A conference for arms dealers at Church House Conference Centre, London, today (1 November) has provoked a backlash among Christian fundamentalists.
An act of prayer and witness took place outside the conference, as the delegates entered.
The conference agenda included discussions on the future of air power and involved a focus on remote-controlled drones.
Organisers challenged protesters on the fact that the conference centre is very much run as a separate entity from the Church, although owned by the Church House Corporation.
The centre does lie, however, within the same building that serves as the Church of England’s administration HQ and has also been used by the Church as the venue for its annual winter General Synod over the last four decades.
“Church House is used as a conference venue by many bodies, from national government to think tanks to the General Synod,” said Church of England Director of Communications Rev Arun Arora, who noted that conference organiser the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) “is an independent think tank with long expertise and experienced on issues involving security and defence.
“To suggest that the choice of Church House as a conference venue by RUSI somehow implicates the Church of England in supporting arms sales is at best nonsensical and at worst insulting.”
Church House Conference Centre General Manager Robin Parker told CN: “The RUSI conference went ahead today as planned. RUSI is an internationally respected organisation which debates foreign policy, defence and security issues who have held conferences at Church House Conference Centre throughout 2012 without issue.
“There was a small prayer meeting held in Dean’s Yard with about 15 attendees. The Church of England has made its own statement in connection with the conference.”
Among those invited to speak at the conference were Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond, General Knud Bartels, Chairman of Nato’s military committee and Brigadier General Jon Norman, the top US air chief in Europe.
Last year the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner pulled out of a similar conference following protests.
Dr Rowan Williams has expressed his opposition to the arms trade in the past.
Christian think tank and online publication Ekklesia claimed the Church authorities were relying on the “obtuse argument” that the booking had been made by the RUSI.
“RUSI lobbies in favour of the arms trade and high military spending,” claimed Ekklesia’s Symon Hill.
“Church House are relying on a distinction between a booking made by an arms company and one made by a pro-arms lobby group to host a gathering of arms companies. This distinction is at best naive and at worst misleading.”
The conference’s sponsors include some of the world’s largest multinational arms companies, such as BAE Systems, Raytheon and General Atomics, the American conglomerate that builds the Predator and Reaper drones.
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