It was announced in another blog that Michael Reid, the former head of Peniel Church in Brentwood, died on Friday 13^th January 2023.  Those who have followed this blog for a long time will be familiar with the name.  My interest in this larger-than-life charismatic leader formed an important focus for this blog over a period in around 2015. 

Why was writing about Michael Reid and Peniel important to me in the early days of Surviving Church?  The simple answer is that Reid became, for me, a classic embodiment of many of the outrageous examples of spiritual power abuse that I was uncovering when I started my study of the topic 20 -30 years ago.   In the mainstream churches, by contrast, such things were being better concealed in the 90s.  My documented case studies, as readers of Ungodly Fear will know, came mainly from free churches on the fundamentalist/charismatic end of the spectrum.  Back in 1998 when I was writing the book, I was aware of Reid’s church, Peniel Brentwood, which was an independent charismatic congregation.  My wife and I visited the church and attended a service around that time, but loud alarm bells did not ring immediately.  It was only a little later, after my book had been published, that I realised that Peniel and its leader, Reid, was a vivid example of a church that contained many examples of the toxic abusive behaviour that I had been describing in my book.  I started to correspond with one Nigel Davies, a blogger whose family had been seriously damaged through membership of this congregation.  He has, right up till today, used the power of protest to demonstrate in person outside the church, now known as Trinity Brentwood.  Over the years his protests have been extended to include other congregations within the Elim network.  This is the denominational grouping that Peniel (now called Trinity Brentwood) chose to identify itself with after Reid was forcibly removed as leader in 2008.

For those of my readers who have the time/interest to look it up, there is a great deal of information on this blog from around 2015 about the appalling events in this congregation under Reid. After the forced resignation in 2008, there was a brief ‘Prague Spring’, but it soon reverted to its old controlling and abusive ways under a new leadership.  Peniel/Trinity cannot be the only church that finds it hard to face up to the legacy of a past abusive history.   Reid had been sacked for sexual misdemeanours (consensual? adultery), but the appalling trail of cultic intimidation and financial skulduggery was, arguably, even more serious.  Eventually the church agreed to investigate its own past after a credible complaint of rape was made against one of its own members.  The report that appeared in the autumn of 2015 and to which I attach a link at the end, is a very important document even seven years later. This report, written by an eminent evangelical lawyer called John Langlois, runs to some 200,000 words.  It was, and remains in my belief, the best and most vivid and detailed account of a British church committing abuse against its own membership.   At the time that it was released, I frequently referred to this Langlois report on this blog as a way of illustrating how the narcissistic behaviour of one man could create so much havoc and pain for so many.

The removal of Reid was not easily achieved.  Court cases had to be fought as Reid regarded the church buildings and plant as belonging to him personally. By 2008 the church had, through the dint of congregational financial sacrifice, acquired a considerable portfolio of property, including a large premises for a school.  This building later sold for £6m.  One part of the battle that Nigel Davies has been valiantly fighting for, is that some of this money, accumulated by the bullying techniques of Reid and his henchmen and women, should be used to compensate some of those who had lost everything in terms of education, mental health and financial stability because of their involvement in the church.  Although Reid’s name is now probably no longer discussed or remembered by the current congregation, Davies claims that much of the wealth of the church belongs morally to a past generation who were ruthlessly exploited and abused while members of Peniel.

When recording the death of an individual, it is customary to add the letters RIP to the name.  In this case I hesitate to do this.  This is because of the way that so many individuals, young and old at Peniel, lost their peace by having it taken from them.  My blogging work brought me into direct touch with several Peniel survivors, including an American girl who had come to Brentwood in the 90s to study at the so-called Peniel Bible School.  Instead of learning, this cadre of girls were exploited as cheap labourers for the Church.  Those who administered the scheme made sure that they could not escape by confiscating their passports on arrival and intercepting their letters from home.  Exploitation of vulnerable foreign girls sometimes extended to a situation of sexual abuse.   It was, in fact, in response to one specific complaint of such abuse, that the church was forced to set up Langlois’ investigation.  Also, the entire congregation had experienced forced labour, by having to turn out regularly to work on the estate and the grounds.  This was expected of the youngest children as well. All this is described in great detail in Langlois’ report.

When I was writing my commentaries in 2015 on Reid’s behaviour as revealed by Langlois, I was always hoping that such behaviour would never be found in the Church of England.  While it is true that the cult-like atmosphere of Reid’s congregation would be difficult to find in an ordinary CofE parish, there are still many, some uncomfortably close, parallels in common church leadership styles.  Langlois described many of the classic power games and techniques at work in Reid’s leadership style.  We find the typical methods of coercion and control, including shaming and ostracism.  Reid also seems to have enjoyed playing off one family against another, retaining to himself the power of supreme authority.  It is first from reading about Reid that I learned some of the classic biblical texts used by abusive leaders against those seeking accountability.  ‘Touch not the Lord’s Anointed’ and ‘Obey your leaders and defer to them’.  These were the passages quoted endlessly by Reid in the ruthless manipulation of the people in his congregation.  Obeying Reid meant, for example, cruelly turning the back on those who decided to leave, after daring to question Reid’s leadership.

Peniel/Trinity Brentwood concerns have disappeared for seven years from the discussion in this blog.  I could be said to have moved on from considering the horrors of Peniel in Brentwood.  Reid’s death, however, has had the effect of triggering a memory of his abuse horrors. I am reminded of my own reflections and attempts to understand the wickedness of Reid and the way he acted with such appalling cruelty against the people he was supposed to care for spiritually.  The Langlois report continues to remind us that spiritual/power/sexual abuse is alive and well in the Church and those of us who see this must do all we can to expel it from Christian circles.

Some concluding reflections on church power abuse, triggered by the death of Michael Reid

1 Any church leader, who works in a pre-existing or created hierarchy, will experience the temptation to obtain gratification by ‘lording it over the flock’.  A church leader needs to have a strong system of self-awareness and accountability that makes it difficult to succumb to this temptation.   Just because a candidate for ministry may begin training strongly imbued with a desire to serve, it does not mean that this sense of humility will stay the course, without the need for constant monitoring.

2 A temptation to exercise power inappropriately in a church is normally found in one or more of three areas, power/status, sex and money.  Male pastors seem to be more readily attracted by power abuses than the female.  Female power gratification does, of course, exist.   I do not need to spell out the appalling damage that sexual power abuse can wreak in a congregation whether directed against adults or children.  Financial dishonesty, or even a preoccupation with financial power can also create serious damage to a church.  It does not have to be illegal to be corrupting. It is a temptation for some to see financial success as spiritual success when it may be no such thing.  Tithing is not biblical, whatever ‘prosperity’ teachers may declare.  There is nothing in Scripture to suggest that all our charitable generosity should be directed at and through our local church and its leaders.  Indeed, handing over so much financial power to church leaders may create the conditions for abusive power that are spiritually and morally dangerous.

3.  Michael Reid’s legacy of causing pain, humiliation and lasting damage to many of his flock at Brentwood is a learned lesson to be heeded by every congregation.  A full 14 years since his forced retirement, means that only a few will now remember his life and career. The fact that there exists an extensive and detailed report of all the failings of his congregational oversight and the sheer suffering he inflicted on young and old, means that something is left, albeit negative, of his ministry.  The events and pain inflicted on so many at Brentwood between 1980 and 2008 are episodes that should never be allowed to be buried in the mists of history.

The Langlois report on Peniel Church Brentwood 2015

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3578t7pt87jvci/Langlois%20report.pdf?dl=0