The forthcoming Jubilee has allowed the older ones among us to dredge our memories to recall where we were when the news of the death of King George was announced to the nation.  I was in my two-form rural primary school in Kent.  One of the children from the class above came into our form room to announce the news. The broadcast of Music with Movement for schools had been interrupted to share the news with the public. I do not remember any strong signs of emotion being displayed.  More shocking was the announcement of the assassination of President Kennedy eleven years later.  The violent death of prominent people was not something that we were used to at the time or expected. 

Reading accounts of past events that we were part of, in some sense, is a fascinating exercise.  One thing that is of interest to me is to reflect and discover how long it took for any sense of party politics to enter my thinking and my imagination.  As a student in the mid-60s there was a great deal of political activity going on around me, but I did little to get involved.   Everything seemed to be pointing the way to a political revolution that many believed to be imminent.  The Vietnam war was polarising the young people of my age in the States. The short but bloody 1968 confrontation between the Russian tanks and the crowds of Prague was heroic, inspiring and tragic all at the same time.  The student uprising of the same year in Paris galvanised many young people into political awareness and activism.  I was one of those who, until the end of my time as an undergraduate, was a complete political innocent.  It took a prolonged stay in Greece under the Colonels to awaken any political fire inside me.  My exposure there to a cruel fascism introduced me to the emotion of political passion.  For the first time I began to be able to imagine something of the zealotry of young people around the world, who at that time were prepared to risk their lives to change a political system.  

Politics is not only about a dominant group which makes the rules that govern a country.   Alongside the ideology of a ruling party in government we have other levels of political activity, as, for example, the belief systems of institutions.  In the late sixties, speaking in a very generalised way, it could be said that the universities and churches were predominately in a left-wing mode.  For me, a participation in this ideological social movement was experienced by my attendance at a huge student conference in Manchester in 1969.  This conference was entitled Third World First.   The very definite left-wing bias of some of the speakers was apparent in their use of incomprehensible Marxist jargon.  These were hard to listen to or understand. There was enough, however, to latch on to elsewhere to make it worthwhile.  We had the inspiring words of Archbishop Helder Camara of Recife in Brazil.  He helped to convince his audience that the future that beckoned us had a distinctively socialist feel.

Beyond the world of politics and universities there was yet another ‘lefty’ revolution going on, this time in the theology of the churches.   In a revealing chapter in her recent book with Nicholas Peter Harvey, Unknowing God, Linda Woodhead speaks of the communitarian strand of modern philosophy and theology.  This was flourishing in the sixties and, according to Woodhead, was typically expounded by the influential philosopher John MacMurray. This writer had a great influence on my own thinking from the time I read one of his books in 1964. The theme of much of MacMurray’s writing is a simple one. He articulates the idea that each of us only finds ourselves in our relationships with other people. In other words, community is the primary reality, and it takes precedence over our individuality. In this mode of thinking we find several other theologies which emphasise the communal and which were very popular and influential in this period.  Among them we have feminist theology and liberation theology.  Both are examples of Christians attempting to explore theology as it touches groups.  At the time, like many others, I found such ideas enormously attractive.  They also fitted with another strand of theology which I was learning from my study of Orthodoxy.  The theme that I was noting is summed up in the word Sobornost. This is one of those words that is best not translated.  It is a Russian word which is itself a translation of the Greek word koinonia.  That word has the idea of human community and participation in the divine.  At theological college I was attracted to the ideas of John Zizoulas who wrote a work on the eucharist. He claimed that the church finds its true identity as it gathers to celebrate this rite of communion with God which also binds together its members.

Looking back, I can see how thoroughly immersed I was in the communitarian ideas that were current in the sixties.  Woodhead’s short essay has allowed me to recognise how much I was feeding on the prevailing fashions of the time. There is nothing shameful about this attraction, but the dangers of going too far down this path can be faced afresh as we look back.  Woodhead’s writing is able to point out, from a contemporary perspective, the drawbacks of taking on too much of this mode of thought.  One of the interesting expressions of this thinking was the wide embrace across the Western world of a belief in communes.  Many, if not most of these experiments, ended in tears as the idealism which started them could not overcome the many practical issues that this kind of community living involves.  I have also listened to endless accounts of the ‘cults’ where idealism was betrayed so that a community became a focus of pure exploitative power. One student at my theological college went off to live in a commune immediately after ordination. This was supposed to be a great new idea in politics and in the church. Too much idealism does not solve problems like responsibility for cleaning and washing up. The Christian commune at Blackheath survived only a couple of years.

Woodhead’s article is of great value as it sets out the danger of a church life and a theology that draws deeply from this communal vision.  She also recognises that the opposite to it, what she calls atomised existence, is conducive to loneliness and isolation.  Any excess of community is often going to be claustrophobic and dangerous.  Community of the wrong kind can involve the loosening of barriers that mark out where we end and another begins.   This can be exhilarating but we all need appropriate boundaries to defend and protect us from exploitation, bullying and abuse of various kinds. Finding the right balance between atomised existence and an over-intimate association with others is difficult. The article dramatically points to the way that sexual abuse is a forcible wrecking of the needed boundaries that should exist between us and others.  We desperately need them for our psychological and emotional well-being.

We all face the problem of finding out who we truly are. Over the 10 years when I have been involved in cult survivor circles, I have seen how easily people can become sucked into extremes of community living. They give so much of themselves to the cult, its leader and the ideals of the group, that it is extremely hard later to escape and find their true self once more. I wonder sometimes whether church groups understand the dangers of what appear to be cult-like practices in their communities. We recently mentioned the dynamics of the John Smyth ‘cult’.  He completely undermined the self-determination and identity of his young victims. For many of them the task of reconstructing the self is still proceeding some 40 years later. Peter Ball did something similar to his victims.  It took exceptional courage for survivors in both cases to step forward and make a complaint. Simultaneously we need to remember that not by any stretch of the imagination is everything about religious community bad.  The danger here is when such communities allow their members to step over a line into a form of undifferentiated merging with others.  We need to spend more time addressing this tension in church life and how we need to preserve a healthy place which balances our need both for community and individuality. The same balance is needed in our political life.  Fortunately, we have the resources of Scripture to help us to find who we truly are in Christ.  We never need to be enslaved in the ideology and control of another person.

Over my lifetime I have seen in politics and religion the oscillations between promoting strong independent individualism and the insistence on new forms of tight community. On this blog we have noted the tension between placing ourselves under a strong charismatic leader or seeking to go it alone.  It is indeed hard to find exactly the right place to be along this spectrum.  The place of true balance in our religious and our political life is, nevertheless, worth searching for.   The two extremes of total independence and a merged personality have to be wrong, both from the theological and the psychological perspective. The important thing for a Christian is to understand the seductive nature of both these positions so that they can avoid embracing either of them. We are not meant either to be a strong superman/woman, owing nothing to anyone or, on the other hand, a porous personality able to be swayed and manipulated by everyone in sight. I believe that the resources of Scripture combined with an intelligent reading of the psychological literature can help us to know what is, for each of us, healthy territory to occupy. My short reflection here on this post has perhaps made us aware of a map that needs to be drawn by each of us.  That map may help us to live in the right place, a place that is simultaneously open to God, to other people and to our true selves.

  

One of the things we learn very early on in life is that if you are going to have an argument with someone, it is a good idea to agree on what you mean by the words you use.  Numerous discussions over the years have proved to be a waste of time when you discover that your starting point or the words you were using were being defined in quite different ways by the person you were talking to.

In recent safeguarding news stories in the press and elsewhere we have also been encountering situations when two sides use words which have quite different meanings from one another.   Martyn Percy has been reminding us, in his recent article on the Modern Church site, how words are indeed slippery things.  In the novel, 1984, published in 1949, one of the themes is the way that language becomes a tool of oppression by the ruling clique.  Hitherto wholesome words, like freedom and truth, have their meanings totally subverted so that no one quite knows what they really mean anymore.  All that can be said with certainty is that in a 1984 context, words are defined to fit in with what those in authority have decreed.

