A review by Linda Woodhead, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Society, Lancaster University
When she was the Director of Safeguarding for Bath and Wells, Fiona Gardner was puzzled why so many of the diocesan hierarchy asked her, ‘How can you stand it?’. At the time, she thought that ‘it’ must be sexual abuse and predation. Only later did it occur on her that ‘it’ was something different: the shadow church, as difficult to face up to as the shadow side of one’s own psyche.
The anecdote gives a flavour of this important book. Gardner draws on many years of experience as a psychotherapist, a safeguarding officer, a spiritual writer and counsellor. She was one of the people who eventually helped bring Peter Ball to justice. She knows the Church of England from inside out, and the human psyche too. She writes with clarity and understanding about the mind of the abuser and the trauma of the abused, always grounding her thoughts in actual examples.
It is Gardner’s multifaceted experience that enables her to do something fresh and useful: to psychoanalyse the Church in order to explain its abusive tendencies. While sociologists like me are wary of attempts to psychologise social phenomena, Gardner gets past my defences because she understands institutions and social relations so well. She knows that they always involve power, and that an institution is in essence a structured set of power relations. The book’s title ‘Sex, Power, Control’is well chosen.*
Back to ‘it’, the grubby side of the Church of England that those in power want to bury. Gardner’s achievement is to drag it into the light. By listening carefully to the insights of survivors and analysing ‘the mind of the abuser’, she finds a key to unlock the Church of England’s bloody chamber.
Narcissism features prominently in the analysis, narcissism being understood in clinical terms rather than simply as vanity. The narcissist buries shameful things that he or she cannot bear to face. Some of these may derive from childhood, some from later episodes and actions. In order to defend against horrible feelings, a false self is constructed. The more grandiose the self, the more it needs to be continually re-inflated. One way of doing so is by joining an institution that confers dignity. Dressing up, being given a title, and being treated as more ‘reverend’ than others does the job very well. So – to take a further step – does controlling, demeaning and even abusing other people. The smaller you make them, the bigger you feel. The abusers that Gardner encountered were all men, and were all predatory narcissists.
In sociological terms, abuse both exploits existing social inequalities and reinforces them. Victims of clerical abusers are selected because of they are lay, young, lower-class, female, or have other vulnerabilities. The abuse reflects and reinforces their relative powerlessness, meaning that abuse serves a social as well as a personal purpose: it is not peripheral to hierarchical structures, it is integral to them.
Gardner tells us about the warning signs of narcissism. She sees in men like Ball a ‘completely self-absorbed sense of reality’. Everything is all-about-them. They work tirelessly to salvage their reputations and inflate their egos, and draw on all the connections and tools available to them to do so. They are deeply manipulative. Those who cross them are likely to be treated with rage, contempt and various forms of intimidation. As well as a campaign of letters from Ball himself, Gardner was advised by three senior church officials to back off, in one case being walked round the bishop’s palace grounds for a ‘chat’, and on another being rung by Lambeth Palace.
As well as the solipsism, the narcissist gives himself away by a lack of boundaries. There is no thee and me, just me. You are of interest only insofar as you serve the narcissist’s needs, and you have no separate subjectivity or independent existence for him. This blurring of boundaries extends to the body. The abuser does not just groom victims emotionally, he invades their personal space uninvited with touches and gropes, hugs and strokes; he may sit people on his knee, or suggest sharing a bed.
Understanding the mind of the perpetrator helps Gardner to understand why the Church has been so hospitable. It is a rigidly and steeply hierarchical institution. The clergy, she says in one chilling passage, are the subjects, the laity are objects, and victims of abuse are not even objects – they are marginals, untouchables, a kind of ‘matter out of place’, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas put it in her discussion of dirt and impurity. To allow the victim to speak and have agency is to upset the whole order, thereby putting at risk not just the institution but the very identity of those whose sense of selfhood is bound up with it. No wonder that when Ball’s abuse was reported to no less than nineteen bishops and an archbishop by increasingly desperate victims and concerned supporters, not one of them intervened.
Gardner uses the idea of ‘institutional narcissism’ (which I think comes from Stephen Parsons and his blog) to take the analysis further. It helps to explain why senior leaders crave success stories even when they involve things as dodgy as the Balls’ monastic order or Chris Brain’s ‘Nine O’Clock Service’. It explains why those who try to blow the whistle are ignored or traduced, and why bad news has to be hushed up. It explains why so many large and costly ‘comms’ teams are employed by dioceses, Church House and Lambeth to pump out good news and bury bad. It explains why truthfulness is not a value you ever hear preached. This all makes sense because there is institutional grandiosity to defend, and an ‘it’ to be denied.
