This past week, two important documents have been published by the Church of England.  Both seem to suggest that decisive moves are now being made for the future of church safeguarding practice.  The first document is a press release at the conclusion of the Archbishops’ Council which met on Wednesday 23^rd September.  This appeared the day after.  The second is linked to the first; it is a job description for a senior post in Church House to help put the safeguarding proposals of the Council into effect.  The new post is to be responsible for creating and overseeing a new Redress Scheme for survivors which is now being proposed by the Church.   The Archbishops and their Council are, in short, actively seeking new ways of supporting and responding to abuse survivors.

The Friday press release contained an assurance by the Church of England to put right two issues from the past.  One was to make sure that new financial and practical support is made available to abuse survivors.  The second was to ensure that this task of providing survivor support and care would be independent and be free of the control of the central Church.   The document also recognised that, in the words of the Archbishops, the Church ‘has failed survivors’.  But now ‘decisions being made feel like a turning point ……..today our words of sorrow are matched by actions that we believe will lead to real change.’  What is now being proposed is a pilot scheme, working with survivors to see what are the best ways of helping them and finding out for the future what are the best of delivering redress.

These two documents have appeared at a critical moment in the history of the Church.   Looking back to February, we witnessed a great flurry of activity at General Synod with several members urging the Church to make a new start in the area of safeguarding.  A powerful speech was delivered by the new safeguarding bishop, Jonathan Gibbs.  This was backed up by important speeches from Julie Conalty and John Spence.  All the speeches on safeguarding indicated that there was unhappiness about the Church’s record in the past, and that there was a need for a shake-up at every level.  The speeches now have had the desired effect and the present documents are an indication that much work has been going on behind the scenes.  There is no appetite for going back to the old pattern of effectively ‘contracting out’ the care and overall response to survivors.   

The second event that looms over the Church is the awaited report by IICSA on the Church’s record on safeguarding.  This is due to be published on the 6^th October.  It is likely that the Church will receive substantial criticism from the Inquiry report.  Clearly the Church needed to show that it was now recognising this record of failure over safeguarding.   It needed to have in place some positive recommendations for future action in this whole area.

The scheme to which the Archbishops’ Council press release refers to, is called the ‘interim pilot support scheme’.  This recognises that the consequences of abuse on an individual can be severe, to the point where a survivor ‘is known to be in seriously distressed circumstances’.  The Church also ‘has a heightened responsibility because of the way the survivor was responded to following disclosure’.   This is, no doubt, referring to the stories of survivors being thrust into having to engage in a hostile litigation process to gain any kind of hearing by the Church.  That process is itself abusive with survivors having to endure intrusive lines of questioning by lawyers employed by the insurance companies who seek to minimise payment of liability.  In short, the Church finally gets the point that a survivor deserves something better than being thrust into the position of being a litigant.  The wounds caused by such a process are every bit as bad as the original experience of abuse.

The advertisement for a Development Manager (Redress Scheme) which, in fact, appeared the day before the Archbishops’ Council, shows that all the details of the new scheme had been worked out before Wednesday.  The advertisement gives us a sense of how seriously the National Safeguarding Team and the lead Bishops are taking this project.  This new initiative and the details of the post to put it into practice, have required many hours of discussion and work.  The level of pay, almost £70,000 pa., suggests that they are looking for a senior experienced person who understands management, redress schemes and hopefully the byzantine structures of the Church of England.  We learn along the way, from the advertisement, how the Church has operated hitherto in this area of redress.  The advertisement acknowledges that there has been ‘some provision for redress for survivors of Church abuse as part of the civil litigation process with such payments usually made by insurers, but in some circumstances the Church Commissioners.’ It is only in ‘some cases’ that there have been ‘other forms of compensatory response … funding for therapy, counselling and offers of apology’.  It is clear that the person who wrote the advertisement realised that the existing provision for survivors has been at best a post-code lottery.  Something better than legally negotiated settlements is needed by survivors of church abuse.  The sums involved will probably have to be fairly substantial.

The appointed person is to oversee the development and delivery of a national scheme of redress.  There would be a new structure to offer financial compensation which would be ‘a form of solace designed to provide some degree of comfort to the victim for his or her injury and to make an attempt to put right the wrong that he or she has suffered.’  There would thus not be a ‘one size fits all’.  A welcome clause that appears, declares the importance of ‘’involving victims and survivors of abuse in both the design and the ongoing governance of the redress scheme.’ 

This advertisement is to be welcomed, not only for the prospect of having a competent person responsible for redress issues in the NST, but also what it reveals about the writers of this advertisement who are currently in charge of safeguarding.  Everything about this advertisement proclaims loudly that the old days of secrecy and outsourcing of abuse cases to lawyers and insurers are over.  The outrageous practice of church lawyers/insurers asking a psychiatrist to write reports on a victim without ever meeting them, will not in future be tolerated.  The Church, we trust, is taking back control from secret unaccountable committees and entering a new age of transparency and justice. Everyone recognises that the implementation of a good redress scheme will take some time to deliver, but the old days of winter in Narnia seem to be over.  The thaw has come.  Under the leadership of Melissa Carslake, Jonathan Gibbs and the other safeguarding bishops, we can look forward to real changes that will help the entire Church of England become a healthier and more just institution.  Then it will be ready to face the world with a clear conscience to replace the shame heaped on it from all the abuse stories over the past twenty to thirty years.  There is much to be done, but the voices of survivors have been and are finally being heard and we rejoice in that new reality.

 

During the past few days, we have heard of the death, at the age of 92, of Robert Graetz.  Most of us (myself included) had never heard of Graetz until this notice of his death.  His obituary, as recorded in The Times is, however, an inspiration to many of us, especially those of us seeking fresh models of Christian ministry for today.   He followed a particularly courageous and costly path of discipleship.  Through his ministry, he also helped to change the course of history in the United States.  What he did and what he stood for stands out as a beacon of light.  It shines in a dark world of terrible racial division and hatred that is still a threat to societies everywhere, and is found even inside our churches.

Graetz was a young white Lutheran minister who was sent to serve a black congregation in deeply segregated Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.  The time and the place of this appointment suggest that Graetz was stepping into in a very difficult situation, especially for a first charge.  Unlike other white Protestant denominations, Lutheranism had never been wedded to the racist narrative of some other Christian groups in the southern United States. The history of American Christianity and the way that Protestants in the South provided ideological support for the Confederate cause during the American Civil War, is a complicated one.  Suffice it to say that some Christian denominations claimed to find scriptural justification for the institution of slavery.  It is an area on which I have no specialist knowledge, so I have to pass over the topic with some generalities.  As I understand it, some Christians in the 19^th century also colluded with a mythical narrative which saw the European white races as being a people chosen by God to inhabit the new promised land of America.  All the other races, native Americans, blacks and other non-whites were deemed to be second class, and some were fit only for slavery.  I leave it to others to unpack this complex history of the ideas that have spawned notions of white supremacy.  It does seem clear that part of this story has its roots in a distorted theological/biblical vision. The leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, although they were not party to this white supremacy mythology, would still have preferred to send a black minister to Montgomery, but none was available.  So Graetz entered an arena, every bit as dangerous to life and limb as those faced by the early Christian martyrs on their way to execution. The main difference was the fact that those who were to oppose him in his work with Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and other early heroes of black resistance, were in many cases self-designated Christians.

In 1955 the separation of the races in the southern States of the USA was virtually total.  Restaurants, parks and transport were all segregated.   Graetz was a front line witness to the now widely commemorated act of defiance by Rosa Parks, a member of his congregation, who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.  For this she was arrested, but the leaders of the black community began immediately to organise a boycott of the transport system.  This lasted 381 days until the Supreme Court stated that segregated transport was unlawful.  The boycott was organised by a new organisation, known as the Montgomery Improvement Association, run by another young minister, Martin Luther King.   Graetz was a fellow organiser and on King’s committee.  Graetz’s own car was put into extensive service, ferrying numerous black passengers as a taxi/bus service.   This boycott was the pivotal moment in the national civil rights movement for the whole country.

Three days after Rosa Parks was arrested, Graetz stood up in his church pulpit and urged his congregation to join in the protest.  As well as driving his neighbours around in his own car, he organised a car pool to help strengthen the protest.  He also wrote to all his fellow white Christian ministers, urging them to show ‘Christian love’ by supporting the protest.  None dared.