One word that has been giving problems in recent years, particularly in a safeguarding context, is the word independent.  I spent time trying to define in an earlier blog what this word might actually mean.  In a church/safeguarding setting there does seem to be a particular problem in knowing how we should understand the word.  The Church of England authorities appear to believe, for example, that the word can legitimately apply to a group of people working at Church House and paid for with central church funds.  To believe that any group working with such constraints can be properly independent in a meaningful sense, is to enter a 1984, Alice in Wonderland fantasy.   Here words mean anything that the speaker decides they mean. The word independent has now been so overused that perhaps it needs to be avoided as much as possible.

Is there another word that might replace independent, now that it has had its meaning undermined?  The last time the word was used appropriately was when the Government set up the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).  Since then, there have been so many times where the word has not been used accurately and credibly that the very mention of the word sets off alarm bells. Independent, in other words, has lost much of its meaning and needs replacing.

In the middle of wondering how the Church could recover the idea of independence in the way that it allows others to scrutinise its work, I encountered the 300-page report written for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the States.  According to the New York Times on May 22^nd the report, compiled by Guidepost Solutions, recorded how nearly 400 individuals employed within the SBC have been convicted of sex crimes since 1998.  This scandal broke first of all in 2019 through the diligence of two newspapers, the San Antonio Express and the Houston Chronicle.  A major theme in the revelations was the criminal inertia of those at the top of the denomination.  The official line taken by the denominational leaders was that their power to intervene was severely restricted by the fact that Southern Baptist congregations were separate entities.  They were thus independent of the denominational structures.  According to this latest report, this did not stop the denomination holding 700 records of the malfeasance among its clergy members, while doing nothing to warn congregations of the dangers posed by these individuals. Offenders could thus flit from church to church and be free to offend again.  Meanwhile, congregations who were tolerant of women’s ministry or gay marriage were disciplined or even disfellowshipped from the SBC.

Even after the newspaper revelations of 2019, it has proved extraordinarily difficult to get the SBC leadership to come clean about its failings, both locally and nationally.   Typical responses have been that the revelations are the work of the devil trying to destroy God’s work.  One particular prominent campaigner, Beth Moore, who went public with her outspoken comment on the SBC leaders’ failings, saw them as being in the context of ‘the sexism and misogyny that is rampant in segments of the denomination.  She also attacked the opposition towards the group responsible for the current report.  ‘If you still refuse to believe facts stacked Himalayan high before your eyes and insist the independent group hired to conduct the investigation is part of a (liberal!) human conspiracy or demonic attack, you’re not just deceived.  You are part of the deception.’

The SBC has been profoundly affected by the report and its findings.  Readers can access the material for themselves and read whatever other follow-ups appear after the publication of this report.  The telling point I take from this report is that it was undertaken by a group that was truly independent.  As such, the report was not afraid to challenge the institution to the point where it was accused of severely wounding the entire denomination.   One piece in Christianity Today calls the report ‘the Southern Baptist Apocalypse’.  The other turn of phrase that most struck me in the same article in CT is the expression ‘third party’ referring to the way that the report was written by an outside group.  This set me to wondering whether we could challenge the Church of England to say, when they wish to use the word independent, whether they really mean ‘third-party’.  By using this latter expression, they would be making it absolutely clear that the individuals making a report or assessing material were working from a position of impartiality and objectivity   The expression ‘third-party’ is far less capable of being manipulated than the word independent.  I am going to avoid using the word again unless the person I am communicating with is using it as a synonym of ‘third-party’.

In-house reports or internal investigations within the Church can never be independent in the strict meaning of the word.  The issue I want to present here to members of the Church of England is not to go on arguing about the meaning of independent.  That is probably a futile discussion.  They have allowed the word to appear in the context of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).  Quite clearly that entity is not qualified to use the adjective as a self-description.  I do however want to see third-party investigations take place in many sectors of the Church where safeguarding failures have been identified. This is a job for the outsider, the third-party investigator.  The one obvious institution that still has the power to investigate the Church’s safeguarding failings with third-party objectivity is the Charity Commission.  They possess the objectivity and the power to challenge the extraordinary way that, even when the Church produces a self-critical report, no one in its ranks ever receives sanctioning or suspension.

In a recent tweet, Andrew Graystone reveals that six Church of England bishops, currently serving, knew about the Smyth scandal before it became public knowledge.  An independent review, evaluating this claim, might conclude that there was no case to answer as the knowledge of these activities took place a long time ago.  A third-party review might take, in all probability, a much harder line over such a revelation.  It might suggest that any institution that tolerated such laxity over matters of truth is in serious danger of moral collapse through its own lack of integrity.  To combat this, there needs to be a public display of brokenness, transparency and contrition.  Looking at the problem as objectively as possible, we might want to take the independent line or the third-party line.  I know which position I would favour. The harder line is, I believe, the way forward, not just for the flourishing, but even for the survival of the Church of England.  

The war in Ukraine has reminded us all of the vital importance of such things as morale and effective leadership. If there are factors that are causing severe damage to the military ambitions of the Russian army (and navy) in Ukraine, it is partly as the result of extraordinary failures in these two areas. We are all witnesses to the incompetence and disastrously low morale among the Russian forces. They are often demoralised, disorientated and increasingly ineffective against a Ukrainian army buoyed up by international support and a keen sense of the rightness of their cause. As we ponder the reported drunkenness and brutish behaviour of ordinary Russian troops in Ukraine, we are also aware of the serious deficiencies of their political and military leadership right across the board. All institutions suffer if those in charge have such a deluded and distorted grasp on reality. Here the situation has been made worse by the high numbers of deaths among the officer class in the Russian army. We are told that one legacy from Soviet days is the way that junior officers are not permitted to make decisions or use personal initiative on the battlefield. A flexible response to a new situation cannot easily be put into effect without a confirmatory order from a senior officer. He may be absent a long way from the front line. This makes for a fighting force burdened by delays and slow reaction-times.

I begin my reflection on leadership in the Church by looking at how this one institution, the Russian army, is being failed by an inflexible and inadequate style of leadership. What would good military leadership look like? Beyond noting the extraordinary lack of preparation for war by the Russian political leadership, I have nothing particularly useful to offer to answer this question. I would merely note that if you allow endemic corruption to exist within any institution, you destroy the possibility that the ordinary people in the organisation will have confidence in what they are called on to do. Decades of corruption, grift and political interference have crippled the Russian fighting efficiency and capacity to wage war. One hopes that similar handicaps are not allowed to interrupt the fighting potential of the armies in democratic nations. In armies and other organisations, we depend on trained professionals to lead and guide members to run things smoothly and efficiently. Leadership skills are necessary wherever groups of people are being organised to work together to achieve a common purpose. Good leadership contributes to material and human productivity while bad leadership results, as in the Ukrainian conflict, in human misery and institutional failure.

Before I make some comments about leadership in the Church, I want to sketch out some of the things that we look for in all leaders, whether for businesses, political institutions, or religious bodies. The first thing that comes to mind, as I consider the task of a leader, is that every leader should embody the values of the institution. A leader in a manufacturing company will not spend a lot of time on the shop floor with the workers, but the relationship between leader and led will be enhanced if the leader has made it his/her business to understand as much as possible of the technical details of the institution’s output. This familiarity with technical detail is not simply good for public relations. It also helps when the leader must make some decision which affects all the workers or subordinates. Good relationships with the workforce have a moral aspect. By this I am indicating the importance of there being trust on the part of the shopfloor in the absolute integrity of the person making decisions affecting their lives.

Leadership, I would maintain, demands morality to be built into the desired relationship with those who are led. If any sense of the leaders behaving without scruple is felt, the morale of those led is affected. The other aspects of leadership, efficient administration, productivity, and charisma are all vitally important, but the need for moral behaviour by a leader stands supreme. It has been instructive to note the rapid decline in the fortunes of Hillsong Church around the world. What failed were not changes of doctrine or the quality of the worship, but the upholding of moral integrity by the leaders. When Hillsong was attracting famous pop stars and celebrities to its numbers, it must have felt very ‘happening’ and on trend. Once the stories of misbehaviour began to leak out, the things that appeared to be glamorous overnight become seedy and repellent. I make no predictions about the future of Hillsong, but it is hard to see the ‘brand’ surviving for the long term.

