Every so often an event in the news triggers a strong memory which may have retreated from our awareness.  The recent reports of thousands of British people stuck in Middle Eastern airports recalled a moment when I found myself in Beirut in 1975 at the very beginning of one terrifying phase of the civil war.  It was an extremely unsafe place to be, but I was following up on a very successful journey three years before.   I was engaging in what I described to myself as ‘ecumenical fieldwork’, making links with Christian leaders from both the Syrian Orthodox and Orthodox members from the Patriarchate of Antioch.  It was an entirely personal journey of discovery.  I wanted, in particular, to learn about an Orthodox youth movement that appeared in the war years in this part of the world.  Having begun to flourish in around 1942, by the time of my visit it was a fully mature expression of Orthodoxy, affecting people of all ages from student members to the elderly.  It was a fascinating story, and I did manage to write up my discoveries for Eastern Churches Review. 

The expedition was not without its moments of drama.  Within three days of my arrival, I found that there was massive crisis in the supply of petrol for the whole country of Lebanon.  There are no railways into Syria out of Lebanon and the only form of overland travel was by shared taxi.  My Lebanese friend took me to a central taxi depot which normally would have had a plethora of taxis competing to transport me across the Syrian border to Latakia, where I was to meet one of my Youth Movement contacts.  On this particular day all the taxis signalled they were out of petrol, and they certainly did not have enough to take me to Latakia.  Eventually we found what was possibly the last taxi out of the capital and we set off, calling at every petrol station along the way.  Fortunately, the last petrol station before the Syrian frontier still had some petrol and we soon reached the comparative safety of Latakia.  If I had not travelled on that day, I would not have been able to reach Syria.  Beirut itself became, in a matter of hours, a place of terrifying danger and mayhem, with uncollected bodies left lying in the street.

The anecdote which I tell is not only explaining how the current Middle Eastern wars have stirred memories of what might have been traumatic experiences for me, but also how the same journey was the setting of a conversation which has resonated in my memory for years afterward.  The conversation was about how the Bible is understood, especially among those who teach and preach every Sunday. Should congregations and their leaders ever be faced with the difficult problems that arise when looking at ‘critical’ questions of language and interpretation. My Lebanese host, Nadim, had been my roommate for four months at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey in Switzerland.   He was involved in the college for the Orthodox in a place called Balamand in Lebanon.  By 1975, he was a senior member of staff, teaching ordinands the basics of bible study in preparation for ministry.  The particular conversation I recall, centred round, not politics, but my discovery in his flat of an OT one volume commentary published by the Intervarsity Press and obviously well used.  This was a book which gave the ‘sound’ interpretation of various OT problems that students of theology have everywhere to deal with.  This particular volume, true to its conservative evangelical origins , was presenting what I felt to be a thoroughly confusing and misleading view of what the broad consensus view of OT scholarship had to say about critical questions of authorship and historical fact. This commentary, to take three examples, supported the view that the book of Isaiah was the work of a single author, Moses wrote most of the Pentateuch and that Daniel was a product of the exile period. I went through the commentary noting how, what I thought to be the consensus academic positions of Old Testament agreement were all routinely rejected.  I observed how the author consistently argued for a conservative and literalistic explanation on every occasion.  These explanations were political in the sense that every critical conclusion conformed to what the author had predetermined to preserve the ‘correct’ interpretation every time, one which supported the inerrant point of view.  Up to that point I was aware that such conservative ideas were taught in Christian Union circles, but I naively did not believe that ordinands of other denominations such as the Orthodox, were being fed this approach and, consequently, having to argue for the conservative inerrant position in their essays.  The conversation went on for over an hour, and I passionately made the case for allowing every student, not only to know the many critical issues thrown up by Old Testament studies, but also to have a choice in whether to identify with this scholarly consensus. These were the interpretations that sided with the main-stream ‘liberal’ ideas taught by the non-fundamentalist critical approach the world over. 

To summarise this conversation with Nadim, I was given that day a crash course in the politics of conservative biblical interpretation.  There is a lot more I could say about why I believe that there is something profoundly wrong about teaching a single version of truth in biblical studies.  The so-called liberal position over the understanding of Scripture is often decried as being unfaithful to God’s truth and God’s word.  What in fact is the position of the so-called liberals is their plea to be allowed to argue and debate with the tools of criticism for another position than the one laid down by denominational or institutional authority.  The position presented as ‘sound’ or correct can never be the only one allowed in debate.

