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Dear Dr Ling,

Thank you for your email. Before I received it, I had been working on a new section to be added to my page www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm a section on the Church Army. Your email in no way deters me from proceeding. As you know, I have a policy of only publishing emails if I have the permission of the sender. I would like to ask your permission to quote from your email. If you don't email me to give permission, or if you email me to state that you refuse permission, then of course I won't include extracts.

Now for some brief comments on some of your claims, and decisions. The published section on the Church Army, will be so much fuller and more detailed than the material here, of course. You write,

The concerns you raise do not relate to any activities undertaken by Church Army or by any employee acting on its behalf.

Amongst the documents I've consulted is 'The Day of Small Things: An analysis of fresh expressions of Church [fxC] in 21 dioceses of the Church of England' published by the Church Army in November 2016. The author is George Lings.

https://churcharmy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/the-day-of-small-things.pdf

I can find no mention of Forest Churches in the text but since the publication of the document, forest churches have become more prominent. It can be taken that forest churches amount to one of those 'fresh expressions.' Your view would seem to be that people who are not Christians and not members of the Church of England shouldn't make critical comment on these or other 'internal' matters. I don't share this view at all.

The Environmental Engagement Officer in the Gloucester Diocese, Cate Williams, has written a document with the title, 'Could now be the moment for 'Forest' churches to grow?' (18/03/2021)

https://www.churchofengland.org/about/fresh-expressions/could-now-be-moment-forest-churches-grow

Forest Churches, like other 'fresh approaches' to evangelism, are not just a matter for the Church of England. Non-believers may be affected by them. In the new section, I'll be including a discussion of blatant evangelism by members of a garden church at an allotment site. Allotments are not the place for proselytizing - a statement which will need to be clarified and expanded in the new section, like everthing else here which I state.

I am sorry that you are clearly distressed about the issues you raise.

This claim you make is completely erroneous. When I left the voicemail message, I was obviously feeling a strong emotion, but it was nothing to do with distress. It was anger, at the behaviour of Lu Skerratt-Love. The anger quickly subsided but is absolutely nothing to apologize for. I know that you wouldn't want to exclude the emotions from your account of human life.

... despite your belief in the civility of your communication, its tone, frequency, and the number of recipients it has been addressed to, is anything but civil.'

This will require a detailed response - in general terms, not by quoting from your email, of course, if I don't get permission to quote from it. There is very little robust language in any of the emails I've sent on the matter, to any recipient. There's very strong language to be found, but only in connection with the 'hideous, hazardous heap of discarded garbage' to be found at the projected site of the Forest Church. This is an extract from an email I sent to Lu Skerratt-Love but not received by her:

'If you take issue with some things, find some things unfair to you, or have other reasons for feeling aggrieved, do contact me by email and it may be possible to make changes or remove material if I think that your arguments are valid - but I think it's very unlikely you will contact me. Most likely, you'll assume that I'm simply wrong about Christian belief and wrong about environmental action. (In fact, in my own practice I'm an 'environmental purist').'

In my first email to you and other recipients I simply presented argument supported by evidence, in a matter of fact tone.

This is the whole of the text of the second email sent to you and other recipients, with the image omitted:

'I've now added a new section to my page www.linkagenet.com/themes/christian-religion.htm You'll find that it includes material concerned with the Church Army. This is one of the 'graphic images' which introduce the section, explained and discussed in the text, of course:

[Image omitted]

'The new section will be revised and extended. I'll mention a different matter: I had to transfer the contents of a hard disk from a faulty computer to a new computer. I used a specialist transfer program but many pages of the site were left with formatting errors, including this page. It will take time to resolve the problem but in the meantime, formatting flaws don't affect the readability of the page.'

Finally, in relation to the blocking of your email address, I asked for this to be undertaken to protect my staff who should not need to handle such correspondence at their workplace, or elsewhere. In doing so I asked for a filter to enable myself to still receive your communications. Unfortunately, this hasn’t proven technically possible.

If I don't have your permission to give extracts from your email to me, then this information you provide in your email will have to be omitted. I would say that if you want to protect your staff, or one particular member of your staff, then you will be ready to make it clear that it was you, not Lu Skerratt-Love, who blocked my emails.

It's essential that free expression of opinion should be allowed and not censored, except where it can be shown that the disadvantages of allowing the opinion to be published or otherwise expressed far outweigh any advantages, as in the case of extremist Neo-Nazi calls to commit violent crime.

The fact that you disapprove of what I write and other recipients of emails disapprove of what I write has absolutely no force. If you expect me to stop writing about these matters, you're mistaken. I see no reason to follow a form of prim etiquette.

As for etiquette, Lu Skerratt-Love or the members of the Forest Church in Sheffield who took the decision to change the venue from the Morley Street allotments to the Scout Field of St Timothy's didn't have the courtesy to inform me of the change. The issues I raised, the evidence I gave, must have had an effect, since the Forest Church event didn't go ahead in the place where it was intended to take place. I certainly would never have expected thanks for informing them about such matters as allotment law and the risks of holding the event in the allotments, but a message about the change of venue would have been appreciated.

