by Martin Sewell
When the General Synod of the Church of England meets next week in London, all the attention will be on the well publicised issue of same sex marriage. This is not unreasonable, but it also means that another of the major issues undermining the Church in the eyes of the public, has been pushed way down the agenda. The continuing issue of the Church’s poor response to survivors and victims is important and it deserves no less publicity.
Unlike so much that goes on at Synod, this is a scandal which is entirely self made and capable of ready resolution, if only there was the desire, drive, commitment, and competence to do so.
Importantly there is significant grass roots unity on these matters across all the traditions; there is no theology in favour of abuse and bullying, and there are people of principle across the traditions who set aside other differences and keep banging their heads against the institutional brick wall whilst the leadership chant their mantra “ we are on a journey”.
Synod members cannot fix climate change, they are gridlocked over gay marriage and most of the general public are not paying attention anyway; the public does know however, that the Church has a well documented history of letting survivors down very badly – often for decades. A bold initiative in this area would demonstrate that we “practise what we preach”. We are still waiting for it.
In February 2023, Safeguarding has been relegated to the “ graveyard slot” on Thursday afternoon when some folks will be getting ready to catch trains to Truro or Carlisle. It is hardly worth staying for. All members will be offered is a “ presentation with questions” – one question permitted each. That is no basis upon which to hold power to account and that is entirely why General Synod has found itself managed into impotence by the House of Bishops and Church House.
This time however, a group of survivors have prepared their own briefing which is being offered to the Synod members – 60% of whom are new and vulnerable to the kind of blandishments which have stonewalled survivors for years.
This briefing can be read here at https://houseofsurvivors.org/shared-files/1822/?SYNOD-SAFEGUARDING-BRIEFING-FINAL.pdf
Its clarity and focus contrasts significantly with the official report to Synod GS2293 https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/GS%202293%20Safeguarding.pdf which is reeks of management-speak and is almost unreadable which cynics might think is not accidental.
There is a clearer second report GS1335 https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/GS%20Misc%201335%20NST%20update.pdf one passage of which does deserve particular attention. In it, the newly appointed Director of the National Safeguarding Team Alexander Kubeyinje raises the important issue of the abuse that his team members are occasionally subjected to.
I have met Alex on one occasion. I found him a good attentive listener and I wish him well in his role. It helps enormously that he has been recruited from the same secular safeguarding culture in which I practiced as a lawyer and so we are very much “on the same page in terms of how things are best done. We can get down to business without the preliminary of “comparing notes”.
I am therefore very happy to highlight and endorse his plea for his staff to be respectfully treated and to unequivocally to condemn any improper behaviour. He writes
3.1. I have been taken aback with the amount of abuse, bullying and harassment that colleagues receive and threat to life on occasions. This has predominately been from a small number of survivors , advocates and others who have concerns with regards to safeguarding across the wider church community . The NST are at the forefront of this abuse which has a detrimental impact on them and their families. I have not witnessed or been informed of any bullying or harassment within the NCI’s .
3.2. All of them come to work to do a good job, but this is often received with abuse and harassment. However, there is not always a sense of how staff can be protected from such horrific abuse and bullying.
3.3. As a Church we do have a duty of care to them. There are both legal and moral obligations to protect staff from this. As a result of this, staff will often shut down and not want to engage with the people who are abusing staff which in turn has a detrimental effect on all involved. It must be noted this behaviour is across the NCI’s and is directed from the wider church community to every level of the organisation.
Nobody and nothing should detract from that message, but I think it is proper to make a simple reference to the 1987 Cleveland Report which is one of the foundational documents of the secular safeguarding culture from which both Alex and I come.
Chapter 13.18 of that report addressed a similar issue in respect of parents whose children were at risk of removal by social workers – sometimes a necessary but always an acutely stressful time for all involved. Baroness Elizabeth Butler Sloss wrote
“Families who are in crisis have a heightened emotional response. Anger aggressive destructive behaviour and the possibility of violent impulsive reactions may need to be faced. The social worker needs to maintain an open structured relationship with the family whatever the social workers personal feelings, it is important to avoid a judgemental or accusatory attitude towards a parent who is a possible perpetrator; the risk of suicide amongst perpetrators who are able to acknowledge their abusive behaviour to themselves or others must be recognised….. Social workers must develop the skill of respecting and supporting the persons without endorsing or colluding with their acknowledged or suspected patterns of behaviour”.
That which is true of stressed perpetrators is no less true of the Church’s innocent victims who routinely find their lives in tatters, in chronic and acute need and running up against what they perceive to be an unsympathetic bureaucratic structure. When you have walked a few paces in their shoes, being passed from pillar to post around a variety of Church layers at Diocesan and National level with everyone passing the buck and nobody holding ultimate responsibility, you may not condone – but you understand why people end up raging against the machine.
Alex is right in bringing this to our attention, but how quickly we are able to solve this particular problem will surely depend on how quickly and effectively we grasp the handful of nettles which make up so many aspects of the Church’s current safeguarding dysfunctionality.
We know we have to put proper structures in place for the benefit of our victims: we know that doing so can only be for the benefit of the Church’s reputation. Alex, inadvertently but entirely properly and relevantly, offers a third reason to make our structures and systems as smooth accessible transparent and effective as possible – we owe it to our staff who bear the brunt of the frustration caused by the ineffectuality of the current Church leadership
Nothing justifies the threat of force of course.
But the director of safeguarding needs to ask what it is about the workings of the church’s safeguarding system that means that a perfectly normal and civil member of the public is brought to a point where are they where they are prepared to issue some kind of threat against a member of the NST?
