Partly or even mostly because of time I need to not attempt a post this week which would be part 2 on a mini series on "Trump and Johannine Literature." This is possibly not a bad thing as the fuller disclosure of the current mode of Trumpianism is being made as [pop your own adjective in here] nominations for senior cabinet office or ambassadorships are made. Suffice to say for now that Trumpianism's (core?) business of creating chaos is unabated and, in my view, no voter for Trump should oppose what is now happening. You shouldn't have voted for him in the first place ...
Further, it is not appropriate this week to write no words about the resignation of Archbishop Welby as the first Archbishop of Canterbury to resign for reasons other than retirement or simply closing out the role in order to do other things.
What to say?
I want to say very little. What do I need to offer when so many things are being said by others?
So, I advise heading to Thinking Anglicans which, as always, offers a great round up of news and views (across more than one post, so keep scrolling down).
I also think worth attention is watching this interview with Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley (Newcastle). +Helen-Ann is direct, clear and concerned for survivors. She also has interesting comments on the extent to which "careerism" may be affecting some bishops through a season such as this. (Finally, she is asked about assisted dying legislation in the UK, and in her answer references her experience of similar legislation here in NZ.)
33 comments:
It seems like the next Archbishop faces a primary challenge of rebuilding *trust*:
Firstly, trust that the church is a safe place and, when it hasn't been, will follow through on complaints in an open, timely, and appropriate way.
Then there's trust between clergy, between bishops. Trust "within the team". In this regard, I continue to find + Helen-Anne Hartley's comments astonishing - firstly breaking confidentiality and going to media with a personal letter from the other two Archbishops, and now, as you refer to, Peter, suggesting other bishops are "keeping silence" - ie not doing stand up interviews with media - because they have ambitions to replace ++Justin Welby at Canterbury. Gosh.
One article I read suggests the next Archbishop of Canterbury should be a woman because women are perceived as more trustworthy in terms of responding to abuse. That sounds both sexist and pragmatically true.
One current front runner is Guli Francis-Dequani, Bishop of Chelmsford and daughter of the first Farsi (ethnic Persian) Anglican Bishop of Iran, Bishop Hasan Dequani Tafti. Remarkably, my mother and her parents stayed with Bishop Dequani Tafti on their way back from England to my grandparents' mission field in India (they drove across Europe and Central Asia to "get home", as you did in those days).
My Mum continues the story in a recent email (that we're sure to include in her eventual memoirs!): "We camped in our caravan on their property but they invited us to have evening dinner with them and were so welcoming. I remember the photo Bishop Dehquani had on his mantelpiece of himself as a young village boy looking after the family's cattle. He told us he was first attracted to the Christian faith when, while escorting his sisters to the CMS Mission School, he heard the sounds of the singing of children coming over the mud walls of the compound. As we left they urged us to travel south to the beautiful city of Isfahan and visit [Guli's mother] Margaret's mother and father at a school for the blind which they had founded, which we did."
That's a great story, Mark. I met +Guli at Lambeth and connected with her over Kiwis who worked for NZCMS and knew her father.
Love these connections!
"One article I read suggests the next Archbishop of Canterbury should be a woman because women are perceived as more trustworthy in terms of responding to abuse."
This was in an article?! I guess I'm mildly amused. My personal view would be that generally speaking, there's probably more awareness and discussion of the problem of religious abuse amongst women. After all, we're more at risk, and victim advocates are often women. But John Smyth and Paul Pressler are abusers who preyed on young men. I can think of one CofE male bishop who was a victim of Smyth. Other men have witnessed the ordeal of survivors both male and female. There are excellent male advocates who fight for survivors to be heard. The ABC's female chaplain had all the same info as the ABC but that didn't apparently make much difference. The decision for a new ABC, in my view, needs to be made on the merits of the eligible individuals, not on their gender! Would we be agreed on that, Mark?
Yes I absolutely agree, Liz.
And I also want the next Archbishop of Canterbury to be a woman - a comptenetnt, qualified, intelligent, authentic, unifying woman - just as I wanted the next Pope after Benedict to come from the developing world.
