Talk:Roy Clements

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Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Roy Clements, has edited Wikipedia as
Roy Clements (talk · contribs)

Will probably prove notable and verifiable with 28,000 Google hits :) Dlohcierekim 22:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Roy clements is an author of many books and is significant in the history of the evangelical movement in the UK and internationally since he is an internationally well-known figure within that movement who reached national prominence when he was outed as a gay man in the Times newspaper. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by StTimothy (talk • contribs) . :) Dlohcierekim 22:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


This article is under development. It would help of others could fill in some significant gaps:

1. A picture 2. The name of Clements's wife and possible children's names 3. Educational background for Clements 4. Identity of male partner 5. Which town is he now living in, and what is his job (beyond indepedent writer) 6. Build links to include books that are linkable online 7. Add footnotes to support bio. The details here draw on the official website of Roy Clements —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.43.145.60 (talk • contribs) .

2, 3, 4 and 5 look potentially unencyclopedic and a deliberate invasion of privacy --Henrygb 18:21, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This is currently hugely POV. It is clearly written from the perspective of someone who believes that evangelicalism and same-sex unions are incompatible. It needs a major rewrite. I'll try to work on this over the next few days. The Wednesday Island 19:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

As the person under debate, I agree with the assessment of "Wednesday Island". I am happy to discuss the accuracy or otherwise of elements of this tendentious and anonymous account.Readers should consult my website, www.royclements.co.uk, to contact me. Roy Clements


I disagree with the proposed edit. The original article (written by Mr. Clements) was highly POV and needed a serious re-write which the above article has attempted to do. Clements' article cast evangelical leaders in a bad light and does not accurately record the process by which he eventually left his church in Cambridge. Clements' original article was too "personal" and should not have included veiled attacks on other individuals. [[Iria001;08.00, 20 April 2007 (UTC)]

The original article may have been POV, but so is the current one: hence a rewrite is needed. What we need is a neutral point of view (see WP:NPOV). The Wednesday Island 12:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree that a neutral point of view should be the objective of the article - especially vis-a-vis a) Mr. Clements' personal history (if indeed it is of encyclopaedic value - Mr. Clements offer to put Wikipediasts right on this score hardly makes for a "neutral" view point), and b)the issue of Christianity and homosexuality. Iria001:12.28pm, 22 April, 2007 (UTC)

I have edited this article substantially to remove apparent POV. I suggest that any obviously controversial additions to the piece should start in discussion before being included. The opening sentence is a now a simple description, where previously it engaged in theological debate. I would be grateful to receive any factual corrections, with citations. I aim to add footnotes to guarantee the factual accuracy of what is placed here. --LetsBfairNow 15:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it's much more balanced now. Thank you! The Wednesday Island 17:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


The latest editing of this article has replaced one POV with another. It needs further editing as it is clearly intended to be pro-Clements. One piece of data which should not have been edited relates to the fact that Clements had formed a relationship with his research assistant *before* he told his wife that he was gay. This data is expunged in the recent edit. I am in possession of an email from Clements himself in which he openly admits that the relationship he was having with the male research assistant in his church was the reason his wife asked him to speak with other Christian leaders - and not, as the recent edit suggests, because he merely confessed that he was gay. I am happy to forward the relevant email for verification if requested.

wjd 22-04-07 23.35


I have had to register as "Iria002" as I could not (for some reason) access the site on my former Log-in name "Iria001". I feel that further editorial work is required on the Clements article as it is still too biased in the opposite direction. I have a suggestion that should find agreement with everybody, I think. As this is such an emotive issue for Mr. Clements, his family, former colleagues, etc., I propose that views/opinions that cannot be backed up with credible and accurate footnotes should not be included in the article. This will have the advantage of discarding personal attacks/character assassination or tendentious views about what happened, the rights and wrongs of what happened, or about the validity or not of homosexual lifestyle in a Christian context. It doesnt of course mean that sources have no POV, but at least it wont be possible - or at least it will be more difficult for folk to insert views they cannot back up. I also suggest that we need to check sources carefully. LetsbfairNow's reference, for instance, to the piece about Clements in the Daily Telegraph suppresses details - the newspaper article has to be read as a whole to get the complete picture portrayed by the journalist. I will offer my emendations for consideration in the next day or two.

