Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Justin Welby Resignation: CofE Minister REACTS || SLP548

Transcript

Justin Welby Resignation: CofE Minister REACTS || SLP548 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_07: For John Smythe, he manipulated and coerced using religious language.
0:11
SPEAKER_07: People like myself meant going to his house just at a side in Winchester, heading up the garden with him to a shed a shed that had been specially designed and sat-proof for beatings.
0:25
SPEAKER_07: And these beatings were not six of the best sort of normal corporal punishment of the day.
0:31
SPEAKER_07: They were severe assaults.
0:33
SPEAKER_07: Oh, I remember a man who used religious language to justify violence.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: What is the real reason behind the resignation of Justin Welby?
0:46
SPEAKER_01: If you ask some people, it is because of conservative theology.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: That's what Bishop Rose from Dover said on Channel 4 News last night.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: For me, at the heart of this problem is the impoverished interpretation of scriptures that takes a kind of literalism when we look at biblical scriptures.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: That for me is part of the problem.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: So some want to draw our attention to conservative theology at this hour.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Others want to draw our attention to liberal theology at this hour.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Catholic unscripted see this as a reckoning for Justin Welby's liberal marriage views.
1:28
SPEAKER_08: They've introduced this thing called prayers of love and faith, which is an obvious Trojan horse.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: We have certainly commented on Justin Welby's theology of marriage, but is that the note to strike at this hour?
1:40
SPEAKER_01: So some see the issue as conservative theology, some see the issue as liberal theology, some see the issue as Justin Welby's progressive politics, like Jeremy Kyle.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Talking about slavery reparations, liking the climate threat to Nazism, comparing the Rwanda plan to Nazism and calling the EU the greatest dream realized for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: Get your bloody house right, Welby.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: But these are not the notes to strike.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: Right now, Justin Welby has told us why he has resigned.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: He might have taken far too long about that.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: He certainly has taken far too long about addressing victims.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: He certainly took far too long to address the abuse of John Smythe, but he has at least now honourably resigned.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And he has told us where our focus should be.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Our focus should be on the Macon Review, looking into the abuses of John Smythe, and learning the lessons of that review.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: That's where our focus should be.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Here's his resignation letter.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty the King, I've decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: The Macon Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smythe.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: We'll look into how long maintained they have been.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and re-traumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: As I step down, I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: The last few days have renewed my long-felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: For nearly twelve years I have struggled to introduce improvements, it is for others to judge what has been done.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honored to serve.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I pray that this decision points us back towards the love that Jesus Christ has for every one of us.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: For above all else, my deepest commitment is to the person of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, and my God, the bearer of the sins and burdens of the world, and the hope of every person.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: This is about the heinous abuses of John Smythe, our failures in addressing them, the cover-up, the conspiracy of silence, and trying to make a safer church.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: That's what this is about.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: And so what I do not understand is the gloating over this or the grandstanding over this or the bandwagoning over this or the I told you so about all of this.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Our focus should be the cause for which the Archbishop resigned, which is the heinous abuses of John Smythe, and the long-maintained conspiracy of silence that allowed it.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: If right now you're choosing to foreground Justin Welby's politics, or even his theology, or his managerial style within the Church of England, or the fact that he didn't sufficiently save the parish or whatever it is, all those causes are good and right causes.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: I have views on all these things, but those are discussions for another day.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Our focus should be the make and review, which was the resigning matter that Justin Welby acted upon.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: To make this about something else misses the point of the resignation, it dishonors the victims, it fails to learn the lessons that the make and review is wanting to teach us, and it is engaging in the kind of tribalism that has led to this long conspiracy of silence.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: Tribalism is precisely the dynamic that enables abusers, because we circle the wagons against our guy and we consider that all the problems are in the other tribe.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: This kind of tribalism is exactly what it allowed John Smythe to abuse.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: When people say that Justin had to go because of X, Y, and Z, when X, Y, and Z are the hobby horses they had been riding for years anyway, all that proves is that they are tribally motivated.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: That is an illegitimate leveraging of this crisis, of this tragedy, in order to serve hobby horse X, Y, or Z.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: Hobby Horse X, Y, or Z might be true, but today is not the day to ride those hobby horses.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: That misses the point of the resignation, that dishonors the victims, that fails to learn the lessons that the Macon Review is trying to teach us, and it engages in the tribalism that got us here in the first place.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: This is about the heinous abuse of John Smythe and the conspiracy of silence that enabled it.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Justin Welby has taken personal and institutional responsibility in this resignation.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: The personal aspect is well known.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: He was a part of the Ewan camps, the hunting ground of John Smythe.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: He claims not to have known of the abuses of John Smythe at that case.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: He was certainly told that John Smythe was somebody to avoid, but Justin Welby historically had been part of those kinds of circles.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Where the personal meets the institutional is that as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was made aware of the full scale of John Smythe's abuses.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Here's how he describes that moment to Kathy Newman.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I first read about it back in 2013, I think.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: I was shaken to the core.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh shocked beyond description.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, it was utterly overwhelming in the horror I felt for that his victims suffered through this appalling, sadistic, evil abuse.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: One of the survivors of John Smythe's abuse, Mark Stibby, talks in harrowing terms about the abuse that he suffered.
