Anglican Unscripted provided some news yesterday. On Bishop Derek Jones:
- A presentment was filed two weeks ago accusing Bishop Jones of misconduct, including:
- Spiritual bullying.
- Financial misconduct.
- The allegations are that he engaged in a pattern of fraud, abuse, lying, conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy, spiritual bullying, and emotional bullying.
George Conger said, “We’ve had detailed reports from some of his alleged victims and these poor fellas, they are suffering. Something happened. I don’t you know, it’s hard to understand or to if you’re not in the the victim’s shoes to see how angry they are, how hurt they are.”
Apparently, the allegations were brought to the Archbishop Foley Beach beginning in 2022. A single allegation was brought to Archbishop Beach, who passed it to Bishop Ray Sutton, who passed it to the PERSON BEING ACCUSED, Bishop Derek Jones.
Conger says that Bishop Jones’ “…response was extraordinary, which was to essentially, the claimant says, to destroy the person making the allegation. That’s the accusation.”
Others filed complaints to Archbishop Beach, who is accused of doing nothing and sitting on them.”
According to Conger, his staff at the time said, “Look, you’ve got to address these things.”
At a certain point, Archbishop Beach said, “Well, we’ll let the next Archbishop handle it.” And so the whole thing was basically shelved for several months. And we’ve seen copies of emails asking: “What is the status?”
“No change. No change. No change. No change.”
“Going over months of time.”
Conger continues: “It gets handed to Archbishop Wood. Archbishop Wood at a certain time, and he says, “We need to go forward with this.”
Conger and Kallsen say that extraordinary claims are being made. “I mean it’s so fantastical it’s hard to believe.”
Conger says “Bishop Jones is painted as a petty and vindictive tyrant in these accusations. For an example, um the person making the original complaint going back Jones is sought to destroy by having him kicked out of the the chaplaincy of the military by accusing him of all sort of various sins, blackening his reputation among civilian employees, just going out of his way to ruin this guy’s life.”
Conger emphasizes, “Now I’m not saying because that’s true that accusations against Jones are true. But we’ve contacted Bishop Jones’s attorneys for comments and they’ve not responded.”
“The ACNA has neither confirmed nor deny that a presentment has been filed, but we’ve seen so much of the background documentation.”
Conger’s opinion is “And if the ACNA is going to be part of this Global Anglican Communion, it’s going to have to clean up its own internal act and get its bishops in line because right now they have a quasi Roman Catholic papal system of the people just pay and pray. They don’t really have a synodical form of government.”
On Archbishop Wood, Conger says that there may be more charges are in the works against him. “…you and I have heard rumors of more complaints coming down the pike against Steve Wood.”
Conger also say, “The ACNA has decided ‘we’re no longer having adversarial court proceedings. We’re going to have proceedings that are based upon reconciliation and conciliar…we’re going to have everybody happy at the end of the day.’
“Well, the accusation is that this approach covers up bad clergy behavior.”
Conger asked the ACNA Archbishop’s office to confirm that a presentment has been made against Bishop Archbishop Wood: “When was it made? And who made it? And they answered. Two days later, I asked the same question to them about Derek Jones. Has it been made? When was it made? Who made it? And their response was ‘well the canons say we cannot disclose this information because it’s a confidential process.’ Now…essentially you’re telling me that you enforce the canons when it’s convenient or it’s in your favor you ignore the canons when it’s not. It’s not how it’s supposed to work Kevin. It’s either you know you either do it or you don’t. You don’t do it this time, but not that time.”
Conger mentions Dr. Robert Sturdy who was one of the candidates to stand for bishop of South Carolina. Dr. Sturdy is the chaplain at the Citadel and has said that “…these are serious people bringing these charges, these aren’t you know the perpetual cranks that you know every church has.”
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