A lengthy and grimly detailed report about the late John Smyth, whom Archbishop Justin Welby knew as a young man, has led to multiple calls for him to resign. Whether Welby knew about Smyth’s abusive behavior is the core of disagreement between the archbishop of those calling for his resignation.
The 253-page report by indepent reviewer Keith Makin documents the predatory violence of Smyth, a barrister who was chair of the conservative evangelical Iwerne Trust and a leader at the holiday camps they led for students from elite British schools. Welby served as a counselor at Iwerne camps in the 1970’s.
Smyth believed that young Christian men should “mark and signify their repentance” of sin — usually of lust or masturbation — by taking thrashings by cane at his hands. The beatings began in the 1970s, the report said, and continued after Smyth moved to Africa in 1984.
Calls for Welby’s resignation have come from prominent progressive Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley of Newcastle; two leaders of the evangelical Church Society; and the Rev. Canon Dr. Giles Fraser, vicar of St. Anne’s Church, Kew, and a columnist for Unherd.com.
Welby maintains that he knew nothing of Smyth’s abuse until 2013, when a disclosure was made to him, shortly after he became archbishop. “Nevertheless the review is clear that I personally failed to ensure that after disclosure in 2013 the awful tragedy was energetically investigated,” he said in a statement on Makin’s report.
“Since that time the way in which the Church of England engages with victims and survivors has changed beyond recognition. Checks and balances introduced seek to ensure that the same could not happen today.”
The Makin report says that Welby was warned about Smyth in 1981, and quotes an anonymous source claiming to have overheard Welby having a “grave conversation” about Smyth in 1978.
Bishop Hartley called for Welby’s resignation during an interview with the BBC.
“I think rightly people are asking the question ‘Can we really trust the Church of England to keep us safe?’ And I think the answer at the moment is ‘no,’” she said.
Welby’s resignation, she said, would be “a very clear indication that a line has been drawn, and that we must move towards independence of safeguarding.”
“The Church of England is, quite rightly, being judged by the world because of this case,” the Rev. Dr. Lee Gatiss and Dr. Ros Clarke of Church Society wrote in an open letter to Welby. “It is horrific that such abuse could ever have been committed by a church officer. It is horrific that it was not reported to the police by other church officers who knew about it more than 40 years ago. And it is unconscionable that the most senior cleric in the church today, with official responsibility for safeguarding, knew about the abuse over ten years ago and failed to report it then.”
“That Justin Welby knew nothing about the Smyth abuses before 2013 is, for many, hard to fathom,” Fraser wrote for Unherd. “Welby was a friend of Smyth, a voluntary ‘dormitory officer’ on the Christian camps where it happened, he was in the circle of trust of Church of England evangelical Christians, and the knowledge of what was going on was widespread in those quarters. As early as 1981, reports were being written about what Smyth was up to.”
Numerous evangelical leaders in the Church of England participated in the Iwerne Trust’s camps, including theologian John Stott and Bishops Timothy Dudley-Smith and David Sheppard. The Alpha Course, written by camp attendee Nicky Gumbel, was shaped by the evangelistic talks delivered there.
Smyth died in 2018, while awaiting extradition to Britain to face charges for his alleged crimes. The camps were closed down in 2020.
Makin provides dozens of testimonies of Smyth inflicting beatings on naked young men. Smyth was sometimes naked, sometimes clothed, sometimes even wearing a “uniform” of a white singlet (an item normally worn during athletic competition), shorts, and flip-flops.
The report regularly blames this gothic ritual on evangelical Anglican theology, but Smyth’s theology of redemption through beatings was singular. He sought to justify it through references to Hebrews 12 and the writings of A.W. Tozer and Samuel Dickey Gordon.
Smyth attempted to be ordained in the Church of England, but was turned away at least once, the report says.
The archbishop wrote further in his statement:
“John Smyth’s abuse manipulated Christian truth to justify his evil acts, whilst exploiting and abusing the power entrusted to him. In the last 11 years much has been learned. This long-delayed report shows another, very important step on the way to a safer church, here and round the world.
“That does not reverse the terrible abuse suffered, but I hope that it can be at least of some comfort to victims. I can only end by thanking them again for their courage and persistence and again by apologizing profoundly, not only for my own failures and omissions but for the wickedness, concealment, and abuse by the church more widely, as set out in the report.”
On November 9, The Rev. Robert Thompson, a member of General Synod, launched an online petition calling for his resignation together with the Rev. Ian Paul, a prominent evangelical, and the Rev. Marcus Walker of Save the Parish. Late on November 11, it had received nearly 9,000 digital signatures.
