It’s an extraordinary thing that evangelicals, of all people, don’t believe in sin. This week, the long-delayed Makin Review was released, bringing back into the public eye what a number of clergy knew already in 1982: that John Smyth QC, barrister, Lay Reader in the Church of England, and noted in evangelical circles as a “strong Christian”, sadistically and systematically groomed young men and boys and subjected them to brutal physical, psychological, sexual and spiritual abuse. 

Someone could have gone to the police, in 1982. Someone could have gone at any time since, and perhaps protected the later victims, in England, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The Archbishop of Canterbury could have made a report in 2013. Instead, the Church of England floundered. “Church officers knew of the abuse and failed to take the steps necessary to prevent further abuse occurring,” says the Makin Review. “There were individual failings by senior clergy, and clergy who subsequently became senior.” 

“Will you resign?” says Channel 4’s Cathy Newman to the Archbishop, who has just avoided the question. “I’ve taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues,” says the Archbishop. “And no, I’m not going to resign for this.” But the obvious truth is that he should resign, and also those senior colleagues should, too, if they knew who and what Smyth was, or if they could have otherwise exposed him or comforted his victims. Everyone should resign if they could have done more and didn’t. They’ll know, surely, in their heart of hearts, in the silences between the lines of the Confession. Most merciful God. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. 

But then, as I said, evangelicals don’t believe in sin. That’s the only way I can explain the bewildering early section of the Makin Review in which the clergymen of the early 80s send letters to and fro, trying to put up their own spindly fences around John Smyth — assuming, with breathtaking levels of entitlement, that the matter is theirs to deal with amongst themselves. They have no conception of those young boys’ pain. They haven’t noticed that evil is evil.

If you’ve preached again and again that all have sinned and fall short, or that the one great crime of humanity was to reject God, or that even the littlest children have disappointed him — well, by that point, the concept of sin has become a kind of grey featureless blob, too heavy for the children to carry. So no-one notices that some people do specifically bad, viscerally harmful things. No-one can see around the edges of the blob. That’s my pet theory, anyway. It was a relief, after evangelicalism, to read Dante’s Inferno, because Dante cheerfully imagines people in hell when he doesn’t like them and disapproves of their actions. There’s a sense in the evangelical air that one might stumble into hell by mistake, through not believing things hard enough. But I don’t think evangelicals really believe in hell either.

Fifteen years ago the Christianity Explored course explained sin like this. At the end of your life you’re in a room, and on the walls everything is pictured that you’ve ever done, or said, or thought. I think there’s an angel in the room, or maybe Jesus, and the angel (or Jesus) says that outside the room are your friends and family and everyone you’ve ever known. If they come in and see the room, says the angel or Jesus, how are you going to feel?

There’s no option of real contrition, you see; no genuine acknowledgement that an objectively bad thing is objectively bad. Only embarrassment, because everyone you know is going to find out. Not repentance but shame.

I wouldn’t wish John Smyth’s room on any angel. But I wonder how many senior clergy can’t resign, because they can’t show signs of weakness, because they’re terrified of that room. The room might reveal what they’ve done, or what has been done to them. It might just be a room of small thoughts, shallow ambitions and shoddy failures. Anything rather than humiliation.

One way or another, everyone who carries responsibility here needs to step down

In this case, as the Review notes, “there were several victims who, since the abuse occurred, have become Church officers.” Among those who “failed to act” in formal terms, there were people whose burden of personal injury made their silence completely understandable. What kind of crazy layering of faith and hurt and damage and confusion and conviction is this thing called church? With all the investigations in the world, it would be impossible ever to know exactly who has been complicit and who has been harmed, more or less egregiously, by John Smyth or any other perpetrator.

One way or another, everyone who carries responsibility here needs to step down. There is no reason to do anything else, if the Christian faith has any meaning at all. If they really believe that the aim of the game is to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God; if they think it is right to give thanks and praise; if this whole Christianity thing is real and the church is important, they should step down, join a normal parish, serve, and be served. They should fill the teapot and stack mugs in the dishwasher, sweep down the stairs with a dustpan and brush, set up folding tables and put them away again, pull up weeds round the church walls, and pop to Sainsbury’s for mince pies at Christmas, or back to church at night with a raincoat on over their PJs because of another false alarm on the security system. They should polish brasses and sit quietly with the Tuesday night prayer group and chat at the Thursday coffee morning. They should accept the kindness of staunch, steadfast, ordinary people, and not preach, and not run kids’ work or the youth group, and not need to be in authority over others. No-one needs that, however much they feel called to ministry.

Alternatively, they could stay at home on Sunday mornings, have another cup of tea and think it all over. That’s what I do, so I’m not about to berate anyone else for giving up. Only for clinging on to power by their finger-tips, as if God will only get by if he keeps certain people in certain posts. Those who presume to teach will be judged more strictly. Grace (Simone Weil says) is the law of the descending movement. What if Christians acted as if what mattered was not their success but Christ on the cross — a God who suffered, and the children whose suffering he understood better than anyone? They all ought to resign if they forgot that, if they thought the gospel was anything other than that.