The "world beyond the church" has found it to be offensive, oppressive and hypocritical, he said.

Issues of sexuality, gender and same-sex marriage have caused deep and bitter divisions within the C of E in recent decades. Conservatives have sought to uphold traditional teaching that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Campaigners for change say the bible teaches inclusivity and equality.

But not all change is good; discernment and wisdom, informed by the Scriptures, need to be applied, often to tease out what is beneficial and what is potentially erroneous and harmful in a theory of change. So for example, socialism began by questioning why most of a nation's resources end up in the hands of a small elite.

"I was deceived by John Smyth and first beaten in Smyth's shed in late August 1981. I recall being beaten twice more, the last in early December 1981. After that, I never went again.

"On 12 February 1982, I reported the beatings to the minister of the church I was attending at the time."

Smyth chaired the Iwerne Trust - now named the Titus Trust - between 1974 and 1981 during which time he abused young men at the evangelical summer camps run by the charity.

Wilde's point is a subtle one, but it has deep echoes in recent psychological research. A 2017 paper by economists at Chicago University found that working for a socially responsible company increased the tendency of people to act unethically. The authors called it "moral licensing": the finding that when people do good, they sometimes feel they have more latitude to do bad.