I made a decision that I would not allow my equilibrium to be disturbed by watching what many have now called the ‘car-crash’ interview of Prince Andrew last Saturday. And yet even without watching the Newsnight programme, I have drawn out, from the extensive commentary, some telling parallels with the safeguarding scandals of the Church and elsewhere. The question of whether Andrew ever met the woman he is accused of having sex with is not the central issue at one level. As with the many cases of sexual abuse in the Church of England, it is just one event in the miasma of numerous half-truths, denials and examples of cruel behaviour. How many times have we heard in various contexts the denial which comes in the form of ‘I have no recollection’ when abusers or colluders are faced with claims of abuse? Such forgetfulness does not impress an observer or here, a television viewer. It does have the advantage of being an answer that allows no follow-up question. A protestation of ‘I don’t remember’ will always close down that part of the interview. Perhaps that is why such a response was fed into the interview by Andrew’s publicity machine.
The most important part of the interview seems to have been what was not discussed. Andrew mentioned sleepless nights of self-recrimination for not being more careful in his friendship with Epstein. Having had nine years to think about this friendship after the full horror of Epstein’s behaviour had come out into the open, you might wonder why Andrew has never given any thought to the victims. The focus in his mind was on the damage to himself, his family and the institution that he represented. In other words, the victims/survivors of Epstein’s behaviour never entered into the royal awareness. He certainly had nothing in the way of regret or sympathy for their situation.
There are a number of words that seem to be appropriate in describing Andrew’s attitude. The words might include elitism, arrogance, failure of empathy and a deficit of imagination. If we are really to believe that Andrew saw nothing odd about the clusters of very young girls in the various mansions where Epstein entertained his guests, this suggests a chronic naivety and blindness. In short, Andrew felt himself to be too important to notice such details. Other people were apparently there to amuse him, buy him drinks and generally provide for his needs. From a psychological point of view, we are observing chronic narcissistic behaviour. The individual sees himself at the centre; other people are there to be used and tolerated while they can provide gratification. Being royal allowed Andrew to offer one thing in return, his momentary royal attention. For some people, mesmerised by the institution of royalty, two or three words from such an Important Person can boost a flagging ego for a long time.
Why do I link the Church’s safeguarding crisis with Andrew’s poor interview performance? It is because I see many sad parallels. In Andrew’s interview there was the effective air-brushing away of the suffering of many hundreds of innocent victims. His claim was that he was not a perpetrator at any point could possibly be true, but, by failing ever to speak up for the girls, we saw how to him such individuals had no value and were beneath his princely attention. No doubt he wished, as Epstein would have done, the complaints of the victims to be shut down and silenced. The way the Church has often failed to acknowledge victims and allow them an honourable place in its corporate consciousness seems to be a similar phenomenon. Every time a Bishop ‘forgets’ a disclosure of abuse or a church leader helps to cover up decades of abuse, it is eerily close to Andrew omitting to mention anything about the victims of his friend Epstein.
One issue that my blog has given a possibly disproportionate amount of time to is the Smyth/Fletcher affair. Events from so long ago might in other settings lose some of their potency after 30 plus years. But to repeat, the safeguarding crises in the Churches have never been only or even mainly about the abusive events of the past. It is about the cover-ups that have followed. People who watched the Andrew interview on Saturday are rightly alarmed at the accusations levelled against the prince. But they are probably just as alarmed by the twists and turns of his publicity machine as it has tried to help extricate him from his appalling choices. What is especially damaging about the Andrew affair is his persistent refusal to own up properly to what happened in the past. However ghastly and unroyal, a clean breast of the behaviour of a younger man might just have earned public forgiveness. The denials and unconvincing story lines invented by public relations experts have done the opposite. It is hard to see how Andrew will ever live down what passed in the interview on Saturday night.
