by David Brown
All bullying represents a breach of our Lord’s second great commandment – ‘to love your neighbour as yourself’. There is mounting evidence of the bullying of parish clergy by their overseers in our Church, whether through avoidance or misuse of the existing disciplinary measures. This represents a failure in both following Christ’s commandment and episcopal leadership. Such behaviour, observed across several dioceses, is causing real personal harm, but, though reported by many voices, this is consistently unheeded. There is, therefore, an urgent demand to scrutinise the culture that allows for such behaviour. If such allegations are correct, the Church of England has lost its way and is seriously off message. It risks being an organisation in denial, distracting itself with memories of its former moral authority and with ideas of exceptionalism and entitlement, described in the IICSA Report as a “culture of clericalism”.
The question arises how our Lord’s commandment appears overlooked in the institutional Church. In this article, I compare Christian living today with the biblical revelation on how we should live as individuals.
Jesus spoke to Peter in words seldom noticed today, ‘I will build my Church….’ (Matt 16.18). Today’s Church seems determined to build itself organisationally, with Church leaders applying much effort and considerable finance to the objective of Church Growth rather than Kingdom Growth, somehow conflating the two, promoting what Angela Tilby as describes ‘organisational thinking….so making our bishops and deans believe they are meant to be organisation men and women, managers, top-down thinkers.’ This leads to the promotion and implementation of approaches like ‘Mission Action Planning’, and other initiatives that don’t spring from local parish life.
Any striving for worldly success, however worthy, gives rise to ambition and competitiveness. When this serves ill-defined concepts of ‘success’ and how it may be measured, we have a recipe for undermining, rather than promoting, the work of the Church. Such an approach is surely the utter reverse of the model that Jesus gave with the washing of the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, servant leadership. One explanation for increasing reports of clergy feeling bullied might lie on the pressure senior clergy feel to succeed. Does not a skewed focus on ‘Church Leadership’ distract from a greater focus on ‘Christ Followership’?
I find nothing significant in the New Testament about church rank. Its presence in the Body of Christ is therefore problematic. It doesn’t sit well with the ‘servant’ role, of which Jesus gave an accurate demonstration, his own intention being ‘to be among you as one who serves’. It requires and then creates an ever-deepening humility. I think a lack of rank-consciousness may be glimpsed in Gal 2.11. The apostles had freedom to disagree and challenge. However, both Jesus and St Paul, because of their God-given roles, had to be tough and demanding on more than one occasion, neither were ever punitive. In any organisation, it is important for everyone to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them, with accountability for proper performance an essential feature. The inherited culture and language within the Church has failed to address this.
Similarly, the New Testament does not describe either Jesus or St Paul devising, rolling out and imposing any strategic plan on others. The word ‘plan’ and its variations appear in the gospels solely describing the manoeuvres of the High Priest, scribes and Pharisees (e.g. John 11.53;12.10; Acts 25.3). Jesus’ approach was to set a living example. The Apostles were not being obedient to strategy documents (Acts 5.20; Acts 10 – Peter and Cornelius). Paul was directed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 13), not a Mission Action Plan. To a remarkable degree, his life was dominated by severe circumstances—expelled from synagogues and cities, often imprisoned, shipwrecked four times, adrift at sea for a night and day, and having spontaneous visions. All these defined God’s way for him. If Paul had focused on safe-guarding his reputation, his apostleship would have been very different.
Where the apostles went, the Kingdom grew. It was a combination of being invited, being obedient to God and the Lord’s transforming power that affected the people they encountered. The reality of God was conveyed by the apostles’ lifestyles, and by the words given to them to use. God’s presence and fragrant love were palpable. They were not adopting management techniques but following God’s pattern demonstrated in Jesus. This involved engagement with people wherever they were found. They were not seeking to build any organisational structure.
