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 14^th 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.

On Tuesday 8^th September the Church of England, represented by the Bishop in charge of Safeguarding, Jonathan Gibbs, declared that the Dean of Christ Church had behaved appropriately in all areas of safeguarding.  The enquiry into his behaviour by the National Safeguarding Team was at an end.  For a summary of the overall case, consult an earlier blog  http://survivingchurch.org/2020/07/06/a-guide-to-the-situation-at-christ-church-oxford/     

Is this cause for rejoicing?  Yes, if we are able to disregard the oceans of stress for Dean Percy and his family, as well as the substantial expenditure of time and money that have been a part of this process.  There is no need for me to rehearse all the facts of the affair, but suffice to say that a dispute has been going on since 2018 between Dean Percy and some of the senior members of his college.  This has become, apparently, very bitter.  There have been two stages in the formal part of the complaint.  The first  resulted in a judge-led enquiry which declared the Dean not guilty of the twenty seven charges against him and then there was the Core Group process initiated by the NST.  The ‘not-guilty’ conclusion of this latter process should result in a restoration of the status-quo but that is unlikely for the time being.

Christ Church issued its own statement on Tuesday 8^th which was somewhat cold, factual and entirely without any regret for the damage that their own institution has suffered through the use of these processes against their own Dean.  Damage comes in various forms and Christ Church has suffered greatly as the result of spending eye-wateringly large amounts on lawyers and reputational management companies.  The sum of between £2 to £3 million has been mentioned but the effect on its reputation with its own alumni has been equally devastating.  Oxford colleges are always anxious to encourage their past members to leave money in their wills.  Who will want to leave anything to an institution that persecutes its own head, especially, as in this case, the accusations of evil doing are shown on two occasions to have no substance?

The second institution to suffer damage in the aftermath of this case is the National Safeguarding Team (NST) of the Church of England. The first NST had been formed in 2015 by the Church in the aftermath of the sentencing of Peter Ball.  In its early days under the leadership of Graham Tilby, it was an ‘empire’ of thirteen and a half full time employees.  Graham Tilby moved on after a less than impressive performance in front of the IICSA hearing.  Quietly, a completely new team under the leadership of Melissa Caslake appeared in 2019.  The current team is less numerous than the old but Caslake has so far retained the respect of survivors and Church leaders alike.  Likewise, the new bishop with safeguarding responsibilities, Jonathan Gibbs, spoke with sincerity and conviction at the February 2020 General Synod and all seemed to be promising well for the future.

The NST became drawn into the Percy process because of an appeal from one or more of the Christ Church complainants, who believed that the Dean had a case to answer on church safeguarding grounds. The NST responded by setting up the core group process to look at the complaint. 

March 13^th  2020 was the date when the Core Group set up by the NST met in Oxford to discuss the complaint against Dean Percy.  The meeting apparently did not take any minutes and was flawed in other ways.  Two of the members had known conflicts of interest and were subsequently removed from participation in the group.  Both of these members were among the complainants from the college.  A further issue that weakened the meeting, was in ther fact that neither Bishop Jonathan nor Ms Caslake were present.  Lord Carlile, in discussing the flawed processes in the Core Groups over Bishop Bell, complained strongly about the failures of continuity of personnel in the core group process.  Unless the same people attended meetings, the processes of justice would be hard to maintain.  These identifiable flaw of process in the March 13^th meeting probably should have resulted in that meeting being declared null and void and a new meeting called.

The present exoneration of Dean Percy, in the announcement by Bishop Jonathan yesterday, may or may not have been the result of a further core group meeting.  More likely it came as the result of a calm appraisal of all the facts of the case by two or three people at Church House who oversee the NST.  Such decision makers will be among those who are feeling the heat of all the criticisms of the central Church from General Synod members, bloggers and ordinary members over the involvement of the Church in the Christ Church affair.  I have laid out quite a number of these criticisms in earlier blog posts.  But what should happen now?

Christ Church has its own battles to fight in its bid to restore its reputation and respect from its alumni and the wider public.  I have nothing to suggest there.  But I can offer a few thoughts to the Church of England.  This venerable body has allowed its reputation for just and fair dealing to be sullied by the faulty use of core groups and the way that survivors of abuse/ false accusation in general have sometimes been treated by faulty processes.  Even after the exoneration of Dean Percy, we have many questions to ask.  Although two members of the Percy Core Group were removed after the issue of a conflict of interest was pointed out, the wider public has the right to know how future blunders like this will be avoided and more transparent processes put in place.  We would also like to know who made the decision to accommodate the ‘wily dons’ to launch the core group process in the first place.  If the Church could come down from its place of secrecy, the culture that has done so much to weaken trust within the Church, the path might be open for a process of healing.  This is what is now required for those who have suffered and have become alienated from church authorities by recent events.  The Church authorities routinely seem to use legal processes to defend themselves as well as the devious manipulations of truth suggested to them by their reputation managers.

In a short space I want to try to describe the outline of what a Peace and Reconciliation process might look like in the Church and would make things right after the terrible mistakes of the Dean Percy affair. Although there are in the case financial considerations to be put right which will return to Martyn the vast sums expended on taking out legal defence, there are Christian things to be done as well. Martyn has been clearly wronged by the Church, whether by accident or deliberate malevolence. Both parties are Christian so there should be offered Christian solutions to the breakdown that has occurred. Lawyers, reputation managers and publicity creators clearly have no role in any peace and reconciliation process. Such skills have their place, but they do not inspire confidence that they are working for anything other than a defence of assets and reputation.  Truth needs to be told by both sides, not with a view to protecting reputations, but with a single-minded simple desire to know and understand the truth of everything that has happened.

The Bible speaks about speaking the truth in love.  Cannot Christian people come together within this fundamental, non-confrontational approach so that reconciliation and true forgiveness can start to take place?  The first move should probably be made by leaders, in whose name Martyn has been made to suffer through a badly handled false accusation. Do not all Church leaders at heart have a longing for these values? The acting out of these values in the public arena would be a powerful witness both to the Church and to the wider society.   Archbishop Tutu’s work in South Africa did an enormous amount to share the Christian message of reconciliation with the population of his country as well as of the world.  Truth, peace and reconciliation are relevant not only to Christians, but all people everywhere.  We are in many ways at a turning point in the history of the Church, thanks to the covid-19 devastations on the infrastructure.  Cannot the Church accept as a challenge to do something really powerful which might reach countless people?  We have before us the task of rebuilding trust between all abused people, represented by Dean Percy and the rest of the church, especially its leaders? Cannot new liturgies be written, acts of contrition be enacted, so that people everywhere can see the transforming power of Christian love? 

