The Revd The Hon David Fletcher was employed as the senior officer of the Iwerne Trust from 1967 until 1986, when he became a trustee. It was, of course, the period of National Service, which was used to prop up the crumbling Empire. Beauty itself was a snare. Im perfectly sure my schools pedigree wasnt the right one there. I know he found the Lucas-ade faction something of a trial. I attended (I think) two more camps during my undergraduate years. Naivety is structured in to these exclusive communities. He inherited from EJH Nash and then built up the whole edifice of Iwerne and its spiritual style. Yes, and I have heard to the pure all things are pure quoted at those who protest. When I should have been handing out soup and blankets at a homeless shelter I was listening to fulminations about the Social Gospel (always capitalized, and apparently more deadly than rabies). Jesus never took children away from home (no matter how theyd have enjoyed the daring) and confronted them with a momentous choice. Most of the recent interest in the Iwerne camps has focussed on the period from the late 70s onwards when John Smyth and the Fletcher brothers were prominent in the camps and their organisation. It would have demanded a re-evaluation of the algorithms, and the algorithms mattered more than the truth about Christianity, or the truth about himself, or the truth about the kind of creatures humans are. I loved the camaraderie and eagerly absorbed the teaching. How much does David Fletcher weigh? David Fletcher also worked as curator at St Marys Islington and was the rector of St Ebbes, Oxford, from 1986-98. I expect I am missing something. My school was Liberal catholic C of E with plenty of emphasis on corporal punishment, as mentioned before. Sport was important and as a very weedy short-sighted child, I dreaded rugby especially lying in the wet and cols mud, holding a ball upright by my finger tips to allow a great oaf to kick it. Similar changes occurred at other central London schools as University College School (secular), Highgate, Emanuel, City of London, etc. John Smyth was the Chairman of the Iwerne Trust. Liddell, Rutherford, Gow, Christie, Hamilton and Spurr were/are serious classical scholars. He was a headmaster, and we liked it that way, since headmasters were one of the only things we really understood. How should the Church treat those on its payroll who were victims of Smyth as boys and young men and who later went on to become parish clergy sharing the cure of souls with their bishops and in some cases became senior clergy? Lord, he prayed, we claim the leading public schools for your kingdom. All very important, of course, but not as urgent and repercussive as many others. Humans were denigrated: they were wholly fallen. Without penal substitution, John Smyth would have had no thrashing shed in his back garden. Part of it no doubt stemmed from our insecurity. Apart from C and myself, there were at least three Oxford men, who later became evangelical clergy, and a single Cambridge man whose name Ive forgotten. That review will no doubt deal with questions such as why Fletcher was allowed to minister so widely after his licence to do so had been revoked, and more generally about the Church of Englands safeguarding policies. These were the schools who sent into the world, as E. M. Forster said, boys with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds and underdeveloped hearts. (This is in no way to minimise the damaging effect on others of his actions.). We laid tables and did a certain amount of cleaning. David Fletcher was born on May 31, 1994. I can vouch for this. I cant recall ever having that conversation with anyone. Real men got on with manly sports (to burn off their libido and to make them too tired for dodgy philosophising) and with the promulgation of the algorithms. Its true that the Revd Nash introduced some absurd military labels for the staff, but they didnt mean anything. One Methodist Superintendent did leave in disgust, but he was a very Godly man. On another day we drove into Barrow and had a look around. I cannot now remember if this went with a change of status up to officer, but I have a vague memory that the camp might have been the Lymington one rather than Iwerne. I had met JF before; in fact I think he may have visited me in college in his brothers company. Last month, an Inquiry into Winchester College concluded that the schools cult-like evangelical student group, the Christian Forum, allowed Smyth unfettered access to groom victims. There are now things we will never know, that we deserved to know. I forget who cleared it up. After attending these camps, I was invited to join a few handpicked VPS men for several days at a kind of retreat (Im sure that wasnt what they called it!) I read somewhere that its a boarding school thing the teachers are the common enemy, so you dont tell on each other. So maybe it was in fact a particularly Iwerne thing? Eastern Africa still needs relief, clerics and agencies say, New principal appointed for Oak Hill College. I will say more about my experience of Iwerne when I have read Bleeding for Jesus. We were all from the public schools that were Iwernes constituency, and hence emotionally immature and damaged. Of course, that was Sussex (possibly not a Iwerne recruiting ground), and I was female, and my school days had been in the USA. We will see. Dr. The Revd The Hon David Fletcher has died aged 89 following a four-year battle with cancer, John Smyth QC, carried out beatings of young boys at his home in Winchester while he was the chairman of the Iwerne camps, Family tribute to 'loving' mother killed by car as boy, 12, arrested on suspicion of murder, Xi Jinping's 48-hour plan to invade Taiwan | Defence in Depth, Covid on surfaces may be significant spreader as scientists 'rebalance the pendulum', Chopper's Politics: There should be a men's health minister, says Sir Steve Redgrave, The true goodness that lies at the heart of Good Friday, The pothole scandal can no longer be ignored, subjected almost 30 victims to ice baths, naked beatings and sex acts. I hope what Ive written corrects some false emphases in the presentation of Iwerne. We never did pack up and go. I am then portrayed as a badly behaved disabled person. Dr. David Fletcher was born in Orange, CA. These leaders groom a wider group of leaders unwittingly to continue the system where abuse can be disguised. The strategic work of Iwerne reaching the few to reach the many was in peril. Its selling point was academic grades. It was the cause of some mirth in the local area. David Fletcher, Jonathans older brother, was in 1962 employed by the Scripture Union to run Iwerne camps as Eric Nashs successor, until 1986 when he became Rector of St Ebbes, Oxford. For them, every free post-Iwerne act is all the more piquant because it is an act of defiance. I hope our conservative Evangelical friends take the book seriously; denial is tempting, but proper engagement is best for everyone. (ii) After a period of deep decline, the mid/late-nineteenth century headmasters, Liddell, Scott, Rutherford and Gow, revived the school, but the revival was less on the sports field or river, as in the massive emphasis on the classics harking back to the golden era of the school under Camden and Busby. 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I was also invited to a largeish gathering of officers and senior campers in Eastbourne, where there were again bible studies and prayer meetings.

