The media coverage of the row over the Children’s Society’s refusal to just accept a Christmas donation from Justin Welby has ignored an important fact: the Archbishop of Canterbury is president of the charity.
A letter to the Church Times on January 3 by Dr Andrew Purkis OBE, a trustee and former chair of ActionAid and a former board member of the Charity Commission, points this out and the actual fact the charity’s full name is the Church of England Children’s Society.
The charity’s announcement on December 20 that it had refused to just accept a Christmas donation from Welby was widely reported within the national media.
Welby steps down as Archbishop of Canterbury on January 6 after being criticised within the Church of England’s Makin Review over his handling of the John Smyth abuse scandal.
Children’s Society chief executive Mark Russell explained the charity’s decision to reject the donation but didn’t mention the proven fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury is its president.
“After careful consideration, we’ve respectfully decided not to just accept the donation offered by the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said.
“The Children’s Society is deeply committed to supporting the survivors of abuse, our teams support victims of kid sexual abuse, and which means that accepting this donation wouldn’t be consistent with the principles and values that underpin our work.”
Russell went on: “We were profoundly shocked by the findings of the Makin report, and our thoughts are with all survivors of abuse. We imagine that there’s an urgent need for the Church of England to reset its approach to safeguarding and proceed to create a safer Church and safer spaces for young people, protected by real accountability and a culture of care.”
Andrew Purkis responded in his Church Times letter that it was “no quiet decision conveyed privately, but a loud public declaration of solidarity with child victims of abuse (no matter any distress caused to its president or the broader Church)”.
“This prompts reflection about what kind of charity the Children’s Society now’s,” he wrote.
“The latest annual report and accounts accommodates no mention in any respect of Christianity, Jesus Christ, or the Church in its charitable objects, in its vision and values, within the movement that the charity is attempting to construct for the longer term, or the outline of its partners or volunteers.”
But regardless of the omissions in its annual report and accounts, the Children’s Society has a key role in promoting the Christingle services that many churches hold from the tip of November through to January (Advent to Candlemas in the normal Christian calendar). Christmas Eve is a preferred time for local churches to carry Christingle events, which end in considerable donations for the Children’s Society.
According to its website: “Christingle is a festivity that brings families and communities together to share the sunshine of Jesus and spread a message of hope.
“Christingle celebrations are named after the Christingles which might be lit throughout the ceremony. Christingles are oranges wrapped in red tape, decorated with dried fruit or sweets, with a candle on the highest.”
The website reveals that “over 2,000 Christingle celebrations lit up the country in 2023 raising greater than £700,000”.
Mark Russell is a former chief executive of the Church of England mission agency, Church Army. In this role in 2016, he wrote a foreword to a book of essays arguing that the Church should ditch its traditional sexual ethic. The final chapter of Amazing Love: Theology for understanding discipleship, sexuality and mission, edited by Canon Andrew Davison, Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Sciences on the University of Cambridge, stated: “Unless there’s a very good reason for opposing same-sex relationships – and we don’t think that there’s – we’re shooting ourselves within the foot within the worst possible way.”
The Welby row, nonetheless, could end in the charity Russell now leads losing support. Another correspondent to the Church Times, Mrs Sheila Round, declared: “So the Children’s Society has issued its judgement: what an exalted position it has! Forgiveness and love apparently don’t exist on this ‘Christian’ charity. Their next step must surely be to drop the ‘Church of England’ from their official title.
“While I pray for the well-being of Archbishop Welby, I need to resign my membership of the Children’s Society after well over 50 years of fund-raising and support, and transfer to a different charity caring for young people in distress.”
If other volunteers and donors follow Mrs Round out of the door, cancelling Justin Welby may prove a costly decision for the Church of England Children’s Society.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
