The insufficiently curious scapegoat

I cannot imagine what being the subject of abuse is like. At the moment I am watching ITV's Until I Kill You starring Anna Maxwell Martin and Shaun Evans only in small doses because contemplating the terror is scarcely bearable. How much worse being abused as a child must be! Thus, in what I'm writing I am by no means minimising the extent of the harm inflicted on the boys and men involved. The Makin Report into John Smyth's activities chooses the term 'victim' rather than the often preferred 'survivor' for the individuals who suffered at his hands. It seems appropriate. Not only did he beat them with relish, he also groomed them into a state of dependence. That may go some of the way to explain why it took so long for the extent of his abuse to become known.     

Maybe it was also a product of the times. It's easy to forget that corporal punishment was banned in state schools only in 1987 and in independent schools only in 1999. A diary piece in The Times in 1973 headed "Beating their privileged bottoms" commented, "Privileged parents spend fortunes sending their sons to schools where, even as recently as the sixties, they could be beaten savagely." Today attitudes such as "Spare the rod; spoil the child" rightly appal us, although only ten years ago James Dobson the American evangelical psychologist was advocating "Corporal punishment, when used lovingly and properly, is beneficial to a child because it is in harmony with nature itself." Perhaps in John Smyth, himself a product of a minor public school and a narrowly conservative Christian family, these two strands gave rise to his peculiarly perverted interpretation of the Bible and his abhorrent activity. That does nothing to excuse it. It was recognised as early as 1982 that some of his beatings were criminal offences and yet were not reported to the police. 

The two best bits of the Makin report in my view are the recommendations and Appendix 4, the Psychological Analysis by Dr Elly Hanson, in which she examines all the evidence.

    "On the basis of my review of all of the above, I am of the view that his abuse was an attempt to achieve the following:
• Sexual gratification
• Pleasure from other people’s pain (including their humiliation) – i.e. a sadistic motive
• Status; a desire to be at the top of one’s chosen hierarchy and to be admired and 
revered
• Dominance and control of others.
    "It is also possible that he was acting out of resentment and revenge motives (discussed briefly towards the end of the section on Smyth’s narcissism below), but there is insufficient evidence to be confident of this.
John Smyth had various psychological qualities that contributed to these motives, as well as to his decision to act on them and to the escalation of his behaviour.                                                                                             "It appears that he had Narcissistic Personality Disorder (grandiose type) and, related to this, little interest in relational connection; little ability or willingness to self-reflect; a focus on his self-interest 
above those of others; and little or no empathy. He displayed exhibitionist and voyeuristic tendencies; callousness; and an ability to charm (a magnetism).                                                                                             "It also appears that he had a sexual interest in boys and young man (not incompatible with a sexual interest in his wife).                                      "Interacting with these motives and qualities, he held a number of core beliefs that may have either helped fuel or support his abusive behaviour. These included the beliefs that he was more important than others (i.e. a sense of entitlement); that being gay (or having gay sexual experiences) is a serious moral wrong; and that some people are ‘elected’ and endowed with special qualities to lead and be an authority over others (in particular himself). It seems that he had an implicit working model of the world in which relationships conformed to a dominant / submissive pattern (in other words, he did not have a conception of or belief in relationships between equals), and that he often saw his family members as avatars, znot full people in their own right but in some way extensions of himself."

So where, you might wonder, does Justin Welby come into it so that he felt compelled to resign? He certainly wasn't one of the clerics among whom a report ("the Ruston report" of 1982) which detailed the extent of John Smyth's activities among schoolchildren and students was circulated. Indeed he wasn't ordained until ten years later. One of the first things I noticed on first reading the Makin Report was how frequently odd references to Justin Welby occurred, for example the times he attended Iwerne Trust camps, Christian houseparties for boys from an élite selection of public schools. We learn that from 1975 for four years he attended some of the same camps as Smyth. You might wonder, "So what? So presumably did hundreds of the élite in society, including many clergy, because that was the raison d'être of Iwerne, to convert potential future leaders." The Review's Terms of Reference include "(1) What information was available to Church of England bodies or office holders relating to John Smyth’s alleged abuse of children and individuals; and 
(2) Who had this information and when and what did they do with it." Justin Welby worked in the oil industry until 1989. Then he started training for ordination. Even if he knew that John Smyth was not a nice man as he was once told in Paris, there is absolutely no evidence that he was aware of Smyth's sadistic activity. So why is he in particular introduced at this point of the report, when he's neither a church body nor office holder? There are several clergy leaders who were in the circle of those in the know. They are mentioned, as is appropriate. It is true that he was informed in 2013, in that his office was told by Ely diocese that a case of historic abuse had been reported to the police and to South Africa where Smyth then lived.

