A quick blast
On the disgusting behaviour of the Children's Society
The Children’s Society publicly refusing Justin Welby’s Christmas contribution is about the nastiest thing I have seen in forty years of watching Christians hate and humiliate each other — not of course the most evil, just the nastiest.
If they really felt they could not accept his contribution, they were wrong. Whatever the impression you might get from Private Eye, Welby knew no more about Smyth’s depredations than almost everyone else in the years when he could have been brought to justice. If the Children’s Society was determined despite the evidence to believe otherwise they could have informed him privately.
Over on Twitter I compared it to pissing on a homeless woman’s sleeping bag: not just a gesture of contempt for the powerless but one that should ruin their last shelter and deprive them of sleep and warmth. But publicising the decision as well was the equivalent of filming the act and putting it up on TikTok for the clicks.
Obviously no decent person will ever give them money after this, nor anyone on his Christmas card list.
PS. The first version of this post said that he’d asked others to donate, and that the Society would refuse donations from anyone on the list. This was wrong and a function of my own outrage. Apologies to everyone who’s had three editions in quick succession.
I had to search quite hard to find mention on the Children's Society website that their full name is 'The Church of England Children's Society'. You have to search even harder to find any mention of the Christian faith. I'll be encouraging our church to find a different beneficiary from Christingles next year.
What is really the icing on the cake is that Mark Russell, the man who made — and publicised — this decision, has himself been a member of the Archbishop's Council, and thus complicit at the very least in all the decisions for which he now blames Justin Welby alone. Assuming, of course, that there are any concrete decisions he could point to rather than just the vibe.