Some years ago, I wrote a blog post on the topic of power and patronage as they apply to church and society. This theme was on my mind because I was then preparing to give a talk on Joan of Arc and asking some questions about the enthusiasm she was able to inspire and share among her followers. One point that had to be made was that Joan was only able to do what she did, and gain an army to pursue her vision, because a member of the French nobility was prepared to back her. Without this aristocratic patronage, her cause would never have got under way. Joan was considered low-born, and she needed the affirmation of someone born to power and authority to set her up in her brief but unexpectedly dramatic successes on the battlefield against the English occupiers.
Patronage is an interesting word. It describes the dynamic in the way a rich powerful individual can share some of that power, with a chosen few, in a social rank below them. Unless an individual were born into the very highest rank of a society, he/she would have to wait on others, considered their social superiors, to notice them and help them to achieve a better status or rank than the one they presently enjoyed. The patronage to be handed out by the high-born was very real and potentially life-changing for the recipient. A great deal of effort went into trying to access it by trying to be agreeable to, as well as noticed by, those who possess it. From a percentage perspective, only a few would be successful in gaining the attention and favour they sought. The agony and possibly life-changing ecstasy of a successful pursuit of ecclesiastical patronage by poor clergy is a constant sub-plot in both Jane Austen’s and Anthony Trollope’s 19th century novels. Even today it can be said to exist in the C/E, but the financial dimension that used to mesmerise the ‘lower’ clergy is less important than it once was.
The recent discussion of abuse allegations against the late David Fletcher on Channel 4 News, has reminded me of the considerable importance that patronage plays in the Church of England, even now. It would be hard to find another individual in the con-evo network who seems to have once had as much ‘patronage power’ as the Honourable David Clare Molyneux Fletcher. Apart from his role as organiser of the Iwerne Camps for a dozen years after 1965, he seems, in his heyday, to have known absolutely everyone in the con-evo world within the C/E. David Fletcher would have had an immense amount of personal information about dozens of potential applicants for ecclesiastical preferment within the con-evo network. To obtain preferment to any leadership role in one of these wealthy con-evo parishes in England, a young man would typically have attended the right school, the right theological college and volunteered for service in the summer camps at Iwerne. As the full-time leader of these Iwerne camps for 12 years, David possessed an unrivalled acquaintance of everyone in the con-evo world for over thirty years and, according to Makin, also got to know early on more about the criminal activities of John Smyth than anyone else. As the one entrusted with furthering the vision of E J Nash (Bash) to convert the elite of Britain, he had the task of spotting and encouraging future leaders who would be able to take the ‘work’ forward. David seems to have taken very seriously this selection and mentoring of those who were deemed suitable for leadership roles in the part of the C/E that shared this theological vision of Bash. After 12 years in this role as the Iwerne leader, David would have known about the details of the personal lives of every single young man passing through the camp system. With this extensive personal knowledge about so many, David (and his influential brother Jonathan) would, at the very least, always been consulted to offer an opinion on which candidates deserved promotion. While we obviously cannot claim to understand how the system of patronage worked in detail, it is clear from a study of Crockford that few outsiders were ever able to penetrate the charmed circle of those who ‘belonged’ to the ex-public school elite inner Iwerne ring. The system of patronage seems to have operated from the day the young man was invited to a summer camp at Iwerne. Those who chose to be ordained had then to compete to be placed in one of the prestigious evangelical parishes as curates. Young Iwerne graduates often stayed as assistant curates within one of these parishes for up to 15 years, waiting for the patronage system to pick them to be a Vicar of an internationally known con-evo parish and thus one of the evangelical celebrities. The main con-evo parishes in England have an extraordinary number of curates, some up to 14. An ordinary parish in the C/E is lucky to have a full-time incumbent, while wealthy parishes in the Iwerne con-evo network operate in a quite different way. While most clergy might expect, over a professional career, to serve in parishes which practise a variety of styles of worship, those privileged by having access to con-evo patronage seem to glide from one prestigious and well-endowed post to another. David Fletcher himself moved to take up the prestigious incumbency of St Ebbes in Oxford after Iwerne and here he remained till retirement. These two posts had put him right at the centre of the non-charismatic evangelical universe in the C/E. In these posts he would have had an encyclopaedic knowledge of dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals passing through the con-evo system. If we liken the con-evo world to a spider’s web of camps, conferences, colleges and parishes, it is hard to see how David Fletcher was ever anywhere but at the very centre, able to operate patronage power very extensively. I have no reason to suppose that he did not do this and that the con-evo world will still bear the hallmarks of his influence even though he is no longer alive.