However as Andrew Brown, respected Guardian journalist who has no party axe to grind, has persuasively argued in three pieces this is one among many flaws in the Makin Report. The gist of his emotions are encapsulated in a reflection in the Church Times' article, "Press media mob helps Welby's foes to get their way". Brown's articles in his substack blog The slow deep hover are worth reading in their entirety, starting with "Does Makin finger Justin Welby?" (The others are "Against Makin" (Nov 15) and "Stephen Conway is innocent OK" (Nov 17)
.) Read these before you join the hue and cry arising from this whole horrifying failure of child protection, and consider too the part that a number of police forces played or failed to play in it.

I was alerted to the subterranean forces at work to unseat Justin Welby by a thoughtful Facebook post by Adrian Beney, which for those who know me well will recognise echoes with my own school and undergraduate experience: 

    "The Archbishop of Canterbury is to resign because of failures in safeguarding. This follows the absolutely appalling revelations about the behaviour of John Smyth who was part of the Iwerne Camps. Whether he's right to resign I am not qualified to say. This post simply explores why I feel I have something to say about it, and what the consequence might be.
I was a member of one of the 30 school Christian Unions hand-picked by the Iwerne Trust to produce the evangelical Christian leaders of the future. We met in the sitting room of a housemaster whose nickname - for reasons I don't know - was 'Bender'. That is simply a matter of fact. Amongst the speakers were the Revds David and Jonathan Fletcher, Mark Ruston and Eric Nash - known as 'Bash' - who had founded the Iwerne Camps.
    "I was encouraged to go to the Iwerne Camps but turned down the chance because the only girls there were the sisters of 'campers' who were there to do the cooking for the boys. It didn’t seem right to me.                     "Mark Ruston was the man who produced a report on Smyth in 1982 and didn’t tell the police. He led my confirmation retreat. David Fletcher was one of the seven involved in the Ruston report and subsequent negotiation with Smyth. Earlier this year Jonathan Fletcher pleaded not guilty at Kingston Crown Court to eight counts of indecent assault on a male person.
    "I feel I narrowly escaped. Much of the public school evangelical ascendancy, and muscular Christianity, described in Makin’s report is very familiar. As are the names of other clergy mentioned.                                   "Many of those most vociferous in their call for Justin's resignation in recent days have, in fact, been calling for his resignation on theological grounds for months. This is almost entirely to do with his attempts to steer the Church of England through some kind of accommodation on same sex relationships.
    "This highly organised group, ironically from a not dissimilar Conservative Evangelical theological camp to Smyth and Iwerne, denies that their views are homophobic and in some cases misogynistic and simply asserts that their view on same sex marriage / relationships / sexual activity and for some also on male headship is the only possible reading of scripture.
   "Well - whatever the right thing was for Justin to have done in respect of the Makin review - this group has their scalp now.
    "This group has already blocked the appointment of two diocesan bishops because the candidates were insufficiently orthodox for the people who had got themselves elected to the selection committee. Those dioceses now have to wait another year for their turn to come around again in the selection process and the same group is perfectly capable and has the power to do the same thing again and again until they get their candidate selected.
    "So I think Justin’s resignation leaves the church more uncertain and weaker than otherwise. Maybe this organised conservative group will already be mustering their tactics to have a conservative appointed to the See of Canterbury. Indeed, I suspect they've been doing it for months.
    "Without diminishing the seriousness of the Makin report, it was undoubtedly a convenient hook upon which to hang Justin out to dry in order to achieve the wider end of displacing him from the see of Canterbury. This will also displace him from being Member number 001 in General Synod. Which is where the Prayers of Love and Faith - the proposed not-a-marriage prayers for same sex relationships - will or will not be finally authorised.
    "It's ironic that in his appalling abuse of young men, Smyth's behaviour may also have solidified his party's hold on the theology of the Church of England for a decade or more." 

Personally although my father in his early days had been a Iwerne leader I'm glad to say he didn't encourage me to spend any time there, and although I knew quite a few "Iwerne men" at university and many of the names in the Makin report are familiar to me I am too old to have fallen prey to John Smyth's clutches. 

Finally I have to conclude that I believe that Justin Welby has been utterly unjustly attacked both for his part in the affair beyond what he has already admitted and apologised for. In my opinion he has grown into what must be the most difficult position in the Church of England. One has only to consider the breadth of his remit and narrowness of his power - looked to as the first among equals among archbishops of the global Anglican but independent churches and also among bishops within this country. At the same time he has to maintain, as far as he can, his own spiritual life. All this at the time when the body of the church in England has been radically and painfully divided. As Archbishop Justin Welby brought his deep experience of reconciliation mediation to bear with great patience to preserve the unity which should be the hallmark of the Church. I hope that whoever succeeds him will carry on that mission.

If you have any doubt of the scope of his job, I recommend that you watch him being interviewed by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on their podcast, The Rest is Politics, in the episode "Why Church Attendance is now Increasing" (search on YouTube "rory stewart alastair campbell justin welby"}. It might also give you an idea why we have actually been blessed to have him as archbishop.

The strange biblical account of the scapegoat ends with the words, "and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness." Even though I would not have wished his time as archbishop to have ended in such unmerited blame, I wish Justin Welby enjoyment of his freedom from the intolerable burdens of his office.