Being the only white person openly supporting the bus boycott, Graetz attracted attention.   He appeared in newspaper photos next to King.  White people who supported blacks were considered ‘worse than the black person’.  His ‘taxi service’ attracted the attention of the police and he was arrested on one occasion.  More serious still were rocks and bomb attacks against his house, not to mention numerous acts of vandalism against his property.  All these events were going on against the background of Ku Klux Klan activity.   Convictions for the Klan crimes were hard to achieve.  White juries were reluctant to find accused white people guilty, especially when they were accused of damage to black property.  On the same night that saw a serious bomb attack on Graetz’s home, the home of another prominent boycott leader, Ralph Abernathy and four black churches were also attacked.

The exact place of Robert Graetz in the overall story of civil rights in America is not one for me to write.  Indeed, my writing about this particular individual is purely as a way of inviting my reader to think about Christian ministry taking place in a setting of extreme physical danger.  One is forced to ask questions for which there are probably no answers.  Should one ever go through such things with your own family being put at risk?  The story of Martin Luther King is fairly well known and Graetz appears to have stood alongside him as a fellow minister.  No doubt their friendship was able to do something to strengthen King’s resolve for what he had to do and to endure.  But what comes over from Graetz’s story is the determination by a Christian minister to put the service of the people in his charge as a priority over every else, even his personal safety.  In the rhetoric of many Protestant ministers there is a constant repetition of the desire to present the Gospel to ‘lost’ and fallen individuals.  No greater need exists for humankind than to hear, to respond and be saved.  Graetz had a different vision of ministry.  He believed in the preaching of the gospel as a way to give new hope for this life both to individuals and entire communities.  The Church and the Good News were about a better life for his listeners.  They were being encouraged to work for this themselves in all their efforts to promote justice, equality and the overcoming of the abject poverty that in particular afflicted the black community.  That makes him a hero of Christian ministry in my eyes, even though I have only ‘met’ him in the last couple of days through his obituary.

The idea that the Gospel or ‘Good News’ is about allowing the teaching of Jesus to change people so that they become instruments of society transformation is not in any way a new idea.   In Matthew’s gospel this view of the meaning of the Good News is found in the judgement scene in chapter 25.  The judgement that is made is not whether we have believed the right things, but whether we have been inspired by the Good News to do the right things, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoners etc.  The version of the Good News that tacitly supports white supremacy ideas is one that preaches a sanctified self-care at the expense of any necessary awareness, let alone service, of others.  If the social activism of people like Robert Graetz is considered to be ‘liberal’ theology, then so be it.  I would prefer to identify and be inspired by such a ministry which faced up to physical danger, calumny and hatred, to allow justice and love to win through.   That is the legacy of Graetz.  He showed a Jesus-like integrity of service that cared nothing for self, for power or material advantage.  The love of God was a compelling reality in his life.  With it he was able to stand firm and, in spite of his fears, make a distinct contribution to civil rights in America.  He also serves as a model of integrity which Christian ministers can identify with everywhere.

 

On Sunday, the preacher at my village church started with a question.  ‘What makes you angry?’  She was seeing a link between two of the readings for the day, the story of a disgruntled angry Jonah and equally upset workmen in the vineyard story.  Those who ‘had borne the heat of the day’ were receiving the same pay as those who had only worked one hour.  The problem for me, when a preacher starts with a provocative question, is that it may set me off on a line of thought which stops me giving proper attention to the rest of the sermon.  This happened on Sunday.

What makes me angry?   One of the main things that upsets me is the injustice that I see when powerful people abuse their power to the detriment of others, especially the weak.  In the context of this blog site, I also realise that it is the anger I feel on behalf of the abused that fuels me with the energy to go on writing about this topic.  Anger of this kind has the power to do positive things, even bringing about change.  I hope the anger can be, in a small way compared to the anger felt by Jesus when he chased the money-changers out of the Temple.   He also showed real anger against the Scribes and Pharisees at various other points in the gospel narrative, especially Matthew 23.  So, Jesus seems to approve of anger that results in the furthering of the cause of justice, goodness and transparency.  The Psalmist said ‘Be angry but sin not’ and this reminds us that the motives for feeling anger must always be open to being questioned.  We have to ask, for example, whether the anger we may feel is an example of selfish petulance.  There will always be a need, in other words, to challenge our motives every time we feel anger being stirred up inside us.  Is this really righteous anger or possibly something selfish and dark?

The blog gives me opportunities to think out loud about the misuse of power in the Church, whether it is the power exercised by an individual or that of the wider organisation.  What is going on when an individual plays power games and abuses another person is somewhat different from the processes involved when an institution misbehaves.  Those in charge of an organisation can abuse, not only by direct activity but also through neglect.  If, for example, the institution does not follow up complaints against its own employees who are accused of abuse, it is itself contributing to an intensification of a victim’s experience of abuse.  Of course, there can be false accusations from which the institution needs protection.   More often, though, what we are witnessing is the natural tendency of an institution to act in a way that preserves its interests, whether reputational or financial.

The focus of this blog, when I began writing in 2013, was to stand up for individuals who were at the wrong end of power games played by the church, particularly cult-like charismatic groups.  I was combining a long-held interest in charismatic Christianity with observing how their behaviour could sometimes harm people. In 2010 I joined the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA ) and am a member to this day.  There are a huge variety of cults in our modern societies, not all of them obviously religious.  Perhaps the majority operate with some kind of spiritual agenda, whether New Age, Buddhist or Christian in origin.  Most of those who study them are ex-members themselves.  They know all the tricks that had been played on them to bring them, at one point in their lives, into a state of mental and emotional submission to a leader.  At the ICSA (cult studies) conferences I am meeting a variety of people who are in the process of escaping one or other of these groups.  While they were now no longer inside the culture that had caused them so much harm, there was still a continuing process to be gone through of escaping the mental tramlines that the cults had placed inside their heads.  Serious damage had been done and even when they were working, possibly as full-time psychotherapists, to help other cult survivors, they were still fighting their own internal battles.  The wrong kind of religion can, we can summarise, be bad for your happiness, your finances as well as your health.

My time in ICSA (cult studies), mainly by attending their conferences and preparing beforehand to give a paper, has helped me to become more and more sensitised to the possibility of the real damage that can be caused by religion.  I have to emphasise that it is seldom the doctrines or belief systems that cause the damage.  It is the use made of those beliefs by a controlling leader.  The long process of recovery from cultic bondage is one of relearning how to feel, how to think independently and generally escape all the destructive patterns of dependence that have been inculcated by a leader.  Most survivors of the cults preserve mental fragility years after their exit from a high-control group.  The tentacles that controlled them for so long were far more than deviant doctrines.  They were a whole nexus of social, psychological and theological strands woven together.  Those who have successfully helped individuals ‘escape’ from cultic bondage do not start with the theological/religious belief systems.   It is probably as futile to discuss such systems of belief with a exiting member, as having a conversation with someone whose only language is Finnish.  Mutual understanding is impossible.

Having said that beliefs on their own do not cause actual harm, I have to admit that this statement needs qualification.  When I wrote my piece for the volume of essays edited by Janet Fife and Gilo, Letters to a Broken Church, I looked at some biblical passages that bolstered clerical/leadership authority in potentially harmful ways.  People are harmed when Christian communities turn against them for no other ‘wrong’ than disagreeing with a pastor’s desire to use power inappropriately.  In administering such ostracism, a leader may be quoting scripture to back up his harmful consolidation of power.  His power is enhanced by his weaponization of the scriptural text.  Other examples are the use of scripture to foster fear of demons or hell and that will cause damage.  A theology or style of reading scripture that causes obvious harm to people, physically, emotionally or spiritually will always need to be challenged.  To repeat, it is not the actual texts that are being questioned, it is the way that they are being used to do damage to others that is under scrutiny. 

