For God’s Sake, Have We Learnt Nothing?
I haven’t written about Soul Survivor for a while.
Partly because there is only so much emotional energy people can expend before exhaustion sets in. Over the past few years, survivors have told painful stories, journalists have investigated, safeguarding reviews have been commissioned, reports have been published and countless conversations have taken place about what went wrong.
Yet despite all of that activity, I cannot escape the feeling that many institutions have become masters of a particular strategy: deception, diversion and delay. Keep people occupied long enough, frustrate them long enough, exhaust them long enough, and eventually many will simply stop asking questions.
That is why the recent announcement from Ps & Gs Church in Edinburgh stopped me in my tracks.
The church announced that, following what it described as a “robust, transparent and public process” of discernment, interviews, references and prayer, Andy Croft had been selected as the next Rector. The announcement explained that the Succession Group, Vestry and Bishop had all reached the conclusion that he was the person God was calling to lead the church into its next chapter.
Ordinarily, the appointment of a new Rector would not warrant much comment. Churches appoint leaders all the time. But there is nothing ordinary about this situation.
What makes this appointment particularly striking is the trajectory itself. Andy Croft joined Soul Survivor as an intern in 2004 before joining the church staff in 2008. He later became Joint Senior Pastor alongside Mike Pilavachi in 2016 and, following Pilavachi’s departure, assumed responsibility as Senior Pastor of Soul Survivor Watford. Following safeguarding investigations relating to the handling of concerns, Croft stepped down from that role in 2023. He subsequently joined Ps & Gs as Associate Rector and has now been announced as the church’s next Rector.
The issue is not whether Andy Croft deserves another opportunity. The issue is whether the Church has sufficiently grappled with the consequences of the last one.
That is the question which sits at the heart of this appointment and, from my perspective, remains unanswered.
Andy Croft was one of the most senior leaders within the Soul Survivor movement and church during a period that has since been the subject of safeguarding investigations, independent reviews and significant public scrutiny. While much attention has focused on Mike Pilavachi, questions have also been raised about the wider leadership culture and the responsibilities of those who held positions of authority around him. Organisations are not shaped by one individual alone. Leadership is collective. Responsibility is collective. Accountability should be collective too.
Christianity is built upon the possibility of redemption, forgiveness and restoration. What I find difficult to understand is the apparent speed with which the Church has moved from acknowledging leadership failures to entrusting individuals with fresh positions of authority.
The Ps & Gs announcement repeatedly refers to discernment and prayer. That language sounds admirable and spiritual, but it prompts a question that I suspect many survivors will immediately ask: who exactly was consulted during this process?
The church speaks of interviews, references and discussions. It speaks of seeking God’s guidance. It speaks of careful consideration. It speaks of a succession process that was overseen prayerfully and diligently.
But did anybody seek testimony from survivors?
Did anybody take witness statements from those who raised concerns over many years?
Did anybody ask the people whose faith was damaged, and in some cases shattered, by their experiences within the Soul Survivor culture what they thought about this appointment?
Did anybody seek out those who repeatedly attempted to raise concerns and felt ignored, dismissed or sidelined?
Did anybody ask victims what accountability would look like to them?
Or was this another exercise in church leaders consulting church leaders before appointing another church leader?
Because if all this discernment, all this prayer and all this careful reflection somehow led to a decision without seriously engaging with those most affected by the failures of the past, then one has to ask how complete that discernment really was.
This is not a question of revenge. It is not even primarily a question of punishment. It is a question of accountability.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the Church’s response to safeguarding failures is the apparent eagerness to move towards restoration before fully addressing responsibility. Time and again, institutions seem far more comfortable discussing forgiveness than accountability, rehabilitation than restitution, and future opportunities than past failures.
Yet Christian faith teaches that genuine repentance is not merely about expressing regret. It involves truth-telling. It involves humility. It involves confronting uncomfortable realities. It involves acknowledging harm and seeking to make amends wherever possible.
