By Caroline Newman
This article is sent in by a reader of the blog. The author is of African Caribbean background. The article gives us a perspective on power dynamics and safeguarding issues in the Church that we have not hitherto encountered on this blog. Caroline’s struggles with the ‘system’ in her battle over safeguarding will be familiar to many of my readers, but the added layer of reactionary racial attitudes gives her account a special power and topical relevance. All of us need to be sensitised to the voices of a community which historically has found it hard to make its voice heard. Caroline is thus helping all of us to think about power issues and church safeguarding in a new way.
I was born in the 1960s and my parents are of the Windrush generation. This article contains my experience of church and my opinion about ongoing matters in the diocese in which I live and worship.
I have attended various churches throughout my life. I started out in a Pentecostal church. Recently, I have been questioning why I go to church at all and if it is necessary. Aren’t church people supposed to be better than the rest? Aren’t “heathens” supposed to look up to us? Aren’t we supposed to lead “non-Christians” to Jesus and ultimately to join us in church?
In 2012 I started attending a Church of England church in a diocese in the south of England. The vicar was from Pakistan and of Asian descent. Prior to his arrival the church had always had white male vicars. Apparently this vicar was not the first choice of the members, who are mainly older and white. Their first choice (white male) withdrew and the second choice, the Asian vicar was appointed. Members of the church have told me he was “forced onto them” by the Bishop.
The Asian vicar told me that the members of the church “made my life hell”. He told me that they refused to help him. They were disruptive of his efforts at PCC meetings. I wondered why his son, daughter and nephew were always up at the altar serving and generally helping him. He told me that the members “don’t want to work with him or help him so he has to use whoever will help him”. I told him “it didn’t look right” having all brown people on the altar and all the white people not on the altar but on the benches, those who still came. Black and brown people were in the minority although that number grew while he was the incumbent. Non-whites felt welcomed by him.
Members of the church told me “he has a funny accent”, “we can’t understand what he is saying”, he is “always late requesting assistance or in the planning of services”. They said this is the reason why they won’t work with him. Because he asked them too late and was “disorganised”. The vicar stayed over 7 years at the parish after which he was promoted to Archdeacon in another area. The vicar told me that he had implored the Diocese to introduce unconscious bias training but they had refused. The vicar also told me that whenever he would report racism to the Bishop he was told to “hang in there”. They took no action to provide training or to raise the issue of race discrimination with the members of the church or even with the Parochial Church Council.
I should say that since we started attending the church, black women have tolerated various micro aggressions by the white members; questions and comments about our hair and clothes, wanting to touch our hair or just touching it without permission, being misnamed and mixed up with each other. Black members of the worship team were told they could not sing cultural songs as the members would not like it. Their attire was scrutinised and criticised. We were told “this is not a black church”. I was even told that if I did not like it I should “go to Jesus House” (a majority black church).
Then came the pandemic and various “lockdowns”. In May 2021 the PCC appointed a new vicar, a white male, with whom they were happy. I was appointed a churchwarden in April 2021.
As soon as I started to get involved with the church I experienced race discrimination. I also heard racist and sexist insults about other church employees (eastern Europeans) by the white English members. I was most uncomfortable with the racism and sexism. Initially I kept quiet. Although I felt obliged to call out the casual racism towards others, at first I did not address the racism I personally experienced. Then in July 2021 my position became intolerable when I experienced direct racial discrimination by the other Churchwarden (a white woman).
I reported this to the new vicar, hoping that he would at least use his position to tackle the issue of racial discrimination and perhaps recommend training for the leadership team. Instead, he turned on me and took the side of the other churchwarden and decided that I had to be moved on. Together they manufactured disciplinary situations and tried to force me out of the position because I had made accusations of discrimination. It was textbook victimisation.