I've checked Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley's X-account and found that on Sunday she engaged in deep discussion about recent CofE happenings with BBC Radio Newcastle - Chris Felton. It's quite far into the show, so start around 2: 11: 30. (There's a few clips of others talking before switching to the studio conversation with her).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0k0vbnt
Sounds extremely sensible to me...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/18/c-of-e-may-need-to-rethink-archbishop-of-canterbury-role-senior-cleric-says
Warning: distressing content
Smyth's son PJ, interviewed by Cathy Newman CH4
[with transcript] 18-Nov-24
~needs to be watched, but good to have transcript
https://www.channel4.com/news/the-words-of-john-smyths-son-pj-one-of-his-earliest-victims-in-an-exclusive-interview-with-this-programme
PJ Smyth: "I’m not sure. He was a master manipulator. His abuse spanned 40 years in three different countries, and he managed to just keep going and get away with it. So take that manipulative, dark genius and apply it to my mum, my sisters, me – child’s play."
Some folk in the CofE have asserted there are elements of the culture that allowed this to happen, still present in the CofE. The new ABC will need to be someone capable of working with others to confront and address these deep issues - spiritual, cultural, structural, relational. Above all, to *listen* and to put the primary focus on the needs of survivors. Keeping in mind that survivors often come forward to give an institution the opportunity to put a stop to abuse (in the case of a current abuser) -or- to reveal historic abuse knowing there may be more silent survivors like themselves in need of kindness, understanding and professional mental health support.
Sadly, in many cases a religious response is to view survivors as something akin to an adversary when they demand a proper response instead of silence and inaction.
For balance (pro-Welby):
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/15-november/comment/columnists/press-media-mob-helps-welby-s-foes-to-get-their-way
Right Reverend Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury
Bishop Lake said there have been huge changes over the past few years in the Church of England, but that "we need to make sure that whoever leads us has this [safeguarding] front and centre".
"My focus is on the report itself and what we need to be doing for the victims and survivors as a result of this," he added.
A statement released by the Diocese of Salisbury said the church's focus needs to be on victims' experiences and the lessons from them.
Indeed. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2l6vv3zqo
Colin Coward, "Makin, substitutionary atonement and the distortion of homosexual desire"
https://www.unadulteratedlove.net/blog/2024/11/19/makin-substitutionary-atonement-and-the-distortion-homosexual-desire
1.
The salvation of individual souls was the first and only priority for every leader at the Iwerne camps, achieved through a philosophy of wholehearted, sacrificial, masculine Christianity. The focus of the camps was the evening Bible talk. The boys were taught that young Christians must be 100 per cent committed to Jesus. Anyone who wasn’t would go to hell. Over time, Smyth developed the idea that it wasn’t enough to repent of your sins; they needed to be paid for by beatings, beatings that drew blood. Parsons, in his 1990 book ‘Ungodly Fear’, describes:
“The tendency of generations of Protestant teachers to read into the New Testament a doctrine of [substitutionary] atonement in terms of a wrathful Old Testament God requiring in some way the hideously cruel death of Jesus. . . there are large numbers of Christians today who have a picture in their minds of God’s fatherhood involving violence against his child."
2.
The abuse perpetrated by Peter Ball, John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher and more recently Mike Pilavachi of Soul Survivor Watford is a manifestation of the distorted, unhealthy, prolific, sometimes violent and abusive suppressed homosexual desire related to the powerful influence of the conservative evangelical culture’s supposedly ‘biblical’ teaching on the atonement. This resulted in a sort of nostalgic infantilism that helped manage the insecurity, emotional and sexual immaturity and abuse of their public school experiences. Attempts to deal with the powerful internal conflicts set up between this false biblical teaching and strongly suppressed internal desires resulted for some in a masochistic complex leading to the physical abuse of boys and children. This was manifested in the extreme by Smyth and in a less aggressive way by Ball, Fletcher and Pilavachi. None of them were able to come to terms with their natural emotional and sexual desire for contact and intimacy with other men....
Homosexual men become the target of these public school educated men living in deeply conflicted neurotic denial of their own homosexual desires. Their incorrectly identified taboo feelings for other men become projected onto ‘those homosexuals’ who are disobeying God and undermining the teaching of the Church. No wonder there is such an ‘incredibly powerful antipathy towards homosexuals from part of the evangelical world’ as Parsons notes in Ungodly Fear. He suggests there is present in the conservative evangelical world a paranoid fear of homosexuality amongst people who believe that this behaviour is dangerously subversive....
The toxic anti-gay culture of the conservative evangelical substitutionary-atonement-addicted physical and emotionally abusive practice has continued to block the snails-pace movement towards removing barriers to the full and equal inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in the Church of England.
