About 10 years ago, a schoolgirl, Martha Payne from Argyll, caused a sensation by taking pictures of her school meals, and then publishing the photos on the internet. She wanted to show visually how she and friends were being made to eat unappetising food on a daily basis. When her school tried to stop this attempt to expose the inadequacy of the food, support from the internet exploded, with the press and public opinion very firmly on the girl’s side. The net result was that the school was forced to improve the quality of the food.
This story, in itself, is not of earth-shattering significance, but it does help to make the point that voices of ordinary, even obscure people, can often be heard in this digital age. Above all information can be shared across the world extremely quickly. In some ways, this blog Surviving Church is another example of the way that other unimportant voices, both the writers and the commenters, can be shared in the Church, especially the Church of England. Nobody is obliged to read SC, but it seems that some people in the Church do. A topical post (often written at breakneck speed!) can reach 2000 individuals. There is also a solid phalanx of regular readers numbering around 400. I feel that my readers welcome the information and opinion carried by SC, even though little of it is original or first-hand. Any added value to the basic facts of a story may be in the fact that I sometimes have a feel for the background context. Also, I sometimes notice detail in a story that others may have missed. In any event, support for this writing and commentary work has given me, over the years, an increasing confidence that I have some useful things to say.
Looking beyond SC, we can say that the exchange and sharing of church-based information on the internet may be changing the whole Church in unforeseen ways. Of course, not every example of comment on Twitter or Facebook is helpful or even wholesome. But even the existence of trolls and malicious comment has not yet made the internet a place that is so unreliable and dangerous that it should be avoided altogether. Real information is shared; opinion is expressed and no longer do we have to rely solely on official pronouncements written by those trained in reputation management. The Winchester affair was instructive in this way. When the ‘stepping back’ of the bishop was first announced, those of us outside the Diocese had no real means of know what was really going on. The reputation experts (working for Luther Pendragon?) did their best to downplay the seriousness of the situation. There were, however, enough individuals writing on blogs such as this one to give the outsider a fairly clear idea of what was in fact going on. One wonders whether the presence of the internet meant that story played out in a quite different way than if there had been no online circulation of information. A question to be asked in a Church history exam twenty years hence might be this. Discuss the impact of the internet on the governance of the Church of England in the first three decades of the twenty first century.
The Christ Church affair has been, all on its own, something of an internet event. The information recorded on blogs and by press stories of various kinds is now so extensive that a special website has been created to accommodate it all in an accessible way. The anonymous blogger/compiler calls himself Turbulent Priest https: //www.turbulentpriest.net/ . The broad impact on the case through the sharing of online information and discussion seems to have been broadly positive for Percy’s cause. It still remains to be seen which side in the dispute will eventually prevail. One side, the College hierarchy still has many aces in terms of solid institutional power and vast wealth. The other side, the cause of the embattled Dean, has had to rely on the support of many individuals without such institutional power. Many of them have been recruited to his side by all the open and frank discussion of his case through the internet.
A more recent case of publicity helping in a case connected with safeguarding protocol, is that involving the Rev Stephen Kuhrt. On 22 June, Kuhrt was suspended by his diocesan bishop from his job as Vicar of Christ Church Malden. There was an allegation that he had not followed protocols in a safeguarding event/episode going back to 2007. In this case the PCC came to their Vicar’s defence in a very public way. They made full use of the internet to publicise the details of his suspension, openly sharing with interested parties a lot of detail about the case. They suggested that the CDM against their Vicar was a form of retaliation against him. He had, while raising the issues in the same case, caused embarrassment to the local and the National Safeguarding teams for their own failures. The individual in the case, a member of Kuhrt’s congregation, was prosecuted and convicted for the abuse offence. The case overall showed Kuhrt’s courage in pursuing the cause of justice and, in spite of his own failures of protocol when dealing with the case, he could be seen to be an impartial champion of safeguarding. Thanks to the internet, many people came to hear of the details of Kuhrt’s suspension and many rallied round from all over the country to express their support. The PCC were evidently inviting this support. The CDM seemed to be dealt with greater speed than usual. Kuhrt was exonerated on one charge within the CDM. For the less serious aspect of the charge involving a failure to remove names in a written document, he received a formal rebuke. It seems reasonable to suggest that the popular opinion that has been activated in this case has helped to produce this quick resolution. Kuhrt has been allowed to return to his post since the end of July and the case against him is now closed.
A third case which has benefited from the extensive publicity given to it, from the point of view of a complainant, is the Matt Ineson review. I have discussed this case at different times over the years. There is now, apparently, an impasse over the holding of a review of the case. As most of us know it involved an abusive priest, Trevor Devamanikkam. He committed suicide in 2015 just before coming to trial. The internet and the press have taken up Matt’s case and allowed it to be heard. The hierarchy of the Church have not been shown up well in their dealings with the whole affair. Both Archbishops appearing at the IICSA hearings were invited by the questioning barrister to speak to Matt who was present. Both declined to do so. These were poignant but also excruciating moments in the hearings. It may be these two failures of compassion that will be remembered long after the main IICSA recommendations to the Church have faded from our corporate memory.