A Iwerne trustee to whom Mark Ruston sent his report in 1982. We all sniggered nervously and obediently, longing for an ear we could chew without emotional engagement. Loyalty was the supreme asset which investment in a public school education produced. CoE Bishops fearful about the consequences of gay blessings vote, leak Catholic University of America Professor Pushes Back Against Conversion Therapy Studies. Thats tough. S breast that with my Rector writingto reprimand me for not following visual clues I cannot see given by stewards, writes reprimanding me for telling stewards I am cannot see and would they speak instead of using visual signals, all whilst failing to follow advice from national safeguarding about a written agreement and writing to tell me I must not show the agreement to my churchwarden. You should read Stalky and Co. In the late 1980s the incoming principal of Wycliffe would have been Dick Lucas, who had previously been at St Helens Bishopsgate.

This is the danger of the cult of personality around Smyth and dare I say, a number of current big names especially in the Con Evo constituency. The Revd The Hon David Fletcher was employed as the senior officer of the Iwerne Trust from 1967 until 1986, when he became a trustee. By far the most important thing about a VPS man was that he should be both keen (i.e.

That, after all, is not a rare activity not in healthy societies, anyway. My abuser started with a silly game, and escalated from there to abuse. They always remained in post. I was wrong. Re identification: the fellow student who had a hand in my conversion would have learnt which school I attended in the natural course of conversation. Another, a group activity, was making hundreds of sandwiches for packed lunches. Neither Harriet Sherwood nor Andrew Graystone (who also calls it a militaristic cult) were educated in this way, so I dont think their reaction to Iwerne was surprising. CEEC launches two initiatives for evangelicals across England, Judas Iscariot: patron exemplar of the politicisation of spirituality. David Fletcher dies, criticised, with an enormous shadow overhanging his legacy, What will make us most angry is the paeans of praise that will inevitably mark his passing. In fact, he was a man who covered up horrific abuse for 40 years, and he must bear significant responsibility for Smyths continuing abuse in Africa. It was vital to the work that these trusted young officers helped Fletcher to ensure Smyth kept clear of alumni from Iwerne schools particularly at Oxbridge. So they must be resisted but not physically and not by outright lying. It built high-walled ghettos, from which the cultists would emerge solely for the purposes of evangelism, lectures, and rugby, and to which they would retreat at nightfall.