Gardner includes a helpful chapter on the public schools from which over half of the bishops are drawn. The repression of emotion and vulnerability in order to appear strong and manly, and ambivalence about homosexuality and women, are discussed. This helps to situate the current problems in a wider framework of English class, privilege, and establishment.
If that all sounds a bit grim, it is. The obvious conclusion is that the only way to rid the Church of England of abuse is to dismantle its hierarchical structure completely. Safeguarding is a hopeless sticking plaster.
Yet I found at least one hopeful thing in Gardner’s analysis, for she reminds us that abusers are made, not born. And if the making of an abuser is a process, that process can be halted. Gardner gives the example of a young man abused by his mother as a child who is aware of his own attraction to children, and terrified by it. Instead of surrendering to this part of himself by, for example, downloading images of children, masturbating, becoming addicted, and perhaps going on to offend, he seeks medical help. This allows him to manage his desires by understanding, externalising and controlling them. There can be ‘interventions’ just as with any other kind of addiction, and the earlier the better. Books like this help by making people more alert and understanding.
But can the institution change its spots? Gardner is too nice to say ‘no’, but she probably thinks it. She may be right, but I wonder if a more historical view of the Church of England would have let in a bit more light and possibility. It is easy to think that the way things are now is the way things have always been and always must be, but the diocesan structures that weighed down on Gardner in Bath and Wells are actually rather recent. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that diocesan bishops became powerful bureaucrats, as the Church was remodelled along the lines of the state with its own kind of regional devolution and expanding civil service. Parliamentary control and lay patronage were whittled away, and the disastrous simulacrum of democracy, the General Synod, was born.
For all the episcopal bluff, the Church of England is not really one thing, and never has been. ‘Unity’ is a narcissistic fiction. The Church of England is one big unhappy family whose several parties divorced one another some time ago. And although some parts and parties of the Church really may be abusive at the core (where abuse means abuse of power, which opens the door to sexual abuse), other parts can more easily be cleaned up.
Gardner is right that the problem of abuse is tied up with theology and governance structures, which means that any real solution must be, too. I have long thought that the constituent parts of the CofE should be allowed to separate from one another, develop on their own terms, and become parts of a federal structure. If the Church wants to be taken seriously by civil society, let alone enjoy the privileges of establishment, then the criterion for remaining part of this loose affiliation must be to respect the basic norms of equality, non-discrimination, transparency and independent oversight that govern other public bodies. That, combined with proper safeguarding and an open learning environment, might just save what is worth saving.
*Full disclosure: I have not met or corresponded with the author, but she cites my book with Andrew Brown That Was The Church That Was: How the Church of England lost the English people and its definition of the institutional Church.
Yup. The great institutional sin is the caste system. Even three years ago, I’ve had a bishop shouting and doing the stabby finger thing; generally behaving as if I was just saying horrible things, rather than reporting experiences. They haven’t learned much.
No one academic discipline, such as sociology or theology or psychology or anyother-ology can by itself adequately describe the pathology of the Churches. But I welcome attempts to synthesise our streams of understanding to integrate ideas into a whole insight.
This will require one or two things which we aren’t doing terribly well at the moment. Probably first off we shall require to step down from our ivory towers, or northern buttresses or whichever protection we hide behind, and cooperate with others.
Secondly we will have to come up with some fresh ideas, some at least of which are sufficiently original not to be verifiable by others’ work. In short we will need to take risks.
One advantage we have in 2021 is our societal impatience for impact if we pursue this line, for if we do, we will garner more traction.
In my opinion we might do well to be wary of the growing “abuse” industry with its expanding hierarchy and salary structure. It hasn’t served anyone well except for those quietly and steadily remunerated by it. This is exactly what got the established Churches into trouble in the first place. How foolish to replicate their methods.
We will know if we are doing any better than them, if we resemble the Samaritan rather than the priest/Levite passing by on the other side. What do those injured people think about our work?
As an avid reader, I keep a stack of books I’ve recently read on the table in front of me. A week later what, if anything, can I remember of each? Fiction: did I enjoy it and why; Non fiction: what impacted me that I didn’t basically appreciate already? Was I inspired?
We must make an impact. And one that leads to change.
