Roy Clements

Roy Clements grew up in the East End of London and earned a PhD in Chemical Physics, before working for the University Colleges Christian Fellowship in Nairobi and serving as pastor of Nairobi Baptist Church in Kenya.[5] He returned to the UK in 1979 when he became pastor of Eden Baptist Church, Cambridge, where he developed a highly successful ministry to students.[6] Over a period of some twenty years, he gained a reputation within the international Christian movement as an accomplished preacher and teacher.[5] Until 1999 he served on the boards of a number of leading evangelical organisations, including the management council of the Evangelical Alliance, which represents more than a million British Christians across 30 denominations.[1]

In 1999, his ministry within British evangelicalism ended. He had entered a relationship with another man; Chris, a Christian student who had originally sought his help with unwanted same-sex attraction. Clements had planned to leave his pastorate and undertake new career "as a Christian thinker engaged in the public communication of science". He confessed to his wife about his same-sex attraction and she gave him an ultimatum: undergo conversion therapy to cure his homosexuality and cease all contact with gay friends. He suggested that they should try to work on their marriage while he undertook a master's degree. Neither came about, as the Evangelical Alliance published a press release stating that he had left his ministry and marriage to begin a relationship with a man, and multiple stories were followed in the press.[7][8][9]

With the uproar, Clements went into hiding. He resigned from his church ministry and left his wife and four children. His funding from a Christian charity for his master's was revoked, and the Inter-Varsity Press had his books withdrawn from sale. He and his wife officially divorced in 2001.[9]

He has now been in a relationship with Chris for more than 20 years, and they entered into a civil partnership in 2015.[9][10]

Theology books and biblical commentaries

• A Sting in the Tale (IVP), expositions from the parables of Luke
• Practising Faith in a Pagan World (IVP), expositions from Daniel/Ezekiel
• Masterplan (IVP)
• No Longer Slaves (IVP), expositions from Galatians
• Turning the World Upside Down (IVP), expositions from Acts 1–15
• People Who Made History (IVP), expositions from Judges/Ruth
• Songs of Experience (Focus/Baker), expositions from selected Psalms
• The Strength of Weakness (Focus/Baker), expositions from II Corinthians
• Introducing Jesus (Kingsway), expositions from the Gospel of John
• From Head to Heart (Kingsway), expositions from the First Letter of John
• Word and Spirit (UCCF), an examination of the Bible and the charismatic gift of prophecy
• Turning Points (UCCF), an overview of cultural trends
• Why I Believe (Regent College Publishing)
• Rescue: God's Promise to Save (Focus), with Peter Lewis and Greg Haslam, a short exploration of the five points of Calvinism

Jubilee Centre papers

Clements published a number of papers with Cambridge Papers, a non-profit quarterly publication of the Jubilee Centre, a Cambridge-based centre for contemporary theological reflection which he helped to found. These papers include: "Can Tolerance become the Enemy of Christian Freedom?" (an examination of pluralism in two papers); "Officiously to Keep Alive" (a two-part examination of euthanasia); "Demons and the Mind" (a two-part study of mental illness in the Bible); and "Expository Preaching in a Postmodern World".[11]

• Roy Clements Archive on the Courage.org.uk website
• Editorial in Guardian at the Wayback Machine (archived 28 October 2004) (NB may work intermittently)
• Clements's correspondence with Dr John Stott about his theological analysis of homosexuality
• Evangelicals Concerned report of Clements's outing

• Official Roy Clements Sermon Archive
• Recent sermons by Clements
• Eden Baptist Church, Cambridge
• Evangelical Alliance UK
• Nairobi Baptist Church

• Homosexuality and Christianity