One of the telling observations in the recent thirtyone:eight report into Jonathan Fletcher is the way he was allowed to take a key, even dominant, role in the structures of conservative evangelicalism in Britain. Some have described Fletcher as the ‘Pope of Evangelical Conservatives’. We have had cause to refer, on many occasions, to the tightly knit but closed world of powerful and often wealthy parishes that belong to this network, now known as the ReNew constituency. With their wealth and their authoritarian approach to theology, these churches have ended up in many cases as semi-independent of CofE structures. In many cases, these parishes can be understood as forming a church within a church. Typically, they have little to do with the other local CofE parishes. The central Church has provided them with a ‘flying bishops’, ostensibly to protect their clergy from the taint of women as priests or bishops. It still, however, suits these churches to be thought of as part of the Church of England. In practical terms, such as receiving or giving anything to the central body, these parishes might just as well be joined to a completely separate denomination.
About two and half years ago, the Bishop of Oxford issued an Ad Clerum to his diocese. It contained mild support for same sex relationships. It was hardly a radical statement on the topic of inclusivity, but it still succeeded in uniting all the con-evo forces in the Oxford diocese to band together with others and sign a letter of protest to their bishop. Around 105 individuals signed the letter. Surviving Church took the time to examine all those who had signed the letter and were identifying with this conservative protest. The 70- 80 clergy on the list proved, on close examination, not to represent the same number of parishes. A good segment were found to be working for foreign-funded parachurch institutions centred in and around the city of Oxford. There are, of course also large ordained teams at the main con-evo parishes in the Diocese. Like the big conservative parishes in London, a church like St Ebbes will attract young hopefuls among the newly ordained who desperately want to work there.. But I noticed another interesting fact. There are a cluster of parishes in the Oxford diocese in the most attractive surroundings with youngish con-evo vicars. They all appear to have the qualities that Fletcher was reputed to favour. Such ‘golden boys’ needed to be young, Iwerne alumni, and also the product of the ‘right’ school, university and theological college. Two of these parishes in the Oxford diocese, now with strongly con-evo vicars, were known personally to me in the 80s and 90s, at a time when they were firmly middle of the road in terms of churchmanship. Their tradition was closer to BCP with a penchant for Mattins at 11 am. Then sometime after 1998, both these parishes had appointed young men, who had each served their title in one of the major con-evo London churches. Were these appointments organised by the networking of powerful evangelicals under the oversight of Fletcher? The appointment process is shrouded in mystery so we cannot know for certain. Very quickly, after a year of St Helen’s type ministry, the old original congregations had mostly departed and a new younger group had moved in. Because the old congregation were no longer there to complain about the suddenness of the changes, the church authorities at the centre heard nothing and saw nothing. The same thing happened to a parish near mine in the Cotswolds, this time in the Gloucester diocese. This was the village of Bibury. I had known two former Vicars, who presided over a conservative and traditional congregation. The village and the Vicarage in it are perhaps the most delightful in the whole of England. The church, now part of a Team Ministry, has also received a con-evo incumbent, the former head of Scripture Union, Tim Hastie-Smith. This Vicar is mentioned in the current Scripture Union report about John Smyth. I believe the report refers to his self-criticism that he was extraordinarily lacking in curiosity over the behaviour of Smyth and his subsequent ‘exile’.
For parishes to change churchmanship and tradition so abruptly is unusual and needs some explanation. Because the three vicars concerned have precisely the right background to be part of Jonathan Fletcher’s circle of followers, I think, after reading the thirtyone:eight Review, to surmise that it is highly likely that Fletcher himself used his social contacts and charm to manipulate other patrons to allow him to put his own man in. All these candidates, and indeed all proteges of Fletcher, are eminently socially suited to run wealthy riverside country parishes. This is true of the Oxford parishes. Like Fletcher himself, these clergy from his circle know how to charm and manipulate in equal measure to get their way. These qualities, as the report describes. allowed Fletcher to get his own way whenever ‘difficult’ people challenged him and had the temerity to ask questions.
In my original scrutiny in this blog of the individual clergy who signed the letter of protest against the Bishop of Oxford in 2018, I discovered a number of other parishes which may have experienced similar changes. They also were in extremely pleasant areas and showed possible evidence of what I shall call ‘patronage tampering’. I shall not name these parishes as the evidence that Fletcher nobbled powerful people to override their power of patronage, is circumstantial. But Fletcher’s place in Debretts, his membership of Nobody’s Friends Dining Club and his extensive contacts right across the Church of England suggests that he was able to exercise a great deal of what I refer to as patronage power over a long period. What was in it for him and the con-evo block in the Church of England?
The extension of the cluster of ‘plum’ parishes across Britain which can now claim to be con-evo, enables the ReNew body to grow in strength. More importantly they now control the future patronage of pleasant parishes to accommodate the large numbers of ordinands that this tradition is producing year by year. Many clergy never leave the London evangelical circuit around All Souls and St Helen’s. We note that the recently appointed Vicar of All Soul’s has never worked outside London. Indeed, his only curacy is the one he has served in St Helen’s. In a similar way the new Vicar of St Aldate’s Oxford (a separate evangelical network in no way like ReNew or operating in a similar way) has only served a single curacy – at Holy Trinity Brompton. The candidates for the top jobs in the evangelical/charismatic world may have had to wait a long time as junior members of staff for their great promotion. But their experience is narrow. It is also unlikely they will ever move again since their limited experience of the wider church does not make good bishop material for the rest of us.