The Church of England, and the groups linked with it, are currently facing their own problems with leadership. We look to such church leaders to provide guidance both to individuals and to our national political institutions. For the Church to speak truth to its followers or those who hold positions of power in society, it needs to be confident that its own moral integrity is unblemished. There are a variety of current problems in the Church at present which raise serious issues of trust. From time to time promises are made by those in authority to the wider church. Then after a couple of years, someone reminds everyone that the promise has somehow been lost to sight. Two examples of as-yet unfulfilled promises in the safeguarding arena come to mind. The first is the promise made by Archbishop Welby a year ago to survivors of the evil activities of John Smyth, that every member of the clergy who knew about Smyth’s activities would be ‘investigated’ by the NST. There are about 30 individuals who knew the events beforehand but nothing has emerged to indicate that this promise to investigate has been activated. Another promise, that was put forward at a General Synod over a year ago by John Spence, a member of Archbishop’s Council, was a promise that ‘funds would be found’ for redress as required. This was a matter of justice. Last week, to considerable fanfare, increased allocations of money for the next Triennium (up to 2025) were announced in a press conference by the two archbishops. Support of parishes and parish clergy were announced but no provision appears to have been made for the redress scheme. Has it been quietly forgotten, like so many other promises connected with safeguarding?

In the past, before the days of the internet, statements could be made by those in authority which then might become quickly forgotten. Today the same thing is no longer true. The records of Twitter, newspapers and even blogs like this one are lodged for ever on the net and can be recovered by any diligent researcher. If promises are made and then apparently forgotten, there are those who are ready to point this out. In short, the days of making promises to church members, and then ‘forgetting’ that the promises were ever made, are over. Senior church leaders also make promises of the timelines of reports and enquiries. Every time these reports are delayed, and deadlines fail to be met, the sense of confidence in the quality of leadership in the church is chipped away. Followers of this blog and of the history in the Church of England will be keenly aware of when feelings of disappointment and disillusionment are felt by ordinary church members over failed promises.

I am conscious of numerous other ways that the integrity of those in senior levels of the Church of England and among the senior members of semi-independent groups has been questioned. It serves little purpose to raise further more shameful examples here. But what we have in the Church is a generalised sense of unease and an increasing decline of confidence that everything is being done in the best way for the future. The overall accusation is that church leaders and leaders of Church factional interest groups are acting, not in the interests of integrity and truth, but in a way that preserves power, privilege, and the interests of this institution or group. Often the challenge for an organisation like the Church is not just to correct misapprehensions on the part of a watching public, but also take active steps to anticipate the impression of bad faith that is being circulated in the public domain. This is not a job that that can be handed over to communications experts. Indeed, the publicity firms that the Church employs have sometimes made a situation of moral failure seem even worse than it in fact is. What is needed is active contrition on the part of leaders. Such contrition must seem to be genuine and heart-felt. It needs to reflect the highest values and beliefs of the organisation. So far we have not seen examples of this quality of penitence in the world of safeguarding. The path towards resolving all the issues left over from the abuse crisis in the Church of England will require, not just financial redress, but active and sincere expressions of sorrow from the institution as well as the individuals that perpetrated and collaborated in such terrible evil. This will be, for the time being, one of the most pressing challenges to be faced by leaders of our national Church.

If you were ever to examine the contents of a formal library in an English stately home, you might find that a high proportion of the volumes are leather-bound collections of sermons by Anglican clergy.  Many of these published works were what we would now call vanity projects.  The cost of printing and publishing was extraordinarily high, and it is hard to imagine that the reading public had an appetite for the 45-minute reflections by learned clerics.  The people who were interested in reading these volumes were perhaps the authors themselves and those in their circle.  I may be wrong in my surmise.  Certainly, few people today have the patience or the stamina to read volumes of sermons of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  

Since retirement I have become a ‘consumer’ of other people’s sermons.  This experience has made me become a critic of my own offerings in the past.  Discovering the things that you like and dislike in other people’s preaching helps one to become retrospectively much more aware of personal failures in the past.  I want to start with naming two things that I find irritating in the sermons I hear today.  The first is the attempt by a preacher to be clever.  One particular trick that is sometimes played by preachers are the lengthy quotes.  A sermon of ten to twelve minutes can take one or possibly two quotations from a non-biblical source, but when there are seven or eight quotations from learned books or poems, the thread (if there is one!) is destroyed.   All that is left is a preacher trying to be wise, and a congregation which is left confused by the way the argument of the sermon went over their heads.

The second great source of angst for me, at any rate, is the repeated use of biblical words or phrases without saying anything fresh about their meaning.  Sometimes a single word with a strong biblical provenance like love, faith or salvation is repeated over and over again.  Just because certain words are common in Scripture, it does not mean that they have a clear meaning that is current today.   A preacher should pay close attention to the likelihood (even probability) that members of a congregation are carrying a degree of misunderstanding in their interpretation of biblical words and ideas.  Biblical words or phrases have a variety of potential meanings.  A preacher is permitted to suggest that our living in the 21^st century affects the way we use words and it is important to realise that there are indeed areas of potential confusion in the way we use words now which does not help us understand scripture.

After listening to a sermon, I sometimes emerge from listening with one of these two complaints.  The first is that I lost the plot somewhere about a third of the way through because I was trying to see the connection of the quotations mentioned and failing in the effort.  The second complaint is that the preacher has been battering the congregation with his/favourite biblical words and phrases without giving a single new insight as to their meaning.  To be told, for example, that the Christian command to love is central, is hardly edifying.  The nuance of meaning in the word itself is enormous.  In addition to using the word love, we need to engage with all the ways of understanding it in contemporary thought.  What is the status of love in race relations for example? -or immigration? -or same sex partnerships?  Every single biblical word which has currency in ordinary parlance needs to be used with extraordinary care.  The potential for a congregation to lapse into their existing tramlines of thought, when presented with certain words, needs to be constantly challenged.  A listener to our sermon about love, for example, must not be allowed to think only in terms of a Mills and Boon romance.  Words like forgiveness and reconciliation all need to come over in a sermon context as words containing a challenge.  We need to feel that sense of challenge, particularly if the word had that character when they were first used within Scripture or when coming from the mouth of Jesus himself.

In my final Lent as a parish priest in Scotland, I led a group on the meaning of certain common Bible words which were either easily misunderstood or allowed to have meanings that did not do justice to the ones in the Bible itself.  On one evening I spent 35-40 minutes exploring in both testaments the word ‘Word’.   On another evening I gave the same treatment to the word ‘memorial’.  Without getting into the detail of these Lenten sessions, it has to be said that I allowed my commentary study and my linguistic understanding gained from both Hebrew and Greek, to come into play.  Even if my small group might not remember all the detail, the main message was to say ‘never assume that because a word in the Bible sounds like one we use in day-to-day speech, that its meaning is exhausted by  the common use today.  Expect a deeper, even unexpected, meaning in these words’.  Bible study will always go deeper than knowing the surface words of a modern translation.  Perhaps one should also add: ‘Be very wary of a preacher who presumes to understand completely any text in Scripture.  There is always more to be said!’

In writing the above I am not suggesting that deep linguistic analysis should be part of a sermon.  Such exploration may need to be part of organised study groups or even through formal study.  I would, however, want a listener to any of my sermons to have a sense that whatever I say is never the last word.  There is always more to be discovered.  If the presentation can be made sufficiently interesting that that the listener wants to hear more, then so much the better.  Whatever is said in a sermon, I would always aim to ensure that there was always something to be taken away and remembered.  It probably does not matter if the main thread of an argument is forgotten. It is more important if the preacher leaves behind a word, a picture or a story.  The carefully placed anecdote/picture raises a sermon from an easily forgotten sequence of words to something to be mulled over and remembered.  My own preference is for a vividly described visual image.  I probably tend towards the picture or image as this is my preferred way of dealing with abstract ideas.   If, by dwelling on an idea, it presents itself to me in a pictorial form, then I will share that image with a congregation.  If the image is told well, it is likely to be remembered long after the rest of the sermon is forgotten.  Better still, we may find that the remembered image links back to the main topic of the sermon.