7:23
SPEAKER_07: Well, John Smythe was a predator who infiltrated my school, Winchester College in the late 1970s, into what was then called the Christian Forum, where young boys were learning about Christianity.
7:39
SPEAKER_07: And he manipulated and coerced using religious language people like myself into believing that he could be trusted as a kind of spiritual father.
7:50
SPEAKER_07: But his intentions were far from fatherly because in the end it led to abuse of a physical, of a criminal, and of a spiritual nature.
8:00
SPEAKER_07: So in my case, and in the case of many of the survivors that I'm in regular contact with, that meant going to his house just like Winchester, heading up the garden with him to a shed that had been specially designed and soundproof for beatings.
8:18
SPEAKER_07: And these beatings were not six of the best, the sort of normal corporal punishment of the day.
8:24
SPEAKER_07: They were severe assaults.
8:27
SPEAKER_07: So I remember a man who used religious language to justify violence.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: So what did Justin Welby do about it?
8:34
SPEAKER_01: That's Cathy Newman's question.
8:36
SPEAKER_04: You have been Archbishop for nearly a decade.
8:38
SPEAKER_04: And what the Macon Review sets out is that senior church leaders, including yourself, missed so many opportunities to deal with this.
8:48
SPEAKER_04: Do you accept that?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: I accept that from August 2013 until your program uncovered this in a documentary in 2017, that I did not, and I take responsibility for this, and it was a failure and a ready shaming failure, I did not ensure that this was pursued as energetically, as remorselessly as it should have been.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: So the personal and the institutional did not really marry up because as soon as his position institutionally made him aware of the abuses of Smythe, surely that had to combine with the personal knowledge of Smythe and the circles around Smythe and the rumors around Smythe.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that make him remorselessly pursue this particular case because it was not reported to the police?
9:45
SPEAKER_01: And people continued to be abused in Africa because church leaders in the UK failed to act.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: We'll return to that in a second.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: But nothing happened until Kathy Newman herself pursued this story.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: And there is a venerable tradition of the hero journalist putting the foot in the door and breaking the story, shining a spotlight, as it were, on church abuse.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think Kathy Newman absolutely fits into that venerable tradition when the church itself did not shine a spotlight on evil.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, the spotlight was shone from outside the church, and Kathy Newman did a wonderful job.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Here she is confronting John Smythe in 2017.
10:28
unknown: Mr.
10:28
SPEAKER_05: Smythe, Kathy Newman from Channel 4 News.
10:31
SPEAKER_05: We're told that you beat young men until they bled.
10:33
SPEAKER_05: Why did you do that?
10:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about that.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Praise God that she was pursuing the gotcha with John Smythe in 2017.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Because she actually shamed the church into action.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, Justin Welby and the Archbishop's Council would commission the Macon Review.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, Justin Welby would promise to meet with victims, and eventually he would.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: It took so, so long, and it took a great deal of external pressure from the media in order for him to do this.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Just as an aside, if you think the legacy media is dead, well, in this instance, the legacy media has led to an unprecedented resignation of an Archbishop of Canterbury.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: Cathy Newman has done the Lord's work.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: I genuinely believe that.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: In the Old Testament, there are many times when it's the other nations that shame Israel.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: It is other nations outside the community of God's people, who at times are more righteous than the Lord's own people, and sometimes they bring judgment from the outside.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: When Assyria comes against the Northern Kingdom because of its idolatry, when Babylon comes against the Southern Kingdom because of its idolatry, it's the Lord doing these things.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: If the church will not keep its own house in order, God might bring judgment from the outside.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: It happened with the Boston Globe in the Archdiocese of Boston, in America.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: It's happened here with Kathy Newman and Channel 4 News.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: But it's that external pressure that made Justin Welby act, it made him commission the make and review, it made him eventually meet with victims, and it was a shameful delay.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Survivors speak of how needless it was and how painful it was and how foolish it was for Justin Welby not to meet with survivors earlier.
12:17
SPEAKER_06: If Justin had handled this differently back in 2017, if he'd put out a statement saying, I'm sorry, I'd go to Lambeth, my eye was off the ball.
12:27
SPEAKER_06: Do you want to meet me tomorrow, victims?
12:29
SPEAKER_06: Are you alright?
12:30
SPEAKER_06: Have you got counselling?
12:32
SPEAKER_06: I am sorry, then we would have ticked him off the list and forgiven him there and then.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: But eventually, after immense delay, the Make and Review finally comes out.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: And eventually, after immense pressure, especially from Channel 4 News, Justin Welby finally resigns.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: But he resigns because of his personal and institutional connection to the case of John Smythe, and because we must learn the lessons of the Mac and Review.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Now, what I want to do right now is the opposite of bandwagoning and the opposite of tribalism.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do now is not circle the wagons around my tribe.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do is shine the spotlight onto my tribe and the failures of my tribe in stopping this grotesque evil.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: It is an honorable thing for Justin Welby to have stepped down.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Honorable because of his personal and his institutional connections to this case.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: But it is not just archbishops and bishops that have led us here.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: I just want to draw your attention, draw all our attentions, to a couple of pages of the 250-page Macon Review and take us back to 1982, forty-two years ago, when the abuses of John Smythe first came out.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: The following findings should also be considered.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: The abuse was uncovered in February 1982 with disclosures from victims, correspondence to David Fletcher, and a serious attempted suicide by a victim.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: The Rustin Report, named after Mark Rustin, who was the vicar who was writing this report.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: It was written in early March 1982 and shown to a small group of Yuan people.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Ewan were the camps which were the hunting ground of John Smythe.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: The decision was made that the authorities will not be informed, most importantly the police, and that the matter will be held secret by this small group.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: The reason given for this is that it will be in the best interests of the victims as their lives would be ruined by the abuse being made public.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Canon David McKinnis has told reviewers that he was called by a parent of one of the victims, called by one parent of one of the victims.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: He made it clear that their family did not wish the reports of abuse to be taken any further.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: The evidence from the time, which includes a great deal of contemporaneous correspondence between the people shown the Rustin report, shows clearly that there were several possible reasons for the non-disclosure.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Notice the repeated word here.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: To protect the reputation of the Yuan movement, to protect the wider reputation of conservative evangelicalism, to protect the reputations of the individuals involved with Yuan, to protect the reputations of the victims' parents.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: In an interview with us, David Fletcher said, I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: A claim is made that the parents of the victims were consulted, and they agreed to this non-disclosure.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: The truth is that only three sets, possibly four, of parents were consulted.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: With one of these favoring disclosure to the authorities.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: So the parents don't want this being made known.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: No, you only even consulted three or four parents, and one of those actually definitely wanted a disclosure to the authorities.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: And do you have any care about stopping there being further abused?
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any do you do do you want there to be more such parents and more such victims?