Lu Skerratt-Love is a supporter of Extinction Rebellion or at least a sympathizer with Extinction Rebellion, which deliberately breaks the law, of course. That may not have anything to do with her work with Church Army but it's relevant to my work. You seem to forget that I'm not seeing things from the point of view of a member of the Church of England or a member of Church Army but from a very different point of view.

Your decision to impose blocking of my emails isn't a trivial matter. I'm not a sender of spam, I'm not an ignorant user of slogans, I have a well established Website with, as I've pointed out, very high Google rankings for a wide range of search terms.

I tried to find an email address for Lu Skerratt-Love and the only one I could find was her Church Army email address. Throughout, I've felt strongly that it was and is very mistaken of her not to have a second email address at which she can be contacted. If you put the search term "Lu Skerratt-Love" email contact into Google, the only address to be found is the Church Army email address. Interestingly, the page of my Website, 'The Church of England: religion, remembrance, redemption' also appears on the same page of Google results.

Throughout this period of writing on the Forest Church, I've found that the channels of communication have been blocked or difficult. Many Christian groups use Facebook or Twitter. I won't join either, so I'm not able to send messages by using these social media platforms. Both have great disadvantages. The Wikipedia page on Facebook criticisms, gives a very comprehensive account of objections.

I'll be including a section on Church Army research, with examples of publications. To me, there's an obvious omission in the work of the Church Army. From what I can see, you make no attempt to address objections to Christian belief. You simply assume that Christian belief is what you claim it is and evade discussion of most difficulties.

I'm glad that the Church Army is willing to modify some established doctrines of orthodox Christian belief, such as prohibition of homosexuality, but I point out the fact, in a section already published on my page on Christianity, that this would seem to conflict with various Biblical texts.

I give an extended discussion in the second main column of text and images of my page on Christianity, the one with the heading 'For God so loved the world ... ' it includes comments on John 3:16 and comments on the doctrines supported by 'Church Society:' the Conservative Evangelical group in the Church of England, which claims that

' ... all people are under the judgement of God and his righteous anger burns against them. Unless a person is reconciled to God they are under His condemnation and His just judgement against them is that they will be separated from Him forever in Hell. (Romans 1 v18, 2 v16, Revelation 20 v15)

'Jesus will come back and the world will end, there will then be a final judgement where those who have not accepted Jesus will be cast into hell with Satan and his angels. Christians will receive new bodies and live in eternal bliss in the presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. (Hebrews 9 v27, Revelation 20 v11, 1 Corinthians 15 v51)

'The biblical way of salvation has often been attacked over the centuries, however it is stated clearly in the 39 Articles of the Church of England.'

I need to know what doctrines of salvation are held by members of the Church Army. This is a more cohesive group than the Church of England as a whole, which contains many different views on salvation.

I need to know if members of the Church Army believe, in accordance with John 3:16 that not all will have eternal life, or eternal life with God rather than in separation from God. I need to know if obtaining eternal life depends upon faith only and not works, according to the Church Army. If so, members of the Church Army believe that of those who have died of coronavirus, not all will have the privileges of eternal life. Some - or many - or most will have an eternity of separation from God. Similarly for those who died whilst fighting against Nazi Germany. The discussion in the page is much more detailed than here, with many more examples.

Whilst the research department of the Church Army labours on a wide range of issues, such matters as these, so important for the reputation of the Church of England, the reputation of the Church Army, are neglected.

I hope to find out more about Church Army doctrines in this area - soteriology - if not from you, from other sources. These are important matters, matters which deserve to be publicized. I can only do so much to publicize them myself, of course. I think that many people in the Church of England, as well as other Churches, overlook some problems and difficulties in Christian belief. That's one of the reasons why I've spread my net quite widely. Only St Mark's Church Broomhill, St John's Church Ranmoor and St Timothy's Church Crookes have received emails from me, and I've contacted St Timothy's to assure them that the Church won't be mentioned in my page on Christianity (or anywhere else on the site.) I've already published a little on the other Churches, amounting to not much more than a mention, but will eventually be including more.

On more thing - the name 'Church Army' is obviously very well established and won't be changed, but to me, the inclusion of 'army' in the name is unjustifiable. The activities of the Church Army have nothing in common with the the experiences of soldiers in the Battle of the Somme or Passchendaele or campaigns in Afghanistan. The soldiers of the armed forces who face conditions of acute danger, acute hardships, are completely unlike the staff and members of the Church Army. Staff and members of the Church Army may face very great difficulties and great dangers in their ordinary life but to think of my emails as a huge challenge, a massive difficulty is not just over the top but, I would have to say, almost farcical. You need to keep a sense of proportion. A sense of proportion is absent from your writing in your email.

Christians, or many, many Christians, are so used to thinking of non-believers as living in darkness whilst they live in the light that they are liable to make some claims about non-believers which can't possibly be based on fact, on evidence.

Best Wishes,

Paul Hurt