The spiritual tradition of Ignatius of Loyola has given to Christian practice a legacy of image making.  The encouragement, in that tradition, to create vivid representations of gospel events within the mind is a style of spirituality that used to be much spoken about.  Having never been on an Ignatian retreat, I am not aware of whether this practice is much in evidence today.  Nevertheless, I am instinctively drawn to this method as it makes the truth of the gospel encounter with Jesus an exercise of the imagination as much as of the mind.  My exposure to the Orthodox traditions of visual encounters with pictures and icons also makes me want to explore the idea of ‘seeing’ the truth rather than understanding it.  In the talk on icons that I used to offer to church groups, I would make great play of the idea in Orthodox spirituality that it is the job of the Christian to contemplate through seeing the mystery of God.  It takes some adjustment to grasp this idea but once it is understood, people are grateful to have this special insight into another Christian culture.  Perhaps in another blog I will say more on this topic.

In our final summary we have moved from the intellectualised habits of understanding to a simpler method which uses the capacity to see or visualise and to enjoy stories as a method of connecting with truth.  If I am in any way correct that this method comes naturally to most human beings, then that should alter the way we engage with and present truth.  It also perhaps indicates that our styles of sermon giving should adjust.  Although I do not preach any more, I would always in theory want to enlist such tools for understanding in every sermon I preached.  Perhaps I am hinting that this method is one worth following for others who exercise this sacred task of preaching.  Everyone can see, or at least visualise in the mind, and everyone can follow a story.  If truth is potentially found in such pictures or stories, then perhaps we should be offering far more of such preaching fare. Congregations may also be learning in this process to receive better something which is edifying, inspiring and life-changing.

A farewell sermon preached in Oxford on May 14th 2022 by

The Very Revd. Professor Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church (2014-2022)

Readings: Psalm 80; 1 Samuel 16: 1-13; Matthew 7: 19-27

Personal Note: Today we begin with an enormous thank you to all those who have, over the past four plus-years have been so kind, caring and supportive towards Emma and me.  We want to thank everyone for coming and being here today, and to thank those who wanted to be amongst us, yet could not be.  In the course of this lengthy ordeal – which at times has felt gruelling – I can only say that we have felt sustained by prayer and love like never before. This care has also been material. We have received several thousand messages, cards and letters of kind support from all over the world, representing not just friendships, but also deep connections with the wider world, universities at home and abroad, and people and places near and far.  There have been phone calls, flowers, meals, many cakes, and reassuring hugs. ‘Thank you’ does not even begin to express our gratitude. It never can.

I want to especially thank – on behalf of us all – our staff at the Deanery: Kim, Tina, Jess, Rachel and Maggie – who will have welcomed you and thousands of others over the past eight years to Christ Church for suppers, receptions, teas, coffees, more coffees, mulled wine…other events, and more coffee. Between them, they have notched up over 65 years of combined service, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for all of their unfailingly professional, cheerful, diligent, resilient and caring service. Thank you.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank some others too.  This could be a long list, but let me just thank the Rector of Exeter for his kindness and care in lending in using the Chapel today, and to Andrew the Chaplain, the Choir, and all who have made this possible.  I also want to especially thank Deborah, Alan, Paul, Matt, Karen, Iain, Erica, Tom, Henry, Jonathan, Linda, Suzanne, Martin, Angela, Robin, Elizabeth, Andrew, Catherine, Sarah, Sean, Rosie, Peter, Corinne, Colin, Frances, David, Nigel and many others, who for various reasons, preferred not to be named.  I also especially want to express gratitude for those here today representing an extraordinary network of survivors and victims of abuse within the church, who are exemplars of such care, courage and compassion in the face of their own sufferings and trauma, and yet have continued to model the most extraordinary resilience and hope to so many in their ongoing campaigns for justice and truth to reform a broken church in a needy world.

Last, but not least, the nucleus of the sustaining beloved community has been Emma and our sons, who have had to bear all things, and hope for better.  That they have done this with such fierce, determined and persistent love and care is part of the lightness of being that is sometimes hard to even hold, let alone comprehend. Such care and support bears testimony to some of the deep truths that we hold dear in common: that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome. That love, hope, faith and charity are hard to extinguish, and persist. And in all this, I have been mindful – as has Emma – of our enduring bonds of affection and gratitude with the congregations of the cathedral, colleagues, hundreds of staff and volunteers, students and alumni. You will always be in our prayers, and remembered with abiding gratefulness.

Sermon: Sometimes we choose the readings for a sermon, and sometimes they choose us. St. Matthias is the Apostle who replaced Judas, and was chosen by means of lottery to take the number of disciples back up to twelve.  But before we talk about Matthias, we need a word about the two deaths we remember from Holy Week. Noting that on Good Friday and after the death of Jesus, all the disciples dispersed and ran away, one modern poet, Norma Farber (‘Compassion’) asks where we might find Mary, the mother of Jesus on that day? 

In Mary’s house the mourners gather.

Sorrow pierces them like a nail.

Where’s Mary herself meanwhile?

Gone to comfort Judas’s mother.

As the mystics say, you cannot find Jesus in Heaven on Good Friday because he’s gone looking for Judas in Hell. Jesus won’t go home without him.  So Judas is the permanent-resident elephant in the room for St. Matthias’ Day.  Judas casts a shadow over these readings, and so we cannot ignore him.

Judas is a betrayer. In Dante’s Inferno, Judas occupies a podium finish with Brutus and Cassius in the inner, ninth ring of hell.  These arch-betrayers of classical antiquity represent treachery.  Judas remains a relevant figure today. Everyone will have some taste of treachery; of being the victim of others bearing false witness; of being snared; of being badly let down by someone you had trusted. You have had that experience. You’ve known others who have had that experience. I too have had that experience.

When you think about it, there is quite a bit of gambling going on in the bible.  Pilate offers the crowd baying for blood a 50-50 choice – do you want Jesus, or Barabbas?  Even though it is a 50-50 ‘ask the audience’ eliminator, the odds, we sense, are already firmly stacked against Jesus.  Before he is crucified, Jesus is blindfolded and invited to guess who struck him.  It is a kind of cruel wager, in which all odds are stacked against the victim.  We all know what it is like to see the person who might strike you, but we are left befuddled when it is a shadowy group, committee or process.  At the end of the gospels, the soldiers draw lots for Jesus’ clothes.  So at the foot of the cross, the executioners and guards play dice before God.

But there are other odds too.  What are the odds of a small Jewish sect becoming the world’s largest faith?  No-one took a punt at Ladbrokes on that one in AD33.  What were the odds that a key member of the disciple’s team, and the treasurer no less, would lose his place to an unknown man named Matthias – the disciple chosen to replace Judas, and chosen by lottery.  Two names put before the panel to consider, but only one is chosen emerges as the preferred candidate…

Let’s talk about Matthias. I like the story of Matthias, because it shows, for starters, that the first Christians were actually quite Anglican.  That is to say, they knew the value of being pragmatic, and could put it before principle when needed.  I suppose the better thing to do with Judas’ successor was to go into a lock-down conclave, and emerge only when ready.  But time is short; there is a mission to get on with.  They need a twelfth apostle – preferably before supper and sunset – and so they draw lots.  It’s a gamble.  Yet it seems to pay off.

But there is a deeper theme at work in the manner of Matthias’s selection that is reflected in both the Old and the New Testament readings, and it is this: we are all dispensable. Matthias is Patron Saint of ‘It Doesn’t All Depend on You’.  Judas is airbrushed out of history, and now an unknown runner called Matthias reminds us that God is not lacking on the supply-side for people to work with, provided they are committed to joy, gratitude and true service.  Be that person.

Because God does know a thing or two about the odds of his purpose being worked out.  And I would not bet against the outcome.  God does not ask us to gamble. Merely to remember that there are no reliable odds on how your future will turn out.  But the God of the present – and of the future – will not let you down.  So we do not need to live as others might, because the “citizenship of heaven”, as Paul calls it, will see that we are in the end, held and cherished by a God who will not let us fall. 

