More Full

I was tempted to take this morning off timed running, since I knew I was bound to fall back from the inexplicably fast pace of yesterday; but I went ahead and had a good, normal run (bringing my rolling average to 20:14). Coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, quick errands, home for hot breakfast, then back to church for a staff meeting and a pastoral care committee meeting. By the time I get home I should have marking to do, plus communication with the four first-years I’ll be working with for the second half of term.

Full Tuesday

Startlingly good run this morning — when I saw the time, my first thought was that I must have made a timing mistake somehow. My rolling average drops to 20:32. Coffee, fruit, a bit of marking, shower, Morning Prayer, tutorial, lunch, funeral, then home to tend the ladies while Margaret goes to London to see Windborne (friends of Josiah’s from undergraduate days; she had lunch with them in Oxford last week).

The Wages of Syn(od)

Since it’s sure to be the topique du jour at Synod, I wanted my own position on Welby, Cottrell, Hartley, safeguarding, and rumour to be a matter of public record (even though nobody can be at all interested).

First, it seems entirely possible to me that, despite being immersed in Iwerne camp culture and exercising official roles therein, Justin Welby may not have known about John Smyth’s vicious habit. Possible, though not likely — but he attests that he didn’t, so I’ll take him at his word. It’s also possible that he was entirely unaware that such media venues as Private Eye had followed and reported the sad, cruel history of this story for many years. I myself am often left out of the loop for the goss, for reasons unclear to me (it just can’t be any personal sanctity or innocence; my guess is that it’s somehow bound up with my autism in a way that makes me seem like the sort of person Not To Tell). So I know from experience that sizzling sub rosa stories may simply not get to people whom one would think inescapably likely to have heard. I don’t hold Justin Welby responsible for what he wasn’t told or didn’t know. (This is no doubt a great comfort to him.)

The most recent reporting on the police angle suggests that they handled the case according to their own protocols. Whatever one thinks of those protocols, it appears there wasn’t a lapse on that front.

Relative to the case for Archbishop Welby’s resignation under pressure, I do think there’s a basis. Look at it this way (as I must): if in my ecclesiastical posts I had even the shadow of a hint that young people or vulnerable adults were being abused — or anyone being tormented in the way that Smyth tormented the men in his sphere — and I didn’t alert independent authorities according to stated regulations, and then follow through to make sure something was being done, I would have been sacked. I know this; it’s not some vague estimate. Granted that the [then] Archbishop of Canterbury had at some point been informed about Smyth’s activities, and granted his own very close identification with Iwerne and other Smyth-adjacent circles in the CoE, I would have expected that (if he had a line manager to make the decision) he would have been subjected to consequences comparable to those I as a theological educator-priest would have faced. Being an archbishop should provide no insulation from the consequences of actions (or inactions).

As to Archbishop Cottrell, of whom I’ve heard many positive things, roughly the same criterion applies. If I knew that somebody had been acquitted on a technicality (and I do not dispute the importance of technicalities), but had been excluded from schools on the basis of a past record of conduct, I would jolly well not endorse that person or nominate him for ecclesiastical privileges and honours; indeed, I would endeavour, within the bounds of canon law, to make said person as unwelcome as I could. And I would not have praised them publicly. And I would have mad esure that a paper trail demonstrating the very highest standards of safeguarding vigilance accompanied every future such situation I handled thereafter, ensuring that I had fulfilled the highest standards of safeguarding incumbent on me, such as that which resulted in the appointment of the Bishop of Liverpool.

Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley was a student of mine at Princeton Theological Seminary. I have known her for [mumbles] years, and have never had reason to doubt her integrity. Andrew Brown’s vile aspersion that she spoke out with a view to her own advancement is so preposterous — even were Bp Helen-Ann an ambitious church climber — that I seriously cannot imagine what Brown was thinking. Perhaps he has never heard about the abuse women, particularly women clergy, encounter when they raise their heads above the parapet. Perhaps he thought Bp Helen-Ann so stupid that she anticipated cheers of adulation from the College of Bishops. Whatever the case, I can scarcely imagine that any other diocese in England would accept her as bishop, however enthusiastically she has been received in Newcastle, and however thankfully survivors of abuse have heard her speak out on their behalf.

To sum up an overlong post: Justin Welby knew more than his inaction warranted. Stephen Cottrell has known more than his inaction warranted. Helen-Ann Hartley has simply been saying sensible things about horrible situations. Safeguarding requires more than adhering to rules and letting matters drop.

Not Enough of Nothing

Shhh — there’s nothing on my diary for today. Plenty on my to-do list; that goes without saying. But I have the latitude to execute such of those errands as best fits my energies and location.