I also had a report of a safeguarding concern. I reported the race discrimination and safeguarding concerns to the bishops of the diocese and the chair of the PCC. Their instincts were to make excuses for the vicar “he’s inexperienced”; “he didn’t mean any harm”; “it was meant as a compliment” and to sweep it under the carpet. The diocese tried to force me to sign an NDA so I could not discuss my report with anyone. It was clear from the start that they did not want the take the race discrimination or the safeguarding situation seriously. They just wanted to protect the vicar and the reputation of the diocese. I declined the offer of mediation and an enforced NDA. I was then told they could not investigate the vicar as only the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) process could do that. I would have to pursue that myself. I had never heard of a CDM. So, while they were investigating the churchwarden and employees for race discrimination, I completed the CDM. The investigation was of course a white wash designed to protect the vicar.
Then the tsunami of victimisation by church members started against me and the person they believed had made the safeguarding report. The victimisation against me continues to today. I was even subjected to verbal abuse and harassment at the church and had to involve the police. Because it was deemed a racially aggravated offence, a criminal investigation was carried out. I have now taken my claim against the diocese, the PCC, the vicar and others who have harassed, victimised or abused me to the Employment Tribunal. Instead of trying to resolve the issues and take responsibility and accountability, the diocese, the vicar and the PCC (funded by Ecclesiastical Insurance) are arguing that a churchwarden elected by the parishioners, appointed by the Bishop as his representative in the Parish and appointed as a trustee of the PCC (a registered charity) does not have the status or standing to take a claim to the Tribunal to address the issues.
I wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury telling him what was going on in the diocese. I told him that I was being coerced into signing an NDA even though he had decreed that NDAs should not be used. My first letter was ignored. Then I wrote again and I received a reply to this second letter. He essentially said these issues are delegated to the diocese. This sounded very familiar to the issues raised by the survivor of abuser, the late Trevor Devamanikkam when the Diocese declined to take responsibility for dealing with abuse.
Soul Survivor Watford (SSW)
I left my church in July 2022, as a result of the victimisation. I started going to Soul Survivor after trying several other churches in July 2022. I like Soul Survivor and just as we were settling there we were informed on 4 April 2023 that Mike Pilavachi was being investigated for serious safeguarding issues.
There were some things about SSW that had caused me discomfort. Firstly, the leadership had said on several occasions that SSW “aimed for family, and settled for a mess”. With the background I have and the experiences I have had in life, in churches and in organisations I felt this would become a problem, even before this issue with Mike Pilavachi came to light. If you settle for a mess you will have a mess. I had checked the website and there were none of the governance policies that should be there according to the law and the Church of England’s own guidance.
I was shocked when I heard the content of the statement about Mike. I felt traumatised because I had left the other church because of abuse and safeguarding concerns in a church. I have been crying a lot since then as I weep for the church and the young people having some affinity with what they have gone through.
Mike was suspended followed by some of the other pastors in the church. I was surprised to learn of the allegations against Mike. I was not surprised to learn that people in senior positions in Soul Survivor and the diocese knew of the allegations and did nothing. This fits with my experience of the Church of England. Ignore it when it is happening and then try and sweep it under the carpet. Protect the vicar and the reputation of the Church of England at all costs.
I have become increasingly concerned about the investigation that is taking place by the safeguarding team in the diocese and the National Safeguarding team.
It is my firm belief that the authorities of my diocese should have no part in the investigation of the historical and current safeguarding issues at Soul Survivor. I now believe firmly that this investigation should be carried out by an independent body.
I agree wholeheartedly with others that the Church has failed in relation to protecting victims of sexual abuse, spiritual abuse and racial abuse.
I say this not to diminish the serious issues raised in the safeguarding investigation but to point to a pattern of conduct from my diocese in relation to protecting vulnerable people from abuse. Discriminatory abuse is included in the Bishop’s guidance on safeguarding but it has not been taken seriously locally. Abuse in church has to stop. In my experience the diocese is incapable of management and leadership. The Church needs to bring in professional advisers and, if necessary, professional experts to help them sort out the mess they have created.