The effective demise of Prince Andrew as a public figure may have begun last Saturday. A similar process may be in operation in the Church of England as well. Here the ‘car-crash’ has not yet happened but there are many signs that people in and outside the Church are becoming weary of the spin and cover-up that seems endemic in parts of the Church. The church body as a whole may seem healthy with the founding of new congregations and signs of growth in various parts of the institution. But readers of this blog will know what I am talking about when I say that there are areas of serious disease within the body. Since the safeguarding crisis has become public knowledge, it has become more and more apparent that many, if not the majority, of our church leaders have been complicit in suppressing information about the past. What information is publicly available has in every case come from survivors and the work of investigative journalism. Channel 4 broke the Smyth episode and the Daily Telegraph came up with the outlines of a story about the activities of Jonathan Fletcher. That process will not stop.
The hierarchy of the Church of England are clearly aware of the full dimensions of all the hidden scandals and many of them are fearful of more press disclosures. One particular group that has more to fear than most are the network of conservative leaders that form part of the Renew Constituency. Numerically this group is not large, but over the years they have presided over many of the institutions with the darkest secrets. It is possible to speak of Iwerne/Renew/Church Society/AMiE together with a cluster of massively wealthy parishes, such as St Helen’s Bishopsgate, as a single entity. Following the closure of REFORM and the re-organisation of the other groups into the Renew network, the Vicar of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, William Taylor, has become the most powerful figure in this group. He and Hugh Palmer, the Rector of All Souls Langham Place have together been working within the conservative networks for many decades. It is not unreasonable to conclude that their current silence and irregular approach to safeguarding (the curious messages sent out to churches after the Fletcher scandal broke) are consonant with an extensive knowledge of the shameful things that have gone on in the past. If these leaders were truly innocent of any information about the Smyth/Fletcher outrages, you would expect their churches to be at the forefront in offering massive help to those in their constituency who have been affected. Instead appeals for pastoral support there seem to meet with a patrician silence. As with Prince Andrew, survivors are apparently too unimportant to care about.
Prince Andrew has shown to the world that his first concern, in his blinkered view of the world, is to himself and the institution of the Royal Family that he so poorly represents. The Church in its lamentable history of care for its own victims has also shown a blindness to anything but its own reputation and the survival of the institution. The failure to come clean about the past is enormously damaging. The eventual realisation by ordinary people of what has been hidden from them by people they had always looked up to in respect will cause a shocking sense of betrayal and disillusionment which will reverberate for decades to come.
Reputation can be enhanced by association with a high profile public figure. If his reputation is impaired, rightly or wrongly, the benefit of that association is lost. Indeed, the reverse is true: it becomes a reputational liability to be associated with the Name.
The church organisations you cite also have a reputation to manage.
The cost of losing this reputation is high. Not only are there costs in attempting to help the victims of abuse, should these costs ever be shouldered, but there is also a larger potential hit.
Wealthy benefactors manage their own reputations by association with noble causes. When the cause is tarnished by abuse scandal, we will probably see an exodus of benefactors. After all, who would risk association with an organisation that has turned a blind eye to blatant wrongdoing? The omertà and cover up hasn’t helped either.
Withdrawal of (financial) support is rarely immediate. But inevitable unless the church organisations come clean and do all they can to repair the damage done.
‘If we are really to believe that Andrew saw nothing odd about the clusters of very young girls in the various mansions where Epstein entertained his guests, this suggests a chronic naivety and blindness. In short, Andrew felt himself to be too important to notice such details. Other people were apparently there to amuse him, buy him drinks and generally provide for his needs. From a psychological point of view, we are observing chronic narcissistic behaviour.’
During the interview Andrew claimed that there had been no young girls at Epstein’s various residences during his visits there. He suggested that perhaps Epstein had moderated his behaviour when the Prince was around. However, he also said that he assumed the people walking around were staff, comparing Epstein’s homes to Buckingham Palace in that regard. And the impression left that these people were indeed beneath the royal notice, other than ‘saying good morning and that kind of thing’.
It’s also known that Andrew is teetotal, but presumably during his visits to Tramp (where he is said to be a member) he must have had refreshment of some sort. Most people need to drink some liquid after dancing. It’s staggering that Andrew could claim he doesn’t drink or even know where Tramp’s bar is, as if that was a conclusive argument against his having bought Ms. Roberts drinks. Does he never stand his round? Do waiters never some round to royal tables taking orders?
The interview was an object lesson in narcissism and entitlement, and another glimpse into the deeply unpleasant nature of the British establishment.