I write as someone that was a core participant at IICSA and have protested a number of times outside synod as a survivor.
Throughout IICSA all survivors acted with dignity, respect and honesty, which is much more than could be said about the church bishops, insurers etc. We were bombarded with paperwork, and every pettyminded legal trick by the train of legal eagles employed by the church were deployed.
The survivors have acted impeccably which is far more than can be said about the NST as the public record shows.
In the few months that Alexander Kubeyinje has been Director of the National Safeguarding Team he has managed with his recent report to the General Synod and its vicious attack on survivors to bring relations between the Church of England and its victims to a new low which, to be absolutely honest, I had never envisaged; it is consequently very difficult to see how this already toxic relationship can now be repaired other than by Mr Kubeyinje’s resignation or dismissal. His cowardly and non specific attack on victims of his organisation is indeed an allegation made “in such broad terms, in a public setting, and without any specific evidence to which those he accuses can respond. There is a real risk that victims and survivors and their advocates will feel they are being further stigmatised by the NST.” (Andrew Graystone).
Alexander Kubeyinje’s desperate but failed attempt to reverse the perceptions of victim and offender and to make it appear that the oppressed is in fact the oppressor, is cruel and only serves to emphasise not only his professional unsuitability for the role of Director of the NST but also for his organisation to continue to have any direct contact with its victims: it has not been safe for some years that the church insists on direct contact with and by its victims for the help that they so desperately need but Mr Kubeyinje’s report to General Synod now brings to light the urgent need for this to addressed.
The report written by the Director of the National Safeguarding Team is shameful and profoundly chilling and says everything about him and the organisation he leads rather than their many victims who he seeks to vilify. What is now clear is that the relationship between the National Safeguarding Team, the Interim Support Scheme and the Church of England with survivors and victims is so dangerous that action must now urgently be taken by the General Synod and, if necessary by Parliament to protect all concerned.
What Mr Kubeyinje seems incapable of understanding is that the devastatingly poor relations he cites between his organisation and its victims is a very clear sign to something that so many have been saying for so many years viz. that the Church of England is the last body of people that should be working with its many, many victims to bring about healing and peace and that its continued involvement merely increases exponentially the huge harm that it has already perpetrated.
Hear, hear, well said
The first Synod report concludes (para 9.2) with the following:
‘JG has been in post during a period of significant change and improvement in the approach to safeguarding within the church’.
I don’t doubt that this is the case in many areas, and is to be welcomed.
My experience, and that of others I am aware of, is specifically that of whistleblowers and survivors: our experience of NST etc has got significantly worse in the last three years.
I would be genuinely grateful if any specific aspects that have improved for whistleblowers and survivors could be highlighted here as I don’t want to omit any credit where it may be due, and I can give many examples of where it has got worse.
The second paper highlights ‘abuse’ of NST staff.
Whenever and wherever such ‘abuse’ occurs, it should be deplored.
Equally it is important that abuse by NST staff is also deplored.
Entirely from personal experience alone this includes:
– breaking survivors confidentiality and leaking survivors’ identity as a Smyth victim to their employer
– breaking the confidentiality of one Smyth victim by leaking their full details as a Smyth victim to another completely unrelated Smyth victim
– deliberately leaking the precise details of one Smyth victim’s accusations against a cleric he claims groomed him into the Smyth cult in 1981 to that very cleric, against the explicit instructions of the victim.
– failing to provide a confidential email address for safeguarding and whistleblowing activities for the Director. Claiming that typing the word CONFIDENTIAL in the title of an email to a generic Safeguarding email address will ‘ensure only the Director reads it’, and then finding the very one staff member the victim had requested the email be kept confidential from, is the very staff member who replies to what the survivor had been assured would be confidential!
All these activities, and others, are incredibly reabusive,
I could go on but it is sufficient to say that the Director, and all of us, should, quite rightly condemn ‘abuse’ aimed at the NST etc, AND ‘abuse’, carried out by the NST etc.
To be fair there should be much less opportunity for either these days as many survivors refuse to deal with the NST, if at all possible, given how they have been treated in the past.
I am reminded by a colleague that the General Synod presentation with questions will be followed by a debate to ” take note” of the report. We do try to be accurate and I am happy to make that ” correction” clear. The substantive point remains. There is to be neither a meaningful consideration of the major structural issues, nor the opportunity for a meaningful counter- narrative to be meaningfully developed. The Survivor briefing is substantial, challenging and specific. None of this will be debated. We need to “take note” of the survivors – maybe by not ” taking note” of the Church’s narrative.
At the forthcoming February synod once again lies are being told. The safeguarding papers state that the Devamanikkam review is nearing completion and ‘The Humphrey Review (on Trevor Devamanikkam) also starts the same process (as the Makin review) of consulting the victim at the centre of the review and those criticised in January 2023’.
This is a blatant untruth. I have never co-operated with this review and never will due to the way it was set up and has been run. The NST and church hierarchy have been told this several times. Kate Blackwell KC on Radio 4 Sunday programme called the ‘review’ ‘compromised before it has started’…but the church went ahead anyway. I will give this sham no legitimacy.
On 18th January I received an email asking to go through the ‘review’ with the reviewer and NST. I replied no for the reasons stated above. On 20th January-two days later-they publish the above telling General Synod that I have co-operated. It is untrue.. I have not and will not co-operate. The bullying and hurting victims goes on, as does the scandalous ways these ‘reviews’ are run..
Nothing changes
I fully admit to knowing none of the the details of the TD/MI case.