So far, I have tried (probably unsuccessfully) to be neutral in my description of the exercise of patronage within the con-evo bubble within the C/E. I do have serious concerns about the way that a clique of socially powerful privileged churchmen who have never served in any but the wealthy conservative parishes in our large cities can understand the problems of the wider church. In itself, patronage can be a neutral exercise of power. It may even be justified on ethical grounds. The problem arises when the one with patronage power is discovered to be corrupt or self-serving. The United States is going through a period of serious trauma as its President exercises his power in an arbitrary way with little attention to the welfare of real people. David Fletcher’s (and his brother Jonathan’s) exercise of patronage might qualify as ethical if it could be argued that both were exercising it in an utterly disinterested fashion. The problem that arises is that both brothers are now credibly accused of wrongdoing in the area of sexual activity. The detail of their alleged misdemeanours is unimportant here. What is important is that serious ethical lapses are being associated with two formerly important evangelical leaders. Between them, the Fletcher brothers had been instrumental in helping to create and sustain the incredibly powerful con-evo faction which, even now, seeks to control the future direction of the Church of England. The ethical question which we have here to wrestle with is whether the good someone achieves is ever cancelled by their secret sin. Do we feel that what David (and Jonathan) left behind damages their legacy to the Church in terms of conversions, the fostering of vocations to ministry and their teaching skills? I know that some will want to overlook the current serious allegations against David on the grounds that he was a key figure in their own formation towards a Christian identity. I am not sure we can. There must be literally hundreds who fall into this category of being indebted to one or both of the Fletcher brothers for their spiritual formation. Can we ignore revelations about their personal lives? Speaking for myself, I would feel utterly betrayed if any of my personal ‘gurus’ or mentors turned out to have credible accusations against them of sexual sin. Sexual sin inevitably involves betrayal, whether of a partner or a vulnerable victim. Everyone whom I have followed as a mentor or teacher (mostly now dead) received my trust and confidence. If any of them, even now, turned out to have done something which cynically betrayed such trust, I would feel deeply betrayed and would want to question everything else I had once valued about the relationship.
There is now a crisis in the Church which we hesitate to name. The crisis is created by the fact that, one after another, many of our leaders are currently being shown to have feet of clay. Some seem to have deplorable secrets from the past. Others seem incapable of sticking to the truth while others seem to be missing a proper understanding of what it means to love and respect another human being, particularly in a state of need or distress. We desperately need leaders of unimpeachable integrity to look up to and admire. We talk about children finding role models. If they find them, whether among footballers or television personalities, we want these models to be consistently reliable, stable and predictable in the way they behave. It is a serious matter if a role model and dispenser of patronage power, like David Fletcher, turns out to have betrayed the trust of so many. Pretending that this event has not happened, and that there is no case for institutional and personal self-examination, is dishonest and damaging to the ideals of the con-evo movement. Silence can never be the response.
With regard to the formation of those they mentored, it is impossible to avoid the analogy of ‘Streams of Living Water’. The waters that flowed from the Fletchers was poisoned by all the spiritual evils they indulged. The use of authoritarian power, has to be chief amongst that poison, it is not a neutral, it exists for one reason, ‘Power Over Others’, it is the diametrical and polar opposite of the way of Christ, and is a poison in its own right. Vaughan Roberts has professed to be repenting of the ‘cultural values’ he is pickled in, yet we see in The Alliance, with his leadership, and the other Iwerne disciples, Gumble, Dunnet, and co, the same evils perpetuated, their objective; to control other peoples lives, as proof of their own divine anointing.
Thank you for this really succinct explanation of spiritual abuse (alongside other abuses).
I always know when power is being used against me in this way but have struggled to explain it so clearly.
