I have just finished reading two books which coincidentally were published recently on a similar topic. Both books, Undivided and Just Love are by women who ‘came out’ as homosexuals in the setting of a strong personal evangelical belief. There are other strands which link the books. Both women were subjected to exorcism. Each of them is a highly educated articulate individual, educated at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. By the world’s standards they have enjoyed success and achieved a great deal within their professional lives. A further theme links these works written by Vicky Beeching and Jayne Ozanne. That is the importance and love of music. As testimonies of two Christian women passing through the trauma of coming out to acknowledge same sex attraction, they are powerful accounts of cultures and theologies clashing. Both were brought up as conservative Christians, Vicky a Pentecostal and Jayne an evangelical Anglican. No reader can finish these works without having their attitudes affected by listening to their stories. Church people, conservative and liberal alike will be helped to understand more deeply the issues that exist on both sides of a deep chasm of misunderstanding.

The freedom of this blog enables me not to attempt a formal review of these books. I have the option simply to comment on aspects of the women’s stories which strike me most forcibly. In each of the narratives the authors record how much personal suffering was involved in having feelings that they knew were unacceptable to family and church. Vicky eventually publicly acknowledged her homosexuality only in her late 30s. On the way her growing awareness of the nature of her feelings had resulted in depression, loneliness and suicidal episodes. Also, the stress of keeping her sexuality private caused a nervous breakdown and a serious psychosomatic illness. This put her out of circulation for over a year. At this point she was working among Christian congregations in the States as a successful singer/composer. Her contract with the publishing company that was her sponsor required her to uphold Christian standards and this of course precluded any hint of same-sex attraction. Scandal of any kind had to be avoided at all costs on the part of someone who publicly proclaimed her faith in the front of huge crowds. The strain of knowing that her true identity was other than that on public view eventually proved too much. Her public self-identification as gay that burst out was for her a crucial moment in the recovery of her mental and physical well-being.

Jayne’s story also narrates a coming out and this story includes its own periods of darkness, emptiness, loneliness and despair. Being a member of an institutional church, the Church of England, did allow Jayne the possibility of finding some sympathetic individuals to support her. Vicky, on the other hand, having been a life-long member of Pentecostal congregations had virtually no one to turn to when times were hard. Meanwhile Jayne was moving in the highest circles of church life, being a member of the Archbishops Council. This meant that she got to know all the leaders of the Church of England as well as all the prominent evangelical Anglicans. When she finally announced her gay identity, the response to her was typically one of silence. The ambiguity of such silence has troubled her as she did not know how to interpret it. Vicky on the other hand has met (and continues to meet) with raw vitriol and words of hatred.

When Vicky announced her homosexual identity to the world in a newspaper interview back in 2014, I wrote about it on this blog. I had never heard of Vicky until that point, but it was clear that this announcement was of some importance in the world of evangelical and independent churches. Vicky records in her book how almost immediately she was brought face-to-face in a Channel 4 television interview with the notorious Scott Lively, an American homophobic agitator. He had been responsible in part for the anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda. Lively had also written an outrageous book called The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi party. Channel 4 wanted to maximise two contrasting points of view. Lively trotted out the old assertions that the gay identity was a chosen path which could be overcome by prayer and the power of God. Same-sex relationships were like addiction to drink or drugs.

The correspondence and emails that Vicky received after her emergence as gay were of two kinds. The first group thanked her sincerely for enabling them as individuals to acknowledge their own sexual identity while remaining Christian as Vicky was doing. The second group had mined the Old Testament for passages which expressed the way God punished those who worshipped idols or chose a life of sin. Worse still were the conversations she had with Christian friends and former colleagues. Instead of the love, welcome and easy friendship she used to enjoy there was an element of distance and distrust. Religious bookstalls stopped stocking her products and tour promoters no longer invited her to take part in Christian festivals. The world she had occupied professionally and socially for 15 years shut her out and left her out in the cold.

We have discussed before on this blog the way that the gay issue has become such a defining issue among conservative evangelicals. Only in the past few days the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem has divided the Anglican church into those who do and those who do not accept the conservative understanding of gay marriage. Other issues like the ordination of women and the possibility of divorce (clearly forbidden by Jesus!) are fudged or left to one side. The conservative Christian world, (and we are not of course just talking about Anglicans) which sung Vicky’s music until her coming out, now forbid it as though they might be contaminated by singing it. The theological and practical implications of such a mind-set are boggling and too extensive to explore here.

