The law of the land wants to believe that everyone over the age of 18 is an adult and thus capable of making rational responsible decisions. This assumption that all of us are completely rational and able, at all times, to discern and act in our own best interests is of course a dangerous myth. It is not that we are permanently irrational in our thinking. The problem is rather that each one of us is potentially, at any one moment, subject to any one of a whole variety of influences, pressures and even threats. For Christians we even find that the precious faculty we call our conscience is capable of being blown off course by external or even internal forces.
As an example of what I am talking about I want to imagine a hypothetical situation in an old peoples’ home. In charge is a power-obsessed woman who is anxious to run the home for as little money as possible. This will get her into the good books of the owners whose only interest in the residents is that they all pay their fees on time. The power of the manager over her under-appreciated workers who do the day to day caring is total. The atmosphere is tense. The carers are daily aware of the short cuts that are forced on them to enable the extra profits to be made. There is strict control on how much time can be spent with each resident and how much food can be served up at mealtimes. Most of these carers are from overseas and so their immigration status is insecure. The manager knows that her power over them is such that, if they are sacked by her for any reason, not only will they find it difficult to get another job without references, but their ability to remain in Britain is compromised. Needless to say the carers often have no savings as any excess money has been sent to their home countries.
In such a situation of fear, continuous threat and power abuse, how far can we say that the care worker has the capacity to make decisions or operate in accordance with their conscience? The carer wants to make sure that the distressed elderly person has the attention they need or the alternative food to replace an indigestible meal. We would say that such an act was from conscience or internal goodness. But, in performing this act of kindness, they face the wrath of the manager, if they are found out. This tension between conscience and fear is at the root of real stress and may eventually be the cause of physical or mental breakdown.
It is not just in care-homes that such a scenario is possible. It could happen in any work situation including an Anglican parish. Many curates in their first posts live in a permanent state of stress for fear of upsetting their ‘training’ incumbent. I place the word training in inverted commas, because from what I hear from my limited knowledge of the life of deacons, the period of training for curates is often regarded as a matter of sheer survival.
In any work situation where managers, vicars or bosses are given the power to fire or wreck the careers of those under them, it should be possible for someone from outside to come in as an external referee. What needs to be identified are the dynamics of power in that situation. Are employees already living and working in an environment of threat, fear or coercion? If any of these dynamics are identifiable, then safeguards or check and balances should be put in place. Why should anyone come under a situation of effective tyranny in the workplace?
One of the things available to us today is a far better understanding of the dynamics of power within institutions and even domestic situations. We can now describe better with the language of various disciplines, including social psychology, what is taking place in a situation of conflict or dispute. Two words added to a piece of 2015 legislation in the UK have empowered many women trapped in abusive relationships. Those words, coercion and control, have allowed the law and the powers of the State to have a say when one party in a domestic relationship uses psychological controlling techniques on another. In the past the only interventions by the legal system that could be made were where when actual physical violence was used against one party. The new understanding of power in such relationship now extends to the use of psychological violence. It is not just the sticks and stones that hurt; it is also words, threats and exercise of coercive power that do serious damage. The law of the land now finally gets it.
This blog often discusses the existence of narcissistic dynamics within the Church and it is gratifying to find that, over the past ten years, the discourse using this terminology has grown enormously. The value of having toxic narcissism discussed in so many new contexts is that people are faster in their understanding what might be going on when powerful leaders (or mini-tyrants) start to become intoxicated with their power. The clear description of the process of narcissistic dynamics helps us to get a quick handle on many situations that perhaps baffled us in the past. Understanding nearly always helps one party to demystify the situation they are faced with and regain some control over it. Interestingly, one of the tasks that I can usefully do in my retirement, through the medium of this blog, is to talk through with an individual a power situation being described to me. Then my task is to reframe it with a fresh set of categories, which may include the language of narcissism. The threatening Archdeacon can sometimes be interpreted in a way that his exercise of power can be seen to be closer to a childish tantrum than a dispassionate exercise of justice. I refrain from giving examples here, but the simple act of reframing a situation with a new language can be enormously liberating for the victim.
When any of us encounter power dynamics in the Church, it is all too easy to surrender to that power and allow ourselves to be dis-empowered in the process. A more subversive approach is to challenge that power, not by facing it head-on, but simply by understanding it better. The dynamics may seem complex and hard to disentangle but sometimes this process is not as difficult as we think. To tease out these deeper meanings within actual exercises of power within the Church is one of the things I am learning to do in my retirement. Light can be shed on the abuses of power. Understanding them, when they take place in the public arena or in the Church, is what I shall continue to do as long as they occur.
“Stick to the knitting”, as the saying goes!
The examples you cite of migrant care worker and curate-in-training share a lack of differentiation. They are almost exclusively or absolutely invested in the success of their jobs, with no realistic escape to another. Thinking of the curate in particular, she will find any setbacks in the training relationship disproportionately stressful, because her personal faith is intimately attached to the work.
In more broadly developed organisations peers would be part of a pool receiving feedback from more than one manager, often several and at different levels. With an up to date personnel policy with manager buy-in, standards are set and variances explored reasonably fairly. Some people just clash and provision can sometimes be made to transfer to a different manager’s supervision. No such luck in a curacy.
The way things have always been done is not always the best way, and it is encouraging to see changes in legal provision around psychological harm, for example. If bullying management styles are never addressed, not only are successive curates given a poor training, but some themselves will inevitably pick up bad habits and perhaps mistreat their own supervisees in due course.
It takes a long time to change power abuse in organisations. I do believe this blog is a valuable method of highlighting shortcomings and analysing causes. It takes a relentless and imaginative refocus on the many issues. It also takes experience and wisdom. And time. Retirement turns out to be very useful! Thanks again Stephen for your work here.
I have known curates to be moved. Readers, too. But of course, it’s the bully that should be. Wrong message.
Thank you, Stephen, this is certainly a subject the C of E needs to address.
For an up to date account of the issues around curacies, Being A Curate, by Jonathan Ross-McNairn and Sonia Barron, is helpful. It approaches the subject via chapters contributed by curates, training liars, DDOs etc.
The power issue is not just around curates though, as you say. I had a friend, a middle-aged university lecturer and NSM team vicar, whose team rector believed that showers were a luxury reserved for the team rector! The team vicars’ and curates’ homes were allowed baths, but no showers. Unbelievable.
I had a friend, a member of a Cambridge College which I won’t shame to name, who used to relate the vignette of a don enquiring why undergraduates wanted showers to be installed, saying “Why? They are only ‘up’ for eight weeks”! But doubtless this was long ago.
Many curacies are defined by a culture of fear and control which oppress the curate. There are so many stories of bullying. There is also a preferential bias to the training incumbent and the constant threat to the curate of not being signed off and completing the curacy which again is control and manipulation from the TI. The power imbalance needs to be redressed ie through giving curates employment rights. My curacy was characterized by bullying from the TI, institutional control and a general lack of accountability for the TI who simply moved on. And the minute you start speaking up you get blacklisted. Curacy was about survival and smiling when you had to and saying the right thing.
Some reading this thread will be sceptical. And I for one am not advocating a namby pamby cotton wool education for our new clerics. It would be a mistake to confuse any and every relational conflict as misuse or in extremis, abuse. The presence of others, especially independent others, mitigates these things. But also sometimes as rookies we are woefully ignorant and naive of what is required of us. Correcting this, or adjusting it, is a shared responsibility and often painful.
I’m not sure how much provision there is on the Anglican circuit or in theological training to provide insight into this, but we usually bring our own history into a relationship. Often unwittingly we can transfer traumas we experienced at the hands of a parent into the current situation. We need to work on this too, as well as expecting high standards in our training incumbents.
In medical training I recall the shock of being ripped to pieces in front of the whole ward, other students, nurses and senior doctors. Yes the techniques were ugly, bullying and unacceptable. But yes too, I didn’t know enough to be trusted with patients.
I did manage to raise my game because I saw I had to. And yes there were sociopaths in white coats. This was a long time ago and I hope things are better now. But in any profession being bright, erudite and educated aren’t enough equipment to serve and lead others. We are going to have to have some rough edges abraded by others and this will be hard for us.
Thank you Steve for giving some balance to this discussion. Quite apart from the bizarre comparison of local church leadership with a despotic, unaccountable, unprincipled, profit-driven (female) care home manager, you are right to point out that sometimes the problem is curate not the training incumbent. And more often than not both bring things to the challenge of making a complex and demanding relationship work. But from 20 years hands on experience of working in this area in a number of diocese’s my experience is, by God’s grace, it does more often does that doesn’t, actually. (and that is not in any way to minimise the pain of this for whom is doesn’t). So while I agree there are significant issues of power that need addressing this subject needs much more careful analysis than I am reading here.
David, I have long admired your work but I have to say I’m puzzled by the strength of your reaction against this measured analysis from Stephen. Of course, it is only one blog from a series stretching back 4 years or more, and it may be you’re missing some of the context, and the comments from readers who have suffered from narcissistic church bullies. Still, to call it ‘bizarre’ and imply it lacks balance and careful analysis is, I think, unfair.
Of course it’s not only senior clergy who may be narcissists and bullies – curates, Readers, organists, churchwardens etc may be, too. But in my 30+ years’ experience of the Church of England it’s been abundantly clear that bullying is not only not dealt with, it’s often tacitly fostered. We really do have a problem here.
We can do better than ‘curacies work more often than not’, so let’s look at how we can improve.
Janet Greetings. I have long respected and admired Stephen Parson’s work and always read him with care. I also agree that bullying and malign power issues need orly understanding and dealing with. I have had experience of it and know the damage it can do. But I do not find this a ‘measured analysis’ – at least in what he says about curate training. To claim, from ‘limited experience’, that curacies are ‘often a matter of sheer survival’ is a sweeping generalisation and simply not true. I am not complacent. And those involved will know the process and content has changed by the year in response to important challenges and awareness – and that will never stop. But when only one side is presented I cannot call that ‘measured’. And when generalised assertions are made the discussion will lack the balance it needs to move forward. Thank you for challenging me. I having revisited the blog itself, the discussion and my response – and I have to say my concerns remain but I hope I have clarified better why I feel like I do. And I take the opportunity to thank Stephen Parsons for his ongoing work in these critically important areas of society and church.
Of course the problem is sometimes the curate. One of the things anyone dealing with this kind of allegation has to deal with is that it might not be true, or at least, not that simple. And you have to deal with that possibility while not making a possibly genuine victim feel fearful and alone. It’s a real skill. But remember the imbalance of power. Incumbents can be bullied, I’ve seen it. But what usually happens is the more powerful person comes out on top. It should never be seen as a clash of equals. Nor should the more valuable person be assumed always to be telling the truth, and the curate or lay minister always an inadequate who can’t take the normal rough and tumble of life. And I’ve seen that, too.
Has anyone else been reading Chuch DeGroat’s new book “When Narcissism comes to church”? Very interesting – I wish when I was younger I knew of resources like this website and this book. – I was much too trusting of other leader’s motives and character.
In the Newfrontiers churches I was a part of the problem was probably worse. Unlike in the Anglican church where you apply centrally to train for ministry, serve a curacy and then are expected to move after set number of years to a new post. In Newfrontiers the assessor for ministry is your own church leader, if he likes you, you then work reporting to this church leader and then the “curacy” carries on indefinitely. There are very few jobs to move to in other churches. Your only chances for change are to start your own church or hope your boss retires or is fired. Your entire ministry is tied up in what one person thinks of you. This I repeatedly saw finish badly with people taking years to recover.
For new curates do they have support beyond their own rector? Do relationship with their training college continue?
Greetings Jon. You ask about curate training in the CofE. I have run several of these programs and now assist the facilitating of another. Each diocese in the CofE runs an inservice training program for the newly ordained lasting up to 3 years. The broad themes for what needs covering are agreed by ‘central’ church – continuing the training that began with the college or non-residential training institutions. This typically includes a monthly peer support group with a facilitator, monthly study days or occasional weekends on various aspects theology and ministry. Assessed essays or projects. The support beyond their own rector/vicar is therefore quite wide and offered at different levels of their formation and training. I hope that answers your question.
You will also have a “spiritual director”, other titles are available, usually chosen by you. Mine have kept me sane. Their job is to always be on your side, even when you’re wrong. And they may tell you off! And, hello Jon.
Jon, thank you for pointing us to Chuck DeGroat’s work. I hadn’t come across him before but he does some good work. His blog on Jean Vanier was one of the better ones I’ve seen. I can’t see that he’s blogged since February, though he’s still tweeting.
I had some experience of New Frontiers in its earliest days, and there certainly did seem to be some giant egos among the leaders. I haven’t heard much of them for years, but the system you describe does seem to be very unhealthy. It’s not for nothing that Stephen calls this blog ‘Surviving Church’.
Thank you – I found this website through inadvertantly googling its name in frustration at not finding people writing about the topic. I was looking in different christian bookshops like Church House in Westminster and the closest book I could find on the topic just touched on it in a paragraph or two.