“In my opinion we might do well to be wary of the growing “abuse” industry with its expanding hierarchy and salary structure. It hasn’t served anyone well except for those quietly and steadily remunerated by it. This is exactly what got the established Churches into trouble in the first place. How foolish to replicate their methods.”
Don’t copy Rome by turning it into a quango appropriating an area where what is left of church dare not tread. According to Jesus and Paul, safeguarding is part of pastoring and prophesying (and all our co-pastoring and co-prophesying).
BOQ… Gardner is right that the problem of abuse is tied up with theology and governance structures, which means that any real solution must be, too. EOQ
so true! the authoritarian hierarchy of the institutional church has become systemically incorporated into translations of scripture, catechisms, creeds and confessions…
there is major theological deconstruction and reconstruction that needs to be processed! but there is much resistance for those who are deeply entrenched/invested in the status quo of the traditions of man and the elders… these traditions are nullifying the Word of God… see Matt 15/Mark 7
I’m not familiar with BOQ and EOQ. Does that stand for Beginning of Quote and End of Quote?
As for the theology of authoritarian hierarchies, I have somewhat mischievously suggested to a bishop (who was expatiating at length on the three-fold order of ministry) that the New Testament three-fold order was bishops (= presbyters), deacons, and widows. There certainly doesn’t seem much biblical evidence for the order of archbishops, bishops, priests, and temporary deacons as practised in Anglican churches – let alone for popes, cardinals, monsignors, archimandrites, and so on as seen elsewhere. And the dropping of the order of widows, and exclusion of women from other orders of ministry for much of the Church’s history, is something we should be ashamed of. It has certainly led to much abuse.
Linda Woodhead writes of “the disastrous simulacrum of democracy, the General Synod.” As a member for the last 5½years of the House of Laity of that body, I have some sympathy with this comment. The main problem is that the agenda is effectively controlled by the House of Bishops, the full minutes (let alone verbatim transcripts) of whose meetings are not published—in contrast to groups of sessions of the full Synod, albeit published belatedly (November 2020 not yet available.)
One current example of the bishops’ control: In August 2020 Mary Durlacher, a lay member representing Chelmsford Diocese, obtained a formal legal Opinion from six barristers (3 QCs and 3 juniors), three of whom are members of General Synod, advising that there is no prohibition in canon law, nor other legal prohibition, to the use of individual cups to distribute consecrated wine to the laity during Holy Communion (an issue highlighted by the withdrawal of the ‘common cup’ and the continuance of Covid-19 precautions during the current pandemic.) The House of Bishops (HoB) has been asked to reconsider its ‘communion in one kind only’ policy in the light of that opinion. A report on the CofE website of the 17 January 2021 meeting of the HoB included this:
“The House affirmed it would be premature to make decisions on the eucharist in a digital medium and the administration and reception of Holy Communion, particularly in a time of national pandemic and resolved to undertake further theological and liturgical study and discussion on these issues over the coming months.”
In other words, Article 30 of the 39 Articles of Religion, to which all clergy subscribe, [“THE Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both parts of the Lord’s sacrament, by Christ’s ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.”] can be simply brushed aside. What is a current live issue for the laity has been kicked into the long grass by the bishops on the basis (as revealed by a ‘whistle-blowing’ comment on Thinking Anglicans by Bishop Pete Broadbent) that the bishops could not agree, concluding “we don’t do doctrinal and liturgical change in haste, even in a pandemic. More thought is required.” So, bishops, if not now (when it is relevant), when? And, as an aside, if individual cups for the wine are not appropriate, how do you justify individual wafers rather than a shared loaf for distributing the bread?
It will be interesting to see what follow-up questions are asked about this at the Zoom meeting of General Synod scheduled for 23 /24 April, and how they are answered.
And why should the bishops alone be qualified to undertake liturgical and theological study? There are a number of highly qualified lay people and clergy who could contribute valuable insights.
I suspect the bishops rationale was, ‘Help! Whatever we decide we’re going to alienate one party or another, and we can’t have that. Let’s kick it into the long grass and let the thing evolve.’ Back to the old mantra, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’
It is perhaps noteworthy that the bishops don’t want time for further legal study, so perhaps their silence on this issue indicates their acceptance that they have no answer to the legal arguments set out in the Opinion commissioned by Mary Durlacher, the summary two paragraphs of which state:
“71. The conclusion that individual cups are legal is a conclusion which is reached, as a matter of law, independent of the present public health emergency. They were legal before the first case of Covid-19, they are currently legal, and they will continue to be legal when the pandemic is over.