However that leaves me in a very good (ie neutral) position to observe the discrepancy between para 8.3 of the first report Martin Sewell references and MI’s comments immediately above.
I trust GS will hold NST/JG to justify their account in the face of such direct comments made by MI.
From direct personal experience, in entirely different cases, I can vouch for:
1. NST’s tendency to be economical with the actualite
2. Their record of never apologising even when found out.
One would like to hope that one day, in the distant future, GS might actually get round to holding them to account?
“I trust GS will hold NST/JG to justify their account in the face of such direct comments made by MI.”
This, I fear, would be a triumph of hope over experience. Synod is not a proper legislature: it has no power over supply and the ‘government’ (the bench and officials) are not accountable to it. It therefore lacks the key components of any meaningful legislature and is, as such, an ornate and expensive sham. Its primary function is to rubber stamp decisions already taken by Very Important People (or, since we are talking about the Church of England here, people who delude themselves into believing they are very important, which they are not). It simply provides a threadbare cloak of wholly unconvincing ‘legitimacy’ which ought not to fool anyone over a mental age of about five.
The manner in which safeguarding issues raised by Gavin Drake were kicked into the long grass in the February 2022 session of Synod on pettyfogging and meretricious procedural grounds (by Simon Butler) should have been instructive in this regard and should underscore the extent to which the Church treats (or rather does not treat) safeguarding as a priority. Messrs Lamming and Sewell might want to submit pertinent motions or raise valiant questions but it is moot as to whether they will get anywhere or even if their questions will be answered (assuming they even get any time).
The Church, which is a largely insignificant institution that hides behind its antiquated privileges, will never take safeguarding seriously unless and until it gets a beating from the Government, which ought to strip it of its ability to manage its own safeguarding processes. Like any common or garden bully, one of the few principles the Church really understands is the application of power.
A cynic would take the view that the email of the 18th constituted the “consulting” process referred to.
Good to hear from you again, Matt, but I’m so sorry the re-abuse continues.
Martin Sewell (correcting his post) has pointed out in his comment above that Synod will be given the opportunity to vote on the safeguarding report (GS 2293) after the ‘presentation’ on the afternoon of Thursday 9 February.
I am the ‘colleague’ Martin refers to though, no longer being a member of General Synod, I’m not able personally to submit a ‘pertinent motion’ or ask a ‘valiant question’ as suggested by Froghole. However, earlier today I posted the following comment on Thinking Anglicans:
“Item 14 on the Synod agenda, to follow the safeguarding ‘Presentation’, is a motion to be proposed by the Bishop of Rochester (the Rt Revd Jonathan Gibbs – currently the ‘lead’ bishop on safeguarding) that ‘Synod do take note of this Report’—i.e. paper GS 2293. Under the Synod’s standing orders (SO 105(3)) such a motion is not amendable, though there could be a ‘further motion’, and such a motion could “express approval or disapproval of the report in whole or part”: SO 105(6)(a).
“A glaring omission from the report GS 2293 (which, as Martin Sewell has commented in his article on Surviving Church, “reeks of management-speak and is almost unreadable”) is any reference to the (so-called) Independent Safeguarding Board. Given this omission, and the ‘non answer’ in response to Mr Sewell’s legitimate question about the ISB in November 2022 (see Q.49 on page 20 of the Questions Notice Paper published on 1 December 2022), synod members may wish to consider voting against the motion – i.e. refusing to take note of the report. There is, of course, a (fairly) recent precedent for this in Synod’s refusal (in a vote by houses) in February 2017 to take note of GS 2055 – the report from the House of Bishops on Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations.”
An alternative course (which depends on Synod first passing the ‘take note’ motion) would be for a member of Synod to propose a ‘further motion’ pursuant to SO 105(6) which, in addition to expressing disapproval of both GS 2293 and aspects of GS Misc 1335 [Not GS 1335], could refer to and endorse the Briefing Report from the House of Survivors to which Mr Sewell has provided the link, that report (a copy of which, I understand, is being sent to all synod members) being “otherwise relevant to and within the scope of [the subject matter of GS 2293]” so as to comply with SO 105(6(b)).
[Continued in next comment]
The following paragraph from an article by Bishop Pete Broadbent (Bishop of Willesden in London Diocese 2001-2021 and a long-term member of General Synod) in the January 2023 issue of the Ecclesiastical Law Journal [(2023) 25 Ecc LJ 19-31 at page 25] is pertinent. The article is based on a paper Bishop Pete delivered to the Day Conference of the Ecclesiastical Law Society in London on 2 April 2022):
“Dealing with ‘difficult’ business
At present, we have at least three major issues which are occupying the mind of Synod, and which our processes seem not to be able to cope with.
The first is safeguarding. The platform tactic (from those leading debates and carrying forward the business of Synod) has been to attempt to keep questions about the Church’s safeguarding practice, past and present, off the floor of Synod. Attempts to inquisite [sic] the shortcomings of the National Safeguarding Team, the past failures of Bishops and the various ‘lessons learned reviews’ (from which we never seem to learn very much) have been seen off and resisted, leaving victims, survivors and those campaigning on their behalf with the sense that justice will never be done or seen to be done.15 Synod’s standing orders probably do not provide an adequate forum within which to scrutinise these concerns, but I suspect that this is one area of our national church life where we need to set up better ways of processing these concerns. They won’t go away.”
15 See, for example, letters to the Church Times from A Graystone and D Lamming (22 July 2022), which are available at (link given), accessed 21 September 2022; and the resource Stones not Bread, published by A Graystone, which is available at (link given), accessed 21 September 2022.
