Thinking Anglicans

Smyth in Southern Africa

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has published this news release:
Archbishop’s Panel of Inquiry pinpoints church’s failures on Smyth abuse report

This includes a seven page summary of the full report, which can also be read separately, via this link: Guide-to-Inquiry-Panel-report.

And also:

The Church of England has made this response: Response to South African Church’s report on John Smyth

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Kieran
Kieran
8 days ago

This is really troubling stuff. It makes one wonder what is being revealed about the Iwerne organisation that they found it most expedient to send Smyth out of England. They could have dealt with him in their own legal and disciplinary system, and this would have stopped him. Instead, other provinces are left carrying the can for failures in England. It makes one hot with anger and cold with sadness, all at once.

Francis James
Francis James
Reply to  Kieran
8 days ago

Noted that CofE response does not mention that not only was Smyth sent off to Africa to get him far out of the way, but he was funded to ensure he remained in exile.

Charles Read
Charles Read
Reply to  Kieran
8 days ago

Er… lots was revealed long ago! Have you read the Makin report or a summary thereof? He should have been referred to the police in the 1980s when some in Iwerne uncovered this. It far outstrips being dealt with by internal disciplinary processes.

Interested Observer
Interested Observer
Reply to  Kieran
8 days ago

[Iwerne] could have dealt with him in their own legal and disciplinary system”

What legal and disciplinary system? It was just a bunch of Smyth’s mates. Clearly, one thing that Eric Nash had was a fine nose for finding abusers and enablers of abuse.

Simon Dawson
Simon Dawson
Reply to  Kieran
7 days ago

There is documented evidence to show that the Iwerne leaders were aware that Smyth’s behaviours had probably crossed the boundaries of criminality, and they could and should have reported him to the police, rather than keep the process in house

It could be argued that their failure to tell the police at this early stage was the original sin out of which all later failures followed.

Nigel Ashworth
Nigel Ashworth
Reply to  Kieran
7 days ago

It is disturbing. Everywhere we see trusting people, church leaders and especially victims, becoming the targets of wolves among the flock like John Smyth. Further information has come out this evening in another Channel Four piece about David Fletcher, who was described in the Makin Report as at the centre of the Iwerne movement. Fletcher died in 2018.

He is now himself accused of sexual abuse towards girls and Channel Four suggested that Smyth was moved out of the country to protect Fletcher from being exposed. The Church Times has this piece:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/7-february/news/uk/iwerne-camp-leader-the-late-revd-david-fletcher-accused-of-sexual-abuse

Janet Fife
Janet Fife
Reply to  Kieran
7 days ago

Andrew Graystone’s book Bleeding for Jesus covers Smyth’s years in Africa as well as in England, and has been out for a couple of years now.

Interested Observer
Interested Observer
8 days ago

6.3 It is to the credit of the Revd Skevington and the churchwardens they did not (as the Makin Review unfortunately reflects as the reaction of some individuals and entities, in the UK and Zimbabwe) quail in the face of these threats [of legal action by Smyth, as documented in 6.2]. The Smyths were immediately suspended from all ministries at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and left the congregation “abruptly”. At last: people doing their job. Apparently the only people in the entire Anglican community willing to actually stand up to Smyth was the Rector and an unnamed church warden of St Martin-in-the-Fields,… Read more »

Angusian
Angusian
8 days ago

In failing to follow a proper process of establishing responsibility, the Anglican church knowingly exported its problems to another province thus involving its Archbishop, administration and members. Np blame should be attributed to the province for any implied guilt in its processes; the blame is entirely in England

Charles Read
Charles Read
Reply to  Angusian
7 days ago

It was not the Anglican church which exported Smyth it was the Iwerne leadership. The Church of England as an official body did not know of Smyth’s abuse until he had been in S Africa a while – but several Iwerne leaders did and did nothing apart from getting him out of the country. Even if we suspect Justin Welby knew or had an inkling earlier than 2013, he was not involved in getting him out of the UK – though I believe he did contribute to Smyth’s new ministry in Africa.

