IAG Statement

STATEMENT FROM THE EXTERNAL MEMBERS OF THE ECW - JONATHAN FLETCHER REVIEW
INDEPENDENT ADVISORY GROUP

Introduction
The safeguarding charity, thirtyone:eight (31:8) has published its Review into Revd Jonathan Fletcher, Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon (ECW) and the surrounding  culture. The report was commissioned by ECW upon the recommendation of the Charity Commission and has been carried out by two professional Reviewers from 31:8, led by Dr Lisa Oakley. The Review was assisted by an “Independent Advisory Group” (IAG) comprised of some staff members of 31:8 not otherwise involved in the Review itself and four external members chosen, after a selection process, by 31:8.

Given the content of the Review and having served on the IAG for over a year, we, as external members of the IAG, feel it appropriate to release collectively our own statement.  We do so, despite having been granted, for the sake of our own well-being, the right to permanent anonymity. The other IAG member, the survivor voice, will retain anonymity for reasons which we support unequivocally.

It is essential to make two matters clear at the outset.

First, none of what follows should be understood as an attempt to undermine essential theological commitments held by Conservative Evangelical (CE) churches, whether that be on sexual ethics, the authority of Scripture, the nature of the atonement, or anything else. (In so far as labels are helpful, all of us would ourselves own the label ‘Conservative Evangelical’ to describe our own beliefs). Rather, our desire is to strengthen the cause of biblical orthodoxy by applying its tenets to the dreadful abuse committed by people like Fletcher, who falsely purport to uphold it.

Indeed, one of the prime motivations for all of us to serve on the IAG was that the Review would show that the task of safeguarding the vulnerable is integral to the gospel. We recognise that, sadly, in some CE contexts safeguarding has been regarded with suspicion and even been denigrated as a “distraction” from the gospel. On the contrary, we are convinced that the failure to protect the vulnerable documented in this Review is incompatible with any biblical understanding of the person and work of Christ.

And so, our prayer is that through the publication of the Review, and the ensuing public discussion, to which this is our contribution, those who were Fletcher’s victims may begin to find an increasing measure of justice and consolation as they see the compassion, love and truth of Jesus embodied in the response of CE churches who name Him as their Saviour.

Second, it should be noted that as an IAG we were not privy to any transcripts, witness statements or other confidential material provided by the participants in the Review. Our only knowledge of the events and consequences described in the Review is from reading the report itself, together with earlier drafts, regular progress meetings with the Reviewers and our own experience of, and contact with, the world described in it, including in some instances, with survivors. Everything we say in what follows is based on publicly available material, either in the Review or from other sources that have agreed to it being published.

The Review
We believe the 31:8 Review represents an excellent starting point for the deep process of change and transformation that the Fletcher abuse demands. We pay tribute to the dedication and commitment of the Reviewers, Dr Lisa Oakley and Mr Simon Plant, in carrying out what we know has been a gruelling task. While the report is limited in aim and scope, it makes several key findings which, as those who have seen the Review take shape, we wish to draw attention to and supplement with other observations.

The central fact established by the Review, which must be underlined, is that abuse took place. The report describes manipulative, controlling and coercive behaviour but also records that:

‘In addition to the behaviours set out above, during the review a serious incident of a sexual nature was reported. One participant reported that JF told him to perform a sex act in front of him and when he did not, JF performed the act instead.’ (p.5)

Such behaviour is serious sexual abuse, and we highlight it in order to emphasise the solemnity and seriousness of this issue and how vital it is for the victims as well as the reputation of the gospel that it is dealt with properly.

Fear
According to the report, the central issue that needs to be addressed by the CE constituency is fear. The authors repeatedly emphasise the intense fear that many who participated felt as they did so. The Review states,

‘Fear…has been an overwhelming theme of this review. Fear of JF and fear of his power and reach were clear from many, as were fear of others still in positions of authority in the wider CE community. This required repeated reassurances of anonymity from the Reviewers for many individuals to feel able to share. The level of fear reported by some participants is related to the level of harm they experienced. This fear was detailed by others as continuing and working against people feeling able to speak out about experiences and speak to the Review directly.’ (p.38)

That anyone should feel afraid of speaking to a Christian safeguarding organisation about abuse because they are frightened of repercussions in a world that bears the name ‘evangelical’ should surely be a matter for corporate shame. Nothing more contrary to the gospel can be imagined.

