Not Just One Man. A Culture: The Jonathan Fletcher Case and the Church’s Failure to Confront Dangerous Power

Jonathan Fletcher has now been found to have committed indecent assaults spanning decades. The court this week heard allegations involving humiliation, psychological domination, and abusive “discipline” presented within the language of spiritual mentoring.

The truly damning part is that this was not hidden abuse suddenly uncovered. This went on for years.

Concerns, rumours, disclosures, and warning signs around Jonathan Fletcher and the culture surrounding Emmanuel Wimbledon circulated openly within conservative evangelical circles long before any court ruling. People spoke. Survivors spoke. Former members spoke. The 2021 ThirtyOneEight review itself described cultures of fear, excessive influence, dependency, deference, and spiritual control.

The problem was never simply that nobody knew.

The problem was that too many people knew, too many institutions hesitated, and too many influential figures remained protected by reputation, charisma, theology, and deference.

That is what makes the Fletcher case so disturbing.

Not merely the abuse itself, but the ecosystem around it that allowed it to continue in plain sight for so long.

A victim described Fletcher as:

“Very witty, very clever, very charismatic, glamorous, he was a superstar”.

Which is precisely the problem.

Dangerous leaders rarely look dangerous to the institutions protecting them. They often look impressive, gifted, articulate, theologically confident and socially valuable. That is how the warning signs get laundered and reframed as personality quirks or strong leadership.

Another survivor described:

“A self-congratulating subculture that has never repented, and so has never changed.”

That single sentence says more than any institutional statement ever could.

Because abuse does not survive on charisma alone. It survives inside cultures that admire it, excuse it, protect it, and then call their failure and cowardice “complexity”.

Even now, reading the safeguarding page of Emmanuel Wimbledon feels grim. Statements about “safer culture”, “pastoral care”, and safeguarding commitments now sit beside acknowledgement that Jonathan Fletcher committed indecent assaults after years of allegations, disclosures, reviews, and institutional fallout.

This was never a lone wolf disguised as a sheep.

It was a church culture that repeatedly mistook domination for discipleship and psychological control for spiritual maturity.

Humiliation became “accountability.”

Fear became “godliness.”

Control became “pastoral care.”

That is how abusive systems not only survive. They thrive.

Not through secrecy alone, but through institutions psychologically conditioned to protect influential leaders because they are considered too important, too respected, too charismatic, too theologically useful to confront honestly.

The safeguarding failure did not begin in the courtroom.

It began decades earlier, when warning signs became “complexity”, critics became “divisive”, and institutions became more frightened of scandal than abuse itself.

The Church of England continues to produce audits, reviews, recommendations, and solemn promises of reform. Yet the same institutional instinct keeps surfacing underneath them all: protect authority, manage optics, contain fallout.

Safeguarding does not fail when the verdict arrives.

It fails years earlier, when warning signs are obvious, concerns are whispered about openly, and influential networks decide protecting reputations matters more than protecting people.

By the time the hammer falls, institutions have usually already spent years minimising, rationalising, and burying what everybody already knew while victims carried the cost and powerful networks protected each other.

~ Michelle Burns

Guarding the Flock

Writing this blog takes time, care, and a lot of tea. If it’s been helpful to you, you’re very welcome to buy me a cuppa as a small way of supporting it. No pressure at all – I’m just glad you’re here - Michelle