 I have started to reflect on the way the Church is managed and organised today. The Church, both locally and nationally, has a continuum of management styles like any other organisation. Speaking very generally there will be some churches and organisations that operate in an authoritarian manner while others foster a high degree of collaboration among the staff.  Outwardly the Church of England has the form of a highly authoritarian organisation.  It uses the structure of a hierarchical pyramid, with Archbishops at the top and lay people at the base.  That is, of course, not how things are supposed to work out in practice.  The humblest lay person can theoretically challenge an Archbishop.  There are officially systems that make this possible through synods, legal processes etc.  But, as we saw in the testimony of the last blog post, the legal frameworks for obtaining justice are highly convoluted and difficult to negotiate.  Most people, including those in positions of authority, are not always clear what is possible in the Church and how power is supposed to operate in practice.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Anthony Trollope was writing his novels about Barchester and at the same time casting a critical challenging eye at the management of the Church of England.  I am no expert on Victorian church history, but I cannot imagine that Trollope was the only one campaigning about the enormous privileges in society that the Church of England enjoyed.  In addition there were also the anomalies of unequal and unjust structures within the Church itself.  Mr Quiverfull and his numerous children lived in a cold vicarage at Puddingdale on £150 p.a. while the Cathedral clergy at Barchester received twelve times the amount.  We can say that Trollope was helping to make the public aware of three areas of power in the Church – social power, financial privilege for some and the power of patronage.  Social power and patronage power run very close together.  Preferment in the Barchester diocese was linked to having the right relatives, having been at the right Oxford college or knowing someone with links to the Prime Minister.  Certainly, the clergy in Victorian times all seemed to come from the ‘right drawer’.  Others from humbler backgrounds were ordained, but many of these were expected to remain curates on £40 a year for their entire ministries.

A further form of power was in evidence in the Victorian church and later – the power of education.  Most clergy were highly educated by the standards of the day.  Most were also conscientious about their work and took their vocations seriously.  The classics were the preferred education for the elite classes who, apart from the clerical profession, went into such professions as the Army or the Civil and Colonial Services.  Although that style of learning is no longer in fashion, as far as the clergy were concerned it did equip them with a real appreciation for the Bible in its original languages. Also, the clergyman resident in his vicarage exercised considerable local influence by being, usually, by far the best educated person in the neighbourhood.

These four forms of power that I have identified have to be added to a more modern form we have discussed elsewhere – charismatic power.  Together these have created a church whose servants used to exercise an influence and power in society which few bothered to attempt to challenge.  The situation today is that although the Church hierarchy still possesses some outward forms of power, each of the traditional manifestations have been considerably weakened.  Reflecting on the massive changes in society,  manifestations of clerical and episcopal power are far less obvious.   Clergy no longer come from a particular class, representing wealth or social influence.  Few of them depend on the patronage afforded to them by wealthy relatives for preferment. From an educational perspective, many live among populations with higher academic achievements than the clergy themselves possess. The weakening of these traditional forms of power overall represents an improvement on the situation in Trollope’s time.  But the great weakness of losing all this power in the modern age is that the Church is no longer able to operate the kinds of authority suggested by the old-fashioned hierarchical structures.  There is, in other words, a mismatch between the appearance of power (palaces, titles, House of Lords membership etc) and actual power, even within its own internal management.  Some power of the hierarch or bishop remains, but it is qualified and checked at almost every point.  As I said in a previous blog, the one remaining source of power still reliably available to a bishop, is his/her power of patronage and some influence in the way that money is allocated.

A few months back I wrote a blog about the role of bishops.  This coincided with advertisements for three suffragan bishops that appeared in the Church Times at the beginning of Lent.  I asked why anyone would want to be a bishop in the present day.  I repeat that question in the light of what I have been describing of the way that the bishop is  a person of authority, while at the same time much of the power of his/her authority has been weakened.  Many constraints exist on the power of bishops.  Some come from imposed legal constraints, like the Clergy Discipline Measure.   Others come from the nature of the communication age we live in.  As a blogger, I am aware of the power of instant access to information and the difficulty of hiding material from ordinary people.  Every clergyperson has the right to see any written information held on file and that must inhibit bishops/leaders from writing anything down on paper or on a computer.  In the past, the power of secrecy was rock solid and that could be seen to be an additional source of power given to those high up on the hierarchical pyramid.  Committees still of course meet in private at every level of the Church.  But today, even secrets have a habit of leaking out from ‘private’ discussions.  This further potential tool of power through secrecy is often neutralised in real world situations.  In short, the authority of the hierarchy is no longer functioning well because society and culture have combined to weaken it.  They insist on the values of openness and democracy.  Some new structure for the Church needs to be found which can embrace this new reality.

This final paragraph has to be a work in progress because I have not really worked out the implications of the failures and threats to the hierarchical system in the Church.  While we are working out what might replace it, I want to point out the appalling stress being laid on bishops, archdeacons and others in charge.  The supporting structures of real power that used to exist to reinforce their authority, are quite often no longer there or are considerably weakened.  How can an Archbishop, like Justin Welby, exercise authority when he is constrained by so many things – legal structures, democratic synods and the chorus of individual bloggers who ask the questions that contemporary democracy and openness allow them.  To repeat, the Church of England purports to be a hierarchy.  No such structure can really flourish in the 21^st century and the sooner we come to terms with this new norm, the better.   

by Paul Devonshire

The following narrative which has been sent to Surviving Church helps us to understand why the Clergy Discipline Measure is not fit for purpose. Somewhere in this story old fashioned common-sense disappeared from the process and the disputants became locked in a nightmare of forms, statements and totally inappropriate tools for reconciliation and understanding. When such events take place we have a recipe for appalling dysfunction and unhappiness within a Church. There must be a better way of allowing justice to flow and furthering the promotion of healing within a Church congregation .

Following an impasse with my local incumbent back in 2013, I put my grievances before the diocesan bishop in a letter. In his opinion, but without stating reasons, these did not amount to being complaint-worthy, and he referred me to the archdeacon. I met with him together with my wife. He said that, because he would be involved in the event of any formal complaint, he was not free to comment. I explained that I did not seek the man’s dismissal, just the situation resolved to some mutual satisfaction. I received no notes following this meeting. This meeting was to prove the last face-to-face contact with anyone from the diocese.

Feeling there was no intention to mediate, I put in a formal complaint, itemising the relevant behaviour matching them with examples of bullying behaviour in the diocesan Guidelines on bullying. In the absence of a complaints procedure in the diocese, the bishop decided to use the CDM. I was given no information about the process. I used the format available on the website, but was then told I had not used the correct form. Thinking there was a national form, I approached Church House, Westminster, only to be told that each diocese had their own. My original format was then accepted. Hearing nothing within the timescale, I did some progress chasing only to be told that the bishop’s secretary had mislaid it. With precipitous haste, I received a report prepared by the diocesan solicitor headed ‘draft report’. The matter had now been delegated to a suffragan bishop who accepted the defence made in the report. This was that, since the incumbent had not contravened the “laws ecclesiastical”, the case could be dismissed.