It’s what I experienced in St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury from the rector and team vicar
This is also the crux of why the church didn’t uphold option 4, independence, in the safeguarding vote at general synod this week x
Once again well said Stephen. Although I haven’t studied these people the way you have, my experience of the con evo network is that there are worse sins than the sexual ones. The black-and-white distinction between the saved and the unsaved depends on some theory of eternal torture after death, usually via substitutionary atonement. The tension between ‘I, being saved, am one of God’s favourites’ and ‘We [humanity as a whole, because of the Fall] deserve eternal punishment’ generates a sense of guilt, which then needs redirecting onto other people in order to exculpate oneself; and also a sense of superiority over the sinful hoi polloi. The theology virtually commands you to fight against your own body. And therefore to see it as a virtue to hurt other people.
There may be worse sins than nonsexual sexual ones, but sexual abuses (which is what both Fletcher brothers are accused of) is very serious. It is so destructive of the victim.
Child abuse often leaves a dreadful lasting adult legacy. Matthew 18 is a great read at many levels. Odd how the punishment of those who ill-treat children appears with material on witnesses and evidence. The power of Bishops, Archbishops and Synods can prevent immediate and radical reform which is needed. Talk about sawing the branch you stand upon……….
Evangelical Anglican scandals often reveal wanton contempt for the biblical standards of natural justice which have so shaped our secular UK justice system. This can extend to preferment bias on parish placements, and doors mysteriously opening for ‘the right man’; cronyism and cliques.
There can be a topsy turvy world where credentials or qualifications can sometimes count for nought, or even be held against an applicant. My experience is of the extravert with confidence being favoured. Appearance, dress and salesmanship (or self-selling) count for a vast amount. A pretty wife and children is helpful, as is relative wealth. A fearsome stance on LGBTQ+ issues fits the bill, but never mention abortion or the 10 million plus UK souls lost in that way: a dark side to heterosexual sex not to ever be spoken about.
The trophy evangelical man, with a trophy evangelical wife, trophy children and a trophy career story pre-ministry, ideally added to personal wealth, is what sets the selection panel or ministry appointment team aquiver. But, paradoxically, the jail house conversion from drink-drugs-violence-crime is also an ace. Can the latter profile of person, with minimal career credentials and low academic attainment, provided they pose no threat to senior evangelical leaders, sometimes find doors mysteriously opening to parish opportunities?
The people who can lose out in this game are boring everyday Anglican Church members, who pursue vocation to ministry with passion and conviction, but lack talk show or day time TV appeal. The ‘wealthy celebrity rising star’, or the ‘skid row resurrection person’, are possibly what the hard line conservatives are after. Shallow emotionalism means that people from outside these categories can be shunned and ostracised.
I have found riptide undercurrents around biblical creationism, and possibly also gay conversion therapy, so that a person embracing conventional science or psychology faces prejudice and suspicion. Is traditional Anglicanism, rooted in creation-Christ-conscience, with a strand of solid rationalism and quality apologetics, a turn off to the hard liners in the Anglican conservative evangelical fold? Managing to drive away convinced Christians is a mark of disaster. An age of Anabaptist Anglicanism is upon us.
I call it the Magdalene complex. It’s part of the “sinner who repents” continuum. A woman who has an illegitimate child is valued! Just ordinary carries no cachet.
Your closing sentiment is one I share. Silence isn’t an option. Or it shouldn’t be. Sheffield is still reckoning with the fallout from widely publicised abuses of power. Tragically, the individual credited with rescuing said church (or its parent church rather) from the brink has since faced credible allegations of sexual misconduct while in the USA. He built organisations and cultivated a tight web of supporters, aligned with his pyramid-scheme-like model for church growth (for which there are many, many people that were treated unkindly at the very least). From a distance, I once respected him, which made the revelations all the more disappointing. But for those who continue to champion his model without so much as addressing the question of character versus movement – I have a great deal to say on that. I also have plenty of resources available if they would be helpful. It certainly brought home how limited the accountability silos are for the cross-diocesan, let alone the cross denominational errant church-leaders.