One of the extraordinary developments in the long unhappy saga of the institutional church and its neglect of survivors is in the way that simple morality and conscience has often seemed to be absent.  When bishops and church officials are found to be colluding with others to supress truth and transparency, that is of serious concern for the whole church.  The fact that institutions will have a natural tendency to protect themselves is a neutral observation.  It becomes a problem when the leaders of that organisation resort to underhand methods to promote that defensiveness.  It would seem that, in Gilo’s recent revelations, lawyers, medical experts and insurance personnel have conspired together to deploy highly questionable strategies in abuse cases – on the edge of what most people would consider ethical. This has been to the severe detriment of survivors’ well-being.  The effects have had serious and lasting consequences.  Julie Macfarlane’s book is soon to appear telling the story of tussle with the legal/insurance cabal employed by the Church which did so much in its attempt to destroy her and her case.  Fortunately for the abused, some survivors, Macfarlane, Gilo, Tony and Julian among them, have, at great cost to themselves, stood up to the bullying juggernaut represented by the insurance faction/legal teams/reputation managers arrayed against them.  There are signs at last that somewhere in the system individuals are beginning to show signs of shame that may lead, we hope, to real changes in the end.  Then we have the IICSA (sexual abuse inquiry) report, due at the beginning of October.  This may help to reinforce the message of needed new beginnings that is so sorely needed.

I began this reflection with the word anger.  I was talking about the anger I feel for the appalling things I have reported on in this blog.  A few are to do with individuals seeking gratification for sexual urges.  More shocking are parts of entire constituencies doing underhand things, whether they are called the Church of England, Lambeth Palace or the ReNew/Titus network.  Each, in different ways, is involved in ducking and diving to avoid owning up to massive failures of care, love and common decency in regard to abuse survivors.  Many of these have written to me to confirm that the institutional failures towards them are far more hurtful and harmful.  Their stories have made me angry and I hope that my reader can share some of that with me.

My recent exposure once again to the ongoing saga of Jonathan Fletcher and his culture, has prompted me to dredge up from my memory encounters with university Christian Unions in the long distant past.  I became an undergraduate in 1964, an aeon ago, and I can still remember my reflection on a few CU talks that I attended.  I glimpsed a world where it was claimed that all intellectual questioning could be instantly sorted and resolved.  I was being invited to a new social world where everyone was apparently kind, generous and loving to each other.  What could there be not to like?   But at the same time, I was picking up another message.  There was an element of fear and threat. Not only in the doctrine presented, but there was a threat of being excluded from one’s eternal destiny if one failed to conform fully to the belief system on offer.  I still wonder from time to time how these techniques of preaching that use fear to sell their message, have so much popularity.

One word that that I picked up from my brief flirtation with Christian Unions all those years ago, was the word ‘sound’.  Being sound in CU terminology then seemed to mean being thoroughly embedded in their culture and having the right opinions.  In this way, you became eligible for holding office in the CU hierarchy.  In practice it also meant signing a list of Christian beliefs which included acceptance of the inerrant word of God in Scripture.   It occurred to me that individuals might want to wobble in their strict loyalty to this list of statements.  But those who had crossed the bridge to being regarded as sound, managed to hang on without showing any hesitancies.  Conversations with such people about the Bible were always completely unproductive.  But, in my current thinking about this word sound in relation to my questioning of the ReNew networks of power, it occurs to me that the word has no meaning taken in isolation.  Being sound in this CU sense only makes sense when you are part of a group.  It is a designation awarded to you by another person of established influence within your group.  Anyone who is regarded as sound is also deemed to have a secure relationship with God.  The stakes remain high.  Subsequent wrong beliefs about the Bible or other topics like the gay issue, would affect your soundness and your salvation status. It will thus never be possible for many conservative Christians to shift in their opinions or even think about an issue on which their group has a settled opinion.

Who are the people who provide the rock-solid authority to declare someone or something sound within the conservative community?  Clearly it must be the leaders.  But who polices the leaders and their opinions?   Has it never happened that a leader studying the text of Genesis has met a problem with the two contrasting creation stories or the two versions of the Noah narrative?  Of course, there are going to be those who ‘wobble’ in the way they understand the text of Scripture.  But they do not reveal any of these issues to those under them.  The official line remains that to be a Christian, one has to toe every official line on everything – the Bible, the gay issue and a host of other official doctrines.  Anything else would undermine Christians in the pew and cause ‘shipwreck’ to their faith and prospects of salvation.  In short, the conservative Christian world cannot and does not tolerate deviation, discussion or difference in its ranks.

The preservers of ‘sound’ beliefs within the CU/ReNew networks in Britain are, as we have suggested, powerful people within that context.  Not only do they teach the people in their churches, but they also decide what they are to believe and what is forbidden.    They have the ultimate power to declare that an individual is no longer a part of the correct orthodox Christian group represented by ReNew and its associated organisations and congregations.  Who are these leaders who have reached the apex where no one will ever question their soundness and their right to teach the ‘correct’ Christian faith?  In the past, it seems that many people within the conservative networks looked to figures like Dick Lucas, John Stott and Mark Ruston to provide for them an impeccable point of reference for individual orthodoxy.  In short, the culture of conservative evangelicalism required everyone to be in some direct or indirect relationship with a leader who was acclaimed by the entire network as having a quasi- apostolic authority.   Jonathan Fletcher seems also to have fulfilled this role for many of the current leaders, including Bishop Rod Thomas.  Fletcher’s participation at Iwerne camps and also his time in Cambridge and London, gave him influence over swathes of people, within and beyond the evangelical constituency.  This might explain how he was so successful in escaping challenge for his behaviour for so long. But it also explains why his fall from grace is causing so many problems for the ReNew constituency currently.  Others have quickly stepped into leadership roles since his retirement and especially since his outing for immoral behaviour.   These new leaders, who are now vicars and rectors of the big ReNew parishes, have considerable authority, but none of them yet seem to possess the power and god-like stature of Fletcher, or Stott and Lucas before him.  Individuals like Vaughan Roberts and William Taylor, who both signed the document in June 2019 accepting the guilt of Jonathan Fletcher and enforcing restraint over his actions, show that they have real power.  This power, exercised in a variety of ways within the network, is far greater than anything exercised by a bishop in the Church of England.  No bishop has the right to discipline a clergyman for having ‘incorrect’ views on scripture or sexual morality.  In contrast the clergy who hold office in parishes where the power of ReNew patronage operates, are vulnerable to the direct and indirect control of these leaders. They are able to help people into jobs – or exclude them from the social world they once inhabited. I cannot claim to understand all the ins and outs of the dynamics of the constituency represented by ReNew, but there does still seem to be a culture of fear afflicting some of those who live and work within this arena of control.  Those whose careers and vocations depend on the goodwill of ReNew leaders have every reason to be extremely nervous of losing their status of being considered sound.  Losing the support of their leaders is a serious matter.  What is there to be frightened of more than having your orthodoxy/soundness questioned?  That could lead directly to the destruction of career, livelihood and even salvation itself.

On 14^th September this year, ReNew held a virtual conference for members of its constituency.  The address of the chairman, William Taylor was then immediately published online.  I watched with fascination as Taylor in this speech outlined his vision for the ReNew constituency in the years ahead.  He recounted how the various organisations allied to ReNew had come together since 2013 to fulfil a vision for establishing ‘clear biblical ministry in local churches across the land’.  If I shared the assumptions of Taylor about what the expression ‘gospel ministry’ actually meant, no doubt I could have rejoiced in the vision of ReNew to revitalise churches in every part of the country.  But having watched over a lifetime the way that churches of this tradition squelch questioning and sometimes, because of dysfunctional power dynamics, tolerate power abuse of various kinds, I was less enthusiastic about this vision.  Power abuse of course can happen in churches of any tradition but the new revelations about abuse, in some churches that identify with ReNew, show that some abuses have been allowed to fester for a very long time.  When a group of churches manages to hide notable abusers (Smyth & Fletcher) for up to 40 years, questions have to be asked of the morality and conscience of leaders who seem to have been in the know.  How can leaders who hide evil in dark places be trusted to be the arbiter of who is or is not in the protected sanctuary of being ‘sound’? If evidence ever emerges that a trusted leader has deliberately hidden evidence of evil, their ongoing position as a leader should be questioned. At last year’s Evangelical Missionary Alliance meeting, Vaughan Roberts said that ‘lessons will need to be learned’. The assumption seems to be that Taylor and Roberts might make minor adjustments to their outlooks – but nothing so serious would be revealed that could lead to them standing down from leadership.