Anglican in Exile
Anglican in Exile
Reply to  Charles Read
7 days ago

And the natural successors of Iwerne are currently totally fixated on dictating to the rest of the CofE and the wider Christian Church what God’s plan for human relationships looks like and expect the rest of us to toe their party line… in fact they’re so busy sowing division, they don’t seem interested in taking any responsibility whatsoever for the sins of the past. I suspect much more is yet to be revealed, thank God for investigative journalists, but God help the beleaguered CofE picking up the pieces!

Ian Hobbs
Ian Hobbs
Reply to  Anglican in Exile
7 days ago

“the natural successors of Iwerne”

There is absolutely no connection between the vast majority of evangelicals/charismatics and Iwerne thinking or actions.

This just smacks as a desperate mud throwing slur. They are also, being as much CofE, picking up the pieces of the PLF mess.

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
Reply to  Ian Hobbs
7 days ago

Correct. As a conservative evangelical in the 1970’s, and coming from one of the better public schools, I never heard the name Iwerne or of any camps, although some of the preachers I heard had Iwerne connections. No doubt I was not considered a future leader.

John S
John S
Reply to  Nigel Goodwin
6 days ago

“one of the better public schools”. Interesting choice of words, “better”. “Bigger”, “older established”, “more prestigious” – I could understand those, but what is meant by “better”?

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
Reply to  John S
6 days ago

obviously, innit, I was also referencing, tongue in cheek, Nash’s focus on the ‘better schools’.

Simon Kershaw
Reply to  Nigel Goodwin
6 days ago

I am reminded of the passage from Dorothy L Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise where there is an office discussion about “public schools”: “What schools do you call public schools?” “Eton,” said Mr Bredon promptly, “– and Harrow,” he added magnanimously, for he was an Eton man. “Rugby,” suggested Mr Ingleby. “No, no,” protested Bredon, “that’s a railway junction.” … “And I’ve heard,” Bredon went on, “that there’s a decentish sort of place at Winchester, if you’re not too particular.” “I once met a man who’d been to Marlborough,” suggested Ingleby. “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Bredon. “They get a… Read more »

John S
John S
Reply to  Ian Hobbs
6 days ago

Oh come now, I think you are getting a little carried away here. There are manifestly multiple connections between the vast majority of evangelicals and Iwerne. Both groups are evangelical, so, among many other things in common, they both believe in the primary importance of converting people, especially young people, the concomitant importance of not letting the Lord’s work be tarnished in the public mind, they both lean strongly to the idea that sin deserves/requires punishment, and that punishment is likely to have a physical element.

Ian Hobbs
Ian Hobbs
Reply to  John S
6 days ago

Oh come now…. it’s a spurious linking with Iwerne and it’s abuse that’s the focus. There’s none.

As to the other “links” you’re largely describing 2000 years of Christian mission…. not to say the Great Commission. Complain to heaven about that…

Jo B
Jo B
Reply to  Ian Hobbs
6 days ago

There is a line to be drawn, I think, between the everyone-knew-but-no-one-did-anything attitude to Smyth and the similar one taken to Pilavachi, albeit that the latter’s offences seem to have been of lesser magnitude. The evangelical habit of developing parallel structures that dodge, intentionally or otherwise, the formal arrangements put in place to protect vulnerable people is something that bears closer examination. There is also the tendency to have leaders who have power and authority that is personal rather than official, which makes it hard for groups to cope with leaders who have behaved inappropriately. There are other tendencies, particularly… Read more »

Tim Evans
Tim Evans
Reply to  Ian Hobbs
6 days ago

Good point. Evangelicals are just as deeply upset and angry at the abuse by Smyth and the cover up and its impact on the Church of England as others are.