72. The House of Bishops’ present position that the use of individual cups for distributing communion is illegal is incorrect as a matter of law. There is no legal barrier to the use of individual cups.”
As for liturgical practice and the symbolism of the common cup, the barristers comment:
“the consecration of a single flagon from which the individual cups are
filled would not only be entirely safe from a public health perspective, but would maintain the symbolism by providing a clear common source of the wine. Such practice would in fact accord with the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer which provides in the Prayer of Consecration that the priest shall: “lay his hand upon every vessel (be it chalice or flagon) in which there is any wine to be consecrated”, and with Canon B 17 which provides that “The bread shall be brought to the communion table in a paten or convenient box and the wine in a convenient cruet or flagon.”
In case the point is not covered already, as a former Baptist, I am at a loss to understand the liturgical or legal difference between an Archbishop or Bishop consecrating the wine in a dozen or more vessels made of precious metals by the most talented and expensive smiths of their generation, and a parish priest consecrating a few dozen small individual glasses, neatly held in their plain wooden racks, graciously lent by a local Non-Conformist church.
I’m a former Baptist, too. I don’t know, but I think the objection (s) are firstly that it has to be a common cup, like the passover, and that it has to be real wine, like… dah de dah. But as someone said, it was originally a lump of unleavened bread, not white bits of pink wafer. And I love the idea of borrowing a rack from someone! Although, there’s no ritual for having somewhere to put them, after. But none of it is altogether rational, as is the way with rituals. I mean, why can it only be someone with magic hands who can say the words? (Thus a priest of my acquaintance)
I am going to duck the subject of the common cup, but the answer to your question about consecration of the host and wine by a priest is Canon B 12, and it’s the law of the land – and not negotiable!
Seriously, how would Baptists feel if I, a dyed in the wool ‘cradle’ C of E person, told them to change their tradition and doctrine. No offence intended!
No, I know that. But as I said, ritual is a funny old thing!
Graham… traditions of the elders and traditions of man… these nullify the word of God… the sacraments became controlled by the “clergy” about 100 years post canon, due to corruption and lack of reverence going on – so the reason was to protect the sacredness… however, the sacraments were never intended to be permanently restricted to the “clergy”… this should have been a temporary measure while the non clergy were taught and trained how to share the sacraments in a reverential, sacred and meaningful manner… this has largely not happened for lots of reasons… mostly power and control… but still using the reasoning of “protecting the sacredness”… the sacraments were never intended to be restricted they way the way they are practiced today… it’s a tradition of the elders…
Oi! Our racks are made of shiny metal.
And we’ve told the local Anglicans (CinW) who are at present using our building for one of their services, that we’d be perfectly happy for them to use them.
😀. I’ve seen both! And a mixture. Metal could be put through a dishwasher! Seriously.
2nd comment:
Linda Woodhead also writes of “Dressing up, being given a title, and being treated as more ‘reverend’ than others does the job very well.”
This is the text of private member’s motion (PMM) tabled by James Dudley-Smith (Bath & Wells) in February 2021 (to be found on the GS pages of the CofE website):
“That this Synod, noting Bishop Peter Hancock’s words quoted by the IICSA Anglican Church Investigation Report October 2020, that ‘issues of clericalism and deference have allowed abuse to be covered up and the voices of the vulnerable to be silenced’ (B.6.2.4.1) ask that steps be taken to abolish, and discourage the use of, deferential titles such as Reverend, Right Reverend, Very Reverend, Most Reverend, Venerable, and that clergy be instead referred to and addressed using the names of the roles they hold, e.g. Vicar, Rector, Bishop, Dean, Archbishop, Archdeacon.”
I encourage Synod members to sign the motion, with the hope of a debate in York in July 2021. (It will require at least 100 supporting e-mail signatures by mid-May for the Business Committee to consider including it in the agenda.)
Can’t sign it with the names they hold, ie Fred, Jimmy or Brenda?
I hope this ends up being discussed and am thankful someone is trying to bring this to the table… Only God is to be revered… we steal His glory when we claim these titles for mere men… we will see though if those in power are humble enough to give up their god like titles…
No use thinking about a plan for a pandemic for months, during a pandemic, is there? Maybe we will have a plan in place for Covid 25?