Jonathan Fletcher’s legacy is probably long lasting. His personality and ministry style is likely to have affected deeply most of the large numbers of clergy he has mentored. While the report calls for the dismantling of the con-evo leadership structures, it is unlikely to happen. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac and the con-evo constituency has become addicted to enjoying this power. Fletcher certainly revelled in the way that his power enabled him to do what he wished in ways that we can see as deeply manipulative. The Fletcher legacy will also be felt in parishes across the country where there has been a con-evo ‘takeover’. I would love to see someone do research in these churches to discover the true history of what happens when in the name of biblical truth you destroy a congregation in order to create a new one. The ‘destroyed’ are power abuse victims every bit as much as sex abuse victims. The only problem is that they are the forgotten victims of a Church that thinks about the institution more than it thinks about those who are part of it, but have effectively been expelled as part of a con-evo Fletcher inspired take-over..
Thank you for this – the whole con-evo world seems millions of miles from the Kingdom of God, as preached by Jesus of Nazareth
It’s very hard to have to say this. But here goes. The con evo constituency has given itself permission to do as it pleases. No one has stood up to it. The group is now out of control because the rest of the Church has simply allowed this to happen. Con evo clergy should repent of their attitudes of arrogance, entitlement and control.
The wider Church has soft and hard levers which must now be used to bring the group to heel. For example, bishops need not license clergy unless they’ve been satisfied that the parish’s ministry is being fully conducted in good faith with the wider Church. All CofE clergy should act in accordance with, and genuinely in the spirit of, the ordination declarations and oaths of canonical obedience that they have taken, the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of Clergy and – for what should be obvious reasons – the Nolan Principles.
So it would seem, Lizzie.
Stephen: in what sense are you using the words ‘patron’ and ‘patronage’? I ask because in terms of parochial appointments, unless a living is suspended, legally the Patron (capitalised on purpose)still chooses the person, and requests the Bishop to institute. It would be interesting to know what the breakdown of Patronage is in the parishes you refer to, especially whether any of them have Patronage society connections (e.g. CPAS) or any other information you can dig out about them.
On the other hand, patronage (small case now ….) as in the sinister grooming of people by Fletcher, is indeed another matter …..
I may be referring to the system in operation before Common Tenure and other more modern practices. Certainly in the 80s and 90s patrons, especially private ones like an individual land owner or Oxbridge college had a great of weight in the process of appointment. I held my last English post by courtesy of Emmanuel College Cambridge, an institution with which I had no ties, as it happened. I am speculating that churches were able to be manipulated by external influences. One of the parishes I refer to in the Oxford diocese was in the gift of a private aristocratic patron and was thus at that time able to be ‘nobbled’ by someone like Fletcher. PCCs were less powerful in those days. But the legacy of that system lives on. Once a con-evo parish always a con-evo parish. If Fletcher was involved in an appointment 25 years ago, he has created something lasting 100 years.
The Simeon Trust, for example, is still patron of 200 parishes, and has traditionally tended to appoint conservative evangelicals – though their website says they aren’t exclusively evangelical and will respect a parish’s tradition. They used to be patrons of Bradford Cathedral (alternately with, I think, the Bishop of Bradford) and appointed Iwerne man Brandon Jackson to be Provost there in the 70s.
Tim Hastie-Smith, who is criticised in the Camina Review, trained at Wycliffe Hall (where I also trained) and was known to be a friend of Prince Edward’s. The friendship may not have lasted, of course, but those sorts of connections must be a great help if you want a posh parish. I wonder if anyone has data for the number of parishes with royal patronage?
The conservative evangelical Church Society has the patronage of 123 parishes. They have a very poor record, incidentally, of appointing women to their parishes, even when the parishes are not themselves opposed to having a female vicar. Fletcher may well have been able to exercise some patronage through them.
There are also parishes and cathedrals which are Crown appointments and these appointments are managed from Downing Street. I had a college who went there to be interviewed for a new post. He was at the time vicar of a very troubled Salford parish and he got the job, which shows that some Crown appointments at least are open to those not from privileged backgrounds.
Might some patrons be labouring under an assumption that they have exemption from equality legalisation when it comes to patronage appointments? It seems they don’t. The House of Bishops’ Declaration, GS Misc 1076, para 18, and the Guidance, GS Misc 1077, make clear that it’s the theological conviction of the parish, as signalled/adjudged by its PCC, that allows discrimination against women in clergy appointments.
A pattern of discrimination against women in patronage appointments would be problematic if affected parishes had decided that they did not want to exclude women from ministry, and had not passed a relevant resolution.
There’s no provision that I’m aware of for patronage holders to impose male headship ministry on congregations and wider parishes simply because patrons wish to. Such a pattern of appointments would be very disturbing. Presumably a balancing of rights would come into play. Can any ecclesiastical lawyers confirm the position on this?
Stephen, I find elements of this piece strange. First, you keep referring to “con-evo”. I am not a conservative evangelical, at all, but I find the use of the term derogatory. It is not – after all – a term that conservative evangelicals would use of themselves. For someone who claims to stand against “harm” and “abuse”, I am not sure why you would perpetuate the use of a derogatory term.