Well run and funded corporations struggle with these issues so it is inevitable that most clergy will be incapable of dealing with these issues.
Too many people have been left broken by abuse in churches. I agree with Gavin Drake that the Church of England is not a safe place for vulnerable people. But they don’t care. Sadly, they are more interested in preserving the institution than protecting the people they are called to serve.
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The church is full of Pharisees and sinners. Jesus preferred the company of the latter and aimed His ministry at them. Neither group is easy.
I’ve learned the hard way about how unsafe a place the Church often is. It’s safer and often healthier outside. I’ve worked in greedy big business and they are considerably preferable to deal with. 20 years ago I was getting diversity and discrimination training drummed into me, which I didn’t properly appreciate at the time, and am profoundly sorry for now, especially when I read how backwards the Church still is by comparison. It’s shameful.
If we can’t treat all our brothers and sisters as equals and see them as Christ does, treating them accordingly, then we are nothing. We are no better than the Pharisees, as hopeless as they are clinging on to their positions and reputations and perks of power. I don’t think we can ever hope for change with them, but we can repent ourselves and lead by example.
Thanks Caroline for writing.
We need more peace, reconciliation and forgiveness towards one another.
This should be part of safegarding role.
Certainly we need more peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness – but how or why should this be part of the safeguarding role? Safeguarding is about protecting people who are vulnerable (for whatever reason) from those who abuse their power over them. Reconciliation can be downright dangerous while the power imbalance remains, and raising the subject of forgiveness too soon can be a real barrier to the victim’s healing.
‘Aren’t church people supposed to be better than the rest?’
As a church person myself, I firmly believe that this notion is a root of many kinds of evil, not least of the kinds described in this article, and many others also.
And, because of this, even as an ordained minister, I confess that I too ‘have been questioning why I go to church at all and if it is necessary.’ But I also remember the words of Jesus in Mark 2.17: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ May God forgive the church and bless all who seek healing in it.
Sorry, that should be ‘all who seek healing in it and from it’
Caroline, evangelicalism is defined by high handedness while they were warned against an “influencing” strategy in 1966. Lack of procedure which you noticed, affects the will to investigate sound doctrine, the will to have sound principles of employment and ordination of “leaders” and everything else.
I knew a suspended vicar (for what I don’t know) but I can assure you the volunteers of his church who asked me to find “a better fit” are every bit as much to blame (or more so) for tipping him over the edge by their affiliations to “Church Society” and half a dozen apparently counterfeit “charismatic” operations. It took a bishop of rare high calibre to partly address the situation.
I was born into a denomination then supposed to be for all comers but whose vision has collapsed, become shallower and narrowed. The “plus” side is that I slowly learned criteria (which Scripture taught ordinary believers to have all along). Like you I have only my words to explain for me. Does a sense of superiority go hand in hand with teaching believers not to pray?
All – there is an amazing website called http://www.thecentreforehealing.com, and, you can register for effective strategies on trauma, and, its free.
Church should be a place we feel vulnerable, we come as we are, and, by gods grace we are healed, we forgive, and it is a process whereby if we are in difficult situations church his where we come to experience gods love to transform our circumstances and not be re-traumatised or abused by those in church.
I got to what may be the page, by deleting the e between r and h.
In Britain, there is no legal obligation on anybody to report suspected or even known abuse to the statutory authorities. We are an outlier in this respect, more than 80% of countries worldwide have some form of “mandatory reporting” for child sex abuse. (We have mandatory reporting for suspected bribery and money laundering, but not child sex abuse. Go figure.)
Unless and until there is mandatory reporting, backed by criminal sanctions for failure to report, the temptation to handle suspected abuse “in house” will often be too great to withstand. Churches are by no means the only institutions to succumb. The IICSA public inquiry found no corner of public life immune. The recent shambles about the ISC and Archbishops’ Council is no surprise to anybody aware of IICSA’s work, the range of institutions where coverups have been found, and in particular its findings about the Church of England.