My own position is to allow myself a freedom to be hesitant or even sceptical when there is a claim to provide certainty.  Sometimes the conservative interpretation for a passage raises more problems than it solves.  The discrepancy over the numbers of animals going into the Ark has a disarmingly simple explanation when one accepts the thought that Genesis is not the work of a single author but a compilation of sources.  To take another claim of ‘liberal’ scholars that there are the hands of three distinct writers in the book known as Isaiah, we have a revealing insight into  the work which makes it far more manageable than if we argue for a single author.  Giving a late date for Book of Daniel (i.e. 160 BC) also helps to understand the thinking of the Jewish nation in the face of their Greek attackers who sought to destroy the Jewish Maccabean princes.  Daniel’s visions may conform to a modern popular understanding of the nature of prophecy – namely it is about what is going to happen in the future.  By contrast the classical prophets in the Old Testament, Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea and Isaiah etc are far more interested is declaring God’s will to the present. ‘Thus says the Lord’ normally introduces a passage where the judgement of God is declared over the people for their immorality, their dishonesty or misuse of their power over the stranger or the poor.    Prophecy is the insight to understand what God wants, even demands, from his people in their pursuit of the life he wants them to have.

A near disastrous trip to Beirut and a significant discussion/argument about the teaching of Scripture came together in my mind for this week’s reflection.  The juxtaposition of these two events may make no sense to the reader but for me, they come together in a strange way.  If President Trump had not started a war in the Middle East, perhaps this important discussion about Scripture might never have been evoked and vividly recalled to my memory.  In thinking out loud about the events that took place over 50 years ago, perhaps I am able to share something helpful with my readers.  There is of course a lot more say of these topics, but at least I have been able to share something of my understanding of Scripture.

by Martin Sewell

During my time serving on General Synod, having acquired a reputation for raising criticism of Church Safeguarding, a survivor presented me with a lapel badge bearing the words “Persistent and Vexatious”.  It was a description which had been bestowed upon him, and I was flattered to be included in the club.

Readers of this blog may call to mind various worthy candidates for such a badge – survivors, journalists, bloggers, and some clergy.

As the story of “Survivor N” emerges into the public domain[1] (rather like the Post Office scandal), some will want to add him to the list, understanding that, as usual, the Church of England will always throw their critic under the bus rather than hold power properly to account.

It will come as no surprise that Survivor N has been engaged in a battle for justice since 2018; it is not quite over yet, though avid readers of this blog will not be overly optimistic about the likely outcome.  I shall be appropriately careful not to compromise ongoing process, but already we can draw two very obvious conclusions.

First, Canon Law does not reliably deliver a timely fair trial to anyone who encounters it in a safeguarding context, especially if the complaint touches the handling of a matter by senior people.  Second, the way the various dioceses apply the current sub-optimal legal provisions can only be described as a capricious lottery.

Let me illustrate this by sketching out how the Survivor N’s case contrasts with the treatment of the former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Dr Martyn Percy. Both cases took an unconscionable time to reach resolution, to the disserve of everyone involved: for that reason alone we should recall that “justice delayed is justice denied”.  Nobody should be in limbo and emotional turmoil for the timescales which CDM participants endure. The CofE is a rich institution, with the privilege of administering its own justice system. It should resource properly all who are forced to engage with its Byzantine complexity, both complainants and respondents.

Both the Survivor N and Percy cases have significant backstories, which I shall set aside for the purpose of simplifying this analysis.  Essentially, both boiled down to the need to try an issue of whether a single alleged act occurred and, if so, whether it constituted “significant misconduct”.

Arguably, neither case was overly complex. In the Percy case, the disputed allegation was of touching hair for a maximum of ten seconds; in the Survivor N case, the allegation was that of groping a groin without consent—plainly, and unambiguously, an allegation of sexual assault.

In the Percy case, immediate and prolonged suspension followed. In the Survivor N case, the respondent accused cleric did not spend a day under suspension and was never asked to “step back”. This is odd.