Secondly, you introduce your usual trope – the tenuous link back to HTB. In this case, it reveals a lack of rigour in your argument. The appointment process at St Aldate’s was a competitive one – with some excellent candidates, some with longer clerical experience than the appointed candidate. The panel selected Stephen Foster. Foster is a criminal barrister, with degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, who grew up on a Luton housing estate (he certainly didn’t go to the right school or selective Summer camps). He has also been the UK Director of Alpha, with a very significant budget and sizable staff team, far greater than nearly any church in the UK. They serve thousands of churches in the UK, one quarter of them being Roman Catholic. I dispute that his experience is “narrow”. His appointment may also be divinely inspired. Finally, I would take a bet on Foster being a bishop one day.
John, all short hand titles are imprecise. I can say however that ConEvo is a concise way to differentiate a certain sector within evangelicalism and apart from being character efficient on Twitter, it is used widely.
I have been working on these matters supporting people from that tradition, both on these emerging safeguarding matters and when some fall foul of the Church’s broken CDM system.
They have not the slightest objection to my using the term. Some use it themselves. I really don’t think it is perjorative and I constantly add the
term “ decent “ to it to be clear that I know there is a large legitimate part of the CofE which must be differentiated from the small core group of abusers, manipulators and silencers. I am sure many affected congregations were kept in the dark.
We need something to denote who we are describing. It is as good as any.
I’m puzzled by Conevo – why not Coneva?? Where did the ‘o’ creep in?
Thanks Leslie, I’ve often wondered that. Maybe because conservative evangelicals don’t favour the feminine ending?
I use the term con-evo as a convenient shorthand for the conservative evangelicals that look to people like the clergy at All Souls and St Helen’s. If I leave the word con off, I get accused of painting all those who use the word evangelical as a self-designation as belonging to the same orbit as JF. I do not. The ReNew lot, who are wrapped with GAFCON and AMiE are a distinct strand. I am well aware that St Aldates is not in the same orbit (I made this point in the text)but I mentioned them because I believe that the HTB network has a problem by appointing candidate to major posts after a single curacy in one place. HTB may be many things but it is not typical of the CofE. He may be an excellent person in every way but I believe that there should be a way of widening experience before taking on a major job like the one in Oxford.
Thanks Stephen. I would highlight that St Aldates is not part of the HTB network – they made the appointment themselves in their own competitive process/process of discernment. I would also add that Foster’s appointment certainly does not imply that they will be joining the HTB network – indeed, I understand that the appointment was conditional on it. And rightly so, St Aldates is a church that does not necessarily need to be part of any network.
Dear Stephen, whilst I fully get your argument, and have indeed seen the pattern you suggest at work in various contexts, I would make to points.
First, I think it is important to recognise how fissiparous the conservative evangelical constituency is. David Banting has made the point here in Chelmsford – a diocese with a very significant Reform presence – there are now three evangelocal networks at loggerheads with one another when in living memory there was one.
Second, the pathologies you describe are characteristic of many other such groups, and indeed – mutatis mutandis – what you describe could equally apply to the catholicizing of some parishes and indeed dioceses in the early 20th century.
Above all it is only when we choose wholeheartedly not to live silos that the church can genuinely begin to be a foretaste of the kingdom. I love it here that on a typical Sunday morning we have Christians of up to 12 denominations worshipping together, including the local Baptist minister. After all, as apparently a well known American lawyer said, I never leant anything from someone I agreed with!
Labels like “conservative”, “liberal”, “evangelical”, “charismatic” are always going to offend some of us when we think they don’t properly apply. Perhaps we can move on and see them as a limited shorthand.
I attended at least 2 conservative evangelical churches for many years. I say “at least”, because a third changed its churchmanship over the years. The vicar sampled the “Toronto” phenomena at HTB and shifted towards the charismatic Anglican approach. His conversion was incomplete and neither had he been rigidly conservative in the first place.
Some of the church’s congregation moved towards the charismatic expressions with him. Many did not. Others, seeking a charismatic church joined. The result was one church with at least two congregations and 4 services catering for a variety of expressions of worship from the hymn book to happy clappy.
There was some “cross fertilisation” between the groupings, some generosity of thought and not a little acrimony. Perhaps a truce could describe things. Eventually the vicar moved on and a new incumbent was appointed. This latter was from a well known conservative evangelical church line and almost from the outset there were significant problems.
Whether the Simeon Trust patron or the PCC or both were the main movers in bringing him in, I don’t know.
Not a few new people joined, but this time from a conservative evangelical background, and I got the feeling there was a sort of reverse takeover going on.
The principal cohort offended by the new guy, were women. Many had enjoyed significant influence in the church’s activities leading actively in fruitful ministries. In short they were upset. Then their supportive husbands were too.
Things came to a head after numerous complaints had been made to the Arch Deacon I believe and after troubled meetings the man departed. 300 people left. 200 because they couldn’t stand him, and 100 because they loved him and didn’t appreciate his acrimonious departure.
Can you try and takeover a congregation? Yes you can. It will be messy though and people often don’t go quietly.
In this case, in my opinion, the church never really recovered. HTB seeded another church (not Anglican) locally which mopped up many of the charismatic types, and a new conservative evangelical (again not specifically Anglican) church was seeded locally with if I recall correctly, seed capital from Emmanuel Church Wimbledon.