Yes so issues of abuse and sexual diversity await the next Archbishop of Canterbury, and yes they are absolutely linked.
Let's put away, however, the notion that it's the job of the next Archbishop to solve and resolve these issues (as if they ever had the power to do so).
Personally, I'd like to get even clearer on what an Archbishop is and what they are not. I think popularly we just think of them as an Anglican Pope. Notwithstanding the job description may change very soon too.
Hi Mark, interesting article.. I've saved the link. I'm not convinced his description of the Smyth theology is *quite* right. There's a subtle difference that would've made Smyth's ideas more acceptable to impressionable (but devout) young evangelicals.
I'm drawing from a summary prepared for police by James Stileman who was Operations Director of the Titus Trust. 30 Sept 2014.
The report mentions a Smyth victim and protégé [Simon Doggart] who ended up assisting Smyth in doing beatings, sometimes alongside JS. He confessed to beating as hard as he could "for Jesus' sake".
From the report, "The men were conned into accepting the beatings as necessary for Christian wholeheartedness and a means to combat sin. The protégé also came to realise that he had been duped."
*
Devoted young evangelicals would surely know that if we confess our sins he is fathful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness - i.e. 1 John 1:9. So I find it difficult to believe they thought they were paying for sins - but more I'd think - demonstrating their wholehearted devotion *and* striving for holiness in their personal life e.g. "suitable deterrent to masturbation".
*
So Smyth being a master manipulator, appears to have preyed on their desire to be fully committed to Christ as encouraged at the Iwerne camps, and generally in evangelicalism.
This is from a Jonathan Fletcher survivor, Lee Furney, who's spoken with many other survivors, including those from Smyth - this quote is about Smyth:
"So, with spiritual abuse, he’d use the Bible, and he would offer them a sort of elitist form of Christianity. If they wanted to be really first-class Christian, shall we say. Then he offered them methods to do that. So what he would do would be to ask invasive questions. He’d often ask boys about masturbation, and they would own up to this trusted Christian father figure and tell them what was going on. And then he’d suggest that he would beat them in order to to help them with their struggle against sin, as he’d say. And so basically, the young people thought that they were getting some help with their spirituality. In fact, it was John Smyth getting what he wanted, as he took these guys down to his garden shed and beat them,..."
Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley (with Cathy Newman)
20 Nov 24
Transparency, Accountability, Independence
There has to be a change of culture in the Church.
In some ways this does need to be a watershed moment,
the Church can not circle the wagons and turn in on itself.
https://www.channel4.com/news/church-of-england-seems-incapable-of-transparency-and-accountability-says-bishop-of-newcastle
Update! I'm working through what Mark shared and what I shared.. now suspecting both are at play but in different proportions for different individuals/victims. Also that Smyth's ideas/explanations were somewhat fluid as well.
Did you know Smyth visited Australia with Mary Whitehouse in 1984 to promote 'Muscular Christianity'? It was the same year that he moved from UK to Africa - he did the move to Africa first with sudden urgency, and later in the year visited Australia. I found the account of this, an interesting read, in the Sydney Morning Herald 15-Nov-24.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/he-s-the-vile-qc-who-disgraced-the-church-at-least-i-derailed-his-australian-mission-20241115-p5kqu1.html
Also, a fascinating article I found about Anglicanism in Australia and gender.. how ideas about women's role in the church were developing in the late 1880s and into 1900s.. and what do you know? 'Muscular Christianity' pops up again! And women? "Suffocating surveillance".
Patricia Grimshaw (1993) In pursuit of true Anglican Womanhood in Victoria, 1880-1914, Women's History Review, 2:3, 331-347, DOI: 10.1080/09612029300200037
https://doi.org/10.1080/09612029300200037
CofE needs very radical change, it's clear to me why Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley is taking her own radical stand. Otherwise, how could she live with her conscience?
The survivor in this case was a "former Met Police Officer" re-traumatized by a top adviser at Lambeth Palace. The story is mostly pre ++JW, 2009--
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/lambeth-palace-paid-hush-money-alleged-victim-sexual-assault-senior-adviser/
Interesting "coincidences", Liz.
In the interview with Smyth's son, he talks about his Mum being a victim, perhaps the oldest and most chronic victim, of his narcissism.
"Conscience" is a Catholic and Quaker thing, not so much am Anglican thing, so it might not matter ;)
Short interview with the ...head?...of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC).
