Most members of the clergy living in Britain are familiar with the experience of being interviewed. Posts are, these days, advertised in the Church Times and would-be incumbents and other more senior posts face a grilling from a group of individuals to establish whether they are the right person for the role. The interview process now replaces, for the most part, the older method of an anonymous committee of two or three individuals meeting informally to decide who should be appointed for a post, regardless of whether they were looking for a change. Sometimes the ‘committee’ appears to have been a single individual. Normally a male, this individual felt he had the combination of experience, good judgment and maybe, a little guidance from the Holy Spirit to make the appointment on his own. A combination of patronage, secrecy and networking seemed to carry along the appointment process. Who can now say whether it was a successful system with all its evident potential for corrupt favouritism?
In my years as an incumbent, I too applied for posts via the Church Times. The number of times that I was called for interview but failed to get the advertised post does not need to be revealed. I can admit the fact that I was offered a vacant post after interview on three occasions. Twice, over a twenty-year period, I accepted the offer. On the third occasion I realised, for practical and family reasons, that the offered post was an impossible undertaking and so withdrew. There were other posts that revealed themselves as being unsuitable for a variety of reasons. The interview process often revealed appalling impediments attached to an advertised post. The result was that I received the ‘unsuccessful’ letter with a certain relief. Dioceses then seemed reluctant to spend money on vicarages. My first vicarage (obtained without an interview!) was heated by paraffin heaters because the diocese was convinced that an incumbent on £3k would not be able to afford to keep a central heating system running. Today those same paraffin heaters would be condemned on health and safety grounds, particularly in a home occupied by very small children.
Returning to the interview experience, I believe that most people would concur with the notion that the appointments system works reasonably well when all posts are advertised and interviews take place. The advantage of the interview process is to provide a check on any strong bias felt by an individual member of the panel towards the candidates. A young mother on the panel may have a strong preference for a man or woman with youngish children. This strong preference needs to be balanced by a need for appropriate experience of a parish, particularly one comparable to the advertised post. A chair person will guide the committee into understanding the choices on offer. He/she will understand that there will be a need for compromise somewhere. You cannot realistically expect any candidate to have every qualification that the selecting committee have asked for.
The task of an interviewing committee to choose the right person for a post will require old-fashioned human wisdom, especially in its chair person. This is the kind that is obtained by living life with a good dose of curiosity and common sense. Wisdom of this kind can rise above the short-term politics of the parish and its vested interests. It manages to gather a variety of threads and see what might work in terms of character and personality as they face up to the challenges of the post on offer. Wisdom of this type is far more than a box-ticking exercise. It is always needed when evaluating an individual and requires a particular kind of maturity. The ability to discern the right candidates for important posts is an important, even vital, skill and we should expect it in those we appoint to the most senior posts in the Church.
In recent weeks, as we have been absorbing the implications of the public failings of both Archbishops in England, many of us have been struck by one thing that is, on reflection, totally unexpected.. Whatever may have been the wrong decisions taken by these two men in their response to and management of scandal, one other failing binds them together. Each of them is guilty of being hoodwinked by powerful charismatic (in its secular sense) personalities and promoting or favouring individuals in roles where they were able to be a serious threat and danger to others. In the case of Welby, one can, for the moment, try to overlook his failure to understand the deviance of John Smyth, but the same is not true of his dealings with Mike Pilavachi and the Soul Survivor organisation. Clearly Welby believed he had enough information on Pilavachi to award him a Lambeth award. Superficially Soul Survivor was a success story, but a man or woman with the kind of wisdom mentioned above, would have asked searching questions about this ministry. Welby had been associated with the evangelical charismatic scene for over thirty years. He must, on at least some occasions, encountered or heard about its excesses. The rise and fall of the Nine O’Clock Service in Sheffield, another toxic movement in the 90s attractive to young people, must have been noted by him. Although expounding a different theological vision, NOS functioned with similar crowd dynamics. It is hard to believe that Welby never had a conversation about NOS in the years that followed its collapse. Naive is not a strong enough word for his apparent failure to evaluate and have a ‘lessons learned’ opinion about what had happened there and notice striking parallels with the later Soul Survivor phenomenon. If we can expect a degree of wisdom on the part of every chair of an appointment committee in a parish church up and down the country, surely, we can expect it of an archbishop, even when blinded by the ‘success’ of a Pilavachi or the business ‘skills’ of one Paula Vennells.
