Meg Munn criticises the Council, not for pulling the plug on the ISB, but for not doing it soon enough. She singles out Justin Welby as the one who has undermined her role and not been robust enough with the other two members—something confirmed by Justin’s extraordinary distancing himself from the Council’s decision during Questions, giving the clear impression that he was throwing the rest of the Council under the bus in the face of negative publicity. Her comments about Steve and Jas are damning:
Although they initially welcomed my appointment, the two existing Board members routinely ignored emails, failed to respond to reasonable requests and declined to have meetings. I was staggered at this unprofessional behaviour, particularly when concerned with such an important issue as safeguarding in the Church. Their stated reason was that being Chair of the ISB was a conflict of interest with my chairing of the NSP, a role they knew I was due to finish in the summer. As a paper, endorsed by last year’s Synod, set out that the NSP and ISB would work closely together on phase 2, there never was a conflict of interest.
The comments from Maggie Atkinson are even more scathing:
This document refutes persistent misrepresentation bordering on defamation, threats to my professional reputation & personal wellbeing, through the publication and promotion of false or partial accounts by Jasvinder Sanghera (JS) and Steve Reeves (SR.)…
The July 9th suspension of a vital session of Synod to permit speeches by JS and SR, accompanied by s good deal of ridiculous behaviour and noise as witnessed on the TV coverage, turned a serious and vital session of the C of E’s legislative body into a farce resembling a political Party or Trade Union rally. Quite who it satisfied, and given Synod was not in session but suspended for an “informal” short period quite what it could seek to achieve, remain mysteries. Good theatre, but to what end? The un-Christian treatment of Meg Munn that afternoon, had it been meted out to me, would have made me do as she did: walk out. That she has now walked not only out, but away, sad as it is and dismaying as it will be to many, is richly deserved.
The Council has committed to initiating an independent review of all that has happened—and I have no doubt that, when all the facts are on the table, it will vindicate the perspectives of Meg and Maggie.
Where does that all leave us? It seems to me that the Church of England, in its leadership, is suffering from a lack of credibility and competence, and that there is a severe deficit of trust on all sides—not because people simply choose not to trust, but because, at so many levels, there appears to be little reason to trust. This is not only damaging credibility and undermining ministry, it is creating serious fractures across the Church at every level.
And it is becoming increasingly clear that these problems of leadership go all the way to the top.
What has contributed to the lost of trust across the Church of England? How was that evidenced in last week's meeting of General Synod? What can be done to restore the trust we need to work together?https://t.co/dL5ruZuVfM
— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) July 14, 2023