This week, Justin Welby surrendered to widespread calls for him to resign over his part within the failure to show abuse throughout the Church of England (CofE).
While this failure was a grievous undoing, there have been many other high-ranking clerics who failed the victims of the appalling John Smyth – who was a twisted con man and violent molester of boys.
The truth is that throughout the structure of the Church of England, there are an entire raft of unaccountable structures and methods that obfuscate and deceive. All too often the nice men are punished and compelled out.
The Makin Review makes for sickening reading after we see how the ‘elites’ thought they might take care of it. I’ve spoken this week to Su, a victim of kid abuse by the hands of a C of E priest. It took her thirty years to inform the story since it was brushed under the carpet and never handled on the time. Now, she speaks movingly of how the Archbishop of Canterbury and the system have done an enormous disservice to the gospel by not confronting the sin; by not bringing it into the sunshine. Justice is completed in the sunshine. Su talks about how she has been healed and made whole by Jesus, Saviour of the World.
As the Church sought to cover up its sin, so the gospel light goes out. The true gospel, true lovers of Christ cannot stand the deeds of darkness.
Smyth was one in all Welby’s first private tests
Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. The Smyth issue was one in all his first private tests. He failed.
With the publishing of the long-overdue Makin Review, the horrific child abuse perpetrated by John Smyth over a long time of involvement in Christian ministry, each within the UK and Zimbabwe, was fully exposed.
Archbishop Justin Welby was complicit in failing to show Smyth’s crimes and knew definitively in regards to the abuse in 2013 – if not well before – yet didn’t address them until the story broke into the general public arena in 2017.
He didn’t speak up. He didn’t pursue justice for the victims. By failing to talk up Justin Welby, with others within the system, permitted Smyth to live out his final years without ever being dropped at justice.
The first public test
Significantly, Justin Welby failed one other huge test early in his tenure. It was the yr when Parliament was voting to introduce same sex-marriage. The first big public test was to declare to a watching nation and parliament that Christians consider that marriage is the life-long union of 1 man and one woman.
In May 2013 on the Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill within the House of Lords he said:
“It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same-sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the identical legal effect as marriage.”
And this was the beginning of an extended, painful technique of his abandonment of church doctrine and attempted destruction of the biblical meaning of marriage. Rather than highlight the distinctiveness of real, man-woman marriage, he presented man-man and woman-woman partnerships as being equal in dignity.
Under his watch, much of the church has abandoned biblical CofE teaching, church leaders have departed from a biblical definition of marriage, and the church has bowed to transgender and homosexual ideology.
He repeatedly broke his ordination vows as with detailed precision he led the church seriously astray. The responsibility falls squarely on his shoulders.
Persistent denial of official church doctrine on marriage
Welby’s recent appearance on the ‘The Rest Is Politics’Â podcast, where he blatantly condoned same-sex intimacy and sexual intimacy outside of marriage, exposed the extent of his denial of CofE teaching. By aligning himself with an ideology that’s so drastically at enmity with God’s revealed pattern for all times and sexuality, Welby openly aligned himself in opposition to the God he was ordained to serve.
Marriage is a symbolic representation of probably the most sacred relationship of all, that between Christ and his Church. By rejecting God’s design for marriage, Justin Welby rejected God’s authority over creation and he also rejected the character of God.
If God’s design for marriage isn’t any longer ‘good’, then God can’t be good. If God’s definition of marriage is ‘offensive’, and ‘homophobic’, then God isn’t any longer a smart and type Creator and Saviour but an authoritarian and malicious dictator.
If God’s pattern for holiness and purity in relationships (by keeping sexual intimacy throughout the confines of a loving, stable marriage) isn’t any longer applicable to our modern society, then it must follow that God, and his revealed word, are not any longer relevant for today.
The Archbishop of Canterbury not only rejected biblical marriage; he rejected Christ. Therefore, even before the publication of the Makin Review, Welby disqualified himself from holding such a position of power throughout the bride of Christ, the Church.
Why did he resign – and why should he have?
The archbishop’s stated reasons for resigning are clear – it’s over the failings highlighted within the Makin Review. This would alone have been enough to make his leadership untenable and for him to resign.
But he didn’t resign directly due to the Makin Review – he said as much in an announcement last week. He resigned since the pressure from a liberal, secular world which he for thus long had sought approval in demanded that he did. Does anyone doubt that, were it not for liberal Christians equivalent to the Bishop of Newcastle, and secular media outlets, the archbishop would have continued in his role?