Failing to pick up on the weaknesses or incompetence of another person can have serious, even devastating, consequences for other ordinary members of a church organisation. A similar failure of discernment is found in our other Archbishop, Stephen Cottrell. Apart from serious questions about the inadequacy of his actions with regard to David Tudor, the disgraced priest in the Chelmsford Diocese, there is the breath-taking fact, revealed by the BBC, that Cottrell, when Bishop of Chelmsford, described Tudor as a ‘Rolls Royce priest’. This was said when he knew about the court cases involving Tudor and all the other information accessible to him in the personnel files. The comment clearly shows Cottrell to have been in a measure of awe of Tudor’s strong personality. At this point I am reminded of the story of the choosing and anointing of David by the prophet Samuel. The comment is made that Yahweh does not look at the outward attractiveness and strength of the individual but at the heart. Surely our Archbishops should be skilled and adept at looking at the ‘heart’ of candidates for promotion or preferment. If they lack this skill themselves, do not they have access to professional help in this area, because of their exalted roles in the church? We expect wisdom in committees choosing a parish priest; how much more do we expect it from those at the top of our church hierarchy?
This blog post has not meant to be in any way an attack on the character of archbishops, past or present. It is rather a plea for a better understanding of the science of how to pick people for preferment in the Church. We need high degrees of skill in this area from the people who have the ability to rise above the expedient, the popular or the political. The values we long for in the Church of England in this uncertain period of its history are, to repeat, wisdom and profound integrity. Archbishops and, indeed, all Christians should be people of discernment and good judgement and know how to recognise it in others. If poor judgement in the issue of recruitment is exercised at the highest levels in the Church, it is going to be repeated at all the lower levels. When square pegs are regularly put into round holes, the morale of the whole institution quickly suffers and goes into a spiral of decline. For this reason alone, if for no other, we must insist that enormous care is taken in the system of appointments for church posts. A church dignitary making an error of judgment over a management matter is one thing, and it probably can be, with effort, reversed. A senior person consistently failing to exercise the highest levels of judgement and discernment with appointments will damage and even destroy the fabric of an entire institution. The failure of judgement that existed with George Carey (and other bishops) and the NOS experiment, together with a similar naivety prevailing between Welby and Soul Survivor, has been a serious cancer for the Church of England. The failure to manage the Tudor affair on the part of Cottrell is also an indication of an institutional malaise in the church. If the top people cannot spot and weed out the seriously corrupt in the system, how can ordinary Christians put their trust in, let alone work for the structure?
The message from this rather sad post is a simple one. It calls on church people to come forward and make sure that the people of the highest calibre and integrity occupy the top positions in the Church. Among the priorities in this ability requirement list, is the need for inner goodness, complete honesty and trustworthiness. The Church of the future is not impressed with the institutional defensiveness of church leaders of the past. We have the opportunity to put things right but that chance may not for ever be available to us when the next safeguarding earthquake hits the Church of England.
Welby was probably considered a successful recruitment. With a background at Iwerne, and deep exposure to the Charismatic Anglican movement he was an obvious choice to both maintain the status quo amongst similar Iwerne-ites (maintain the institution), and also support the “rolling out” of church planting programs to colonise the dead wood of the residual Church of England stable. This is the current growth plan.
With a little knowledge of the business world, he could supposedly “relate” to the wealthy potential donors of South Kensington. He certainly started the Archbishop role with a social conscience, but the gaffes about Wonga.com and other Church investments soon revealed his inexperience. Did his recruiters know this? The bizarre support for Vennels underlined his poor judgment and perhaps naivety.
If you’ve made it so far in this short comment, and have thought in any depth about the job of recruiting the top person, you may be thinking (like me) that the ABC role is not possible to do. It’s several roles in one. Therefore its recruitment is impossible too. There cannot be any one person who can do all the role requires.
What’s the minimum we need from the pastor-in-chief? Or is it a robed primate required for ceremonial symbolism, no sermon required? Or an international diplomat to hold office, but not hold any opinions? I’d start by defining what is essential first.
The missing thing is ‘equality’. Equality of opportunity is largely absent within Anglicanism. Secrecy and Freemasonry type practices are toxic. Why not follow the secular world, and let the best qualified applicant take the job?