I think Matthias might have agreed with Woody Allen: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your future plans”.  Most people know the so-called ‘Serenity Prayer’ – or at least the first part of it.  Very few, however, know that the original was written by Reinhold Niebuhr in the darkest days of the Second World War.  The prayer goes like this: “God, grant me grace to accept with serenity, the things that cannot be changed; courage to change the things which should be changed; and the wisdom to know the difference…” 

But the prayer then continues: “…living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; and taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is.  Not as I would have it, but trusting that you will make all things right, if I but surrender to your will.  So that I may be reasonably happy in this life; and supremely happy with you forever, in the next…”.  Many soldiers were given this prayer as they left America for Europe; or England for Normandy on D-Day. They were clutching it as the gates of their boats opened and they poured onto the beaches. There was nothing more they do about what happened next.

Nothing, except remember that God hears the prayer from the trenches; he hears the prayer of the ones rooting for a successor to Judas.  But God knows life can be fickle, and ever-changing.  Because God has already become one of us.  He has loved us enough to live for us, as one of us, and amongst us.  He has known what it is to have the odds stacked against him.  He has risked that enough to die as one of us – and yet be raised up. 

Jesus Christ is, quite simply, no stranger to our lives.  He was and is with us – this is what ‘Emmanuel’ means.  He loves us where we are, and walks with us every step of the way.  In one of the darker moments over these last few years, and when all had seemed very bleak to me, Emma wrote this poem called ‘Another Economy’, and it rejoices in the good that might be found through and with others in the midst of all the crap (for want of a better turn of phrase).

I have found that there is a different economy

Whose currency is

Love and kindness

Faithfulness and prayer

Generosity and integrity.

When these virtues are practiced

Deposits are made and investments accrued.

So, when the world turns harsh

And desolation beckons, 

I find I am rich.

And I can draw on this wealth

Providing me with

Friendship and kindness

Prayers and blessings

Fortitude and strength.

Anyway, perhaps I should say something about our readings by way of closing.  Our Psalm is unequivocal: God will save and restore, and even though our detractors may scorn us and laugh at us, God will never turn away from you. Never.  I managed a wry smile when 1 Samuel came up – and I didn’t chose the readings today, as I say, they’ve chosen us. We’ve ended with a reading about a small man, and a gospel reading that appeared at our wedding.

But 1 Samuel 16 reminds us that God often begins with the runt of the litter – the littlest and the lesser is where God begins.  It is what Jesus starts his ministry with, time and time again.  God is always looking for the outsider to confound the insider; the least to be the greatest; the gentle to show the strong how to be; the foolish to convert the wise. 

David is picked because he’s no Goliath.  He is a minor character put out to tend flocks and amuses himself by making up the songs and tunes we know as psalms.  God likes to do extraordinary things with the neglected and the rejected.  God chooses the weak and the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and strong.  God grows the fruit of his Spirit within our yielding flesh, hearts and minds.  Growing fruit is slow work.  Cheap, false piety that mimics authentic growth will always be available in plentiful quantities. But discerning disciples are seldom fooled by such offerings. Quality takes time to bud and flower.

Likewise, you can build almost anything, instantly, on sand. But without deep, solid foundations, what is knocked up in the morning is swept away by the evening. Building a solid structure on unforgiving rock, with all the boring into the ground required to establish the foundations, is hard and laborious. But persevere. Slow Church is where we find God slogging away, working with grace, love, goodness, charity, kindness, mercy and endless patience over the decades and centuries.  It takes a long, long time to bring the gospel to any community; or to a country. Only fools think this can be fast.

My vocation to serve Christ and the world as priest, pastor and professor will continue.  But my season for doing so within the Church of England must now end, so that truth can be spoken to power, and prophetic insight not diminished by the gravitational pressure of institutional loyalty.  

In this, I take my cue from Jonah. Do not look back in anger. Look forward only in love, and by education and example, live for others as Christ does, whether you are an insider or an outsider. As that other famous Dean – James Dean – once said ‘only the gentle are truly strong’.

We face many challenges in our world today: wars, famine, disease and injustice.  Hold fast to God and to one another. Be good. Be humble. God, who is faithful, will not let you fall.  “Do not be afraid” and “do not fear” are phrases most often repeated by Jesus in the gospels – more than seventy times.  Our calling does not seek safety, security or any other benefits.  Our vocation is not to cling to church; but rather to step out in the love revealed in the person of Jesus. 

For me, and you, that is the path that now lies ahead. May God grant us all grace and peace, as we walk with him who is ever-beside and before us. Amen.

The Readings

Psalm 80

¹ Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!
    You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
²   before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.

    Stir up your might, and come to save us!

³ Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

⁴ O Lord God of hosts,
    how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
⁵ You have fed them with the bread of tears,
    and given them tears to drink in full measure.
⁶ You make us the scorn of our neighbours;
    our enemies laugh among themselves.

⁷ Restore us, O God of hosts;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.

⁸ You brought a vine out of Egypt;
    you drove out the nations and planted it.
⁹ You cleared the ground for it;
    it took deep root and filled the land.
¹⁰ The mountains were covered with its shade,
    the mighty cedars with its branches;
¹¹ it sent out its branches to the sea,
    and its shoots to the River.
¹² Why then have you broken down its walls,
    so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
¹³ The boar from the forest ravages it,
    and all that move in the field feed on it.

¹⁴ Turn again, O God of hosts;
    look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,
¹⁵  the stock that your right hand planted.
¹⁶ They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down;
    may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.
¹⁷ But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
    the one whom you made strong for yourself.
¹⁸ Then we will never turn back from you;
    give us life, and we will call on your name.

¹⁹ Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.

1 Samuel 16:1-16

16 The Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.’ ² Samuel said, ‘How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.’ And the Lord said, ‘Take a heifer with you, and say, “I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.” ³ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.’ ⁴ Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, ‘Do you come peaceably?’ ⁵ He said, ‘Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

⁶ When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.’⁷ But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ ⁸ Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ ⁹ Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ ¹⁰ Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen any of these.’ ¹¹ Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ ¹² He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ ¹³ Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Matthew 7:19-27

¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. ²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ ²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

 

When I began the Surviving Church blog in 2013, I thought of it as an attempt to help and support many wounded Christians who, for various reasons, had fallen out of love with the Church.  I was not at the beginning thinking politically in any way.   The ‘victims’ at that time were mainly those who had fallen under the spell of charismatic/narcissistic leaders who were bent on personal enrichment or other forms of gratification.  The motives of these exploitative leaders were simple and could easily apply to anyone who takes a position of institutional power.  Abuse falls into one or more of three categories.  Speaking generally, leaders abuse in order to obtain the gratification that is afforded by money, power or sex.

In my early years of writing, I particularly found myself wanting to help the few who found their way to my blog with some ‘sensible’ teaching on how to read Scripture.  By sensible I was simply trying to share a little of the scholarly approach to the Bible that was part of the way that universities taught it in the 60s.  I had benefitted from eight years full-time theological education in my youth.   Was it not now time to give back a little of the fruits of all that time and reading?   It was clear to me that fundamentalist approaches to the text of the Bible simply caused endless unsolvable problems for a reader.  A little bit of scholarly insight could unlock some of these intractable dilemmas.   As an example, I found myself discussing the story of Noah and the inexplicable (for the conservative reader) shift in recording the numbers of each animal-type which entered the Ark.  Was it two or was it seven? 

