Church Society and the Stephen Sizer Antisemitism Scandal
In December 2022 Stephen Sizer was found guilty of antisemitic activity by a Church of England tribunal. The tribunal banned him from “exercising any of the functions of his Holy Orders” for a period of twelve years.
Church Society is the only organisation that specifically represents conservative evangelicals within the Church of England (the Church of England Evangelical Council is theologically broader). Its current director, Revd Dr Lee Gatiss, has defined its work as “the three Ps of publishing, politics, and patronage”. Regarding the second P, Gatiss said, “We do politics within the Church of England.” One would have thought, therefore, that Church Society would have had something to say about Stephen Sizer, a former trustee of Church Society who was the most controversial conservative evangelical vicar in the Church of England between 2012 and 2017. Church Society promptly addressed the Smyth scandal and the Fletcher scandal, but failed to address the Sizer scandal until 2020, more than three years after Sizer’s retirement from Christ Church Virginia Water.
In this way, Church Society missed the opportunity to inform its members of the facts of the scandal at the height of its relevance. At a minimum, Church Society could have drawn attention to the criticisms of Sizer from multiple well-respected Jewish community groups; it could have noted the Bible’s command that a church leader “must be well thought of by outsiders” (1 Timothy 3:7); and it could have publicly urged Sizer to avoid causing any unnecessary offence while he pursued pro-Palestinian political objectives. Such an approach would have respected the principles of due process while acknowledging the concerns of an ethnic minority. Instead, Church Society turned a blind eye to the scandal. Lee Gatiss only chose to address it because a 2020 article had criticised Church Society for its silence on Sizer up to that point.
In his defensive response, Gatiss claimed ignorance of the details of Sizer’s activity: “I personally find many of the things now pointed out in his social media and other engagements to be offensive and sometimes ridiculous. I don’t follow him on social media so had not seen these before, or had them pointed out to me as far as I can recall.” This conveniently released Gatiss from the problem of explaining his silence. But there’s clear evidence, which has been discussed elsewhere, showing he was already fully aware that Sizer had spread antisemitic propaganda on social media blaming Israel for the 9/11 attacks. Gatiss’s claim never to have seen “the things now pointed out in his social media and other engagements” was therefore false.
Sidebar: Church Society’s Problem with Truth
The falsehood discussed above seems not to be the only time Lee Gatiss has sacrificed the truth for his own convenience or benefit. In 2018, Cambridge University asked him to rewrite his Twitter profile, which falsely stated: “Church Historian @UnionTheology & @CamDivinity”. Gatiss’s role as a supervisor at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity had ended in 2016. It would be charitable to assume that Gatiss had just forgotten to change his profile. And yet that wasn’t the excuse he himself gave in his defence. Instead he gave the impression he was entitled to describe himself as a “Church Historian @CamDivinity” beyond 2016, a defence Cambridge University evidently disagreed with and apparently disproved by Gatiss’s own LinkedIn account. The episode can arguably be characterised as the falsifying of credentials — a very serious offence in the academic world.
Even in 2016, when Gatiss did still have a part-time role supervising Cambridge undergraduates, he arguably allowed his academic credentials to be inflated. A bio on The Gospel Coalition website, presumably supplied by Gatiss himself, states, “Gatiss teaches 15th to 17th-century church history to undergraduates at Cambridge University”. This gave the heavy impression that Gatiss was a lecturer on the faculty of Cambridge University—it would be hard for readers to come to any other conclusion. But he wasn’t. It seems to be an example of Gatiss illegitimately making use of a half truth to serve his own ends—in this case deceptively inflating his own prestige.
Still more disturbingly, Gatiss’s 2021 briefing paper on the Andreyevs — a ministry couple at a Church Society Trust parish church — included a serious falsehood that has never been retracted. Gatiss claimed the Andreyevs had “publicly stated that any external investigation should not be commissioned or paid for by [Church Society].” He used this false claim to justify cancelling a potentially-damaging external review of Church Society’s conduct towards the Andreyevs. Church Society’s council are aware that Gatiss’s claim is false, and at least one Church Society member, Revd Simon Tomkins, has resigned in protest, but the council are content to let the falsehood stand.
If the Andreyevs had “publicly stated that any external investigation should not be commissioned or paid for by [Church Society]” there would be evidence of that public statement. Neither Gatiss nor Church Society has ever produced that evidence in their defence. There is a reason why they haven’t. Gatiss was selectively quoting from a social media discussion in which Kate Andreyev had made a carefully-qualified comment about an entirely different case. The full context shows the illegitimacy of Gatiss’s use of her words, which is why Church Society never produces the evidence when challenged. Gatiss’s handling of Kate Andreyev’s words is the kind of devious exegesis that he himself would firmly condemn in another context.