Andrew has now “stepped back”. News broke at six.
Stephen, I think your observations of the similarities with the Smyth/Fletcher situation are correct. I’ve been amazed at the way in which evangelical leaders have suddenly very few links with these characters. I understand that even Jonathan Fletcher claimed to have few links with Smyth, despite being godfather to Smyth’s children. I would even admit to having met Jonathan Fletcher on a number of occasions and being familiar with him, yet people who have far closer describe their relationship with him in much more distant terms! William Taylor has closer links with Iwerne than he would like to admit, and it’s becoming increasingly evident that appointments to posts within the more significant Anglican Evangelical churches have been given to those who can be trusted to keep the secrets, or at least can be blackmailed into it.
Interestingly with the developments about Prince Andrew. I don’t think that ‘Stepping back from ministry’, whether through exile to another country or through having PTO withdrawn is enough of a move to ‘draw a line under things’. As the lawyers in the Epstein situation are saying, there are more people involved in this, despite what they can ‘recollect’.
sorry, typo – “people who are far closer”
Rusty. It is significant that you use the word ‘blackmail’. My links with the Renew/Reform network are currently non-existent so no one there can put pressure on me. I try my very hardest to make sense of the scraps of information that are in public domain, and I sometimes have other information which helps me to interpret what is out there. It is helpful to have comments from people like you who know more than I do of this culture. I sense fear sometimes and certainly an awareness of power exercised by the leaders. All the parish appointments in the Renew network have gone to totally predictable people who have the right pedigree in the Con Evo world. To prove me wrong about the incestousness of this world, let the next Rector of All Souls not have Iwerne/public school/Bishopsgate/St Ebbes/Church Society links. Of course he will and the Bishop of London and the area bishop will be firmly kept out of things so the Con Evo mafia can crown their new member of their own royal family. In all probability the present Rector will have chosen his successor years ago. It feels like a church within a church and that is why those of us outside are bound to be critical.
Perhaps (on a separate thread?) we could discuss where true power lies in the C of E? For example a conventional organisational chart would show ABC and Y at the top, bishops below them etc. Whereas it appears there is a matrix of power superimposed on this with con evo being one line, chari evo another. Just an idea…
The Shemmings Report (into abuse in Chichester Diocese) contains a very useful section on networks, complete with diagrams. It enabled me to look at how networks operate in society in a way I hadn’t been able to before.
Yes I see what you mean Janet. Dr and Mrs Shemmings recommend a useful way of analysing the network, with nodes colour coded by power level. Nodes could be the esteemed establishments Stephen refers to, or the select individuals or both.
Back in 1998 I stood in a by-election for General Synod. At the hustings a leading con evo in the small audience asked for my views on homosexuality. At the time I was rethinking my previously conservative stance so I said that I was studying the relevant scripture teaching and had yet to make up my mind.
A week or so later an evangelical clergy friend of mine told me the leading con evo had been phoning round all the members of the Diocesan Evangelical Union and telling them I wasn’t orthodox. I rang up the chap and challenged him about it and he was unapologetic. He later became head of Reform.
That’s the way they operate. You must dance to their tune, and however ‘sound’ you are on the articles of the creeds, you can’t differ with them on whatever the current bee in their bonnet is. And some at least of them won’t hesitate to employ dirty tricks. At the time my evangelical credentials were impeccable (I thought) and I was shocked to be called unorthodox. I was even more shaken that members of the DEU would take this man’s word for it, rather than asking me for my views.
When I was on Diocesan synod, I offered to go on a sub committee. They had been asking for people to come forward. I was told briskly, “It’s alright, we have enough people now”! No evidence that had anything to do with churchmanship, but certainly, shall we say, irregular!
Janet, your idea of a ‘conservative stance’ shows a fundamental misunderstanding. All stances that have any integrity at all are simply evidence-based. If they were ideological in any way (gratuitously maverick, maximal conservative, liberal, conservative etc etc) they would not be evidence-based so could safely be discarded.
After all, it is almost impossible for a truthful person (the only kind one would listen to, in other words) to be ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ on *all* the relevant sub-issues of a topic. The sub-issues would need to be assessed piecemeal one by one. If they were not, that would be a giveaway that ideology was present and we would then need to listen no further.