After his resurrection, Jesus said to his followers, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 19.20-23). Is this today’s pattern? Are we consciously sent out, like Jesus, in the Spirit’s power, seeking to change people’s lives for the better? Or do we, embarrassed by this task, offer to our confused world a jumble of doctrines, liturgy, visual effects and concepts which do not readily connect with those without a faith in the living God? To what extent are the Gifts and the Fruit of the Spirit looked for and discerned in the appointment of Church Leaders?
God’s revealed way is not necessarily intellectual. Jesus’ main longing in his prayer in John 17 for people to communicate his glory (vs.1-10) and his unity (vs.20-24). Surely these are the ‘world-changers’ for his Church to channel, their significance being that neither can be faked – they are either palpable or absent. Genuine demonstration and display of Christ-like behaviours in everyday life can, on their own, bring conviction of God’s present reality, much more than liturgical ritual or any contrived special techniques.
What kind of leadership is adopted is key, a topic not notably addressed. The concept of ‘leadership’ can too easily be interpreted as one in which one person directs another—the idea of a reciprocal relationship in which each party can learn from the other being totally absent. Any ‘Leadership training’ not based on gospel values will be counterproductive, if it prompts striving for results by control-techniques, and managerialism. ‘Leadership skills’ have great value if they nourish the led and foster godly relationships, a proper father-son/parent-child relationship where space is allowed in which to develop a healthy degree of individuality. Although the Son, one feels that Christ was still his own man. Powerful teaching and training is best achieved through example, something, sadly, overlooked in too many places, diminishing leader/led relationships as a consequence.
Translating policies into actions requires appropriate systems. However, systems involve people and so a proper understanding of how people function in all their diversity is paramount. Is this not where senior clergy fail? Little can be achieved without cooperation. This is not gained by directives and coercion, but by persuasion and sound argument, winning hearts and minds. A culture of cooperation is not aided by our church’s pattern of independence at all levels, whether it is diocesan bishops to archbishops, archdeacons to bishops, parish priests to archdeacons or to the laity they serve, each operates in personal fiefdoms. Cooperation and coordinated effort seem undervalued, with some episcopal actions often appearing more punitive than compassionate and restorative.
Should not the qualities such as being filled with love through the Spirit, being a self-disciplined follower of ‘the Way,’ possessing integrity, self-denial, and trust in God to direct their path, an ability to ‘read a landscape’ and to relate well with others, be necessities in the leaders of the Church? Leadership qualities may be enhanced through training, but are they not supremely secured by the Spirit-led appointment of those whom God has prepared, as Christ was prepared?
An emphasis on ‘measurable success’, ‘church growth’ and ’leadership skills’ is deflection from the core need to deploy love and risks opening the door to bullying. With mounting pressures to ‘succeed’—for leaders’ own ego, advancement or to ensure financial viability—will not human ‘initiatives increase, together with pressure on front-line clergy to demonstrate ‘ministerial effectiveness’? Failure to achieve is easily interpreted as being obstructive and bullying becomes only a ‘whisker’ away. Leaders, unless they walk in the Spirit, will fail to recognise the natural dangers of a situation they have created and then deal with others disrespecting their dignity.
So, what might be done about the bullying of clergy by their overseers? Oswald Chambers reminds us “If we trust to our wits instead of to God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. …. Our natural life must not rule, God must rule in us.” (‘My Utmost for His Highest’, 28th Dec, cf. Matt 18.3).
The secular societies have progressed from autocracies to democracies, regulating the exercise of power. The Church needs to go on a similar journey, however painful it might be, recognising this elephant in the room underlying much unhappiness. Recourse to legal means to impose episcopal will smacks of Robert Maxwell. All Christians, not least leaders, must arrest any slide into a culture in the Church that oppresses, rather than one underpinned by mutual respect and compassion, regaining confidence in that ministry pattern described by St Paul (|Romans 8.4-8)
These bullies who have reached high office, have passed through the power ranks, behaving the same way. But a vicar bullying their Reader doesn’t register. So any opportunity to put things right is missed. Bullying is serious at any level.
