‘Bleeding for Jesus’ – second edition

The first edition of Bleeding for Jesus was published in the autumn of 2021. If you have read a copy, you will likely remember it. The contents are shocking, even if you were already aware of the story of the abuse inflicted by John Smyth on many of the boys who attended the Iwerne camps.

Reviewing this initial edition for Evangelicals Now, Julia Cameron commented on the density of the detail contained, the frustrating lack of footnotes, and factual errors. She felt Graystone “imaginatively reconstructs scenes, and quotes from them, while not having spoken with those present”.

Some of those mentioned in the book provided their own rebuttal of what was originally published. But not everyone who reads a book will then head online and read blogs elucidating and clarifying details, especially in a book full of such shocking material.

In the years since, much has moved on. The Makin Review into Smyth’s abuses (and the handling of their reporting) has been published – and led to the resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. There have been further allegations of abuses relating to Jonathan and David Fletcher. And with the various news reports, interviews, as well as the book itself, more survivors and victims of abuse have found the courage to share their stories. Many of them got in touch with Graystone.

I interviewed Andrew Graystone for en recently (read the interview here) where he admitted that his first edition of Bleeding for Jesus was something of a “lone journey … I was trying to find a way through all this information and to find a way to make sense and make a story out of it”. With this second edition, he not only continues the story of the fallout from Smyth but also includes insights from those he has now spoken to. Notably, some of the inaccuracies originally observed have been amended. Graystone’s hope is that this second edition of the book is “more three-dimensional” as a result.

The subheading of the book still describes the “Cult of Iwerne Camps”. Graystone is still clear in his own mind that this is what the camps were – a kind of cult. He asks questions about Evangelical theology and culture (theologian Ian Paul has in the past described Graystone’s descriptions of Evangelical culture and theology as “parody”). At one point Graystone asks: “How much has the repressed homosexuality of John Smyth and others in the Iwerne movement impacted the church’s struggles to come to terms with sexuality in all its beauty?” The new subheading adds “the Scandal that Shook the Church of England”. Yet Graystone was not calling for Justin Welby’s resignation – and expresses some sympathy for the isolation and challenging task that Welby had, leading me to reflect on whether the Archbishop was perhaps as much pawn as he was powerful. But Welby’s inconsistencies in various interviews are starkly laid out.

Graystone also acknowledges the difficult choice he found himself with when he was given the dossier on the Iwerne camps and the abuse. Would he be committing an act of personal or professional betrayal to share the material? He describes several months – trying to decide what was the right thing to do, now he had been given the information. In Chapter 15 we learn that after he sees Cathy Newman cover a story about a teacher who had purportedly abused, he meets her and decides that she is the person to help him investigate further.

Like the first edition, this is a book filled with stories of people who have been deeply hurt, as well as people who have made difficult choices. With this revised edition, Graystone unpacks “what happened next” but also adds more voices to the stories he shares, including those of Smyth’s family. At Smyth’s funeral he sent a message to the family, saying: “I have spent an awful lot of the last three years in your dad’s company without ever meeting him face to face.” He tells his readers he believes he knows Smyth as well as he knows anyone and sees him “as a paradigm of human weakness”. In sharing more of this paradigm, this book reminds us of the potential we all have for great good – but also great evil.

Help and support

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this review, help is available via: FearFree Support (www.fearfree.org.uk); the Safe Spaces helpline on 0300 303 1056 / safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk; The Samaritans helpline – 116 123; The National Association for People Abused in Childhood napac.org.uk.

BLEEDING FOR JESUS John Smyth and the Cult of Iwerne Camps: The Scandal that Shook the Church of England By Andrew Graystone DLT. 304 pages. £14.99 ISBN 978 1 917 362 184