Let the best qualified applicant win is fair! Prolonged ministries in one place can be a problem. The old Methodist practice of cyclical rotation surely has much merit. Letting qualified people have chances to try different places is healthy and affirming.
I did a ministry training programme, and passed all the academic or practical exercises. But at the very end, a fellow student told me how one overseer (with influence) boasted how they hated me, and would obstruct me from ever getting any ministry experience.
There is an absence of respect for Anglican Church rules, national law or biblical principles of natural justice. Lots of very committed believers walk away from ministry, and minimise or terminate further Anglican Church contact.
Some training courses are unprofessional and beset with bullies. This doesn’t get fixed by feedback especially if the leaders are infantilising the pupils/trainees. Thi is also because the groups are sometimes small, so that the givers of feedback know that the trainers will scrutinise the so-called anonymous feedback and try to work out who gave what, which leaves the trainees in a scary position which they are often financially subsidising themselves, especially if from financially struggling parishes. People paying to be humiliated, harassed, and bullied is not a great look for the church. But it certainly happens.
I think that probably the most important quality in a leader is to be able to judge people well and make good appointments. Without that, a leader cannot be really effective.
However, I’m not convinced that competitive interviews are the best way to achieve sound appointments. John Lees, the former national clergy appointments adviser, conducted research which showed that pastorally gifted individuals don’t do as well in competitive interviews as do managers. Their sensitivity, willingness to listen, and slowness to judgment disadvantage them. I suspect that narcissists do better at selling themselves and are more likely to overestimate their own abilities. It’s noticeable that as competitive interviews have become more common, pastorally inclined clergy seem to have become rarer – though of course there are other factors in play.
I don’t know what the solution is. How are appointments made in other professions where pastoral skills are required?
There now tends to be a level playing field, where an attempt is made to ensure discriminatory markers (or old boy clubs) do not rule in cabal fashion. Law, equality and natural justice tend to be to the fore in many public sector or business situations. That’s my impression. Many educated UK people, especially the younger generation, instinctively expect this, and might be inclined to challenge bias or prejudice, such as our religious clubs practice.
A very gifted and effective counsellor-psychoanalyst-psychologist-psychiatrist is revealed in their years of practice. An earlier instinctive feel, of someone being a genius, may be right or wrong. A timorous and anxious person, struggling in their training, can sometimes go on to have a highly effective career in trauma or psychological work. Career pathways, like a fast black ski run, may deliver professionals quickly. But often younger people need to test the water in subspecialties, or even cross disciplines to find their final happy home.
The idea of a small church guru committee, selecting people and stitching up jobs, largely on the basis of interviews, is laughable in lots of regards. Do they keep notes, is there formal feedback, are all applicants asked the same questions? Do the gurus get audited, or have their own credentials checked? Do the answers to questions get noted and are they transparently examined from outside the immediate panel?
To be honest, this all rather shocks me, on hearing how the Church works or dysfunctions. I have often felt personal friendships were the gigantic factor gifting some trainees openings, and interpersonal hatred (or jealously) towards other trainees saw them ostracised and humiliated. My experience is of junior clergy (and even some senior clergy) having derision for very well qualified people from the secular world.
I am ashamed to say it now, but I remember horrible derision towards a senior CEO who attended some of our group meetings for a time. The very capable and top flight player was very clearly blackballed, and ostracised out of the way in plain sight. I regret not flagging up concern at the back biting and unpleasant remarks made about them. The problem in those scenarios is plain. ‘X’ is a ‘problem’ and a ‘pain’ can be met with a nod of the head. But who’s next is the real query?!Ouch! It was an indictment on the Anglican Church. Why exclude a CEO level person, simply for not holding to a local perspective on LGBT issues etc, or being too confident in sharing their other opinions?
One of the saddest dimensions of Anglican ministry training is the contempt in some places for scholarship. Does Old Testament literalism hold sway in some quarters, even combined with thinly veiled approaches leaning toward ‘conversion therapy’ and exclusion of others? Being single, and having multiple paper qualifications, can be hugely problematic. I noted how some woeful lectures we received derided scholarship and higher degrees. We were actually told this: how out of 10 trainees, the ones with qualifications and degrees would usually fall by the wayside. This was presented as a supernatural phenomenon. Latterly, my inclination is to see it as blind human prejudice, or just a form of vile bigotry.