Janet… you are correct on BOQ & EOQ!
interesting insights Janet… the institutional church is so obsessed with power, hierarchy and who “rules over” who… Jesus was pretty clear about not using titles… and He was pretty clear about not “lording it over”…
the NT is principle of power is “one another”… we honor and love one another… it’s a mutual edification and voluntary mutual submission… mutual is not a one way power trip by one gender or the clergy…
Can “common” mean “common or garden”, i.e allowing of many iterations.
Again, can “common” refer to the contents rather than the container? (Tea and aperitif sellers sell “a cup”.)
In a spirit of St Paul those politicised decision non-takers are disrespecting the consciences of people who want to continue communion ceremonies for any moderately reasonable reason.
Why drink to something that has been betrayed by someone bigger? (The answer is sometimes yes.)
Boost industry and funds: buy your own communion cup and bring it with you (save the non-conformists worry about your washing-up).
Hi Michael. I have to say, I can’t imagine where your cup would sit during the service, nor how the wine would be served out! And I’d be wanting my communion set returned clean!
If people brought their own cup to the altar rail, the consecrated wine could be poured into it from the ewer. Simple.
Then everyone takes their own cup home to be washed. A sherry glass or shot glass works very well for an individual serving of communion wine, and a lot people already have these at home.
I’m thinking of loads of shaky hands, people who use a stick! And there’s still nowhere to put it in most pews. Non-conformist churches are equipped with little holes at every seat. And if, like many, you have gone over to socially distanced chairs, there’s no pew backs, anyway.
If someone uses a stick or is shaky, the ewer of communion wine can be brought to them, just as the chalice always has been. As for where to put the little glass, communicants can bring theirs in a small plastic bag along with a tissue. When they’ve communicated, they can wipe the glass out with the tissue (or lick the glass if they have scruples about disposing of the smear of wine) and put it back in the plastic bag. Bag then goes in handbag or pocket.
If visitors or regulars arrive without a glass of their own, a few spares can be available. Cheap sherry glasses that will go in the dishwasher will be fine. Once charity shops are back open, you can often get suitable glasses from them. All my sherry glasses came from charity shops!
Sad to read Linda’s comment that the C of E is one big unhappy family whose several parties divorced one another several years ago. Sad but increasingly true. In my life time ( now 72) the “parties” have moved further apart, Of course we were always comprehensive but a stronger sense of parochial religion and liturgy with common words, hymn, psalms etc provided greater overlap than they do now. Theological college courses had a common core. Rather than being the polo mint church there was something in the middle. I suspect around 1960 the majority of parishes would have identified as being prayer book catholic or evangelical and the lay person could more or less fit in anywhere though they may well have particular preferences. I am surprised greater attention isn’t given to this situation. When centrifugal forces trump the centripetal it seems to me we are on the path to fragmentation.
Well, we do have a common liturgy. Would be even better if some people were willing to use comprehensible language and drop the obscure Elizabethan stuff. *covers head and runs for cover*
Really? We have BCP with various additions and omissions and Common Worship which has many forms and permutations. Many churches under alternative episcopal oversight use the Roman rite. Some evangelical churches have effectively abandoned liturgical forms. Ceremonial has always been diverse but surely we are a lot more liturgically diverse , indeed chaotically so, than say 50 yrs ago.
Sorry, Perry. What I mean is we do have one. People don’t use it!
I think that reflects the country, which is also more diverse than it was 50 years ago. It was pretty diverse then, but the C of E hadn’t caught up with it.
My experience of UPA ministry is that a lot of people didn’t understand even the ASB or Common Worship. “More churchy words going over my head,’ as one PCC secretary put it. I had to use simplified forms.
The other factor is that in order to get ASB and CW through General Synod, there were alternatives put in to satisfy different parties in the Church. contrast that with the Scottish Episcopal approach, which had eucharistic prayers for each liturgical season, and one simpler form for small groups. Or the New Zealand Prayer Book, which is bilingual throughout.
healthimpactnews.com January 8, 2021 exposes the corrupt *church along with the Houston Chronicle did 700 abuse victim scandal etc. People are the church not the building. Why are we building their real estate portfolio and bank accounts when the false church institute is a self-serving entity.
Look at this: https://bereanresearch.org/hillsongs-brian-houston-says-he-will-step-down/
*Corporate Church is part of the one world, nwo system.
P.S. Book: Battle Hymn by John Scura/Dane Phillips exposes one world order church.