The resignation of Archbishop Justin Welby
Those who have suffered abuse must be first and foremost in our minds as those of us in the Church of England process the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday. Their courage in coming forward, and their fortitude in facing delay and inaction on the Church of England’s part must be remembered and honoured. It was right that Archbishop Justin commissioned the Makin report to look into what went wrong in the case of the serial abuser, John Smyth, to learn lessons from what was clearly a failure of safeguarding, and see whether there was anything more that could have been done at the time. The report took five years to complete and concluded that there was much that could and should have been done much better. Crucially, information emerged in 2013 which should have been acted upon promptly, and the failure to do this meant that for a further five years, this person was able to abuse many more people. It should not have taken a TV documentary, four years later, to prompt action.
‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Salt and light are symbols of wisdom and truth respectively. As a colleague and I reflected on this passage in the light of the Makin Report and yesterday’s events, the need for both wisdom and truth in the Church of England stood out to us. Historically, we have clearly not always behaved with wisdom when it comes to safeguarding. Behaving wisely as we move forward involves a degree of honesty about our need to do things differently when it comes to vulnerable people, and dealing with power dynamics in our organisation. While we are already a safer place in general terms for those who either have less power, or who are members of groups which have cause to feel vulnerable within some church environments (on grounds of race, gender, disability, or sexuality) there is still much more work to do. We need to pray for wisdom as we repent, work out how to continue our ongoing project of reforming safeguarding and be restored to a position where people have confidence in us. This is a job for everyone in every church, not just for a new Archbishop of Canterbury.
And as for truth, when people look at the Church of England right now, we are indeed a city on a hill, a lamp on a high lampstand and everyone can see us, but they are not seeing the light of truth, but a lamp muddied by this failure to love God and love our neighbours when it came to this safeguarding case. We have to wipe the lamp clean and let the light of the Gospel shine unblemished again. This involves more than the resignation of an Archbishop. It involves getting safeguarding right, but more than that, it involves ensuring each church has a culture of loving care, of protection of the vulnerable, and a shared commitment among all our members to inclusivity of those whom the church has, historically, let down. We won’t get it right all the time, but by God’s grace, let us commit ourselves to do better.
