A murder story, widely reported last week in the Press, would not normally have attracted any comment from this blog. But the recent conviction of Benjamin Field for the murder of Peter Farquhar does have considerable relevance to our concerns. The victim was said to have been befriended and drawn into a homosexual liaison within the setting of a small church congregation at Stowe. The dynamic, which the murderer used to draw Farquhar into a sexual relationship with him, was described as a kind of grooming. Field allegedly used similar grooming techniques not only with the other individuals he wanted to exploit (of whom there were several), but with the entire congregation. This village congregation was said to be completely in thrall to Field’s influence. The trust and the power that he exerted allowed him to take a leading role in the congregation as a parish secretary and there were even moves afoot to put him forward for ordination.
The careful reporting of the story by the Times newspaper mentions that, following the murder conviction, the Diocese of Oxford is to hold an inquiry into the way that the grooming of the congregation by Field took place. The notion of grooming is widely used as a shorthand for indicating the way that certain individuals prepare their victims for acts of abuse. The word contains notions of influence and control not dissimilar to the old idea of brain-washing. Here grooming refers to the influence exerted by Field that caught up not just victims but many others. This idea that a single individual can manipulate groups is far from being a novel idea to students of the so-called cults. It has been recognised for over a century that when people gather together in groups or in a crowd, they become aware of themselves in a different way from when they are alone. We speak about the different atmospheres created by the presence or absence of other people. At the end of the 19th century a number of writers interested in the behaviour of crowds came up with the notion of ‘contagion’. This is the notion that an idea held initially by a few members of a group can spread very quickly to become the dominant way of thinking by the whole. It only needs the conviction of a leader with a powerful gift of rhetoric to infect an entire crowd into thinking in a particular way. Theories of crowd behaviour may not seem particularly relevant to the situation in Stowe. What is relevant is the idea that any group can quickly normalise a single thought among its members. We have all felt the pressure of a group to think a particular way. It might be in a football crowd or in a charismatic gathering. In this situation it is very hard not to sing along or cheer in the same way as everyone else. Field somehow understood these dynamics and manipulated them to his benefit. That is perhaps also the secret of Trump rallies as well as dictatorships everywhere.
The capacity of groups to become one in their thinking and feeling is one part of the way that congregational dynamics worked initially in Field’s favour. The group consensus was that he was to be trusted and also was thoroughly reliable. The other part of the dynamic of the congregation were the actual methods available to Field to sustain this common belief. There were various motivations that were in operation in Field’s plan but they are perhaps the least interesting part of the story. What is important is the way that the congregation were so mesmerised by him that no one was able to see that something was not quite right in his close association with Farquhar. Field was not, of course, an official leader of the group but in many respects he seems to have been able to act in this capacity. From his upbringing as the offspring of a Baptist minister he had considerable knowledge of the Bible and this was superior to anyone else in the congregation. A facility to quote scripture easily gave him power and influence in a congregation where reverence for scripture was highly esteemed. The theological conservatism of this particular congregation meant that there was little appetite to question any decisive use of bible quotes to further an authoritarian agenda. My article in Letters to a Broken Church, explores the variety of bible passages that can be and are used to boost the leadership credentials of an official (or in this case unofficial) leader. In short, the fundamentalism of Field’s church facilitated the kind of exploiting of human weakness that ended, in this case, in an episode of desperate tragedy. Youth, charm and the skilful use of bible texts seemed to been able to perform the task of group manipulation over a considerable period of time.
The grooming of the congregation to which Peter Farquhar belonged was, as far as we can see, deliberate and planned by Benjamin Field. That he was able to go as far as he did in abusing the trust of good and intelligent people ought to alarm the leaders of all our churches. The story at one level is extraordinary and exceptional. At another level it reflects a reality on the ground in many churches where people are inveigled into trusting leaders who may not be worthy of such trust. The dynamics of power in this particular congregation were probably not so different from the way that many congregations operate up and down the country. Narcissistic leaders, whose motives for being in charge involve their own emotional, financial and sexual gratification, are still found in our congregations. Whether the system is able to spot such people before they are let loose on vulnerable trusting congregations remains to be seen. The Church historically has been extremely reluctant to let go priests (and bishops) whose behaviour has shown that they are a danger to potential parishioners. Is it the acute shortage of clergy within the church part of the reason that dangerous individuals are still found within the system because those in charge are unwilling to spot the dangers?