Lower ranks. I corrected it, and auto correct changed it again!
Thank you David. Helpful article. I find the opening definition noteworthy, that bullying is designed to hurt. We perhaps need another word for some situations where people get hurt without that being anybody’s intention. Collateral damage as it were. Still very painful.
That today’s established Church has drifted a long way from the New Testament is undoubtedly true. The Establishment has had two millennia to evolve into what it is now. But is it reformable back into what theoretically it should have looked like?
Fast forward to 2022 and you have generations of clergy who largely joined what they thought was the church, into a model of life from which they cannot realistically withdraw. Paul’s original exhortation to “tent-making” and self sufficiency has become stipends, vicarages and a very expensive pension scheme. A family vicar with mouths to feed and a future to protect is not going to vote against the status quo. Realistically who could blame her?
For me there are two almost completely separate things going on each Sunday morning. One part resembles what David describes above, and the other, an entrenched institution is the other.
Real church didn’t stop with Covid 19 despite the buildings being closed. Much church isn’t just the vicar at all of course, with the whole Body of Christ serving each other in the best way they could. Phone calls, FaceTime, shopping delivered to doorsteps, much Christianity was right there.
The issues of bullying, enforced management techniques, sales efforts etc, largely result from desperate attempts to save the institutional structure rather than the work on the ground. That said, we should not give up calling out the egregious abuses we hear about.
The institution of the Church isn’t reformable in the short or even medium term, despite the eloquence or otherwise of our arguments.
Quantum change does occur with major events, for example Covid again. Some of the lost income won’t be replaced. With an organisation in financial distress, such quanta have a disproportionately great effect. Typical in such times is a turning in on itself, an increase in infighting, bullying and scapegoating, scrambling around and clutching the remaining resources. Sadly those at the top are often the very last to go, as the institution mirrors the secular dinosaurs of, for example, high street department stores.
That said I still have great hope for church but not Church.
Real church didn’t stop with Covid 19
It did in my area. The Church of England stats are misleading. Eg local vicar popped up on Zoom for 30 minutes on a Sunday. As she has four churches in her care, that counts as four acts of worship. One of those churches was locked for 14 months and has now gone from a service every week to nine services a year. I live in an area with very s-l-o-w internet and no mobile signal so keeping contact online was difficult.
The circumstances for bullying or bad relations has long since gone as church attendance in 2019 was already low. I no longer attend but know local attendance is between one and four in at least eight local churches.
Steve, thanks. I discussed the way we might get back to church basics in my books The Priorities of Jesus and Follow Jesus, available on Amazon or from http://www.diychurch.co.uk when I have updated it.
That excellent statement early on ‘It risks being an organisation in denial, distracting itself with memories of its former moral authority and with ideas of exceptionalism and entitlement’ also describes the establishment that rules Britain. The C of E and the secular state are suffering from similar maladies.
At least with the political establishment there is a ballot box and at least some of them can be voted out, unlike the Church
Two books explain this resemblance extremely well, firstly a ‘psychohistory of Britain’ focusing on the political establishment:
Duffell, Nick (2014), Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion, (Lone Arrow Press: London).
and secondly, focusing on the Church:
Gardner, Fiona (2021), Sex, Power, Control: Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church (Lutterworth Press: Oxford).
The similar maladies in Church and State stem from the same source. The cure is not entirely obvious, but Black Lives Matter and similar empowering social movements may contribute to an effective treatment.
Thank you David Brown.
My concern is not the one on one bullying which is not so common but the way the church has embedded the practice of bullying into its managerialism.
1) Remove Freehold and its protection as part of the checks and balances..
2) Bring in Common Tenure.
3) Apply CDM as a tool which brings pain to the alleged perpetrators and hangs like a sword of Damocles over us all.
4) Remind the clergy of their inadequacy with questionnaires, and checks on mission practices and effectiveness.
5) Cascade initiatives and strategies from above to remind us of our inadequacy or incompetence.