Unfortunately, the government shows no sign or implementing mandatory reporting any time soon, or even acting promptly to implement any of the 20 recommendations in the IICSA final report. So the church and other organisations will muddle on, and unfortunately abuse will continue as a result.
That the Church of England is not alone in having these problems should not be an excuse failing to get to grips with them.
“This is our church.”
Visit any random church building in our land, before service is about to start, and you, if you’re lucky, will get some kind of welcome. Very swiftly you’ll be sized up as to whether you fit in or not, which bits of you are acceptable, and over a period of time, you may or may not get the message that you’re welcome to stay. The more established, the more there is of this behaviour, largely unconscious of course, but sometimes deliberate.
Abuse is at the thin end of a fat wedge of bad activity at the forefront of church life from discrimination to bullying. We think we only want people like (who look like) us, and that it’s our choice as to whether they should be allowed. Of course it’s not our church at all, it’s His. And conversely, we would discover, if we were half aware, that people not immediately similar to us, in age, income distribution, sexual orientation, colour etc are a breath of fresh air and richly add to the mix: something, a blessing, which God always intended. It’s easier to remember this if we consider ourselves guests too rather than long-serving Members who must always be obeyed.
In secular working life, discrimination is usually strictly policed against, sometimes because they know the (economic) value of diversity, but at the very least don’t want the hefty cost of a discrimination suit. The Church has fewer pressures on it, with some exemptions available, largely driven by the political need not to lose votes. However the Church languishes as a result.
We need to stop discrimination, welcome everyone and eradicate abuse from His church, or eventually we will lose whatever we thought was ours, whilst it shrinks and the fine stones are pulled down or become luxury homes.
Steve, you’re flagging up a kind of semiconscious half baked doctrine-based template or paradigm in which only their commercial view of charismatic, or their mannerism of ceremony, counts. Waiting until “safeguarding procedures” get raised, even good ones, is too late. I’ve never tried to volunteer so I am a random congregant and I find the same weak areas reappear in several denominations.
If I make a helpful suggestion about amplification, it is met with suspicion. If I attend what happens to be weekday communion but want to sit out, I have to be given a “compulsory blessing” (while a non tactile one appears not to have been thought of) because that is what the seating arrangements are taken as dictating.
Steve, you’re flagging up a kind of semiconscious half baked doctrine-based template or paradigm in which only their commercial view of charismatic, or their mannerism of ceremony, counts. Waiting until “safeguarding procedures” get raised, even good ones, is too late. I’ve never tried to volunteer so I am a random congregant and I find the same weak areas reappear in several denominations.
If I make a helpful suggestion about amplification, it is met with suspicion. If I attend what happens to be weekday communion but want to sit out, I have to be given a “compulsory blessing” (while a non tactile one appears not to have been thought of) because that is what the seating arrangements are taken as dictating.
The “muscular” tendency followed Stott in 1966 in becoming “influencers” with the dire effects in secular as well as most churches’ life. Up to about 30 years ago some church volunteers and leaders still seemed keen to support christians in cultivating spiritual gifts in everyday living. I have commented because I see red flags in doctrine, failure of imagination, and lack of teaching to pray, all the way back.
Hi. Can you clarify, please, what you mean by ‘their commercial view of charismatic’? Thanks
Camps attracting custom by their excitable atmosphere.
Steve Lewis. I totally echo what you say. I have learnt the hard way unfortunately. Mark
Same here Mark
I agree fully with what Steve has written (and commend Caroline for their bravery in writing as honestly have they gave done).
I realise that the whole relationship between the CofE and the state is in a mess right now (as exemplified by the labyrinthine answer revealed in recent weeks to the question of ‘Could a UK government legislate to allow same-sex marriage in the CofE?’), but I have often thought that removing the CofE’s exemption from Freedom of Information requests would surely be (a). within a UK government’s gift to legislate, and (b). lay down a strong marker that the current status quo in the CofE (not least regarding safeguarding) simply isn’t acceptable?