The welcoming committee interview panel of three sounds archaic, and a recipe for trouble. Without monitoring it sounds suspect. However, with monitoring there can also be problems. Six or so question domains may look clever, with all candidates treated equally. But it’s possibly an open secret how-‘frequent applicants’- ‘crack the codes’. They ask for feedback. They get 4-5 domains verified as very good. Then they amend or correct the weak 1-2 bits, at any future applications for equivalent jobs. A quicker way to ‘crack the codes’ is to know someone who can share their successful application, or to know someone who knows the ‘model answer’. There are probably books and online material to assist.
Fair exams and training objectives, followed by observed progression through practice on the job, could be far better than how Anglicanism works at present. Driving away ministry trainees is an art form. Older people, with decades of secular employment experience, smell the stench and just run…………Our Bishops reap what they sow. Pilavachi-Fletcher-Smyth are the tip of the iceberg.
What a good question, Janet. One thinks of doctors, nurses, and social workers, who (one presumes) receive some sort of pastoral training before qualifying. Or do they too learn on the job? Does the answer lie in training? Or is pastoral care an innate quality not subject to rules, exams, and box-ticking? More questions, sorry.
Not every recruit is SAS material! But most soldiers can be taught the basics of drill, weapons, discipline. Extensive libraries of books suggest pastoral skills can be learnt and developed. Listening, empathy and respect for autonomy, plus time keeping (communication episodes are usually structured and time limited) are important. When we look at charismatic-evangelical scandals, is there a militaristic culture at work often, and an issue of treating adults as children? The Anglican Church disintegrates as a result of that problem. Adults treated as children depart rapidly. Adults have a lower threshold for tolerating coercion or bullying. The anointed clerical leader prophetically speaks wisdom, and anyone who points out glaring contempt for the Church rules or national law or biblical standards is an enemy of the truth. It’s like those city centre JW’s who get flustered and unable to answer a question, so bluntly reply: “We have the truth”
Being pastoral is a costly quality, it requires engagement and the giving of oneself in time and energy. Last century I was in medicine. We were trained about how to ask open questions, to sit without having a desk between ourselves and the patients, to demonstrate openness and reduce barriers, and making sure we didn’t hurt them whilst examining. If we did, we would be “failed”.
This century I am the patient. My doctors usually ask closed questions, certainly after a couple of minutes, not wanting to prolong the consultation. Naturally quite pastoral myself I still find it hard to accept how un-pastoral most of them appear to be. But then I remember how much time pressure they are under, and how little they can do anyway.
Curiously I don’t believe we were selected at all on our pastoral potential as medics, but on our ability to pass exams. Some of my colleagues didn’t like people at all, but had no problem cutting them up whilst anaesthetised. These guys were generally brighter than me, at least intellectually.
Career progression depended too on the ability to play the game. At college being on the rugby team was a distinct advantage. There were at least a couple of Neanderthals who passed finals, whilst a friend of mine, with a Cambridge background and lovely personality was failed. In this and other fields of employment it wasn’t a level playing field.
The Church is habitually two or three decades behind the rest of the world. I can’t imagine their eccentricities and biases in recruitment and training are any better.
There are no exams in leadership. Dangerous, useless, mediocre, average, good or excellent leaders can all pass exams. Good leaders can become a disaster. Poor leaders can learn and excel over time. The test of an able leader is seen in leadership. No exams, interviews or tick box routines can possibly discern this. Equality of opportunity, with qualified people given a fair chance, lets naturally gifted leaders develop and come to the fore. Is much else a blighted form of soundbite or a daytime TV popularity competition?
Thanks Stephen for this and all comments. I wonder who can pick out the ‘traitor’ when we can all lie and make a good impression of ourselves as shown in The Traitors tv show! You are quite right – for the church to be strong we must rely on the hierarchy to have discernment and wisdom.
An interesting reflection at many levels! Paula Vennells on Wikipedia is a good read, and perhaps very relevant. Should we be shocked at how close she came to being made a bishop?
I think the answer is yes very much so. But why did she want to ingratiate herself in the church having lied her way out about the post office tragedy, through her tears. Very much like the Traitor’s round table arguments!
