As readers of my blog, will know, I have taken a special interest in the case of Jonathan Fletcher, the former Vicar of Emmanuel Wimbledon. His importance as a mentor and guru to an entire generation of Christian evangelical leaders cannot be overstated. My interest in him has been primarily in understanding this influence and how his ‘fall’ has impacted on the evangelical constituency. I have never concerned myself in learning the detail of the bizarre tales of massages and ‘forfeits’ with young men. These have been rehearsed on the pages of parts of the British national press and form the background of an ongoing review by thirtyone:eight. Rather I have been interested to observe the sustained attempts at cover-up and secrecy by many within his constituency in the Anglican Church. This has been sustained for decades and is normally a matter of keeping completely silent. Fletcher’s story has also been linked with that of John Smyth, whose behaviour has also been extensively discussed. Their two stories overlap at several points, but I do not intend to discuss the latter character as it is now under scrutiny by Keith Makin’s enquiry.
My attempts to understand Fletcher and his circle, and the way they interact with the wider evangelical scene in Britain, has been made difficult in various ways. One problem has been in the fact that many online references to Fletcher were removed from the internet during the course of 2019. His online sermons disappeared and other references to his presence at conferences and meetings have also been purged. This apparent attempt to prevent the investigation of Fletcher by removing public evidence about him has stimulated the opposite effect in me. If you deny someone information, you just encourage them to look harder to find it. It is there to be found by the person with determination. An interview with Richard Coekin, a former curate who used to be attached to Emmanuel Wimbledon and was a close confederate of Fletcher is still available on a Youtube video. This video piece, made in 2019, is especially precious because it contains eight minutes of Coekin’s attempt to explain the Fletcher story to an audience of Sydney Anglicans. This attempt to interpret the saga by an individual who knew him very well and was formally listed as Fletcher’s curate for 18 years is possibly the only material of its kind.
Richard Coekin is an important figure among evangelicals in Britain. Unlike other senior Anglican evangelicals, he does not appear to have passed through the Iwerne route to leadership which has been the trajectory for, among others, the Fletcher brothers, William Taylor, Vaughan Roberts and Hugh Palmer. Coekin’s present role is to oversee the Co-Mission network of churches in Britain and he is also leader of Dundonald, a church plant founded from Fletcher’s church, Emmanuel Wimbledon. As a board member of AMiE, Coekin helps oversee Anglican churches planted outside the Church of England, but under William Taylor’s ReNew banner. Coekin’s network of churches sit lightly on denominational labels. Some are Anglican, while others regard themselves as independent. Coekin himself, although he ministers across denominational boundaries has retained the designation of being an Anglican. He retains a PTO from the Bishop of Southwark and from 1995-2013 served as a curate to Fletcher in Wimbledon, presumably with a full license. His main focus at that time was his church plant ministry but we have every reason to suppose his association with Fletcher was very close. He was a fellow member of the pressure group, Reform Southwark, and as well as a fellow council member of the national Reform organisation.
Anyone watching this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hv9WR-w95g&t=1914s would easily be charmed by Coekin’s self-presentation and his friendly demeanour. I can imagine that he is a powerful and effective leader as well as a compelling evangelist. No doubt the leaders of the churches in his network benefit greatly from his experience and gifts of leadership. But there were clues in the interview which hinted at some less than wholesome aspects of ministry. Certain things were also revealed through what was not said, as we shall see below. It is this probing behind the rhetoric that is important if we are to gain clues about the conservative Christian world that both Coekin and Fletcher inhabit.
The first 30 minutes of the Youtube interview tell us all about the issues of church life that Coekin was facing as a leader both of a congregation and a network of congregations. It was only in the last nine minutes that the interviewer turned to the topic of Jonathan Fletcher, a subject about which he, like many Sydney Anglicans, was finding perplexing. The answer that came from Coekin at no point revealed that Fletcher had been a previous co-worker with him. This somewhat detached way of speaking about Fletcher seemed to imply that Coekin wanted to preserve some distance from him, so as not to have to interpret the events that had emerged from the Press and elsewhere. The language he used was formal. While admitting there had been naked massages and inappropriate behaviour with young men, nothing of this behaviour seemingly had anything to do with the church circles that he moved in. The misbehaviour had taken place in the past and there was now need for repentance and a caring for the victims. Coekin said he did not know if there were ‘any more skeletons in the closet.’ Were people to know how close he was to Emmanuel and Fletcher that claim to ignorance might appear less credible. For example, one minister I spoke to says that Coekin told him that he was offered (and declined) a massage from Fletcher. Did he not think there was something amiss with that in the context of church ministry?