Does the church as a whole grow healthily as a result of these manoeuvres?
E&oe
‘For parishes to change churchmanship and tradition so abruptly is unusual’
This happened in a church in Coventry in the early 1990s. The interregnum was barely four months. In the first six weeks, out went vestments, 30+ choir dismissed including about 18 children, BCP evensong cancelled, which attracted 100+ worshippers in a UPA multicultural parish. Most of the congregation walked away. The vicar’s ambition to introduce music group and choruses instead of evensong came to nothing. By the time he moved on, Sunday attendance was about 24 in a parish of 20,000. The adjacent parish was Forward in Faith but lost a large chunk of worshippers to the Ordinariate.
Sadly that echoes what happened in the Anglo-Catholic church where I was confirmed. This happened with the arrival of a new Vicar coinciding with the introduction of the ASB. The richly-furnished church was entirely stripped: lectern, pulpit, stalls, seating and side altars all gone, the Lady Chapel altar and Sacristy literally demolished, vestments abandoned with the liturgy. Most of the items went to Japan, I was told. This happened after I moved to a different part of the country but I had taken a series of photographs of the church as it was, and still have these.
I and another former congregation member were unable to locate any faculty having been granted for this.
Petra and Rowland, those stories are sad and shocking. Where were the archdeacon and bishop in all this?
In the case I mentioned, I don’t know who was patron of the living, but assumed that the bishop was complicit in the appointment of a priest who effectively transformed an Anglo-Catholic parish (founded as such) to something in stark contrast. I forgot to mention that many of the congregation decamped to another A-C parish about ten miles away involving commuting through outer-London suburbia. However, this was three decades ago, and the church seems to be thriving now, albeit in an entirely different form.
When I was at Oxford and part of OiCCU I was told that JF had said that he wouldn’t preach at OiCCU if they had a female president. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Inter-Collegiate_Christian_Union and the list of former presidents I wonder if it is a coincidence that it took until 2018 for this to happen. (Bearing in mind OiCCU is not a church).
I have read the report – it’s been helpful in understanding similar controlling experiences we experienced in Newfrontiers. There there is only patronage. Senior ministry jobs are not advertised at all. The overseer will place people in other churches and the congregation have no role in this. If people fall foul of this then they are out in cold.
I wasn’t a part of Iwerne or ECW but I was a part of movements influenced by them. Some things I never bought the argument like the strategic value of elite camps. But at the time Oiccu no doubt influenced by JF and Iwerne pushed prayer triplets and I was part of several. In the report we see that prayer triplets were used by JF as a means of control.
So what is harder to work out is the place of prayer triplets now. Do they have value? or are they open to manipulation. This is a minor example but this is the kind of detail I think practice should be looked at.
We’ve already seen “enforcers” sent out to try and silence the critics. The second and regular maintenance strategy will continue to be a three line whip on not reading any material that critiques the established dogma.
In response we need to broaden the “survivor” support system to include those rare members who dare to think for themselves and find their mental lives fragmenting with the collapse of key figures like this.
There are many sincere people who will be heart-broken by the news of the leadership’s dishonesty and disingenuousness.
Good point. Their spiritual support system is collapsing.
Some of them will be questioning their faith, their perceptions of true and false, their judgement of character, and much else besides. It’s a pitiable state to be in – but when that psychological framework collapses it can sometimes lead slowly to a more open and fruitful spiritual and emotional state. They need our prayers as well as our support.
The ConEvo world has many of the features of the Crystalline Personality I wrote about here a while ago.
http://survivingchurch.org/2021/01/05/the-crystalline-personality/
‘They won’t change their views in the light of new data. They can’t compromise or see another’s point of view – to do either would threaten their very being’.
There’s a young church history lecturer at St Mellitus College in London currently completing a PhD on this tribe.
The college website says his PhD research “focuses on the summer camps run by EJH Nash at Iwerne Minster in the interwar years and mid-twentieth century. He is considering the links between Nash’s ministry to the public schools and evangelical leadership formation, in particular conservative evangelical attitudes to class, masculinity and holiness.”
Plenty of material of late to feed his research which will surely be an interesting read. I wonder whether he writes as an ‘insider’, from the fringes, a former member of it, or whether he stands outside the network.
If anybody attends a conservative evangelical church with links to the main networks in that tradition, how much publicity has been given to the issues raised by the JF/Smyth reports and is there any sign of visible contrition?
In my church it is none and none. It has not been raised, even by way of prayers for those who have been abused, and most of the congregants who are not active watchers of sites such as this have no knowledge of it.
These churches are not going to move on until the problem is acknowledged by the leadership (and not just those who were expected to respond in an official capacity)
If Smyth and Fletcher weren’t your actual vicar or bishop this is treated as if it “doesn’t matter”. Happenings in religion are dictated by parallel channels. The faddish camps and conferences are another instance. And the parachurchalysing organisations.
St Helen’s Bishopgate made statement from Sunday morning. This was pulled from their website shortly afterwards but easy to find on twitter.
William Taylor said that the IAG supplement cheapened the 9:31 report. This was is in contrast to All Souls who said that people should read both the report and the IAG supplement in their Sunday morning statement.
He said that St Helen’s has commissioned a prominent employment barrister to carry out a culture report – he’s interviewed 80 current and former staff – no major issues but 25 recommendations for them to consider.