What should happen in such cases is that the period of suspension should be minimised by a swift but thorough investigation, surely including the routine commissioning of an assessment under the Safeguarding (Clergy Risk Assessment) Regulations 2016, so that independent expertise can be brought to bear to ascertain what risk (if any) an accused  person poses in his/her ministry. That minimises risk and maximises speed, as well as introducing a degree of independent oversight.

For reasons still not explained, normal process was sidestepped. Dr Percy was made subject to an irregular “in-house” process, rather than the Bishop of Oxford requiring an assessment by one of the dozen risk assessors approved by the Diocese.

The metadata of the resulting report was examined, and its provenance questioned, by the professional cyber document examiner and member of General Synod and its Archbishops’ Council Audit & Risk Committee, the late Clive Billeness. He suspected that there were more contributors than disclosed on the face of the documents. At the time of his death a year ago he was urging Archbishops’ Council to have the suspicions raised by his data analysis independently professionally reviewed and verified. The powers that be continue to evade doing so, and one can only conclude that they are terrified of the implications if Clive were to be proved correct in his concerns. The PR interests of this institution always come before justice. 

In the Survivor N case, inexplicably no risk assessment at all was required by the safeguarding team in London diocese.  Purportedly, this was because the police had determined that they did not have sufficient evidence to charge the accused under the CPS guidelines. Two observations should trouble us.

First; the evidential bar for a criminal prosecution is set at a significantly higher standard to that triggering a clergy risk assessment. Second, Dr Percy had been treated by the police in precisely the same way as the respondent to Survivor N’s complaints, by those same standards, but had been suspended. Consistency there ain’t – and that troubles me.

A further contrast relates to the different ways in which the complaints were facilitated.

The Oxford accuser was immediately “protected” by the adoption of her complaint by a cathedral canon, who was the formal CPS complainant and who brought in significant logistical support from both college and diocese in the form of the diocese’s legal advisors Winkworth Sherwood LLP and PR consultants Luther Pendragon.

Survivor N received no such support whatsoever; quite the reverse—though he is universally acknowledged to be a “vulnerable person”.

The term bears a moment’s consideration. It does not connote intellectual impairment, or complete lack of judgment. Dr Percy’s complainant was competent and assertive; she was accorded protected status, and significant resources went with it. The processes of Canon Law are complex and labyrinthine. The Percy complainant was insulated, guided, and professionally supported throughout. I have no problem with anyone being fairly supported through such processes – but “anyone” isn’t.

In sharp contrast, Survivor N was abandoned to his own devices, notwithstanding his patent disadvantage. The human rights principle of “Equality of Arms” requires both sides of a dispute to have a fair and proportionate opportunity to formulate and advance their case. This did not, and routinely does not, happen in the CofE.

As a safeguarding lawyer, I was a member of the panel authorised by the Official Solicitor. Members assess those with potential litigation disadvantage and act on the vulnerable person’s behalf, informed by their wishes and feelings, while reporting to, and receiving ultimate instructions from, the Official Solicitor.  These lawyers are the “eyes and ears” of the OS, who oversees good and fair process. The secular world gets this right; Canon Law makes no such provision.

For years, Survivor N was left without continuity of support and the vital over-view which this brings.  The Church made multiple admitted mis-steps along the way, adding to his confusion and frustration. Canon Law presents to lay people as a series of complex, unfamiliar—sometimes hostile—legal procedures; unsurprisingly these complexities can overwhelm the vulnerable. Survivor N ran out of his own initial financial support and thereafter begged such intermittent support and legal advice from friends as he could secure from time to time. He is pitifully grateful for any pastoral support or guidance he was able to source.

Within a history of confusions and alleged errors in this case, do not minimise the importance of continuity and overview which the role of the Official Solicitor offers to the secular vulnerable, helping them to focus their submissions – sifting the wheat from the chaff and advancing the best points coherently. Amateur passionate pleas for justice are no substitute for forensic analysis. Canon Law doesn’t do overall justice; Canon Law does Canon Law.

Survivor N has struggled with two specific problems.