Coekin’s responses to the questions about Fletcher were curiously flat and unconvincing. The life seemed to go out of his voice compared with the vivacity of the first part of the interview. Everything that was admitted sounded like something from the Church of England publicity machine. There was seemingly some acceptance that victims found the beatings helpful – but then dismay. The reasons for that dismay are unclear. There was, I noticed, also no depth of pastoral insight or real understanding of the potential disastrous effect on victims. While words of deep regret towards victims were uttered, they felt formulaic and seemed to lack a sense of pastoral empathy. One particular moment of shock was when Coekin interjected the fact that there had been no underage young men being abused by Fletcher. This implied that Coekin believed that, theoretically, Fletcher could have been involved in nude massages and beatings which involved consent and were thus somehow less of a problem. Coekin moved on from these activities to what he called “the real problem” rather than yet another serious problem.
The problem as he presented it was subjectively whether victims “felt” manipulated. Quite apart from the apparent homoerotic nature of Fletcher’s activities, which are the target of strong condemnation by the entire conservative evangelical constituency, there is the power differential issue. Coekin partially acknowledged the power issue, but repeatedly minimised it by highlighting possible lack of consent and feeling manipulated as being the “real problem.”’ One would like him to have utterly condemned all activities initiated by a man of enormous status towards those who were impressionable and immature. Even to bring up the age of consent suggests he is not able to discern and recognise abuse of power or serious safeguarding breaches.
What did I learn from this interview about Jonathan Fletcher? My perception is that those who knew him, like Coekin, seem to be still at least partly under his thrall. While they have been forced to accept the facts of the case, they seem unable to process these facts and the implications of what a moral failure by a prominent leader will have on the credibility of the whole conservative evangelical movement in Britain. The way that Coekin changed in the interview from being a passionate advocate of his evangelism/leadership role to the formulaic responses, when talking about Fletcher, was striking. Somehow Fletcher’s influence seems to have flattened part of the moral and psychological sensitivity of an experienced Christian like Coekin. Having spoken passionately of the importance of preserving the biblical view of marriage, Coekin then appeared to be partly blind to the effect of the behaviour of a leader who clearly is a long way from upholding such values. It is worrying for the ReNew constituency that the interviewer, Dominic Steele, was unable to challenge Coekin’s blindspots, and yet he is due to speak at the upcoming ReNew conference on 14th September. This hardly gives confidence that the ReNew constituency are able to embrace the changes necessary to enable them to act as Jesus would towards victims and church.
From this video I gained a greater insight into a Christian culture that says one thing, but then is blind to the same thing happening in its back yard. The Iwerne/con-evo/conservative Christian culture from which Coekin and Fletcher come from also seems to have remarkably little insight into the nature of power. As I have said elsewhere there is always going to be a problem around power for any group who presents as if they have been entrusted with infallible teaching or access to final truth. When there is a Christian culture that admits no doubts, there will be also be a hesitancy or reluctance to question or challenge leaders who are straying morally. The same would apply when they are playing one or other of the great variety of power games that are possible within an institution like the Church. My theory about Jonathan Fletcher is that he acquired too much power in the course of his ministry so that no one was prepared to challenge him. Class and the ability to influence people’s careers was part of that. His being beyond contradiction did enormous damage both to individuals and to his wider circles. Even now his power and influence in those circles is such that few have come forward to openly challenge his interpretation of his abuse. Fletcher wrote in his defence that his activities were all ‘consensual.’ Despite his protestations, and impressive man that he is in many ways, Richard Coekin spoke publicly not to stand with victims and show support for them, but rather in a way that perpetuated Fletcher’s own view of abuse in a church leadership context. Victims have seen precious little in the way of constituency leaders publicly advocating for them in the last year, only vacuous posturing. What meaningful public comment has there been, except that we are on the victims’ side and that we should avoid gossip? (As Robin Weekes prayed at last year’s ReNew Conference) Irrespective of his warning against hasty conclusions, he seems to apologetically assume that Fletcher was a great leader with flaws, rather as opposed to wondering if he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sadly, rather than taking the vaunted “opportunity to draw back” and critique what’s unbiblical regarding the class issues and unbiblical hierarchy coming out the power base of Titus Trust camps, one Fletcher victim complains that the constituency leaders have doubled down and marginalised any dissenting voices.