I wanted to like this interview more that I did! Started out ok, then...
1. Very defensive on evangelical theology and Smyth, sadly.
2. Gosh, the situation on same sex blessings over there is powder keg. Evangelicals and other Anglican conservatives organizing their diocesan monetary giving, training of ordinands, pressure on local bishops etc to actively keep fighting the majority support for SSB in house of bishops. "Muscular Christianity" in internal church disputes - next ++Canterbury will need sturdy headgear. Is England more polarized than us, or just more populated? Maybe when we're so much smaller we can have more effective, irenic dialogue/hui/talanoa/synodality? Hard to see how the English church could accept a "two integrities" approach (i.e. an Anglican "religious settlement" on sexual diversity) without schism. Seems like the seeds of schism are not just there, but the saplings are being boxed up and ready for distribution. We had schism here, though the scale of their's looks larger...maybe? Bigger context = global realignment of Protestant churches;. polarized, glacially-slow though intently ongoing reform process within Catholic Christianity. Bigger bigger context = climate catastrophe, global wealth disparity, exploitative capitalism, war, existential anxiety and despair, mental illness epidemic going unchecked (much worse than COVID), loss of embodied connection/community in the digital West.
3. Call for the next ++Canterbury - whatever their theological position - to be a "Defender of God's Word". Is this the main function of the ++Canterbury? = more evangelical disappointment, lament, muscular Christianity (i.e. activation of threatened "fight" survival mode), schism.
https://youtu.be/bvG0kpsKryo?si=9F1wapDEzjp7x4wJ
Between endless Protestant schism (Church of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa NZ, ACNA, United Methodist Church vs Global Methodist Church...) and snail-paced monolithic Catholic reform is the Anglican middle way - best exemplified by our inclusive two-integrities approach - and the hope of a church that is catholic and protestant, liberal and conservative, plural and one.
= I'm still an idealist (today).
Hi Mark, thanks, I watched the CEEC video. Here's some personal thoughts and observations.
I'm unsure if you've experienced the type of 'conservative' evangelicalism I was brought up in. I note as an aside, that Smyth was from a Plymouth Brethren background. The Iwerne camp people were very 'conservative' evangelical and appear to have had a general dominionist ambition from the outset. At some point, this shifted to a selective focus on the channeling of promising young elite *men* into the CofE itself - so that they could eventually get *their* people into positions of power in the CofE and its academic institutions (i.e. long-term plan for takeover). Sound familiar? Their behaviour, apart from dominionism, is similar to that of people in the circles I grew up in. They're obsessed with whether their fellow insiders are 'sound' - in teaching, belief and practice of (their) core doctrines e.g. inerrancy of scripture and biblical authority. 'Compromise' is a dirty word (i.e. it's weak/unsound). There's an overwhelming sense of certainty and assurance. 'Taking a stand' is expected as a matter of course, especially of leaders - I was unsurprised he drew on the word "contend" from scripture. Loyalty to their fellows is absolute. Their convictions and goals are clear *and* they have long-term commitment *and* strong determination and perseverance.
What I'm not familiar with is the elitism aspect and the sense of entitlement - their focus was very selective on young men from the best public (what we call private) schools. Smyth was an anomaly as he was from a 'lesser' public school; but the founder Mr Nash, aka 'Bash', took him under his wing. My view of the CofE situation is that it's not just a division of liberal/conservative theology but also of class divide - which takes their division to a whole new level of complexity than in NZ, I think. They appear, now, to have a fair whack of clout in the CofE - but I've no way to quantify that.
I can't figure out which way the wind's blowing. Do they have enough 'heft' to take over the CofE? Will they separate into a Third Province? Do they take the Gafcon route? Surely the current bitter divisions can't be accommodated any longer within the current structure - I'd think something has to give? More than just changing the ABC's job description!
Another unknown is what disciplinary action will be taken in regard to, not just those identified in the Makin Report, but safeguarding issues in general. William Nye's position is looking shaky and nothing would please me more than to hear news of his resignation (which I would think is necessary for any hope of real change of culture in the upper echelon of the church).
Hey Mark, I've read an intriguing article that imagines the possibility of the new ABC being a woman (it bears today's date so I guess it's not the same article that you read).
"A few weeks ago, I discovered some scribbled notes I’d written on a potential novel about the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury. They were dated 1990 - just after Margaret Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister - and four years before women were ordained."
