Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Transformational Christian Life
Judith Maltby ViaMedia.News Safeguarding & Living in Love and Faith: Learning for the Church of England from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse & Lessons Learned Reviews
[This is the paper referred to in the comments to last Saturday’s Opinion piece.]
Justin Humphreys/Ian Paul Psephizo Can safeguarding be integral to Christian mission?
As a typical long-winded evangelical Ian Paul uses a few thousand words to explain why the Bible suggests sexual abuse is wrong, when about ten words would do. Why do men like him have to scour ancient scripture to find something out what normal people know through common sense?
Whilst I disagree with what Ian Paul says most of the time, it seems that almost all of the article is comprised of quotes from another document. Ian Paul himself only contributes about 6 paragraphs of the article, reflecting on what Justin Humphries says.
Fr David’s criticism may be better directed at Justin Humphries (whose booklet is published by Ian Paul’s company).
The article made clear at the beginning it was written by Justin Humphreys – not Ian Paul. Did you read actually it?
I stand corrected. Justin Humphreys is a long-winded evangelical writing a tedious article on Jesus’ opinion on CofE safeguarding.
Is Justin Humphreys an evangelical? That’s a genuine question as I have no idea. I note from their website that Thirty-One Eight simoply claims to be a Christian organisation, but doesn;t use the word evangelical. And their non-discrimination statement specifically includes LGBTQI+ people.
He was a pastor in the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church.
Quite a lot more to say about him than that. From the Thirty-One Eight website: ‘… Justin has worked in a variety of social work and youth work settings for over 25 years. Most recently before joining the charity in 2010, he worked for the largest children’s charity in the UK. Previous to this, he worked in a range of local authority roles; most latterly at senior management level within a metropolitan borough council in the West Midlands. He has also served as a church Pastor and is a passionate advocate for justice and authentic leadership.‘ His contribution to safeguarding… Read more »
ThirtyOne:Eight is ‘independent and Christian’. It offers assistance, advice, resources and training in safeguarding for all Christian churches. As far as I am aware, it has no denominational bias. It is there to help keep all people safe.
Although written by Ian Paul, his article is largely quotes from a Grove Booklet wrtitten by Justin Humphreys of Thirty-One Eight. I have added Justin’s name to help make this clear.
Long-winded or not, I hope we can all agree with what Justin has written. There is a similar message about safeguarding being the core of Christian mission in the theology paper written for the Church of England senior leadership safeguarding training, available here https://survivorsvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Theology-for-safeguarding-paper.pdf
As an ISB survivor, I hope Ian Paul and other Archbishops’ Council members take more notice of the need to “respond well in situations where harm has occurred”, as so far their response has served mostly to retraumatise.
Is the Psephizo website itself a safe space?
It’s safer not to go there.
It’s safer not to go anywhere. But is the Christian life really about being ‘safe’? I think we need to be a bit more robust.
You think so? Try living in Ukraine or Gaza.
Judith Maltby’s piece is important in showing that promises have been broken by the way that IICSA has been (nearly) totally ignored by the LLF process. It is a shameful shambles. I think Lord Williams is perceptive in noting the problems caused by a desire to “overcompensate” for the church’s teaching on sexual ethics. This does seems to be why harmful behaviour has been “trivialised” or intentionally overlooked as a “well-known secret” (as other parts of Maltby’s piece say). The gap between official teaching and private belief is also identified as a factor in witnesses being unwilling to come forward:… Read more »
Judith Maltby’s painstakingly researched article would have the CEO of most reputable organisations hanging their head in shame – and ( sorry about the language) trying to DO something about it. In the same vein, members of Synod probably should look at how important business seems to be made flow past them so they are unable to touch what matters despite their hours of reading and listening to highly orchestrated discussions