Iria002: 13:08, 23 April, 2007 (UTC)


I have completed my proposed edit which I believe is fair to everybody, especially given that Mr. Clements wrote the initial article himself! I have edited material that is contentious, personal, and quite frankly unencyclopaedic. If people want to find out more about Mr. Clements they can consult the reference index at the foot of the article.

Iria003: 21:04, 28th April, 2007 (UTC)


I have reverted changes to this article, since the proposed changes by Iria involve yet moe POV. What is here is now is not pro-anyone; it merely attempts to state facts and protect wikipedia from being used as a forum for personal attacks. We need to limits additions to sourced and cited facts. This means sourced in the public domain 9eg., newspapers, court records, etc). I am very concerned about Iria's efforts to abuse this article and have written to Iria with my concerns. Iria is also failing to comply with wikipedia style standards (e.g., using the initial paragraph to engage in polemics). The first paragraph in a bio should be limited to a brief summary identification, with detailed information kept for subsequent sections. --LetsBfairNow 00:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The changes introduced by "Lets be fair" violate wikepedia principles and constitute vandalism. Firstly, LBF has NOT written to me or been in any type of correspondance with me. The changes I introduced on the 28th April were entirely fair - I only removed the contentious material which concerned Roy's wife and former colleagues who have a very different opionion about Clements' departure from his church in Cambridge. Their views are not represented in thuis article which is why it was unbalanced. The material I retained in my edit is in fact from Clements original article about himself!!!!!!! My opinions have NOT been inserted as can be seen from a comparison with the original article in the "history" section above. The POVs LBF refers to in the article belong to Roy Clements. LBF is wrong therefore to say that I am "engaging in polemics" in the initial paragraph. I did not write the opening paragraph. They are Clements words.

My suspicion is that LBF is a cover name for Roy Clements. I am ready to offer my apologies to LBF and Mr. Clements if I am wrong about this. I must also say that it is shameful that my Log in name is eradicated each time I make a contribution to the site. This does not sound like academic freedom to me.

Iria004: 10:48, 1 May, 2007 (UTC)


Iria, i have placed a comment on your talk page. I suspect you don't know where your talk page is. You may be new to wikipedia, but you are abusing this site by not following the rules. You have turned a factually clear and readable article into junk again. I suggest wer atart again with very clear statement and then debate, here, contentious matters before includion. The site will continue to block you as long as you persist in vandalism.

--LetsBfairNow 18:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


In an effort to respond to some iria's concerns, I have noted that some people believe Clements had an extra-marital affair. Can we please use this current article as a basis for discussing statements that should now be added or removed from the article. Thanks. P.s., I am not Clements, nor have aI ever met or communicated with him. I am a wikipedian concerned with the intergrity of this site. --LetsBfairNow 18:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


I apologise to LBF and Roy Clements for suggesting that they were one and the same person. It still seems to me that the article is highly POV. But I agree that we should use this page to put forward statements that should be added or edited. I sm new to wikipedia and i may not have received LBF's mail because my log in name has been blocked and I have repeatedly had to change my details. I will offer criticisms about the article as it stands in the next few days.

Iria05 22:13, 1 May, 2007 (UTC)

Iria: Thanks for your comment. That's very good news. I look forward to hearing your comments on the article as it now stands. --LetsBfairNow 23:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

