Welcome to Surviving Church

A welcome from Stephen Parsons, blog editor. Revised November 2020

Surviving Church began seven years ago in 2013 as an attempt to offer support to those who had been through negative church experiences of various kinds. My intended audience then were the people, like Chris Pitts, who had written to me after the publication of my book, Ungodly Fear in 2000.  This book was a study of the abuse of power within fundamentalist churches in Britain.  The book contained a number of case studies gathered from individuals who had been members of highly controlling Christian congregations.  In some settings the thinking and identity of the members had been undermined to a point where self-autonomy had been almost destroyed.  Others who had written to me after the book was published, were recounting similar experiences.  The majority of these accounts had also taken place outside the mainstream churches. Most of the power/authority/abuse issues seemed then to take place in Pentecostal or independent fundamentalist congregations.

The focus of my blog changed somewhat when, for several months in 2015, I found myself embarking on a new kind of writing.  This could be broadly described as commentary work.  The Church was beginning to reveal some of its more shameful abuse secrets, hitherto hidden from the sight of people in the pew and the general public alike.  Over about six months, in many of my posts I was reacting and responding to a vivid and extraordinarily detailed report written about a dysfunctional church in Brentwood Essex.  This church, an independent charismatic congregation, had been run for some thirty years by its founder and chief pastor, Michael Reid.  When he was forced to leave for personal moral failures, some began to recognise how he had been using cultic and abusive techniques.  The committee of inquiry, that reported at the end of 2015, revealed a comprehensive pattern of coercive and manipulative behaviour which had been used on members by Reid and his small group of enablers.

From 2015 until now, the Church of England has had to start coming to terms with its own dark abuse secrets, many of them involving sexual crime.  This blog has found itself following many of these episodes of shameful behaviour as they have emerged into the light.  We have had the imprisonment of Bishop Ball for abuse crimes, the Elliott report examining institutional failures by the Church in dealing with abuse, and numerous other abuse events and reports affecting the Church of England.   More recently we have been watching the slow but methodical progress of the IICSA process as it has turned part of its focus on the Diocese of Chichester and the national church in general. All these episodes and others have provided material for reflection for this blog and this has been combined with what I hope is informed comment.  In a small way the blog has also come be a place of meeting for some abuse survivors.  The comment section allows for exchange of ideas and also of support for those with direct experience of the horrors of bullying and abuse. Although I, as editor, will allow my theological perspective as a liberal catholic to be expressed from time to time, it is hoped that no one from other traditions feels in any way excluded from these discussions.

Over seven years, Surviving Church has evolved to become a kind of institution in itself.  It continues its attempt to provide insight and perhaps a measure of healing to assist abuse survivors of all kinds.  It will continue to ask questions and challenge church leaders for their past and present failures in protecting the abused.  It tries to weld together testimony, theological reflection and psychological insight as a way of increasing a fuller understanding of all the issues to do with power in the Church.   You are very welcome to support this effort by reading the blog, commenting or, if helpful, being in direct contact with me as editor.  My email address is parsvic2@gmail.com

Please note that comments are limited to 3000 characters. If anyone wishes to make a substantial contribution, they are welcome to submit it to Stephen as a possible Guest Post

One thought on “Welcome to Surviving Church

  1. Readers are welcome to comment on any of the topics raised by the posts or respond to what is written by others. If you do not wish to give your name, please use a consistent pseudonym that will identify you in the future. The moderator has the option to remove at his discretion what he deems to be offensive posts. Also he may decide to end certain discussions, particularly if they stray from the central concerns of the blog.

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