dave walker - cartoonist and martyr

In Britain we had, up to a couple of years ago, a chain of Christian bookshops which were owned by The Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). Although SPCK are a long established missionary organisation, their bookshops had evolved into an inclusive enterprise that stocked everything from twee Easter cards and Catholic kitsch, through Graham Kendrick songbooks, The Book of Common Prayer and ARCIC reports, to the latest books by Cupitt and Spong and even, to service local religious studies courses, the Koran and other interfaith material.They were brilliant shops run by lovely, helpful and informed staff.

However, a few years back, SPCK decided that the chain was unprofitable and they sold it, for virtually nought, to an Orthodox company. Over the following months this company stubbornly replaced the original SPCK ethos with their partisan and narrow view. This resulted in a rapid decline in the chain's business. On top of this this new company's management technique rivaled that of the emperor, Nero. Staff morale plummeted, there were mass resignations and a an incredible amount of unhappiness and uncertainty. By early this year most of the shops had closed and the company filed for bankruptcy (in the US so they didn't have to pay the workers their redundancy money and could start up again in a different guise pretty much straight away). The whole sorry story ended in tragedy when one former staff member committed suicide.

From the very beginning, our friend (and provider of many laughs), Dave Walker let his own blog become the centre of the campaign against the closures and ill-treatment of SPCK staff. Now, Dave is a nice, middle-of-the-road, Anglican chap (I've often teased him about this) and he is not a controversial blogger. His posts on the SPCK saga were objective and accurate. However, he has just received a "cease and desist" notice from the owners of SPCK books. Because he cannot afford legal fees he has been forced to remove all the relevant posts from his blog - he has even had to take down the post informing people that he has to take down the posts.

I used to respect the Orthodox Church. I don't anymore. Since the de-communisation of Russia they have shown themselves to be just another bunch of doctrinal fascists intent on controlling people rather than preaching the gospel to them. However, the people I blame most for this debacle and for the death of a good man, is SPCK themselves. They took no care when selling their shops and paid no regard to the future well-being of their faithful staff. I used to contribute a substantial amount of money each month to their missionary fund. I stopped doing that as soon as it became clear that they had done an evil thing. As far as I am concerned if they can't be trusted to run a book shop with integrity then I am not going to trust them with my hard-earned cash, whatever good works it was being used for.

OCICBW... supports Blogger freedom. OCICBW... unequivocally supports DAVE WALKER. Good on yer, mate - you did a brilliant job.