As time went on, it became clear that abusive power was being exercised over some individuals in the church not only in the way the Bible was being taught to them.  A misuse of power was being found in churches of all kinds, not just in conservative evangelical churches.  To see how it was gradually dawning on me that that power had far wider toxic tentacles than ‘abusive’ bible teaching, a reader needs to refer to my posts of 2015.   In that year I returned repeatedly to the life and times of Trinity Church Brentwood and its leader Michael Reid.  Another character that also attracted my attention was the bishop of the Diocese of Sabah in Malaysia.  In both situations there were extensive corruptions of power.  An issue in covering these and other abuse stories was that it was becoming increasingly clear that an abusive incident was not necessarily just about individual misbehaviour.   An abusive act committed by one bad apple had the unfortunate tendency to corrupt many of the other apples in the barrel.  To expose or discuss evil in one place was perhaps to shed light on systemic institutional misuses of power.  I was beginning to see the way that an evil act committed by one individual frequently involved other people – whether they were bystanders or superiors.  This ‘political’ dimension in the case was always going to be unpopular when it was revealed.  Writing about the abuse of power that takes place within an institution will often be seen as a subversive threat to the whole institution where it takes place.  One example of the way that evil acts committed by a few became toxic to an entire institution was brought out in the IICSA hearings over the Diocese of Chichester.  The entire diocese was damaged by the activities of an area bishop and a group of sexually abusive clergymen.  The evil was not confined to those people.  A number of officials in the Diocese had their reputations undermined and a former Diocesan Bishop had his memory besmirched by his failure to act honourably and honestly in his dealing with the problem.  Damaged reputations matter to individuals and institutions.  Pointing out the obvious discrepancies in a narrative, which is the kind of thing that bloggers do, can be legally treacherous.  If a blogger suggests that a church leader has behaved less than honourably, the threat of defamation hangs over them.

I have only had four threats of legal action against me and Surviving Church.  Three were in reference to statements made by other people on this blog.  The fact that senior church leaders should employ legal personnel to scrutinise blogs like this one, in case we have allowed something through potentially defamatory is, in some ways, flattering. It is an indirect compliment that senior clergy think that the musings of a retired clergyman in the north of England have some influence.  It also suggests that our House of Bishops believe that the work of safeguarding can be controlled and furthered by the force of legal threats.  A fellow blogger is facing the threat of legal action at present.  In reading his reaction to this threat from a senior member of the Church of England, I realise that I am less robust than he is in facing such challenges.  The merest whisper of legal action has me instantly deleting offending sections or entire blogs. My reasoning tells me that the safeguarding narratives I record on this blog are not really my personal battles.  Others may have better access to information and personal testimony than me, and thus do a better job at promoting the struggle for justice and transparency.   I certainly recognise that I am less resilient in the face of legal threats than the ex-Dean of Christ Church, whose farewell sermon can, I hope, be read here tomorrow immediately after it is delivered.  I hope to include more material on this event when available, even though I will not be present in person.

Legal threats, heavy handed action by church officials towards bloggers all suggest a considerable degree of institutional panic.  One interpretation is that the Church is completely floundering in its response to the numerous crises about safeguarding and bullying on the church’s agenda at present.  The clunky response of threatening bloggers with legal action gives the Church and its bishops a thoroughly bad look especially in times of heavy financial pressure.  It may be gratifying for me to think that someone is actually being paid to read my musings; the same will not be true for the ordinary church member. They will resent the fact that funds are flowing to expensive legal companies to pay for vanity litigation. Does Joe Public actually care what blogger A thinks of Bishop B? Would the Church not look better if it prioritised helping its ordinary clergy pay their fuel bills?

The recent outpourings of Martyn Percy in The Times and elsewhere following his departure from Christ Church and the Church of England, show he feels failed in his search for institutional justice.  He raises a wide range of safeguarding problems in the Church as well as other issues around leadership that currently face the Church of England.  Whether or not we take sides in the dispute between Percy and the College and the Church, it is clear that in having two powerful institutions ranged against him, the reputation of both these bodies has been severely undermined.  Not for the first time is the Church seen to be using its power in a heavy-handed way, The four-year persecution of Percy, while not initiated by the Church, does not seem to have elicited anything in the way of compassionate assistance from the Diocese of Oxford.  Indeed, the opposite appears to be true.  Throughout the process, both Percy and his supporters seem to have attracted the hostility of the diocese.  In this, the bishop and his staff seem to have forgotten large sections of the Scriptures they claim to follow.  Somehow the wider Church (and here we are particularly talking about the Church of England) seems to have lost the ability and knowledge of how to make its clergy and people feel safe.  Safety is something you feel when you are in a place or with a person you can completely trust.  Martyn’s departure from the CofE has indicated that he no longer trusts or feels safe in his old church.  If that sentiment ever becomes widespread in the Church, it could mark the beginning of the end of our national institution, the CofE.  Legal threats by bishops and solicitors writing letters to bloggers may be small things in themselves, but they suggest a leadership culture unable to retain power without creating a miasma of fear.   That is not a Church that I, and I suspect many others, want to be associated with. 

Last Sunday, Easter 4, with Christians all over the world, I listened to readings in church connected with the theme of God and Jesus as the shepherd.  At least one of the many paraphrases of Psalm 23 will have been sung, as we all focused our minds on this well-known and well-loved symbol of our relationship with the Divine.  Thinking about the powerful image of the shepherd, I was reminded of the influence of one book about John’s gospel that I read and studied as a student many years ago.  It was titled The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel by C H Dodd.   One part of the book explained the structure of St John’s gospel and showed how the archetypal ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus gave the book its distinctive shape.  This structure might easily be missed if one was concerned only to find, in the gospel, historical facts about the life of Jesus.   The symbols in the gospel associated with Jesus, the vine, light of the world, the bread of life etc, create a kind of skeleton which holds the bulk of John’s gospel together.  Each one of the ‘I am’ Jesus symbols is a prelude to a number of linked teachings or miracles connected with the theme.  For example, Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is told in the context of declaring himself to be the ‘bread of life’.  In the same way, the announcement that Jesus is the light of the world takes place in the same section as one where he heals a blind man.  Thus we arrive at the idea that the author of the gospel was deliberately organising his material to fit into a literary and theological structure of his own devising.  This is a notion that might upset a conservative reader.  Many Christian readers cannot accept that truth can ever be expressed in anything other than one involving tight historical accuracy.  This is, for them, the most important manifestation of truth.  Clearly John himself had a different understanding of truth, one that was not the same as knowing or recording the exact chronology of Jesus’ life.   It is worth noting in passing that the story of the casting out of the moneychangers from the Temple in the fourth gospel takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, while in the other gospels it takes place very close to the time of his Passion.  Are we to conclude that Jesus performed this act twice or should we stick to the common sense answer that John changed the chronology for reasons of his own?

Most scholars work with the assumption that John’s gospel is, apart from the Passion narrative, far more a theological reflection than an attempt to write detailed history.  The book, is, in summary, about the truth and meaning of Jesus, together with an invitation to respond to him.  When we encounter the word ‘believe’, as we do in the archetypal passage of John 3.16, we note that it carries with it a strong sense of trust and relationship rather merely accepting a factual reality.  Jesus is throughout the gospel inviting the reader to embark on a relationship with him.  The main point that I take away from Dodd’s great work is the idea that each of the ‘I am’ statements in the gospel was a kind of portal into the meaning of Jesus for a follower.  Focusing with the imagination on the idea of Jesus as, variously, shepherd, bread or light of the world is a way of internalising an image of him and allowing us to penetrate into the deepest reality of who he is.  There is, importantly, no single correct way to understand Jesus as the Shepherd or any of the other Johannine symbols.  Each image or symbol evoked in our imaginations by the ‘I am’ symbols functions like an object of beauty.  There is never a single correct way to approach beauty.  Nor is there a right way to appreciate the signs or symbols in John’s gospel.  Somehow, in spite of this constantly evolving, even shifting meaning, we  find that with Christians through the ages, these symbols help us to come closer to God revealing himself in Jesus.  The preacher is also never in the situation of having to preach the same sermon about any of these Johannine images or symbols.  By their nature they keep giving us new insights and new levels of meaning.  A painting will also often reveal new facets of beauty every time we see it, as long we look at it with focused attention.