The story of Benjamin Field has many aspects. There was among those involved with him a mentoring priest who had spotted the fact that he was showing severe psychopathic tendencies, including a total lack of empathy or feeling for others. This encounter was voluntary on Field’s part and we are left to wonder whether, apart from this, the selection process would have penetrated through the personal charm that he had used to endear himself to his home congregation and his abuse victims. Are all ordinands required to examine the part of themselves that relates to personal power and its management? Recently we have seen, at the highest levels of the church hierarchy, some extraordinary examples of empathy failure. If the church is indeed becoming more focused on efficiency and structure, will it also be more likely to miss out on such pastoral issues and the preservation of integrity among the clergy? Field, having learnt the ropes of how to do ‘church-speak’ got dangerously close to beginning the path to ordination. One is forced to ask the uncomfortable question. How many other malignant narcissists have got through the system and are even now preparing, if not to murder people, at least to harm them in the cause of satisfying narcissistic hunger and their drug-like craving for importance and esteem?
It’s an alarming case, and a warning that nay of us, given the right circumstances, can be taken in.
However, the Times reported that Field’s spiritual director, and others who warned the authorities, were taken seriously to at least some extent: Field would have been required to undergo psychological testing had the selection panel recommended him for ordination training. Perhaps psychological assessment should be mandatory for all ordinands.
This case reminds me of a much less serious one I was involved in a few years ago. I was a trustee of an organisation in which a manager was incapable of empathy and showing other psychopathic traits. She was damaging staff, volunteers, and ultimately the organisation itself. My warnings fell on deaf ears and eventually I resigned. The woman had groomed and manipulated her line managers and other trustees so they just couldn’t see the harm she was doing. Psychopaths are capable of great charm, it’s part of their stock in trade.
I’m new to this blog and have been reading it with some interest having returned to the c of e after 15 years in a new church movement they sadly ended for us painfully.
My experience of this was that oversight and checks external to the church were minimal. e.g. Candidates to be a church elder were passed after a one hour chat with a neighbouring church leader.
Is your feeling that some of the processes in the Church of England though not perfect are better than nothing?
From what I can see candidates for ordination have many steps and checks to get through before and after they are selected.
Is it better to have a diocesean director of safeguarding than nothing outside a local church level which was the case in my former church?
Thank you – this blog has been helpful reading as we look to recover
Welcome Jon to the blog. In many ways ex-members of independent churches are my target audience for support, though I get distracted by the news on power issues that come thick and fast. To be fair to the C/E they do try to maintain a fairly rigorous system of selection but there seems to be a blind spot over candidates who carry the traits of narcissism. Such candidates ooze confidence and self-esteem and are thus attractive to selectors. Because many of the bishops (not all) are focused on management and ‘success’ in financial/numbers terms, that is the kind of candidate that gets through with no trouble. The thoughtful/theological types are less obvious. I speak from the impression I get as being retired I don’t interact with ‘system’ directly these days. When I have further evidence about the process of selection I will blog about it. The convicted murderer, Ben Field, got frighteningly near to being selected. Obviously only those in the know will have seen his paper work to know how near.
Good observations apropos narcissists. The truly sad thing is that there undoubtedly are still persons who are admirers of Fields, who believe he was framed, or that this was a single mistaken act. And no doubt there are those who miss him, even though what they miss was an illusion, a construct.
Narcissists cause damage that is never fully repaired.
Really? He poisoned him slowly over a long period of time. How can that be a single anything? And what about the lady down the road? Rhetorical question. I know people can kid themselves, but still.
Slightly diverting from John Smyth, there was a letter in ‘The Times’ a couple of weeks ago relating an ‘amusing’ event when Peter Ball was preaching in a Sussex church on the subject of the Ascension. At the end of the sermon Peter Ball ducked down in the pulpit and his brother simultaneously appeared in the organ loft above.
Seemingly an enigma can persist. The author didn’t feel that it was incongruous to write the letter, nor the letters editor to publish it.