What’s such a contrast to before is that the 80’s a small group of leaders could contrive a readership of less than 20 for the first Smyth report and completely control the information flow, this is simply not possible in the age of the internet and twitter. I was heartened in the 31:8 report by comments on the usefulness of the internet in exposing this.
sorry 31:8 review not 9:31
William Taylor’s statement was shameful, and a good example of how the problem got to be so bad as it did.
The statement from All Souls Langham Place is very good, however, and so is this blog from Chris Green. https://ministrynutsandbolts.com/2021/03/29/the-tip-of-the-iceberg-there-are-only-six-ways-for-senior-leaders-to-react-to-the-jonathan-fletcher-report-three-of-them-are-deadly-and-two-more-are-unwise-comments-closed/
It would be interesting to see a terms of reference for the culture review at St Helens. Were contributions anonymous? This was essential in the 31:8 review for people to speak without fear.
Why did they only speak to current and former staff? – as they can be those most bought into the current culture
The con-evo constituency is not an homogeneous unity, but rather a loose aggregation of churches with (to the outsider at least) a similar churchmanship. Hence many within this will think of themselves as quite independent and nothing to do with what’s being going on with Fletcher and Smyth.
There is a network of connections however, particularly for those at the top. And these are the men who decide what everyone else is allowed to believe and indeed the strict limits of those belief ideas. The policing of belief boundaries comes down from the top and carries equal weight to the gospel and in this writer’s opinion, often more.
The greatest threat to the con-evo congregations, is not from outside, but from loss of credibility on the inside. However, despite easy access to Google and other internet sources, the culture of deference to leaders and deliberate deafness to new data make progress for change very slow.
One important factor not to be overlooked here is wealth. Many folk give generously, even sacrificially. I’m not really talking about them. I’m talking about the few big donors who (I dare to say) buy a seat at the table.
Big donors are a feature of a wider church genre than just con-evo. The bigger charismatic Anglican churches are replete with them.
As well as influence, money serves another curious purpose too, and please bear with me on this. High profile people use the church for reputational laundering.
“He’s a big speaker at that church in the City. Solid chap.”
It may be a little bit of a stretch for readers of this blog to imagine that association with a big church could be seen as a good thing in the business world. But it still is. Just about.
As the scandals roll out one after the other, association with Big Church becomes less of an asset and more of a liability. Eventually the bankrollers will be moving away and taking their substantial contributions with them. That is the risk right there. And those players will be paying VERY close attention to the data coming out and making their moves a lot more quickly than the normal glacial pace of Church change.
Using the metaphor of a flotilla of ships, one or two at least have been holed below the waterline. The disparate responses to the Fletcher shipwrecking illustrate the lack of cohesion in the broad grouping.
Once again I call for a response of grace and vigilance to provide shelter for those caught in the storm.
Stephen, I normally find your pieces excellent, but I’m troubled by this one. You seem to lump together a number of disconnected elements .. and the one specific that I have personal knowledge of appears to be simply wrong.
Like you, I’ve known the last three vicars of Bibury, and indeed am related to one of them; I’ve also known Tim Hastie Smith for half a century and, before I retired, I was his parochial neighbour and a colleague in the benefice where he still works. I’ve taken a number of services in Bibury parish in recent years and I know many individuals in the congregation. It is not (and therefore has not, as you suggest, become) by any stretch of the imagination a “conservative evangelical” parish.
Associating, however vaguely, a man of Tim’s breadth and integrity with the murky ecclesiastical underworld of some of those who are rightly held up to scrutiny and well-deserved criticism in your columns verges on the calumnious.
Many thanks. I do not wish to make any comment about the piece above or the other remarks that have been made, save to say that I have found services at Bibury (and also at Barnsley and Winson) to be fairly middle of the road. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention. My only complaint about the benefice is that service times are not advertised online (as far as I have been able to make out), and that I have really struggled to identify the service pattern. Other benefices in east Gloucestershire are much easier to ‘navigate’ in that sense, or were at least before lockdown 1.
I have found Bibury church to be creditably well attended, despite the parking difficulties and the awkward one-way system by the church (parking at Barnsley is also very difficult).
I assume that Mr Hastie-Smith (whom I have seen in clerical garb at Bibury rather than the usual ‘conevo’ suit or open necked shirt) is HFD, since he is a former headmaster of that evangelical redoubt, Dean Close School in Cheltenham and is, or has been, a consultant at Gabbitas (the educational agency which will be familiar to readers of Auden and Waugh). Indeed, along with John Witheridge (now at Oxford), he was just about the last clerical head of an HMC school.
What’s HFD?
House-for-Duty. He’s housed, but not paid, for his work as a vicar.
But why are we discussing Tim so much behind his back? In the interest of transparency, and the avoidance of malicious gossip, I’m copying some (but not all!) of this conversation to him. (I found Christopher Shell’s final comments about him quite unworthy ..not “ironic” as suggested, so much as disturbingly insinuatory.)
Sorry, I thought it was going to be something to do with Dean Close School and education. I assume HMC is Head Masters’ Conference?
Yes. It’s another confusing TLA.
(Three-Letter Acronym.)
Thank you, Mr Partington, and I apologise for using jargon. I have had no issues whatsoever with Mr Hastie-Smith (I have heard a couple of sermons from him, and liked them both), and am also slightly confused about why it is that he has been singled out for attention.