Many thanks. Since you have referred recently to totalitarianism, I imagine that an apt comparison (but noting that Fletcher is no Stalin or Mao) would be Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ to the 20th congress of the CPSU in 1956 or the way in which the CCP has treated the posterity of Mao Zedong, after it became evident that, like Stalin, he had presided over mass butchery.
Essentially, the CPSU and the CCP had the same dilemma: how to confront an inconvenient truth without discrediting the wider organisation, and how to do so without compromising existing power arrangements within the organisation. Khrushchev confronted the problem head-on, though he was himself thoroughly compromised as part of his struggle for supremacy with Bulganin, Kaganovich, Malenkov and Molotov, but there was massive collateral damage; Khrushchev was denounced as a ‘revisionist’ and the way was clear for a nasty and enduring split with Hoxha and Mao. Also, it didn’t end too well for Khrushchev; the Stalinists in the politburo led by Suslov decided to bide their time, and then struck in 1964, replacing Khrushchev with the neo-Stalinist troika (or ‘collective leadership’) of Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny. They accused Khrushchev of having been a dictator; Khrushchev was thus hoisted on his own rhetorical petard.
Following the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping, Mao was effectively ‘buried’; a pall of forgetfulness fell over his baleful posterity. His innumerable victims had to suck it up, but were to be paid off by a sharp turn towards neoliberal growth and nationalism. The CCP remains in power to this day.
So, this response of Coekin is obviously the second, Chinese, approach. It is far better for the organisation to smooth over the truth rather than to confront it. Confrontation risks internal disruption and, more dangerously, the discrediting of the wider ideal. Far better, then, to treat it as an exceptional and one-off failing, and to move onto the wider, brighter, uplands, where there is ‘growth’, ‘mission’, and money. As to the victims, well, that is unfortunate, but then that is just life, and…look, look at the growth!
It has always been obvious to me that “the church” is a totalitarian state. As the C of E sinks further toward oblivion, it becomes more so, as evidenced by the recent attempts by hierarchs to instruct, quite illegally, incumbents in what they may and may not do. When the Church Assembly was set up in 1919, Harry Barnes MP said “the fact that the organisation proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury is precisely the same organisation as has been adopted by Lenin is attributable to the desire of both to secure the same end. The real principle at the root of Bolshevism is a desire to combine a democratic form with autocratic effects, and that is what has taken place in this constitution.” I have no doubt too that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union learnt many nefarious tricks from the church, for did not the one-time Tiflis seminarian Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvil later resurrect himself as Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin? It struck me as a teenager that membership of the CPSU as a ticket to advancement in Soviet society was little different from membership of the Methodist Church as lubrication for business and farming deals in rural east Cumberland in the 1960s. I did not earn the approval of my Methodist parents by saying so.
The North Koreans are masters of the game. In a country completely flattened by US forces just over half a century ago, people see Kim Il-sung (of Christian parents) as saviour—as indeed in a way he was—and the loyalty and filial piety of Confucianism helps keep the Kims in that role. Birth narratives were invented for Kim Jong-il (heavenly sounds, miraculous changes in flora and fauna, rainbows, stars) just as they have been since time immemorial for the births of special people, including, some say, a wandering Galilean Jew.
Fletcher has been found out, but his coterie behave like the hierarchs of the North Korean Workers Party. The adoring groupies, like the North Korean populace, either aren’t informed of the saviour’s unsavoury deeds, or find no trouble ferreting them away into dark corners of their psyches. The Fletcher/Smyth colluders haven’t yet resorted to actual murder, but what they are alleged to have done to dissidents, and reportedly still are doing, amounts to spiritual murder.