Justin Welby had lived there a few years earlier. Liberal catholics dont tend to react in the same way to personalities. WebDavid Fletcher is 28 years old. I agree with the comments above about grooming and gaslighting. How should the Church treat these clergy nearly four decades since the spiritual mentor they revered let them in on the Smyth secret? Where was David Fletcher born?

He has published books on both these issues and is at present particularly interested in understanding how power works at every level in the Church. I accept the various corrective points made. It was a hard choice, and to be honest I didnt handle it well.

Of course. But I also remember Jonathan Fletcher at that time saying with pride that he would never watch a film with a more adult rating than PG. Senior Campers worked extremely hard doing various daily chores.

He said that a lessons learned review would be necessary. If someone was hungry, we had better, more urgent, and more eternally significant things to do than feed him. (As a result it has had to completely reinvent itself over recent decades). Are we witnessing the beginning of the Great Anglican Schism? Episcopal Church of the USA and Church of Sweden Judas Iscariot: patron exemplar of the politicisation of spirituality. Thats absolutely right, Christopher. Thank you, Edmund. And of course Jonathan Fletcher was on numerous boards. I was speaking specifically of Iwerneites who were typically expected to devote the energy of their twenties to the gospel before marrying after they hit 30. Most of my tutors in the School of English and American Studies were former Oxford dons and being very consciously not Oxbridge. Commitment to Christ was, obviously, a qualification for being on the staff (many of them were clergy or ordinands), but the public school boys who attended were just children attending a camp. WebDr. So Iwerne, and the Conservative Evangelical world that Iwerne still dominates, were my worlds for a while. We also had, perhaps in the autumn, recruiting drives where boys were urged to bring their friends along to class; indeed, there were rewards (in the shape of points for your team) if you did this. The key is 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 where Paul negates personality in favour of the Gospel. His findings were detailed in the so-called Ruston Report, which was buried. If there was an Australian bishop, it might have been the year of the Lambeth Conference. My prep school in the early 1950s was definitely about forming an officer class. Jonathan Fletchers brother, David, ran the Iwerne camps while I was there. Edmund you stated that Nor was there, to my knowledge, any undue pressure to be converted: Im quite sure that a 16 year old presented with an ideology [wa]s mature enough to make a choice. My use of the word got would also have been reprimanded! But at the first sign of unsoundness (perhaps a rumour that hed been a bit too cosy with a non-Christian girl, or had been seen on the London train with a Buddhist book, or if hed asked in exactly what sense the Iwerne gospel was Good News for homosexuals), out hed go into the outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing of Comprehensive school teeth. I hope you have good support? Jonathan is one of the High Priests of Conservative Evangelicalism: Iwerne is his power base. He served in that capacity continuously until August 2016, only resigning his post when the Iwerne Trust was closed in a bid to distance it from its successor.

Worshipping daily in Westminster Abbey set us apart, though probably most people found it a bore. I agree with Andrew Brown. Still, its always good to take a second look.

But in rather obscure prose it also stated that the representations process, for all involved is expected to be complex, with the eventual date of publication being determined by this. A New Dean a New Beginning for Christ Church. Thanks Edward. In other walks of life Ive not noticed people talking about school at all. You have to read it to understand why this is important to the CofE. Broadly there are, I think, three groups of Iwerne alumni. (iii) The lack of space also meant that the school, which had little in the way of endowments like Charterhouse, Christs Hospital, Haberdashers Askes, Merchant Taylors or St Pauls (those schools all quit London to get more space for sports), had to depend on day pupils for much of its income. (iv) The last clerical head, Costley-White, finished in 1936 (that was quite late by the standards of most great schools). One could be born into any kind of family and will initially go along with it, but critical faculties will and should be employed later. Iwerne has repeatedly made the national press between 2014-2021 as firstly, the suppressed report on Smyth has come to light evidencing the abusive extremes of spiritual discipline, and secondly, due to similar spiritual and physical abuse allegations against Jonathan Fletcher a key Iwerne clergyman and one of the most prominent Perhaps the obsession with school and class is around the church world? And in the Iwerne VPS circles subset in OICCU it mattered. The VPS network operated in a semi-secret way. From this time, the early 70s, we have some intriguing memories of both Fletcher brothers, particularly Jonathan.

