In response to Canon Simon Butler’s article After IICSA: Facing Up to Clericalism
on Via Media. https://viamedia.news/ (April 15th 2018). Gilo questions whether the new (post IICSA) gestures being made to challenge the old and arguably dysfunctional structures of the Church of England are sufficient. Old attitudes especially among the bishops seem deeply entrenched. It is helpful to read Simon’s article to appreciate this discussion. What happens in the future (fresh attitudes, new structures etc) matters not only for survivors but for the Church as a whole.
I (Gilo) recently met Simon Butler when survivors and allies protested at Synod and distributed a booklet(1) to all members. I instinctively felt him to be an ally for change. I think he can be summarised as saying: clergy need to become more lay-like, so that the laity can become more priest-like; but the twinned cultures of entitlement and deference prevent this alchemy from taking place.
But sadly the CofE continually commits itself to a path of self-diminishment. It has not faced the ‘crisis of its senior layer’. Denial, distancing, fog and blank, and an untethering from truth amongst current senior figures is too great, and reinforces entitlement. The crisis might have been faced a few years ago, and some redemption from the mess salvaged as a result. But there is an emotional delinquency in too many senior figures. I have seen it up close and personal in two mediations. One bishop recognised the need for contrition and made an adult apology, owning that his response had been disastrously advised. The bishop alongside him maintained a monochromatic response – a one answer fits all approach – clinging to petulant obtuseness. One realises with a jolt that some of the current hierarchy are depressingly quite low-calibre. Teflon coating covers over a lack of real theological guts.
I agree with Linda Woodhead’s recent article(2) calling for a new theology. But that is harder to achieve than a yard of new policy. There’s little theology of stature in the current Bishops. And any theology of contrition is centralised, expressed by Archbishop Welby, as we saw at IICSA hearings. This centralised contrition gives survivors almost nowhere to go. This is heightened by the stark contrast between the messages of both archbishops as highlighted in a recent Guardian editorial.(3) I suspect Welby doesn’t impact much on his hierarchy or strategariat. His is not a commanding enough voice to call change and shape theology in the response to survivors.
It’s a serious deficit in a structure that is taken up with management voodoo and collective omertà. This crisis cries out for a theology of justice rooted in profound honesty and commitment to reconciliation. The figures who get this are all marginals, regarded askance by the hierarchy as the survivors they stand alongside. The House of Bishops mouth change but too many regard our questions as treading on entitlement and the structures they want hidden. The deference upholding all this, both within diocesan structures and the NST, creates a culture many of us now call the Society for the Protection of Bishops. The cognitive dissonance in this culture has enabled many bishops to run to ground. The energy required to drag bishops out of foxholes is enormous – especially when it becomes obvious to the survivor that it is his/her task alone. The whole structure including the NST and civil service in Church House relies on the near impossibility for survivors of this task. Stories are numerous of survivors struggling to beat a path through intentional inertia, strategies of reputation managers, malevolence of the NST, and CofE corporate hand-wash. Something is very wrong with the theology of all this.
A new theology might enable the Church to grow from this crisis in surprising ways vital for the future. Only a theology of consensus, radical new consensus with survivors, can do this. Nothing less will redeem this broken structure if it is to recover integrity. The House of Bishops will need to make giant strides to make up for the inertia and spent promises of the past. It will need leaders of theological courage and compassionate wisdom. But prestige, entitlement and deference are not easily conquered in an institution so freighted down by these things. The Church is a heavily armoured vehicle with the engine of a lawnmower. Some of its current hierarchs need to retire before it sheds much of that armour. Realistically the Church is in for a long haul – 10 years at least of dealing with the aftermath of all this. I doubt the CofE will be any different from other churches which have spent decades fending off the impact of the abuse crisis.
(1) http://abuselaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Stones-not-Bread.pdf
(2) https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/6-april/comment/opinion/iicsa-forget-culture-new-theology-we-need
(3) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/22/the-guardian-view-of-abuse-in-the-church-a-truly-dreadful-story
Omerta! Oh yes, how apt. And they think it is honourable.
Thank you Gilo. I’m wondering how we, as survivors of church abuse, can get together to form a “Society for the Education of Bishops”?
I suspect that many of the current Bishops would be reluctant to listen to us, but perhaps there might be some way of entering into dialogue with those who might become Bishops in the future . I think you’re probably right about being in for a long haul.