Once again I am reminded of the words of fourth century Evagrios: “Of the demons opposing us … there are three groups who fight in the front line: those entrusted with the appetites of gluttony, those who suggest avaricious thoughts, and those who incite us to seek the esteem of men. All the other demons follow behind and in their turn attack those already wounded by the first three groups.”
And the greatest of these are the demons that incite us to seek the esteem of men.
Thank you for this. It is important to keep this whole matter in the public eye, especially as many current leaders close to Fletcher would prefer it to be forgotten. Great insights into Richard Coekin’s response and that of others.
It still appalls me that there is such avoidance and distancing from people who are or have been so close to Fletcher. It’s amazing how suddenly such a few people knew him when being on his staff team etc was once such a badge of honour and he had so many friends!
Sadly the Anglican evangelical constituency is losing credibility hour by hour, and tragically and most concerning to me, the gospel that they claim to preach is being besmirched. No-ones name is valuable enough to preserve at the cost of Jesus’ name, not Proclamation Trust, not Renew or any of the ventures sponsored by Jonathan Fletcher or his associates.
Many thanks. I do wonder what will be the consequences for the evangelical movement of the hollowing out of those areas where certain parties within that movement have concentrated their energies. I write specifically of ReNew and Bishopsgate.
The success of the Lucas/Taylor formula has presumably been the establishment of Bishopsgate (and its City satellites at St Peter Cornhill, St Andrew Undershaft and St Nicholas Cole Abbey) as places of gathered witness, but also as clubs for hoardes of City lawyers, bankers, brokers, insurers, etc. HTB settled into the City by taking over St Sepulchre without Newgate and applying a similar model (which it has also replicated in the West End).
So, what is to happen to that model if no one is actually going into the City anymore, or if the numbers returning to offices are drastically lower? What if that is the new normal? I imagine that Bishopsgate has invested heavily in online worship, but part of its appeal was as a place where Christian City types could engage with each other socially. That, surely, will be compromised to some extent. Relatively few of its attendees will live nearby.
What does that do to its flow of funds? Since Bishopsgate will presumably underwrite ReNew to a significant extent, what wider impact will the loss of footfall, and – I presume – the ensuing loss of income do, not only to ReNew, but to the wider evangelical project (and also, if they are still providing parish share subventions, to the finances of the diocese of London)?
The Lord has ways of bringing chickens home to roost.
Sorry, that sounded a bit callous. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just such an awful situation, and the way that the Anglican Evangelical constituency seems to be burying their head in the sand made me wonder about chickens roosting.
Very much a case of ‘There but for the grace of God.’
But you’re right. Every little empire kingdom comes to an end, apart from the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Chris, indeed. Thanks. “There but for the grace of God go I” used to be quoted at Iwerne in the 1970s. Compassion for those who stumble is part of our calling.
David, I wish that in this case it was simple a ‘stumble’, but it is evidently not. Not only has Jonathan Fletcher’s abuse gone on for decades, he has continued by sending Christmas cards to victims who have spoken out to say how sad it is that they turned against him. He is wicked and continuing his wickedness by playing down his actions and playing up his ‘regret’.
Unfortunately a mere stumble doesn’t seem to describe the approach of the ‘renew’ leadership in this matter. They have continued to play it down, to underplay what Fletcher did. As I understand it, Rod Thomas released at least one statement on Jonathan’s behalf. They allowed Fletcher to be present at the EMA when the announcement was made about him, which could only have been terribly threatening and painful to any survivors there.
Sadly I am struggling to trust the integrity of leaders who I once called friends or at least allies, and continue to be shocked at the way that this is being dealt with and Jonathan Fletcher is still somehow ‘hallowed’.
Totally agree. The other senior leaders behave in the same bullying and abusive ways. Yes – there but for the grace of God go I. We are all sinners. BUT that is not an excuse to minimise what has happened or allow other leaders to continue in their abusive ways. That would not commend the gospel.
I agree. Fletcher’s case is not one of a slip-up or momentary weakness. He was called to be a shepherd but chose instead to savage the flock. It was deliberate, calculated, prolonged. He has not demonstrated repentance since it became public. Jesus was scathing about such people.