Both Vicky and Jayne address in their writing the theological implications of same-sex attraction. Vicky with an Oxford degree in theology gives the reader a simple but helpful guide to all the relevant texts. She also expounds simply the exegesis that exists to show how many of the proof texts against same-sex attraction are at best ambiguous. From the nature of the ‘sin’ of the men of Sodom to the meaning of Paul’s strange word in the first chapter of Romans, the reader is introduced to the complexity of discovering the biblical message about sexuality. To be able to say, ‘the Bible clearly teaches’, is clearly impossible from both their testimonies. Far more clearly ‘unbiblical’ in nature are the words of hate and threats of violence that both women, particularly Vicky, have endured. In condemning Jane and Vicky, these opponents are functioning apparently without any reference to the Bible’s teaching about love. It is indeed hard to see how the Christian faith can ever be promoted by the encouragement of threats or sheer malign hatred. Such things continue to exist within the orbits of the Christian church. They are a stain on the integrity of the church’s reputation. Perhaps these books which both promote Christian love, albeit of an unconventional kind, will do more to get to the heart of the Christian proclamation which is offered to a sad and sometimes mixed-up world where hate and division are so commonly found.

http://survivingchurch.org/2014/08/19/the-vicky-beeching-affair/ for earlier comments about Vicky’s story.

This morning and throughout today (Friday) the BBC and the Press have focussed on a story about the report by Sir Roger Singleton. This report was a review of the Past Cases Review (PCR) undertaken by the Church of England and published in 2010. The original review was designed to uncover any cases of historic sexual abuse by clergy and other leaders which were in the files kept by dioceses across the Church of England. In the event this highly expensive examination of files only revealed 13 cases of past abuse which merited further investigation. 40,000 files were examined over a two to three year period. The new Singleton review contains a fairly trenchant critique of the 2010 report and shows the considerable weaknesses in the PCR process. First of all there was a lack of consistency in the way information was gathered for the 2010 report. Singleton also identified a tendency to find ways of minimising inconvenient evidence and emphasising the positive whenever possible. Another fact was that only the files of active serving clergy were examined. This left out the retired clergy, of which a large number are still active, and those deceased. In short even if we were to ignore all the shortcomings of method and analysis, the PCR showed an extraordinary lack of interest in those who had been abused or harmed. Everything in the PCR was about identifying potential abusers while ignoring any victims. The enquiry was working with the principle that contacting alleged victims was to be avoided to ‘minimise the distress’ to them.

It is a curious turn in logic to do what the PCR has done which is to describe a problem of abuse by only listing a handful of suspected felons. A common-sense approach to the problem would start at the other end. Criminal activity is most obviously best described by interviewing its victims. In the event no attempt was made to speak to any of them or even allow them a voice. In some topsy-turvy way of approaching the problem, the victims were thought to have nothing to offer to the review process. The investigators preferred to deal with the information obtainable from the files. If you were a victim of an abusing clergyman who was retired or dead, the church appeared to have even less interest in your case. Even the victims of serving clergy went in many cases unheard. One of the complaints against currently serving bishops is that a suspected abuser was not inhibited in any way from active ministry for several years. On the day when his trial was to begin he took the drastic action of taking his own life.

In summary the PCR process of 2010 seems to have failed. It failed to identify more than a handful of perpetrators by the inadequate techniques that it used; it also failed the victims by shutting them out of the whole process. They had neither a voice nor any access to help that the Church might reasonably have put in place to meets their many needs.

It is suggested that the now discredited PCR process cost the church some £2 million. In the light of Roger Singleton’s critique, we can mourn the loss of such a large sum. How could things have gone so wrong? Why was the church prepared to spend so much to achieve so little. The reason for spending so much on what now appears to be a negative outcome seems to have been the vanity of institutional thinking. This will always wish to protect reputation above all else. The announcement that only 13 cases had been extracted from the files seemed, at the time, to be a triumph to boost the reputation of the Church. ‘We have a clean bill of health’ was the overall message. The fact that victims were unheard was an inconvenient and tiresome irritant to this basic narrative.

Since that date these victims have not gone away. Many of them have conveniently for the Church stayed in the shadows, unheard and unseen. A few, working courageously and largely single-handedly have attracted attention from the Press and other supporters. Their courage and persistence has been enormous. But for people like Gilo and Matt Ineson, the church as a whole might have bought into the myth that there were only a few ‘bad apples’ left to be dealt with. The IICSA process also has forced the Church of England to see that the voices of victims telling their stories is just as important as investigators poring over files looking for evidence of past crimes.