The present case has always seemed an odd one to rank as controversial, assuming the topic is Scripture. It is not disputed that same sex quasi sexual behaviour is condemned strongly and universally whenever it is referred to, just as e.g. lying or coveting is. Nor is it disputed that homosexual behaviour will be conceptualised differently in different cultures, just as is the case with lying, coveting and the rest of them. The former consideration is decisive enough to make us not need to worry about the latter consideration too much.
Of course, the subject could be not Scripture but statistics – in which case the same applies in spades.
Let me explain what I meant. By 1998 I had begun to wonder whether my assumption that the Scriptures strongly and universally condemn homosexuality was a correct one. I then began, like the Bereans, ‘to examine the scriptures to see if this was so.’ It was a process that took several years, and led to my concluding that there is, to say the least of it, plenty of room for a more generous interpretation.
When approaching Scripture we all take with us certain assumptions that colour our understanding of it. My background is conservative so my assumptions tended to the conservative too. But my reading of Plato’s ‘Symposium’, and study of the social and historical background to the Epistles, showed me that in Graeco-Roman society of the time, a well-to-do man wold be expected to have at least three sexual partners; a wife who didn’t appear in public, a courtesan who went to public entertainments with him, and a young boy. Plato regards the love for a young boy as the highest love of all. That is the situation of the people Paul is writing to. The Bible nowhere addresses the question of faithful, monogamous same-sex relationships.
I am now 66 and have been reading the Bible since I was a small child – and studying it too. There is still so much more to learn about it. There is much to unlearn too, where I find my understanding of it is actually based on misunderstanding. Its supposed teaching on homosexuality is just one example.
There is no such thing as a stance that is simply evidence-based, because evidence always has to be interpreted.
I really prefer to start with arguments from physiology, epidemiology and sociology in this area and only to say that the Bible agrees with the sense of where sexual practice properly lies.
However if we must push the Bible I am much more in agreement with the 2007 Church of Scotland’s report on sexuality which concluded that “Although the Group reflects different views on what the church’s attitude to homosexuality should be, there was somewhat surprise at the degree of concord reached regarding the plain reading of Scripture in the specific mentions of same-sex sexual activity. There was almost a weariness with interested readings of certain key texts, which tortuously attempt to repudiate the writer’s clear intention to condemn behaviour as bad. The Bible, when it occasionally takes up the subject of same-sex activity, presents it as a wrong choice.”
The Scottish Episcopal Church, however, has reached very different conclusions. As with so many topics (baptism, holy communion, women’s ordination…) it is possible for equally devout and scholarly Christians to study the same Bible passages and arrive at different understandings.
Oh the Church of Scotland is on the same pathway but what I wanted to flag up was that the report from an all inclusive group mentioned a weariness of trying to read the scriptures with a modern agenda. Honesty needs to leave the Bible aside when arguing for same sex sexual practices.
I was not arguing for ‘reading the scriptures with a modern agenda’, but for reading the Bible with an awareness of our own prejudices and assumptions.
I’m always wary when people talk of ‘the plain meaning of scripture’ – especially when the scriptures referred to are one half of a correspondence. But even in the gospels, we too readily assumed that ‘turn the other cheek’ is a a command to be a doormat, rather than a a lesson in subversion.
Leslie, the arguments ‘from’ the Bible bear no weight (apart from that of the existing authority of the authors). The fact that the Biblical books assert what they do does not make it any more than an assertion. And assertions can be true or false.
Whereas arguments from the correlation of men-who-sleep-with-men with massively increased STIs, promiscuity, unsafe sexual practices, earlier death etc – I do not see any way an honest person can argue with these. That is evidence; the Biblical texts are evidence only for what the texts say and what the authors think, not for anything being true. On this occasion (not for the first time) the Biblical texts are vindicated in their perspective.
Janet, that does sound suspiciously like a cliché.
It is also not an accurate representation of what you would be proposing. ‘In favour of homoerotic relationships’ and ‘opposed to homoerotic relationships’ are not just different, they are opposite.