I have never liked that epithet. It implies that I am more favoured by God’s grace than the other person – that God has favourites. This sanctimonious superiority, if at the root of the Iwerne/conevo mindset, has a lot to answer for. I want nothing to do with it.
I think it’s meant to mean “I’m just as bad as them deep down”. There’s no tone of voice on line.
Thanks Athena. It wasn’t meant to be sanctimonious. I just started to feel bad about suggesting that the chickens should come home to roost as though I was wishing harm.
For the sake of the survivors I just want to see justice, which I’m starting to think involves a number of edifices crumbling and soon.
And I want to say how starkly this throws into relief what I consider to be the gross abuse of power that caused such pain to so many as it was exercised by Jonathan Fletcher over many years at Emmanuel Wimbledon. That it remained hidden for so long shows a lack of transparency. That it damaged so many shows a lack of integrity. That it involved such profound abuse of power shows a lack of humility.
These are words from William Taylor who is the Chairman (big boss) of the ReNew constituency this morning at their annual meeting. He then says that he only heard about JF in February 2019. The PTO was removed in early 2017. What is going on here? Are we to believe that Taylor is so important that no one tells him anything as crucial as his mentor being effectively banned from ministry. Something does not add up.
Well spotted Stephen. A number of us are wondering the same.
“They allowed Fletcher to be present at the EMA when the announcement was made about him”.
If that is really the case then I am absolutely speechless. It sounds both insensitive and almost voyeuristic but I find it hard to imagine. Fletcher was sitting there in the audience when a statement about him was read out?
I was gobsmacked at the time.
He still holds such sway.
Voyeuristic is right. Hearing the kind of things he has done he has a hideous sadistic streak and the survivors are not being protected from him.
The continued playing down of his abuse by talking about ‘lack of consent’ is awful. He shouldn’t have been doing what he did even if there was consent! But as Stephen says, there is something far more sinister at work with the abuse of power, his connections and grooming of young boys and men , even if he did wait until they were no longer minors. As I’ve heard someone else say, ‘who would say no to the king?’ Dreadfully there still seem to be many willing to underplay both the Smyth and Fletcher abuse, and I fear it is that they have much to lose having been put in place by the ‘kingmaker’.
His presence vividly demonstrates his need to control. Those making the announcement must have been intensely aware of his presence, an dit would hardly conduce to their being frank and open.
A chorus we sang at Iwerne in the 1870s has been on my mind for some weeks now. “There’s a way back to God – from the dark paths of sin – there’s a door that is open, and you may go in – At Calvary’s cross – is where you begin -when you come as a sinner to Jesus.”
A blog named survivingchurch dot org should include seeking healing and restoration for those that need it, to my mind. This includes perpetrators as well as victims. In all our shining a light on things that have gone wrong, we should hold this in mind. See 1 Peter 3:8-12.
Do you agree?
David.
Absolutely, I agree.
But there is no sign of genuine repentance in the Fletcher situation – just hiding in the shadows and continued manipulation and abuse.
We are talking about a man who for decades has groomed and abused in so many different ways. And a man who has managed to continue to hold sway and claim loyalty.
It’s never a good sign when the first thing that someone does when accused of something is hire a libel lawyer and then seeks to ‘reach out’ to the survivors saying ‘I’m not sure what I did?’ especially a ‘Pastor’.
Sadly, like the Smyth case, this is a particularly wicked situation, of course forgiveness is possible, but whilst the facts are being suppressed and survivors continuing to be quashed, it doesn’t sound like a biblical scenario for forgiveness and restoration.
Has Fletcher hired a libel lawyer? Good grief.
David – wow.. the 1870s?! You look terrific for your age!! I sang that chorus as a young person in the 1970s also – but not at Iwerne. It is true that there is a way back to God for the backslider. But in applying it to Jonathan Fletcher, you assume that the man was a Christian? I find it interesting that the so-called Bible experts in the conservative evangelical world cannot apply (or seem unwilling to apply) what they know of false teachers and “wolves in sheep’s clothing” to Jonathan Fletcher (or very few of them do). In a Moore College video online (now of course deleted) “I am a Christian, because I believe it to be true.” As was pointed out to me, this is not an accurate definition of a Christian at all. Lots of people believe Christianity to be true and hate it, fight against it and run from it – including the Father of Lies himself.