I have not attempted to give a full account of Roger Singleton’s report. It could be summarised like this. He is telling the church that an appallingly expensive attempted whitewash of the church’s reputation has been shown largely to be a sham and a failure. General Synod, meeting next month, must decide where to take the next stage of Safeguarding. Whitewash, cover-up even outright lying will no longer do. The Synod must oversee not only good practice but also justice for the hundreds of survivors of church abuse. The precise numbers of these are at present unknown but the church has not, until recently, made any real attempt to find out who and where they are. Even if there are only a few they want and need to be heard. None of them should ever be regarded as nuisances or inconvenient. By helping them the church can redeem itself by showing that it is a compassionate body, concerned with justice and healing.

While few clergy are trained psychotherapists, they pick up a great deal of wisdom as part of their job. They get, for example, to understand how to deal with bereaved people, the things to look for that take place as part of the normal grieving process. They become familiar with many of life’s vicissitudes. They learn when silence is better than platitude and when words might be helpful. I like to think that I can now deal better with a range of pastoral situations than when I begun fresh out of college nearly fifty years ago.

The situation in facing an individual who has been sexually abused in a church setting is going to be a challenge for even the most skilled of pastoral carers. This blog cannot, of course, offer advice in this area, not least through my lack of direct experience. Although I have met (mostly online) some dozens of people who have been abused in this way, I do not claim any special expertise in this area. Listening, however, to some of the stories, I do begin to understand some of the catastrophic mistakes that are, even now, made by well-meaning clergy and ministers. The biggest mistake is to introduce the idea of Christian forgiveness early on this process of responding to an individual’s story. The only person who stands to benefit by such an act of forgiveness early on is the listener. She or he cannot bear to hear the grimy details of the abuse, particularly when it demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of a man of God taking advantage of a vulnerable person. If the victim can be persuaded to forgive then the story is effectively shut down. The victim is then supposed to indulge in a generous outpouring of Christian love towards the perpetrator so that the one being counselled can ‘move on’ and heal.

The kind of pastoral concern that is more about taking care of the listener than the victim obviously won’t do. Anyone with an ounce of experience will know that there will be in abuse cases several layers of issues to deal with. These will include guilt, induced shame and a sense of powerlessness. ‘Christian’ forgiveness can so often prevent one part of the process of healing which is, arguably, essential to any healthy recovery. The stage I am referring to is a sense of anger towards the abuser. Pastoral care will often include allowing an individual to feel visceral rage towards the person who abused or humiliated the victim in the past. It is uncomfortable having to witness this anger. But we know that it is a common stage on the journey to come to terms with the abuse event. The victim is perfectly entitled to be angry and when it is felt, it needs to be articulated. The expressed anger is part of the way that many victims begin to reclaim the power that was so cruelly taken from them. As victims, the abused were put into a situation where they were dominated and controlled. The angry victim is now the one who wants to cry out their pain, their grief and their lost innocence. But, in and through that anger, the victim is reclaiming a voice, a right to be heard and the power that belongs to every human being.

The question arises as to whether the anger of victims or survivors should be expressed outside the setting of psychotherapy and pastoral care. From the point of view of the institution where the abuse took place, such anger expressed openly is embarrassing and inconvenient. No institution wants to be reminded of the past failings of some of its representatives. How convenient it would be if the past could be left in the past so that no one in the present had to think about it or respond to it. But few institutions outside a dictatorship can ever suppress the past and the anger that simmers because of injustice and outright evil. The attempts to hide the pain of the past is likely to be met by failure. As the saying goes ‘truth will out’.

Next month a few survivors of church sexual abuse will be demonstrating outside General Synod in York. They will represent other survivors who are not present. Some of these latter will be reliving their anger and pain at home. Others will still be at the pre-anger stage of shame, guilt and self-blame. We have no means of knowing how many victims exist but we know, from the convictions in British courts, that there are still numerous others who are invisible. These hidden victims are out there, and our hearts go out to them.

To members of General Synod who meet a survivor at Synod or elsewhere, I would ask this. The survivor you are encountering is one of those who may be angry. But this anger is both justified and healthy. It is necessary for this anger to exist for at least two reasons. First it activates in the individual the necessary energy to reach out for help which is necessary for his/her individual healing. The second reason that this anger is healthy is because it is helping to move the institution, here the Church of England, to rectify past failures. The anger is also part of the energy that may make the Church a safer place in the future. Welcome the anger; embrace the anger because in some way this anger is a reflection of God’s anger towards individuals and churches that have tolerated the terrible evil of sexual abuse against the innocent.