Maybe thats a mildly derogatory reference to girls as well? The last thing they would have thought would have been that it would all be analysed years later it was just a bit of fun for rag week, at the suggestion not of the CU but of the rag week rep though the CU chose the particular nature of the fundraising activity. But all that was a long time ago and in the interim I have mixed with people of all classes and in many locations, and what schools people attended has never been a common topic of conversation. There was too much at stake.

David Fletcher was born on May 31, 1994. He was employed as overall leader of the Iwerne Camps from 1962-86. And the (Arch)Bishop was not as stated but was his successor at Melbourne. They were established by E.J.H. Are you suggesting the MM thing fits the bill? Its badness is a little more subtle than the picture painted by sensationalistic journalism. I can remember very little of the programme, except that towards the end we each had to write and present a short evangelistic talk of the typical VPS kind. We were glad that it was well populated particularly by people who hadnt been to major public schools because that emphasised our status as members of an exclusive club of the redeemed. I knew my Bible and wanted to share my faith (ie I was keen and sound!) I got a phone intended for the blind, so I could dial 999 at night without turning the lights on. Sadly I have had to complain about his replacement. But though there were certainly public school alumni at Sussex at that time, I didnt encounter any Iwerne men until I went to Wycliffe in 1984 to train for the ministry.

The high command was shrewd, in its way. John Smyth was the Chairman of the Iwerne Trust. Rotowire Sep 29, 2022. As far as I can remember there was no mention of special equipment or safety precautions at all. There does seem a certain theme here. In principle it could be the reverse. Perhaps worth a guest post on this site?
David Fletcher is 5-9 (175 cm) tall. The allure of its algorithmic theology a tweedy, brisk, Colonial spin on a 16thcentury Swiss reaction to some mediaeval Roman Catholic abuses took longer to fade. A whole person would know that the evangelical algorithms were literally unbelievable, and so we were taught that we should not be whole people. But we need to avoid simplistic theories of their development so we can truly learn from it.

Nor was there, to my knowledge, any undue pressure to be converted: Im quite sure that a 16 year old presented with an ideology is mature enough to make a choice (or was in the 1960s I first chose to become a Christian on my own at 15). The trouble with that is being uncritical rather than thoughtful about ones upbringing. Blessed are the sleek. All these 4 are relevant today too, of course. Set against the coached naivety is a small group of leaders who know exactly what they are doing. I walked round the garden in a somewhat desperate state trying to manufacture something suitable to put in my little filofax-style book, which was standard equipment. It disturbed me that Christians who were apparently familiar with the area should show such disregard for private property.

It is a path where fatalities are not infrequent. The world where only a select few have a say, has gone. He read veterinary medicine and law at St. Johns College, Cambridge, and holds a PhD in medical ethics and law from Cambridge.

There it was because if you reported something to the police youd get a brick through your window, or worse. The presidents reply (to be taken in the spirit and genre it was given) was Well try that next time.. One possible query, re. I am grateful for it. Some advantages carry hidden damage. I think that the memory of WW2 and National Service was still fresh enough in many adults memories to make this totally unremarkable; Id also suggest that Britain still thought in more militaristic (even imperialistic) ways than it does today. (v) Even before the last war there were increasing numbers of pupils who were from other faiths, notably Judaism, but mostly from none. But I have to say Ive also encountered it in Salford, and again on a tough estate. Oh, and in my experience, nearly everyone is brought up not to grass. Mainly young adults as I recall, mostly I guess from the RML Bible study groups newcomers were encouraged to join. It did not occur to me at the time, but in general the atmosphere was happy and good clean fun. I also remember being in a meeting where John Smyth was present, possibly only for a short visit, but I dont know if I actually met him. The day pupils were also allocated to boarding houses: the effect was that no boarding house could easily become a Christian kraal.