Thank you, thank you Stephen. I cannot speak with the same eloquence as others who have replied to your words, but what I can say, as one of the women recently reported on Ch4 as having been abused by David Fletcher for many years from age 6 years, is that both my sister and I have struggled to get across how incredibly powerful David Fletcher was and as such could be intimidating and frightening which I believe did come across when Cathy Newman asked me ‘what would I say to David Fletcher now if he were stood in front of me?’ The very thought of him being in front of me, even now, in my late 50’s, is frightening. I no longer have a Christian faith but I hope many who do, especially those who have learned their Christian craft at the feet of David Fletcher, read your words, really read them. Our desire in coming forward publicly was twofold, one to encourage other victims to feel brave enough to speak out and two, all those who held David Fletcher with such high regard and reverence may now question the motivation for his teaching. The lack of moral fortitude he had behind closed doors. I want the Church of England to survive, do better, in the world we live in I know it brings much solace to many and for them, they need to do better. Again, I thank you for capturing so well the power and influence of David Fletcher and how widespread that still is today.
Thanks for your contribution here, Caroline. An ageing Canon (long deceased) was a huge influence on me and my brother as primary school children. Canon Jack joked about ‘Right Honourable’ being attached to plenty of people who were neither, and lots of people without those titles deserving them. The hardline fundamentalist wing of evangelical Anglicanism got hugely into “growth” and “conversions”. I have also seen an obsession with “authority” and a contempt for wisdom from other disciplines. Kangaroo court cover up of child and adult (or intern) ill-treatment rarely crops up in a vacuum. Give me the three C’s of old Canon Jack (creation-conscience-Christ) any day of the week, over the stage craft and business models which blight the fundamentalist wing of evangelical Anglicanism.
I can’t say anything except I’m sorry for your hurt. But I hope it helps.
Thank you very much for your testimony, Caroline. Given the centrality of St Ebbe’s in the nexus between evangelical churches nationwide, OICCU and the more conservative theological colleges (an influence which, since the 1980s had arguably come to exceed even that of the neighbouring St Aldate’s), and given David Fletcher’s long term role as the lynchpin of that nexus, the revelations of both his covering up of Smyth and most especially of his own personal abuse are akin to an arrow piercing the heart of the conservative evangelical movement.
Perhaps these revelations will prove to be as consequential as the revelations surrounding Jim Bakker, Bill Hybels, James Macdonald, Carl Lentz, etc. proved to be for the televangelist movement in the USA.
What staggers me, Froghole, is that with all of this evil which is emerging into the limelight, we (evangelicals and charismatics in particular) still DARE to point the finger at the Freemasons and New Agers!
What was that saying about if you point an accusing finger at someone, there are four more pointing back at yourself?
I’m personally very grateful to you Caroline, for speaking up and helping bring this darkness to light.
Caroline, than you so much for your courage in speaking out. I hope you have good support where you are.
Caroline. I would like to thank you for speaking out so bravely. I remain a conservative evangelical christian by conviction, and was a Minister in the anglican church for 14 years. But I cannot abide the opaque power exercised by men like the Flethchers. It is evil. I can speak from personal experience that having spoken out against it, the villification you receive from evangelical colleagues is brutal. I am sorry that your faith did not survive. I am not surprised – there have been times when I have found it very hard to continue in the faith but I have come to believe that these men who are still abusing their power of opaque patronage – there are many – simply don’t share in the same experience of the Holy Spirit as I do. I am sorry for your experiences and I thank you for telling the truth to Cathie Newman. She is doing a great job and I hope that she can report on the current abuses of power that are still happening.
Caroline. Our hearts go out to you. The attack on childhood innocence is one the most heinous crimes. Jesus obviously thought so too. His words about mill-stones are pretty direct. A small ray of light for you in all the pain is that least there are now new people know and understand and are perhaps able to bring some comprehending love to support you.
Also, Caroline (and Stephen), although New Testament Chapter/Verse references are possibly a very much later Western addition to our ancient Eastern texts, it is possibly uncanny how the reference to those who ill-treat children being punished is followed by a discussion in Matthew 18 on Church indiscipline being brought before witnesses. I was pondering this very issue earlier today. When witnessing as a past victim of Church ill-treatment (or as a whistleblower to ill-treatment of others) an empowerment can come by degrees with each telling of the narrative.
“Speaking for myself, I would feel utterly betrayed if any of my personal ‘gurus’ or mentors turned out to have credible accusations against them of sexual sin.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this reflection of yours, Stephen. I became a Christian through the ministry of Jonathan Fletcher, was mentored for a while by John Smyth, and finally left the Iwerne network after a spectacularly insulting dressing-down by David Fletcher (for having had the temerity to get engaged to be married in my early twenties).
