(Update now added at the end of this post)
Dave Walker has continued to post helpful updates to the mess that used to be the SPCK bookshop chain. The individual stories that many of us are hearing, some of which Dave mentions, continue to range from the bizarre to the appalling. There are so many of them revealing of bad management that even if some may (which I doubt) suffer from “Chinese Whispers” syndrome, I don’t think anyone can doubt that there is a major question mark over the Brewer brother’s business ethics and personnel management. They claim to be promoting Orthodoxy, but as their bizarre argument for Sunday trading based on the Canons of Laodicea shows, they seem to have a remarkably tenuous grasp of Orthodox theology, one that would seem to equal their grasp on Orthodox ethics.
Today’s Church Times carried the story further. In response the Brewers rushed out a letter which seems to be intended for customers. Ironically it still carries the www.spckonline.com web address in the header, despite the fact that they are supposed to be no longer using it.
The letter says (I quote it in full):
SCM-Canterbury prints a weekly ^newspaper” called Church Times. The Church Times’ offices are part of SCM-Canterbury Norwich offices.
A charity, SCM-Canterbury nevertheless seeks to compete with the Saint Stephen the Great bookshops through its own bookshops (including the shop 1 block from our own in London) and also through its coming, online store.
Sadly, it must be pointed out that the article in the November 2, 2007 edition is motivated by a similar “envy and jealousy” as what Saint Luke reported in Acts 13:45 (”But when the Jews saw the crowds, filled with envy and jealousy they contradicted what was said by Paul and talked abusively [reviling and slandering him].“) Clearly, SCM-Canterbury cannot be said to be motivated by a desire to support our work of Christian bookselling! It also has become painfully obvious that SCM-Canterbury’s continued harangues against our charity and our shops is really quite abusive and even slanderous.
As an example: SCM-Canterbury refused to run any story on the truly newsworthy event of the glorious consecration (by His Eminence Joseph Pop, Metropolitan Archbishop of Western Europe) on August 12, 2007 of the redundant church in Dorset - which our charity acquired. Yet now, nearly 3 months later, it ends an article about the bookshops with an unrelated and misleading post-script about that very church! Worse, the purported quotes are completely out of context: the priest mentioned below was simply an interim priest who served until the consecration.
Second, even though Church Times printed a parallel article to its employee’s (Kevin Allard) hurtful, untrue and slanderous email of 1 October 2007, it never printed his boss’ 25 October letter of apology for that same email;
Dear SPCK Shops
I believe that, though unintended, the email from Kevin Allard on 1st October 2007 conveyed a negative message. SCM-Canterbury regrets this and apologises to Saint Stephen the Great LLC and the SPCK Bookshops. SCM Canterbury Press agrees that this was an inappropriate type of response to queries received in Norwich from individual stores.
Yours
Michael Addison
Sales and Marketing Director
[SCM-Canterbury]
Thank you for your support of our shops. May the Holy Trinity sustain you and enable us to keep our eyes on the contest ahead, namely the mission of Christian bookselling.
J. Mark Brewer
Chairman, Saint Stephen the Great
It would seem to me that the allegations about the Church Times reporting, with the suggestion that it is simply a mouthpiece for its publisher, verge on libel. This would add the Church Times to a growing list of those who might have grounds for legal action. So far that includes (despite their incompetence over handling the deal) SPCK for the way their name has been tarnished, the suppliers whose bills have remained unpaid, and above all the many staff whose treatment would seem (even if only 25% of the stories are true) to contravene employment legislation over and over again.
Update: 22.00 (ish)
I’ve been trying to track down a bit more information about the relationship with the Orthodox Church. One of the accusations Mark Brewer’s letter makes is that the Church Times comment about the Orthodox priest of their Dorset Church is misleading. As of this writing, the first link on their Poole Orthodox Church page is St Dunstan, which leads to a “Page Not Found” error. But St Dunstan’s Orthodox congregation is meeting as the CT said, in an RC Church, and the wording makes it clear this is something new people need to note. St Dunstan’s is part of the Antiochian Orthodox Church (and their page also notes the change of venue). This change of venue for the congregation is dated there to one week before the Brewer’s Poole Church was consecrated as St Stephen’s by the Romanian Church’s Metropolitan for Southern and Western Europe (although it doesn’t seem worth a mention on his website).
Mr Brewer says the CT article is misleading because “the priest mentioned below was simply an interim priest who served until the consecration.” In fact, it looks as though the whole congregation has gone as well, and in the process, the Brewers’ church has shifted to an entirely different patriarchate, which doesn’t appear, as far as one can tell to have provided a priest for it. The only contact number is for “Hall Bookings”! It does rather look as if whoever’s doing the misleading here, it’s not the Church Times. Mr Brewer seems to have a slightly odd relationship with reality. It’s not just confined to SPCK and the bookshops.
General updates now available at this post of Cartoon Church.