Greetings to everyone, I’ve not engaged with this blog for quite a while, mainly for personal reasons to do with my wellbeing. I hope everyone has had a good start to 2023.
I’m glad to read Martin’s assessment of the papers before Synod. As a survivor rep on the National Safeguarding Panel, & engaged in some of the projects for change, I recognise & am part of the work being done to make the church safer. It’s not all bad news.
But I am bitterly disappointed that Alexander’s first report chooses to focus on the stress on staff, without any acknowledgement of the reabuse of survivors. And his remarks about the church being unsafe are under the heading of ‘history’, whereas for some of us the unsafely continues to this day.
Of course nobody should face harassment or threats, but I hope Synod will question carefully whether we’re getting the full picture here, and if this is a good way to resolve such issues. When survivors are threatened with legal action, see no accountability for their abusers and bishops who fail to safeguard, are gaslighted by their caseworkers, their questions ignored, who have to fight for any support or justice, can you blame them for expressing their frustration publicly and repeatedly? Where is the concern and acknowledgement of the poor treatment of survivors? It’s not my original abuse that has retraumatised me, but my experience of CofE safeguarding over the last 3.5 years.
If relationships between NST staff and some survivors are at such a poor level, rather than publicly shaming survivors, perhaps Synod could acknowledge the poor treatment that leads to such a breakdown, & advise on a better strategy to address the problem. I requested mediation with some of the staff; we met once, a good start, but they refused to meet again & also refuse to communicate with me further. Yet I have never named or attacked them publicly, never harassed or threatened, only sought answers, truth, justice and accountability.
Synod might also ask whether everything being labelled harassment really is so. I don’t doubt it happens, as I have been on the receiving end myself from another survivor. But I have also experienced heightened emotional responses being mislabelled as “aggressive”, and a surprising lack of ability to co-regulate & de-escalate situations where a survivor is triggered or expressing extreme frustration.
I am the first to seek to repair ruptures in relationships between staff & survivors, & to thank staff & allies when they have been helpful or kind. I keep asking for mediation & restorative justice approaches. I hope Synod will constitute whether this is the right way to address such issues.
Hi Jane. Sorry things have been bad. I hope they are looking up a bit.
Though I am disappointed in the NST Director’s report it must be remembered that survivors were allowed to be part of his selection process. I do not know if their feedback was ignored or taken on board but one look at his CV, which was available on LinkedIn, rung huge alarm bells for me.
I have read the presentation by 13 survivors but feel its defamatory first few lines about the NST will only polarise the view of survivors as trouble makers, when viewed alongside the Director’s report, especially for new Synod members eager not to rock the boat.
The survivors presentation goes on to say that consultation on work streams within the church has not happened, as a survivor I was not consulted by the 13 authors of the presentation if I wished this to be shared at Synod, and neither has any other survivor I know. If we are to be labelled as trouble makers I can’t help but feel that this will simply feed into that rhetoric.
The thing is, the Church has often claimed that ‘survivors have been consulted’, when even those of us with extensive survivor networks don’t know of anyone who was consulted.
The survivors’ statement does at least say it is from 13 survivors, rather than pretending to represent all survivors, or giving a vague statement that ‘survivors were consulted’. I’m willing to go on record as one of the 13.
I have tried for more than 30 years to obtain justice from the C of E, and have had extensive dealings with the NST. Like many survivors, I’ve learned not to trust them. It’s nearly 18 months now since I, an Anglican priest, decided to have no further dealings with the C of E. It’s been a huge relief.
The 2nd past cases review alone uncovered over 300 new victims of Church abuse . How could a consultation with all be encompassed when so many are understandably anonymous? Those who prepared the Synod briefing paper have rendered long and distinguished service to that community and the Church over many years – some decades. Some of their stories are in the public domain at great personal cost. Their experience ought to be known and taken into account by Synod. Anyone can respond by writing to their Synod reps or in the comment section of TA and Surviving Church. I am not aware of anyone, victim or otherwise who thinks the Church is doing a very good job. At best apologists say “ we are on a journey “.
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I left a comment on the internet (you will see this under the name “Christian” on the Surviving Church website). It was uncomfortable for me to do this and even more uncomfortable not to be transparent about my identity but my fear of retribution from Church of England made me feel justified in being so.
I have not slept since reading Alexander Kubeyinje’s cruel and cowardly comments in his report to General Synod about survivors and victims of the Church of England. Since then I have been swinging between a sense of despair and yet seeking at the same time to cling onto some small hope that matters can surely only improve after Mr Kubeyinje has brought relations with the National Safeguarding Team to the lowest that any of us have ever known – certainly I have known in the years of being forced to deal with them. What is different for me this time is that as a direct consequence of Alexander Kubeyinje’s report to General Synod I am finding myself not only wishing that I could be dead in order finally to be free of the horrendous bullying of his office and others responsible for church safeguarding but for the first time actually contemplating taking my own life. I have come finally to the stage where I have truly had enough and can take no more from the Church of England and its increasingly sadistic victimisation of those that it has abused over and over again whether it be sexually or spiritually or indeed by means of any other form of abuse. Whether I shall have the courage to take my own life or not I do not know but it is Alexander Kubeyinje who has brought me to the state of wanting to do so in order finally to be free of the organisation he leads – an organisation that perpetuates such unconscionable cruelty towards its many victims.
Dear Christian,
I just wanted to write to how deeply sorry I am to hear that you have been led to have thoughts about taking your own life, and that my thoughts are with you at this difficult time in your life.