‘In my experience the diocese is incapable of management and leadership.’ I can’t help but agree with this and Caroline’s other conclusions.
The pain of leaving a place of worship that should’ve been home and thinking you’ve found a good alternative (in Soul Survivor Watford) and then the sinking feeling of discovering it was no better, must have been intense.
When you’ve been charisgelical, it’s very difficult to dial it back and find a less expressive form of worship at all satisfactory. It feels risky to try anything new.
I grew up under the sainthood of John Stott, but the conservative tradition didn’t tackle the real challenges, setbacks and failures of life I encounter regularly, nor the variations in people described above. I couldn’t go back there.
It is a burning question still: is it worth (safe) going to church? That said, if this place is a form of church experience, I do really value being able to attend
Is anyone safe in the Church of England? White people who are discriminate against others are. Bullies are. Predators of various kinds are. The rest of us are wondering wether it is worth going to church or have left already. One day the bullies and discriminators will only have the predators to prey on, and vice versa. The courageous like Caroline and many who have blogged here will not be available to be bullied, harassed, discriminated against, and sexually assaulted. We will have left them to it.
I’m white. I haven’t been safe. And I’m not altogether safe now.
English Athena, White predators and bullies appear to be safe, but not victims. Very sorry that you have been unsafe for so long. Feeling unsafe takes a terrible toll, and is a form psychological abuse if those who could and should take action about it don’t. You have my deepest sympathy.
Sadly, I agree with Mary, from past experiences. The universal rule of life seems to be that the thug always wins – look at the main news stories at any given time – and ‘closed shops’ are particularly adept at ensuring it happens.
Many, many years ago (before safeguarding was invented, let alone the issue it is now) at a meeting which I couldn’t attend I was accused of ‘being too friendly with the little girls’ in the church youth group. So without being asked about it, or even informed of the decision, I was dropped, and replaced by the accuser’s husband – the whole thing being done with malice aforethought in order to make a vacancy and get him on board. It was just one of several arrogant decisions which, ultimately wrecked the group.
Since then I’ve been personally involved in a much worse instance which would take too long to explain; to say it involved an unbelievable level of abuse and control is an understatement. It involved the complicity of just about everybody from the PCC upwards, and was a textbook example of how a sociopathic vicar can manipulate authority to get revenge on those who he dislikes. Corruption within the church is as insidious and subtle as it is in the police, or elsewhere, with little or no external accountability.
As several people, not least Caroline, have spotted, we like to think we’re ‘better than that’, and display a very false sense of superiority to ‘the world’ around us. Actually, there seems little difference between the churches and the Freemasons, who we profess to despise as ‘enemies of the Truth’. In fact, all too often the church reflects the sins and mores of the society from which it draws its members. OK, yes, we’re all soiled sinners, and always will be, but aren’t we supposed to have someone to help us overcome that?
(I was told, very firmly, as a student convert, that ‘we don’t wash the church’s dirty linen in public.’ No, indeed. That attitude ensures it NEVER gets washed……)
Title: A study of the Church as a therapeutic community
Author: Masson, John Dean
ISNI: 0000 0001 3620 9250
Awarding Body: University of Aberdeen
Current Institution: University of Aberdeen
Date of Award: 1985
Availability of Full Text:
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Link to institutional repository
Abstract:
“The local congregation should continually strive to be a therapeutic community”. “The Church is called to be itself a therapeutic community, whose members are coming to terms with both the brokeness and the goodness of life, and in which people may find acceptance, support and Christ’s word of healing”. The idea that the Church should be, in some way, a therapeutic community has gained increasing prominence in recent years. Usually, the general sense seems to be that of health-engendering community. However, exactly what is to be understood by such terminology very rarely has been spelled out. It would appear that while people consider that the idea is worthy of assertion, the content and implications of such an assertion have never been worked through fully. Yet, if we are serious in accepting the notion that the Church is, or should be, a therapeutic community, there has to be more precision and content given to the term.