Church Society’s untruthfulness recently took a turn for the worse: its leadership had previously said Mrs Andreyev refused the investigation, but in March this year Ros Clarke, Church Society’s Associate Director, claimed they never said she had refused it. The clear-as-day contradiction has been pointed out to Clarke, but she’s failed to address it. It’s bad enough for a Christian organisation to say contradictory things about what a person has done, but it’s even worse when the organisation then willfully ignores the contradiction. Kate Andreyev is a Christian who should be loved. In John 15:12, Jesus says “Love each other as I have loved you.” Would Jesus say two contradictory things about what someone has done and then, like Church Society, ignore the contradiction? Nothing is more important in matters of justice than reliable testimony. And there’s no clearer signal of unreliable testimony than an uncorrected contradiction. An organisation that cannot be trusted in matters of justice shouldn’t be trusted at all.
Since Lee Gatiss wasn’t telling the truth when he claimed to have been ignorant of the details of the case, what was the real reason why Church Society stayed silent about Stephen Sizer in 2015, when his promotion of an antisemitic conspiracy theory became a national news story?
The Reason for Church Society’s Silence
A comment in a private Church Society Facebook group on 30 January 2015 argued that Sizer had the right, on free speech grounds, to spread antisemitic propaganda. This seems to have reflected Church Society’s view of the scandal at the time, because Gatiss gave the comment a “like”. A “like” usually indicates approval, and it has the effect of signalling approval of a comment to the other members of the group — especially in this particular case, because Gatiss was one of the moderators of that Facebook group.
Free speech is a social good, but the question at issue in the Facebook discussion was whether Sizer should be free to say whatever he wished as an evangelical leader. The issue is clarified if one imagines an evangelical pastor spreading poisonous anti-Black propaganda. Surely, in that parallel case, the pastor’s fellow evangelicals would quickly demand that something should be done to stop him bringing the name of Christ into disrepute.
Church Society ignored the Sizer scandal for five years after that private Facebook discussion, freely tolerating antisemitism in its own conservative evangelical grouping within the CofE. Church Society has taken action in the past against a White supremacist, but it seems to have a blind spot when the racism at issue is specifically directed at Jewish people. If it doesn’t have a blind spot, why did it remain silent about Stephen Sizer, and why has it never apologised for its silence?
December 2022
When the CofE tribunal issued its verdict on the Sizer case in December 2022, Church Society issued a defensive addendum to its 2020 statement on Sizer:
In this update (see the final two paragraphs), Church Society misleadingly claims that prior to the tribunal’s verdict, “the question of whether certain of [Sizer’s] activities were antisemitic was sub judice.” The legal principle known as sub judice is designed to stop material being published that might seriously prejudice active legal proceedings. The relevant legislation is the Contempt of Court Act 1981, which defines the meaning of “active” proceedings. In Sizer’s case, the sub judice principle might possibly excuse silence between the date when the tribunal’s hearings was arranged, which was apparently 3 May 2022, and 30 January 2023, when the penalty was announced. However, Church Society isn’t under fire for its silence during those months, but rather for its silence between 2015 and 2020, when it failed to address Sizer’s activity despite the controversy surrounding him. The sub judice principle offers no defence whatsoever for Church Society’s toleration of Sizer’s antisemitism during those years. It’s truly demoralising to see evangelical leaders taking cover behind legal terminology that they evidently do not understand.
The Unapologetic Toleration of Antisemitism
In contrast to other evangelical organisations (Evangelicals Now and Christianity Explored Ministries), Church Society hasn’t issued any kind of apology for its failings in relation to the Stephen Sizer antisemitism scandal. David Shepherd, commenting as a Black evangelical on Lee Gatiss’s refusal to apologise for “liking” the 2015 free speech defence of Sizer, points out that it’s godly to apologise for causing offence, even if it was done unintentionally. David cites Acts 23, where the Apostle Paul apologises for calling the High Priest a “whitewashed wall” even though he hadn’t known he was addressing the High Priest. Sadly, David’s carefully argued appeal for an apology fell on deaf ears.
Under its current leadership, Church Society has shown itself incapable of addressing its own serious moral failings. Sins such as the unapologetic toleration of antisemitism and unretracted false testimony dishonour the name of Christ. The author’s opinion is that British conservative evangelicals should adamantly refuse to partner with Church Society unless and until it changes course. Its doctrine is orthodox, but its conduct is vile. Christianity without repentance isn’t Christianity any more, it’s hypocrisy.
