumably means you can only see them through an episcope.

  6. Why is that berated but not the Muslim Council of Great Britain or the Asian Council of Great Britain.

    The first organisation isn’t, as far as I’m aware, a front for a racist political party, and the second doesn’t seem to exist outside Rayatcov’s imagination. That’s probably why neither are berated.

  7. MCB is extreme too, but there’s no need to criticise them whilst criticising the CCB, and there’s no need to compare each group to another extremist group in the same breath.

  8. […] blogged on this event here. The unrevised version is still available at other far-right […]

  9. […] received a response from the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) about the recent hosting of the British National Party’s Rev Robert West at Barton in the Beans Baptist Chapel (also […]

  10. […] political party? That’s what happened a few weeks ago, when the BNP’s Rev Robert West was invited into the pulit of a historic church in the village of Barton in the […]

  11. […] preach there in March this year. Rev West, who was suspended from the Conservative Party in 2006, addressed a larger than usual congregation, augmented by BNP supporters, in the Baptist Chapel in Barton in the Beans, Leicestershire. Rev […]

  12. […] Seismic Shock carries a guest article about the BNP’s Rev Robert West, highlighting my blog entries about his recent appearance in the pulpit at Barton in the Beans Baptist Chapel. The Chapel is […]

  13. […] comes just nine months after the BNP’s Rev Robert West gave a sermon at an FIEC-affiliated Baptist chapel in  Leicestershire; the chapel’s administrators share […]

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