In the past few days, I have been having a Twitter conversation with Gilo and a few others about the forthcoming hearings of IICSA which begin tomorrow (Monday). This is the Independent Inquiry into the Anglican Church and its failures over child protection, particularly in the Diocese of Chichester. The Bishop with oversight of Safeguarding for the Church, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, has already indicated in Synod that he believes the next two years will be a fairly torrid time for the Church of England. This is because he anticipates how many historic failures in this area will become public knowledge, some for the first time. Two things in summary have to be faced by the Church. The first is the fact that some of its employees have been complicit in acts of child sexual abuse. The second is the way that church authorities, including bishops, have floundered in their attempts to deal with this issue. Incidents of criminal activity have been in some cases hushed up in a desperate attempt to avoid scandal. On some occasions the perpetrators were quietly disciplined and their offence buried in filing cabinets in diocesan offices. On other occasions victims were listened to but subsequently all the records of the conversations disappeared. In short, children suffered but the Church seemed unwilling to face up to the horror of what was happening. From the point of view of some victims, justice was for decades denied, apparently to preserve the reputation of the national Church.

My own published study of power abuse which is now nearly 20 years old never touched on the topic of harmful behaviour towards children. Such activity would obviously be criminal and I was not in the business of researching illegal behaviour. The stories that I did in fact record were in some cases just as bad in different ways. Exploitation of vulnerable people, whether sexually, emotionally or spiritually is always a serious matter. I only recorded one criminal act, a rape, but this had already been investigated by the police. No prosecution had followed. What my studies did sensitise me to is the way that it was extremely easy for the power exercised by church leaders and ministers to do serious harm. Many people who find their way to church are on a journey from vulnerability but hoping to find healing. A narcissistic church pastor or leader may well exercise his power in inappropriate ways. It is this imbalance and subsequent abuse of power which was a constant theme in my book.

My current conversation with Gilo touches on the power that Anglican bishops possess to sort out or aggravate the abuse cases that come to their attention. I have never interviewed a bishop on this topic. I did however receive letters from women when my book was published who had approached Anglican bishops to complain about clergy who had had ‘affairs’ with them. Several of them expressed their frustration at the way the bishop concerned refused to engage with the priest who had crossed professional boundaries. My impression is that some bishops were unwilling to get too involved in such cases, if no open scandal had emerged. I wonder whether these conversations with a bishop were ever recorded and put into a file. The existence of or not of good records of clergy malfeasance may well be revealed by the Independent Inquiry in the coming weeks.

My response to a comment by Gilo was that an Anglican bishop would probably be the person in the Church most likely to identify with and protect the institution. Although I did not say this I am wondering whether the powers that be choose bishops by seeking out those clergy who are by nature and temperament most institution friendly. Another way of putting this would be to ask whether many bishops carry a ‘gene’ that tends to put loyalty to the institution first. The general public is likely to notice if it is shown that bishops and authority figures in the Church have behaved less than honourably in order to preserve a status-quo of privilege and power. That is evidently how the Catholic Church has behaved and clearly it has rebounded badly on them. The charge that the institution and its reputation has been placed above of the needs and rights of suffering individuals is a serious one. A similar crisis is overtaking overseas charities and we see what has happened to their standing in a very short space of time. Almost overnight they have slipped badly in the public’s estimation. Until a few days ago they were the honourable providers of food and medical care to the world’s poor. Today in many eyes they have become exploitative post-colonialists who prey on the vulnerable women and children they are supposed to be helping. Gilo and others have done much to warn the church of the way that its reputation will be severely affected if they adopt the damage limitation policy that appears to be the advice coming from insurers. The Church has a great deal of work to do to show that it is genuinely on the side of justice, truth and love.

As we noted in the comment by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, things are going to be extremely difficult for the Church of England in the near future. Institutional attitudes that have been taken for granted for decades are going to examined and criticised by many people. The court of public opinion is unlikely to be impressed by what will be revealed. What might come out of this situation which is positive? My hope is that the bishops as well as the wider Church may learn something new about power. I am hoping that the power and influence that the Church still exercises will be seen to be able to respond far better to vulnerability than in the past. I am here not just thinking of survivors but every manifestation of wounded humanity. I look for a power in the Church that that can respond to brokenness in all its forms. Every Christian is somewhere on a journey from weakness to strength. Sometimes the weakness is connected with pain, grief or suffering. At other times the journey is from sin to forgiveness. Every minister should be alongside Christian followers on these journeys. The Church is or should be a place of healing. Everything the Church does should be about wholeness and its implementation in some form. Were that vision to be alive in every congregation, then every citizen looking in from the outside would be able to see, not scandal, introversion and privilege but service and support for all. We would be able to recapture William Temple’s vision of the Church as organised primarily for those who are not its members. Also, we would be closer to rediscovering what Jesus meant when he said ‘I am among you as your servant’. ‘Whoever would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all.’

Sally continues her story from the point where realised that something was amiss at her church.
We might describe the main aspects of the spiritual abuse recorded as having two parts. In the first place there is the hounding of a mentally fragile individual. This is followed up by the utterly inhuman sanction of disfellowshipping or ostracism.

It was around this time that I noticed that a friend, H, to whom I was close, wasn’t coming to the various SCC meetings. I enquired of the leaders about her and was told she was in rebellion and had left the church. Several members, always glancing over their shoulders to make sure no-one else was listening, then told me, sotto voce, that H had merely questioned some of the teachings and practices of the church, and for that, she had been severely and harshly disciplined.

I wanted to see H, so I called at her home. She wasn’t there; imagine my shock when her next-door neighbour, who had seen me standing on H’s doorstep, called over the fence to tell me that H was in the local psychiatric clinic, and what was more, she’d been sectioned there. “She was acting very strangely; she was suffering from delusions of persecution,” H’s neighbour told me.