My examples of untoward behaviour were not considered bullying since not repetitive. My allegations of lying and deceitfulness were ignored. There was no comment on any of the incumbent’s behaviour, therefore no comment on whether it is reasonable to withhold access to a churchyard mower or prohibit someone from reading in church without telling them why and for how long. The failure to negotiate a compromise on the former meant that the church had to employ commercial contractors rather than have unpaid volunteers. The latter involved secrecy, insincerity and an ill use of power. This I found particularly distasteful and upsetting. The process allowed no challenge to this report save by going to review. (There was no tribunal setting with involved parties present.)

The result of this was that, since the process had been conducted legally, the decision should stand. When informing me of this, the suffragan bishop indicated that there would be no further correspondence on the issue. The judge had opined that the behaviours were not inherently of a bullying nature but when I enquired how he would describe them, he did not reply. In pursuing his advice with regard mediation, I was informed by the suffragan bishop that the incumbent was “incapable of engaging positively in mediation”. When I wrote to the diocesan bishop, all he advocated was “apostolic engagement”, by which arcane expression, I discovered, he meant taking Holy Communion. Since this CDM process was conducted entirely via correspondence, it allowed the arguments I advanced to go unaddressed in the responses.

I felt I was not being treated honourably and with respect, but that people were playing games to ensure I would not win.. I came to realise that the polity of the Church of England at every level is totalitarian in form, such regimes relying on judicial collusion to persist. Having successfully taken things away from me, the incumbent then took away the editorship of the church magazine from my wife. This she had done successfully over many years as well has having been a churchwarden. This violent, vindictive and predictable act was achieved by placing a confidential item on the PCC agenda. There was no prior warning or negotiation with my wife. When informed, by letter, my wife wrote asking to meet with members of the PCC to put her case. This was rejected. In essence, it was a kangaroo court. Had this been a commercial situation, this would have counted as constructive dismissal under employment legislation, such protection being unavailable in a voluntary capacity.

Informed by a parishioner that the archdeacon had advised the PCC not to respond, I challenged the archdeacon in a letter. He failed to address the issue. Given my earlier experience, my wife considered any formal complaint as futile and pursued none. Instead, after canvassing the village for support, she inaugurated an alternative self-financing magazine which has run successfully for the last seven years. The lack of face-to-face engagement and failure to address points made during this process shows scant regard for human relationships and the commandment to love one’s neighbour. There was no consideration of negotiation, no suggestion from the diocese of mediation.

I have concluded that church communities are in fact faux communities, happy to exclude those with ideas at odds with the clergy. They are not safe places. The choice of CDM and everything subsequent was imposed on me without consultation. It was applied incompetently and without compassion. There was no evidence of “justice rolling like a stream”, and, considering the deceit and dishonesty, little display of righteousness. The CDM, with its absence of cross-examination, provided little protection. There was a sense of a lazy expediency and short-termism. There was no attempt made to reach a mutual understanding of the situation that might have avoided negative longer-term consequences. The prescription of ‘apostolic engagement’, rather than exercising intellectual effort, suggests easy grace, magical thinking and anti-intellectualism. There was no attempt to assess any personal effect events were having on me and my wife. I continue with a conditioned response to dog collars that is wholly negative. I am now fully aware of the destructive nature of narcissism, for which occupational hazard the church has no apparent checks and balances.

In my recent blogging and asking questions about the Smyth/Fletcher scandals, I have been wanting to do far more than simply chronicling a series of events.  As a former parish priest with almost a half-century of service in a variety of congregations, I approach this open-source material with what I hope is an informed perspective.   Congregations and their leaders, as well as most groups, behave in predictable ways.  What I offer in my commentary on this material, is a reflection about patterns of behaviour.   Placing such material into a context of history and theology is also an important task, but these speculations have to remain provisional. 

A couple of weeks back, the story of PC Andrew Harper, killed by thieves in Berkshire a year ago, resurfaced.  Those guilty were convicted and sentenced to prison for manslaughter.   The Press contained some discussion about whether this verdict should be overturned in favour of one calling it murder. The part of the story that caught my eye was not that debate.  It was the mentioning of the detail that, while the police were originally investigating the killing, they had received absolutely no cooperation from any of the residents of the travellers’ sites where the guilty lived.  It appeared that every single member of the communities where the thieves lived, was bound by an unwritten rule that cooperation with the police (and thus the wider society) was impossible.  Even a terrible death was not sufficient to overcome this.  In pondering this complex breakdown of communication and mutual understanding between two sections of society, we seem to be touching on something resembling the mindset of a cult or extremist political group.  There was a norm, a group mind, which laid on the entire community a rule of silence.  Everyone automatically fell into line.  No single individual there was operating as an independent adult with a conscience that could operate on behalf of those outside the tribe.

A similar kind of group mind seems to be affecting parts of the so-called Villages, a wealthy enclave for retired people in Florida.  Apparently, the divisions between Trump and Biden supporters have broken out into open conflict among some of these elderly residents.  Any kind of political display, a flag or poster, has the effect of creating torrents of anger among those on the opposing side.  Somewhere in the heat of political debate, groups of elderly American citizens have lost the ability to imagine that other people might have a valid reason for thinking and feeling in a different way. 

These two examples present to us a mentality that flourished in the period before the Second World War.  Two political systems were then on offer in continental Europe.  One, Communism, was represented by Stalin and Soviet Russia.  The other, Fascism, was imposed in Spain, Germany and Italy.  Both systems were a different expression of what we want to call the group mind.  The first, Communism, strove to create a consciousness that would claim to be building a communal society where corporate values were supreme.  This of course was the ideal rather than the reality.  Fascism on the other hand was promoting crude forms of individualism, the extolling of brute strength and the destiny of the strong to dominate over the weak.  The values of both systems had much mass appeal.  Anyone who happened to be living empty or unfulfilled lives could look to the leader and internalise the values that were being shared every day through the output of propaganda.  Lives that were felt to have no meaning suddenly were imbued with significance.  The secret weapon of both these systems was that once the ideals of the regime were internalised, the follower was relieved of having ever to make decisions and accept responsibility.  In psychological terms, being part of the national group mind allowed a comforting regression to infancy.  Daddy will sort everything out.  You can trust the leader to sort out your life and provide fulfilment.  For an uncomfortably high percentage of the populations, this was a cult-like consciousness they were happy to wallow in.  Devotion to the Leader or Fuehrer was total for large sectors of the population.  It was uncritical, unreflective and devoid of questioning.

Some understanding of the totalist regimes of the 1930s is helpful for the understanding of cults and cultic movements of today.  In all of them, there is the same avoidance of rational individuality which accepts responsibility for decisions.  There is always what we would consider an unhealthy devotion to a charismatic leader who does the thinking for his followers and keeps them at the maturity level of small children.  As long as no questions are asked, all seems well.  But the awakening from such cult-like control is painful.  A human being cannot live with their individuality and necessary choices supressed for ever. 