LBF: What I tried to avoid in my previous edit were tendentious, highly POV statements that were unsupportable. I think I achieved that even if I perhaps formatted the article incorrectly. I would be very keen to hear from you regarding what you felt was objectionable about the final form of my edit bearing in mind that the views expressed in the article are all Clements' and that Clements wrote the original piece himself (I didnt for example seek to change his positive views about his own ministry!!). I will give you though one example of the kind of problem I have with your edit. You include the reference to the fact that Clements' ministry ended abruptly when he was "outed" in a newspaper article in 1999. The truth is his ministry ended because he could not retain his post as a Christian pastor while also having a relationship with another man. This is an undisputed fact. His "outing" therefore (again a highly POV angle which is not shared by everybody involved in the episode) had nothing to do with his resignation from his post. Clements could not have continued in his job so long as he was having an extra-marital affair and he knew this. For some time prior to his departure Clements had bowed out of involvement in various church meetings which puzzled members of his congregation who were not aware of what was going on his life at the time. The fact that the article as it stands still presents only Clements angle on this is unfair therefore (though I have noted where you have sought to balance the picture in one or two other places). I would suggest that contentious, personal material such as Clements' veiled attack on his wife and Christian colleagues is unencyclopaedic especially when it represses other viewpoints as his article does in this instance. My edit (which I would appreciate your looking over again)is fair to everybody. It allows Clements to have his say about who he is what he has done why he resigned, yet without pilloring other individuals. As it stands the article is very pro-Clements and pro-Gay because it was written by Clements. Your edit has not neutralised this. Could I also stress, as I hope you are aware, that this is not about or should not be about pro or anti gay issues. It is about being fair to people on all sides who have suffered and been hurt by what happened in 1999 - including Mr Clements. Even if Clements is right about his erstwhile colleagues having a case to answer it is surely not appropriate that Wikipedia should be the place to sort this out. The article as it stands is highly polemical and needs to have its tendentious POV removed. I am keen to hear what you have to say about this.

Iria 11.26, 2nd May, 2007

Iria: You make some good points there. Let's work on this together to get a factually accurate version. We should start by noting the chronology of resignation.It's important that we don't get into the details to much, since the page needs to be reasonably succinct. Can you suggest a revision on the chronology of "outing" and resignation? --LetsBfairNow 19:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

LBF: OK, will get back to you about broad chronology of events.

Iria05 17.37, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

LBF: Just the basic chronology you are asking about from a 'non-Clements' perspective: 1/Clements forms celibate relationship with his research assistant; 2/Clements' wife asks him to end the relationship; 3/ Clements refuses; 4/Clements discloses to her that he is homosexual; 5/Clements' wife shares this with other Christian leaders; 6/Clements claims he was "outed" by these leaders and his wife/this is denied by that latter; 7/ Clements resigns; 8/ Clements leaves his wife and moves in with his new partner.

As I said previously - all of this is contentious - Clements article is highly POV because it does not give the viewpoint of others involved - including his wife. I look forward to hearing your response and suggestions. Iria05 14.21, 9 May, 2007 (UTC)

LBF: I will press ahead with changes for your consideration if I dont hear back from you in the next week Iria05 23:48, 16th May, 2007 (UTC)

I have edited material that is highly POV, unencyclopaedic, contentious, or which is not referenced. Iria05 14.39, 22 May, 2007 (UTC)

I personally would prefer it the chronological information could be included in the article, but in the first instance, references to source material have to found to comply with WP:VERIFY. Then let's worry about the NPOV issues. I have added two links to articles from Evangelicals Now about Roy Clements departure which may be helpful. Sidefall 13:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Sidefall. I think the chronology I outlined should be included to balance the otherwise pro- Clements POV - but this will only eventuate in wrangling I fear. What I have tried to do above is remove the hard core contentious material that Clements has included and leave intact the basics regarding who he is etc and why his ministry came to an end in 1999. I am dead against his former wife and colleagues being pilloried in wikepedia especially as we have not had a chance to hear their side of the story. I reckon too, that once we get into the blame game the whole thing becomes unencyclopaedic and distasteful. Part of Clements' agenda is to tell the world that he was "outed" by Christian leaders - his website not wikepedia is the place to do that. Iria05 23.00, 25 May, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

This article needs some in-line references - to places other than Roy Clements website. See Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons. There should be no unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material in the article (I don't think there is) or the talk page (which I think there is). --Zabdiel 10:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have moved some of the references in line. None are to the subject's website. I'm looking for sources for his biography, but don't have any yet. This material is not contentious or disputed. Sidefall 15:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I've found another reference or two and think this article is now adequately sourced. I've removed the unreferenced tag. Sidefall 16:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)