Taylor’s speech could have been regarded as a grand Christian vision by a conservative Christian for the future.  Somehow, I glimpsed something else, a process of Christians claiming power for themselves, indulging in aggrandisement and even the extension of personal fiefdoms. Taylor boasted of how other ReNew leaders had elected him to be their leader. I wondered was it really surprising that the local leaders he had appointed had in return agreed he should be their leader? I wondered at his being oblivious to the obvious lack of integrity in that process – and felt more aware of how leaders could turn a blind eye to concerns over Smyth and Fletcher. The world of ReNew seemed to be offered as the only valid expression of Christianity in Britain.  Every other congregation, every denomination was, by implication, deemed to be in a place of darkness.  Can this really be the vision of Christianity we are all expected to embrace?  Are we expected to follow leaders who are also conspicuously blind to the moral failings of their mentors?  There are still many questions that surround this group of evangelical Anglicans within the ReNew network.  We do not ask perfection from them, but we do ask, as Taylor mentioned himself in his speech, the qualities of ‘transparency, humility and integrity’, qualities that are not obvious in this speech of the leader of this group.

by Gilo

The Elliott review (2016) might have been a turning point for the Church of England in its approach to safeguarding. A professional expert was looking at Church of England’s practice and giving it crystal clear advice about how to conduct safeguarding matters. Instead, as Gilo explains, it was mangled almost beyond recognition by those who saw it as a threat to the status-quo. What was put into practice was almost unrecognisable from the original recommendations. (Ed)

This essay gathers together further comments on the story that appeared in the Church Times last week on the strategic response by Archbishops’ Council to several Elliott review recommendations. A discovery that, following the letter to the Charity Commission signed by over 600, provides further evidence for the need for Archbishops’ Council to be reviewed by an external body.

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/11-september/news/uk/elliott-condemns-pr-response-to-his-safeguarding-review

Phil Johnson (Chair of MACSAS) commenting:

‘If this indeed is the Church’s interpretation of the recommendation from the Elliott Review then it would appear that it has been subject to an auto-translation into Mandarin and then back again several times. It is noteworthy that in the ‘dialogue’, the voices missing are the survivors themselves or anyone advocating for them.’

To better understand his comment, here’s that section of the review recommendations..

The Role of Advisors

i. All advice received by agents employed by the Church, should be referenced against the stated policies of the Church before it is followed. Emphasis should be placed on ensuring that financial considerations are not given a priority that conflicts with the pastoral aims of the Church when engaging with survivors of abuse.

ii. The Church should seek to create written down guidance with regard to how it will respond to claims for compensation from survivors. This guidance should be shared with survivors from an early juncture in the process. Every effort should be made to avoid an adversarial approach, placing emphasis on the provision of financial compensation as an aid to healing and closure for the survivor.

Now look at how the Role of Advisors section was ‘translated’ by Archbishops Council in a document called Draft Plan for Implementation of Recommendations.

The Role of Advisors

NST and the Archbishops Council are in dialogue with EIG to highlight the experiences of survivors. On August 9^th, there was a meeting of 4 people from EIG and members of the archbishop’s council, including the legal team, Comms and safeguarding team to look at a more joined up approach in relation to press/media on stories.

Richard Scorer comments:

‘The church’s response to abuse should be based on objective and fair minded analysis of the evidence and provision of proper pastoral support for those affected. It should not be driven by “reputation management”. It is now beyond doubt that the investigation of safeguarding complaints against clergy and church officials needs to be done by an independent, external body – as long as the church continues to mark its own homework, there will be the suspicion that the church’s response is being driven by reputational protection and internal political score settling as opposed to proper principles of safeguarding. The current arrangements are untenable and reform is urgently needed.

Justin Humphreys (CEO thirtyone:eight) writes:

‘I share your concern regarding the apparent abandonment of the full recommendations contained within the review. I also share your concern relating to the lack of progress being made with requests made by Ian Elliott following public comments from EIG with an apparent desire to discredit the substance and evidence underpinning his recommendations. As I recall, the initial action plan was published by the Church of England and then an update was published about a year later. From that date onward, I am not aware of any further publication, update of dialogue with regard to the implementation of the action plan. I have certainly not been invited to be a part of any such discussions. I am not aware of what action has been taken to meet this recommendation or where it may be referenced within current policy, procedure or guidance within the Church of England. If I were to be charitable on this matter, I would say that perhaps it has inadvertently become buried in the sheer volume of other matters being considered. Even if that were the case, this is a critical matter that deserves a clear and unequivocal response as it sits at the heart of the response received by many survivors, which as we know is too often not what it should be. What has always been required with such a clear set of recommendations is a determined and unswerving degree of attention. It is for the Church of England to demonstrate their commitment in this regard.’

Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Co-Author of To Heal and Not to Hurt: A fresh approach to safeguarding in the Church:

‘This makes heartbreaking reading. It shows clearly that, despite a series of earnest and often tear-stained assurances that the Church of England would now put survivors first, the truth is the opposite. The management of its reputation is still the primary concern. There are undoubtedly many good and compassionate individuals trying to make a difference, but it seems that as an institution the Church of England is incapable of real change.’

Gilo, Co-Editor of Letters to a Broken Church and subject of the Elliott review.

It is remarkable that following a complaint to Archbishops’ Council, none of the departments involved (legal, comms, NST, Ab Council senior management) had any further record or recollection of this meeting. So the complaint could not be carried forward and was dismissed. Ecclesiastical Insurance were able to provide me with their notes from that meeting – in which it clearly states that one point in the discussion was “reputational risk to both the Church and Ecclesiastical.” Quite why members of the NST were involved in discussing reputational risk to the Church’s insurer – is unclear.

It is also surprising that this document and its divergence from the clarity and spirit of the recommendations did not emerge at IICSA. I imagine Archbishops Council and Church House lawyers were not keen to draw any attention to it.

The Bishop of London, mandated by Archbishop Welby to champion the review, in her IICSA statement said that she did not see it as “part of my role to seek to address, or change, the relationship between EIG and the Church”. Instead, she relied on assurance from EIG’s “Guiding Principles” document that there was no conflict of interest between the two in their handling of survivors. Sadly, any attempt on my part to seek the Bishop to address the repeated public dissembling by EIG around the Review (later highlighted at a recall to the Inquiry) was met with a brick wall of silence. There was simply no interest or engagement in questions about the insurer’s dishonest treatment of the Review. It became clear that the Bishop of London was operating from instructions from higher-ups to play such questions down.

The Bishop might have been a rallying point for change, real change. But it has been up to the persistence and tenacity of survivors like Tony, Julian and myself (and our allies who recognise injustice and unethical practice) to bring the highly questionable processes of Ecclesiastical and their lawyer Paula Jefferson of Berrymans, Lace and Mawer into daylight. More is emerging in coming months. We have had to do much work, and continue to do so, to bring the Church to recognition of its own duplicity. One of the things emerging is the ‘genetic predisposition’ argument deployed against survivors in a highly adversarial process … as in “your client was already genetically predisposed to stress disorder and depression”. This, when it has been used, appears to have been on the basis of extremely flimsy evidence from an expert who is not a geneticist, has had no access to genetic material, and no access to family medical notes. A handful of senior bishops have been aware of this since 2017 (I was present when they were told). I understand other senior bishops, including former lead bishops, have been aware since 2011. Archbishop Welby was personally told of this particular argument deployed by Paula Jefferson and her medical experts early in his days at Lambeth Palace. But it has been up to survivors to bring this into daylight across a decade. This has been the pattern: survivors have to do all the driving. We believe this argument has been deployed as a strategy across many spheres, not just within Church of England cases.

Two intriguing things I have recently heard. Archbishop Welby is apparently extremely angry – ‘fuming’ was the word used – at the way in which EIG and Paula Jefferson have responded to situations – angry at the continuing reputational damage these agents of the Church are bringing their client. It’s unlikely he will confirm this. But it’s not good enough. He and his Church have been quietly complicit with much unethical process despite being challenged over many years. The Church at senior level has turned a blind eye when it suited them, and watched survivors do all the work. To express anger when there has been so much duplicity is somewhat meaningless.

I have also heard on good authority that one senior bishop who sits in the House of Lords now believes that a Truth and Reconciliation process is necessary. I don’t know exactly what he envisages, we’ve not spoken recently, but I will ask him. If his idea encompasses all of the episcopacy, then I agree. The Church’s senior layer has to come to a painful and honest reckoning with itself – with real apologies for real failures and real instances of dishonesty, and not some flimsy sound-bite apology crafted by Comms. There needs to be authentic and public recognition by the bishops that in so many situations they have put reputation and protection of structure above the needs of survivors – and used “no recollections” and similar denials, much distancing and duplicity, gaslighting of survivors, as an automatic response. There must come a time when they finally put their hands up to much shabby and dishonourable behaviour.

