I wrote about the crisis inside the world's third-largest church and why Justin Welby was not good at his job - foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/18/a... - ThreadSky

beijingpalmer.bsky.social • 105 days ago

I wrote about the crisis inside the world's third-largest church and why Justin Welby was not good at his job - https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/18/anglican-church-justin-welby-john-smyth-child-sexual-abuse/?utm_content=gifting&tpcc=gifting_article&gifting_article=YW5nbGljYW4tY2h1cmNoLWp1c3Rpbi13ZWxieS1qb2huLXNteXRoLWNoaWxkLXNleHVhbC1hYnVzZQ==&pid=PNI6oXabXq1ydw6

Comments

terpsichorecmlos.bsky.social•104 days ago

👍🏾👍🏻👍🏿👍🏼👍🏽👍

nilo.bsky.social•105 days ago

Ok this is fascinating. Has anyone written more about this weirdo summer camps? Why were elites sending their kids to summer camps run by evangelicals? (Maybe this is the American in me being unable to imagine wasps and evangelical Christianity.)

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

part of a tradition of imperial-descended evangelism, really. making the governors of the empire good christians was a big concern. I would really recommend Greystone's BLEEDING FOR JESUS, about Smythe, which goes into the camps more

surrealisthells.bsky.social•104 days ago

Curious if/how this is affecting/will affect the US Episcopal Church and sub-splinters that have wanted to realign more closely with the CoE side of the Anglican Communion in recent years.

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

Welby really had to go, but I do worry that despite the (thoroughly deserved) attention his failures in the Smyth case is getting, other well-connected conservative evangelicals implicated aren't going to get much at all because they can't be labelled 'woke' by the Telegraph et al.

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

(Also because they're less well known in fairness.)

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

Was discussing this with my retired vicar dad over the weekend and he did note that the basis of the camps that Smyth operated in could be seen as an attempt to take over the CofE by ensuring that people of the correct social stratum to be likely future church leaders would have the 'correct' views.

remelrose1.bsky.social•105 days ago

I hope that, in the light of his resignation, the crimes of the

real criminals are not ignored and are not properly dealt

with. It's good that the Church's leadership is owning up,

but those who cause/caused the dispicable crimes need to

be removed from their offices and the victims helped.

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

Absolutely.

thepekingduck.bsky.social•105 days ago

Excellent article. My eyes popped as I read the last sentence; no wonder you’re so smart.

historian1997.bsky.social•104 days ago

And the 1650s….?

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

while I have all the anglican nerds attention let me recommend this really excellent book of theology by my dear godfather, who is very ill. https://www.amazon.com/Shame-Pattison/dp/0521568633

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

something I didn't really have the space to go into is the role played by the relationship between money and evangelism, especially around HTB and the Alpha Course. nor - because the subject matter was too dark - could I touch on the high campness of some Anglo-Catholics

grayathena.bsky.social•105 days ago

assuredly we're not all that bad

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

always a little disconcerting to discover that some dean or seminary head was widely known as "Nora" or "Edna" internally. Ruth Dudley Edwards has sadly gone quite mad nowadays, but she wrote a very affectionate satire, MURDER IN A CATHEDRAL, that is fun on this.

nilo.bsky.social•105 days ago

Why is this?

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

there's a certain kind of English campness where men are given female names, a sort of rhetorical drag

zanyfen.bsky.social•105 days ago

fascinating. very stereotypical, but fascinating nonetheless

thomas.escritt.eu•105 days ago

Ok but the former especially is something I really want to read. Any recommendations?

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

alas not that I know off-hand, I know it through conversations more than reading. I think Andrew Brown/Linda Woodhead's book might touch on it but it's been a while since I read it - https://www.amazon.com/That-Was-Church-England-English/dp/147292164X

thomas.escritt.eu•105 days ago

Thanks! HTB is screaming for its Robert Caro!

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

I think there is a book on the way conservative evangelicals picked LGBT issues as an issue to make a power play over in the CofE but I only know of it because my dad got a very long letter from a neighbouring conservative evangelical complaining about the positive review that he gave it.

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

So this is possibly both a recommendation and a 'I would like to know the title of this so I can read it myself' post...

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

ah if you find the name let me know!

thomas.escritt.eu•105 days ago

If you can track down the title or author I’d be really interested!

chrismshea.bsky.social•105 days ago

I don’t trust the Church of England whatsoever. They were major participants in the genocide of the Irish people. They would only give food to the Irish that agreed to convert to their “religion”. Awful people. I have the whole institution collapses as it has always been a murderous bunch.

wickdchiq.bsky.social•104 days ago

I really like Foreign Policy mag

www.bugbeardispatch.com•105 days ago

I never liked Welby. He has all the same issues as Rowan Williams with none of the charisma. The abuse scandal is awful but hardly surprising. Leaders who prize “big tents” and institutional reputation over robust inclusion are bound to look the other way whenever they think they won’t get caught

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

Rowan was more of a disappointment because everybody knew his personal beliefs were inclusive!

www.bugbeardispatch.com•105 days ago

I’m just an outside observer, but I feel like the Anglican Communion would be better off schisming, possibly along multiple aces. Might even the COE shake off some colonial baggage in addition to letting it become fully inclusive of queer Christians

llyfrgellbabel.bsky.social•105 days ago

To be honest, the schism has pretty much happened as of several years ago but the because the CofE has institutional power I think the conservative evangelicals are reluctant to admit it and leave in the way that happened with many of their Welsh counterparts a few years back.

www.bugbeardispatch.com•105 days ago

*outside observer, but I did spend a few years making a half-assed effort to be Episcopalian and I probably still am on paper because I got confirmed and it’s not like they excommunicate people

rickywlmsbong.bsky.social•105 days ago

good piece. also not the important thing obviously but did not realize the anglicans were that large

revan.social•105 days ago

Though it’s effectively already schismed to large extents

noghiri.bsky.social•105 days ago

the American situation is so complicated there's affirming and non affirming churches that split from the Episcopalians over governance arguments that were nominally about lgbt people, in a diocese that was until recently under the *kenyan mission* because there was no American leadership step up

noghiri.bsky.social•105 days ago

and there's an agreement that the churches do not make big moves or argue during the meetings about the big hot topics because of an unwillingness to cause further schism and a recognition that part of the schism was because the American church couldn't come to sufficient agreement

noghiri.bsky.social•105 days ago

correction parts of what would become the diocese of the rocky mountains was under the kenyan mission and others were under other groups for a while during the initial fallout. but like the episcopalians we are still all part of the greater Anglican Communion

noghiri.bsky.social•105 days ago

i say "we" because this is the church I'm currently hanging out at, I'm not an official member or anything

timguile.bsky.social•104 days ago

Well, there are other notable alternatives to the C of E.

cartoondump.bsky.social•102 days ago

siliconopolitan.bsky.social•105 days ago

neotiamat99.bsky.social•105 days ago

At this point I'm kind of morbidly curious if there's a single major religious group that *hasn't* had a horrific sex abuse scandal in the last twenty years.

cepmurphy.bsky.social•105 days ago

"Let's send Smythe off to Africa" like it's still the 19th century, that's the grottiest part of it - so bad he couldn't be hushed up and allowed to do stuff _in England_, but Zimbabwe can go fuck itself I guess.

beijingpalmer.bsky.social•105 days ago

yup, exactly, empire as a dumping ground for the alcoholics and the abusers

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply