Power games in Church life

A week or two back I wrote about the Dean of Christ Church, Martyn Percy, having to face concerted attacks from various directions.  In his case it was a cabal of dons seeking to remove him. They sought first to avail themselves of the statutes of the college to achieve their aims. When this did not work, the same group found that could attack their Dean by using the core group process administered by the C of E’s National Safeguarding Team.   Both of these attacks have failed, but there has followed yet another safeguarding allegation.  This is to be investigated by an independent safeguarding consultant.  As the college is apparently paying for this investigation, it is difficult to know whether independence can be completely preserved.  When it comes to deciding on the cause of justice, it is hard to see that an individual will ever find it easy to win, when a determined well-funded institutional opponent has decided to attack you.

In another part of the country a different but comparable confrontation between institutions and individuals is being played out.  A year ago, we carried an account written by a clergy wife, Kate, whose husband was being pressured to give up his job as a Vicar in a midlands diocese.   The original issue which according to the local Archdeacon ‘lacked specificity’ was raised formally to the level of a complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure in November of 2017.  Whatever the precise complaints were, the CDM that addressed the parishioners’ complaints was investigated and dismissed in May 2018.

Kate and Mike’s story tells us something about the way that a relatively minor issue, which could probably have been resolved through the use of professional mediation, was allowed to escalate to involve numbers of people.  It also illustrates, as does the Percy case, serious dysfunctions of process and power that can take place within the church.  The ‘non-specific’ grumbling, starting in March 2017, took on a life of its own and escalated in several directions.   First the Vicar found the stress of the grumbling, which quickly turned into bullying, difficult to manage.  It reached the point where he had to take leave from parish duties.  In the second place the authorities in the local diocese and the patrons of the living became involved in overlapping ways.  This helped to keep the episode alive so that it continues to be a situation without any obvious resolution in sight.  The main players in the oversight of the parish, apart from the local diocese, are the patrons, the trustees of the Church Society (CS).  This group is responsible for the patronage of a cluster of parishes up and down the country who support the conservative evangelical branch of the Church.  These parishes are likely to hold a traditional conservative view of Scripture and take a hard-line view on the issues around human sexuality.  Many of these parishes also refuse the ministry of women as clergy.  Now that some dioceses have a female bishop, a conservative parish would look to Rod Thomas, the ‘flying’ bishop who oversees and supports parishes with a tradition of male-only headship.

Having two distinct, possibly competing, centres of oversight for this parish has made a solution to the problem far more complicated.  When it was clear that there was something to be addressed in the parish, the Archdeacon arranged in March 2017 to meet complainants and the Vicar. A meeting with PCC was later arranged for May when the Vicar’s family were away. It would appear that, quite early on in this process, the Archdeacon had decided to support the perspective of the complainants against the Vicar. One would have hoped that a degree of professional neutrality might have been observed, and that situations of this kind would seek the services of a professional mediator. What happened next was another second meeting of the PCC, timed to take place when Mike was away, and of which he was not informed. For this second meeting +Rod was invited to be present.   At this second meeting the partiality of the Archdeacon slipped and he began to hint how the PCC might ‘persuade’ the Vicar to move on.  This overt siding with the disgruntled group of parishioners which had obtained a strong voice on the PCC was maintained simultaneously with an attitude of friendly support to Mike and Kate.

Kate’s account of the events of 2017-2018 have been informed through her obtaining copies of emails and other forms of communication that were exchanged between +Rod, the Diocese and various senior members of the CS.  These members of the conservative evangelical establishment had an interest in the affair, having a stake through the power of the CS patronage.  These emails etc were provided after she made a subject access request in recent months.

From the point of view of process, we see another topsy-turvy situation developing.  In the first place, in noting how the Archdeacon behaved, we suspect that he wanted to take charge and possibly reclaim from the CS an influence over the parish on behalf of the diocese.  By inviting +Rod and keeping him in the communication loop, he was giving him a sense of importance. +Rod’s influence in this parish, in spite of his power of oversight, does not seem to have been very strong. He does not have the authority of a typical diocesan bishop and In many ways is more circumscribed than a parish priest.  Everything done in a parish under his oversight, has to pass through the local diocesan bishop first.  That is where the final power lies. In the second place, and this becomes clear in Kate’s examination of the requested emails etc, +Rod seemed very anxious to know the opinions and advice of senior churchmen in the CS constituency.  The tone of these emails, some of which I have seen, suggests that +Rod felt in no way a free agent to make decisions about what could happen in Mike’s congregation.  Thus the Archdeacon was effectively inviting, not one individual into the discussion, but the entire CS leadership cohort.  +Rod was in practice merely a spokesman for that group. Their advice would naturally be focusing, not specially on Mike and Kate’s welfare, but on maintaining their patronage power in this particular outpost of the CS empire.    

A further twist comes into this story.  +Rod is, as is widely known, an alumnus of Emmanuel Wimbledon, and received his call to priesthood while still a member of that congregation.  This brings him under the ongoing influence of his former mentor and Vicar, Jonathan Fletcher. The released correspondence makes it clear that Fletcher was party to the consultation process.  He also knew Mike and Kate personally through the Iwerne camps network.  By the time the emails and communications between +Rod, Jonathan Fletcher and other CS officials were flying around in mid 2017, Fletcher was already non-grata in the Church of England, having lost his PTO in February 2017.  William Taylor, the unofficial leader of the whole CS/REFORM/ReNew network claims only to have known about this in the early part of 2019.  We have to take this claim as factual, though it does stretch credulity.  But it is not credible that +Rod had not heard about the investigation of his mentor Fletcher and the removal of his PTO by the Southwark diocese at the time when it happened.  It means in effect that a bishop of the Church of England was seeking advice from a discredited clergyman as well as a parachurch organisation operating on the boundaries of the Church.  +Rod was, by the tone of the emails, at every point anxious to keep in favour with William Taylor and these other leaders in the closed world of the conservative network of the Church of England. 

Mike the Vicar and his wife Kate have had to face the juggernaut of two separate institutions trying to undermine them and remove them from their calling, their home and their livelihood.  To remind the reader, the original complaint by a parishioner against Mike through a CDM, whatever its precise nature, was eventually dismissed.  What we have left is a cluster of confused power dynamics.  This was brought about, first by an Archdeacon who was less than thorough in dealing with a pastoral rift between a Vicar and some of his flock.  Further, we catch a glimpse of some of the internal power politics of the conservative faction within the Church of England.  +Rod, who, as bishop. is nominally in charge, finds himself permanently beholden to two strongly inhibiting centres of power.   First, he has to work with the diocesan structures of the Church of England which limit severely what he can do.  He also is required to conform to the highly centralised and controlling power of the leaders of the conservative wing of the Church.  Lacking any real power, one is tempted to ask what a ‘flying’ bishop can ever hope to achieve?

 This sad episode affecting Mike and Kate and their family raises the corner of a curtain.  We see behind it displays of power struggles in the Church, and especially as they touch the world of conservative evangelicals in the Church of England.  The ongoing story of Mike and Kate is, in the end, a footnote to a much larger narrative.  But, by following their story, we are given hints at understanding this wider picture. Perhaps those of us who are not part of the conservative wing of the Church, need to wake up to understand what is really going on. We all need to have a clearer understanding of the nature of the struggle for power and influence in the Church of England which goes on behind closed doors.

About Stephen Parsons

Stephen is a retired Anglican priest living at present in Cumbria. He has taken a special interest in the issues around health and healing in the Church but also when the Church is a place of harm and abuse. He has published books on both these issues and is at present particularly interested in understanding how power works at every level in the Church. He is always interested in making contact with others who are concerned with these issues.

18 thoughts on “Power games in Church life

  1. Thank you for highlighting and explaining Andreyev’s complaint about how they have been so badly (mis)managed, (ill)handled and frankly abused by the dark forces of the ReNew world. Many have seen on Twitter and Facebook the accusations they have made of this network and it is hard to understand exactly what’s happened. This explanation is helpful. What is clear is that those who need to respond with apologies and repentance are (a) ignoring her, (b) dismissing the complaints as nonspecific (even where she seems to have been very specific), acuse her of gossip (somewhat of a “go-to” in the conservative evenglical wing of the church), (c) suggesting she is taking an unbiblical way of handling dispute (although I understand she has tried the biblical models ad nauseam and been denied justice or a fair hearing) and – worst of all – (d) slander her with unfair questions about her state of mind (surely these people would drive anyone to their wits end).

    Frankly I find the whole situation deeply disturbing and unbecoming of Christian people.

    That now we learn +Rod had the aduacity to consult Jonathan Fletcher (knowing his licence was removed and he himself was the centre of a huge abuse scandal). This is unbelievable. It absolutely calls into question his credibility as a bishop and even as a man of the cloth.

  2. Much evidence suggests that ‘Maintaining power and patronage’ is indeed the top goal of the Conservative Evangelical leaders. One of the terrifying things about the inner ring is that they really do believe that they do this for the sake of the gospel. They really do believe that they are the BEST Bible teachers, the BEST church planters, the BEST strategists and the BEST Christians.
    If they think something should be done – giving a job to a friend, or moving somebody like Rev. Mike from his – then they believe it is what God wants done. They are the BEST Christian leaders so God will want to back their desires. Whatever they are.
    If one among their number – say Rev. Fletcher – is revealed more widely as fulfilling his desires by beating and bathing young men as part of his ministerial training of them – well handling that in whatever way they feel will make them look BEST will be what God wants. They are the BEST ministers God has, so God surely would not want them to be exposed as frauds or hypocrites. If Rev. Taylor and Bishop Rod have not been honest about their conversations and closeness to and knowledge of Rev. Fletcher – that is in their mind just what God wants. God is on the side of the BEST.
    Sadly these elite ministers, who oversee vast sums of finance and empires of junior ministers and trainee ministers and junior courtiers, find they hurt and damage others as they bumble through life doing whatever they think is right, assuming God admires them for it. The reason families like the Andreyevs get hurt and bullied is the sheer arrogance of these elite ministers who by their ongoing silence continue to prove that the above analysis is accurate.
    Is it at all possible, Rod, William, Jonathan, (we know since you are so concerned about your public image that you do read this page and comments) that God might want you to confess sin, correct lies and offer genuine help to those you are hurting by your silence? Just maybe, God is not admiring your silence?

  3. Strong stuff from Dickie and Auguste! You are making points that I did not feel free to make in my piece. I chose to dwell on the massive dysfunctions of power in the whole episode rather than the subjective experiences of bullying felt by Kate and Mike. The failures of justice, process and simple fairness in two important institutions are, I hope, abundantly clear. Perhaps in future SARs will compel people with power to take more care in how they use their power.

      1. Janet’s right they are useful, although still with limitations. I had to push back to get a less redacted version, still heavily redacted; and still waiting for (redacted) minutes from a meeting in February.
        The complications of church legal status also means it’s worth thinking about all the different parts that might hold data about you. For example, if there is more than one dioceses, they are a separate entity, even if your case is held nationally. Another victim had to ask the Bishop as well as the safeguarding team, to see all correspondence.

        1. I’ve sent SARs to bishops, dioceses, a cathedral, Lambeth Palace, and the NST. It’s worth casting your net wide. The safeguarding glossary I did a week or so ago on this site would give ideas for other bodies that might hold data on people.

          It’s also with considering follow-up SARs a year or more after the original ones. I did my first ones a couple of years ago but recently repeated the NST one, and discovered for the first time that there was at least talk of setting up a core group in my case – but also that the offence had been wrongly classified and minimised.

          1. Janet, so sorry to hear they did nothing and minimised your abuse.

            Maybe the new appeals procedure, when it arrives, will give us both a route to challenge their minimisation?

            Now they have told me they are looking t it, I will hold their feet to the flames until they do!

            Festive greetings to you xx

  4. It is worth exploring the internal dynamics of the conevo world. Because simply berating them may help us let off steam, but the way it works is highly resistant to change and our outpourings liable to be ineffective.

    I should qualify my comments by saying the conevo world is not one homogeneous entity, but like strains of a similar virus operating independently, with similar characteristics. So we would be more effective in targeting our attention at specific individuals and their actions as highlighted above. So, for example any conevo operating outside Wimbledon, would assume general comments didn’t apply to their church or them.

    There is a hierarchy of strict conservative Evangelicalism and the higher up you go the stricter and narrower and more closely policed are the allowed views.

    If you visited such a place, even a trained eye might not pick up anything particularly unhealthy at all. In contrast the welcome will generally be good. After all being evangelical is in theory at least about proclaiming the message outwards. You may be vaguely aware of broad “assumpive closes”; that is statements from the pulpit about honouring say Men in ministry, where you mentally have to complete the sentence “and women”. If you don’t, you slowly buy into their doctrine one little tenet at a time.

    Higher up, say as a junior minister you will be expected to make overt declarations of allegiance to (their version of) gospel truth. Your sermon notes will likely be pre-vetted for infringing “sound” doctrine. Step out of line just once and you’ll be sidelined. Hence the checking-of-what’s-right with Fletcher et al before acting.

    A number of us want to progress in the faith, grow strongly as Christians and commit our lives to God in ever increasing service. Strict conevo churches are dangerous places for us. We’ll buy the strictness and try our utmost to obey the rules. We’ll pay a heavier price than most for the foreclosure of thinking, the subjugation of our voices and the compromising of our ethical integrity.

    The better news is that for the masses of itinerant congregants on the ground, the strict narrowness is rejected fairly early on. At higher levels it’s much more difficult to break away, so much having been committed to the conevo identity. To break away is like changing your nationality. Possible but pretty difficult.

    The conevo world is self-limiting because it can only take in data from itself. An association does exist between senior leaders across the genre but there is considerable resistance to accepting another’s authority. After the JF debacle, Emma Wimbledon’s currency, for example, will be seriously devalued, whatever else anyone says, in the top echelons.

    Without the input of outside data, of reality, it is very difficult for an organisation to survive long term. For example, laws change. Infringe those and see how to get on. That’s another area to examine.