Like you, I prefer to comment here without posting my full name as my experience of Church personnel (at diocesan rather than NST level, and clerical rather than lay) is that they can behave retributively if they feel like you are getting too close to an uncomfortable truth. I don’t know any of the specifics of your case, but sadly, the Church of England has a deplorable record when it comes to handling cases of abuse. You are certainly not alone in feeling like the Church has brought you to such a low point in your life, and I dare say that several commenters on this blog could tell of having felt the same way about how their treatment by the Church has made them feel.
I have a great and deep admiration for those who fight on. For my own mental health, I have had to let my case go. It certainly isn’t justice by any means (far from it) and I do still have very dark nights, but generally, I am in a better place for doing so. I tend to hide away from times of ‘intense Anglicanism’ – I didn’t watch the late Queen’s funeral, for example, and I won’t watch the new King’s coronation. I have a personal rule of only attending Anglican occasional offices if I consider it to be absolutely essential that I do so (e.g. they involve a close family member). It won’t be any surprise that I won’t otherwise have anything else to do with the Church of England or attend its services. These might not seem unusual behaviours for most people (after all, to the chagrin of the bishops, the vast majority of the people of this country ignore Anglican church services on any given Sunday!), but they are a personal coping mechanism for me.
A piece of advice I was given by a survivor who I greatly respect is that a case is only worth fighting as long as you are deriving some benefit from doing so. If you are no longer experiencing a benefit from pursuing your case, let it rest, even if only for a little while whilst you gather your strength again. As I reached a point where for the sake of mine and my family’s sanities, I felt that I had no choice but to follow their advice, I have come to realise the wisdom in it. I hope that whatever you decide about your case, you can feel some peace.
Dear Christian, I am so sorry. I don’t suppose it helps, but firstly, you’re not alone and secondly, it’s not you, if that makes sense! The people who abuse, bully, brush aside, they will do it to most people. It may come from a sense of their own inadequacy, it may not. It doesn’t matter. Leave them to God and look after yourself. You deserve better, let’s face it, anybody deserves better! Yes, by all means, shake the dust of the CofE off your feet. Why keep trying to run a relationship with people who don’t do healthy relationships? I hope you find peace soon. We are all with you.
Christian, please stay with us. Despair can be overwhelming in the face of injustice and death can seem very attractive. I’ve been there. But you are loved and wanted, and we need your perspective and your voice. You still have valuable part to play, possibly in ways you never imagined. Please stay with us.
Solidarity and love to you Christian.
Please reach out to your GP and nearest mental health services for help.
You can live a happy and safe life away from the c of e.
Trust me, I am doing exactly that. As an abuse survivor from c of e clergy it’s my only option anyway.
The further away you get from the institution the more beauty you will find in every day.
Prayers xxx
Christian, I spent a couple of hours this evening praying for you and for other survivors like you who have been driven to losing hope in living by the cruel behaviour of the Church of England. Please remember that God/divinity loves and cherishes you as incredibly dear, incredibly precious, more important and dear than you can possibly imagine.
I am thinking about you, and have reached out to survivor friends who have likewise been driven to the edge in the same way. You are constantly on my mind and that of fellow survivor friends. We are all here for you, and please drop a post if you would like to have contact from any of us, and we’ll leave our contact details with Stephen who runs this blog.
What we are facing is an evil institution that has abandoned Christ and everything that the Gospel teaches, that masquerades as Christian behind its walls of church bureaucracy and vestments and lawyers. Do not be ground down by these wicked people.
Know that we are all here, and holding you up in our prayers.
“my experience of Church personnel (at diocesan rather than NST level, and clerical rather than lay) is that they can behave retributively if they feel like you are getting too close to an uncomfortable truth”
Many thanks for your comments. You are right on the money. We need to see things from the perspective of diocesan bureaucrats. They are a mixture of clergy and lay people: the clergy are mostly people who have managed to waft above grimy parochial work, and the lay workers are a mixture of hardheaded professional or pseudo-professional types; both categories have a large admixture of hacks and time servers. Although the dioceses assets add up to about £5bn, they are distributed unevenly and some dioceses are quite poor. Most of them are relatively cash poor, and rely heavily on cashflow from giving or Archbishops’ Council subventions. At the outset of the pandemic many fell immediately into financial distress, and when they do fall into difficulties any central assistance is contingent upon undertakings to resolve their deficits, which they are now doing via eliminating headcount at various levels, and by disposing of assets (which in a couple of dioceses looks set to be a good many churches) in order to realise cash.
Some diocesan officials are well paid (in one diocese the secretary or COO, who is in holy orders, is paid £99,000 p/a). The headcount is uncertain. Recent correspondence in the press suggests there may be as many as 6,500 (up from 250 in 1960) whilst STP estimate that there may be 2,100. In any event, there are many of them relative to the front line workers.
The dioceses have no fiduciary obligations towards the parishes, but extract parish share from them under the threat of stripping parishes of clergy, or threatening closure.
They may often be conscious of their parasitical relationship with the parishes. They may be aware that they are a fundamentally illegitimate and superfluous burden, and that their abolition (and the redundancy of their staff) would be a positive, if not actively welcome, boon to the wider Church, although it must be admitted that some of them contain good people who could be recycled within the Church. This, therefore, makes them very defensive and sensitive to the dissemination of awkward truths (such as the notion that they should all be laid off), which they either ignore (‘talk to the hand’) or handle in retributive fashion. As Milton Friedman remarked, “hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned”. The primary purpose of any bureaucracy is to defend its own interests, and to grow its own powers, assets and budgets, even if that is at the expense of the thing which they have been created to serve.