16:07
SPEAKER_01: No, but it's the reputation.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: It's the protection of the reputation.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: There is no attempt to consult with the victims as to their views on this.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: It is worth noting here that the victims were treated as boys and are referred to as such.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: They're in their late teens, these so-called boys, and many of them have uh transitioned into adulthood.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: The emphasis throughout is firmly on considering the wishes of the victim's parents.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: These were by this point not boys, but adult men by 1982, who were not given agency in this whole process.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: A psychiatrist is consulted, and there is some evidence that legal advice may have been sought.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: The Rustin report clearly states that offences had been committed.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: The choice is explicitly made to withhold the knowledge of offences potentially being committed from the police.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: There was little support offered to the victims.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, there is evidence of Mark Rustin being critical of some victims when questioning them.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: There is also evidence of what amounts to victim blaming in some of the correspondence.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: There is a worrying pattern of deference to John Smythe from the people dealing with the fallout from the Rustin report.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: They defer to him and are led by him, sharing their thinking with him.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: There is one reference to maintaining his Christian usefulness and commitments.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to do about this predator in our midst?
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, we he's useful to us.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep him on side.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: The discussions are about how he can continue in some way with the UN Trust and camps, rather than how he can be stopped from committed further abuse.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Even within the context of the time and the policies in place, both within the church and in wider society, their clear responsibility was to report serious crimes to the police.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: The Macon Review does a good job of saying safeguarding practices in 1982 were different to what they were even in 2013, which is different again to what they are in 2024.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: That is true.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: But when a sadist is beating people to the point where they think they're going to die, even in 1982, you know your clear responsibility is to report serious crimes to the police.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Don't you?
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Of course you do.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: All decision making during this period regarding investigation and responding to the abuse was managed by a group of men that included ordained clergy and prominent evangelicals.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: This interpretation of what occurred has been questioned by many, but our firm conclusion is that a serious crime was covered up.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: The correspondence includes words and phrases associated with keeping things quiet and secrecy.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Now what do you think of when you think of a cover-up?
18:51
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you think of people who are very unlike you who are switching into this extraordinary mode of reputation management.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: I think when you read a review like this, you recognize what cover-ups look like.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Cover-ups look like business as usual.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: You don't switch into reputation management mode because we're all involved in reputation management mode the whole time.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: It's just that when the bomb goes off of such egregious abuse, you're meant to switch out of reputation management.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: You're meant to challenge your reputation management.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: You're meant to finally wake up to the bubble that you're in and to shine a light on the fact that the bomb has gone off.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: People's lives are utterly destroyed, and a vicious predator has had his way with precious image bearers.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: But what does cover-up look like?
19:47
SPEAKER_01: Cover-up looks like people like you and me who decide it's business as usual, even when the bomb has gone off.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And just trying to manage within your own resources, and trying not to rock the boat, and trying not to make a fuss, trying to piece things back together, and trying to protect, protect, protect the reputation, the reputation, the reputation.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Make and Review is saying.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a cover-up, but it's a cover-up by well-meaning people who just try to manage it themselves.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's all it takes in order to do great evil.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: It's like the Bonhoeffer line, isn't it?
20:26
SPEAKER_01: All it takes for great evil to happen is for good people to do nothing.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: All it takes for a cover-up to happen is for well-meaning people to keep trying to manage things when the time for reputation management has long passed.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: And this comes very close to home for me.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: There are different abuse scandals, and you think, well, I I was never part of the Mike Pillovacci thing.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: I've never gone to Soul Survivor, I've never listened to to a a word that Mike Pilovacci has said.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: That's more the charismatic evangelicals, and it's not really my tribe, and and so it doesn't come close to home.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Or you read through the Ixar report of Chichester and and the abuse of Peter Ball, and again, that's not that's not my churchmanship.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: It's egregious, it's awful to read about.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: But you just think, oh, that's not that's not my churchmanship.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Or you you think about Jean Vanier and and Larch and his abuses, and again you think, well, that's a different kind of spirituality, that's that's a Roman Catholic thing.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: Or you you think of the Archdiocese of Boston and that sort of thing.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: And it's so tempting in all these ways to think, ah, I'm sure that theology leads to abuse, but this theology leads to abuse, this theology leads to abuse, but you know, my tribe is fine.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Um stupid to think, isn't it?