I shall not be present outside Synod next month. I shall be at a conference in the States. But even though separated by 3,000 miles I shall be hoping and praying that the Synod embraces and welcomes in some way the energy of survivors who ultimately seeking for what every Christian should welcome. They are asking for justice, accountability and honesty especially among those who lead in the institution. Without that openness the institution must surely crack and splinter under the strain of suppressing the wrong and the anger that has existed for decades within it.

Many of the readers of SurvivingChurch will know of the story of Lizzie Lowe. This 14-year-old devout Christian teenager committed suicide over three years ago in Manchester. At her inquest it transpired that she was suffering from a deep conflict over her sexual identity. She believed that she was a lesbian but could not square this with her faith or share it with her parents. They were also devout Christians. What followed was a profound soul-searching by the congregation of St James Didsbury where she was a member. With the help of the organisation OneBodyOneFaith, the church has released a video in two parts for general release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G51jf2sGts8&t=5s This tells Lizzie’s story and the outcome after her death. The well-known Scottish hymn writer and lecturer, John Bell, was also caught up in the story. He interviews the Vicar Nick Bundock about the events of Lizzie’s death. Nick then in the second video interviews John himself about his story of coming out as gay after he listened to a broadcast by Nick on Lizzie’s tragic death.

This blog post is not going to tackle the vexed question about the incompatibility of the gay identity and conservative Christian teaching. No doubt Lizzie had picked up negative comments from somewhere in her church about the evils of a gay life-style. But according to Nick, the Vicar, the subject had been rarely raised within the congregation. He, like possibly a majority of Anglican clergy, preferred not to raise the issue on the grounds that it was too divisive. Thus, there was almost an environment of secrecy around the topic and on the issues of sexuality in general. Lizzie’s death forced the church to confront these attitudes very forcibly.

The three years since Lizzie’s death and the inquest that followed it have resulted in an enormous amount of soul-searching by the entire congregation. This is spoken about in the first of the two videos which I hope my readers will watch. The end result of this process was that the Vicar and his congregation decided they needed to make the church a place of welcome for sexual minorities and others who, in various ways, found themselves effectively excluded by other churches. The fact that they were becoming a church which sought to include everyone meant that some members felt they had no option but to leave. The old boundaries of certainty were being, in their eyes, eroded. Nick spoke of the way that although some had left, others had arrived no doubt attracted this policy of inclusion. The congregation officially adopted the statement of Inclusive Church which seeks to welcome all. These newcomers numbered not only members of the LGBT community but also individuals with learning difficulties and members of racial minorities. Lizzie’s death had caused a revolution in attitudes as well as a transformation in the entire congregation. We can compare this with the revolution that I recently wrote about at the Kentucky Baptist Church of Immanuel.

The story of the legacy of Lizzie’s tragic death does not end there since the church’s decision to be inclusive has attracted the attention of other congregations across the UK and abroad. The point which I feel needs flagging up and is of relevance to our own concerns is the issue of secrecy. These are the aspects of church life that are never discussed because there is a conspiracy of silence around them. Sexuality is certainly one area and few people will find it comfortable to discuss their sexuality even when, by doing so, they can help others face up to this area of identity in themselves. Embarrassment and awkwardness will be quite difficult to manage. Mainstream denominational churches have little appetite for provoking such discomfort among their members. But there is another area of vulnerability which, alongside sexuality, is of concern to every single person but is seldom discussed or opened up. This is the topic of power and especially the dynamics of power within a congregation. Because everyone is in some way caught up in the power dynamics of a congregation it is almost impossible to discuss it with objectivity. As with a discussion on sexuality, power is a threatening topic and thus has to be avoided at all costs. Few people have the energy to challenge abuses of power even when they are a major cause of unhappiness in a congregation. Secrets sometimes have to be confronted and dealt with.

Nick Bundock spoke about the opening-up and the new freedom to discuss sensitive issues that was taking place since they had become an inclusive church. They were now free to welcome not just minority groups but also minority opinions. They had in other words shifted from being a church that pretended to hold a single perspective on teaching and moral guidance to a church which embraced diversity and openness. From the perspective of this blog it would mean that they could enter the still more vulnerable area of understanding power in the congregation – the way it is used and the way that it is experienced.

