One of the themes that comes up repeatedly in speaking about spiritual or sexual abuse is the theme of forgiveness. I have not hitherto tackled this topic head-on because I know that I cannot do it any justice in the thousand-word limit of my blog posts. I certainly would never want to suggest that a brief discussion could possibly embrace the huge complexity of the topic. What, for example, is required of a survivor to be able to say that they forgive their abuser? There are certainly no obvious or straightforward paths to be suggested as the correct way to get to this stage. I am not surprised that even after many years of support, some survivors do not reach this place of being able to forgive. Having heard some of the stories I cannot say that I find any blame in this situation. We live with the painful realisation that some abuse leaves behind a lifelong legacy which is so severe that not everyone comes through to the other end, a place of healing.
Let us acknowledge that forgiveness for these kinds of evils is an extremely costly achievement, if it is in fact ever found. This realisation that some survivors never completely heal should be held up against the way that church authorities seem sometimes very quick to forgive an abuser. It is as though the guardians of the Church use a different theology of forgiveness to push away or hide appalling and embarrassing events caused by one of their members. Once the abuser has been forgiven, the victim of the abuser then quickly becomes the enemy of the institution. He or she is regarded as someone who wishes to make trouble just because he calls out for proper justice. The mindset that wants to hand out quick forgiveness does not appear to have engaged with the appalling damage which has been done to an individual through abuse. We have recently seen several examples of bishops and archbishops who have pronounced institutional forgiveness for abusers. This offer of forgiveness seems to be made even before the traditional Christian path of contrition, remorse and repentance is explored. It makes it a completely different animal from the one that survivors spend decades struggling to find. One is costly and deeply painful; the other is cheap and superficial. Its superficiality is such that it resembles another Christian ‘virtue’, the need to be nice to people who are like us.
A cheapening of the practice of Christian forgiveness by institutional leaders is what I want to focus on today. When Archbishop David Hope in 2003 first covered up for Dean Waddington and his offences in Manchester against boys, there was no doubt a hope that the distance of time since the offences might successfully bury these crimes. Later in 2013 a critical report appeared about what had happened, but, by this time, the offender had died. That report was interestingly never published. One can surmise that the authorities hoped that without any document circulating, the incident of an abusive dean and a failure of oversight would be quickly forgotten. Perhaps it was thought that a combination of Christian forgiveness, niceness and fuzzy memories could heal the wound of decades of terrible abuse. A similar ‘see no evil’ approach infected the entire area of Sussex overseen by Bishop Wallace Benn. Forgiveness was freely handed out to offending clergy with few questions asked.
A report about John Smyth who abused boys in the name of a ‘manly’ Christianity was another that was hidden away. The report was originally circulated to a small group of senior evangelicals associated with the Iwerne camps. As the result of the report, Smyth was spirited out of the country to work his charisma in African schools and abuse further young people. Those in England who made this disappearing act to Zimbabwe happen no doubt believed that they were being forgiving. George Carey’s actions towards Peter Ball were also presumably felt to be acts of forgiveness and thus in some way virtuous. They were of course nothing of the sort. We, from the perspective of time, can recognise a case of emotional blackmail alongside an appalling failure of judgement here at the top levels of the Church of England.
I want to suggest that there are two kinds of forgiveness abroad in the Church of England at present. One is the costly kind which any victim or survivor of abuse finds hard to achieve. The other is a forgiveness handed out by leaders which has little cost. It is like the ‘comfort’ handed out to the brother who lacks clothes and food in James 2.15-16. The Christian who says ‘Go, I wish you well’ without doing anything practical to help is seen to be an example of faith with no deeds. This kind of toothless care can be compared with the frequent but vague promises of goodwill towards survivors. There seems no real understanding of what they have had to endure. Thus, there is little or no appreciation as to why the handing out of cheap forgiveness to abusers causes survivors so much additional pain. When bishops shield other bishops or clergy from accusations of abusive behaviour, no doubt they would claim that they are motivated by a Christian desire to forgive or provide for the abuser a second chance. This is, in fact, a debasement of forgiveness particularly when the motivation for offering it is to protect an institution or make past events disappear. In allowing this act of ‘forgiveness’ to be experienced as a virtuous act, they further add to existing hurt and pain. In secular courts today, there is a practice when a judge will sometimes ask for a victim’s impact statement. This may affect the punishment that is given to the offender. At the recent trial of the American sports coach, Larry Nassar, all the victims made a statement about the impact of the abuse on their lives. These secular examples are putting our national church to shame. Only this week I have read in Private Eye about a victim of Church sexual abuse being threatened with legal action for speaking out to the media about the poor treatment he has received from the church. The IICSA hearings have shown us how far our church goes to protect itself from a perceived attack by those who have been injured at the hands of its employees. ‘Blanking and silencing’ by bishops is just one of the complaints of survivors in the Bread and Stones pamphlet.