I am glad to read that you are at least reciprocating their contempt.
There is a proper role for Diocesan staff and we must value them even if we scrutinise the cost effectiveness and the structures within which they operate.
An extraordinary figure from
“ Save the Parish” is that to clear all debt from all dioceses would only cost £27m if correct then, given Church capital assets it seem odd not to do so rather than strip front line parish workers whose presence is integral to spreading the gospel.
Many thanks. There is one diocese that has an operating deficit of £4m, and is now implementing a scheme to rationalise headcount and close churches. The salary of the diocesan secretary alone (£99k) would be a not insignificant contribution to that deficit. The area which will suffer the most closures is one which has probably already endured a higher number of closures than almost anywhere else in the country. The deficit could be resolved in a trice without the Commissioners even really noticing (their assets have waxed on the back of the 1995-98 financial settlement which placed the full burden of stipends and pensions onto parish share). Yet the Commissioners have no fiduciary responsibility to the DBFs who, in turn, have no fiduciary responsibility or duty of care to the PCCs.
I must respectfully disagree that there is a proper role for diocesan staff. My scheme of reform entails: (i) transferring title to all pre-1868 church buildings to a national religious buildings agency; (ii) transferring about £6bn from the Commissioners to the agency; (iii) giving the Church a perpetual free right of use to the vested stock; (iv) transferring all diocesan assets to the Commissioners. The agency would have the economies of scale and bargaining power to secure discounts from contractors that PCCs will never realise (as with the NHS, the larger the risk pool, the lower the risk premium; a national pool reduces the maintenance premium to the maximum extent, and yet PCCs have to self-insure for maintenance, dissipating a vast capital and distracting from their primary purpose). The dowry would effectively return to parishes in maintenance cover the capital extracted from them since the 1990s via parish share. PCCs and incumbents would be liberated from the burden of acting as adjuncts to the heritage business. The liquidation of the dioceses and the consolidation of their functions in the Commissioners would generated economies of scale which 42 diocesan bureaucracies will never realise. It would also liberate bishops from the burden of acting as CEOs. It would also reduce the stakes relating to parish share and so would lessen the ‘suasion’ that certain parishes exert over the bench. The diocesan bureaucracies are being rationalised to some extent anyway; once incorporated into the Commissioners the headcount could be reduced gradually via natural wastage: 2,100 people need not be made redundant in one go.
The need for comprehensive reform and the rationalisation of bureaucracy and process is urgent because of the demographic death spiral. The elimination of 42 (or 43) separate safeguarding teams would also, I feel, improve the provision of safeguarding overall, and would mean that accountability would be to General Synod rather than diocesan synods, which are arguably even more packed with the payroll vote than General Synod. However, my preference would still be to secularise safeguarding completely.
Twenty odd years ago I knew of a Diocesan Secretary getting £120,000 a year. That was a lot!
Dear Christian,
I hear your pain and I am so sorry you have been brought to this. Like Janet says, please stay with us. Remember your life is precious and banish them, not yourself, from your world. You are so valuable to us and we need you.
Christian, May I echo Jane’s and others’ comments and offer my support too
Steve
I feel consumed with shame and embarrassment that I have revealed so publicly the intimacy and vulnerability of my soul after reading Alexander Kubeyinje’s cruel and cowardly report to General Synod. I know I must love my enemies but I feel so confused that this person seems to have turned on a switch in my head leading to self-destruction – something that I have heard spoken of by others in the past but never hitherto encountered myself. I never thought that I too would experience such dark thoughts but in the last two days I have been having waves of uncontrollable urges to destroy myself which has only been remedied every time by praying the Lord’s Prayer again and again.
I now realise that it is only my faith and trust in God that is supporting me in this dark night of my soul. Every time whether during the day or night that these thoughts of self destruction envelope me I have been praying aloud and simply putting my very being in God’s hands asking Him to take over. And then this morning, I read the New Testament lesson appointed for today and it was as if God was speaking aloud to me:
“But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet “in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.”
But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved.”
This is the first occasion I have written comments on any blog and I feel deep shame for being so self-centred in doing so but I am truly grateful for the beautiful and profoundly Christian sentiments that have been made in response (none of which were ever sought let alone expected). I am so sorry for what I have written and any pain I have caused others but I am determined, trusting entirely in God’s infinite love, to win this battle against self-destruction.
Jesus tells me that I must love the person who has caused me this current suffering – along with his colleagues who work in the organisation that has caused me such seemingly relentless harm for so very long (the NST and Church of England). I know that my only “revenge” has to be Christian in every way and consequently must be to love them and to forgive them from my heart – while remembering that I must now also retreat completely from them in every way in order to survive. Silence and solitude with God…
Dear Christian,
I am very glad to hear from you this morning, and also about the strength which your faith in Christ has given you. Please don’t feel ashamed for starting this conversation. For me, it is a sign of your strength that you feel able to speak about your feelings, and for myself, as much as I wish that there were fewer of us who have had negative experiences with the Church of England, it brings some comfort to know that I am not alone. One of the key messages that I received from the Church was that I was alone and was the only person who had ever reported what I had reported. Clearly, the volume of traffic on this blog and others suggests a very different reality, and that such experiences are (sadly) not as unique as the Church would like to tell itself.
The ‘love your enemies’ message of Jesus is one that always hits me right between the eyes as it goes straight to the heart of my being (I am sure that will be the case for others who comment on here). I have been blessed in that since all that experienced, God has led me to a ministry in a denomination outside of the CofE, and I think that there is something in that, in that God can still use those who might feel discarded or worthless (and for a long time, that was how I felt).
