If anyone has doubts whether church safeguarding is firmly rooted in Scripture, today’s Epistle reading from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer can dispel them.
The passage is from the Apostle’s Paul New Testament letter to the Christians in 1st century Philippi:
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11 NIV).
Shortly after the publication of her strongly critical report into Church of England safeguarding practices in February 2024, the former chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, Professor Alexis Jay, addressed the General Synod by video.
She said: “Safeguarding in the Church today falls below the standard expected and set in secular organisations, which are required to follow statutory guidance.”
She called on the Church to “challenge erroneous beliefs about safeguarding which continue to be held.
“For example, we heard from a number of people that safeguarding should be rooted in Scripture and that being a practising Christian should be a prerequisite to holding a safeguarding role,” she said.
Regardless of the debate over whether churches should insist that their safeguarding officers be practising Christians, the fact is that safeguarding is rooted in Scripture as the biblical passage above clearly demonstrates.
Church abusers take advantage of people. They use their trusted position of Christian leadership to exploit people for their own gratification. But Scripture commands Christians to eschew the selfishness and narcissism that can lead to church abuse and instead to follow the example of Christ in putting themselves out to serve the best interests of other people.
The Channel 4 News report last February into the abuses committed by the Rev David Fletcher exposed the anti-Christian character of the church abuser. Fletcher led the Iwerne evangelical camps in Dorset where the savage serial abuser John Smyth groomed his victims in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The report by investigative broadcaster Cathy Newman related: “Jeni lives in Australia now, but she grew up in Hertfordshire, and met David Fletcher when she was just 13 years old. She’d been adopted as a child and formed a bond with the Reverend Fletcher and his wife, Sue. But it wasn’t long before his behaviour started to concern her.
“He would try to kiss her on her lips when she was 15 or 16, and on about three occasions, she says he tried to put his tongue in her mouth.”
Fletcher, the son of a former cabinet minister in Harold Wilson’s Labour government in the 1960s, sexually abused Jeni in 1980 in the swimming pool of his parents’ luxurious home in Hertfordshire.
Jeni attended the Iwerne camps and described Fletcher there as “a bit like a spider in a web”. In 1986 he became Rector of St Ebbe’s, the conservative evangelical flagship church in Oxford. He died in 2022.
The behaviour of church abusers like Fletcher is clearly ruled out by Paul’s description of Christ’s example in sacrificing his own interests for the sake of sinful humanity, “taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” and “becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
The followers of Christ must therefore take care to ensure that the inflated egos that lead to abusive behaviours are not allowed to flourish in their own hearts and in their churches. Safeguarding is indeed every Christian’s responsibility.
The Collect for today, the Sunday Next Before Easter, highlights the example of Christ’s humility:
“Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
