WE are writing in response to the article about Freedom Church in last week’s edition of the Hereford Times.

If we were to deal with all of the inaccuracies and misrepresentations there would not be enough room to print our response, so we will keep to some main issues.

Does anyone really think that we have arranged marriages? The suggestion is too bizarre to spend time on.

We have never encouraged 14- year-old girls to “consider marrying older men”. Nor have we ever implied that if a girl were to be baptised “it will lead to a relationship with someone in the church”. Our guidance to young people and their parents is that they leave romantic relationships until they are 16 years old, for reasons of maturity.

We do not brainwash people, and are certainly not a cult. We love it when new people join our church, but if Freedom Church is not the place for them, they are quite free to leave and find somewhere or something that better matches their lives.

We do have men’s, women’s and mixed gender groups, as does almost every other church we know.

Karin Cooke is incorrectly quoted, and the wrong name is given to one of the complainants.

We are extremely grateful for the wave of support that has come our way from politicians, headteachers, soldiers, local solicitors, the other church leaders in Herefordshire and the extraordinary people in our county. Encouragingly our attendance last Sunday was significantly higher than usual.

You’ve heard a lot about our church in the past few days, you’ve heard what they have said, and on our website freedomchurch.co.uk you can hear what we have said.

We would love to invite you to be our special guest this Sunday and see for yourself.

SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM, Freedom Church, Hereford.