I just thought I should make these remarks, as I have toured much of Gloucester diocese (as well as other dioceses), attending services parish by parish prior to the advent of the virus.
I have never had a problem with Tim either, but the fact remains that the reviewer singled him out for attention. This was for his dubious handling of the Iwerne situation when he was president of Scripture Union.
Quite the opposite. I have rarely met anyone for whom I have more respect. And secondly, I never hint or insinuate anything – why would one, when one could speak straight.
I should add that my comment about service patterns is not directed at Bibury, where the pattern is very clear and consistent (though I don’t know what it has been since March 2020), but Barnsley and Winson.
Also, I should add – a propos your old benefice of Winchcombe – that although working out when things were happening at Winchcombe itself was straightforward, it was not so easy determining when things were happening at some of the other churches within that benefice (such as Hailes), nor some of the churches between Winchcombe and the Worcestershire border.
Re John’s comment, it may be good to reflect on the fact that not raking over things may at times spring from good motives. It does eat up time, and although endless rehearsing of details will not always spring from impure motives (it may, for example, spring from the investigative spirit that links truth to accuracy) sometimes it will whenever the participants possess a human nature.
If therefore THS was incurious, just like the interlocutor of Charles Foster on an earlier thread did not want to waste time on negative talk when there were positive plans in hand, this may have sprung from good motives. Sometimes not-completely-thought-through motives, but good motives. And first-hand knowledge of how he-did-this/she-said-that talk (a) can spiral and become a juggernaut, (b) can eat up precious time from more positive pursuits, (c) can be unsettling in how it resembles the tabloids’ approach. We need more nuance. There can be good motives and bad motives involved – it is not a case of one or the other.
THS was absolutely in the thick of Iwerne culture – few more so. And many at the heart of that culture are of unusual integrity. If even he knew so few details and so late, then that can for ever be held up as an example of the incredible lengths to which avoidance of speaking behind people’s backs can go, and the incredible self-control (and/or training, discipline, positive outlook) that that implies.
I am just pleading for this notable angle to be seen as *part* of the big picture as it is surely *part* of reality, and it is the task of the big picture to portray reality faithfully.
‘And many at the heart of that culture are of unusual integrity.’
That isn’t the conclusion the reviewers of the Smyth and Fletcher cases reach, and I don’t think it’s the conclusion most readers of the reports would reach either.
Janet, all I mean by ‘many at the heart of that culture are of unusual integrity’ is that the true picture is that
(a) we are talking of camps with staggering numbers of leaders and staggering numbers of campers (where, therefore, it would be hard to hide anything) and
(b) the caricature picture is that it was all John Smyths and Jonathan Fletchers and their recruits and circles, and all the other hundreds of people simply did not exist. The caricature/over-selective picture is what, for example, readers of the Press may want to read. The Report did not cover more than a tiny fraction of individuals. And of course the more restricted the power and intelligence-network is, then it may sometimes happen that all the fewer in number are in the know and/or to blame. Don’t you find even THS’s ignorance of all this – at the heart of Iwerne – utterly telling?
Many in that culture are of unusual integrity. My point is: why should they be crowded out, just because they are the ones whose names do not appear in the papers? It is only Spitting Image that is populated exclusively by the celebrity names. Real life is not like that.
Hello Christopher. The trouble is, if something ghastly is going on, and no one says anything, one doesn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that “obviously” they don’t know. Unfortunately, the commonest explanation is that they did know, but had a reason to turn a blind eye. And if you’ve seen that happen, it goes double.
Magdalene Cambridge was one of the 3 main colleges there where JS had a following. THS of Magdalene (and in the same generation Andy Rimmer et al.) will have arrived in Cambridge only about a year or so after such as Simon Doggart and Richard Gittins (both of Magdalene, and the former JS’s favoured son), and will have been present at Magdalene and its CU, and at the Round Church, during the height of the cult, and at the time of its capitulation too. It is therefore a tribute to their rectitude and positive outlook that they heard nothing.
I see that you’re being ironic? In any case those investigating the extent of the abusive network will welcome the additional information given. After all, recent interviews and Reports indicate the abuse so far revealed is just the tip of the iceberg.
No Steve. I am not being ironic. I am being absolutely straight, and I would always find that kind of ‘irony’ underhand and cruel and ill-informed anyway, and unpleasantly indirect. 2 have read my words that way, but it could not be more wrong.
Just to reiterate – I am being straight and truthful and not ironic. I am talking about people I respect, in some cases greatly.
Andy Rimmer and Tim Hastie Smith then went on to train for the ministry at Wycliffe Hall, alongside a number of other Iwerne men. The Iwerneites stood out because most of them dressed alike, in navy Guernsey jumpers and brown brogues. They all kept their sermon notes in identical Filofaxes, too.
The story was told that one young Iwerne man, asked to give a talk for the first time, asked for ‘the Filofax’. He thought there was just one, with all the notes for talks in it, and it was passed round to the next chap due to speak.
The Bash campers were a pretty tightly knit bunch and some of them seemed to have little time for the rest of us. Others were perfectly nice chaps.
I roomed there 1988-9 – maybe we overlapped.
I left to be ordained in 1987, so I don’t think we did. Were you a student at Wycliffe, or on sabbatical?
