by Stephen Parsons
I continue to feel a profound sense of shame at the Church of England’s historic safeguarding failures. – Archbishop Justin
There are numerous words in the English language that need to be defined before we use them. When ++Justin used the expression ‘profound sense of shame’ I realised that I did not know precisely what meaning he was giving the word shame. I do not blame him for my uncertainty over his use of the word. While most people do, from their experience of life, have a pretty good idea of what the word means, we still need to pause to ensure that we are drawing on the same well of common experience as that belonging to ++Justin.
In this reflection about shame and its meaning, I am going to speak about the word in terms of a burden we lay upon ourselves through our actions, rather than one imposed on us by others. I hope that my attempts to use the word in a consistent way do not stray too far from the common-sense meanings that most of us share. For me, the word shame is one that usually involves a degree of emotional distress and trauma. The first thing to be said about shame is that it is a strong feeling. If one has shame, one feels it acutely. The relationship with events or behaviour that cause this shame is quite distinct from the one that an individual has with an action creating guilt. Guilt can also be a strong disruptive feeling, but somehow most people come to terms with levels of guilt in a way that never seriously disturbs the conscious mind in the way that shame does. As I think about these two words, shame and guilt, an image comes to mind to indicate the difference. In using the word guilt, I imagine a sponge that has soaked up a considerable amount of water. So far, the sponge has managed to keep the soaked part out of sight and the impression is given to the outside that the whole sponge is completely dry. The word shame on the other hand denotes a sponge that is completely soaking. There is an overwhelming, even overpowering awareness of guilt with no attempt to hide it. The person experiencing this intensity of guilt is encountering shame and the full implication of their actions. In feeling shame, they have gone beyond caring about what other people think; the only concern is their complete surrender to the sense of genuine remorse and regret over what they have done.
The gospel narratives have two sections which describe the abject sorrow of the penitent, and which may also be considered as descriptions of self-inflicted shame. They are so well known that I do not need to recount them in full. The first account is the parable of the Prodigal Son and the second is the description of the publican when compared to the Pharisee. The power of both accounts is that we can sense the abject grief of both men as they come to an awareness of their lowly status before God. Both the prodigal and the publican had no claim on God, but they simply poured out their deep sense of shame in his presence. The texts suggest that God was able to use that profound shame as a stepping stone to rebuild relationships. At the same time the reader also sees that the approach of the Pharisee did not provide the raw building blocks to enable a true reconciliation with God and neighbour. The ‘confession’ on the part of the Pharisee was, as we would say, phony and shallow. He went home without the divine forgiveness that he sought.
Abject felt sorrow for sin is described by two further words in the English language. Each is used to convey the acute state of shame-filled awareness in both religious and secular contexts. These words, contrition and compunction, are not commonly used, but each strongly points to a meaning that would contribute something of value to our discussion. We are introducing ideas that point to God requiring something more than a simple generalised admission of faults as part of our preparation to receive the sacrament. The two words were both known by the early church Fathers and mediaeval spiritual writing. When used by one of the Desert Fathers for example, such words suggest a depth of sorrow for moral failure which is far deeper that anything that is suggested today by most books of spiritual guidance. The words and all that they imply remain in the spiritual literature and remind us that there is a level of penitence that God requires but which few of us aspire to or give much time to explore.
Another word that seems to be attached to the ideas of remorse and real sorrow for sin is one that we have discussed on the blog some years ago. That word is tears. Weeping is not often discussed in modern works of spirituality, but it certainly had an honourable place in the writing of the Desert Fathers and other writers in the eastern traditions of spirituality such as Evagrius and John Cassian. I am no expert on this corner of Christian writing, but tears were an important indication that sorrow for sin was taken very seriously. One important Byzantine writer, Symeon the New Theologian, made the bold statement to his followers ‘never communicate without tears’. This injunction seems to be a command to weep over the gravity of our failings when placed alongside the generous and loving presence of Christ in the sacrament. There is much more to be said on this topic but, in spite of the place given to this profound form of self-examination in Scripture and the spiritual classics through the ages, this is an area of the Christian life that most of us know little about.
In this post I have suggested that there are several levels of sorrow and remorse to be experienced in response to the things we have done wrong. The first level, and possibly the most superficial, is a sense of guilt which may exist only at the level of a vague discomfort rather than bringing out deeper feelings. The level that involves shame, and which Welby was referring to, may or may not include real feelings and such things as remorse. Equally other ways of expressing sorrow for past evils exist, but they may be only well-crafted words such as those given in a public apology. We may find that most corporate expressions of shame are typically devoid of both feeling and sincerity.