Cheap forgiveness and real forgiveness are two quite different currencies. The Church authorities seem in some places only to understand the first kind, the ‘forgive and forget’ option. Those who are survivors want them to begin to grapple with and understand the second kind, the incredibly costly task of moving forward with lives, even though the burden of abuse has left them with a legacy of acute pain. Somewhere, somehow, that path may eventually open itself up to the costly form of forgiveness. No one pretends that this is ever straightforward or easy. Among the many things that survivors ask from church leaders is the recognition of the difficulties of their struggle to move on and to flourish again. They ask to be considered as partners in the long journey which the whole church must take to put right the atrocious events of the past. For that, they must be regarded as allies, not as enemies to be defeated or litigants to be threatened with legal actions. Churches need all the help they can get in this undertaking. They need the survivors and perhaps in the end they need the State to help them protect children and the vulnerable from harm.
Thank you for this Stephen. I think needs to look with humility at itself and as you say in no way should we be looking for forgiveness on the part of the victims of abuse for which the Church has been responsible. What frustrates me is the way the media seem to treat forgiveness as though it is almost a substance that can be handed out by victims failing to see that forgiveness is an act of exchange not a commodity in the pocket of the abused. Forgiveness (the exchange) is something that happens when grace is received by penitence; the offended may have a gracious spirit but only when the offender opens up the hand of contrition and confession may the flash of forgiveness come about. As contrition and confession is the necessary beginning for the offender this is where the Church needs to start only after that may the offender’s response come into play if at all.
Forgiveness is also not something a third-party can demand from the victim as of right. And then condemn them as a failed Christian if they don’t do it. Good points.
“the Church” missed out in line 1. perhaps the affliction of Church blindness.
As a survivor of abuse that was ignored and compounded by the Church, who was more interested in my abuser than myself. I find this blog post very helpful. Part of my recovery journey has been to look into the work of the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa. The vital difference in the way some churches in the UK still handle disclosure of abuse ( though I must say the Anglican church have improved over the last couple of years at least in policies ) is that they do not put the victims stories at the centre of the process. I believe this is because of the shame , which after all what is motivated Adam and Eve to cover up. Just as they could not hide from God neither can the Church. Could some training in conflict resolution be the answer? In my experience most victims are forgiving, if only their pain is acknowledged and they are not victim blamed or given as I was ,”I hope you can find some closure and move on with your life” letter a few years ago. I feel that those who are wrongly dealing with abuse within the church are ignorant and fearful rather than bad as a whole. It would also be helpful if they put survivors at the centre of their training and policy formation.
Excellent post, Stephen. As someone we both know once said, we actually forgive and remember. And that is totally different prospect. The identifying names and email addresses are not just appearing automatically.
One aspect of forgiveness that seems rarely spoken about by people in the church, is the meaninglessness of a victim offering forgiveness when they don’t know the full extent of the harm that they have experienced – harm and loss which may not become apparent for years. The harm is also unlikely to be confined to an abuse victim alone as their family, friends, colleagues and others are also likely to be indirectly affected too.
Whilst I can say that I would like to be working towards forgiveness, it is incredibly unhelpful for anyone else even to suggest the concept of forgiveness, as it invariably seems that they are more concerned about the abuser than the victim.
On a separate matter, I’d like to send my support to Matt Ineson if he reads this, following the shameful threat of legal action as reported in Private Eye.
… And having just read Chris Hernandez’s tweets, all good wishes to Chris too.
It’s extremely sad to see victims/survivors continuing to be treated in this way.
Oh dear. This is bad. Thanks for passing it on.
Speaking as someone who has been forgiven, I can thoroughly recommend it! I remember as a small boy having done some wrong things I’d never been able to confess, for fear of punishment, but I had stopped doing them. I recall the burden I carried of guilt, and the loss I’d caused another. It was made worse because I couldn’t afford to put it right.
One day I was at a church function and the vicar was saying his farewells. He came to me and said these words: “The Lord Jesus forgives you.” He’d never spoken to me before. I felt immense relief and the burden lifted. I was forgiven.
Being forgiven I readily understand that I should forgive ‘those that trespass against me” in the same spirit. It’s a simple doctrine, but a very difficult one too. Because very often the sin is still happening and the damage is permanent. Very often we confuse forgiveness with forgetting about justice.
If you’ve been hurt, forgiving the other can be very powerful for you. But as a society, as a church, we have to root out abuse, stop it in its tracks and do everything in our power to prevent it happening again. I’ve been hurt badly and I’ve found forgiving has helped ME. Those who hurt me are in some cases non-the-wiser. I still carry the scars, which still hurt. I suspect I will always carry them. I believe those wrongs should be righted, but I am realistic that probably not much will be done in my lifetime.