And that confirms Eric Bonetti’s point that however strong the evidence against narcissists, some people will will continue to believe in them, minimise their crimes, or make excuses for them. Just this week I read a blog, written in 2012, which made Chris Brain’s sexual and psychological exploitation of 40 women in his congregation sound like a minor peccadillo.
One aspect which is especially difficult to grasp is how someone can exercise an apparently effective ministry while doing such evil things. How can God use such a person? Is it the Holy Spirit at all? And if not, how can we ever tell whether an apparently godly ministry is authentic?
Sorry, a senior moment. I meant Benjamin Field, not John Smyth. That subject has become very current again.
Empathy is so important and we become aware of this instinctively. It leads to a true caring response, not a bible quote!
“Is it the acute shortage of clergy within the church part of the reason that dangerous individuals are still found within the system because those in charge are unwilling to spot the dangers?”
There are intermittent but recurrent instances of poor clerical behaviour to be found from the earliest surviving bishop’s registers. If clerical behaviour tended to improve after the Reformation it might have been a function of puritanism (which sometimes spawned various forms of spiritual abuse) and the gradual transformation of the profession – or a significant part of it – into a genteel occupation, frequently barred to non-graduates (there were some bishops who would not even ordain ‘ten-year’ men who had obtained the Cambridge BD), and one that was often an integral part of landed ‘society’. There were, it is true, some notorious scandals (Edward Drax Free of Sutton, Beds, or the Hon. Percy Jocelyn, bishop of Clogher, or more recently Harold Davidson of Stiffkey, Norfolk), but they were exceptional. The ‘insufferable ideal’ of gentlemanly behaviour prevailed, and was emulated even by the mass of starveling curates who wished to ape the behaviour of their betters for the sake of the scramble for preferment.
All this has broken down as the financial underpinnings of the Church have disintegrated, and the various forms of gentlemanly behaviour (chivalric, sporting, etc.) have vanished within society at large. During the twentieth century (and especially during the latter part of that century) a lot of people took orders who would probably not have been thought suitable a generation or two before. Whilst falling clerical incomes will not have deterred people of exemplary character and saintliness, the largely unsupervised nature of clerical life will also have attracted much deadwood, and some opportunists, idlers and villains.
I have worshipped at Stowe. It is a single parish benefice, comprising the demesne of the estate. The congregation (which has a soi-disant relationship with the school, and which has frequently tied the living to the chaplaincy) is small and mostly elderly (the school was founded by an evangelical clerical crook, Percy Waddington). Absent Buckingham and Maids Moreton, almost all local congregations are fading fast. I suspect Field gained a disproportionate influence because he was….young!!! The enthusiasm that the sudden and unexpected appearance of a young person amongst a mass of elderly, tired and debilitated parishioners – fearful for the future of their beloved church – cannot be underestimated. All sorts of prejudices and mental safeguards will be discounted with the attendance of the young, since it holds out hope for the survival of the church community.
In this context, the mystery is not so much that this tragic case occurred, as why this sort of thing has not happened more often.
There certainly has been bias in favour of a particular fashion fad in my experience. If the church is looking for young people, very indifferent people who are young are put forward over much better but older ones. If they’re trying to get away from the middle class, grammar school and university image, anyone with a very strong local accent is quids in! And so on.
A similar thing has happened, over recent years, in the Church where I am the Vicar . Fortunately the person concerned wasn’t intent on murdering people – only in gaining power and self- promotion. It has been dismaying to watch people come completely under this person’s spell to the extent that they can’t see that what is being done is (sometimes) illegal and always divisive. One of the results is that I have suffered bullying for around 5 years but, because this person is a volunteer the Diocese has had no power over her in terms of discipline and accountability. The other difficulty is that it’s hard, from a Christian point of view, to push someone away from church and build barriers. There is a ‘dark charisma’ in this person and their ability to win hearts and minds has been frightening to watch.
Not meaning to sound facile, but prayer is indicated. It is possible for the church to take responsibility for the actions of a volunteer. The church treasurer for example, they can’t just run off with the money just because they’re a volunteer. It sounds as if a lack of will is the problem here. As it usually is. I’ll have to try to trace the case of an NSM winning a case of constructive dismissal. I’m so sorry.