21:54
SPEAKER_01: And that's certainly the impulse of of Bishop Ruth, Bishop of of Dover in that opening clip.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: The biblical literalist she points the finger at biblical literalists so she points the finger at evangelicals.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: Conservative evangelicals.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: And then you do have to read the Macon Review.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And you do have to start to wonder what are our specific weaknesses?
22:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk about the eight specific weaknesses that exist in my tribe.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: This is not about circling the wagons.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: This is doing the opposite.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: This is just shining a light on my side of things.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Here are eight things that make us vulnerable to abuse in our midst and liable to cover it up when it happens.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Number one, piety is personal.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Number two, suffering is sacred.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Number three, persecution confirms that you're right.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Number four, reputation is all important.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Number five, the world can't be trusted.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Number six, the work must go on.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: Number seven, heaven and hell are at stake.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: And number eight, we are right.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: We are on the right side of that momentous divide.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: And those who read the Ruston Report in 1982 and decided to take the course that they took believed those things very strongly.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: First of all, piety is personal.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Personal holiness is a wonderful distinctive to have.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: JC Ryle, another Etonian and a bishop, just like Justin Welby.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: He absolutely put the focus on personal piety, personal holiness, and that is absolutely vital.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: But what happens to interpersonal righteousness?
23:32
SPEAKER_01: What happens to social justice when everything is personal piety?
23:37
SPEAKER_01: Here's what happens.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: We all know not to be John Smythe, but we know not to be John Smythe because you don't want to be that kind of horrible person.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And when you hear about the psychopathic horrors of a sadist like John Smythe, the personal pietist in the evangelical says, There but for the grace of God go I.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Which is not the first thing you should think when you look at a sadist like John Smythe.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: But it is commonly the first thing that evangelicals are asked to consider when we come across egregious predators like John Smythe.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Look towards yourself.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Is there not a smythe deep within you?
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And look, there's some truth to that.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: But the reason why Jesus talks about wolves and shepherds and sheep is because there is a category of predator who hunts for the weak and vulnerable in your midst.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: And if you are a shepherd, your first duty is not to think, ah, I guess there are many ways in which I too am a wolf.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Should we not have a moment of silence to consider our own wolfishness?
24:37
SPEAKER_01: No, you should go and protect the sheep.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: You should grow a backbone.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: You should get some thick skin.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: You should fight the wolf.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, when I was preparing to be a Church of England minister, we were often encouraged to think about, you know, abuse in the life of the church and safeguarding and those sorts of things.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: But commonly the the lens through which I was viewing things, and I'll just call this a me problem.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying this is a problem with any of the people who were trying to train me, but I certainly got the impression that I should try to avoid scandal because of the reputation of Jesus.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: We'll get onto that in a second, and because of my own personal piety, and the greatest threat would be if I fell in some sexual sin and ran off with somebody, not my wife, or something.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, like, and that that was the sort of the that was the scenario to guard against.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And of course, that's a scenario to guard against.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Sure, absolutely.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: But if you're a shepherd looking after sheep, what is the number one scenario you should have top of mind when you think of safeguarding?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: When you think of keeping your flock safe, what's the number one thing you should think of?
25:40
SPEAKER_01: There are wolves.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: There are predators.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: One percent of the male population are psychopaths.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: If you have a church of any size, you should be thinking there are wolves.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And your first thought should not be, ah, there, but for the grace of God, go away.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: That's not your first thought.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: You're a shepherd.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Protect the sheep, tackle the wolf, tackle the wolf.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: But we don't tackle the wolves.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Why?
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, there are seven other points.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: I'll have to do them quickly.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Suffering is sacred.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: There is something about our kind of conservative evangelicalism that just says, not long till heaven now, just be godly, mustn't grumble, crack on.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Crack on.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: And suffering can become normalized in an unhealthy way.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, sure, there are some theologies, prosperity theologies, in which there is no place for suffering.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's good to have a place for suffering.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: We we follow the suffering servant, that's right.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: But when suffering becomes sacred, then the red light on the dashboard just gets ignored.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the trial I'm going through and the torment I'm going through is just all a part of following the suffering servants.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: And some pretty nasty things start to get normalized.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Bullying becomes normalized, and then worse than bullying, and then you end up with the smythe thing.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Suffering is sacred.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: It is good to have a theology that says suffering is expected at times.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: It is not good to have a theology that says suffering is sacred.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, persecution confirms that you're being right.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: And again, Jesus says, expect persecution.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: One Peter says, expect persecution.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: But if you go out looking for persecution, then one Peter calls you a meddler.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: We have a mentality that, ah, it's because you're over the target that you take flak, right?