His abandonment of the Christian teaching on sex and marriage should have been enough for his resignation. Along with the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, he could now not seriously claim to be upholding the Church’s (or Jesus’) teaching. His status as ‘first amongst equals’ within the Anglican Communion was in jeopardy.
He had no intention to resign over this. Presumably, he even believed he was doing the best thing.
The many victims of abandoning God’s pattern for sex, gender and marriage
It could appear as if it is a dry debate over doctrine. But the teaching of the Church has many far-reaching consequences. It isn’t a victimless failing.
Failing to talk clearly to culture about marriage, sex and gender has given groups like Stonewall and Mermaids a free hand to advertise transgender ideology. This has led to the mutilation of young people’s otherwise-healthy bodies, with lifelong consequences. When Rev John Parker highlighted this problem at a Church of England primary school back in 2019, he received no support from the Church, with now-Archbishop Stephen Cottrell particularly unhelpful. He wrote an Ad Clerum making clear he fully supported the college’s actions when inviting Mermaids to advertise transgender ideology in the college.
Justin Welby commissioned Valuing All God’s Children (VAGC) in response to a Stonewall report. The 2017 edition of VAGC was explicitly trans-affirming and thanked two senior members of Stonewall staff for his or her help with the document. This document spread policies across hundreds of CofE schools across the country that led to very young children being affirmed in a false gender identity.
And yet Welby openly condoned teaching children an ideology that’s in blatant opposition to biblical teaching. His actions have caused children to stumble, and he and others within the Church have to be held to account.
More than that, this guidance was also used again and again in legal cases to discredit faithful Christians, like Rev Bernard Randall, the Rowes and ‘Hannah’.
This failure to talk clearly and truthfully about God’s pattern for sexuality has for years been used to discredit faithful Christians in legal proceedings. People have lost jobs and livelihoods because employers have been capable of pigeonhole faithful Christians as out of step with the established Church.
Most tragically of all, this failure has led Christians astray from the reality and away from Christ. Under Welby’s watch, many Christians have been led to consider that their sexual sin has God’s approval. The Bible could be very clear that those living unrepentantly in serious sexual sin “won’t inherit the dominion of God” (1 Cor 6:9). For these people, Welby’s leadership could have fatal, everlasting consequences.
Jesus said that “If anyone causes one in all these little ones–those who consider in me–to stumble, it will be higher for them to have a big millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned within the depths of the ocean” (Matt 18:6).
Reputation, popularity, popularity
The desire for preserving popularity was disastrous within the Church’s handling of John Smyth. It was primarily individuals who stand by the Christian teaching of marriage and sexuality who failed to handle Smyth’s abuse. Their popularity has taken a hammering for this reason widespread failure. There is Biblical justice on this, although I deeply lament the way it has led to the slander of God’s pattern for men and girls. We must achieve this significantly better.
Did Welby’s awareness of those failings amongst Conservative Evangelicals speed up his apostasy on marriage? But the Church and its bishops are called to bring the reality of Scripture to bear on our society and culture, to not be influenced and controlled by what’s expedient. In a culture that rejects the Lord Jesus Christ and widely abhors the teaching of Christianity, this implies we should always expect more opprobrium than honour.
Justin Welby’s efforts to adapt to our society’s rejection of truth has brought the CofE perilously near doctrinal collapse and the entire departure from the God of the Bible.
Even in his response to the Makin Review, Welby seems to have been forced out greater than having repentantly acknowledged his shortcomings. And Stephen Cottrell is doing tone-deaf media rounds overtly attempting to preserve popularity fairly than weep in repentance as ought to be his wont.
Welby must have resigned years ago, not just for his failure to show abuse, but for his rejection of the foundational truths of Scripture, his blatant apostasy, and his attempted subversion of the CofE. Cottrell should join him.
Jesus said that “by their fruit you’ll recognise them” (Matt 7:15-20) and Welby’s fruit is withered.
He will likely be called to provide account for his actions before God on Judgement Day, and as a pacesetter within the Church, he will likely be judged much more strictly (James 3:1). I pray he repents and places his faith in Christ before that day.
However, Justin Welby isn’t the one false teacher within the CofE. How many bishops have spoken up clearly? My fear is that his alternative will likely be much more dogmatically dedicated to the destruction of truth and the introduction of more anti-Christ and anti-gospel ideology.
The way forward for the CofE looks grim. The flock of Christ is being overrun by fierce wolves. We must pray that God shows our nation immense grace by placing leaders within the Church who will restore the CofE’s reliance on Scripture and by the ability of the Holy Spirit lead the Church back to the true gospel. God alone brings the dead to life.
Andrea Williams is CEO of Christian Concern.