There is a painful truth that the Church is also sometimes very good at keeping people at a low level of maturity.   While we are not suggesting that the Church is like a cult or a mass political movement, there are some uncomfortable parallels.  I have often in this blog complained about the way that some church leaders adopt the role of a coercive benevolent dictator, telling their followers in detail how to live and exactly what to believe.  Membership is restricted to those who are Sound, and preferment to those who are Keen. Clearly a congregation where everyone believes the same things and adopts the same modes of behaviour, is likely to be a tidy place.   The preservation of these tribal loyalties may seem like a good thing.  The problem is that leaders are fallible.  When they fail, as in the current cases around Smyth/Fletcher, the fallout and damage can be appalling.  The tidy systems of control, that worked so well for a long period of time, start to crack open and people realise that the certainties that the institution stood for had been based to a considerable extent on fantasy and deceit.

The results of the Reviews by Keith Makin and Thirtyone:eight into the behaviours of Smyth and Fletcher respectively, are both delayed until next year.  There has been some comment about the reasons for these delays, but the outsider is permitted to speculate further on these hold-ups. Thirtyone:eight included the somewhat ambiguous reason which I and others have not known how to interpret.  “Non-disclosure-related information emerging late”.  Speculation is of course not fact but in the case of the Smyth enquiry at any rate, there seem to be one of two reasons at play.  The less likely theory, arising out of what I have said on the functioning of cultic groups, is that there is so much new material available that the reviewers are finding it hard to process what has come in.  The other more probable theory is that the communities that surrounded and protected charismatic leaders like Fletcher and Smyth are still in a state of post-cultic shock.  While they are now able to recognise a new reality, that old leaders are fallible, they have not lost the old tribal habits of the group mind.  In short, there is some suggestion that the enquiries currently under way are being met with the obstructionist habits of closed groups.

We thus suggest that a picture of dozens of individuals queuing up to speak to Keith Makin about their experiences of Iwerne camps, good and bad, is a very improbable one.  The most likely scenario is that there is considerable difficultly in getting individuals to speak openly and that makes the task of writing a Review harder. The omerta culture seems alive and well and we would naturally expect that to restrain a free sharing of Iwerne memories by the majority of the alumni.  Another thing that seems extraordinary is that there is no open debate about whether the Iwerne ideology of ‘Bash’ is still worth defending.  Am I the only person to have noticed that the military ethos of the camps was first conceived of in the 1930s and may perhaps have been influenced by other elitist youth movements were being created in continental Europe?  Has no one anywhere wanted to discuss whether the semi-militarised Christian training of Iwerne camps has done anything positive for the Church of England?  Is it raw fear that prevents this discussion?  Some of the alumni of Iwerne appear to be behaving like people coming out of a dark place blinking into the light.  Like cult survivors, they have a variety of stages yet to go through, like Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief.  At present most of them are still at the stage of shock and denial.  Perhaps church history will one day come to see, when examining this extraordinary tale of the Great Leader Betrayal, that the Church of England was let down badly by giving so much influence and power to this small but influential group of Christians who continue to operate this highly controlled form of Christianity.  To judge from the literature of cult studies, it will take several years if not decades before many of the Iwerne victims/survivors will be able to speak and speak clearly about what they have experienced.   The process might be speeded up if their current leaders, who still exercise a great deal of influence over the rank and file, were to give permission for the cathartic opening-up that is needed to heal so many, the directly abused and the bystanders.  So far that permission has not been granted and the journey through the stages of grief cannot proceed with ease.

Cults, extremist political or religious ideologies and closed communities of all kinds draw their strength and their toxic influence by drawing people into an unhealthy relationship with leaders.  That relationship can be poisonous.  It stops the process of growing into freedom and responsible living and the making of life choices. We call this fullness mature independence.  This is what Jesus was talking about when he declared: ‘I have come that they may have life, life in all its abundance.’

By Gilo

Fear of reputational damage is causing reputational damage

Some of us reflected together last week that the speech given at the Synod Fringe meeting in 2018 (published in Letters to a Broken Church) presented the Archbishop of Canterbury a critical opportunity to examine the relationship between senior figures and what I called the ‘strategariat’ – their comms, advisers and reputation managers. And to consider whether these agents were theologically equipped to deal with the crisis unfolding in the Church. That maybe something far deeper and very different from reputation management was needed to rescue the situation. The speech was prepared with the help of several others, including one Iwerne survivor. It was somewhat ironic to later hear the one thing the Archbishop was being urged *not* to do – rely on his strategists rather than his own pastoral wisdom – was the thing he immediately rushed off to do following that speech.

And now two years later, the media statement put out by the Church following the Channel 4 news story about the complaint to the National Safeguarding Team against Justin Welby was further evidence of a lack of vision. That was a very simple story. Survivor comes forward with complaint about Welby’s lack of action in 2013 over his former friend John Smyth. NST investigates. In terms of a news story, it couldn’t have been simpler. The legitimacy and newsworthiness of the complaint were considered valid enough by Channel 4 to cover in a short item. But what did Comms do? They rendered Welby invisible, citing ‘Lambeth’ instead, and reduced ‘investigation’ into the much less critical ‘review of information’. We now learn from Private Eye that there may have been an investigation in 2017 but that it was kept quiet. This laundering of reality in order to mask any possible failure stands in marked contrast to the surreal and corrupted treatment meted out to the Dean of Christ Church. In the latter case, no survivor or victim has come forward. The complainants are a group of dons who, with the help of their lawyer, have misappropriated the NST for their own ends. Given the suboptimal level that the game has been played out – it would not be surprising if there was an attempt to throw in a random complaint for good measure for failure to know about the hidden crimes of Jan Joosten (Regius Professor of Hebrew tried and convicted in France). Given the tortuous disciplinary system of the CofE, one wonders whether such a complaint would be taken up by an NST without question.

Two things have become increasingly apparent. Firstly, fear of reputational damage is causing reputational damage. And secondly, this equation is further heightened by the wild disparity of responses from the NST, which suggest that their processes are effectively run by the comms for the benefit of PR. I want to look further at the questions that the Channel 4 news story raise. And look behind the parachute that Church comms provided the Archbishop. It’s conceivable that he stepped back from any involvement in the Smyth case in 2013 because of his past connection, in which case one would expect in formally recusing himself he would at the same have placed Archbishop Sentamu or another senior bishop in the role of independent senior responder? We do not know whether Sentamu was told anything. We do know that there was communication between the Archbishop and the Bishop of Ely. Archbishop Welby in the 2017 LBC interview with Nick Ferrari said that his understanding was that it was being “rigorously handled by the Bishop of Ely” and that they had kept regularly in touch and met often. If the Archbishop did effectively step back surely that released him from official involvement in the quasi judicial role and freed him to be more pro-active in helping the victims… but he didn’t. Justin Welby the pastor was missing in action when old friends were known to be in turmoil arising from their past experience. Why has he never asked to meet, and from what I gather, has always refused to meet with those who actively sought a meeting? The Iwerne survivors whom he knew, could have helped to put him fully in the picture. He would have been ideally placed to ensure justice and proper CofE response. Did he put his mind to the issue of potential conflict of interest? Did he see himself as a potentially important witness of background information? Did it bother him that there were those who did know and did nothing or indeed actively assisted the cover up? How different would it have been if Welby had used his knowledge of the Iwerne setup and culture, and the soft power of his office to bear, upon discovering the truth and extent of Smyth’s activities from 2013? Given what “Graham” and others have managed to achieve with no help from that quarter, it is surely the case that much would have been done better and quicker. Inaction obstructed justice, transparency and accountability. We keep coming back to this tangle of conflicts of interests. The more one analyses the situation, the more compromised the Archbishop becomes.

Archbishop Welby has had opportunity to do what his counterpoint in York had recently done – be a beacon of greater transparency. Although there is disparity too there in the way that Stephen Cottrell has been treated by the NST when contrasted with other bishops and senior figures. The bigger the mitre the larger the parachute. But Justin Welby has allowed his advisers to effectively wall him up inside his own crisis. It’s not difficult to see other bishops following similar patterns. Perhaps they look to ‘Lambeth’ for a lead. And it’s perhaps not surprising when the Archbishop’s choice of principal advisor is a bishop in disclosure denial himself. The Bishop at Lambeth has recently been the subject of a letter from seven survivors calling for him to stand down from two safeguarding panels (NSSG and NSP) pending retraining.

The cul-de-sac of denial which has been widespread across the senior layer has been entirely unnecessary. I’m not a driver but I imagine the deeper one drives up a cul-de-sac, the harder it becomes to reverse. That is the situation his team have created for the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. The more one surveys the gathering storm of fresh disclosures and reviews, particularly around Fletcher and Smyth, and the more one looks at the procedural and ethical shambles which have occurred on his watch, the more the observer is bound to ask “Is this survivable for Justin Welby?” Will he become a casualty of the culture of his advisers?

Where does the leadership come from to rescue the Church from all this mess? It’s unlikely to come from William Nye, Secretary General of Synod and of Archbishops Council. Melissa Caslake, the Director of Safeguarding, isn’t able to provide it – her ‘independence’ is too heavily fenestrated by Archbishops’ Council and their comms. And the NST has inherited too much unethical process from its previous regime, particularly around the notorious core groups, that it has yet to address. Bishop Jonathan Gibbs, although clearly wanting to see major change, lacks the power to tackle the culture resident above his head. Leadership will not come from the NSSG (National Safeguarding Steering Group) which is replete with senior bishops protecting their own and each others’ denial behaviour. So where will leadership come from? Perhaps Stephen Cottrell will be the bright angel of change. Or perhaps a prophet will arise from out of the wreckage, someone that nobody has foreseen, who will call out a startled structure towards necessary reform. If so, she or he will require the tenacity and grit to match that of survivors, and will need to resist any pretence that things are vaguely working – when clearly they are in a collapsed state. Only deep structural reform will rescue the Church from its confused moral mess.

It may not be possible for any Archbishop to provide the impetus for that reform. Perhaps at that height in the hierarchy, the person of an Archbishop becomes too swallowed up inside an imprisoning structure which removes from them the prophetic freedom they might have found. But nothing less than prophetic wisdom is called for to steer the vessel of the Church into clearer waters. At what point will someone cry out on the floor of the House of Bishops: Enough of all our broken pretence. We must apologise collectively, publicly and authentically for our failure to treat so many survivors honestly; for our insistence on distancing from their stories, our disclosure denials and “no recollections”, our reliance on dysfunctional processes; and in too many instances for our behaviour worse than denial – gaslighting and really cowardly and mean behaviour. Enough. We must do real penance, seek truth and reconciliation, and must reform our episcopal culture and reform our structures right to their bones.

One of the most challenging things in parochial ministry is the ministry to the dying.  I do hope that those who seek help to travel along this last journey, find the services of a clergyman to be a support.  For me, a greater challenge than the not-infrequent bed-side vigils with the dying, were two occasions when total strangers, arrived at the front door, apparently in good health.  These individuals, each announced that they had only months to live.  In each of these cases, separated by some fifteen years, I had no prior knowledge of their background or spiritual state.  I simply had to make up a response as I went along.

These two incidents that I remember vividly from my time as a parish priest turned out to be similar in the way that I responded.  One person was a successful businessman in his 60s and the other was a younger woman in her 40s.   Each had each received a terminal diagnosis days before.  Fortunately, neither was expecting me somehow to wave a spiritual wand and make everything go away.  We were thus able to start looking together at the fact of death and how they, with my help, could approach it and prepare for it.

Each episode consisted of my seeing them for around five sessions before the journeys to the vicarage became physically impossible.  Because neither was a formal Christian in the sense of expecting the sacraments or having any knowledge of doctrine, there was in the sessions some element of instruction, like a confirmation class.  This was followed a period of silence and deep meditation.  The main resource that I brought to bear was the gospel of St John.  It was this instinctual choice of this book as a helpful guide to the issue of dying which is what I wish to share in this blog.  What I write is not in any way meant to be a DIY to ministry to the dying, but simply a sharing of experience in case it might be useful to someone else.

St John’s gospel is for me a profoundly helpful resource for Christians as they try to go deeper into the significance of Jesus and understand the way that his teaching and life impacted certain communities of Christians around the end of the first century.  I have always found it helpful to treat John’s gospel, not as an add-on to the other gospels but as something new in the way we read and assimilate the Christian message.  It is without doubt written with an utterly different style from the other gospels.  The other three, called ‘synoptic’ to denote their similarity, seem to belong to a different world.  For me, the suggestion that Jesus may not have spoken all the words ascribed to him in John’s account is no problem.  The words ascribed to Jesus right at the end of John when he speaks about the Holy Spirit bearing witness to him, give us permission to believe that the revelation of God through Jesus was a process that went on beyond his earthly life.  John’s writing is truly inspired Scripture in the sense that God in Christ is speaking to us through it.

Christians through the centuries have spiritually fed on the words of John’s gospel whether or not they are all thought to be the actual words spoken by the earthly Jesus.   Such a discussion was certainly not appropriate for the two strangers who came to seek the resources of the Christian faith for their final journey.  What was helpful for my purpose was the way this gospel is an encounter between two sides.  One is the figure of Jesus who speaks to us from the timeless perspective of eternity.   The other is a human being who is reading the text.  That individual represents each and every one of us who comes to God, recognising a state of need. 

Much of John’s gospel consists of an exploration of the ways that Jesus encounters human longing.  He especially reveals his nature in the great ‘I am’ sayings.  He is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life and the True Vine.  The structure of the Gospel is carefully ordered to give, not just Jesus’ sayings, but concrete examples of his feeding the hungry, making the blind see, shepherding the lost, promising ‘streams of living water’ and raising the dead.  Miracles and teaching intertwine with one another throughout the gospel account.  It seems clear to me that a reader is being called to identify him/herself with the thirst, the hunger, the blindness, being lost and the one facing death.  In summary, Jesus meets all of us whenever we come to him, confessing our need of him.  Because he responds, as it were from the perspective of eternity, somehow our situation is raised out of the here and now and placed in a new dimension.   This is the sphere of being that the dying want to know about, particularly when they are preparing to enter it.