The above was taken from a Ph.D on the internet. We need to run churches on the lines of therapeutic communities who are trauma informed.
Caroline, I am late sending this post although your blog is very important to me. I am really very sorry indeed to read of the prejudices you have suffered. It is appallingly not Christian. It does though explain a particular situation to me.
I have been supporting a friend, Kenneth (see the Kenneth Saga on previous blogs) in an accusation of sexually touching a teenage chorister which he denies. In more than three years there has been no investigation or scrutiny of five pieces of indisputable documented evidence which could have exonerated him. One of these pieces of evidence is written by a Chaperone who is always present in the vestry whenever the boy choristers are singing. She could prove beyond doubt the unlikelihood of an adult male leaving the vestry with a choir boy (tall for his age), unnoticed. The boys are chaperoned even if they want to go to the toilet.
This piece of evidence has always been dismissed by the Diocesan Safeguarding Core Group on the grounds that the writer and the boy’s mother (a vociferous voice in the accusation) have a ‘toxic’ relationship and therefore the statement is invalid. This was dismissed for that reason even in an ‘independent ‘ investigation.Despite our asking in our formal complaints what is meant by ‘toxic’ this question has never been answered.
Recently we have filed a CDM against the senior clergy person who was on the Core Group and therefore implicated in the withholding of these evidences (amongst other things). This letter was declared an invalid piece of evidence by the Diocesan Registrar because I had not explained what ‘toxic’ meant. I could not explain because despite frequent questioning the Core Group would not explain and always ignored the question.
The Chaperone always said she would be ignored. As she has frequently said, she is black and the mother of the boy is known by people within the choir to have racist issues. The mother has several times complained about the ‘behaviour’ of black choir boys so that they have either left of their own accord or been expelled by the choirmaster.
Caroline, although we cannot prove it beyond doubt we can now, as a result of your blog, guess at the meaning of the word ‘toxic’.
So the Chaperone was right, her evidence will never be considered.
I hope prof Jay isn’t going to set up core groups.
It appears from these posts and other media that if you inconvenience the Church because you have evidence to prove your case which cannot be disputed, the Church may refuse to accept it. I am minded of the gentleman just freed from prison after seventeen years when no one was minded to accept the evidence. No doubt it was inconvenient to look into the conduct of the police force. I used to be proud of living in a just society. That seems to be a very long time ago now. Those beliefs seem to me to belong to a different person. I am indeed older and wiser, and these days people have to actually prove they are trustworthy to me, before I accept that they are. I accept that in theory not every member of the church hierarchy behaves disreputably. Stephen is a fine example of the integrity we hope to find in a priest. Having integrity means not turning a blind eye to injustice, of whatever kind, and not being biased or prejudiced. Some have spoken about the “silent majority” and the part they play by not speaking up. I am glad to hear the chaperone in Kenneth’s place did speak up. It seems that those who have already suffered are more willing to try to ensure justice is done. They are supported by some wonderful people who have not personally suffered, but who refuse to turn a blind eye. Some of these are known to us, some not. The monk Thomas Merton wrote a book called conjectures of a guilty bystander. That phrase seems to me to be an apt description of all those who have been turning a blind eye, both in individual cases they know about, and also about the general state of safeguarding in the Church. I hope the demand to let Jasvinder and Steve speak at Synod is a turning point and that there will be fewer and fewer guilty bystanders. We should no longer be tolerating a system which is supposed to have a legal basis yet which is so biased it will not accept the evidence it does not have a mind to.
When Jesus was seized prior to the crucifixion, all his friends fled, or betrayed him, or both. So He knows what it is like to be alone. Of those who stood with him, from a distance, notable were the women.
What does the archbishop council do?
Advise the Archbishops.