I only knew that because our tutor, who had presumably read her file, asked whether Benenden hadnt taught her not to plagiarise. Are we witnessing the beginning of the Great Anglican Schism? An unedifying confrontation was in progress. Not sure toddlers would hold many MMs, maybe the mini kind but I dont know if they had those then. Having come to faith through the ministry of Jonathan Fletcher (to whom I remain profoundly grateful), one of the final nails in the coffin as far as my Iwerne involvement was concerned was an extraordinary disciplinary breakfast (not as lurid as it sounds .. just the occasion for breath-taking personal rudeness) with David Fletcher when I had the temerity to become engaged to be married in my early twenties.

Myself and the other sharer met both with Mark Ruston and Herbie Carson (St Paulss Cambridge ultra Protestant) to try and understand this. I escaped from Iwernes orbit thanks to a lot of travelling, a lot of forbidden books, and a dark, painful epiphany in a Middle Eastern desert. He sustained and promoted a structure inside which Jonathan Fletcher and John Smyth operated their horrendous regimes. To be moved by anything beautiful was unsound and effeminate. I do remember it at oxford but I think it was simply something fun that was not linked to excessive alcohol consumption as many other student activities were. There were absolutely no military style activities, only lots of sports, games, and expeditions, plus the services at which the evangelical version of the Christian faith was presented. This is not to say that the VPS wasnt or isnt sinister, in the same way that all the para-church groups operating behind the scenes in the C of E are sinister. David Fletcher is 5-9 (175 cm) tall. Among his many challenges, Mr Makin has to deal withthe problem of a group of serving CofE clergy now in their 50s and 60s who were in the know about Smyths criminal abuses by the mid-1980s. There must be a link between the ethos and the theology! Apart from the one student (who was known to be game for a laugh, a terrific guy and a friend). Slay brings this same attentiveness to detail and focus on personable service to his work at Park Ave. He inherited from EJH Nash and then built up the whole edifice of Iwerne and its spiritual style. View all posts by Stephen Parsons . If someone was in prison well, that was the sort of thing you expected from the lower orders, not from us, and our time would be better spent evangelising stockbrokers at the Varsity Match than visiting him. Mr Fletcher was the vicar at Emmanuel church in Wimbledon, southwest London, for 30 years from 1982 until 2012, which is where current allegations of spiritual abuse were levelled against him. That he could believe wholeheartedly what he said, while still behaving in the way that it appears he did is, as in Smyths case, a sign of compartmentalization a compartmentalization that can only be sustained by systematic insistence that self-examination is effeminate and dangerous. The assumption was that if you convert the elite, the rest of the world will follow, since thats how society works. Smyth groomed many of his victimsat the Iwerne camps. For two years I lodged in Cambridge with Mark Ruston, Vicar of the Round Church (the Iwerne church in Cambridge where Jonathan Fletcher had been a curate), and author of the 1982 report on John Smyth. On our way home through the suburbs, JF instigated another prank. I went to his house to ask his advice about going to the Bar. Of course Crusaders had been formed in the early 1900s to fill a gap in the market for boys who went to independent day schools: not boarders at Public Schools nor the hoi polloi who went to Board Schools and went to church Sunday Schools. Neither of these is in the category of the Fletcher forfeits; we should also imagine that the japes of the unmarried may well continue for those who continue to be unmarried, there being no within-marriage outlet. These young men had been to elite boarding schools as boys from middle class homes. Thats very interesting. Blessed are those who earn. Vaughan Roberts (himself a Iwerne man one of the best; an abiding friend for whom I have great respect) made a statement at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly about the Jonathan Fletcher allegations. Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in the UK. Frank Buchmann, MRAs founder, of course, was greatly influenced by the Keswick movement, which also underlies the evangelicalism of the VPS. If you pronounced it audibly you had to stuff another MM in, and so on until it became absurd.

We were sheep, and delighted that there were goats.

The parents increasingly became bien-pensant professionals for whom anything smacking of evangelicalism would have been alien, if not repugnant. They happen in friendship contexts; in school contexts; in medical-student contexts; in Catholic Trainee-Priest contexts.