Many Christians live in a world where they believe it essential to have correct theological definitions.   Words like unsound or heretic are banded around for those who do not adopt the dominant discourse in certain religious settings.  I am one those Christians who fights shy of this world of correct belief with ‘orthodoxy’ being defined in a narrow way.  I find the Gospel of John a place of refuge because it allows me to see how to practise a faith in an environment of symbols and mystery.  Truth in John’s gospel is not defined, but it is evoked in the mind and the imagination of the believer.  Two readers of St John’s gospel may think quite different thoughts, but they are united in the fact that they are drawn towards Jesus as the Word of God who speaks to them across culture and definition.  I sometimes fantasise that Christianity might become more inclusive if we asked people who come to church, not whether they can recite the Apostles’ Creed, but whether they can relate to the symbols of encounter with Jesus that we find in the fourth gospel.  In other words, do you meet Jesus as one who comes to you as shepherd, light, sustaining food, vine, giver of resurrection etc.?  It is hard to imagine any encounter with Christ that does not draw on at least one of these symbols.  Being a Christian is, in some way, accepting the invitation to be part of a great movement towards God as he reaches out to us in Christ.  Somewhere in responding to that invitation we find ourselves wanting to use the language of one or more of the ‘I am’ symbols of the fourth gospel.

To repeat a point that stuck me strongly while listening to last Sunday’s readings.  There is no limit to the words that can be said about the idea of Jesus as our shepherd.  There is also no correct way to interpret any of the other Johannine images or symbols.  Each Christian will relate to the words in his/her own way.  One million Christians will also have processed these ‘I am’ symbols in the fourth gospel in a million ways.  It is the task of the Christian leader/teacher to encourage this task of imaginative exploration of the reality of God reaching out to us in Christ. I can think of no better way of starting this process than through the in-depth exploration of these symbols.  However tidy it might be to have everyone having identical experiences of the encounter with Christ, let us rejoice that we have a book in the Bible that offers us words which act as powerful revealing symbols, opening up our access to spiritual reality.  Each symbol seems to give us permission to explore and experience an encounter with Christ, but each in our own way.  Such a freedom to think, experience and explore truth is not always on offer in our churches.    Far too many complain that they are only allowed to experience the mystery of a divine encounter in a manner controlled and approved of by a Christian leader.  Perhaps St John’s gospel is a permanent reminder that there are dynamic flexible ways of being a Christian so that each relates to these symbols in their own time and in their own way.  St John’s gospel appears to be permitting us to know and rejoice in the freedom that God wants us all to have. 

From time to time I spot an expression on the Internet or Twitter which I immediately want to share. When I read the acronym PTCIS which stands for Post Traumatic Church Induced Stress, I knew I wanted to share it with my readers.  Obviously it is not a recognised description of a category of mental distress, but it certainly describes the situation faced by many followers of this blog.  Quite a number of individuals from around the world reach out to me as they recognise in this blog a place where their distress will at least receive a hearing.  The sufferers of PTCIS are not necessarily those who have been bullied or abused by someone more powerful.  The sufferers may be those who carry a false accusation around their neck and find that the church justice system gives them no opportunity to clear their name.  Accusations against one’s integrity are left there for ever, so that permanent stress and fear becomes part of their way of life.

My sense of the stress involved in PTCIS is probably distorted by the position of being the editor of a blog focused on church abuse.  In other words, I hear more of peoples’ bad experiences of abuse and the stress taking place in a church context than is normal.  But the fact that it exists at all is a terrible blot on our church life.  The inventor of PTCIS helpfully added a cartoon to illustrate what was meant by the term.  He suggested that one of the problems was that certain church cultures create stress for individuals by the expedient of changing church vocabulary in the way that is illustrated above.

This post is thus building on the brilliant cartoon from the Naked Pastor which I have included above.  In thinking about the seven categories that he sets out, I want to look at three examples that are vividly illustrative of what he is trying to demonstrate through the cartoon. Providing examples of what is involved in all seven would take up too much space.  There is also the perennial issue of using confidential material without the possibility of identification.  So I am going to illustrate only three of the seven practices that are routinely sanitised by ‘holy’ descriptions.  To avoid the danger of revealing private information, I am going to use the well-documented story of John Smyth and his abusive regime, written up by Andrew Graystone in the book Bleeding For Jesus.

The seven techniques of abusive coercion were probably all used by Smyth against his victims.  They are also, no doubt, common in other church settings. Each of these techniques has, as the cartoon demonstrates, a respectable face but also one that is less salubrious.  I am giving examples of the way that three of them work from the Smyth narrative.  Before that, I note that many young Christians are actively mentored by someone older.  That older person may possess considerable influence over the mentee.  Mentoring of course sounds innocent and even helpful.  In many contexts it remains that.  An experienced clergyperson might be asked to meet with a young curate at the beginning of his/her ministry to provide the opportunity to talk through the issues that can arise.  I have often wondered why such a system is not used more extensively in the Church of England, particularly as a way of using the extensive practical experience of older retired clergy.  The mentoring offered by Smyth was not benevolent.  It was the abusive kind.  The vulnerability in each of Smyth’s victims seems to have been what drew one to the other.   One obvious vulnerability was one known to many male attendees of an English public school.  This involved a fractured relationship with the birth families because of the boarding system, starting at the age of eight. In short, many of Smyth’s victims were emotionally estranged from their families.  They needed a relationship with an older mentoring male who could be used as a father substitute.  Having such a father figure was important to most, if not all of Smyth’s victims.  Smyth was happy to oblige to be the substitute parent.  This, of course, gave him the ability to exercise tight parental control over his protegees.  In turn it was to lead in many cases to an opportunity to physically abuse them in the garden shed at his home in Winchester.

The second part of Smyth’s ‘ministry’ to his devotees was in his playing the role of religious instructor or teacher.  The Iwerne camps were always a preserve of what we might describe as a highly fundamentalist version of Christian theology and teaching.  The Bible was regarded as the sole resource for all Christian teaching and living.  As with much conservative Christian teaching of this kind, underneath this understanding of the Bible was a pre-existing structure or system of theology which dictated how the Bible should be interpreted.  Iwerne theology was not read out of the Bible or the formulations of the early Christian centuries, but straight out of a rigid Protestantism and the 16^th century writings of John Calvin and his followers. The inability of Calvinism and its successors to tolerate much in the way of theological debate meant that it was always a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to faith.  Some aspects of Calvinism and ‘Iwernism’ should be open to objection and debate.  The fact that there has always been an absence of healthy questioning in the camps leads to a form of cult-type faith, one which often involves actual harm.

‘Mentoring’ and ‘Instruction’ can create a dynamic of power which could be and was extremely harmful to those submitting to it.  Apart from coming under a dynamic of control which was exploiting their vulnerability, Smyth’s victims were further softened up for abuse by the selective use of Scripture.  Andrew Graystone identifies two particular quotations from the Bible which were firmly drummed into the young Smyth acolytes.  One was from 1 Samuel 7.14 where the fatherhood of God is linked to the possibility of violent beatings.  From the New Testament a passage from Hebrews 12. 5-12 suggested the same idea.  Students of the Bible in the conservative wings of the church will also know about other mentions of fathers beating their children in Proverbs.  I will leave to one side the various passages that speak of followers identifying with the pain of Jesus on the cross in order to be his true disciples.

Smyth’s final practice, which shows him to be an expert in the art of PTCIS (even before it was invented!), was in the way that his teaching led his followers believing that pain was needed to make them holy and closer to Christ.  The reasoning goes along the lines that, if Jesus suffered as the result of our sin, we too may need to suffer to draw us closer to him.  The beatings in the garden shed began as a way of offering the young a means of atoning for their own failings.  It will be for others to determine how Smyth had such a complete lack of self-insight so as not to question his own behaviour in taking on this role.  The narrative that Graystone presents suggests that this infliction of pain became obsessional and addictive as time went on. Officially the victims of Smyth were being beaten to pay for their failings as if this was a normative godly discipline.  The maintenance of some discipline sounds to be a worthy aim in a church.  The examples in the Smyth story indicate that some administration of discipline in a church can have a deeply sinister and dark dimension.   Is the administration of discipline in a church setting sometimes a cover for abusive practice as the cartoon suggests?