Last time I preached on that gospel (I stay light on the details of my experience, thought my experience shapes my response to this gospel), I said ‘I find this passage difficult. I find it difficult to love those who hurt me, and I have to dig deep into my being to find that love. Some days it is impossible. All I can do is leave my hurt at the foot of the cross and hope that God can bring something transformative out of it during the course of the day. I think, though, that that is the difference which being a Christian makes. Some days, I feel able to forgive. If I had dropped out of my faith, I doubt that I would ever forgive.’
Whilst I trust deeply in the infinite mercy and forgiveness of God, I certainly don’t think that those who do wrong won’t have to account for their wrongs. They might not ever have to give account to me in this life for why they did what they did, but I trust that they will one day have to account to God, and that is something which brings me some comfort. They may well receive God’s forgiveness in the way that I hope one day to receive God’s forgiveness, though I have confidence that there will be a holding to account as that is the nature of justice.
May God go with you, today and always.
Christian, there is absolutely no need for you to be ashamed. You spoke honestly, from your heart. So did Jeremiah – just look at Lamentations! So did Elijah, asking God to kill him. So did the psalmists, putting some very dark thoughts not only into words but into worship. So did Jesus himself – ‘My God, my God, why have you forgotten me!’ If they can, so can we.
Loving and forgiving our enemies doesn’t happen overnight, so be patient with yourself. Besides, love is not an emotion, but a matter of practice.
Oh, Christian, as the others say, don’t feel ashamed. You sharing how you feel in such a wonderfully honest way will help other people. I still remember when I met Stephen, our host, and realised that other people have felt the same. As for forgiveness, it’s something the miscreant has to ask for, or at least accept for it to be effective. I’m guessing you have seen no sign of that? Me neither! I’d say, cautiously, because we’re all different, try just saying to God that you certainly won’t stand in the way of his having a good relationship with your abuser if your abuser(s) reach out and seek such a thing. And then leave God to get on with it! He has ways of breaking through, as you know. I’m not suggesting that you don’t try to live rightly, just that you’re being a bit hard on yourself when you’re feeling low. It will come. May I suggest you try getting outside this morning? I don’t know if there’s any sunshine where you are, but even ordinary daylight makes us feel brighter. Sit in the garden with a coffee perhaps, or outside a coffee shop. Just a thought, it may not be a very practical suggestion. We’re all here for you. Your story helps me, too!
Jesus also called out hypocrisy, in particular that of the religious leaders of the day. He was direct and impertinent. His parable of the Samaritan, being the only person to help the beaten up man, whilst the priest and Levite avoided him, is the kernel of the matter.
There is plenty of truth and a great deal of goodness outside the mainstream Church, and the port of call I should refer you to is appropriately named Samaritans.
When the Church is your whole life, as it was for me, the breakdown in relationship with it is depletion at its extreme. As others have found here, there is a broader, healthier and safer world outside, and you can still keep your faith.
Amen to that!
The comments and paper by Alexander Kubeyinje just show the brokenness of the whole fragile edifice of C of E national safeguarding. I don’t understand why he would choose to focus down on this issue, and as Christian says turn victims, survivors and those of us who support and campaign as the oppressor. What is going on here?
There needs to be solidarity with and understanding for all frustrated by the inaction and lack of compassion. Because the wider picture tells a different story – one of the rottenness of the institutional structure and the church hierarchy. It is that that needs dealing with.
The NST and ISBs etc are committees set up to occupy the transitional space possibly between the inner sanctum of power and the outer hostile world reality of very upset people.
The committees sit in the gap to absorb the flak, protecting their masters from taking the blows directly. Of course this is maybe not exactly what Winnicott had in mind by “transitional space”, applying it in a group context, but it does hopefully clarify these “teams’” purpose. Their purpose was never to solve anything, as they had insufficient authority to do so. They were meant to rest as a buffer and absorb the heat from each direction. Non response was the standard manual.
Of course it’s an impossible job. Having a human shield only lasts as long as individuals are prepared to work at the rate of compensation available, playing that role in the middle. By expressing himself as he has, Alexander aligns himself with the perceived position of his leaders, in many eyes. In my estimation and probably theirs, that wasn’t his job.
Having this supposed protective buffer, has made things ten times worse. Will they learn, or will they set up another one?
Although I churn out blog posts fairly quickly, I am less skilled at responding quickly to other people’s comments which sometimes require an instant reaction. When reactions reflect a high degree of pain I am frankly nervous of saying the wrong thing in a short piece. I am profoundly grateful to my ‘regulars’ who seem so skilled at making pastoral and caring responses. I have been moved by Christian’s story and am grateful that so many have reacted with caring words. The blog, with its attempts to face up to the human reality of what happens when institutions falter and fail, is helping in some small way to change things. As editor I see my role as allowing such ‘political’ discussions to take place as important. I hope we will continue, as this thread demonstrates, to be highly respectful for other people’s pain and respond appropriately. The overall aim of the blog is promote healing alongside justice, peace and full human flourishing. Surviving Church wants to promote such positive values and does not aim to undermine or destroy anything or anybody.
I have been moved by all your comments and send prayers to all survivors.