27:19
SPEAKER_01: In Air Force terms.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
27:21
SPEAKER_01: The plane that's over the target is the one that takes flak.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: And if you're taking flak for anything, you must be over the target.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: But when Channel 4 comes knocking, maybe that's not persecution from the world.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's the righteous judgment of God, and you need to wake up.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, reputation is all important.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Remember those four reputations that people around the Ruston Report were trying to maintain.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: They were trying to protect reputations.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: And I'll admit that going into ordained ministry, uh, a lot of the ways in which I thought, well, I mustn't stumble and fall as a Christian leader because that will be bad for the reputation of Jesus.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: And it sounds really holy to say the reputation of Jesus means that we need to be squeaky clean.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: The trouble is that A, the reputation of Jesus will be fine, okay?
28:06
SPEAKER_01: He is at the right hand of the Father, the name above every name.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: His reputation is just fine.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: When we say we are concerned for the reputation of Jesus, probably we're just concerned for the reputation of us, right?
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Or our movement, or conservative evangelicalism, or you know, Jesus is doing just fine.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to protect the reputation of Jesus.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: But secondly, if you think that reputation protection is the game that you're in, then you will whitewash any old evil in the name of Jesus.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: And that is a violation of the Third Commandment.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: That commandment is not about swearing.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: That commandment is about using the name of Jesus as a rubber stamp for what you really want.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: And you claim to be all about the reputation of the Ewan camps, or the reputation of conservative evangelicalism, the reputation of the gospel.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: It's really about the reputation of you, and you're using Jesus at that point.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: The fifth dynamic is that the world cannot be trusted.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: The world are the bad guys.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: Kathy Newman is the bad guy, right?
29:09
SPEAKER_01: And when she comes knocking on your door, you resist, you can close the door in her face, and you get this even within church structures.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the diocese are bad.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, and especially if from the pulpit you've been hearing the diocese are bad, the biases are bad, the bishop is bad.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean that their safeguarding officer is bad as well?
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean we are to mistrust people beyond our tribes?
29:29
SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, that is what happens.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: There is an immense amount of mistrust, not only of the world, but even of non-evangelical Christians in these circles.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: That makes the possibility of abuse rife.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: The work must go on.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: The work is all important.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: What did David Fletcher say?
29:47
SPEAKER_01: I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: Outrageous.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: And then heaven and hell are at stake.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, Ravi Zacharias, when one of his victims threatens to blow the whistle on him, he said, millions will perish in hell if you do this.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine like the spiritual abuse of saying that and leveraging heaven and hell in the cover-up of hellish evil?
30:11
SPEAKER_01: It's utterly hypocritical.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Now I believe in heaven and hell.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: I also believe that that can be leveraged in the cause of great evil.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, we are right.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: We are on the right side of that momentous divide.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: We are by definition right, and if you are by definition right, then you are uncorrectable.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: And you're going to cover things up.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: That group had an unshakable belief in those things.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And well-meaning people engaged in egregious cover-up.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Those are the sorts of things we should be talking about when the Archbishop of Canterbury resigns.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: Not politics.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: Not how you thought he was a very managerial archbishop or whatever it is.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Not your own hobby horse.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Not even the issue of gay marriage.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't be talking about that right now.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: You should be shining the spotlight where the Make and Review shone the spotlight, because that was the pressure under which the Archbishop resigned.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And we must, with a laser focus, look to ourselves.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, Justin Welby did the honorable thing.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Are we going to do the honorable thing?
31:12
SPEAKER_01: That's all we've got time for right now.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear what you think in the comments.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Please like, share, and subscribe.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: All those things.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: But we'll see you again on the next one.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.