The report makes clear why people were so afraid,

‘…there was fear about impact on future careers, personal relationships and standing. This was not solely linked to a fear of JF but of others of influence in the wider CE (conservative evangelical) constituency of which ECW is part.’ (p.33)

This is, undoubtedly, a vital part of the explanation as to why Jonathan Fletcher was able to operate abusively in plain sight for so many years and only finally be censured long after his retirement.

That being said, when the Review was being conducted, in the Summer/Autumn of 2020, Jonathan Fletcher was eight years retired, in his late 70s and subject to public disgrace. No doubt he could still exert uncomfortable pressure on those he had abused, as seen in the publication of his letter in Evangelicals Now. Clearly, however, the level of fear described in the report is not to be ascribed solely to him. Moreover, the fear that the Review describes is expressed as current - participants were still afraid. They feared,  

‘…others still in positions of authority in the wider CE community.’ (p.38)

That is, people who still lead churches, still preach and still train leaders. This is a profoundly troubling matter and calls for urgent reflection and action.

It is not acceptable that a movement which claims to represent the gospel possesses within it such an atmosphere of fear. Equally, what it says about those who wield power, both formally and informally, in our constituency must be carefully examined.

The Review draws a painful conclusion: that those who were afraid believed either that they would not be protected by such leaders, or that such leaders were precisely those of whom they should be afraid. This fear is the reason many are still in psychological agony years after the original acts of abuse described in the Review; even those who would not consider themselves direct victims. It is our view that until this culture of fear is convincingly denounced and eradicated from our circles, conservative evangelicals can have very little credibility when we claim to represent Christ to a watching world. As the report says,

‘Where ‘protecting the gospel’ or ‘protecting the network’ is synonymous and seen as the ultimate goal, where institutions are prioritised over individuals, where there is no, or insufficient external oversight or accountability and where psychological maltreatment is down-played and dismissed, the potential for harm is significant.’ (p.10)

The events of 2017-2019
Given the report’s focus on ECW, it is understandable that it does not examine fully the manner in which Fletcher’s abuse was handled by the wider constituency leadership once it had finally been disclosed. In his statement on the matter at the 2019 Evangelical Ministry Assembly, Vaughan Roberts instructed the attendees: ‘Please don’t ask probing questions’. Whatever the wisdom of that at the time, we are firmly of the opinion that probing questions are now required, and not just questions but answers.

When the sequence of events from 2017 up till the EMA statement of June 2019 are examined, a troubling picture emerges. According to the report timeline, the first disclosures ECW acted upon were made in February 2017, around the time that the John Smyth story was receiving widespread media coverage. At that point, Fletcher undertook not to exercise his PTO to the Diocese of Southwark which then expired later in the year. Nevertheless, he was allowed to continue a public ministry: preaching regularly, speaking at a residential conference for students at St Andrew the Great, Cambridge in March 2018, participating in the licensing of the first UK Gafcon bishop in September 2018 and in January 2019 he attended, as apparently in good standing, the invitation-only ‘Mission-Minded’ conference addressed by Philip Jensen and William Taylor with many other key CE figures present. Fletcher also continued to serve, with Revd Taylor, as a trustee of the St Helen’s church plant, St Peter’s Barge until 15th February 2019.

From this, it would be thought that no one was aware of the allegations against Fletcher until that time. Indeed, Revd William Taylor, in his address as the Chairman of the ReNew Network, stated that he, ‘…first learned anything about Jonathan’s abusive activities in February 2019.’ Without doubt, however, others did in fact know earlier. In their public statement of 2019 entitled ‘Jonathan Fletcher’, the Titus Trust explained that,

‘Jonathan did serve as a volunteer leader on one branch of the holidays run by the Titus Trust until 2017 and when we heard about the allegations we suspended him immediately from this role.’