All these things must be faced squarely and real amends made. I cannot see this happening without a genuine T&R process which encompasses all of the bishops, including Archbishop Welby who has significantly enabled this broken culture. And the current lead bishops must recognise that safeguarding and the management of reviews, and response to survivors, must now be removed from the control of Archbishops’ Council. It is unfit. Its culture has already done too much damage to both survivors and to the Church.

As readers of my blog, will know, I have taken a special interest in the case of Jonathan Fletcher, the former Vicar of Emmanuel Wimbledon.  His importance as a mentor and guru to an entire generation of Christian evangelical leaders cannot be overstated.  My interest in him has been primarily in understanding this influence and how his ‘fall’ has impacted on the evangelical constituency.  I have never concerned myself in learning the detail of the bizarre tales of massages and ‘forfeits’ with young men.  These have been rehearsed on the pages of parts of the British national press and form the background of an ongoing review by thirtyone:eight.  Rather I have been interested to observe the sustained attempts at cover-up and secrecy by many within his constituency in the Anglican Church.  This has been sustained for decades and is normally a matter of keeping completely silent.   Fletcher’s story has also been linked with that of John Smyth, whose behaviour has also been extensively discussed.  Their two stories overlap at several points, but I do not intend to discuss the latter character as it is now under scrutiny by Keith Makin’s enquiry.

My attempts to understand Fletcher and his circle, and the way they interact with the wider evangelical scene in Britain, has been made difficult in various ways.  One problem has been in the fact that many online references to Fletcher were removed from the internet during the course of 2019.  His online sermons disappeared and other references to his presence at conferences and meetings have also been purged.  This apparent attempt to prevent the investigation of Fletcher by removing public evidence about him has stimulated the opposite effect in me.  If you deny someone information, you just encourage them to look harder to find it.  It is there to be found by the person with determination.  An interview with Richard Coekin, a former curate who used to be attached to Emmanuel Wimbledon and was a close confederate of Fletcher is still available on a Youtube video.  This video piece, made in 2019, is especially precious because it contains eight minutes of Coekin’s attempt to explain the Fletcher story to an audience of Sydney Anglicans.  This attempt to interpret the saga by an individual who knew him very well and was formally listed as Fletcher’s curate for 18 years is possibly the only material of its kind.

Richard Coekin is an important figure among evangelicals in Britain.  Unlike other senior Anglican evangelicals, he does not appear to have passed through the Iwerne route to leadership which has been the trajectory for, among others, the Fletcher brothers, William Taylor, Vaughan Roberts and Hugh Palmer.   Coekin’s present role is to oversee the Co-Mission network of churches in Britain and he is also leader of Dundonald, a church plant founded from Fletcher’s church, Emmanuel Wimbledon. As a board member of AMiE, Coekin helps oversee Anglican churches planted outside the Church of England, but under William Taylor’s ReNew banner. Coekin’s network of churches sit lightly on denominational labels.  Some are Anglican, while others regard themselves as independent.  Coekin himself, although he ministers across denominational boundaries has retained the designation of being an Anglican.  He retains a PTO from the Bishop of Southwark and from 1995-2013 served as a curate to Fletcher in Wimbledon, presumably with a full license.  His main focus at that time was his church plant ministry but we have every reason to suppose his association with Fletcher was very close. He was a fellow member of the pressure group, Reform Southwark, and as well as a fellow council member of the national Reform organisation.

Anyone watching this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hv9WR-w95g&t=1914s would easily be charmed by Coekin’s self-presentation and his friendly demeanour.  I can imagine that he is a powerful and effective leader as well as a compelling evangelist.   No doubt the leaders of the churches in his network benefit greatly from his experience and gifts of leadership.  But there were clues in the interview which hinted at some less than wholesome aspects of ministry.  Certain things were also revealed through what was not said, as we shall see below.  It is this probing behind the rhetoric that is important if we are to gain clues about the conservative Christian world that both Coekin and Fletcher inhabit.

The first 30 minutes of the Youtube interview tell us all about the issues of church life that Coekin was facing as a leader both of a congregation and a network of congregations.  It was only in the last nine minutes that the interviewer turned to the topic of Jonathan Fletcher, a subject about which he, like many Sydney Anglicans, was finding perplexing.  The answer that came from Coekin at no point revealed that Fletcher had been a previous co-worker with him.  This somewhat detached way of speaking about Fletcher seemed to imply that Coekin wanted to preserve some distance from him, so as not to have to interpret the events that had emerged from the Press and elsewhere.  The language he used was formal.  While admitting there had been naked massages and inappropriate behaviour with young men, nothing of this behaviour seemingly had anything to do with the church circles that he moved in.    The misbehaviour had taken place in the past and there was now need for repentance and a caring for the victims. Coekin said he did not know if there were ‘any more skeletons in the closet.’ Were people to know how close he was to Emmanuel and Fletcher that claim to ignorance might appear less credible. For example, one minister I spoke to says that Coekin told him that he was offered (and declined) a massage from Fletcher. Did he not think there was something amiss with that in the context of church ministry?

Coekin’s responses to the questions about Fletcher were curiously flat and unconvincing.  The life seemed to go out of his voice compared with the vivacity of the first part of the interview.  Everything that was admitted sounded like something from the Church of England publicity machine.  There was seemingly some acceptance that victims found the beatings helpful – but then dismay. The reasons for that dismay are unclear. There was, I noticed, also no depth of pastoral insight or real understanding of the potential disastrous effect on victims.  While words of deep regret towards victims were uttered, they felt formulaic and seemed to lack a sense of pastoral empathy.  One particular moment of shock was when Coekin interjected the fact that there had been no underage young men being abused by Fletcher.  This implied that Coekin believed that, theoretically, Fletcher could have been involved in nude massages and beatings which involved consent and were thus somehow less of a problem.  Coekin moved on from these activities to what he called “the real problem” rather than yet another serious problem. 

The problem as he presented it was subjectively whether victims “felt” manipulated. Quite apart from the apparent homoerotic nature of Fletcher’s activities, which are the target of strong condemnation by the entire conservative evangelical constituency, there is the power differential issue.  Coekin partially acknowledged the power issue, but repeatedly minimised it by highlighting possible lack of consent and feeling manipulated as being the “real problem.”’ One would like him to have utterly condemned all activities initiated by a man of enormous status towards those who were impressionable and immature.  Even to bring up the age of consent suggests he is not able to discern and recognise abuse of power or serious safeguarding breaches.

What did I learn from this interview about Jonathan Fletcher?  My perception is that those who knew him, like Coekin, seem to be still at least partly under his thrall.  While they have been forced to accept the facts of the case, they seem unable to process these facts and the implications of what a moral failure by a prominent leader will have on the credibility of the whole conservative evangelical movement in Britain.  The way that Coekin changed in the interview from being a passionate advocate of his evangelism/leadership role to the formulaic responses, when talking about Fletcher, was striking.   Somehow Fletcher’s influence seems to have flattened part of the moral and psychological sensitivity of an experienced Christian like Coekin.   Having spoken passionately of the importance of preserving the biblical view of marriage, Coekin then appeared to be partly blind to the effect of the behaviour of a leader who clearly is a long way from upholding such values. It is worrying for the ReNew constituency that the interviewer, Dominic Steele, was unable to challenge Coekin’s blindspots, and yet he is due to speak at the upcoming ReNew conference on 14^th September. This hardly gives confidence that the ReNew constituency are able to embrace the changes necessary to enable them to act as Jesus would towards victims and church.

From this video I gained a greater insight into a Christian culture that says one thing, but then is blind to the same thing happening in its back yard.   The Iwerne/con-evo/conservative Christian culture from which Coekin and Fletcher come from also seems to have remarkably little insight into the nature of power.  As I have said elsewhere there is always going to be a problem around power for any group who presents as if they have been entrusted with infallible teaching or access to final truth.  When there is a Christian culture that admits no doubts, there will be also be a hesitancy or reluctance to question or challenge leaders who are straying morally.  The same would apply when they are playing one or other of the great variety of power games that are possible within an institution like the Church.  My theory about Jonathan Fletcher is that he acquired too much power in the course of his ministry so that no one was prepared to challenge him.  Class and the ability to influence people’s careers was part of that. His being beyond contradiction did enormous damage both to individuals and to his wider circles.  Even now his power and influence in those circles is such that few have come forward to openly challenge his interpretation of his abuse.  Fletcher wrote in his defence that his activities were all ‘consensual.’ Despite his protestations, and impressive man that he is in many ways, Richard Coekin spoke publicly not to stand with victims and show support for them, but rather in a way that perpetuated Fletcher’s own view of abuse in a church leadership context. Victims have seen precious little in the way of constituency leaders publicly advocating for them in the last year, only vacuous posturing. What meaningful public comment has there been, except that we are on the victims’ side and that we should avoid gossip? (As Robin Weekes prayed at last year’s ReNew Conference) Irrespective of his warning against hasty conclusions, he seems to apologetically assume that Fletcher was a great leader with flaws, rather as opposed to wondering if he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Sadly, rather than taking the vaunted “opportunity to draw back” and critique what’s unbiblical regarding the class issues and unbiblical hierarchy coming out the power base of Titus Trust camps, one Fletcher victim complains that the constituency leaders have doubled down and marginalised any dissenting voices.