Did Vennells have any significant theological qualifications? How many degrees did she actually have? The Wikipedia link I saw perhaps cites just one, in Languages-Economics. This may be quite an eye opener. An innocent prisoner on death row would want an experienced lawyer, preferably Harvard educated! For tricky brain aneurysm surgery, the patient would want the cream of Oxford-Cambridge, or similar. Does great swathes of Anglicanism have a contempt for scholarship and meaningful qualifications? Worse still, does charisma, not the spiritually mediated type, fill the void? Smyth-Pilavachi-Tudor cases have a great deal to teach us. An educated society needs and demands transparency from the Church. Curiously, when reflecting on Stephen’s item, something else stands out for me. Many of the best teachers or pastors are bright and well qualified. They typically have no fear of transparency, and are much less likely to be duped by charlatans. It’s not a cheerful question: has a Jimmy Saville factor has been at work in our denomination for a very long time? Numbers-growth-visible success can take us to dark corners.
Vennells trained on the St Albans and Oxford Ministry Course, presumably part-time. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her degree was from Bradford University. Her qualifications and ability were sufficient to get to the top in business, if not to behave ethically when there.
Or did a lack of qualifications (and ability) cause one of the gravest, and most cruel business scandals, in the whole of the UK’s modern history? And did the scent of filthy lucre or business success attract senior Church players?
The ancient Catholic ideals-Christ, conscience, creation-as expressed (or celebrated and remembered) in the Apostle’s creed, are what truly matter. The senior leadership personalities and grand buildings are just ever so much dross.
I’ve recalled my observations and added recent church history reading. England’s and the globe’s trends interweave.
1 ~ Self-described “evangelical” radio priests fancying themselves as C S Lewis replicas and perhaps in the documented Nash / Torrey vision of “converting” the nation by the establishment’s influence (whose own young were getting typically brutalised) disdained, circa 1966, with unusual but snobbish cohesion the opportunity to benefit from insights of Holy Spirit filled traditional nonconformist evangelicals (whom they painted as more “sectarian” than themselves). Lloyd-Jones an intuitive who needed their organisational ability didn’t tell them how long they needed to reflect. Unless the Lord build the house, the builders build in vain.
2 ~ Marshall McLuhan urged restraint around mass media. Let your yea be yea. Religion had to be made weird and silly (my parents and their friends were suspicious).
3 ~ Ex RE teachers (establishment oriented evangelicals) and new MoE trained teachers introduced a salacious official voice as “civics” to 14 year olds violating our own compass. Rapidly evolving the syllabus caused an illusion of normalisation. The famous “Mr Nobody” was the one that noticed that intrusion had somehow been given spiritual force, founding the rape epidemic. What you bind on earth is bound in heaven and the newfangled “power evangelising” Wimberites whom the C of E shortly after threw themselves into the arms of, even stated as much themselves. (My God is not superstitious.)
4 ~ Around 1980 we were told that moralising through mass media would be good for economics, initiating “gender identity ideology” wars. Enmity between boys and girls et al isn’t natural. (My God is additive and not subtractive.)
5 ~ The mid 1990s brought top-down “restorationism”, superficial qualms about women vicars, and inefficient reorganisations documented by contributors here.
6 ~ By 2008, the economy crumbling, Reconstructionists (less demure than Nash) proclaimed the entrenchment of dominionism.
The biggest conspirer is events, and bad planning is planned badly by bad planners, as Eric Williams commented on late 18 th century and subsequent Empire. A proper remedy for Robinson-style theology with everything left out, is not going to come from a theology of only material leveraging.
Did some media priests say to authority, not as the best prophets and apostles would, “ensure oppression of those smaller than you gets stopped” (advocacy and assertion), but “go through our evangelicalism hoops for your own souls and you’ll be alright in the sky” (wheedling)? I think this is what Dr Percy (cited by R Steer) intuited as a Spiritless echo chamber of “social abrogation”. Others, then schoolchildren and ordinands, can give growth to our sum of testimony, personal for everybody.