However, none of the very many critical commentaries on Romans or 1 Corinthians sees it as possible (and boy do they lay out comprehensively all the possibilities) that Paul is even neutral towards homoerotic relationships, let alone in favour of them.
However many people do researches however Berean, it is the commentators that one has to consult above any other people. Because they will be the most comprehensive, treat the most angles, and show more mastery of the different dimensions of the relevant background. Is that a principle with which people disagree?
Not that one needs critical commentaries on this point, since it is obvious that the topic spoken of has Paul’s disfavour and appears in his vice list[s]. We need critical commentaries on minutiae but not for the large scale question (which is the only question relevant to our issue, since others stand or fall by it) of whether Paul is speaking positively, neutrally or negatively.
The ‘interested ”readings”’ which Leslie speaks of ”just so happen” to have arisen when people have had an especial cultural vested interest. Not suspicious?
So far from approving of homoerotic activity, Paul selects it as his quintessential gentile sin in Rom.1 and does not feel the need to mention any others alongside it – it makes the case for depravity by itself. Nor is this surprising, since it is one especially distasteful to Jews who could not see why Greeks exercised naked. And his inclusion of lying with men in his vice list in 1 Cor 6 confirms that this was one of the first vices that sprang to his mind. In general such vice lists of his would include sexual sins.
People say that homosexual matters were conceptualised differently 2000 years ago in the Mediterranean – of course, given the time lag and culture gap *most* things will be conceptualised differently.
Paul is not talking of a niche, recondite or subset sin in Rom 1, because no such sin could bear the weight he lays on it of summarising gentile depravity in toto. It is clear from the passage that the reversal of biological gender roles is what exercises him.
How do you explain the dangling participle in Rom 2:1?
We have to leave the sideline topic, which I can discuss any time, e.g. ”yippee” UK, or elsewhere online.
I have been thinking a bit about the treating of humans (Prince Andrew or whoever) as toxic brands financially. The ingredients seem to be:
(a) an ‘approved’ attitude is broadcast and reinforced;
(b) It is only a few movers (Press Barons etc) that are in a position to do this, so they will promulgate the particular attitude that suits themselves or mirrors the way they perceive public opinion is going – the same public opinion they themselves helped to create;
(c) The actions of the person were just as bad (or good) before this campaign, yet it is the campaign itself (during which the person is probably doing nothing wrong) that establishes the idea that they are a toxic brand. The more we say their actions are bad, the worse they are. (A bit like: It must be true: after all we ourselves said it in our gossip session.)
That organisations have distanced themselves from Prince Andrew only now shows that they are not acting morally (in which case they would have done so long ago provided that he was indeed being too friendly to people he knew were involved in unsavoury business) but merely in fear of public opinion. But since newspapers and media can create said public opinion, it follows that unless we have regard for morality as we used to have, then the media rules and manipulates our lives.
Thanks
Christopher.shell
My experience is that those from outside the public school / Iwerne / big con evo churches can be allowed in (although not to the inner circle) if they are biddable and toe the line. They are regarded as useful lackeys and can be dispensed with as needed.
Good post and helpful discussion. Thank you.
I feel sad.
This blog post is not about the pros and cons of homosexual behaviour in the Bible. I have never written on the subject except to refer to the unpleasant behaviour of those who argue for one position over another. All references to the ‘gay debate’ will be removed. There are other places to put foward your opinion but this blog is not one of them.
Institutions are learning. They are learning to sacrifice quickly the offending member.
It’s still about self-preservation of course, the salvaging of the family reputation at the expense of the delinquent, or the rushing to distance themselves from JF. The expulsion is not really any sort of repentance, but it is something I believe we will start seeing more of.
They are becoming more media savvy undoubtedly. In the case of PA, it looks to me like he was almost fed to the media as part of the sacrifice. The “car crash” it was reported as being for him was surely entirely predictable. Hence I suspect it was deliberate.
The media were just doing what they have always done.
I know they have always done it, but what connection has that to its morality?
If the royal family needs to sacrifice to the media, then it shows who is really ruling.
Individuals in all their complexity are treated as just lines in a stock market analysis – stocks / prices that are on the rise or on the drop. Not the Christian way of looking at things, nor obviously other than inferior to it.