Christopher
I’m intrigued by the phrase “unusual integrity”. Is that qualitatively any different from the “exceptional integrity” that I expect and receive from those that I work with regardless of their educational and social status? I have seen you use that phrase before, what are we to make of it?
Tim Hastie Smith is known to be an associate of Jonathan Fletcher and from what we have heard a likely recipient of some of JF’s patronage. Now we have begun to see the lid taken off some of the murky relationships between Scripture Union, Titus/Iwerne Camps and some well known individuals at the top of the con-evo tree, the best defence against rumour and innuendo is a full frank disclosure by all the individuals about what they knew and when. Apart from THS mentions in the recent report by the SU, there are other older issues that suggest a less than totally intact reputation in the safeguarding arena. I have changed the text above slightly so that it does not suggest the parish of Bibury has changed its tradition, the one that I knew thirty years ago.
That’s fair, Stephen. And as for your reference to historical issues with with safeguarding concerns (on Tim’s part or anyone else’s, my own no doubt included), I think that those of us especially who are a little older have had to learn a lot during our lifetimes. Charitable assumptions that some of us may once have made on the basis of shared theological (or class!) grounds are now rightly seen as having been dangerously collusive.
You’re very gracious, so I don’t wish to aim a low blow. But, John, if some of you can see that you made mistakes, what follows? Are you trying to put right what you did wrong? That’s what I most need. I want the church to put it right.
Obviously where remediable harm has been done, it should be “put right” as a matter of priority. I can’t speak for others, but in my own case I was thinking of times when in a leadership position I trusted colleagues and employees (paid or voluntary) too naively .. especially in the ‘eighties & ‘nineties when these things were perhaps a little less understood by some of us.
One staff member whose employment I terminated about thirty years ago on what would now be described as safeguarding grounds went on to apply for a diocesan position. When the Bishop overruled his appointment, also on safeguarding grounds, the individual took the diocese to an employment tribunal .. and won! The Bishop then had the dubious distinction of being named as “Stonewall Bigot of the Year” (the man happened to be gay, which was not in fact the point at issue), and the church was pilloried in the press – for the precisely opposite reasons of why it now normally is.
So these things are very complex, compounded as in the case above by the church sometimes being unable to defend itself without compromising pastoral confidentiality.
But to return to your question: certainly we should do everything in our power to repair damage that we may have caused, however inadvertently.
I’m sorry: I didn’t fill in the name box! That was me, just now.
Can I ask an open question here. I don’t know if this is the right posting to raise it but it has some relevance.
How many of those who are converted to Christianity of any stripe (and go on to full time Christian ordained ministry) in the liminal spaces of a public school/Oxbridge education are still in service after 5-10 years. I can only speak anecdotally but from a conversation with a vicar who came through this experience only 4 from 10 ordinands from his Christian Union circle (or whatever they are called in Oxbridge) are still in ordained ministry and 2 of those are in churches with a high student or young professional attendance. In each case giving up ministry was due to a dissonance between the rational/hothouse world of university evangelicalism that gave the vocation and the realities of parish ministry. He did not think this was unusual
In no way is this critical. I studied law (not Oxbridge even…) with a preconception of what law is and I quickly decided that my experience of law in a high street practice essentially dealing with peoples day to day struggles (and often mental health problems) did not match up to that preconception. I was unhappy and I regret to say that I moved back into a more familiar intellectual world. But this seems an unusual level of attrition to me if true. Are people being prepared for ministry outside the gilded circles of the university experience and does this contribute to any issue of patronage/careerism
I’m not sure that that’s a true proportion.
Again anecdotally, I was converted to faith in Christ exactly fifty years ago this week .. through the preaching of Jonathan Fletcher no less. My early Christian nurture, faute de mieux, was through Iwerne and the Cambridge CU (CICCU) environment. I’ve just retired from forty years of ‘normal’ parish ministry; and (in partial answer to your question) of the eight of us on the CICCU leadership team in my year, four have had a lifetime as Christian ministers (and three others are married to clergy!).
I myself left the Iwerne environment fairly definitely behind after a few years .. it felt essential to do so on intellectual and psychological grounds .. but I remain very grateful for its role in my coming to faith as a Christian. It has its faults, some perhaps even dangerous, which are well-rehearsed (deservedly so) on these boards, and some of which strike me as inherent in its theology and culture. I’m glad that its days are passing, but remain fascinated at how something so seemingly theologically deficient and psychologically stunted (or worse) has had such an undeniably significant effect for good in our country for the last half century.
I think that shows how complicated human beings are, both individually and as a society or societies. Jimmy Savile raised a lot of money for charity….
Yes, aren’t we just? I think though that extreme examples, like Savile, don’t help our understanding much. Likewise the appallingly damaged & damaging John Smyth. Much more interesting to me, and perhaps more pertinent, is how God uses our weaknesses for good. I certainly always had a sense of ministering as a clergyperson because of, as much as despite, my own frailty and failings. Iwerne had many weaknesses .. too many, I think, and I’m glad that its days are over .. but it was the means by which my life was changed for (I at least think!) the better.
Yes. I like the Iona Community prayer which thanks God for the times ‘when we had an impact when we felt we were useless….’
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
What do you identify as Iwerne’s ‘significant effect for good’ in the last half century?
