Bishop John Gladwin, the “John Reid” of the Church of England, will have little to celebrate beyond his 64th birthday when he returns from Africa at the end of this month.

Like so many far-left liberal activists in the Church of England, the Bishop of Chelmsford started life as an evangelical. A member of the Christian Union, in 1977 he even authored a paper, Obeying Christ in a Changing World, with a group that included Canon Chris Sugden, nemesis of the liberal wing who now runs the ultra-conservative lobby group Anglican Mainstream.

The paper was in preparation for an evangelical congress. Gladwin also lectured at the evangelical St John’s, Durham, and his conservative credentials seemed secure. Evangelicals believe the liberalism set in when he became secretary of the Church’s Board for Social Responsibility. How far he has travelled can be judged by his becoming patron this month of the gay activist organisation Changing Attitude.

This new patronage is what has led to his little local difficulty in Kenya. When he visited the Embu diocese with his wife, Lydia, and 20 curates, local newspapers reported his links to a “gay and lesbian club”. The papers described the “seething” reaction to these reports of one of his staff, Canon Roger Matthews, to a cathedral congregation. Waving a copy of a local newspaper, he reportedly said: “If the story were true, we would not have dared to step in any church in this country.”

Bishop Gladwin went on to confirm 29 people at the cathedral service. But the provincial archbishop, Benjamin Nzimbi, checked out the stories, found out they were indeed true and instructed his clergy to cancel all events involving Chelmsford. Now Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has intervened, sending over a special envoy to mediate. Back home, six of his own clergy in Chelmsford had already declared themselves in “impaired communion” with him for his views.

And it is not only evangelicals who are unhappy with Gladwin. He is chairman of Christian Aid and his support for the recent General Synod motion backing divestment from Caterpillar, the US bulldozer company, has also provoked anger. He told synod during the divestment debate (which took place shortly after the election of Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Israel) that the problem was not Caterpillar but the Government of Israel.

“He has done more than anyone in the country to bring enmity between Jews and Anglicans,” writes a Manchester academic, Irene Lancaster in her blog this week.