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
Reply to  Tim Evans
6 days ago

I’ll respond to John S’s two comments in one, although it is getting off topic and personal. Marlborough. Partly because of their policy regarding sons (and daughters) of clergy. Better because we tended to win all cross country and athletics matches (my sports, still active in them). We had a lot of freedom, independent views were encouraged, teachers of top sets were excellent (maths, sciences and music were my subjects) and I loved running around the Marlborough Downs and Savernake Forest. Two contempories I knew well became evangelical bishops and also enjoyed running. One was Wiltshire champion. Since my time… Read more »

John S
John S
Reply to  Nigel Goodwin
6 days ago

“I never heard any sermon or talk about hell fire or physical punishment, on this earth or the next. I don’t know from where you get your different impression. …. Mel Gibson, a bit different. I regret ever watching that film….” I have lost count of the number of sermons I’ve heard, and articles or books read, that have felt it important to emphasise the physical suffering of Jesus. I’d suggest that Mel Gibson isn’t in a different category, he’s just a more transparent or explicit manifestation of a widespread understanding. Recognition of the physical suffering or Jesus is embedded… Read more »

John S
John S
Reply to  Charles Read
7 days ago

But nonetheless at one level it was the Anglican (or CofE) church that exported him to Africa. The Anglican (or CofE) church doesn’t lie in one single organizationally defined entity, the Anglican church is the sum of all the various multiple linked, overlapping, but distinct activities and structures. Are not the people who actually sent him to Africa as much embodying the CofE as you or I are? This matters (rather than being pedantic terminologising) because it affects the psychology. “A bad thing happened, but thank God it was done by someone else” is a very different starting point from… Read more »

Tim Evans
Tim Evans
Reply to  John S
6 days ago

There was and is a real ambiguity about where some of the groups sit vis a vis the Church of England. They want the respectability, clerical authority and access to important people it gives them but reject any real oversight or accountability. Iwerne was run by a self-appointed group of Church of England clergymen and recruited young men to be trained by the Church of England. But they in turn often operated at arms length from their dioceses and bishops and even planted churches in other parishes and sometimes looked abroad for episcopal ministry. Iwerne was not part of the… Read more »

Perry Butler
Perry Butler
Reply to  Tim Evans
3 days ago

Sadly such distinctions ARE lost on the media and so most people outside the C of E. It used to be said that a certain sort of evangelical saw the C of E as ” the best boat to fish from”.Though I suspect that may be less true now for various reasons. When I was a DDO I had a particularly insightful assessor who would ask a potential ordinand ” What do you love about the Church of England?

Francis James
Francis James
Reply to  John S
6 days ago

That Iwerne Trust & its successor the Titus Trust have officially operated at arms length from CofE hierarchy undoubtedly suits both.
The Iwerne/Titus brigade enjoy independence combined with cloak of much positive high-level approval, while CofE hierarchy can fall back on plausible deniability if/when things go wrong in the God Squad world.

Simon Dawson
Simon Dawson
Reply to  Charles Read
6 days ago

Would vicarious liability be an issue here?

The majority of the Iwerne Leadership were ordained CofE clergymen, many of whom were in post in CofE churches. So how well would an argument that the CofE was not responsible stand up in law?

I am not making the argument one way or the other, just curious.

Simon Bravery
Simon Bravery
Reply to  Simon Dawson
6 days ago

I have seen it argued that there is no such thing as the Church of England. There are two provinces, 42 dioceses, thousands of benefices and parishes, cathedral churches and the National Church Institutions.

Several of the Iwerne Trustees were C of E clergy. Many of the schools attended by the campers had a definite Anglican ethos. However, I cannot see how this would give rise to vicarious liability on the part of the Church of England.

Anthony Archer
Anthony Archer
6 days ago

Archbishop Thabo’s response to the ACSA Panel of Inquiry is a heartfelt mea culpa of the kind not being seen in the Church of England.  Yes, ACSA made mistakes, but absent of any evidence of abuse occurring in South Africa their actions and omissions were not heinous, and some action was particularly good (i.e. Smyth being challenged in the face of threatened litigation).  It has been a wake up call for ACSA more widely.  But why did the Bishop of Ely’s office not pick up the phone or routinely send chasing emails, copied as necessary?  More particularly (and I’ve said this on TA before),… Read more »

Last edited 6 days ago by Anthony Archer
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