The tragic death of a teenage girl who, because of secrecy and misunderstanding believed she was in some way damned, may have helped to begin a small revolution in many churches. It is not just that the vitriolic homophobic rhetoric across many conservative churches may be blunted by Lizzie’s story, but also that some churches will follow Nick Bundock’s church and create for themselves a new openness, inclusivity and a readiness to talk about hitherto closed topics. Those who approach such churches will discover that there is in these churches a ministry of welcome that is one of good news. The good news is that God accepts and welcomes all humanity. He does not reject people because they are different or do not fit the stereotype of respectability. Our good news is that all are welcome to be part of the feast of the kingdom of God. Joining in that feast we find that we are growing in love, tolerance and openness.

One of the most important things that I learned when I was a student of the Bible was an understanding of the nature of prophecy. The classical prophets, those who form a large section of our Old Testament, were never in the business of acting as soothsayers and telling people what was going to happen in the distant future. There may have been a few individuals, as referred to in the book of Deuteronomy 13, who were thought to behave in this way. It is also a profound misunderstanding of the Book of Daniel to place him alongside the main canonical prophets. The Hebrew compilers of the Jewish Canon never made this error. The main canonical prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel were concerned to be talking about and interpreting the present. Above all, they had something to say about what they believed God had to say about this present and what was going to happen in the immediate future. In short, the prophets were the proclaimers of God’s will and judgement on the current behaviour of the nations. Most of the time these were facing the consequences of disobedience and failure. Even the chosen people were guilty, and there were to be disastrous consequences- death, destruction and other terrifying outcomes.

The second major idea in helping me to understand the prophetic tradition was to see the way that the prophets stood outside the institutional expressions of the Israelite religious/political system. From the time of David to the Exile, the Court and the Temple were key in maintaining the stability of the Israelite identity. Together these institutions would have claimed to protect and preserve all that was important about the worship and teaching of Yahweh. The prophets, by contrast, stood outside this system. Their vocation was to be outsiders, to challenge and defy the comfortable institutions of kingship and Temple worship. A conflict between the priest/ritual and the prophet is most clearly seen in the book of Amos. Amos sizes up the way that ritual worship and wealth coupled with immorality have corrupted the social and religious integrity of the northern kingdom of Israel. The whole book is gloomy and sets God’s judgement firmly in opposition to a failing establishment. The prophet again and again expresses the loathing of God for sin as well as the empty worship and sacrifices of Israel. ‘When you present your sacrifices and offerings I will not accept them… I cannot endure the music of your lutes’.

Amos sees that a terrible fate is coming to Israel. He declares: ‘I saw the Lord standing by the altar and he said: strike the capitals so that the whole porch is shaken; I will smash them all into pieces’. These prophecies of Amos were not given without those he was attacking making a response. Amos records one particular showdown when a member of the priestly establishment, Amaziah, confronts him. Amaziah tells him in no uncertain terms to go away back to Judah. In response Amos tells him that the forthcoming disaster will strike Amaziah and his whole family. More importantly Amos denies that he is ‘a prophet or the son of a prophet’. No doubt he is comparing himself with the official prophets attached to the official sanctuaries. Amos, the outsider, is free to speak and prophesy as God has told him to do.

The classical prophets in the Old Testament can be understood better when we become aware of these tensions between the vested interests of Temple and Court and the more charismatic independent traditions of prophecy. The institution reacts to this challenge just as we would expect; it tells the prophets to go away and not disturb the status quo or the vested interests of those in power.

If we try to compare the situation of the classical OT prophets and today, we might ask whether any parallels could exist. The Church of today does have strong features of being a reactionary self-protecting institution and many times it has been accused of behaving defensively to preserve itself. Among the ‘prophetic’ attacks that the Church has had to face is the challenge of its wealth. Has the Church held its wealth in the best possible way? Could it be accused of creating wealth, prestige and status rather than other imperatives such as serving the poor? There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but we would be right to suggest that those who challenge the church in this area are engaged in an activity we could rightly describe as prophetic. Prophets are there to challenge and make institutions constantly appraise their deepest values.

