by Anon
“He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:16, 17)
As it happens, I am writing this reflection on the feast day of John the Baptist. In the northern hemisphere, this is also the longest day of the year – after which, the days grow shorter. So, it seems appropriate to write about one of John the Baptist’s most memorable phrases (above), also repeated in Matthew (3:12).
Readers will doubtless know that winnowing is the process of separating chaff from grain and removing pests from stored cereal, usually following threshing. This involves throwing the mixture into the air, allowing the wind to blow away the lighter chaff while the heavier grains fall back down to the ground, where they are gathered. Techniques for winnowing can include using a fan, fork, basket, or shovel on harvested grain. The chaff scatters to the wind.
True, John the Baptist would not have known about the modern usage of the word chaff, but he would have easily understood it. Chaff is material used in military operations as an active decoy. Chaff, originally known as Düppel, is a radar countermeasure that disperses thin strips of aluminium or plastic to create metallic clouds. These clouds confuse radar systems by appearing as separate targets. Modern military forces use chaff to mislead active radar-homing missiles. Aircraft and warships are equipped with chaff-dispensing systems for self-defence.
Government PR regularly uses chaff (i.e., releasing a critical report on a ‘bad news day’ where it will hopefully get buried by other, more grave headlines). Likewise, the Church of England (CofE) frequently deploys chaff in its safeguarding efforts. The sheer scale of CofE safeguarding disinformation and puffery points to very deliberate PR strategies that pump chaff out into the public sphere at every opportunity. It is there to confuse, distract and evade any detection of the real problems. The CofE’s safeguarding work is mostly chaff, not wheat.
What does the CofE’s safeguarding work hope to evade by these endless clouds of chaff? In a word, exposure. The fear is of being targeted by any authority that might threaten independent external scrutiny. Accountability must be avoided at all costs. So, chaff clouds are the order of the day. As many as possible. God forbid that Parliament or the Charity Commission might shine a spotlight on the incompetence, vested interests and corruption that drives CofE safeguarding. Preserve us, Lord, from the secular courts finally taking up a case from a survivor or victim that investigates CofE processes. For we know, Lord, that we have no processes that are fit for purpose. Not one.
So, concealing chaff clouds are the answer. Decoys and distractions can mask the dithering and facile pretence of running systems that could never otherwise be trusted or command confidence. Chaff helps the CofE to evade detection. General Synod should be the Threshing Floor for seeing through all this, sifting, discerning, weighing, and judging. But if you take a look at the Agenda for York’s General Synod in July, you’ll see that chaff is everywhere. You can’t move for the stuff.
Yet members of the General Synod are benumbed and utterly somnolent. The powers-that-be running the agenda from the podium learned long ago how to euthanise Synod members and meetings. It’s all status theatre, replete with wigs, gowns, and the pretence of debate and democracy led from the front. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, a prophetic cell in their body, or a conscience knows Synod is a waste of time. There’s no accountability and zero transparency. Watch, and you’ll see consecutive days comprising choking clouds of chaff.
But these days, CofE safeguarding has evolved into a publication: Chaff Weekly. This is no surprise, as one must remember that the Archbishop of York inadvertently let the cat out of the bag at a General Synod gathering only a few years ago, when he told the assembly that the purpose of all their effort and expenditure was “to safeguard the church”. A slip of the tongue, for sure, but a truism if ever there was one. The CofE’s leadership in safeguarding is engaged in a reputational endeavour. All other statements and claims made by CofE safeguarding – “we are listening to survivors; victims are at the front and centre of our concerns; we’re improving our processes; there will be a lessons learned review; blah, blah, blah, etc” – are subordinate to the Archbishops’ very telling, inadvertent admission.
The goal of CofE safeguarding is the preservation of its reputation and the avoidance of ceding accountability and transparency to any independent external body. That ‘safeguarding journey’ needs a lot of chaff, as the major task is to avoid embarrassing detections. This requires clouds of chaff to be released on a regular basis.
Just take a look at some recent chaff. In May, “the House [of Bishops] discussed the start of work on a review of the definition of safeguarding, to examine whether the Church’s structures and processes are established in a way that can best ensure everyone it comes into contact with is kept safe from harm.” (Minutes of the House of Bishops Meeting, York, 21 May 2026). So, another review is in the offing, which can presumably review the previous reviews, and probably suggest another working party to look into the next steps…which can then be subject to another review.
On June 11th, 2026 (Saint Barnabas Day is celebrated – ironically, Patron Saint of Encouragement), the NST launched another consultation on safeguarding. How many consultations does the CofE need? There is no finite number. Lord, may the heavens rain with downpours of endless chaff upon your church. (see: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/12-june/news/uk/church-of-england-s-definition-of-safeguarding-could-be-broadened)
Much of this chaff is proactive and designed to conceal the deeper problems. During the John Smyth (Makin Report), David Tudor, Mike Pilavachi, Jonathan and David Fletcher debacles, and with the reprise of the Chris Brain scandal, CofE safeguarding chaff clouds have had to thicken and rain much more frequently. Otherwise, scrutiny might detect the difficult things hiding in plain sight (I Cor. 4:5).
So, rooting through recent copies of the CofE’s safeguarding Chaff Weekly we can see that the CofE appointed Sir Stuart Carlton as the new Chair of the Redress Scheme Steering Board (27 February 2026). Sounds good? Yet the Redress Scheme is meant to be completely independent of the CofE. But no matter. Anyway, we’ve not heard a pipsqueak from Sir Stuart since this announcement.