I didn’t run this morning; it’s cold and rainy, and prudence suggests to me that I not ask more of my knees and ankles and respiratory health than good ordinary weather affords. I will be moving around town today, though. Coffee and fruit this morning, then cleaning up, Morning Prayer, a trip to town for coffee at R&R, and perhaps a trip to Waitrose for various items (Margaret orders wonky fruit and veg from Oddbox, a delivery service, so our shoppiung follows from what we receive from them). Tasks, communications, and keeping an ear to the ground for rumblings from Synod.

Settling Into the Same

1°, two miles, rolling average of 20:43, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer (at home), shower, coffee and toast, off to Mass at St Helen’s, home for lunch, back to St Helen’s for a baptism, then home to recharge. Since the Steelers aren’t playing in the American football championship, I leave it to the partisans of Philadelphia and Kansas City to arrange matters themselves.

Hermeneutics Won’t Go Away

One reason I get vexed about [biblical] hermeneutics involves the almost universal reflex to treat the topic as ‘How to interpret this kind of text’ without even considering what happens when we interpret texts in the first place — as though we already know that, it’s unproblematic. But taking that for granted generates the whole problem. If people would bother understanding ‘hermeneutics’ in the first place, then we could get some headway on why people interpret this or that text as they do.

Anyway, that’s why I’m determined to write what I assume will be my last book before I agree to any other writing projects. Pinky promise.

Cold Rain Pain

It’s cold, it’s wet, and my knee hurts. No run this morning. (I’m considering taking one or two non-timed runs a week, to keep the habit alive while not obliging me to push hard every single morning.)

Nothing in my diary this Saturday. I may actually read from a book, or read some Greek.

Week’s Wrap-Up

Good morning run, back on pace (though my average is still higher after Tuesday’s bump up — 20:48). Coffee, shower, Morning Prayer, then I’ll check phone messages at the Parish centre, on to R&R for coffee with Margaret where (heaven permitting) I’ll get some reading done, and in the afternoon I’ll go to Oxford for the NT Seminar on Hebrews. Maybe work on some Greek — Justin Martyr, or Lucian….

Remembering Nihilism

The other day I recollected as an oddly fond memory the days when George W. Bush was President of the US, and when people in his orbit would refer to people such as I as ‘nihilists’ because… well, I’m not sure why, but it sounded intellectual and anarchic. Presumably the accusation would have rested on my respect for Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault and other people that administration probably hadn’t even heard of, who argued that the stuff that Bush et al. insisted was ‘reality’ was way more complicated and less real than they wanted to suppose. Bushian nihilists hypothetically believed that nothing means anything, that we can do whatever we want (you know, the way I’m always going on about the virtues of selfishness). Since they were on the side of ‘reality’, people who disagreed with them — such as I — must have been denying reality, hence ‘nihilists’.

These memories came to mind because of my profound shock, and sorrow, that a large part of the current Republican leadership seems simply not to care about how their actions appear to the rest of the world, or how they will appear to future generations, or how they will be judged by a righteous God, or karma, or some other cosmic principle. Even allowing that they might be self-deceived about the righteousness of their actions (and I can hardly do that), they apparently can’t even allow the possibility that they be found to have fallen short of a critical standard of justice and decency.

The policies and public remarks of the current administration with its fellow-travellers raise group cynicism to heretofore unattained levels. Caring nothing for the eventual (to say nothing of the ‘eternal’) consequences of their actions, they are in it to win it, Katie bar the door, He who dies with the most gold bars, wins. If that’s not nihilism, we need a new word with a different history of usage, that can stand in for ‘believes in nothing, no principles, no ideals, no moral compass other than “what I want”’ — cos that’s what I thought nihilism was all about.

Slow Start

I decided not to run this morning, thinking that my legs deserved a little break from pushing to reach better and better times. I can push them again tomorrow. Coffee (no fruit), showered and dressed, Morning Prayer and some errands at church, home for more coffee and crumpets, doomscrolling, parochial hopescrolling, and working on the Epistle of James.

Wednesday of Third

I thought I got off to a pretty good start this morning, but evidently I misjudged my pace. My legs were a bit tight, especially after the first two-thirds of a mile or so — when, ordinarily, they begin to relax and stretch out; and the pavements were just a wee bit frosty near the rivers. In any case, my rolling average crept back up to 20:53, though I expect I’ll be pulling it back down relatively soon.

Staff meeting at midday, and a wedding couple to meet this evening.

Yesterday… And Today

Full day yesterday, beginning with a surprisingly good run (average down to 20:23). Then coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, then directly to an online Safeguarding event, then dashed off to a Home Communion, then straight ahead to Communion by Extension in a care home, at last home and flopped into a chair.

This morning’s run was surprisingly slow (I think I must have done something wrong with the timer at a traffic intersection), so the rolling average bounces back to 20:45. Coffee and fruit, about to shower and go to church for Morning Prayer, then meet Margaret for a quick cafe breakfast, then home to receive the plumber, then some academic work. Different day, but no idle hands.