I’m sure that this could be answered in many different ways, but to stick to what I know best I’d suggest in its leading many people, myself included, to commit their lives to serving God as best they knew how.
In my time as a Diocesan Director of Ordinands, I worked with a steady stream of young (and some less-young) people looking to serve God as clergy .. in many cases for a tenth the income of their public-school peers .. at least in part through the influence of the Iwerne network.
It’s a very partial answer, I know, but there must be hundreds of people (of whom I am one) who have chosen that sort of path in life who would not, humanly speaking, otherwise have done so.
As a matter of interest, did you notice any other organisations (such as Boys and Girls Brigade, Cypecs, or youth clubs, perhaps) which frequently crop dup in candidates’ backgrounds?
I was a DDO in the ‘nineties, and even then the influence of CYPECS was waning a bit. Twenty years earlier it was different, I think. Likewise the other youth organisations.
But the great majority of clergy are now ordained in their forties, or perhaps thirties .. and it tends to be other sorts of influences that are more to the fore.
To play devil’s advocate, what about those who didn’t get lovely well paid jobs? No brownie points for sacrifice. Just doubts, because clergy are paid more than you. And you have to put up with clergy, who buy clothes from Harvey Nichols and go on holiday to Peru, moaning about all the sacrifices they made for God. True story.
You’d need private means, or a well-paid spouse, to live like that as a clergyperson .. wouldn’t you?
Historically, clergy would be paid about the same as a sergeant in the army; it’s now about the same as a lance-corporal.
I always felt well off. In poorer parishes I was earning more than many in the congregation, and in richer parishes they used to give me things. Even after retirement someone sent me a Fortnum & Mason’s hamper last Christmas!
But as DDO I had conversations with those who were taking their children out of private education so as to pursue ordination. That’s way above my league, but I still admired them for it.
Well, I was never rich enough to educate my children privately in the first place! I’m not sure I agree with sacrificing your children! But what about people like me. Had I been accepted, my income would rise. Would you have debited me some points?
I’m not sure whether you mean that sending children to private school or not sending them constitutes “sacrificing them”. I couldn’t afford to pay for private education either, but wouldn’t have if I could.
I’m not sure what your last question means, I’m afraid. I don’t think that prior income made any difference to selection for ordination; in fact I’m quite sure it didn’t.
Deciding to change a child’s school is a big deal for the child, surely? And if you are giving people extra credits for sacrificing a good income, you are effectively debiting those who don’t have the good income to sacrifice. I didn’t have an income to sacrifice. I was questioned about sacrificing for God. I didn’t know how to answer that. They seemed interested in sacrificing money, but I had none. I also knew clergy who plainly felt martyred, and I didn’t want to say anything that sounded like that! And I never felt doing God’s will would be a sacrifice.
I can’t speak for others, but being ordained has always felt to me like an enormous privilege, and never a sacrifice.
Remembering my time as a DDO, and many years as a National Selector, I don’t remember any sense that candidates’ taking a salary cut was seen as a ‘credit’. The point I was making earlier was simply that at a personal level I admired the lifestyle-changingly large reduction in income that some candidates were accepting and sometimes wondered if I’d have had the courage to do that. (Like you, I never had to.)
Thanks, John. That’s how I felt, but it was “wrong” somehow.
Am I making sense to anyone else? Fish me out here? I didn’t know I would be expected to give evidence of sacrifice, and was completely thrown. And I was expected to prove I was feeling called! How do you prove that?
I trained as a selector in 2000 and sat on our diocesan panel for 5 years, and no one was expected to demonstrate a financial sacrifice. That seems very odd to me.
However, candidates were expected to demonstrate deployability, and that sometimes does demand sacrifices – like the willingness to uproot yourself to train, move to a curacy, and move again at points through your ministry. Ministry also demands sacrifices of leisure time (you work long hours, most evenings, and get only one day off a week) and that in turn impinges on your ability to see family and friends.
Candidates need to think seriously about whether they’re prepared to make those kind of sacrifices. The cost can be huge, and many clergy sadly suffer breakdowns in their health.
Yes, fine. But only a child expects to go through life literally making no sacrifices. My husband and myself chose to focus on our autistic son, so I didn’t work. There’s always choices to be made. You calculate the cost of the project first. Of course. I think I was underprepared, to say the least. If someone had gone over things with me that would have helped, but the DOC said she wasn’t allowed to tell me what to expect. Everyone else was, of course! But why would anyone imagine any course of action requires no adjustments? You see why I was mystified? Or maybe you just think I’m strange! Thanks anyway, Janet. It’s a bit hard to explain unless you can remember every word, which I can’t.
I really need to disable autocorrect! I definitely typed DDO.
Thank you for such a good answer to my question. My grandfather was a non conformist minister and that was never a sacrifice for him, indeed quite the opposite because it got him out of the mines (sponsored by the South Wales Miners Fed no less) and into a professional and intellectual environment compared to his peers who stayed in the mines.
I have had good and bad experiences of Fletchers network (the bad experience unfortunately crowds out the others if I am not careful) but I have always admired and never doubted the commitment or sacrifice of those who did not seek the secular advancement of their peers. Just sometimes I have seen that sacrifice manifest in its shadow side as frustration that others are not prepared to make the same sacrifice (the dissonance point I made above) but this is now taking me far from the subject of this posting..)