Likewise, Nazir Afzal, appointed as the new CofE chair of the National Safeguarding Panel (11 September 2024). Sounds good? But nothing is really known of Mr. Afzal’s role, his current whereabouts, or how this appointment fits into another one of the CofE’s Safeguarding Reviews of Reviews (a free monthly supplement with Chaff Weekly).
On 30 September 2025, Chaff Weekly reported that “Dame Christine Ryan [has been] appointed Executive Chair of Safeguarding Structures Programme Board” (whatever that is). Sounds good? But nine months on, the silence is deafening. It remains the case that there is still no body – independent, professional, internal or external – overseeing the CofE where you could complain about their poor or unjust safeguarding procedures and hold bishops and officers accountable for their actions or inaction. The CofE leadership wants to keep it that way.
My older back copies of Chaff Weekly report that Lesley Ann Ryder has been appointed as the independent co-chair for the Safeguarding Response Group (April 2024). Sounds good? But don’t be doing too much digging. The CofE’s chatty chaff press release trills that Ms. Ryder is “an experienced CEO who has worked in national and local government and the health and charity sectors…[and] has been appointed the independent co-chair of the Response Group looking at two important reports on independence and safeguarding in the Church of England.”
But a quick check of her 16 appointments at Companies House doesn’t readily align with the claims in her LinkedIn profile. Apart from the two family-owned companies (Anume and C2S Management), Ryder’s average tenure for any directorship was 12.3 months. Around 50% of her business experience was in the lottery and gambling industry, and in commercial trading to raise money for hospices. (NB: Barbara Kahan was listed as the other Director for Ryder’s Anume. Born in 1931, Kahan was listed by Companies House as holding 2,277 other directorships and credited with having started more than 25,000 businesses. So, sounds good?). Ryder holds no qualifications in safeguarding, social work or social policy, nor does she cite any relevant safeguarding expertise.
Ryder lists Cambridge University as her alma mater, but has no degree from there, though she did attend a course in learning to speak French at the Department of Continuing Education (2008), and claimed to be “invited onto a postgraduate certificate course”, but no indication that she did so. But we’ve heard nothing from her since the April 2024 Chaff Weekly fanfare.
The press releases on the NSP, RSSB, SSPB, SRG – so many new chaff-like bodies and debris have been commissioned – feature lovely, fetching photos of the appointees. Any nervous church and Synod members from the Home Counties are bound to feel comforted by the press releases and the people posing for their pictures. After all, these folk all look so, well, reassuring.
By now, you should have twigged that Chaff Weekly is one of the country’s leading newspapers for making new announcements, in order to conceal the fact that nothing is actually happening. Nor is it going to happen. That is the point. Chaff Weekly publishes chaff. And chaff, by definition, is expendable rubbish designed to fake movements and camouflage any real intentions.
Anyway, you can make your own chaff. How about designating 2027 as the Safeguarding Investigations into Lessons Learned Year – SILLY 2027, for short? What about a new consultation looking into Renewing Integral Safeguarding Knowledge – RISK, for short? There is bound to be somebody willing to chair this work, and the press release and flattering portrait will be a cinch for the chaff merchants. Everything can be put on hold until the group reports back to Synod (later). The trick is to look busy, whilst doing nothing.
The use of the CofE’s “favourite go-to-survivors” is also part of the chaff cloud (or smokescreen?). Despite this very, very small select group not enjoying the trust or confidence of the very much bigger and broader range of victims and survivors, the CofE likes to keep things tight and “in the family”.
One of the ‘chosen’ claims to have fronted participation and lived experience in a 40+ year career in education, social care, and children’s rights across the voluntary, statutory, and faith sectors. But a quick check of their profile shows this 40+-year career somehow began whilst they were still in school. It just doesn’t stack up. Nor does the claim to have got a distinction in a three-year taught university degree course in under two years. But never mind. This individual – a CofE favourite appointee – just sits on every safeguarding panel going.
Then there are our regular columnists for Chaff Weekly. There is the Robert and Joanne column – taking it in turns to be the ‘Lead Safeguarding Bishop’. Again, this sounds good? Until you realise neither possesses any qualification in social work nor is a member of any relevant recognised professional body.
Another columnist is Alexander Kubeyinje, National Director of Safeguarding. Chaff Weekly sometimes interviews him too. In the Strategic Review of Safeguarding (2025) – again, sounds good? – he tells us how great everything is and how well it is all going. Thank goodness for such high standards of independent reporting. The CofE’s safeguarding chaff must always sound professional. Chaff Weekly will deliver that message in spades. The lack of accountability and transparency is imperative.
When John the Baptist spoke of wheat and chaff, his listeners would have instantly understood that the chaff symbolised oppressive systems that must be discarded. That, to separate the wheat from the chaff, was a call to dismantle unjust structures and empower the oppressed. Seeing the chaff for what it represents presses the church to prophetically identify and eliminate its own harmful and abusive practices. And that if there is to be any radical hope, separating the chaff from the grain will be transformative, and permit a just and truthful church to emerge from the ashes of the old, flawed systems.
The CofE safeguarding leadership wants no such thing. They merely seek more subscribers to Chaff Weekly. Perhaps you might be tempted? But as the Gospel of Matthew (3:12) reminds us, “His (Jesus’) winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”. We already know how this will end. Sounds good to me.