Cottrell: “… a madman or something worse?”
from Anglican Futures:
Something of a mainstay of evangelical Anglican thought is C.S. Lewis’ famous apologia that,
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse”.
Reflecting on the recent conduct of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, leads to a similar process of analysis. He doesn’t claim to be divine but is he merely a madman or actually something worse?
In mid-December 2024, it became widely known that, whilst Bishop of Chelmsford, Cottrell twice renewed the appointment of Rev David Tudor, who he knew to be a paedophile, as Area Dean. This was in stark contrast to Cottrell’s previous claim that he’d acted against Tudor “at the first opportunity” and that ,“Up until 2019, there were no legal grounds to take alternative action…”
Two articles by Gavin Drake provide excellent analysis of the facts.
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