“Really Not A Nice Man”: The Archbishop’s Lack of Curiosity and Christian Tribalism

A Lack of Curiosity

The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned because of a “lack of curiosity”.  That it was a lack of curiosity over a most egregious and sinful set of crimes of a sexual nature over an extended period of time by someone he knew, put paid to his tenure.

The Makin report into the now well-documented crimes of John Smyth, a leader and spiritual head of the Iwerne Christian camps for a number of decades, makes for heavy reading.  You can find the full report here.

The first three key findings are as follows:

Really Not a Nice Man

When the report was released, and it was clear that the Archbishop had been made aware of concerns in 2013, having been previously – and euphemistically told in 1981 by a barrister than Smyth was “really not a nice man” – the writing was on the wall for Welby.

It was only a matter of time. Though long after the time that something should have been done.  I wonder at that euphemism “Really not a nice man”.  Such a polite way, such a well-heeled and upper middle class way of issuing a warning. And what does it mean?

Not a nice man. That’s a wide semantic field from a barrister.  Could be anything from a road rager to a serial killer.  Welby, intellectually curious leader as he is, however, was not sufficiently curious about this particular matter. At least Smyth was not a serial killer. He was merely a serial sex abuser of young men.

The Times reports on this lack of curiosity by the Archbishop:

The Makin report criticised Welby over the his actions in 2013, after he was informed of allegations against Smyth. Welby was wrongly assured the allegations had been passed to police. But no formal referral had been made and Welby — along with other senior church officials — displayed a “lack of curiosity” over the extent of the investigations.

That’s where you follow up, right? That’s where your curiosity gets the better of you and you pick up the phone and find out if the allegations have been followed up, if there is anything to them, and what action you might have to take to ensure that what might be true, or might not be true, can never be true!

But no. A lack of curiosity.

The Presence of Tribalism

But let’s not talk about the lack of something. Let’s talk about the presence of something else. Something that allowed this vile sin to continue for so long. For it wasn’t the lack of curiosity that ensured Smyth would rack up a body count of young men. It was the presence of tribalism that did it. And in this case, well-heeled, upper-middle-class evangelicalism.

It’s deeply ironic that at the same time that many an evangelical in that particular circle has been calling on Welby to resign over his equivocation on same sex marriage within the church, that his immediate downfall was not due to those nasty liberals who are enervating the church.

No, it was down to those well-heeled chaps who take the Bible very seriously indeed.  And who, it would seem, like to keep their secrets to themselves. This was tribalism at its worst. Loyalty to the brand beyond any concern for those who may fall under the wheels of the “not very very men” who are tribal elders.

When Welby says he believed that the “Really not a very nice man” warning related to Smyth’s personality. you have to shake your head in disbelief. Seriously? Someone was emotionally intelligent thinking that?

The point of people like Smyth is that in terms of personality – at least outwardly – they are extremely nice men. They are charming men. They are influential men. They are men who you want to listen to, who you want to lead you and who you want to send your young men to be influenced by. And, as it turns out, they also want to lead you to specially sound-proofed rooms to be beaten on the buttocks until you are so bloodied you have to wear a nappy/diaper to sop it up. But ministry hey?

As experience shows – and I’ve had an experience of a “really not a very nice man” in ministry – albeit without the sexual abuse – such men are adept at covering their true selves. After all, they wouldn’t be able to get into any leadership positions if they were dressed in red spandex, spouting horns and holding a pitchfork with the faint whiff of sulphur about them.

In fact some of the very people tutt-tutting about this matter in well-heeled evangelical Christian circles have their own lacks of curiosity to contend with.

You see, sadly, and this is the truly sad thing about it, such men like Smyth – and indeed abusers of all sorts –  don’t have to do all of the heavy lifting when it comes to covering up their true selves. For others will do that for them. Others will stay silent, or redirect the problem, or ensure that the offended person is placated just enough to go away and lick their wounds.

Launder, rinse repeat.

In the same way that it takes a village to raise a narcissist, it takes a village to raise a sexual predator.  And if you have a lack of curiosity, or as it is increasingly becoming clear – the corresponding presence of tribalism – you will turn your head and allow bad things to happen to people.

In other words, when you have an a priori need to protect your particular tribe, you end up having less and less curiosity about worse and worse behaviour. Until you no longer know what constitutes either a reportable offence, or an indictable crime, or just indelibly bad behaviour.

A lack of curiosity allows a lot of bad people to do a lot of bad things for a long time.

That is until someone runs for cover. And then, as the Archbishop found out to his eternal chagrin, you have nowhere left to hide.

And that’s when everyone else becomes curious. Very curious indeed.