I don’t feel “betrayed”, and my faith in God is as strong (or perhaps weak) as ever. I think that that’s partly because those three men’s weaknesses were always so apparent to me that their subsequent unmasking feels unsurprising.
Is anyone who really knew these men, as I did, really surprised by the stories that have emerged? For me the surprise is why and how they were ever so admired, respected, trusted, promoted .. even feted .. in the first place.
There’s something deeply flawed about a system that gives to such evidently damaged, and damaging, human beings so much respect in the first place. Why would anyone want to belong to a church led, for example, by one of the Fletcher brothers?
So no, I don’t feel betrayed. Saddened for them and especially for their victims, embarrassed for the church’s reputation in the eyes of the wider world, still grateful to them for being the (very imperfect) channel of God’s grace to me .. but not betrayed, because I’m so totally unsurprised.
Thanks, John, a very powerful testimony to share! ‘Life is lived forwards and learnt backwards’. I formerly wasted a lot of time and money on the charismatic-evangelical Anglican scene. My abiding memory is of manipulation and exploitation of people being hidden in plain sight. Attempts to ask a range of perfectly fair questions were always rebutted, sometimes with brutal ignorance or at other times with extremely cynical and cunning sleight of hand.
I left the scene after doing a 2 year New Wine course. Leaders were unhappy with me being an unmarried celibate and tried ‘marriage coercion’. My partner, mercifully, was having none of it. She said marriage coercion was a mark of an organisation that could never be trusted anyway.
I can see how things would most likely have worked out. A clique of sadistic New Wine and Anglican Church senior leaders might have gleefully laughed at compelling someone to get married, then barred or blocked any progression into ministry positions.
There was always a ‘pie in the sky’ or make believe fantasy element to a great swathe of the charismatic-evangelical scene. Hastily erected barriers to reality can work for a time, but the truth always comes knocking at the door again.
Should the acting Archbishop of Canterbury be assessing the relationship between New Wine and Anglicanism? I wonder if New Wine may have utilised that connection but without proper oversight from the Anglican side of things.
An unmarried celibate man with a female partner?
Health issues can determine a celibate couple’s choice to opt for celibacy. My partner has psoriatic arthritis and other problems. Lack of respect for celibate status from senior Anglican leaders can impact heterosexual couples. It is probably not frequent, but it does or can happen.
After completion of a vocational 2 year training programme I was called to a meeting by a New Wine tutor, and advised how I was “living in sin” and my presence would “defile a pulpit”. They wanted to evict me from the Anglican training programme, prevent me from getting commissioned by the local diocese and to block me from ever getting parish experience.
Mercifully, a very distinguished senior minister independently intervened. They advised me to insist on getting commissioned but to immediately escape the local diocese to avoid further bullying. Our local evangelical diocese has very strong GAFCON connections. Not much respect for celibate heterosexuals! Yet these are the numbskulls who would schism over other people’s failure to adhere to the terms of Lambeth 1:10.
Now here’s a funny parallel, James. My first church following conversion had an evangelical vicar from a (minor) public school background. I don’t know if he had Iwerne links, but certainly had minimal life experience outside the manse / church circle and he was passionately anti ‘his’ young men getting married. (He himself was, of course) I then moved to a Baptist church where my still, at 28, being single marked me out for pressure due to influence from Restoration cult church members. I won’t go into further details; suffice to say we have some similar issues with the charismatics.
Pie in the sky or fantasy religious escapism is a pretty good way of describing a lot of the popular guff churned out at conferences etc. Sadly it did, and does do a lot of damage – and for me, having walked out on the organised movement some thirty odd years ago, it has taken a very long time, due to misplaced loyalty, to get rid of some of it.
The important issue is to move on – and to keep the essential, genuine heart of the Holy Spirit’s active involvement in your life. I’ve just read a book called ‘The Post Charismatic Experience” – a very positive Canadian book, now some years old, which describe my own journey. You don’t abandon the heart of the issue – you go deeper, become immersed into wider Christian experience and ministry – and take that indwelling, genuine divine life with you. (Or it takes you where it wants to use you, which is a better way of looking at it.)
I still hold to the firm belief that ALL born again Christians are charismatic in the true meaning of the word. And if the Holy Spirit lives in you, it doesn’t matter what your affiliation is, you will find the role you are destined for. That, for me, means far, far more than all the superstars with their ‘huggy feely’ noisy travelling circus shows ever will.
