Does Jayne Ozanne have reason to feel unsafe?

This blog is pleased to count the Most Revd Dr Foley Beach, former Primate of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and chair of the Global Anglican Future Conference’s (Gafcon) primates’ council from 2018 to 2023, a friend.

As the ACNA’s second archbishop he oversaw a decade of growth during which both church membership and average attendance grew by about 20%.

As chair of the Council, he was forthright in his criticism of the Church of England including saying at the huge Gafcon gathering in Kigali, Rwanda in 2023, that the primates of the Anglican Communion should choose their own, “first amongst equals” because, reflecting on the appointment of Justin Welby, “… the whole system was set-up for a colonial age”.

Archbishop Beach has a remarkable story from growing-up in great poverty to becoming one of the leading figures in global Anglicanism.

He grew up in a broken home and moved around a lot. His mother was a drug addict and he spent much of his childhood on the streets of Atlanta: “My mother was a hippie, back during those days, and was eventually arrested for selling drugs and narcotics.”

On 19th November Rt Revd Dr Beach will be speaking at the Oxford Union in a debate on the motion "This house believes that the Church of England's days are numbered". It was announced some weeks ago that those proposing the motion alongside him, would be:

• Rt Revd Andy Lines, Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Network in Europe (Gafcon’s proto-province in the continent);

• Mr Richard Scorer, Vice-President of the National Secular Society, well known survivor-advocate and Head of Abuse Law at Slater and Gordon solicitors; and

• Jayne Ozanne, former member of the Church of England’s General Synod, Director of the eponymous “Ozanne Foundation” and now a Deputy in the States of Guernsey legislature.

Ms Ozanne studied at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities, worked in brand management for Proctor & Gamble and as Head of Marketing for the BBC. Upon resigning as a member of the (Conservative) governments 'LGBT Advisory Panel' in March 2021, she was sharply critical of equalities ministers Liz Truss and Kemi Bedenoch. She has been a long-standing opponent of those resisting revisionism on such matters in the established church.

Recently, Ms Ozanne has received some attention due to her evidence before the Houses of Parliament joint committee examining the government’s Draft Conversion Practices Bill during which she claimed that, “everyday prayer counselling” accounts for the,"vast majority of conversion practices". She told the Committee: “We don’t have sufficient law in place at the moment to cover this most insidious form – which is prayer.” She also said she hoped a ban would, “put the fear,” into friends and family praying for their loved ones – where those prayers don’t affirm a person’s LGBTQ+ identity.

Despite the line-up for the debate being known since at least 1st October 2026, Ozanne withdrew from participating just last week- seven days before it takes place. In a statement, on social media, she said,

“By chance, I learnt this morning that I was due to speak alongside Archbishop Foley Beach, the former Chair of GAFCON, in next week’s debate at the Oxford Union. It seems we had both agreed to speak in support of the motion that 'This House Believes that the Church of England’s Days are Numbered.’ I had not been told that he would be present.

"I have this afternoon informed the Oxford Union that I do not feel safe sharing a platform with Foley Beach. He does not believe that a gay woman with my views can be a Christian. Furthermore, I am deeply concerned by the position of GAFCON, the organisation of which he was Chair, which has long advocated conversion practices. These have a profoundly traumatic impact on the lives of LGBT+ people across the world, particularly in Africa.

"I believe that the Oxford Union should have properly considered its duty of care towards me and should never have put me in this invidious position.”

The responses were immediate and obvious:

“You weren’t safe? What sort of danger did he pose to you?” Revd Matthew Wilcoxen

"When does this particular madness stop? This debate is highly anticipated in Oxford, and there are friends on both sides. Ozanne chose to pre-emptively engage in virtue signalling when she could have shown up and engaged in debate”. Father Lee Nelson

“@JayneOzanne doesn't "feel safe" when someone has an opposing argument that might be better than hers. So much for "good disagreement". It really is quite pathetic”. Peter Ould

In response to such questions, she has doubled-down, describing the situation as an, "issue of safeguarding". This conflation of terms mean that the problems with her statement run much deeper.

Archbishop Beach, may have come from the streets of Atlanta, but today he is a truly 'Southern Gentleman' - the idea that his mere presence represents some sort of risk of harm could only come from someone who does not know him at all. Beach has been ordained since 1992, served in The Episcopal Church of the USA (of which Ms Ozanne is a great fan), participated in the 'Primates Gathering' of the Anglican Communion (called by Archbishop Welby in 2016) and interacted with a vastly greater number of Anglicans than most people alive. If his presence was potentially injurious to peoples’ well-being, presumably someone might have noticed before?

Mr Scorer is one of if not the leading expert in the country on abuse in religious contexts. Few are better or more diligent in serving those at risk of harm than him. Perhaps he might be thought to be ideally placed to identify any risks associated with the archbishop. Others participating like the Bishop of Chester, Revd Sam Wells of the very LGBT affirming St Martins-in-the-Fields and Professor Grace Davie who has a particular interest in the “…interactions between religion and welfare, religion and healthcare” apparently don’t feel “unsafe”, in an “invidious position” or victims of the Union’s failure to properly exercise a purported “duty of care”.

The accusation, which did not have to be made at all and for which no evidence is offered, is profoundly unfair. Making it even more unjustifiable are three other things.

Of course, Ms Ozanne and Rt Revd Dr Beach were to be on the same side of the debate - Beach was not coming with an agenda to attack her but, rightly or wrongly, to join forces in agreement that “…the Church of England's days are numbered".

Furthermore, it will be noted that, Ozanne does not even do the archbishop the courtesy of offering any evidence for the basis of her concern- that, “He does not believe that a gay woman with my views can be a Christian”.

Unsurprisingly, given the heights to which he has risen, Foley Beach does have some steel running through him. Yet, that he is also filled with, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control would be a pretty good description of him. He is the sort of cleric who can say of that difficult childhood:

“It has given me a sensitivity to the brokenness in our families and the need of the church, in the name of Jesus, try to minister and care for the broken people in our midst. Of course, in the culture, that brokenness exists as well. And so, trying to have a heart for people in pain and bringing God’s healing touch through Jesus, I think that’s a big part of how the situation in which I grew up shaped me”.

Does he sound dangerous? It is a great shame that Jayne Ozanne spoke out as she did about someone she doesn’t know rather than take the opportunity to blessed by him and learn how very wrong she is.

Just as bad is Ozanne’s accusation against Gafcon - the second supposed reason for her withdrawal. Her statement that Gafcon, “…has long advocated conversion practices” and for which she makes Archbishop Foley personally responsible as Chair, is equally entirely false. The reader will search in vain for anything Gafcon has ever said or done that would begin to sustain such a claim. Naturally, issues of human sexuality are hugely complex across a great diversity of cultures, and this blog has touched on such matters before, but Ozanne's claim appears to be purely a piece of prejudice.

It may be that Ozanne's statement has proved that the motion for debate is quite possibly correct. When a former long-standing, highly prominent, lay leader of the Church of England and self-professed evangelical will not even share a platform with one of the most senior orthodox Anglican clergy in the world, and feels able to deride him and tens of millions in Gafcon - what future is there for a CofE like that?

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1