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Smyth's Sadistic Behavior could claim 30 Percent of the CofE's Evangelicals
By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
November 29, 2024
The long knives are out. John Smyth's sadistic behavior which has claimed the Archbishop of Canterbury, could claim as much as 30 percent of the Church of England's evangelicals, a confidential source told VOL.
There has been a conspiracy of silence -- Omerta -- to protect those accused of abuse, VOL was told. "Up to 30% of the CofE is tainted."
Evangelicals have grown rapidly in number and influence these past thirty years on the assumption that they "put bums on pews." It has similarities with the prosperity gospel preachers who, one by one, have fallen from their prominent perches.
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Geoffrey Cottrell has been credibly charged with failing to report 11 cases of sexual abuse. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, lost his Permission to Officiate (PTO) over failed safeguarding issues, and the former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu has also lost his PTO over similar accusations.
It was confirmed this week that a former Bishop the Rt. Rev. Paul Butler, is among the clergy who have been asked to "step back" from ministry while "safeguarding" reviews prompted by the Makin review are conducted.
"It was confirmed this week that a former bp, the Rev ... is among the clergy who have been asked to "step back" from ministry while "safeguarding" reviews, prompted by the makin report, are conducted."
The Makin review concluded that John Smyth's abuse became an "open secret amongst a whole variety of people connected with the Conservative Evangelical network with individuals named in the report, running into dozens, ranging from those who actively covered up the abuse in the 1980s to those who learned of it in the past decade, after survivors made disclosures to the diocese of Ely."
On Sunday, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen Ann Hartley, wrote on social media: "It's clear from the 100s of emails I continue to receive that there's a crisis of trust in the episcopate (not surprising, and not new). Makin must be a watershed and (all) named in the Review must step back from public ministry now pending independent investigations."
In the meantime, dioceses are taking decisions about the ministry of clergy named in the Makin review. A Rev. Sue Colman who has served as a part-time voluntary associate minister in the Diocese of Winchester and her husband Jamie who were named in the Makin report have agreed to step back from their ministries.
In 2021, the Archbishop of Canterbury said: "I have made it clear that the National Safeguarding Team will investigate every clergy person or others within their scope of whom they have been informed who knew and failed to disclose the abuse." This commitment was also made to survivors, with the archbishop saying that a list held up by one survivor would act as the basis for investigations. The Makin review records that "this is not what then happened," and that victims felt that a promise had been broken.
It would now appear that whatever leverage evangelicals might have had in their desire for a "parallel province" to separate themselves from the pro homosexual LLF report and a liberalizing progressive church on human sexuality has all but gone.
We await the other shoe to drop.