I suspect that the reader will by now have gathered that I am to conclude that the internet has been a decisive positive factor in the overall cause of safeguarding in the Church. It has allowed the free flow of both information and comment uncensored by official authority using the power of information control through the power of secrecy. Unofficial information can of course be tainted with factional thinking or downright falsehood. It is here that the work of reliable and trusted commentators becomes important. They are the ones able to cast an informed opinion over the veracity of possibly embarrassing information that reaches the public domain. We have such writers like Gilo, Andrew Graystone and ‘Archbishop Cranmer’. Each has earned a reputation for honest comment, even when their words make some in authority suffer with embarrassment and even shame. Institutions and those leading them are weakened when guilty secrets are exposed to view. It is, however, hard to suggest that censorship and secrecy are in any way healthier ways forward. Every time that a scandal is revealed that shows up leaders in a bad light, it can be regarded in one of two ways. In the first place it can be seen as a threat to the flourishing of the institution and thus to be resisted at all costs. From the other perspective, the allowing of light to be shed in a hitherto dark place can only be regarded positively. Antiseptic balm may sting for a while but ultimately it will be seen as part of the process of healing.
Over the period of time when I have been doing my own commentary work, I have detected a subtle shift in attitudes among those who have authority in the Church. Comments from bishops hint that the tectonic plates are moving. In some places, this seems to lead towards a greater welcome for those of us who prefer the healing power of truth to the weasel words of reputation management. The battle to bring consistent justice, light and clarity to the dark places of power abuse and bullying has not yet been achieved, but perhaps we can, with the help of many people of goodwill, see the dawn appearing over the horizon. This dawn has, I believe, been made possible by the internet and the new reality of large numbers of church people communicating information and opinion freely with one another. This has given the movement towards openness enormous power, power that would be inconceivable in a pre-internet era. As the words of Morning Prayer say, ‘the night has passed, and the day lies open before us’.
The two archbishops who refused to speak to Matt Ineson at IICSA were Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury; and John Sentamu, then Archbishop of York. Both of them demonstrating just how unpastoral our chief pastors can be.
Among the list of people whose voices on the internet have been powerful, I would add Rachel White and Kate Andreyev. They have been so effective, in fact, that there have been serious attempts to shut them down. As an aside, I would add that women’s voices still carry less weight than men’s in our still patriarchal Church; and that when they become powerful the moves to silence them will be rapid and sometimes brutal.
Note also how the more vocal among the female survivors so often get left off the list of notable cases of Church abuse.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks to you, and people like you.
I have always wondered whether the refusal to engage with abuse as a reality is simply that so many people, not just powerful clergy, really don’t want the upset and hard work and emotional cost involved. Much easier to find some way of not bothering.
I was pleased to find that my Bishop had seen the post that started with a poem of the phrases you’re brushed off with, and went on to be quite a comprehensive list.
Stephen Kurt receiving a rebuke for naming and shaming those who should be named and shamed in the diocese of Southwark is nothing short of a travesty. The diocese will make any future move Stephen may wish to make to another diocese difficult by messing around with his safe to receive letter and his chance of preferment and onward career progression has vanished. The diocese should be completely ashamed of itself.
Who will challenge safeguarding if it carries with it such a risk and has anything actually been done about Stephen’s report or does the rebuke mean it’s gone in the bin?
The diocese thought nothing of sharing my mental health history with all and sundry without my permission when it suited them.
Beyond angry with the hypocrisy of this diocese.
The internet has made available a huge amount of information for anyone researching safeguarding including court cases and newspaper reports – especially useful here are provincial newspapers. The IICSA hearings plus some video footage are all available – any person has now a chance to follow up on past cases, events and what was said and by whom – less places to hide.
There’s also the archive of surviving church – invaluable…
Last year, I decided to learn John 3:19 to add it to my repertoire of memorised Bible verses. Let’s see if I have it right – you can check.
“This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be revealed, but whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be plainly seen that God is in all he does.”
So well put.
Does this perhaps reflect the current constituency of the diocese. Gone are the days when South Bank religion was an effective influence; current congregands have feelings of exclusion.
Hi Angusian. Are you referring to any particular diocese – perhaps Southwark – or is this a general comment on the C of E?
And, excuse my ignorance, but perhaps you could explain what ‘South Bank religion’ is? I’m guessing it’s not the Southwark free church mission hall where my father was converted?
The term South Bank religion is not to be taken literally but sociologically as a technical term referring to the 1960s-onwards trends that came to be known by that tag (think: Nick Stacey, Alan Race, some inheritors of John Robinson).