I do not remember all the details of my sessions with the two who came for support, but I do remember inviting them to identify with the different aspects of longing and need identified in John’s gospel.     Then, through the process of meditation and silence, we could quietly listen to the ‘I am’ sayings and allow Jesus through them to encounter the need that had been uncovered in us.  We are all beings who at a deep level are in need and through silence we can invite Jesus to respond to that need.  These meditations and their embedded invitations to the Risen Christ were as much declarations of faith as any formulaic ‘confession of faith’.

When John’s gospel is used only as a mine for favoured proof texts, such as chapter 3.16, the full dramatic sweep of the gospel will pass us by.  What I wanted to share with those two dying parishioners was, not some short cut to faith, but an invitation to finding and being drawn into the beauty of eternity that Jesus inhabits.  The words that are often used in a funeral service are very powerful in this context.  ‘I will come and take you to myself so that where I am you may be also’.  That surely is the ultimate promise by Jesus, one that will give us courage to cross into the unknown with the assurance of his eternal presence.

As my regular readers known, the central preoccupation of this blog is abusive power and the way that this causes problems both in society and in the Church.  Another word which captures the nature of abusive power is bullying.  It is the presence of bullying in the Church that I want to reflect on today. 

Of all the things that people write to me about, having encountered me through the blog, bullying is at the top of the list.  I try to answer these emails as best I can, showing them, hopefully, that the perspective of a stranger on their problem may help them move forward.  I have learned from my reading around the topic of cults that abusers and cult leaders are very good at ‘gaslighting’.  In this they distort and confuse the perspective of their victims about what is happening to them.  It is not just the victim of a sex abuser who has their grasp of reality undermined; it is any victim of power games on the part of bullies.  This may take place in the home or in the church.  So, by speaking on the phone or by exchanging emails, I can help a victim to find once more his/her sense of reality.  This reality has been under severe attack through the abuse or the bullying 

Before I go further in suggesting how bullying can be understood and possibly responded to, I need to give examples of bullying which are loosely based on stories told to me over the past few months.   

• A member of the congregation challenges the vicar for misbehaviour of some kind.  The response is to ostracise that individual by promoting rumours of mental illness. 
• A vicar attacks an individual from the pulpit.  He does not name them but gives enough information to make sure that everyone can work out who is being spoken about. 
• An organist who is lacking in skill, picks on and humiliates a particular child who has the misfortune to be both extremely musical but not very confident.  Jealousy? 

• A treasurer who is consistently late in submitting accounts reacts by angrily threatening to sue anyone who asks to see the books.   
• A major donor to a church uses their contribution as a weapon to manipulate the agenda of the Church council of which he/she is not a member. 
• A congregation who traditionally opposes some church teaching threatens to withhold their parish share if the diocese/national church dares to appoint as bishop someone that opposes their sectarian stance. 
• An independent church secretly changes the constitution in order to give control of the assets to a small group firmly under the dominance of the pastor.  This change happens around the time when a £5 million offer for the church land was being mooted. 
• A vicar consistently undermines a curate and prevents him/her from attending a local support group in case he, the vicar, would be discussed there. 

• A minister uses passages from Scripture in his/her sermons which stress the need for obedience to ‘the Lord’s anointed’. 
• A Sunday School teacher is appointed even though he/she is known to be short tempered with children and had left the teaching profession because of this.  A close relative is a major donor to the church. The situation is made difficult because he/she insists on deciding the curriculum on his/her own. 
• A congregation told that if they individually fail to give 10% of their untaxed income to the Church (minister), their eternal destiny is in danger. 

I have not, with one exception, attempted to interpret these examples of church bullying.  In fact whatever reasons one comes up with, these are likely to be similar to those accompanying bullying in any other area of society.  The chief reason for bullying, as far as I can see, is to obtain in some way the gratification of a sense of personal power.  We all need some sense of power and most of the time we achieve it by living ordinary lives, respected in the work we do and through our relationships within our families.  The psychologically balanced healthy person has obtained a combination of self-love and the love of others and this keeps them feeling alive and grounded.  We have an identity given to us through these healthy interactions.  Justin Welby, when the story of his birth father made the news two years ago, stated that his chief identity was the one given to him in Christ.  In other words, the claim to be a Christian should help all Christians to have an extra sense of who they are without needing to invade the space of others to dominate them as bullies do. 

As a very approximate generalisation we might suggest that the reason for anyone to bully is because they feel that their sense of identity is in some way under threat.  Their own inner sense of power is depleted for whatever reason.  Bullies sense somehow that their standing in the world, the one they feel they deserve, is not coming their way.  With failed ambition or frustrated fantasies of greatness, an individual may lash out and enter the world of becoming a bully.  Watching a bullying event unfold, we, the observers, can see clearly that the short gratification of feeling power, does absolutely nothing to change the situation for the bully.  There is a kind of frustrated childish petulance about the act but, of course, it still goes on in the Church from the very highest levels down to the most humble.  Christians, whether bishops or flower ladies, seem unable to avoid bullying on occasion.  In short, many people have a frustrated need to obtain power, even those who have it abundantly already.  In this one is reminded of the title of the recent book about Donald Trump by his niece. Too Much and Never Enough.  

There is so much more that I could write on this topic of church bullying which I have not here the space to explore.  It is a key theme for this blog, so the ramifications will no doubt, come out on other occasions.   Here I want to remind the reader that desire for power and the bullying that goes with it was an issue for Jesus and the other New Testament writers.  There is a whole chapter of Matthew’s gospel, 23, which describe the bullies and abusers of power.  Jesus would find attendance at many of our churches an uncomfortable experience.  The antidote to resolve all the conflicts of bullying and power abuse is, of course, contained in the single word love.  Love understands all about the way that people are sometimes depleted of self-worth so that they feel the need to dominate and abuse.  Love is the reality that keeps us firmly grounded where we belong, supported by the love of family, friends, fellows Christians as well as God himself.  The expression being ‘in Christ’ is a shorthand for finding our place among our fellow Christians and in the arms and protection of God himself.  Why would we ever need to bully and dominate when we have this reality, the one from which our true identity comes? 

On December 27^th last year a story in the Daily Telegraph gave some detailed information about the unethical activities of Jonathan Fletcher, the former Rector of Emmanuel Wimbledon.  I commented on the story, suggesting that the Church of England public relations team might be speedily summoned out of their post-Christmas break to make some statement.  In this I was wrong.  Evidently the Church House publicity team felt that the alleged misbehaviour of this clergyman was not their affair but could be dealt with by the safeguarding officers in the Southwark diocese.  In the event it was not the diocese who acted. The parish where Fletcher had served thirty years, Emmanuel Wimbledon, was put under pressure by victims and ministers. The independent safeguarding body, thirtyone:eight, was then given the task of producing a ‘lesson-learned review on Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church’ .  That review is expected next month, and we hope that it will be published for all to read, as an important part of caring for victims is clarifying the nature of what Jonathan Fletcher did.