I went to the psychiatric clinic, where I found poor H in a dreadful state. However, she was lucid, and when she saw me, burst into tears.

The staff, thinking I’d upset her, asked me to leave, but H told them she wanted me to stay. “I’m upset because of what’s happened to me,” she told them, “not because of Sally.” We went outside into the quiet wooded grounds to talk, and then the whole horrifying tale came pouring out.

H had become concerned about the interference of SCC in every area of her life. She raised this with her shepherd; H’s shepherd then went to her shepherd, and that shepherd went to CT, the Pastor’s wife. Subsequently, all three came and confronted H in her home. (H deliberately used the word “confronted”; she didn’t say they met with her).

They told H that they were merely concerned for her spiritual well-being and wanted to make sure she did not make any wrong decisions or choices. H told them that she was not allowed to make decisions and choices without consulting them. “You make my decisions and choices for me!” she told them, “I can’t make my own anymore!”

“We know what’s best for you,” they told her.

When H questioned this, she was told she was in rebellion. However, she stood her ground. The leaders told her they were very unhappy with her attitude and were going to pray she would be brought to repentance. They then left.

Shortly after this, H was summoned – word deliberately used – to a meeting convened by K and CT. When she arrived, she found not only K and CT, but also her shepherd, her shepherd’s shepherd, and other leaders waiting for her. They were all sitting in a line of chairs with an empty chair facing them on which H, on entering the room, was told to sit.

KT took the lead and told H they were very unhappy with her attitude. He went on to say that they were only concerned for her well-being, and that included making the right choices and decisions. H was then asked if she had anything she wanted to say.

H told them that surely these choices were for her to make, and not for the leadership of SCC. CT told her that they advised her of her choices because they knew what was best for her. H questioned this. Big mistake!

“Are you not prepared to listen to us and to do as we suggest?” she was asked.

“I don’t think I can anymore,” she told them. “My life’s no longer my own.”

K and CT then told her she was in rebellion, and that unless she repented and agreed to be put under discipline, she would have to leave the church.

“But I’ve done nothing wrong!” she told them.

“You’re rebelling against God!” she was told. “You’re rebelling against His established orders, and His leaders!”

H told them she did not agree. She was told to leave the church; she had been disfellowshipped.

In by now a thoroughly wretched state, H got up from her chair and stumbled out of the room, tears blinding her eyes. Not an ounce of compassion was shown her. As she shut the door behind her, the words “You’re in rebellion!” were ringing in her ears.

She was completely and utterly beside herself, cast adrift without an anchor. Where could she turn? She did not feel she could go back to the church she had left, nor could she return to her friends, because she. like me, had turned her back on them and cut them out of her life. In any case, she struggled to believe that her church was a true church anyway, as she believed what she had been told by SCC, that they had been brought into being to fulfill God’s true purposes; more traditional churches had not “caught the vision”, and so could play no part.

H began to question her very existence, and to believe she had lost her salvation and was destined for hell. She became more and more confused, bewildered, desperate and distressed, and was finding it more and more difficult to function.

After having a psychiatric examination and evaluation, H was sectioned for a month.

After having heard H’s horrifying tale, I told her that while I did not doubt what she said, I could not believe that SCC members would follow her, as when one was disfellowshipped one was treated as if one was dead, and completely cut off and ignored. I was putting into words what we all knew, but hardly dare admit. H nodded in agreement. We clung to one another and wept.

At the next meeting of SCC I attended, I couldn’t get H out of my mind. I decided I must speak to F, my shepherd, about her. Having done so, F told me it wasn’t my business, and why was I visiting H anyway? She had been disfellowshipped!

My answer to F to both of her questions was that H was a friend, and therefore it was my business. “She’s in a dreadful state!” I told F.

Shortly after that, I received my own summons.

I walked into the room, and the same scenario that had confronted H now confronted me. There was the same line of chairs, with one facing them for me to sit on. In the line of chairs sat F, my shepherd, her shepherd, C and KT, and other leaders.

They came straight to the point. I was told I was in rebellion, and that they had been observing my rebellious attitude and ways for some time. They demanded I repent and be put under discipline.

I told them that I had not done anything wrong, and that I therefore did not need to repent. This made them very angry, and, they told me, proved their point. I was in rebellion.

Again, they demanded I repent. I refused.

“You are no longer a member of this church!” KT told me. “You’re disfellowshipped! Go!”

I did so, shutting the door behind me.

Sometime after this, I went to the city centre with T, my unsaved friend from school. T and I were walking down the road opposite the cathedral when I saw A, a close friend from SCC, walking towards us. He hadn’t seen me. Breaking away from T, I ran towards him, calling his name. A looked up and saw me. The next thing I knew, he had ran across the road, bringing the traffic screeching to a halt as drivers slammed on their brakes to avoid him. They shouted and swore; taking advantage while the traffic was at a standstill, I flew across the road in pursuit of him. I soon caught him up, because, no disrespect intended, he was rather rotund and not very fast on his feet. Barring his way, I stood in front of him.

“A,” I said. “Why are you ignoring me? What have I done?”

“You’re dead to me!” A retorted. “Dead! I don’t want anything to do with you! Go away!” Turning on his heel, he walked off.

T, having witnessed this whole incident, came over to me. “We’re going home!” she told me, and leading me back across the road, we got on a bus.

Arriving at T’s home, she sat me down in her cosy living kitchen and made tea. Just as she was pouring it out, L, T’s much older half-brother came in. After having poured him a mug of tea, T told L what had happened. L was incensed.

“And they call themselves Christians!” he declared angrily. “That’s not a church; it’s a cult!”

Further sections of Sally’s story will be shared at a later date.