According to https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/archbishops-council
“[…] providing national support to the Church in dioceses and locally, working closely with the House of Bishops and other bodies of the Church. The Archbishops’ Council is one of the seven National Church Institutions.
“Our work can either be indirect or direct and largely falls under seven types of activity:
Legislate, regulate and deregulate matters (directly or through General Synod)
Distribute money
Provide national services to dioceses, parishes, cathedrals, schools etc.
Provide consultancy services
Campaign and engage publicly
Enable the Church to govern itself
Engage people directly, especially through digital means”
1 – who requested this and on what agenda?
2 – were the terms of any approach wide enough to drive a “boris bus” or a JCB through?
3 – which activities including “indirect ones” are “not largely falling”?
4 – Jesus never told any authority to “engage people”
5 – is “digital” a version of fingering?
6 – In the expression “the Church” do they mean just them?
7 – Is “deregulate directly” another way of saying put a spoke in the works? Did they get jealous of “Church Society”, of discipling movements from exotic islands, and hysterical camp hosts and want to copy their playbooks?
8 – Has there ever been a “statutory basis” for setting up that Mr Nye we keep hearing about? Is he another of those people that is going to get ordained as an afterthought?
By controlling Synod and springing nasty plan B’s when they can’t, are they “directly deregulating” “indirectly”? Is evangelicalism just “influencing”? The only other place I heard of “core groups” is the immovables who own the “charismatic movement”. Are those who spent a lifetime’s emotional and spiritual investment in those milieux and in the C of E going to feel their hopes for others (for us all) dashed?
The Archbishops’ Council was created by the National Institutions Measure 1998, 1(1): “There shall be a body to be known as “the Archbishops’ Council” whose objects shall be to co-ordinate, promote, aid and further the work and mission of the Church of England.” It is a body corporate, and a charity.
They should ensure everyone is welcome to attend our national church whoever you are no matter what your background is. Turn no one away.. Any priest who turns someone away should be removed from ministry but welcome to attend church.
Is that why they brought in a celebrity politician (W Nye) to be its head?
Can’t archbishops act through the actual position God put them in?
At one time safeguarding was conceptually part of all our co-pastoring each other, Chaperoning is a well defined instance of the fruit of that. The authorities’ setting up core groups specifically to sabotage chaperoning and mutual copastoring is typical of how evangelicalism went wrong. Pastoring, and looking after each other, isn’t evangelical so it has to abolished.
Thank you K. for explaining this horrifically scandalous situation, how the other families and the locality must be suffering for this loss. There has got to be a way in which church congregations can objectively be seen to have requested a nasty congregation member to cease nastyness against so many others.
Religious authorities must (they think) at all costs deny all us believers any agency in our own and mutual practice. It therefore isn’t faith (christian or otherwise) any more.
The excitement that the irregular appointers and ordainers of Pilavachi, whip up, which I saw bring a vicar (in my diocese) down several years ago (I having complained to my “leadership team” prior to then), is evangelical so it has to destroy care. Sadly bishops have no authority over “leadership teams” (or “Church Society” which had placed the vicar in a vulnerable position already).
Martyn Percy: is the Church of England Orwellian?
on Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 3.58 pm by Simon Sarmiento
categorised as Church of England, Opinion, Safeguarding
Martyn Percy has written three articles which Modern Church has published.
“In three short articles, Martyn Percy looks at three words currently being given the full 1984 treatment: independent, ethical and trustworthy. Is the Church of England using these words as defined by most dictionaries in 2022? Or, are we now enmeshed in an Orwellian church in which little that is said corresponds to our normal frames of reference?”
The Ministry of Truth and Safeguarding in the Church of England (A ‘Lessons Learned Review’ from 1984)
Ethical? (or, Tea and Sympathy Are Not Enough)
The Church of England…. Trustworthy?
The above 3 articles by Martyn Percy were on the Thinking Anglicans website and worth reading.