In writing this, it occurs to me that Church of England has great difficulty at dealing with emotion and, in fact, finds any open expression of feelings distasteful. Emotional displays were seemingly shunned in the Iwerne culture and Nash, the founder, strongly resisted the incursion of charismatic influence. He was keen to promote a manly culture which did not give space to emotions of any kind. It is hard to see that an appropriate understanding of such things as remorse and sorrow for sin was ever part of the conservative male dominated culture that has been bequeathed to the Church by the Iwerne constituency. I personally received much of my emotional and spiritual education through the medium of music. Had I not been involved in music at my second-tier public school, I wonder whether there would have been any other way of learning about the cultivation of emotion and the life of the spirit in the widest sense. The miasma of repressed emotion has made a home in many parts of our Church of England. Perhaps the current crisis in leadership of our national Church can in part be ascribed to an apparent emotional illiteracy of those in charge. We might go so far as to suggest that English public-school culture, with its indifference to the life of feeling and empathy, has contributed to a poverty in the ability to feel. When feeling is undervalued or despised, then shame, the kind that ensures that true penitence takes place, cannot be felt. It is that kind of penitence and remorse that survivors and victims long to see from those who have wronged them as abusers and bystanders. Tears, grief and true heartfelt sorrow are what we need currently in the Church. A Church which risks showing some genuine contrition and shame for the past might have a chance of creating a new beginning for itself. The reliance on words, crafted by a firm dedicated to the task of damage control and crisis management, will never serve up what is needed in these times of enormous danger for the Church of England,
Thank you Stephen. I find this very helpful in identifying my own range of emotions as well as those of the church.
Excellent piece. Thanks
If you do not feel true sorrow for wrong conduct, how can you repent? If you don’t repent, are you likely to do everything possible to put matters right? Or will you in ABY’s words, just do the talking expected of you without taking proper action?
“I realised that I did not know precisely what meaning he was giving the word shame”. Me neither. I am however familiar with the anthropological distinction between shame cultures and guilt cultures. There, ‘shame’ is about what other people say about you; about your reputation, about other people’s comments, and the risk of being ostracised by your peers. ‘Guilt’ is something you feel deep inside, as you take personal responsibility for what has happened.
While there’s ongoing debate in the social sciences about whether particular societies can be labelled as one or the other – Ruth Benedict once claimed that Japanese culture was a shame culture, that of the USA a guilt culture, but that’s been challenged – this way of thinking about shame gives a very different slant to Mr Welby’s words.
As for tears – I’ve written about the potential ‘use and abuse’ of tears elsewhere. https://shared-conversations.com/2016/02/14/412/
Thank you Stephen. This is all very deeply humbling.
Hi, Stephen. I totally see where you’re coming from. But, just to throw the question out there, what about the overwhelming feeling of shame that pervades all parts of the lives who are not guilty? I am thinking of victims.
….if those who (are not guilty) Sorry.
I was trying to isolate the part of shame that we lay upon ourselves as part of our conscience working. Of course there is the shame that others try to lay on us as part of the way they want to control us and the relationship we may have. I realised that I had to be very selective when I re-read sections of Stephen Pattison’s book entitled Shame. There is only room for one strand of argument! It is a big subject!
Indeed it is! Thanks.
Your essay explains (convincingly, for me) why we hear them saying sorry so often, yet we never feel their sorrow.
Precisely!
And with each arch episcopal utterance, far from contrition, you get the sense that the fault lies with the system: “nothing to do with me guv”, and not them.
Moreover I detect in both, a sense of righteous indignation that somehow we should be grateful to them for the sacrificial contrition they’re bravely bearing on our behalf.
With approximately 20,000 more signatures calling for Cottrell’s resignation over Welby, the only greater concern for the Church hierarchy, is how few people give a damn in the scheme of things.
Well no one ever said sorry to me when asked in a group what Jesus’ character was and whether he was always ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ and I said he had strong views on child abuse, citing Matthew 18, and saying that a foot was a well-known euphemism at the time. I was fearsomely savaged by the leader, whose friend had just been found guilty of the same, and who was due to mark an essay I had written.
We were firmly told that everything in that session was confidential, and I have kept to that here by no names. The sympathies of the group seemed to be with his hurt. My essay was grossly downmarked.
Having had a long-time friend and mentor convicted of multiple counts of child sexual abuse, I can understand the group leader’s hurt. However, his anger should have been directed at his paedophile friend, and not at you. And it was unprofessional of him to mark your essay down because of it. I’m sorry you have been so badly treated.