An enjoyable read although she concludes such an outcome is unlikely...
https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/is-the-last-glass-stained-ceiling-about-to-come-down/18513.article
Thanks Liz. The part of your post that I most responded to was on domination or what you call "dominionist" groups.
Anglican "dominionism", perhaps, can be seen in the puritan ideal of 'completing' the reformation project - that the Church of England needs converting from a sort of wayward, flabby, cultural religion (Catholic, Papist, Agnostic, Liberal) to a more thoroughgoing, pure evangelical faith. Thus Iwerne as seeding a new generation of Anglican leaders to gain control of the church. I know of one very high up figure in the NZ Anglican church who has publically spoken of a prominent internal evangelical church fellowship as a "Trojan horse" designed to slowly win/take over the NZ church.
Interestingly, the contrast to Puritan domination - Anglicanism as an irenic middle way that makes space for contrasting views - became established and "settled" under a female leader (Elizabeth I). Theologians such as F.D Maurice would later speak of an Anglican "comprehensiveness".
Perhaps bishops/the house of bishops tend to take a more "comprehensive" approach because they are holding the many interests, parishes, and wings of the church in their care, and this might involve conflict with laity and clergy who are pushing for more progress, one way or the other, on specific issues.
Muscular (evangelical) Christianity is hostile to difference, but often liberal Christianity is too (mea culpa). At some level the human mind reverts back to tribalism - usually when threatened by big social changes that seek to increase and expand the acceptable/saved "in-group"; e.g. inclusion of "Gentiles", slaves, "pagans", women, sexual minorities, other religious approaches to God and truth etc.
Yes please...
https://youtu.be/kjpPZosG6KA?si=TDGuz6NvbAwPyPfm
Fabulous video of Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, Mark!
Wise and eloquent, strong voice (yet gentle spirit).
I can't recall coming across her before, thank you.
I'm delighted to be 'introduced' :)
I enjoyed your discussion.. last night I was talking with my OH in similar vein. I was mulling over the extremes at *either* end of the spectrum and how - as they intensify their stance - they tend to put ever-increasing pressure on milder folk to take a stronger stance one way or the other. More people start to dig-in, and aggression escalates. Ideally bishops and clergy manage this situation, but so many bishops, clergy and theologians are as polarised as anyone else! (and more so perhaps, because they have a platform). Thankfully there's also many who manage to navigate a wise course through the pitfalls. Personally, I don't think clinging to the centre works *either*. It just ends up frustrating most everybody. My new resolve is to learn how to form genuine convictions - by carefully considering Jesus' example and what's best for 'beloved community' - *and* cultivating humility and gentleness (which is clearly not my default!). But it seems a decent aspiration, and I need to learn more about Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani who from the video appears a worthy example of what is good.
Oh thanks for that! I will pray in that direction. Bless her!
Blessed are the sleek...
This afternoon I found a well-written article from a writer who was involved with Iwerne for several years, to the level of giving talks at their camps and schools, and he lodged a couple of years with Mark Ruston.
He describes the ethos I've been trying to convey *and* references the relationship between penal substitutionary atonement and violence.
"Without penal substitution, John Smyth would have had no thrashing shed in his back garden."
I found it helpful and enjoyed his writing style.
https://survivingchurch.org/2019/11/26/smyth-fletcher-iwerne-and-the-theology-of-the-divided-self-charles-foster/
"Trojan horse"
So yes.. that's in an article title I have, and the article references what I'm meaning by "dominionist ambition".. not the only such reference I've seen.
"Nash’s mission was clear and simple, to take over the Church of England for Jesus, and through it the nation, providing it with the best leadership he could, Christian boys from elite public schools."
In.. Iwerne: The Anglican Trojan Horse by Jeremy Pemberton
https://jeremypemberton.uk/2024/11/15/iwerne-the-anglican-trojan-horse/
Thanks Liz. You're such a good researcher!
The Charles Foster piece is really good, the best I've read on Smyth and Iwerne.
Reposting it here...
https://survivingchurch.org/2019/11/26/smyth-fletcher-iwerne-and-the-theology-of-the-divided-self-charles-foster/
He describes so punchily a sort of dark, creepy overlap between the elect and the elite....
"We loved hell, and needed it. We were glad that it was well populated – particularly by people who hadn’t been to major public schools – because that emphasised our status as members of an exclusive club of the redeemed. If hell hadn’t existed, or had been empty, we wouldn’t have felt special. We were elected – socially and theologically – and proud of it...."