I think the whole wing of the church Fletcher represented world needs to wake up and realise that they have been led by a man who was charlatan and someone who is very much Anti-Christ and Pro-Self. The evidence of his abuse, coercion and control (violent, homoerotic and bullying) demonstrates that in private this man’s life in no way reflected that of the Lord Jesus. It seems therefore that he never actually walked with Jesus at all – but that his entire ministry was a sham and gave “the appearance of godliness but denied its power”. It seems that his own ministry was actually about gaining control and power to himself, for his own enjoyment, power and peculiar pleasures.
So, whilst no one is beyond redemption or being born again, for this man, it seems that a first conversion is actually required. Therefore, the song you recall cannot be applied to him, since he cannot come “back” to something he shows no evidence of having ever actually known.
You have a point. I reached that conclusion regarding my former spiritual mentor Gordon Rideout, who a few years ago was convicted of 37 counts of child sexual abuse.
It is so difficult to come to terms with that realisation about someone you trusted, respected, and who helped to shape your spirituality. It leads you to question so much. My heart goes out not only to Jonathan Fletcher’s victims, but also to all those now questioning their own perceptions, faith, and spiritual experience.
If other ReNew leaders understood this and cared about their flock, they would hurry to prove they are not like Fletcher by freely giving all the information they have to truly independent investigators, and not trying to manage the response in any way.
1 Peter 3:12 says, ‘…the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.’ There is no question that John Smyth and Jonathan Fletcher did evil. It’s too late for Smyth, but if there is any way back for Fletcher it lies entirely with him. It would involve, at the very least, admitting the wrong he has done, the harm he did his victims, ceasing contact with them, and paying for the counselling they may need. It’s premature to talk of forgiveness until we have seen this change in his behaviour.
The model you suggest, David, sounds ‘Christian’ but actually isn’t. The word translated ‘righteousness’ in most English versions would be better translated ‘justice’, as I’m told it is in many other languages. God’s concern for justice resounds through both Testaments. That’s why cheap grace is no grace at all.
St. Paul’s handling of church discipline in his epistles is instructive. 1 Cor. 5:1 – 6:6 recommend excommunication and shunning of sinners in order to bring them to repentance. These texts have been misused by abusive leaders, but they stand in cases like that of Smyth and Fletcher.
To extend ‘mercy’ to abusers like them is actually dangerous, because it allows them to continue to harm past victims and to recruit new ones. It also ensures that victims will stay silent because, as Athena says, it implies that the sins against them are of little weight.
It’s those victims who deserve our concern, unless and until we signs of genuine repentance on the part of Jonathan Fletcher.
I agree about forgiving and healing of the perpetrator. But. It is often the first thing people say to you. It is hard for the victim to do at any time, and if they are denied healing? And forgiveness has to be accepted and/or asked for to be effective. Often, a suggestion that you must learn to forgive your abuser goes absurdly hand in hand with actually not being believed. And therefore not supporting the victim or preventing future episodes.
“ Often, a suggestion that you must learn to forgive your abuser goes absurdly hand in hand with actually not being believed. And therefore not supporting the victim or preventing future episodes.”
Yes! Thank you EnglishAthena. This is exactly what happens.
It troubles me to think that Fletcher’s coterie are hoping they’ll be able to keep the secrets for long enough that he will have died before the full horror comes out. I just have a bad feeling. .. I wouldn’t put anything past them any more.
I mean ‘it troubles me that Fletcher’s coterie Might be hoping’. I have no evidence except for the very slow pace of things and the obfuscation.
Does it make you feel better or worse, Chris, if I tell you I think delay and obfuscation are the default settings?
And justice delayed is justice denied.
These are people I once thought had integrity. I think the delay and obfuscation makes it feel so much worse.
Thanks all. Appreciated. Helpful reference to 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, Janet. I thought of that passage myself. I also remember hearing John Wimber say that in a serious case requiring discipline, what he called a hole below the water line rather than above it (could this issue sink the ship?), the more prominent the person’s ministry had been, the more thorough the discipline process should be.