Thanks… The nub of my concern was that we lived in a church where you could unknowingly spark such anger, (for I had no prior knowledge of his situation), at quoting such well-known and caring words of Jesus. I should also remark that I had known- though not as more than acquaintances- two (both ex-army) fathers of my daughters’ schoolfriends who had been put away for about 12 years each. Both daughters had spent time in those houses, both escaped unviolated, but in only one case were we aware of red flags an took evasive action. Other people’s daughters were not so lucky. As I was not aware of his situation neither was he aware of my experiences…
Your comments about Mr Nash and the ‘public school’ attitude to emotions ring bells with me, even though I never went near either! Much of my adolescent reading came from that background (Boys Own Paper et al) and my upbringing in many ways was quite Edwardian – or even older.
Suppression of emotions and feelings was pretty much normative, leading to even more troubles when I became a believer through an evangelicalism largely based on that ‘manly’ stiff upper lip approach. Part of the problem was that the ‘older generation’ of the time had been brought up that way, and forcibly conditioned by two world wars and economic depressions – individual’s feelings weren’t particularly important. If you read a good many Christian books of the 1930 – 70 period I think you’ll find those attitudes reflected in a lot of comments, particularly in connection with very personal human and spiritual relationships.
The similar ‘manly image’ still underlies a lot of problems – you’re probably aware of the large number of male suicides which are attributed to the same stereotype. It’s very hard to break such wrong images, or change social thinking whether within or outside the Church – and at least part of the latter seems determined to resist all change to its ways of thinking on a great many subjects .
Fascinating! Thought provoking, as always. It’s sometimes good to reflect on the Apostle’s Creed BCP expression of faith, and the concise truth claims within the Anglican Articles of Religion.
Bible thumpers, and Bible deniers, have both undermined balanced or moderate Anglicanism. Radical liberals seek to simultaneously believe in anything, everything, little or nothing. Bible thumpers go for an ugly authoritarianism, where their decisions feel to victims like unchallengeable truth.
The English word shame carries lots of subtly different meanings. Shame our Church is in trouble; shame we collectively let it get this bad; shame we got caught; shame we did not cover it all up better; shame we let kangaroo court justice prevail.
The shades of shame are interesting. But BCP Anglicanism, the liturgy, the creeds, catechism and The 39 Articles make a very specific claim. One Solitary Life fulfils Isaiah 53. Collective expression of shame can be a sham and a cynical Church PR scam.
Conviction of sin and repentance always involve an individual response to the Easter truth claims. He’s a great orator and communicator, but the content and emotional tone of Stephen Cottrell’s Christmas talk felt incendiary to me as a bullying victim.
I may be entirely alone, but I could feel no sense of deep personal shame about the Archbishop’s personal errors, or the harm caused to victims of David Tudur. It was a woeful performance and reinforced how unsuitable Cottrell is to lead York or Canterbury.
Are you familiar with the second part of Pilgrim’s Progress at all? On a personal level I found it a book which I could easily relate to- its more pastoral than the ‘manly, muscular’ first part, albeit still rather narrowly black and white.
There’s a character in there called Mr Shame – who sounds OK until Mercy and co realise he’s really using the word in quite the wrong way!
I think the Apostle’s Creed expresses the backbone of my own faith pretty well; the Nicaean is of similar value as I like to keep it simple – the more complicated, the more things are likely to go wrong, or get misunderstood! (I have the kind of mind which readily remembers the last but one instruction, rather than the really last one.)
Flicking back to my previous reply to you, to my own mind there is definitely a link somewhere between the social conditions of the Victorian – 1940’s period and the very dominating evangelical theology of the period. My wife attended a Bible college, very highly regarded by some in its day, which promoted that sort of idea. The maintenance team would be told to go and carry out building work and, when completed, be told to go and put it back to what it had been, for example. The idea was to instil a sense of instant and unquestioning obedience in the students. Another friend was very nearly thrown out of the place because he kept asking awkward questions, like “Why are we wholly right and other Christians therefore automatically wrong?” As the late Tom Walker once remarked, they didn’t teach about the Bible as such – just one very narrow way of reading it, with a good supply of disparaging remarks about ‘liberal Christians’ attitudes thrown in .
He wasn’t the only one – long before I met Jill I’d questioned some of the things I’d heard about the place and said I’d rather not go there; the person I spoke to promptly said the Lord might well order me to go, to teach me obedience !
Interestingly the Principal had had a very restrictive upbringing on the Canadian Prairies of the Roaring Twenties, and carried those ideas over into his theology. You can probably think of other examples! Pyramidal authority structures of this sort have a lot to answer for.