When an individual in a large organisation misbehaves, as Jonathan Fletcher (and John Smyth) are alleged to have done, it is never a matter of one bad apple in a barrel.  There will be witnesses, bystanders, enablers and colluders in the misbehaviour.  No one in an organisation likes to hear that their blindness or inactivity has allowed evil to fester or even increase.  The reaction of Fletcher’s bystanders was no exception.  There has been until now virtually no comment from the friends and backers of Fletcher over so many years.  As I commented in a previous blog piece, the Fletcher story has been accompanied by a great silence.

In the last few days, two conservative evangelical ministers, Rev. Dr. Peter Sanlon and Rev. Melvin Tinker, have broken ranks to suggest that Fletcher’s misbehaviour is an indictment on the whole of the senior level of the so-called ‘ReNew’ constituency.  ReNew is the name for an annual gathering of conservative Anglican churchmen and the title is a convenient shorthand for the entire conservative evangelical block in the Church. Its self-appointed leader, William Taylor, runs training conferences to select future leaders and appoints regional leaders to report back to him. Most of this group steer away from charismatic theology and the ordination of women is not tolerated ‘on biblical grounds’.  They remain formally part of the Anglican church, while being linked to several fringe bodies, such as GAFCON and AMiE.  ReNew is largely coterminous with the old network provided by the organisation called REFORM.  It also draws together many of the same parishes and individuals as the Church Society.  Many of these ReNew parishes have accepted the alternative episcopal oversight provided to the evangelical constituency in the Church of England who reject the ordination of women.  Rod Thomas, the Bishop of Maidstone ministers to this block of parishes.  It would be tidier (and more Anglican) to report that Bishop Thomas has a clear ministry of authority and oversight over this network of conservative parishes.  But that does not appear to be the case.

Effective power within this conservative evangelical network seems to be shared by the bishop with a network of leaders, all of whom share a common background in Iwerne Camps, public schools and certain prominent parishes.  Among these are such centres as STAG in Cambridge and St Helen’s Bishopsgate.  Both ministers of those churches are Etonians, friends, and met with John Smyth while students in Cambridge. The precise way that power seems to flow within the ReNew network is not always clear, but nothing seems to happen without the goodwill of a small coterie of de-facto leaders.  Among them we have already mentioned William Taylor, but prominent also are Vaughan Roberts and the recently retired Vicar of All Souls Langham Place, Hugh Palmer.  It is no exaggeration to suggest that Fletcher has played a significant role in the spiritual and professional formation of each of these men.  Indeed, the same thing is true of others who have come to ordination and even prominence in the Church of England through the Iwerne camps/public school trajectory.  All were deeply impacted by the camps. Vaughan Roberts has been a trustee of Titus Trust and used to lead on them for several weeks of his summer vacations. Although Fletcher (b. 1942) belongs to an older generation of prominent evangelical Christian leaders, there is no doubt that his influence is still strong with those who have picked up the mantle of leadership after him.  All these leaders know each other well.  They all attended the same schools, universities and have spent time in the relatively small group of ReNew parishes in England.  They each pride themselves on uncompromised clarity in their preaching of the Gospel.  By implication they imply the authentic gospel message is nowhere to be heard outside their network.  The very close and personal links that bind these ordained leaders in the ReNew network makes it hard to see how any of them could have been ignorant of the rumours which attached themselves to Jonathan Fletcher (and his close acquaintance, John Smyth).  This is not, however, an area that the National Safeguarding Team seem to want to explore.  If the power of the NST/Core Groups were to be effective within the secret world of the ReNew network, every single of the current leadership would probably have to be suspended from duty for disclosure failures.

The crimes and allegations of crimes against Jonathan Fletcher have not been openly or publicly discussed by any member of the current ReNew leadership.   They have neither admitted to knowing about the accusations, nor have they denied knowing about them.  As Peter Sanlon and Melvin Tinker have suggested in their piece, there is an ‘outrageousness of silence’.  The article which has this title, calls out to this leadership cabal to tell us what they know, no doubt recognising that, as with other examples across the Anglican Church, silence and collusion are almost as serious and committing the original evil deed.    How else is one expected to interpret such a blanket of silence which has lasted such a very long time?  To put this silence into context, we may quote some words of a long-term supporter of the Titus Trust. He  wrote, ‘Jonathan’s perverted and manipulative behaviour has been widely known within evangelical circles for decades. Most of it was in plain sight. He was a classic narcissist. He had this weird and unhealthy guru-like status within Iwerne and Conservative Anglican circles. Like Smyth he cultivated his own select mini tribe. I always kept him at arms length. I was lucky as I was warned off him. And I didn’t fancy his standard modus operandi for ‘personal work’ of naked saunas with young men and an obsession with masturbation, girlfriends etc.’

Peter Sanlon and Melvin Tinker’s article mentioned a letter sent to ReNew leaders in April 2019.  That was signed by William Taylor, Vaughan Roberts, Rod Thomas and Robin Weekes. It recognised that many ReNew churches had continued to invite Fletcher to speak despite him losing PTO. It noted that people may wish to contact the four signatories – but neither mentioned victims nor the possibility of reporting abuse to the police or Church of England safeguarding authorities. The letter concluded, ‘Jonathan has had a very significant ministry over the years and continues to be held in great affection by many.’

Further, during the past couple of weeks, there has been a small flurry of discussion about a forthcoming online conference organised by ReNew on the topic of church abuse on September 14th.  Justin Humphreys, whose organisation, thirtyone:eight, is involved with the review that is being drawn up over the case of Fletcher, had been asked to speak to the Conference.  At first, he accepted but then, after realising that the review on Fletcher in would still be in the pipeline, he decided to withdraw.  The leaders of ReNew, organisers of the Conference, have communicated with their followers to explain this withdrawal.  It is interesting to read the language used in this explanation because it is in many ways the nearest thing to a public comment from ReNew about Fletcher and his abuse that we have.  The statement does not mention Fletcher’s name, but it gives us a small glimpse into the workings of the consciences of those who have presided over a cover-up of serious sexual/sadistic abuse and abuse  – which many have known about for decades. 

 In the statement we read: ‘The ReNew Trustees and Planning Team believe what the Bible says – namely that we all have sins to repent’.  This reminds me of the logic put forward by Bishop Benn at the IICSA hearing about sin and forgiveness.  General sinfulness can somehow be bundled up with serious sins and then forgiven and forgotten. Leaders in the ReNew network do not apparently carry any responsibility for challenging such shallow and dangerous kinds of reasoning.   This sentiment is followed up in the words ‘we all have lessons to learn and because we want to repent of our sins we wanted to help churches learn from people’s experiences and consider how best to respond in a gospel centred way’.  What the ‘gospel-centred way’ comes to mean is indicated a little further down, when the document uses that appalling clichéd and offensive sentiment, ‘we apologise unreservedly for any distress caused.’ 