On Tuesday 8^th September the Church of England, represented by the Bishop in charge of Safeguarding, Jonathan Gibbs, declared that the Dean of Christ Church had behaved appropriately in all areas of safeguarding.  The enquiry into his behaviour by the National Safeguarding Team was at an end.  For a summary of the overall case, consult an earlier blog  http://survivingchurch.org/2020/07/06/a-guide-to-the-situation-at-christ-church-oxford/     

Is this cause for rejoicing?  Yes, if we are able to disregard the oceans of stress for Dean Percy and his family, as well as the substantial expenditure of time and money that have been a part of this process.  There is no need for me to rehearse all the facts of the affair, but suffice to say that a dispute has been going on since 2018 between Dean Percy and some of the senior members of his college.  This has become, apparently, very bitter.  There have been two stages in the formal part of the complaint.  The first  resulted in a judge-led enquiry which declared the Dean not guilty of the twenty seven charges against him and then there was the Core Group process initiated by the NST.  The ‘not-guilty’ conclusion of this latter process should result in a restoration of the status-quo but that is unlikely for the time being.

Christ Church issued its own statement on Tuesday 8^th which was somewhat cold, factual and entirely without any regret for the damage that their own institution has suffered through the use of these processes against their own Dean.  Damage comes in various forms and Christ Church has suffered greatly as the result of spending eye-wateringly large amounts on lawyers and reputational management companies.  The sum of between £2 to £3 million has been mentioned but the effect on its reputation with its own alumni has been equally devastating.  Oxford colleges are always anxious to encourage their past members to leave money in their wills.  Who will want to leave anything to an institution that persecutes its own head, especially, as in this case, the accusations of evil doing are shown on two occasions to have no substance?

The second institution to suffer damage in the aftermath of this case is the National Safeguarding Team (NST) of the Church of England. The first NST had been formed in 2015 by the Church in the aftermath of the sentencing of Peter Ball.  In its early days under the leadership of Graham Tilby, it was an ‘empire’ of thirteen and a half full time employees.  Graham Tilby moved on after a less than impressive performance in front of the IICSA hearing.  Quietly, a completely new team under the leadership of Melissa Caslake appeared in 2019.  The current team is less numerous than the old but Caslake has so far retained the respect of survivors and Church leaders alike.  Likewise, the new bishop with safeguarding responsibilities, Jonathan Gibbs, spoke with sincerity and conviction at the February 2020 General Synod and all seemed to be promising well for the future.

The NST became drawn into the Percy process because of an appeal from one or more of the Christ Church complainants, who believed that the Dean had a case to answer on church safeguarding grounds. The NST responded by setting up the core group process to look at the complaint. 

March 13^th  2020 was the date when the Core Group set up by the NST met in Oxford to discuss the complaint against Dean Percy.  The meeting apparently did not take any minutes and was flawed in other ways.  Two of the members had known conflicts of interest and were subsequently removed from participation in the group.  Both of these members were among the complainants from the college.  A further issue that weakened the meeting, was in ther fact that neither Bishop Jonathan nor Ms Caslake were present.  Lord Carlile, in discussing the flawed processes in the Core Groups over Bishop Bell, complained strongly about the failures of continuity of personnel in the core group process.  Unless the same people attended meetings, the processes of justice would be hard to maintain.  These identifiable flaw of process in the March 13^th meeting probably should have resulted in that meeting being declared null and void and a new meeting called.

The present exoneration of Dean Percy, in the announcement by Bishop Jonathan yesterday, may or may not have been the result of a further core group meeting.  More likely it came as the result of a calm appraisal of all the facts of the case by two or three people at Church House who oversee the NST.  Such decision makers will be among those who are feeling the heat of all the criticisms of the central Church from General Synod members, bloggers and ordinary members over the involvement of the Church in the Christ Church affair.  I have laid out quite a number of these criticisms in earlier blog posts.  But what should happen now?

Christ Church has its own battles to fight in its bid to restore its reputation and respect from its alumni and the wider public.  I have nothing to suggest there.  But I can offer a few thoughts to the Church of England.  This venerable body has allowed its reputation for just and fair dealing to be sullied by the faulty use of core groups and the way that survivors of abuse/ false accusation in general have sometimes been treated by faulty processes.  Even after the exoneration of Dean Percy, we have many questions to ask.  Although two members of the Percy Core Group were removed after the issue of a conflict of interest was pointed out, the wider public has the right to know how future blunders like this will be avoided and more transparent processes put in place.  We would also like to know who made the decision to accommodate the ‘wily dons’ to launch the core group process in the first place.  If the Church could come down from its place of secrecy, the culture that has done so much to weaken trust within the Church, the path might be open for a process of healing.  This is what is now required for those who have suffered and have become alienated from church authorities by recent events.  The Church authorities routinely seem to use legal processes to defend themselves as well as the devious manipulations of truth suggested to them by their reputation managers.

In a short space I want to try to describe the outline of what a Peace and Reconciliation process might look like in the Church and would make things right after the terrible mistakes of the Dean Percy affair. Although there are in the case financial considerations to be put right which will return to Martyn the vast sums expended on taking out legal defence, there are Christian things to be done as well. Martyn has been clearly wronged by the Church, whether by accident or deliberate malevolence. Both parties are Christian so there should be offered Christian solutions to the breakdown that has occurred. Lawyers, reputation managers and publicity creators clearly have no role in any peace and reconciliation process. Such skills have their place, but they do not inspire confidence that they are working for anything other than a defence of assets and reputation.  Truth needs to be told by both sides, not with a view to protecting reputations, but with a single-minded simple desire to know and understand the truth of everything that has happened.

The Bible speaks about speaking the truth in love.  Cannot Christian people come together within this fundamental, non-confrontational approach so that reconciliation and true forgiveness can start to take place?  The first move should probably be made by leaders, in whose name Martyn has been made to suffer through a badly handled false accusation. Do not all Church leaders at heart have a longing for these values? The acting out of these values in the public arena would be a powerful witness both to the Church and to the wider society.   Archbishop Tutu’s work in South Africa did an enormous amount to share the Christian message of reconciliation with the population of his country as well as of the world.  Truth, peace and reconciliation are relevant not only to Christians, but all people everywhere.  We are in many ways at a turning point in the history of the Church, thanks to the covid-19 devastations on the infrastructure.  Cannot the Church accept as a challenge to do something really powerful which might reach countless people?  We have before us the task of rebuilding trust between all abused people, represented by Dean Percy and the rest of the church, especially its leaders? Cannot new liturgies be written, acts of contrition be enacted, so that people everywhere can see the transforming power of Christian love? 

 I have started to reflect on the way the Church is managed and organised today. The Church, both locally and nationally, has a continuum of management styles like any other organisation. Speaking very generally there will be some churches and organisations that operate in an authoritarian manner while others foster a high degree of collaboration among the staff.  Outwardly the Church of England has the form of a highly authoritarian organisation.  It uses the structure of a hierarchical pyramid, with Archbishops at the top and lay people at the base.  That is, of course, not how things are supposed to work out in practice.  The humblest lay person can theoretically challenge an Archbishop.  There are officially systems that make this possible through synods, legal processes etc.  But, as we saw in the testimony of the last blog post, the legal frameworks for obtaining justice are highly convoluted and difficult to negotiate.  Most people, including those in positions of authority, are not always clear what is possible in the Church and how power is supposed to operate in practice.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Anthony Trollope was writing his novels about Barchester and at the same time casting a critical challenging eye at the management of the Church of England.  I am no expert on Victorian church history, but I cannot imagine that Trollope was the only one campaigning about the enormous privileges in society that the Church of England enjoyed.  In addition there were also the anomalies of unequal and unjust structures within the Church itself.  Mr Quiverfull and his numerous children lived in a cold vicarage at Puddingdale on £150 p.a. while the Cathedral clergy at Barchester received twelve times the amount.  We can say that Trollope was helping to make the public aware of three areas of power in the Church – social power, financial privilege for some and the power of patronage.  Social power and patronage power run very close together.  Preferment in the Barchester diocese was linked to having the right relatives, having been at the right Oxford college or knowing someone with links to the Prime Minister.  Certainly, the clergy in Victorian times all seemed to come from the ‘right drawer’.  Others from humbler backgrounds were ordained, but many of these were expected to remain curates on £40 a year for their entire ministries.