As a student my education special study was on the theme of “Social Attitudes and values in children’s literature between 1870 and 1940”. I’d inherited a great many of such books, and unconsciously imbibed the said values myself, which were quite openly woven into the tales. At the time I didn’t see anything wrong with it – its taken a good many years to question. David Daniell refers to this in his introduction to the World’s Classics edition of John Buchan’s ‘Prester John’. And I suspect a great many of us were similarly shaped by ‘Lion’, ‘Valiant’, ‘Wizard’ and similar magazines of the 50’s and 60’s (Even the Eagle, which was very much Christian orientated had plenty of racial stereotypes in its pages!)
I suspect that, even now, we all do it. You can see the polarisation and underlying, unconscious prejudices on most Christian chat sites – yet we’re the people who know ‘the Light, the Truth and the Way.’ Growth is all about change, yet so often we’re blind to the need and resist it. The right sort of Godly change, that is.
Tried Pilgrim’s Progress once, but just never could get into it! The ‘Imperialism’ question perhaps lies unseen in the background for Anglicanism: military obedience, no questions asked, ‘pay up and shut up’. The decades old problems maybe go much farther back than we imagine. I have not read the New Statesman for decades but just happened to pick up the X’mas/NYear edition. Curiously, the p69 article by Stephen Cherry is interesting. It looks at the devastation of the Anglican Church by abusers and those who cover it up. Ties in with your sentiments above. Maybe there is a time to stay silently put on the fringe of Anglicanism, and to hope/pray for better times ahead?
‘Safeguarding-The care and protection of children, young people and adults involved in church activities is the responsibility of everyone who participates in the life of the church’. The mismatch between this definition vs. what we actually see in Anglicanism is v large.
Actually, if as believers we all took the New Testament seriously, and sought to really, truly live by it in our relationships, safeguarding policies might not actually be needed. The basic principle behind them is thoroughly Pauline NT – bear one another’s burdens, and look out for one another.
The question is, how radically does the CofE seek to take his instructions to heart and mean it? Was the church bothered by corporate lawyers in his day? (OK, we know they had plenty of the barrack room variety in Corinth….) I’m not preaching slavish fundamentalism here – but we have a very good set of guidelines with which to live by.
But don’t think the C of E is the worst. There are even worse areas which go unchecked and obscured, even shielded, by other powerful institutions. Nor does one think the dark side religions and cults do child protection courses, though they capitalise on (having at times undoubtedly seeded) the church’s problem people with no sense of irony nor conscience. It is complex.
And a strange proportion of the very worst and most prolific child abusers get promotions and honours outside of church. Let us not so focus on the church that we forget this stuff is appallingly rife, and it is well possible that the kind and charming Jill Dando was killed because she was exposing it.
Cannot imagine a single public sector organisation which would have handled Pilavachi or Smyth so badly. Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s College, has an interesting article on p69 of the Dec-Jan New Statesman. The absence of independent professional monitoring bodies (or independent safeguarding) has helped disintegrate public confidence in the Anglican Church. Highly committed members have been leaving, or pursuing a much lower form of time and financial commitment to the denomination.
The BBC isn’t too great for a start! I think we would all agree on that one. There are yet more scandals to come from there. I don’t think that the Prospero and Ariel sculpture helps one bit.
That’s a fair point about the BBC. But the Anglican Church and related para-Church groups go a step further. Nobody in the BBC now tries to defend Saville or Edwards. Yet do the Anglican Church (or para-church groups) still try to partially beatify Canon Mike Pilavachi MBE?
Agreed that the BBC doesn’t now defend either, but undoubtedly many covered for them, and now cover for others. One who took a stance and refused to have Savile have anything to do with ‘Children in Need’ was Terry Wogan, bless him. Of course many find themselves in the position of effectively knowing but it only being repeated hearsay, so that if they told authorities it would go nowhere. My father back in the 70s, always very polite within his institution (not the BBC to clarify) and one to greet one and all, refused to return the greeting of one man and when asked gave the explanation- with a snort-‘boys’. Nowadays there would presumably be a person to report to, but if it is repeated hearsay to the point of common knowledge you still don’t really get any further without evidence, and meanwhile even those with strong self-inflicted question marks against them are honoured.
My last sentence will age well, but really that is not pleasing. It is awful.
My ex-RE teacher turned “civics” head brought trainee teachers in their official capacity to conduct salacious “debates” when we were 14. That was at the time of Savile’s “tacky” TV shows and when religion had been made “trendy” in silly irrelevant ways, and (in retrospect) 3 years after the consciences of Anglican evangelicals had been hijacked by a well-connected hegemonist clergyman (curtailing their foresight).
We knew “what went on” but many of us were outraged that officialdom was intruding into private family matters to lend it their support.