The trustees of AMiE, including one of Fletcher’s fellow trustees of St Peter’s Barge, a member of staff at St Helen’s Bishopsgate, explained that they knew of an investigation concerning Fletcher’s abuse in late 2018. The statement given to the EMA stated that further disclosures to ECW took place in September 2018. The Review timeline includes a further disclosure to ECW that took place in October 2018, in which the author of a 2012 Daily Mail article describing sexual abuse in anonymous terms revealed that Fletcher was the abuser described therein.

We will not attempt to explain this sequence of events: that is for others to do. Nevertheless, the fact is that nearly two years after the disclosures that initiated this process, Jonathan Fletcher was attending an invitation-only conservative evangelical conference, having exercised a wide-ranging and influential ministry in the previous 12 months. It is time for the leaders of the ministries involved to be open in explaining what happened. Without doing so, they make it improbable that other victims of abuse will feel safe to come forward in the future.

In April and May 2019, two letters urging people not to invite Fletcher to minister and signed by Right Revd Rod Thomas (of the Church of England), Revd William Taylor, Canon Vaughan Roberts (Chair of Proclamation Trust) and Revd Robin Weekes (of ECW), were sent out through the ReNew network. The first letter emphasised Jonathan Fletcher’s ‘very significant ministry’ and the fact that ‘he continues to be held in great affection by many’. It made no reference to victims or to Fletcher’s abuse but sought to reassure recipients that the issues brought to light, though sufficient to prevent him ministering further, were not criminal. Only in the second letter was any concern for victims expressed and only as those, ‘…adversely affected by Jonathan’. Such victims were directed, ‘…in the first instance’ back to Emmanuel, the very institution through which they had been abused.

Again, we call upon those who sent out this letter to explain their actions and open themselves up to scrutiny. There has been no public explanation for why it took six months from the second set of disclosures that ECW acted upon in September 2018 to send the semi-public letter in April 2019.

We can add further concerns to the picture: that the EMA statement pre-emptively emphasised that ‘nothing criminal’ had been alleged against Fletcher; the absence in that statement of any reference to the sexual allegations disclosed in October 2018; the fact that the statement once again directed victims back to Emmanuel and staff who had worked closely with Jonathan Fletcher and that it emerged from a private meeting or meetings of an undisclosed group, unaccountable to anyone, let alone victims.

In our view, it is hard to reconcile these features of the response with the claim, made by Vaughan Roberts in his EMA statement, that the way ECW had handled the matter was ‘exemplary’. Indeed, it is easy to see how some participants felt that, far from seeking to bring Fletcher’s abuse to light, there was instead, ‘…a concerted effort to manage the disclosures…’ for the sake of the institutions with which Fletcher had strong connections.

Indeed, some participants in the Review report ‘being told not to speak out’ (due to the vulnerability of victims) and requests being given to participants ‘only to share minimum information with Reviewers.’ (p.74) This was then compounded by the sharing of victims’ anonymised information by ECW, without their consent.

We acknowledge that dealing with difficult situations like this is very challenging; mistakes and missteps are understandable. Yet such a repeated and systematic failure must raise serious concerns about the approach taken and the competence of those pursuing it. Accordingly, we agree with the report that there is a clear need for corporate and individual repentance for this failure within our constituency, and that repentance will involve those with the most influence and power relinquishing it so that real and lasting change can take place. Those in positions of leadership should take responsibility for the failings described here and in the report.

Conclusion
The report concludes that,

‘It is the opinion of the Reviewers that the aspects of unhealthy culture at ECW and more broadly across the affected CE constituency might only be addressed fully by those having played a key role in the establishment and maintenance of that culture to no longer enjoy the influence they have had to date (i.e. considering their positions and stepping down).’ (p.11)

After all that we as the IAG have learned over the last year, we can but say how deeply this conclusion resonates with us. Scripture calls on leaders neither to conceal sin nor merely passively avoid word of any injustice, but instead to actively pursue righteousness, especially for the vulnerable, within their sphere of responsibility.