A further form of power was in evidence in the Victorian church and later – the power of education.  Most clergy were highly educated by the standards of the day.  Most were also conscientious about their work and took their vocations seriously.  The classics were the preferred education for the elite classes who, apart from the clerical profession, went into such professions as the Army or the Civil and Colonial Services.  Although that style of learning is no longer in fashion, as far as the clergy were concerned it did equip them with a real appreciation for the Bible in its original languages. Also, the clergyman resident in his vicarage exercised considerable local influence by being, usually, by far the best educated person in the neighbourhood.

These four forms of power that I have identified have to be added to a more modern form we have discussed elsewhere – charismatic power.  Together these have created a church whose servants used to exercise an influence and power in society which few bothered to attempt to challenge.  The situation today is that although the Church hierarchy still possesses some outward forms of power, each of the traditional manifestations have been considerably weakened.  Reflecting on the massive changes in society,  manifestations of clerical and episcopal power are far less obvious.   Clergy no longer come from a particular class, representing wealth or social influence.  Few of them depend on the patronage afforded to them by wealthy relatives for preferment. From an educational perspective, many live among populations with higher academic achievements than the clergy themselves possess. The weakening of these traditional forms of power overall represents an improvement on the situation in Trollope’s time.  But the great weakness of losing all this power in the modern age is that the Church is no longer able to operate the kinds of authority suggested by the old-fashioned hierarchical structures.  There is, in other words, a mismatch between the appearance of power (palaces, titles, House of Lords membership etc) and actual power, even within its own internal management.  Some power of the hierarch or bishop remains, but it is qualified and checked at almost every point.  As I said in a previous blog, the one remaining source of power still reliably available to a bishop, is his/her power of patronage and some influence in the way that money is allocated.

A few months back I wrote a blog about the role of bishops.  This coincided with advertisements for three suffragan bishops that appeared in the Church Times at the beginning of Lent.  I asked why anyone would want to be a bishop in the present day.  I repeat that question in the light of what I have been describing of the way that the bishop is  a person of authority, while at the same time much of the power of his/her authority has been weakened.  Many constraints exist on the power of bishops.  Some come from imposed legal constraints, like the Clergy Discipline Measure.   Others come from the nature of the communication age we live in.  As a blogger, I am aware of the power of instant access to information and the difficulty of hiding material from ordinary people.  Every clergyperson has the right to see any written information held on file and that must inhibit bishops/leaders from writing anything down on paper or on a computer.  In the past, the power of secrecy was rock solid and that could be seen to be an additional source of power given to those high up on the hierarchical pyramid.  Committees still of course meet in private at every level of the Church.  But today, even secrets have a habit of leaking out from ‘private’ discussions.  This further potential tool of power through secrecy is often neutralised in real world situations.  In short, the authority of the hierarchy is no longer functioning well because society and culture have combined to weaken it.  They insist on the values of openness and democracy.  Some new structure for the Church needs to be found which can embrace this new reality.

This final paragraph has to be a work in progress because I have not really worked out the implications of the failures and threats to the hierarchical system in the Church.  While we are working out what might replace it, I want to point out the appalling stress being laid on bishops, archdeacons and others in charge.  The supporting structures of real power that used to exist to reinforce their authority, are quite often no longer there or are considerably weakened.  How can an Archbishop, like Justin Welby, exercise authority when he is constrained by so many things – legal structures, democratic synods and the chorus of individual bloggers who ask the questions that contemporary democracy and openness allow them.  To repeat, the Church of England purports to be a hierarchy.  No such structure can really flourish in the 21^st century and the sooner we come to terms with this new norm, the better.   

by Paul Devonshire

The following narrative which has been sent to Surviving Church helps us to understand why the Clergy Discipline Measure is not fit for purpose. Somewhere in this story old fashioned common-sense disappeared from the process and the disputants became locked in a nightmare of forms, statements and totally inappropriate tools for reconciliation and understanding. When such events take place we have a recipe for appalling dysfunction and unhappiness within a Church. There must be a better way of allowing justice to flow and furthering the promotion of healing within a Church congregation .

Following an impasse with my local incumbent back in 2013, I put my grievances before the diocesan bishop in a letter. In his opinion, but without stating reasons, these did not amount to being complaint-worthy, and he referred me to the archdeacon. I met with him together with my wife. He said that, because he would be involved in the event of any formal complaint, he was not free to comment. I explained that I did not seek the man’s dismissal, just the situation resolved to some mutual satisfaction. I received no notes following this meeting. This meeting was to prove the last face-to-face contact with anyone from the diocese.

Feeling there was no intention to mediate, I put in a formal complaint, itemising the relevant behaviour matching them with examples of bullying behaviour in the diocesan Guidelines on bullying. In the absence of a complaints procedure in the diocese, the bishop decided to use the CDM. I was given no information about the process. I used the format available on the website, but was then told I had not used the correct form. Thinking there was a national form, I approached Church House, Westminster, only to be told that each diocese had their own. My original format was then accepted. Hearing nothing within the timescale, I did some progress chasing only to be told that the bishop’s secretary had mislaid it. With precipitous haste, I received a report prepared by the diocesan solicitor headed ‘draft report’. The matter had now been delegated to a suffragan bishop who accepted the defence made in the report. This was that, since the incumbent had not contravened the “laws ecclesiastical”, the case could be dismissed.

My examples of untoward behaviour were not considered bullying since not repetitive. My allegations of lying and deceitfulness were ignored. There was no comment on any of the incumbent’s behaviour, therefore no comment on whether it is reasonable to withhold access to a churchyard mower or prohibit someone from reading in church without telling them why and for how long. The failure to negotiate a compromise on the former meant that the church had to employ commercial contractors rather than have unpaid volunteers. The latter involved secrecy, insincerity and an ill use of power. This I found particularly distasteful and upsetting. The process allowed no challenge to this report save by going to review. (There was no tribunal setting with involved parties present.)

The result of this was that, since the process had been conducted legally, the decision should stand. When informing me of this, the suffragan bishop indicated that there would be no further correspondence on the issue. The judge had opined that the behaviours were not inherently of a bullying nature but when I enquired how he would describe them, he did not reply. In pursuing his advice with regard mediation, I was informed by the suffragan bishop that the incumbent was “incapable of engaging positively in mediation”. When I wrote to the diocesan bishop, all he advocated was “apostolic engagement”, by which arcane expression, I discovered, he meant taking Holy Communion. Since this CDM process was conducted entirely via correspondence, it allowed the arguments I advanced to go unaddressed in the responses.

I felt I was not being treated honourably and with respect, but that people were playing games to ensure I would not win.. I came to realise that the polity of the Church of England at every level is totalitarian in form, such regimes relying on judicial collusion to persist. Having successfully taken things away from me, the incumbent then took away the editorship of the church magazine from my wife. This she had done successfully over many years as well has having been a churchwarden. This violent, vindictive and predictable act was achieved by placing a confidential item on the PCC agenda. There was no prior warning or negotiation with my wife. When informed, by letter, my wife wrote asking to meet with members of the PCC to put her case. This was rejected. In essence, it was a kangaroo court. Had this been a commercial situation, this would have counted as constructive dismissal under employment legislation, such protection being unavailable in a voluntary capacity.

Informed by a parishioner that the archdeacon had advised the PCC not to respond, I challenged the archdeacon in a letter. He failed to address the issue. Given my earlier experience, my wife considered any formal complaint as futile and pursued none. Instead, after canvassing the village for support, she inaugurated an alternative self-financing magazine which has run successfully for the last seven years. The lack of face-to-face engagement and failure to address points made during this process shows scant regard for human relationships and the commandment to love one’s neighbour. There was no consideration of negotiation, no suggestion from the diocese of mediation.