I’ve heard of John Robinson of course, but not of Nick Stacey or Alan Race. Google is no help either.
OK maybe googling Bp Mervyn Stockwood. Or James Bogle’s book on this movement in the 1960s. Or googling ‘Southwark Ordination Course’. Take a place like Vauxhall sociologically; S Chalke’s Oasis Church or St John’s Waterloo would presuppose that kind of normality or constituency.
Chiefly, I suppose, because John Robinson wrote ‘Honest to God’ whilst bishop of Woolwich (1959-69).
Nick Stacey became very well known in the 1970s for transforming the ancient (though rebuilt) parish church of St Mary’s Woolwich, with the aisles being converted into units for creches, counselling, small businesses and the like. He later went into social services on a full time basis, and remained active and publicly engaged even when in retirement at St Peter in Thanet (Broadstairs). https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/14/the-rev-nicolas-stacey-obituary. Alas, St Mary’s had a tiny congregation when I went there in 2011, and seems to be almost permanently locked; the Pentecostal church in the old cinema on the north-eastern edge of the churchyard was heaving, by contrast (partly a tribute to rapidly changing demographics).
Stacey married Anne Bridgeman, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Bridgeman (a major-general). As such, he was almost certainly used by Tony Jay as the model for the trendy vicar who has converted his church into a centre for various social services (including family planning) and is candidate for the bishopric in the episode ‘The Bishop’s Gambit’ in season 1 of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’. It includes a well-known exchange between Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker in which the trendy vicar’s suitability is discussed. Appleby remarks that the trendy vicar has ‘an eminently suitable wife’, and Hacker notes that this must mean that she is devoted to good works. No, says, Appleby, ‘she is the daughter of the earl of Dorchester’.
Alan Race was incumbent at St Margaret’s Lee, which is only a short distance to the west of Woolwich. Other notable south bankers included Eric James (St George’s Camberwell), Paul Oestreicher (Ascension Blackheath), David Edwards (provost of Southwark), etc. In other words, many of the titans of liberal Anglicanism in the 1960s and 1970s.
The internet can be a force for good in situations where the powerful abuse and oppress the powerless, and there is no support given, no listening and where reconciliation is offered INSTEAD of action – which is a re-abuse of the survivor.
It is a way of holding the powerful to account when there is no other option.
It should be used a last resort tho – after the relevant people have had a chance to do the right thing.
My rector submitted a report supporting his clergy member who wrote a public blog about me – the blog told lies about me, and outed me inaccurately. The blog constituted homophobic and spiritual abuse.
In his CDM statement, the rector claimed he ‘first met me’ at a large conference in our church, where he said I asked him for money. Both these statements are total falsehoods.
The rector also asked for this statement to be withheld as confidential from me. This was ruled against.
Presumably he asked for this as it’s not a great look to be supporting a vicar who wrote a homophobic blog whilst lying about and throwing your lgbt congregant under the bus for daring to hold them to account, and denying that you know them at all – all the time marketing your church as inclusive of lgbt.
The conference was a large gathering teaching other churches how to be inclusive of lgbtq people, which took place almost 2 years ago now. I was volunteering on the church’s team, welcoming people into the conference, queue managing to keep people out of the rain, and doing a reading.
It will have been obvious to anyone there I was not a new face in that church. I had interacted with the rector many times over the previous 10 months I had been a part of the church.
It has been absolutely exhausting trying to get the C of E to take action on this and I have been treated appallingly. All that’s been done is a rebuke for the blog writer, and a disturbing amount of image-management of this church.
But I know before God that the reason I needed action was because my desire is to prevent such treatment happening to someone else. It had a terrible impact on my mental health- it was such a psychic shock to be publicly outed and shamed online by a vicar in an ‘inclusive’ church.
I want to avert any further tragedies.
I spent several months trying to get action before realising I was getting passed back and forth between the rector and the archdeacon. I asked the rector if the vicar in question had been given a verbal warning and he said she had. This turned out to be nonsense.
The archdeacon told me in reference to the blog writer that maybe there had been some ‘disremembering.’
This isn’t a word, unless it’s in a George Orwell novel and I missed it.
I realised I could not trust any of the people involved. That all would lie to protect the image of the church.
I whistleblew to the nspcc, and reported to the police who recorded the blog as a homophobic hate incident, then brought a CDM.
I am one of…
the 2% of the laity successful in bringing a CDM against a clergy member.
Consider what would happen in another profession if you chose to write about a colleague/ student / contractor / patient etc in such a slanderous and homophobic manner.
Consider why a mere 2% of CDMs brought by laity are successful? The power imbalance is absolute.
THAT’S why we need the internet. If the church fails to take appropriate action to deal with unsafe and abusive clergy, prefers to cover up and exile/shun/exclude/bully any whistleblowers, all the while offering meaningless apologies with no action or support for survivors-
We need to expose this.