That is why I continue to struggle with the silence.
Years after the Soul Survivor scandal exploded into public view, I am still waiting to hear a genuinely open and vulnerable public reflection from Andy Croft about his leadership during that period. Not a carefully crafted statement. Not a legal response. Not a safeguarding process. A frank and honest acknowledgement of what happened, what should have happened differently, and why survivors should have confidence in his leadership going forward.
A while ago, I contacted Ps & Gs directly after Andy Croft’s appointment as Associate Rector and asked how the church had reached its conclusions. I wanted to understand what due diligence had been undertaken and how the concerns raised by survivors had been weighed alongside the references, interviews and recommendations of church leaders. While I appreciated receiving a response, I came away with the same concern that has followed this story from the beginning: the voices of those who were harmed appear to carry far less weight than the voices of those who hold power.
Restorative justice begins with listening. It begins with acknowledging harm. It begins with centring those who were wounded rather than those who hold authority. It asks difficult questions about responsibility, accountability and repair. Yet too often within church culture, particularly when influential leaders are involved, restorative justice appears to mean restoring the leader while those who were harmed continue carrying the burden.
Instead, what many people see is a succession of appointments and opportunities that suggest the Church has largely decided it is time to move on.
The difficulty is that survivors do not have that luxury.
For many, this is not a historical story. The consequences are ongoing. Relationships were damaged. Trust was broken. Faith was shattered. Some walked away from church entirely. Others remain within Christian communities but carry profound wounds inflicted by people and institutions they once trusted.
Where are those people in this conversation?
That is the question I keep returning to.
Where are they in the discernment process?
Where are they in the public announcements?
Where are they in the celebratory social media posts?
Where are they in the conversations about leadership, succession and the future of the Church?
Too often they seem absent. Their experiences become secondary to the institution’s desire to draw a line under the past and move forward.
The tragedy is that this approach achieves precisely the opposite of what the Church claims to want. Trust is not rebuilt by promoting leaders and hoping difficult questions disappear. Trust is rebuilt through transparency, humility and accountability. It is rebuilt when those who hold power demonstrate that they are prepared to listen to those who were harmed, even when doing so is uncomfortable.
What troubles me most about this appointment is not Andy Croft himself. It is what the appointment says about the wider culture of church leadership.
The Church appears remarkably skilled at restoring leaders. It appears considerably less skilled at restoring victims.
That imbalance should concern every Christian.
The God I believe in is not a God of institutional self-preservation. He is a God of truth, justice, repentance and reconciliation. But reconciliation without truth is meaningless. Restoration without accountability is hollow. Leadership without responsibility is simply power dressed up in religious language.
Perhaps Ps & Gs genuinely believes it has followed a careful and prayerful process. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of those involved.
But sincerity is not the same thing as wisdom.
And if, after everything that has happened, the voices of survivors were not central to this decision-making process, then the Church may once again have demonstrated that it has learned far less from Soul Survivor than it would like us to believe.
Because from where many survivors are standing today, the message appears painfully simple:
The Church has moved on.
The victims have been expected to do the same.
And that, for God’s sake, is precisely the problem.
Further Reading & Sources
Soul Survivor Watford – Updates and Statements
https://www.soulsurvivorwatford.co.uk/latestupdatesSoul Survivor Independent Review Outcome
https://www.soulsurvivorwatford.co.uk/outcomeSoul Survived: Raising Concerns Over Andy Croft’s Appointment
https://www.soulsurvived.org/shattering-the-silence/raising-concerns-over-andy-crofts-appointmentSoul Survived: The Bishop, the Son and the Church’s Accountability Crisis
https://www.soulsurvived.org/shattering-the-silence/the-bishop-the-son-and-the-churchs-accountability-crisis
Editor’s Note
This article is an opinion piece. References to safeguarding findings, leadership roles and appointments are based on publicly available reports, statements and announcements. Readers are encouraged to review the source material and draw their own conclusions.