6) Increase demands for money – take the Parishes’ dinner money – reminding clergy that they have failed to up the giving.
7) Not enough bums on pews – 2 or 3 gathered together is a sign of failure. An insidious and persistent message.
8) Bring in the young! This is a hymn sung for decades. Those pushing it now, blaming and harassing clergy about their failure, were largely failures at this in their own day.
9) Continuous pastoral reorganisation, or the threat of it, creates anxieties for vulnerable clergy bullied by it into taking on more churches.
10) The aim to have lay-led churches is saying to priests, “Your calling is outdated and not needed. It doesn’t work.“ Dismissive, insulting and hurtful. It completely misses the point that the vocations of the laity are in their families, communities and workplaces. The church’s role is to serve them and think with them theologically about that task. They are not to be co-opted as free labour to sustain an institution for the sake of its hierarchy.
This and more outlines institutionalised bullying. It suggests that we have developed management practices designed to manipulate a weakened clergy in order to force them to do what the hierarchy wants through the structures the hierarchy controls. It is the practice of the powerful dominating weaker and more vulnerable people.
This is a shorter version of a paper written a couple of weeks ago.
Is there any evidence that bullying as a technique is at all effective? Are there more bums on seats as a result of the threats and intimidation? Has income increased as a result of the force applied?
It won’t help a church to grow, but it will stop anyone complaining.
Surely you yourself have illustrated the counter to thus argument by regularly describing your own experiences of being bullied, English Athena? This and other blogs contains daily reports of others’ experiences too. And rightly so in my opinion. Not just individuals either, but in Winchester’s case, an entire diocese.
Oh yes. Not quite sure I’m with you, though. What did you think I meant?
That bullying would ‘stop anyone complaining’. But they are complaining. Hope I haven’t misunderstood.
Ah. Yes I see. But on a day to day basis, I never did. I’ve still never officially complained in my former Diocese. I was too frightened of what they would do. In that sense, it works.
I’d love to read the full paper, Paul. Thank you for the short version. It encapsulates much of my experience as a parson in the CofE. Rather naively, I didn’t see all this as bullying, but rather as staggering ineptitude by incompetents who were themselves inadequate as parish clergy so they went into office jobs where they could lord it over their former mates. It came across as continual harassment though they dressed it up as “support”, thereby revealing their lack of imagination, empathy, and emotional intelligence. As I said at several pointless training courses, it felt as if whatever we did was not enough. That is not support. In the first week of my last job I was visited by a “mission adviser” who was not interested in knowing anything about the local situation but nevertheless felt qualified to tell me what I should be doing in this increasing Islamic area. He offered to pray with me. The church is run by people who have no idea what parish life is like NOW and whose experience of it, if they had any, is years or even decades old.
Thank you Stanley. You would be welcome to the paper, such as it is. How do I send it?
email to wsmonkhouse at gmail dot com. many thanks
I largely agree with what you say, Paul, except for the statement that one-on-one bullying is ‘not so common’. It’s not only tragically common, it’s endemic in the Church of England. The Clergy Discipline Measure was in part designed to address the worst cases, after the Lincoln Wars in the 1990s became a national scandal. It has failed, however, and is itself now used as an instrument of bullying, as you suggest.
It would be interesting to hear from readers of other denominations; how are things in your vineyard?
Excellent!! In a nutshell!!
‘Genuine demonstration and display of Christ-like behaviours in everyday life can, on their own, bring conviction of God’s present reality, much more than liturgical ritual or any contrived special techniques.’
I think the above was my favourite extract from Brown’s article. It rang so true for me. Clergy who have bothered to engage with messages of support in difficult times, a thoughtful card on a difficult anniversary, a shared cup of tea or a pizza. It’s actually not that difficult. But it does require understanding of human nature, care and a little effort.
It’s quite possible to avoid this if we become “managerial” and delegate these simple rituals of good pastoring to others. I suspect that some of those in high positions never had the basic skills in the first place.