    1. If you held all your money in Woolworths shares, you would have lost your shirt. This time of year reminds me of the wonder of shopping there as a child, and gazing at the pic’n mix and seeing what, if any, my meagre pocket money would run to. Of course “Woolies” was out of touch with the reality of the high street and eventually closed after a long rundown.

      Being employed as a vicar with family and no other income is like having all your shares in one company. You are exposed. It’s the same in other churches too. We are seeing repeated examples of the perils of such exposure in the pages of this blog and elsewhere.

      On the one hand, the fear of unfair criticism and loss of home and living, must be intense. On the other hand, the pressure to conform to the power above, sometimes against private convictions, can lead to serious compromise of integrity.

      One thing we must be doing to retain our Christianity, is to make space for that cohort of broken people, who’ve ended in a heap.

      The Good Samaritan didn’t check the victim’s doctrine or statements of faith before buying salve. Similarly we must make space in our hearts for those whose views we find repugnant, unconditionally, when they have fallen by the wayside. It’s unlikely they’ll come our way for support, especially if they are unaware they need it. But they probably do.

      Committed sincere people have given their all in the service of what seemed completely right to them. Often they’ve done this their whole lives and come unstuck. They’re left with not much at all. The system made them and broke them. Can we understand this? That it’s not all their fault?

  5. St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, a ConEvo Mecca, has now declared itself ‘not in partnership’ with the Hous elf Bishops over Living in Love and Faith )teaching on same sex relationships). A report is here: https://www.christiantoday.com/article/leading.evangelical.church.announces.state.of.broken.partnership.with.church.of.england.house.of.bishops/136104.htm

    More power games at work.

    I’m from a ConEvo background myself, as regular readers will remember, but it beats me how anyone can think the Bible’s teaching on sex and marriage ‘plain’ and ‘consistent’. Abraham married his own half-sister, Jacob had two wives, David and Solomon had countless wives, and they all had numerous concubines. St. Paul’s teaching is radically different from the practice of the Old Testament.

    If the Bible is really the authority for our belief and conduct, we need to be honest about its content.

    1. Couldn’t it be that Paul’s teaching is so radically different from the OT because the NT is so different from the OT and the coming of Jesus changes things? Christians are ‘New Testament’ people rather than (more vaguely and incoherently) ‘biblical’ people.

    2. I find this very concerning. They are basically saying that they can pick and choose which parts of being part of the Church if England they take notice of, based on their own arrogant assumption that they know BEST, as August said so well.

      That is exactly the culture that allows abuse to happen unchallenged. How long before they decide they don’t need to follow the national safeguarding guidance? Especially as many of us are saying that their position and their published rhetoric around it is emotional and spiritual abuse of LGBTQI people who don’t feel called to celibacy. And others who they consider ‘heretical’, like, presumably, single parents like me who have born children out of wedlock.

      If the House of Bishops try to hold them to account (I wish!) for this, presumably they will just say they don’t recognise the authority of the HoB. So essentially they are untouchable?

      The implications of this terrify me, if I am honest.

      1. Don’t worry Jane – they’re not untouchable and this can in fact be sorted out. Yes, Church of England governance is currently not fit for purpose and requires an overhaul. Yes, a couple of groups of clergy within it are effectively out of control of the wider body, and have given themselves permission to look to each other for reference and authority, rather than those to whom they have sworn canonical obedience.

        This lack of accountability, facilitated occasionally by subtle threats and gaslighting, has created an arena in which some clergy have somehow lost sight and let go of the basic need to behave honestly and accountably, in good faith with their own churchgoers, their colleagues, their overseers and the rest of the nation. This dysfunction is not tenable in a nationally established church which wants a future.

        So let’s sort it out and get back on track, so that the Church can be generally assured of clergy accountability going forward. There are soft levers (already available), and hard levers (of revised ecclesial governance) that can be used to clean this mess up. It can be done: so let’s get on and do it.

        1. Hello Lizzie,

          your positivity is refreshing and encouraging. I really hope you’re right; it’s easy to become cynical when you have experienced such a lack of accountability, particularly when it comes to Bishops.
          The (public) response from the Bishop of London has not really raised my expectations.

          The CDM consultations in the New Year should result in a better hard lever. I’d be really interested to hear about what else you think we can do. Maybe I’m just tired and jaded right now, but still trying to identify what other effective levers we have.

          1. Hi Jane,

            I’m not foolish enough to think I or we have many or even any of the final answers yet, but we have models from church history; related comparators; contemporary co-workers doing similar work in other denominations; secular models, best practice, theory, etc on achieving organisational change. And – oh joy – however dysfunctional it currently is, we have the starting point of synodical government. Beyond that there is some potentially overriding dynamite too: I will send you detail separately.

            Lizzie

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