In the words of Dewi Sant, keep the faith brother.
God bless
Thanks, John, sad how much damage cultism has done within some wings of Anglicanism. Care ‘for the widow and orphan’ has sometimes been replaced with reverence for the leadership or their every whim. One tires of an emphasis on gay conversion therapy and young earth creationism.
Genesis ch 1 – 2 don’t describe either creation or evolution, and furthermore were consciously never meant to by their narrators since before Joshua’s time.
When christians stop believing that the war between boys and girls is natural, the finances of churches and even of nations will begin to get right.
Sadly the dividing line between fundamentalism and cultism are often cigarette-paper thin. Mercifully I haven’t personally come across young earth creationism as yet – my thoughts on it are not polite ones, save that it is yet another example of sanctified ignorance. The church, like the rest of the world, seems to be desperately going backwards these days.
At least, that is the sort of thing you write until you realise that after 60+ years of space exploration, not a single object in the solar system shows any sign of being “four billion years old”.
However these last few posts are off-topic, as DCMF wasn’t a YEC….
The Holy Trinity model space for the other other, also known as orphans and widows, also known as you and me. The birth of the Church was as the 150 came down from the Mount of Ascension. The fruits come from the gifts and the gifts come from the fruits. (The New Testament shows both two-stage and one-stage initiation.) Now that the world doesn’t have a system, will trusting in the gifts of the Comforter in you and me have a providential place? That seemed to be the subtext, before moralising-fuelled manias took top place.
A motto I’ve started rolling out but haven’t met with any reactions yet: “give a voice to the old, they saw something once”. Though many chief damage doers were older than us. The current damage doers are copying them rather than listening to us who had our eyes and ears open when we were children, because Holy Spirit authority in children and old people isn’t enough. I found Stott’s unbelief chilling in my teens, and Packer and Grudem have just copied him.
The idea of marketing a latest variant of religion every year or two is suspect. Promoting “Fundamentals” and Barthism, because subtractive, founded what gets called “liberal” theology. What halftruths did the Stott party (who have always been mega influential – don’t listen to their pity party) tell power when it was closing down rural livelihoods and public mobility? Did they say: it doesn’t matter what you know about debutantes, just go through our “new reformed” hoops and you’ll be alright in the sky?
I should have added, but probably thought it went without saying, that secular authorities are busy people and furthermore it’s natural they will have their ups and downs. I remember as a youngster being suspicious and appalled at the patronising and manipulative attitude toward authority by “new evangelicals” (by contrast with solid traditional nonconformists – including sober pentecostals – who seemed serious about praying and committing our land to the care of the Comforter in the light of the full gospel and not just a useless fragment of it).
The reported “spectacularly insulting dressing-down by David Fletcher” shows that he, like his brother Jonathan, was a bully. Since this sort of behaviour can often be learned in the childhood home, I wonder what their father was like?
Is Smyth Senior remembered in the five or so places in England and Canada that he moved his family in a couple of years?
I traced (geological) fault-lines among my great-grandparents and great-aunts as well as their respective ambience. Everyone would gain from valuing history likewise: it hasn’t stopped.
Add to the pretend “non charismatics” the pretend “charismatics”. Did J Stott / V Roberts / E Nash / the string pullers of “Church Society”, ever teach ordinary people to pray for each other? When the young and middle aged are guaranteed no homes, no job and no relationships, they get sent on an equally silly holiday called “Focus”. The same “bible colleges” that most of the the C of E and so called “independents” go to have imposed a regime of unbelief on the entire public, church attending or not.
In France the government expropriated all church properties while here the Church Commissioners did it. Does sabotaging General Synod by Archbishops’ “Council” comprise misconduct in office and should the latter’s “charity status” be annulled? In my locality a good bishop sorts out the mess the vested interests cause.
Let’s not forget that among the ‘qualifications’ for ministry looked for by the Fletchers and Iwerne, was being of the male sex. No woman, however learned, devout, and well qualified, was allowed near the ministry. This misogyny was identified by the Makin Review as one of the reasons Smyth’s abuse of young men was covered up fo rso long – women’s voices were not heard.
Indeed! And also amazing how women have successfully overturned the old boy networks running the Anglican Church.