Describing a well-established Christian practice with a pious sounding name may take away a desire to question and scrutinise what is going on.  Evil practices toward individuals are done in the name of Christianity.  Dubious claims that they are are ‘biblical’ are often heard.  Did you know that children are still beaten in the name of Christian discipline, even in the 21^st century?  Survivors of PTCIS still come to our churches seeking understanding and support to recover from the wounds that have been administered and which have led to trauma.  Can we offer them the experience of healing to replace the trauma that the Church has inflicted on them?

I have been thinking about the topic of music and worship for some time. In particular, I have been bothered by the fact that music in the Church is an area of division for many Christians. Musical style in congregations vary enormously, and those who advocate one style are often ignorant or even contemptuous of the musical offerings found in another church down the road. There are a number of sensitive issues of culture, musical taste and theology in these divisions. I am not aware of anyone discussing the damage caused by these gulfs in musical traditions. There is a need for serious writing on this topic as musical traditions play a major part in Christian worship and life . Music has to be considered a theological issue since it plays such an important part for so many in their Christian pilgrimage or journey to religious maturity. Something so important for Christian experience and growth should not be left to one side as ‘a matter of taste’ or something optional for those who like that kind of thing. What I want to do is to write a kind of introductory piece to this conundrum connected with the place of music in Church life. It will not answer all the problems. Rather it may help us to approach the subject with fresh eyes and see the discussion as important for the Church as a whole.

 There is, I believe, a ready acceptance of the fact that some form of music is normally to be expected at most acts of Christian worship. The question then arises: what sort of music?  Are we expecting to hear the music of Hillsong or Bach in our churches and cathedrals?  What kind of hymns do we sing?  Should we personally choose a church that offers the kind of music that we can appreciate, and should we avoid those churches that are jarring to us in the music they chose? The answers to these and many other questions on the musical offerings we find in our local church settings, depend in part on such things as local resources.  Also, the music we hear and sing has to accommodate itself to that mysterious entity summed up in the catch-all words ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’.  Each of us also knows that, while music in church can help to weld a congregation together, for other individuals the same music can be a serious stumbling block in finding peace or any kind of inspiration. 

Up and down the country there are churches that invest considerable resources in the music they provide for their congregations.   In some, the offering is what we can call cathedral-style music.  This is found not only in actual cathedrals but in the increasing number of parish churches that aspire to near cathedral standards of musical offering.  Each sung service is, from one point of view, an aesthetic event.  This musical offering has some of the features of a performance, like that found in a concert hall.  The presentation of such music requires dedication and commitment by all concerned.   Where such musical traditions have been preserved in Anglican worship, there has been considerable investment of money and time over a long period.  All too easily a musical tradition of this kind can be destroyed overnight by a Vicar or a PCC who decide that such an ‘elitist culture’ is unsuitable for their congregation.  There may even be a conviction that the music of Byrd, Tallis and Bach is somehow spiritually harmful to those who attend.

In contrast, another church, particularly one in the cultural orbit of Holy Trinity Brompton or Spring Harvest, may invest considerable resources in a music band and provide music suitable to a more contemporary style and tradition.  The vast range of ‘gospel music’ is not a type that I have experienced or studied.  It is, however, hard to avoid the offerings of Graham Kendrick in ordinary parish churches.  A few gospel songs make it into our hymn books, but I have never attempted to keep up with this huge repertoire beyond the few classics of this genre.  I was reading somewhere recently that 1.5 million worshippers around the world are currently listening to or singing the music from Hillsong in Australia.  I note in passing that singing music from this source has now become a more contentious act, since it is apparent that the royalties obtained by using this music flow back to Australia, enriching the entitled leaders of this church network.  Hillsong is, nevertheless, still one of the musical gospel traditions that has, in some places, superseded the music provided by organ, hymn book and traditional church music.

The content of the blog could effectively end here, with a concluding remark that church music has to be a matter of individual and congregational musical preference.  If you like the English Hymnal you need to search for a church that uses it, and the same can be said about Mission Praise.  In fact, the discussion needs to go further than appealing to individual and group musical preferences.  Music is an important part of human life and we need to be aware of how it can affect us at quite a deep level.  It has the capacity to create emotions and moods and these, as we are all aware, can range from the wholesome to the potentially harmful.

The first observation I must make is reasonably uncontroversial.  Music has a power to give pleasure and it does this by evoking pleasurable emotions.   Recently, thanks to Netflix, my wife and I have developed a taste for foreign language films.  This is not a prelude to learning Korean, Spanish or Turkish but we find the emotional tone of foreign films is quite different from those made in America or Britain.  All these foreign films use subtitles.  When music is played as part of the background, the subtitles indicate which human emotion is supposed to be evoked at that moment.   So, after the word music, there appears a single word to indicate the mood that is being expressed.  Words like romantic, suspenseful, mysterious or tense are used.  The editor of the sub-titles wants to help a deaf viewer to know what mood is being evoked, at that part of the film, by the background music.  The adjective used to describe the music mood also hints at what is coming next in the drama.  Helping to create mood is also what is going on when music is used in church.  Thus we have, for example, cheerful music and sombre poignant music when this is needed.  This is as true for the Tudor composers of English church music as it is for the output of modern praise bands. The sombre music of Bach’s Matthew Passion is for me an important part of the observance of Holy Week and carols perform a comparable role in the Christmas season.

Human emotions play a vital part in religious experience and insight.  Through them we can be led to a glimpse of a deeper sacred reality.  At the same time, we are aware that the same emotions could simply be the stimulation of pleasure centres in our brain.  When a worshipper is caught up with the words and music of a Tudor motet or the strong emotional resonance of a Hillsong piece, who can definitively say what is going on?   Is the worshipper being let into a religious experience or not?  There is, as one would expect, no easy answer to this question.  One thing that can be said fairly safely is that feelings of a religious kind are not inevitably religious in substance.  It is thus dangerous for a religious leader ever to claim that religious emotions are inevitably given by God.   Religious feelings may indeed give us access to the divine.  Alternatively, they can, as we suggested above, merely be the activation of pleasure centres in the brain. 

What will help distinguish between the real thing, music leading us to an apprehension of God, and mere aesthetic appreciation?  The answer has to lie in discovering whether the music and the religious feelings they evoke are changing us over a period of time in some tangible way. Is our spirituality and apprehension of the divine taking us beyond ephemeral sensation?  It is a question that has to be asked in Anglican cathedrals and in large crowd events where the music is loud and catchy.   Both kinds of music, that of ‘high culture’ and popular worship songs can help Christians in the path to genuine transforming religious insight and growth.  Equally, both may be mere entertainment and stimulation of the brain. 

In this piece I must confess a certain bias against the output of praise bands.  My theological and musical instincts tell me that a constant musical diet of the offerings such as are heard at Spring Harvest, or some other charismatic festival, might be leading listeners to a form of faux religious experience.  This is not an inevitable outcome, but I see two particular hazards making this possibility a prevalent possibility.  In the first place much religious music of the gospel variety is taught initially at mass events.  Large gatherings or religious festivals are notorious for emotionally ‘softening up’ the participants and making them susceptible to feelings that belong to the crowd rather than being their own.  The second danger of this kind of music is that much modern gospel music is attached to ‘heroes’ of the genre, like Graham Kenrick and the music composers responsible for the massive Hillsong output.  The institutional power of Brian Houston, the recently disgraced Hillsong leader, could be said to have been sustained by the musical offerings of this international franchise.  Once a charismatic church is identified with the ministry of a figure who is only glimpsed in a highly choreographed role on a stage, it is all too easy to draw the attention of the congregation to the glamour of the man (normally men) at the front.  Projection or hero-worship is not a healthy dynamic for any church.

My self-allocated number of words has now been breached but I hope very soon to return to this discussion in a future blog.  For me it is also a real problem that the Church, even the CofE, is divided over the issue of music.  We somehow resist discussing the topic for fear that issues of culture, class and snobbery may be raised.  Such topics are hard to deal with easily, so we retreat into our musical ghettoes just as we hunker down in our theological bunkers.  This blog is a small offering to contribute to a debate on which we all have feelings and insights.  Perhaps I am hoping to start a conversation. I know it is a topic on which everyone in any church has an opinion.