Although I am not a ‘survivor’ in the same sense as the majority writing on this thread, I left the C of E a year ago (retired clergyman) as I could no longer stand its abusive and toxic culture. Christian’s experience is one shared by a great many people who have learned through bitter experience, sometimes stretching back years, just how lacking in compassion and care the whole edifice truly is – the scale of which can at times send one into an almost physical state of shock. One thing which finding the courage to walk away does (yes, I know, yet more courage, but in a positive sense) is to awaken one to the amount of oppression one has been labouring under for so many years.One begins to see clearly. I was the first National Secretary for 5 years of what is now the Faith Workers Branch of Unite, the Union; and that was some 30 years ago. The cases we were dealing with initially were almost all to do with bullying and harrassment. It is dire to see that in that time nothing has changed and in fact has probably worsened. So, if you leave and experience some peace in your soul, that confirms that God’s leading has been right for you. One’s feelings, humanly speaking, will be mixed, especially if you have served and worshipped with that same institution for years and met some good people and made friends along the way. But there comes a day when God says ‘Enough’. Then the rest of your life begins, and a path will begin to appear. I wish Christian every blessing, as I do all of you who contribute here – and thank God for Stephen’s work and ministry. My own mental health has suffered over the years ‘thanks’ to the Church of England. I don’t blame them exclusively; but their wars of attrition (I can only describe it in those terms) demean and crush and exact a terrible toll on our personal lives. It bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to ‘life in all its fullness’ – more like a constantly grinding dead letter. None of us can grow spiritually in such a environment. If we still have some faith to salvage then that is indeed a bonus. Christian, I pray that you will led into kinder pastures – there are indeed some out there, both secular and religious. But first and foremost welcome to a fellowship of people many of whom have been forced to put themselves first. It is not ‘giving up’ – it is sometimes a matter of life and death. And the Lord always chooses life.
Welcome, Mike! Sounds as though you *are* a survivor! Nice to *meet* you.
As a survivor and working in social care it strikes me that the NST Director’s report is extremely ill advised. Even if synodical process does not allow for the Director’s report to be ‘advised’ on when has that ever stopped the church doing what it wants in order to stop things becoming yet more journalist fodder. Jonathan Gibbs could easily have said “look mate you can’t phrase it like that” but he hasn’t.
The Director says he has been in post 6 months, Gibbs says a few months, he has actually been in post 5 months and before his 6 months is up he can be got rid of no questions asked, as he is presumably on a probationary period. If that happens the church does not have another Melissa Caslake scenario on their hands where survivors say she left because she was too good, they can score brownie points by saying we got rid of him because he wasn’t quite up to scratch.
I think one of the problems regarding the abuse of staff is the sheer number of ex-police now employed by the church in safeguarding, presumably because of their lack of accounatbility as they don’t have external accreditation. Working in social care I get sworn at on a regular basis, I am trained to deal with it, ex-police are trained to see it as a threat, a forerunner for violence which needs controlling and I am sure they would want it flagged up by the Director. What desperately needs addressing is the suitability of the staff and their accountability and if Alexander is kicked out because of the unsutability of the staff employed and their inability to diffuse inflammatory situations I couldn’t help but feel he was rather thrown under the bus.
Really interesting and insightful point about the number of ex-police staff now employed by NST.
Had never occurred to me before over the last 6 years, but explains a huge amount.
Even the mildest query or raised eyebrow is treated as though it’s a full-on frontal assault.
Yes. The trouble with appointing ex-police is always that they see everything from a “crime” viewpoint. And if you employ people who don’t know about the church, there are always wrinkles that they don’t get. Our DSO who is lovely, didn’t understand what a difference my turning 70 would make. You just somehow have less rights when you’re PTO.
“I think one of the problems regarding the abuse of staff is the sheer number of ex-police now employed by the church in safeguarding, presumably because of their lack of accountability as they don’t have external accreditation”.
Perhaps it might also be because the police themselves, like the Church, have an ‘accountability problem’ (i.e., they frequently don’t like it, and their immediate reactions to challenges of any kind are often highly defensive). Viz. superabundant recent and excruciating evidence from the Met, now in special measures, following damning HMIC reports, for example.
Christian, I hope you are popping in to read. And I hope you’re feeling a bit better. I guess Sundays are difficult days, as they remind you of lost friendships as well. We are all praying for you.
The following ‘further motion’ was tabled with the Clerk to the Synod this morning (1st February) and will be moved by Martin Sewell, pursuant to Standing Order 105(6), next Thursday afternoon, 9th February, if the motion to be proposed by Bishop Jonathan Gibbs to ‘take note’ of the report GS 2293 is carried:
That this Synod notes with concern:
(a) the contents of the briefing paper for General Synod members from the House of Survivors, written by survivors of abuse (copy annexed);
(b) the complete absence in the report, paper GS 2293, and in the ‘Update from the National Director of Safeguarding’, paper GS Misc 1335, of any reference to the body designated “the Independent Safeguarding Board”;
(c) the absence from the Synod platform of ISB members to update Synod and account for their stewardship of the funds invested in that project by Archbishops’ Council;
(d) the continuing confusion over the constitutional independence of the ISB;
(e) the current failure and/or incapacity of the ISB to initiate and resource inquiries into issues of safeguarding on its own initiative;
(f) the PCR2 and many ‘lessons learned’ safeguarding reports, both delivered and currently pending, which Synod has not yet had the opportunity to consider and debate.
Synod accordingly urges the Archbishops’ Council to respond comprehensively to the above concerns, including by the formal commissioning of a reference to their Audit Committee, and also ensure through the Business Committee that substantial time for formal debate on these issues is included in the agenda for the group of sessions of Synod at York in July 2023.
Thank you David and Martin, good to know this is being proposed.
Perhaps some of us can contact our Synod reps and urge them to support it.
I was a signature to a letter to the Church Times about this report, but sadly they chose not to publish it.
Thank you David for this information which makes the process clear and understandable.