I have concluded that church communities are in fact faux communities, happy to exclude those with ideas at odds with the clergy. They are not safe places. The choice of CDM and everything subsequent was imposed on me without consultation. It was applied incompetently and without compassion. There was no evidence of “justice rolling like a stream”, and, considering the deceit and dishonesty, little display of righteousness. The CDM, with its absence of cross-examination, provided little protection. There was a sense of a lazy expediency and short-termism. There was no attempt made to reach a mutual understanding of the situation that might have avoided negative longer-term consequences. The prescription of ‘apostolic engagement’, rather than exercising intellectual effort, suggests easy grace, magical thinking and anti-intellectualism. There was no attempt to assess any personal effect events were having on me and my wife. I continue with a conditioned response to dog collars that is wholly negative. I am now fully aware of the destructive nature of narcissism, for which occupational hazard the church has no apparent checks and balances.

In my recent blogging and asking questions about the Smyth/Fletcher scandals, I have been wanting to do far more than simply chronicling a series of events.  As a former parish priest with almost a half-century of service in a variety of congregations, I approach this open-source material with what I hope is an informed perspective.   Congregations and their leaders, as well as most groups, behave in predictable ways.  What I offer in my commentary on this material, is a reflection about patterns of behaviour.   Placing such material into a context of history and theology is also an important task, but these speculations have to remain provisional. 

A couple of weeks back, the story of PC Andrew Harper, killed by thieves in Berkshire a year ago, resurfaced.  Those guilty were convicted and sentenced to prison for manslaughter.   The Press contained some discussion about whether this verdict should be overturned in favour of one calling it murder. The part of the story that caught my eye was not that debate.  It was the mentioning of the detail that, while the police were originally investigating the killing, they had received absolutely no cooperation from any of the residents of the travellers’ sites where the guilty lived.  It appeared that every single member of the communities where the thieves lived, was bound by an unwritten rule that cooperation with the police (and thus the wider society) was impossible.  Even a terrible death was not sufficient to overcome this.  In pondering this complex breakdown of communication and mutual understanding between two sections of society, we seem to be touching on something resembling the mindset of a cult or extremist political group.  There was a norm, a group mind, which laid on the entire community a rule of silence.  Everyone automatically fell into line.  No single individual there was operating as an independent adult with a conscience that could operate on behalf of those outside the tribe.

A similar kind of group mind seems to be affecting parts of the so-called Villages, a wealthy enclave for retired people in Florida.  Apparently, the divisions between Trump and Biden supporters have broken out into open conflict among some of these elderly residents.  Any kind of political display, a flag or poster, has the effect of creating torrents of anger among those on the opposing side.  Somewhere in the heat of political debate, groups of elderly American citizens have lost the ability to imagine that other people might have a valid reason for thinking and feeling in a different way. 

These two examples present to us a mentality that flourished in the period before the Second World War.  Two political systems were then on offer in continental Europe.  One, Communism, was represented by Stalin and Soviet Russia.  The other, Fascism, was imposed in Spain, Germany and Italy.  Both systems were a different expression of what we want to call the group mind.  The first, Communism, strove to create a consciousness that would claim to be building a communal society where corporate values were supreme.  This of course was the ideal rather than the reality.  Fascism on the other hand was promoting crude forms of individualism, the extolling of brute strength and the destiny of the strong to dominate over the weak.  The values of both systems had much mass appeal.  Anyone who happened to be living empty or unfulfilled lives could look to the leader and internalise the values that were being shared every day through the output of propaganda.  Lives that were felt to have no meaning suddenly were imbued with significance.  The secret weapon of both these systems was that once the ideals of the regime were internalised, the follower was relieved of having ever to make decisions and accept responsibility.  In psychological terms, being part of the national group mind allowed a comforting regression to infancy.  Daddy will sort everything out.  You can trust the leader to sort out your life and provide fulfilment.  For an uncomfortably high percentage of the populations, this was a cult-like consciousness they were happy to wallow in.  Devotion to the Leader or Fuehrer was total for large sectors of the population.  It was uncritical, unreflective and devoid of questioning.

Some understanding of the totalist regimes of the 1930s is helpful for the understanding of cults and cultic movements of today.  In all of them, there is the same avoidance of rational individuality which accepts responsibility for decisions.  There is always what we would consider an unhealthy devotion to a charismatic leader who does the thinking for his followers and keeps them at the maturity level of small children.  As long as no questions are asked, all seems well.  But the awakening from such cult-like control is painful.  A human being cannot live with their individuality and necessary choices supressed for ever. 

There is a painful truth that the Church is also sometimes very good at keeping people at a low level of maturity.   While we are not suggesting that the Church is like a cult or a mass political movement, there are some uncomfortable parallels.  I have often in this blog complained about the way that some church leaders adopt the role of a coercive benevolent dictator, telling their followers in detail how to live and exactly what to believe.  Membership is restricted to those who are Sound, and preferment to those who are Keen. Clearly a congregation where everyone believes the same things and adopts the same modes of behaviour, is likely to be a tidy place.   The preservation of these tribal loyalties may seem like a good thing.  The problem is that leaders are fallible.  When they fail, as in the current cases around Smyth/Fletcher, the fallout and damage can be appalling.  The tidy systems of control, that worked so well for a long period of time, start to crack open and people realise that the certainties that the institution stood for had been based to a considerable extent on fantasy and deceit.

The results of the Reviews by Keith Makin and Thirtyone:eight into the behaviours of Smyth and Fletcher respectively, are both delayed until next year.  There has been some comment about the reasons for these delays, but the outsider is permitted to speculate further on these hold-ups. Thirtyone:eight included the somewhat ambiguous reason which I and others have not known how to interpret.  “Non-disclosure-related information emerging late”.  Speculation is of course not fact but in the case of the Smyth enquiry at any rate, there seem to be one of two reasons at play.  The less likely theory, arising out of what I have said on the functioning of cultic groups, is that there is so much new material available that the reviewers are finding it hard to process what has come in.  The other more probable theory is that the communities that surrounded and protected charismatic leaders like Fletcher and Smyth are still in a state of post-cultic shock.  While they are now able to recognise a new reality, that old leaders are fallible, they have not lost the old tribal habits of the group mind.  In short, there is some suggestion that the enquiries currently under way are being met with the obstructionist habits of closed groups.

We thus suggest that a picture of dozens of individuals queuing up to speak to Keith Makin about their experiences of Iwerne camps, good and bad, is a very improbable one.  The most likely scenario is that there is considerable difficultly in getting individuals to speak openly and that makes the task of writing a Review harder. The omerta culture seems alive and well and we would naturally expect that to restrain a free sharing of Iwerne memories by the majority of the alumni.  Another thing that seems extraordinary is that there is no open debate about whether the Iwerne ideology of ‘Bash’ is still worth defending.  Am I the only person to have noticed that the military ethos of the camps was first conceived of in the 1930s and may perhaps have been influenced by other elitist youth movements were being created in continental Europe?  Has no one anywhere wanted to discuss whether the semi-militarised Christian training of Iwerne camps has done anything positive for the Church of England?  Is it raw fear that prevents this discussion?  Some of the alumni of Iwerne appear to be behaving like people coming out of a dark place blinking into the light.  Like cult survivors, they have a variety of stages yet to go through, like Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief.  At present most of them are still at the stage of shock and denial.  Perhaps church history will one day come to see, when examining this extraordinary tale of the Great Leader Betrayal, that the Church of England was let down badly by giving so much influence and power to this small but influential group of Christians who continue to operate this highly controlled form of Christianity.  To judge from the literature of cult studies, it will take several years if not decades before many of the Iwerne victims/survivors will be able to speak and speak clearly about what they have experienced.   The process might be speeded up if their current leaders, who still exercise a great deal of influence over the rank and file, were to give permission for the cathartic opening-up that is needed to heal so many, the directly abused and the bystanders.  So far that permission has not been granted and the journey through the stages of grief cannot proceed with ease.

Cults, extremist political or religious ideologies and closed communities of all kinds draw their strength and their toxic influence by drawing people into an unhealthy relationship with leaders.  That relationship can be poisonous.  It stops the process of growing into freedom and responsible living and the making of life choices. We call this fullness mature independence.  This is what Jesus was talking about when he declared: ‘I have come that they may have life, life in all its abundance.’