Prophets like Amos are also found among those who speak to the Church from the perspective of survivors of abuse, sexual or otherwise. If these survivors are pushed away as being uncomfortable or embarrassing, we could well be reminded of the stand-to between Amaziah and Amos. ‘Never prophesy at Bethel, for this is the king’s sanctuary, a royal palace’ were the words of Amaziah. The same kind of uncomfortable prophesying might well be heard now in the Church. Any Church, much like ancient Israel, would probably want to preserve the status quo and all the power involved in the institution. Survivors are saying to the vested interests like the prophets of old. ‘We want openness, transparency and an end to secrecy. We also need resources to help us to recover from our pain. Through our understanding of God’s will, we believe that such things are just, loving and equitable. The needs of the wounded, the afflicted and destitute are a first call on the Church which believes in the compassion and love of God for all’. These could be considered to be words of prophecy to the Church just as the words of Amos were to the religious authorities of his day. In Amos’ words may ‘justice roll on like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’.

A few months ago, I covered the story of Rachael Denhollander who had been the victim of sexual abuse in the States. She along with many other victims was given the opportunity to speak at the trial of Larry Nassar, her abuser, about her experiences. Nassar had been found guilty of over a hundred attacks on the athletes he had trained. Rachael’s statement was especially powerful. She spoke of justice and forgiveness in the context of her strong Christian faith. The additional fact in her story was that her own church had attacked her on the grounds that she had begun speaking about the problem of abuse in a group of evangelical churches in association with her own. She mentioned that this advocacy had forced her to leave her church because they could not tolerate criticism of other churches with whom they enjoyed cordial relationships.

Rachael’s church was never publicly identified but it has now named itself. It has also declared to the world that Rachael’s stand has resulted in a period of soul-searching and transformation for the whole congregation. The church is Immanuel Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. What they have produced is, arguably, a template for any church which finds itself on the wrong side of history in respect of abuse cases. Immanuel realised, after its time of looking at itself that it did indeed have ‘a sin to confess’. They had failed to support Rachel adequately in the lead up to the trial of Nassar and when she questioned the invitations to Sovereign Grace Ministries to preach in Immanuel. She had pointed out that there were serious concerns about abuse and safeguarding at SGM and that it was inappropriate to carry on as though nothing was going on. As the result of the apology, Immanuel Baptist Church and the Denhollanders are now reconciled.

I want to reproduce the final paragraph in the Statement for my readers as it would appear to be a model for any church which is seeking to make a new start from a position of denial, cover-up and the avoidance of truth. The paragraph is entitled The Gift of Reproof.

During a long, hard pastors’ meeting in which we were beginning to see some of our faults, one of our pastors said, “We have been given a gift.” After months of reflection, we believe this statement more than ever. Being made to see our blind spots has been a gift to us. In the last few months, God has increased our sensitivity to the concerns of the abused. He has called us to look at our own shortcomings as pastors. He has allowed us to seek and receive forgiveness from those we have failed. He has motivated us to ensure that Immanuel Baptist Church is a place where the abused are cared for and abusers are vigilantly protected against. He has renewed our sense of the importance of being held accountable to one another, to our congregation, and to the watching world. We pray that God would continue to write these lessons deeply on our hearts so that the gospel can continue to be clearly proclaimed in and through our lives.

There are several striking sections in this statement. First, we have the insight that reproof can in fact be a gift. Someone outside the closed circle which had created a pattern of groupthink, enabled them to see ‘blind spots’. The blind spot here was an inability to understand the needs and perspectives of the abused. The ability to identify and overcome these ‘blind spots’ is regarded as a gift. Because of overcoming them the congregation can see that the church can and should be ‘a place where the abused are cared for and the abusers are vigilantly protected against.’ There is also a new awareness that the church has task of being accountable both to the congregation and to the ‘watching world’.

The leaders of Immanuel Baptist Church have, in a single paragraph, come up with a set of insights about abuse which could yet provide a pattern for churches all over the world. Those who tell of abuse from the past are not the enemy. There may be speaking on behalf of God, reproving the church for its blindness, insensitivity and above all its instinct to protect the institution at all costs. The struggle that is going on in the Church of England over safeguarding issues seems very much like a battle which is being fought on these grounds. On the one side there are those who are offering the ‘gift of reproof’, the survivors and those who support them. They have been supported by the writers of numerous reports on the inadequacy of past responses. On the other side are those who have a professional concern to defend the institution and its reputation at all costs. Which side will win? We have no means of knowing. The church in Washington surrendered after five months of intense agonising and self-examination. The Church of England can delay for a long time the realisation that it has lost its way in this matter of dealing with past abuse cases. Alternatively, it can make peace with those who ‘reprove’ it. Financially that path of transparency might be expensive, but it would be the only path of true integrity and honour. The ‘watching world’ understands this clearly.