For the avoidance of doubt I’m talking about a unilateral forgiveness; that’s when the other side doesn’t say sorry. It doesn’t cure everything and it doesn’t make you whole, although it does help. It’s a seventy-times-seven forgiveness. It’s not a one off occurrence, but a daily struggle. I try not to hold it against them, but they will, I believe, be held to account.
Forgiveness is a personal struggle. I am taking a long time to realise I can’t do much on my own on the justice side of things. The existence and vigour of these Inquiries and those involved in investigating and pursuing the perpetrators has been very helpful to me.
I grew out of the stiff-upper-lip generations. It has taken decades for us to realise that routinely thrashing children wasn’t a very good idea, for example. Shutting down feeling of any sort was the order of the day, the year, the life. Alex Renton in his appropriately titled book ‘Stiff Upper Lip’ covers this In great depth and insight. Looking at the hierarchy of the C of E, and the powers-that-be in society it is a straightforward thing to see that they come from the same generation, with many sharing the same background. This isn’t the “snowflake” generation, it’s the hailstone generation. They sting when they hit you and a number of them can cause structural damage.
The (very often) abusive generational conditioning creates blindness to its repetition and anaesthesia to its impact on others. For those without this insight it can seem extraordinary how slow the progress is in even stopping institutional abuse, never mind improving things.
If I understand people it helps me realise a little better why they acted as they did, and in cases still continue to act badly. I still think it’s wrong. I still think it needs to be stopped and I still think much needs to be done to put things right both for now and for the future. I forgive as best I can. But justice is independent of forgiveness.
If someone says sorry, genuinely means it and sets out to change their ways, that’s one thing. But I haven’t seen much of this in recent weeks. Even if they did I would think it unwise to restore them exactly to their previous role. To me that’s stunning naivety as to human nature. It’s a threat to victims everywhere with the risk of relapse, and an unhelpful temptation to the putative repentant to do wrong all over again.
Let justice continue and forgiveness endure.
Lovely post. Thank you. I’ve experienced similar things, and yes, unilateral forgiveness can operate as enlightened self interest.
Thank you EA! All the best
I think the sleeper issue here is shame. By hastening to forgive abusers like Peter Ball and others mentioned here and earlier in the week, church authorities help them to remain insulated from their own shame — brought about through the misuse of the body and person of someone under their care. Incidentally, the insurance-driven response of a lot of churches these days reinforces this by trying to avoid liability and the payment of damages.
What ends up happening is shame is heaped up on the victim. How else to explain the urge to repeat the abusive behaviour on an institutional scale?
This is a very different matter from someone who has committed abuse, been through both criminal and professional discipline, served time and lost status, and now recognises the enormity of their actions. I think one could begin a conversation towards forgiveness with such a person. Rather like Luke 19.1-10, when someone not only faces up to their abusive action but holds out restitution — heart-felt metanoia, if you like — can anything be meaningfully said about forgiveness. But this is the sort of situation where things can slip quietly into the previous status quo: it means a totally new reality that’s going to take work and adjustment, and which will resist what went on before.
Outside of this scenario all that gets traded is shame. Forgiveness means nothing at all unless dignity is restored to those from whom it has been taken.
FORGIVENESS
Pointed long tail Blood curdling red, with cow like horns that grow from his head.
He’s the master of hell with huge burning fires, where chained screaming souls who dared live with desires.
Are given to torture to scream and to yell, no let up from pain in the fire of hell.
And more souls arrive with each toll of the bell, for a lifetime of torture in St Ninians hell.
Years later in heaven at the gates made of gold, he turns up in his tunic with his cross, standing bold.
In his moment of judgement he’s expecting the nod, being assessed and soul searched this so called man of God.
Will he be accepted or will he be damned, to the door that’s marked hell so loudly it’s slammed.
One minute says St Peter your dress is religious, but you cannot get in without Dave Sharps forgiveness.
So God calls me up and he speaks to my heart, which has been through hell and has been torn apart.
My dear son he says in order to live, you must open your heart and you must learn to forgive.
For in order to have the good life you have craved, show mercy and forgiveness and you will be saved.
Show courage and strength and be as brave as a Lion. Together we will forgive Brother Ryan.
Now I walk in the sunlight barefoot and free. No devils dressed as priests to harm or haunt me.
I live in the moment with no fear of death. Rejoicing each heartbeat in the warmth of my breath.
Yes I walk in the sunlight knowing in decease. Brother Ryan and I walk with God in peace.
Many Blessings.
Dave Sharp
Davesharp1@hotmail.co.uk
@davesharp59
Could I ask all my friends here to pray for me on Tuesday afternoon. I have an important (to me) interview with a senior churchman. I am really not sure how it will go. Please pray that it goes well.
All good wishes for tomorrow, EA.
Thanks, Jay. I just don’t know what to expect. I’m now pretty nervous.
I see Smyth has died.