I don’t know what denomination the ex-RE teacher was but I suspect some kind of Muscular Christianity. He left not long after, after having been in some sort of carry-on with a boy, leaving the CU unsupervised.
Sloppy theology insisted (I have researched this) that God’s “sovereignty” meant that we are pre-ordained to eternal subjection to our depraved instincts (unbelief, which I didn’t subscribe to; while some agnostic boys probably resorted to their sense of real morals).
Thus the moralising and hand wringing which was supposed to serve a political purpose in the 1980s was a charade because the official establishment had incited us. Now look at the dilemmas women, girls, boys & men are in re. the obligations of “gender”, the so called “controversy” about rape and grooming, and so on.
No the loud mouthed fogies like Trueman aren’t right about how this came about. I as child was eyewitness. Secular affairs follow the spiritual and my God is not superstitious.
Was there a sense in the 1960s and since, in which the religious establishment said to the secular “I don’t know what you know about what each other are up to, but if you go through these evangelicalism hoops you’ll be alright in the sky”. Proper apostles and prophets would have said instead, “make sure to personally denounce oppressors”, that would at least have heartened those not implicated.
A very Happy 2025 to all. Will the Welby weather cockerel on Canterbury Cathedral be replaced with a Cottrell weathercock? Voyeur weathercocks are the sure-fire AI/CCTV solution to Anglican sadomasochism and intern bullying, provided their circuit boards are wired to raise the alarm. Or might Anglican leaders be tempted to spend millions on the AI/CCTV weathervanes, but not bother to put in a battery or electric supply?
Reading the excellent comments, I agree that there seems to be no personal remorse. ‘The church must change’ – not me! Who has to change I wonder and what must happen in the church to ensure genuine Christian love and forgiveness prevails?
The tide is turning! Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers now have the upper hand. The media and the internet have helped break down strongholds of evil. An old boy network can no longer conceal abuse and protect perpetrators, plus badmouth victims or witnesses. The days of DARVO are gone. Odd how the philosophy of Second Corinthians 13:1 has been ignored in so many Church scandals. Clay-footed leadership incompetence has allowed countless Anglican Church problems to develop, and also to be covered up. Odd how so many evangelical know-alls crop up in a trail of abuse cases.
It struck me, on hearing of the David Tudor scandal, that there is already far too clear a pattern developing, over and over again, behind these stories. Someone, usually successful at getting butts on seats – frequently charismatic (though not so in Smyth’s case) and rapidly promoted or sponsored by a church establishment desperate for ‘relevance’. And, increasingly frequent links with wealth, social privilege and elite or private education.
You’re bound to get similar patterns of corruption in whatever social organisation you’re talking about . The basic problem lies within all of us – we’re fallen, sinful people, even the best of us. Any human system, be it church, economic or social is built around it, and will reflect the inherent attitudes of the culture it draws its members from.
Certainly the spread of the net and social media have helped attack the strongholds of cronyism – but they’ve introduced problems of their own. Sadly I can’t think of any answer save that of ‘Thy Kingdom come’, and the complete transformation of humanity.
Small and local? Tiny groups of people keep each other accountable to some degree. The mega-Church and mega-dollars bring potential for mega- trouble. Clarity and brevity on the internet can bring a dividend spiritually . But the scope for evil online is also vast.
change.org has this petition-‘RESIGNATION of STEPHEN COTTRELL, Archbishop of York’
Anglican Church sleaze and cover up is already reaching a new low in 2025!!!
An Irish paper has just reported concern from a senior Rabbi about potentially incendiary remarks made by a Canon at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin during a 2024 Remembrance Day service. The Jewish Post has also reported the concern.
Predictably, as ‘Surviving Church’ visitors or contributors well know, the response of senior Anglicans to this controversy will raise a few eyebrows. Fair enough, perhaps, if the live performance had material which bordered on the offensive, to simply delete or restrict access to any recordings.
But has the local Diocese also now deleted a transcript of the talk? This gives the cleric being accused no immediate chance to clear their name. Church members, or the media and wider community, could make up their own minds on whether avoidable and unnecessary offence was caused, if the talk transcript was available.
Archbishop John McDowell is the Irish Primate (Head Monkey might be a better title). But he seems to have very little to say about this matter so far. ‘Ostrich head in the sand’ possibly exemplifies how Anglican Primates customarily deal with issues of concern.
Christmas 2024 edition of New Statesman had this excellent article which is also available online: ‘The Church of England has been my life’s work. What has it done to my soul? This Christmas is not an easy one for the Church – but fundamentally, its mission has not changed. By Stephen Cherry’
The poetry cited at the end is interesting…..