Ironically, it was John Sentamu who first used the image, ‘The Church has the brakes of a juggernaut and the engine of a lawnmower.’ That was in a General Synod speech in a debate on the ordination of women, way back when. I think he was still a vicar at the time.
I agree that we need a change of theology and a change of personnel. Trouble is, we too easily tend to adopt or develop theologies that allow us to behave the way we want to, rather than allowing our theology to change our behaviour. And while unhealthy responses are entrenched in the culture and systems of an institution, as they are in the C of E, those who get promoted tend to blend in. And if they’re not likely to blend in, they don’t get promoted.
I think real, deep change is going to take a long time. But at least we are making a start, in drawing attention to the things that have gone wrong and the suffering that is being caused. We need to keep up the pressure.
‘Profound honesty’ is something that I find really hard to accept is so lacking in the church. I also find it hard that this often seems to infect other organizations they deal with, so there is a reluctance bordering on fear to challenge the church. I have experienced this in the NHS, particularly GP’s and in social care. It is easier to make me the problem than the church. It is often extremely hard not only to find people ‘inside’ the church to fight your corner but also ‘outside’ and that exacerbates the sense of isolation and despair and as any abuse survivor knows the regression back into, ‘this must all be my fault.’
Trish, I think there probably needs to be a society-wide understanding about the imperative for truth if victims of abuse are able to recover from their experiences; as you’ve experienced, there is a great reluctance for “bystanders” (such as those who see or hear the evidence) to engage. As Judith Herman says in her book ‘Trauma and Recovery’, “Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”
When the church deny victims access to truth, or hinder them in speaking the truth, they prevent healing and recovery – and I think this is often much more scandalous than the original abuse.
Oh I agree. In the end, cleric who is unpleasant may have been up all night with a dying child. But the “good men who do nothing” have, in my mother’s immortal phrase, “sat down and worked at it with both hands”! Trish, I suspect that big organisations that do the same as the church are not so much infected by it as like that already. I think it is just a function of large groups of human beings. But of course, the church ought to do better than that, and doesn’t.
JayKay8
Thank you.
My view is far more pessimistic. I see no hope at all. We have a system that has ignored the lower working class for decades. Those who come to positions of authority like Bishops have come from the upper classes. The ‘qualification’ necessary has always been academic.
There is only one way to get knowledge of disempowerment and that is to live it.
When I have attempted to communicate with people in the higher positions of power, I have found that most have been ‘Educated’ to a level of incompetence.
Our society operates (And always has) on the control of the lower classes, they are seen as the enemy, I say this in absolute confidence, I have lived it since 1965.
I am politically agnostic and have come to ignore (So Called) educated elites.
Quote;
“When you think that you have lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more!”
Bob Dylan.
Sadly I think ‘long haul’ is probably about right. The stone-walling and distancing coupled with the bubble-wrapping of bishops by Church House and Lambeth Palace will continue while they feel they can ride embarrassment out. The structure needs crisis in order to change – and the crisis will need to be acute.
Any long haul will be dramatically shortened if the crisis is painfully acute, such as the fall of one or other archbishop. The Iwerne scandal haunts Lambeth Palace like a fearful spectre. And elsewhere, Sentamu’s predicament cannot remain protected for ever as media attention gathers pace. A handful of bishops alongside him are being investigated by police for failure to act on serious disclosures by one survivor. Omertà can rule the day for only so long.
If I was a bishop, I’d probably be wondering why the strategariat have been allowed to give such spectacularly bad advice and lead so many colleagues into such unnnecessary holes.
The strategariat may have given bad advice but each Bishop has a choice as to whether they follow it. I cannot believe that bishops who fight for the rights of the Windrush generation or migrant children do not know the difference between good and bad advice. Willingness to follow advice that is clearly harmful and abusive is immoral and personal responsibility needs to be taken for doing so.
I don’t think it’s clear. People in general think for example that victims shouldn’t talk about it and should move on. Practically no one thinks in terms of supporting victims, nor in terms of protection and prevention. This is particularly true of bullying. Most people’s take on victim psychology is that it is the victim’s fault! Bishops are no more psychologists than anyone else! But sadly, being powerful and not used to being challenged, they think they know. If you know something, you hardly need to ask advice! So they don’t.