Sentimentalists, Rolls-Royce archbishops, and sanctified enforcers have no mercy, they forget that real-life administrators and professionals are busy people, that just policy needs continual open minded prayer by all (not just factionalists), and that God is not best sovereign amidst triumphalism. How do they take Dan 9: 3-21 and II Chr 7:14 which even entered popular music (Godspell)? An at length impatient public will understandably fall to initially selective shaming, counter counterhints etc, but God would rather His own original blend of tact and simple revealing in His timing would prevail.
Give me that-‘old time religion’-of the 1950’s vintage where Bertrand Russell vs Fr Copleston saw fair play given to theism and atheism. A lot of credit is due to Russell, and in ‘The Problem of Philosophy’ he remonstrates against those automatically dismissing ‘idealism’.
He is not a theist or idealist by any means. But he certainly respected the rationale presented by others. A level playing field is enough for our New Testament belief. We need fewer bird brained business and marketing gurus, and to be wary of wacky charismatic growth formulae.
The Apostle’s Creed rests on the three C’s: Christ, creation, conscience (moral law). Do a lot of Anglican clergy lack much depth of ability on these cardinal points? Bo-Peep stickery, swanky vestments and building investment cannot fill the void if core doctrine is sidelined.
At the secular level J H Newman’s ‘Grammar of Assent’ affirms much of supreme value for all matters such as: the existence of the world around us, each person’s conscience, imagination (he makes much of) and own ability of intellect.
All church traditions have many good laity and ministers. But has official religion culture being pushed at us diminished our grasp of putting all our talents to ongoing use to maintain and deepen the spiritual good? Maintenance a swear word – yet something not maintained doesn’t attract.
The pearl hidden in a field is the one talent buried and not even interest earning. Which co ministers including non commissioned ones, are mentoring each other in somehow “sacrificially” fanning to flame others’ dormant (unvetoed) gifts?
Frequent unsensational prayer meetings used to help considerably in some locations I knew. Further I doubt the simple fact of matins and evensongs would be destructive or repellent in ordinary or posh neighbourhoods (I remember when everyone wore a coat in any denomination much of the year).
Prayer books and clerical dress (if ordained) needn’t involve staging an atmosphere disproportionate to ones deepest tradition (I knew an excellent, un-selfconscious and not flashy-minded 1928 PB parish with humble clergy and even a prayer for king George; another High Church parish was relaxing on Sundays but became pushy on Thursdays; services elsewhere were better without videos, cake breaks in the middle, or bad amplification wasting true music talent).
None of this would benefit from media-based emotionalism, from dumbing down, from multiple affiliations, or from siphoning off precious and modest funds to higher “profile” projects or “status” organisations.
Next it is not disloyal of a prospective appointee to examine the skeletons in the pipeline before accepting: it’s gormless not to.
Janet, look at https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/faqs and have a quiet chuckle. I am a member of a Royal College which prohibits its members from using such postnominals as FRSA , probably for fear that they might be mistaken for real distinctions like FRSE. I hope PV does not actually wear the letters after her name.
Thanks, Andrew, I see what you mean. Anyone can join for £200 a year, no references or qualifications needed. So it’s meaningless.
Vennells’ entry in Crockford gives the initials after her name, so I suppose she does use them. As we say up north, all fur coat and no knickers.
Channel 4 News has 18 mins on The Bishop of Liverpool. Just watched it online. Will Stephen Cottrell be getting his suitcases packed? “Pack up your Bo-Peep sticks and vestments in your old kit bag”. What do atheists or agnostics ever make of it all? Almost feel relieved to have been jettisoned from an Anglican training programme, solely for being unmarried. Left the Diocese in disgust when false charges against me were presented with venomous sadism and sarcasm. 2 out of 5 students in my year group faced this issue. God is not mocked, and the carcasses of Archbishops’s careers tell a plain tale!
2C13-1 again! Second Corinthians 13 vs 1. Cue a choir chorus once again: “….Where have all our Bishops gone, they never learn, they never learn…….”
How did Rob Wickham become Bishop of Edmonton? He was not on the shortlist. One of the interview tests was to offer an analysis of a passage of scripture. He came last in the test. But Chartres wanted him and over-ruled the others. The vicar who told me this also reported that the mouths of fellow clerics in London dropped in astonishment when they heard of the appointment. He already had a big reputation. But he also increased congregation numbers and income at St John at Hackney. Why do I believe what I was told? I was organist for the informant and, earlier, for Rob Wickham. One of them was a man of integrity.