This short document is all we possess to give us any insight into the current way the leaders of ReNew think about abuse and the failings of their former leader and mentor, Fletcher.  From this writer’s perspective, it fails on several counts.  It comes over with all the calm arrogance of a Christian body whose confidence is rooted on an inerrant style of teaching and preaching.   We are God’s special people, not only because we have all the answers provided by God in his infallible word but because our churches are fuller and wealthier than those of the woolly liberals.  There is little charm in this approach and certainly nothing of the humility that we examined in the passage from Micah.  Calm elitist arrogance sits badly with the suspected quiet tolerance of toxic evil and the failure to protect and defend victims of that cruelty.  The ReNew leaders who produced this document, appear to have the same conscience deficit that is currently apparent in other parts of the Church.  Jesus spoke about conscience in the parable of the offering.  To paraphrase, Jesus tells the man who is going make an offering at the Temple to turn back and sort things out with his brother before making that journey.  We can ask the same thing of the ReNew leaders who are trying to dazzle us with the ‘success’ of full churches and confident ‘gospel-centred’ preaching.   No one is impressed if these same leaders with the ‘gospel’ are the ones who have buried information about abuse for decades.  In their narrow elitist world there is no need for conscience, let alone learning, growing or discovery on the Christian journey.  Mistakes are made but they can be swept under carpets.  The need for proper confession of buried evil and the normal application of a Christian conscience does not appear to operate among these Christian leaders. The only seemingly important thing for these leaders is the preservation of the ReNew tribe and the power and wealth that it possesses. 

In the last blog post we discussed the absence of the biblical virtues of justice, mercy and humility.   In visiting once again the ‘outrageousness of silence’ coming from the ReNew network leaders, I, with Sanlon and Tinker, draw attention to the enormous amount of work that remains to be done by conservative leaders as well as by the central authorities of the Church of England.  If the work is not done to restore integrity to its structures and provide justice for survivors, the Church will be seen as irrelevant, toxic and even dangerous to its followers.   A Church or network with that burden cannot survive.

Surviving Church was honoured to be asked to act as one of the platforms through which the letter to the Charity Commission about Church of England safeguarding could be circulated and made public.   The topics that we cover on this blog meant that the sentiments expressed in the letter would be of the kind familiar to regular followers.  I was also happy to be one of the signatories of the letter.

The letter to the CC would seem to have made some considerable impact since it appeared on Tuesday last.  It seems to be saying two fundamental things.  It was, first of all, accusing the Church of England and especially the Archbishop’s Council and the National Safeguarding Team of authorising and using legal processes to cope with safeguarding issues in inconsistent and secretive ways – such that do not further the cause of justice.  The letter was also suggesting that in the administration of these in-house forms of justice, fundamental ethical and biblical principles were being ignored.  Although not mentioned in the text of the letter, it is apparent that the authors were thinking about the passage in Micah 6 about the importance of justice etc.  Gilo makes clear this connection of ideas by calling the appeal for additional signatures, the Micah 6:8 initiative.

In the traditional translations of this well-known passage from the prophets, there is a question and then three answers are given.  The question ‘What doth the Lord require’ is answered with essentially three commands.  They are ‘do justly, ‘love mercy (or kindness)’ and ‘walk humbly’.   One summarised version of the letter would say simply that the safeguarding protocols of the Church of England were at present failing to fulfil any of these three principles set down by the prophet Micah.

The CC letter gives a number of examples of where principles of justice have been ignored by those who oversee the rules governing safeguarding in the Church.  Some of these principles had been laid out by Lord Carlile in his 2017 report about the Bishop Bell affair.  In the current letter there were some more recent quotes from him inserted into the text.  Of these I mention two.  He sets out the principle that anyone who is being accused of an offence is allowed to know the evidence that is going to be presented so that preparation for a defence is made possible.    The second legal principle is to emphasise the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest.  Carlile calls this the ‘law of apparent bias’.  It is clear that, in the Martyn Percy case, such conflicts were allowed to enter the process.  Those in charge of the Percy Core Group acknowledged this by removing two of their members from the team.

The principle of mercy has also been a casualty of the C/E Safeguarding industry.  The English word implies consideration and respect for all parties.  There are several examples of the opposite being practised, and these would be described as ruthless behaviour.  To remove someone from office, without giving them notice of what they are supposed to have done wrong, offends justice but also consideration and mercy.  The thought of Lord Carey being rung up by the press one evening to respond to an accusation of failure over his dealings with John Smyth, seems to indicate a remarkable deficit of respect and sensitivity.  He has, apparently, still not been told what he was supposed to have done in this regard.  The Core Group that made the decision to suspend him from his limited ministry was using its power in a weaponised fashion.  Such behaviour is cruel and unworthy of a body claiming superior moral standards, such as the Church.

To ‘walk humbly with God’ again implies a standard of behaviour which is nowhere in view in what we see in the Church of England Core Groups.   Humility is a quality that faces up to the possibility that an accusation may be wrong.  Instead what we see all too often is a group of people making up their minds, almost before they start, that a particular individual is guilty.  Leaking details to the press about supposed guilt, as we saw with Bishop Bell and Archbishop Carey constitutes an arbitrary use of power.   Humility, by contrast, encourages, as part of the process to promote justice, listening to criticisms.  These may come from experts in child protection and the Law.  Most important of all, humility in the biblical sense requires that Core Groups and those who set them up, listen to the survivors of abuse at the hands of an employee of the Church.  Humility in short is a quality that is always prepared to learn and to listen.  The NST and the Archbishop’s Council have shown very little inclination to do either of these.  By contrast they seem to be digging themselves into a deep hole.  To extract themselves from this hole, legal, ethical and practical, they need help, such as the Charity Commission may be able to offer them.

For all these and other reasons, a letter to Baroness Stowell and the Charity Commission was written.  We have not all given up on the Church of England.  We do however see that there is an urgent need for its leadership to be challenged and held to account.  We need to know that those who have the power to make decisions need, not only to follow expert and wise advice, but also to follow the biblical principles of justice, mercy and humility.  There are many people who find themselves giving up on the church because they fear that their complaints about episodes of power abuse are not being addressed.    Because we have a hierarchical church, we have allowed it to become full of people who ‘love to have places of honour at feasts and chief seats in synagogues….’  In extolling rank, we find that the ones without status, those with no wealth or position feel ignored or excluded and thus unwelcome in the Church of God. 

Some of us have a vision for the church.  It is a vision of a community that is inspired, not by rank, importance and power, but by a solemn desire to honour those who have the least power.  In our Church we have a large phalanx of survivors of abuse.  The Church has for decades tried to hide their existence by telling them effectively to go away and stop bothering us.  Such survivors need to be heard; they need to be honoured and recognised not only for what they have suffered at the hands of the Church but for what for what they can give to the Church through their experiences.   Of all the groups in or on the edge of the Church, survivors are the chief experts on justice, mercy and humility.  They know about them because they seek them even though have failed to receive them over long periods of time.