...that seems deserving to me, in a quite earthy, ordinary way, of the description *anti-Christ*...
"The theology chimed perfectly with our politics, our sociology, and the grounds of our self-esteem. We were sheep, and delighted that there were goats. And we never, ever, read the rest of that parable. If someone was hungry, we had better, more urgent, and more eternally significant things to do than feed him. If someone was a stranger, we wouldn’t dream of taking him in: he might not have gone to a strategically significant school. If someone was in prison – well, that was the sort of thing you expected from the lower orders, not from us, and our time would be better spent evangelising stockbrokers at the Varsity Match than visiting him. And as for the Sermon on the Mount? An embarrassment, to be spiritualized into impotence. Blessed are the sleek. Blessed are those who earn. When I should have been handing out soup and blankets at a homeless shelter I was listening to fulminations about the Social Gospel (always capitalized, and apparently more deadly than rabies). Not only can one serve God and Mammon, one should: just ask the banker-prophets filling the pews at St. Helen’s Bishopsgate."
Annd in contrast to the best of Anglican Christianity:
"To be moved by anything beautiful was unsound and effeminate. Beauty itself was a snare."
"Mystery and nuance were diabolical."
"....reflection was actively discouraged. Introspection was regarded as egotistical, and a highroad to heresy..."
Cheers Mark!
I've dropped in to ADU to note that John Sandeman has helpfully published a guide to some major “names” in the Makin review, I appreciate him making the effort...
https://theothercheek.com.au/smyth-cover-up-evangelicals-named-in-the-makin-report/
Lastly, I've just listened to Mark Ruston - author of the 1982 Ruston Report that exposed Smyth's abuse. He did a sermon in 1989 on "Suffering and Glory" in which he refers to Smyth's abuse to illustrate a point near the end (which is about not "seeking" suffering.. he doesn't name Smyth). He thinks it's the strangest thing he's discovered in all his ministry.. how a group of students voluntarily accepted severe physical chastisement, beating, in order for the purifying of the flesh. "They were seeking something, you see, er, because they thought the pain, or the suffering, is what would help them".
This was in a Cambridge (UK) church with students in his audience - yet it comes across as though the abused students had plucked this strange idea out of thin air! There's no hint of reference to the twisted, sick, ideas suggested to them by a trusted Christian leader and QC, who also happened to be a master manipulator.
I'd seen this sermon mentioned several times and eventually got the link from browsing through the Makin review. Here's an associated note from that review:
"13.1.54 It is our view that this demonstrates the feeling earlier referenced by several victims that Mark Ruston’s approach was dismissive in tone, feeling victim “blaming” and also evidences to the widening level of public knowledge of the abuses. It is possible this sermon was in response to the publication of John Thorn’s book."
I find Ruston's attitude chilling given he was the one who'd spoken at length with victims - and he'd written the 1982 report. If he and others who knew, were partially blaming the victims, I imagine this attitude would've aided their decision to not expose Smyth any more than what they deemed necessary... staggering!
https://www.stag.org/sermons/suffering-and-glory-1-peter-412-19/
To be clear, I'm sad at what I've just read and heard but these events *must* be learned from and not swept under the carpet. The church won't be a safe environment until survivors and their experiences are properly acknowledged, listened to, learned from AND the church follows up with real repentance and reform. Systemic changes alone won't deal with these issues, radical change of hearts and minds is also necessary. Unfortunately Justin Welby's publicly demonstrated why his resignation was absolutely necessary - he's simply not suited to lead the church on this vital issue:
quoting from: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge9je2g5njo
Joanne Grenfell, Julie Conalty and Robert Springett, Church of England lead bishops for safeguarding, wrote to some abuse survivors after Mr Welby's speech, calling it "mistaken and wrong".
"Both in content and delivery, the speech was utterly insensitive, lacked any focus on victims and survivors of abuse, especially those affected by John Smyth, and made light of the events surrounding the Archbishop's resignation," the letter said.
"It was mistaken and wrong. We acknowledge and deeply regret that this has caused further harm to you in an already distressing situation."
The letter said the church had "seriously failed" to meet its safeguarding obligations "over many years" and described Mr Welby's speech as "the antithesis of all that we are now trying to work towards in terms of culture change and redress with all of you".
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