The other place you may not heard of Newfrontiers is that one of their senior leaders is John Smyth’s son PJ Smyth. I was shocked to look at his relaunched website today and discover he describes his parents as being “missionaries for many years” in Zimbabwe. Having had no website for 3 years you’d thought he’d had the time to update his bio.
https://www.pjsmyth.com/about
Thanks for this Jon. Shocking indeed, although in some way this doesn’t surprise me.
I stumbled across this place rather like you and greatly value the contributors I find here and a curious sense of community. Welcome!
You can probably find a second-hand copy of Stephen’s book ‘Ungodly Fear’ on the internet. You might also find my book ‘To Be Honest’, and ‘The Post-Evangelical’ by David Tomlinson deals with issues in evangelical culture. But Stephen’s book is the best on power issues in churches.
Thanks Janet. I would also recommend ‘Evangelicals in Exile – wrestling with theology and the unconscious’ by Alistair Ross. Very good on collective patterns of denial, avoidance and projection. (posted again as did not appear unless I have missed it)
Janet / David – many thanks for your suggestions I hadn’t of these books and I’ll have a look for them at the weekend. Trying to some normalcy by keeping a weekday/weekend split still.
The best testimony about a leadership program is of course not from the leaders themselves. What do the sheep say of the shepherds?
More specifically, what do the stragglers, the lost sheep say?
When we look back on all those who were under our care, we can’t take too much credit for the smart “on-program” ones. It’s how we handled the ones who struggled. That’s the test.
Welcome Jon, I hope like many of us you find thinking and support here that is valuable to you.
Some of the youth workers I used to train were involved in NewFrontier and similar churches, so I definitely recognise the problem you describe. It is the issue that comes up here again and again, of power with no accountability. At least while the students were in training we could make some challenge to bullying line managers, when we did placement assessments. But we had no real power, just influence.
As others said, Stephen’s book is the classic text. Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse (Oakley & Humphreys) also has some relevance. And I did touch on these issues in my book on abuse, although it’s pretty out of date now.
David thank you for the challenge to us to be measured and balanced. I do share your belief that is important. While I can feel very angry and despairing about the abuse and injustice that is prevalent in the church, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it could be, should be and already is better, in parts. It is important to point to good practice as well as bad, or we lose hope.
I think balance is a tricky thing though. Many of the injustices that Stephen and others highlight here have been covered up or denied for years, and survivors voices like mine have been silenced. By focusing on the injustices – and perhaps sometimes guilty of a touch of hyperbole in our language -we are really just beginning to shift the balance back to the victims’ truth.
Having said that, I agree it’s not all black and white, and I do hope that many curates do more than just survive. But like much of the church, we do need to pay attention to some fundamental flaws in the system,which make bullying, control, or just favouritism and undue bias a problem. My experience is not recent, so I hesitate to comment, but there are some important questions. How are training incumbents chosen? What training do they receive to be trainers, assessors and line managers (skills professionals study for many years to develop). Who verifies their assessments? Who assesses their competence? Who can intervene if things go wrong and what actions can they take? What challenge can a curate make if they are unhappy with their situation, and how are they supported to do so?
Thanks for this – I’ve left Newfrontiers and started cautiously going to a C of E church – Having been hurt by a church and it’s system I’m very interested to learn whether the church we are attending now has better systems in place – or even an attitude of wanting to listen, learn and improve their systems.
Prayers for you.
Jon, I hope you find welcome, acceptance, and healing in your new church.
One useful guide in detecting whether a church may be abusive is how well the leadership deal with questions and challenge. If they resent them or react badly, best avoided. It’s not infallible – a few very clever people can be controlling in subtler ways – but it’s a handy rue of thumb.
I too joined the Church of England after a bad experience of a church being heavily influenced by what later became NewFrontiers. You’re right to be cautious, but I hope it goes well.
Jon, I hope the church you have joined does have that willingness to listen and learn. It would be dreadful to be hurt again.
Within the national systems of the CofE there are some good people, but they can get swallowed up by a system that is resistant to change.
Things can be easier locally. People may need help to fully understand and create safe spaces, but I have found in many places a willingness to listen and then to learn and change. It can be very dependant on the incumbent, and the culture of the congregation. If they are too confident they are right about things, then there is no space to learn and change. I always look for people who are honest about their doubts and failings. Then we can learn and change together.
Really hope it goes well for you.