The way that Jonathan Fletcher’s abusive influence has been so profoundly embedded within the CE culture means that the process of purification and healing will only come over time and with great struggle. Yet it is necessary because at issue is not merely a question of personalities, politics, administrative competence or procedural correctness, but a question of our grasp of the gospel itself. In a compelling passage in Book XIII of his On the Trinity, St. Augustine writes of the devil’s sin that,

‘The essential flaw of the devil's perversion made him a lover of power and a deserter and assailant of justice, which means that men imitate him all the more thoroughly the more they neglect or even detest justice and studiously devote themselves to power, rejoicing at the possession of it or inflamed with the desire for it… Not that power is to be shunned as something bad, but that the right order must be preserved which puts justice first.’

It is painfully clear from this Review that too many within our constituency have put the cause of maintaining power and control above the call of justice. This is an inversion of the gospel, as Augustine states,

‘It pleased God to deliver man from the devil’s authority by beating him at the justice game, not the power game, so that men too might imitate Christ by seeking to beat the devil at the justice game, not the power game.’

It is the wonderful claim of the gospel that in the cross, Christ vindicates the justice of God while allowing sins to be remitted and forgiven.

Concealed sin, therefore, is a denial of the grace of the gospel. It implies either that sin does not require justice or that sin confessed cannot be forgiven. Upon the horns of these two lies, the devil has pierced many souls. But the grace of the gospel exposes both as false: first, it condemns the sinfulness of sin by condemning it in Christ and second, it offers absolution and forgiveness to all those that truly repent and put their faith in Christ. Any culture, therefore, in which sin is concealed and in which power is placed above justice, can only represent a twisted parody of the true biblical gospel. And yet, it is that same biblical gospel which offers hope that real repentance and change is possible for those that will bring their sin into Christ’s light. As Augustine says,

‘Let mortals hold on to justice; power will be given them when they are immortal.’

It has been a great, if at times painful and troubling, honour to play a role in the production of the 31:8 Review, and with it, hopefully, a step in the direction of healing, justice and reform for our conservative evangelical constituency. We are deeply conscious of the need for these matters to be handled sensitively, carefully and biblically. Replacing a culture of fear, control and abuse with a culture of suspicion, anarchy and accusation would be a victory for no-one but Satan. Christian leadership is a blessing without which the church will fail. We all recognise with gratitude those who have fulfilled the task of pastor, teacher and shepherd in our lives with grace and integrity. Such leaders are not perfect, but they are authentic examples of God’s grace.

As a counterfeit minister, Jonathan Fletcher did what all counterfeits do: debase the genuine. The care of souls given to Christian leaders is such a weighty task that no one can fulfil it without stumbling, failing and seeking forgiveness. That is why they point us to Christ, as they themselves look to Christ. All Christians, let alone all leaders, face the daily battle against pride, self-regard, falsehood and thoughtless lovelessness. Yet, just as a coin can be scratched and faded and still retain its full value, so leaders who seek to stand firm in the grace of God, despite their weakness and failings, are worthy of honour, respect and loyalty from their flock.

It is, therefore, for the sake of such leaders, in addition to the victims, that we are so concerned that this issue of abusive leadership is dealt with properly, openly and fully, through repentance and transparency. Genuine currency is only fully trusted when the fraudulent is exposed. We applaud the publication of the 31:8 Review in full, but the Review can only be the beginning of the process of the pursuit of justice; justice that must be sought for the consolation of the victims, the condemnation of the guilty, and, importantly, the acquittal of the innocent. ‘It is time for judgment to begin with God’s household’ (1 Pet 4:17) the Scriptures say and no doubt this will involve pain and loss for some, alongside soul-searching and repentance for all.

As we say, genuine repentance for some may involve them stepping down from positions of leadership. Yet, we believe that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ holds out the pattern, power and promise of a Christian community in which Christian leaders serve their people, not in order to devour them, but that together they may ‘grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.’ (Eph 4:15)

Our prayer is that this statement, and the report that it accompanies, may be a step towards that hope.

The Independent Advisory Group, 31:8 Review into Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church Wimbledon:

Anonymous (victim representative)

Sarah Smart

Graham Shearer

Dan Leafe