He presents with a disclosed, medically authenticated, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (‘OCD’). Although highly intelligent and articulate, this presents him with a real and constant difficulty in “seeing the wood for the trees”. This is the major feature of his condition, of which he is conscious.

Advised early on that if he did not present evidence comprehensively, he might have difficulty introducing it later, he sent everything in, often unfiltered and duplicated; then the Diocese lost track of the case for years.  Although he couriered his large bundle of papers (500+) to the published diocesan address and office of the bishop, the office had moved.  The examining registrar accused him of not presenting the evidence (foolishly quibbling when he produced the courier receipts) and he had to spend hundreds of pounds on duplicate photocopying that should not have been necessary.

Had Survivor N enjoyed the same support as the Percy accuser, the case would not have “sunk without trace”, with evidence bundles seemingly lost.  He would not have “banged his head against the diocesan wall”, feeding a sense of injustice, frustration and despair. The issues would have been identified early, and the evidence on his behalf would have been collated properly and professionally, to the benefit of himself, the respondent, the diocese and the CofE.  The case would not have stretched over ten years, only to be “fast tracked” in panic once the institution realised the horror of the position into which its structural and pastoral incompetence had delivered itself whilst under the public gaze.

“Somebody” briefed the Bishop of London to tell the media that his abuse allegations against a member of the clergy had been “fully dealt with”, only for her to have to backtrack days later.

The now Archbishop had received “survivor trauma” training along with all members of Archbishops’ Council after the Jay report excoriated the Church. Additionally, she, with Archbishops’ Council, had received the independent psychological report which Dr David Glasgow delivered on behalf of survivors, setting out the harms this kind of institutional cruelty inflicts upon victims.  She had every reason and opportunity to appreciate and act upon the kind of harm from which Survivor N was/is suffering.

Throughout this time, this vulnerable person – who was asking nothing of the Church except basic competence and justice- was constantly remembering how he had been dragged into a grotesque game of ecclesiastical whack-a-mole.

They cock up, he complains; they do not resolve it, they cock up again. He keeps pointing it out and, at the end of all this, HE is the one being called vexatious!

However, most serious point is this; farce almost became tragedy.

As Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally held formal responsibility for the “unfortunate’ overall handling of the case by the diocese, like the respondent to the original complaint she has not been suspended for a day.

The bishop’s defence—that she merely followed diocesan advice and had no general safeguarding duty—is irreconcilable with the document – House of Bishops’ Key Roles and Responsibilities of Church Office Holders and Practice Guidance (2017), which states unequivocally that ultimate safeguarding responsibility always rests with the diocesan bishop. Nobody has explained how this core principle was honoured in practice.

I remind readers of the stark contrast with the swift suspensions of Dr Percy and, in 2019, of the former Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Lowson, who became the first Bishop suspended for not handling a case well[2].

Archbishop Sarah’s record is arguably more serious; she was formally responsible for diocesan failures when the infamous “brain dump” of tittle tattle resulted in the suicide of Fr Alan Griffin and the distress of multiple clergy, who also fell under ill-informed diocesan suspicion.  Little says “dysfunctional diocese” more strongly than a highly critical coroner’s reference to the then Archbishop of Canterbury of a regulation 28 ‘prevention of future deaths’ report.

This final part is crucial to taking these matters seriously.

I have Survivor N’s consent to place in the public domain that, during this dreadful saga, he, too, has suffered mental breakdown and has been driven to attempt suicide – twice.  The “powers that be” know this. On one occasion, he was saved by a casual passer-by who discovered him in a public place.  Archbishop Sarah and the Church are deeply indebted to that anonymous good Samaritan who saved them from a second coroner’s report.

Survivor N is known and respected for his work amongst a wide and diverse community for his commitment to peace and reconciliation; both there and beyond. Every person who has heard his story (except within the Church of England Establishment structures) is appalled by what they have witnessed – every… single… one.

I am ashamed by the new President of Tribunal’s decision to designate this victim’s complaint, in these circumstances, as “vexatious”. Describing a vulnerable person, a known suicide risk, in such a way carries plain and obvious welfare risks bordering on the irresponsible. You might have assumed that in the light of past history, and amidst all the publicity, somebody in the CofE legal team, NST, Diocese of London, or Lambeth Palace, would have thought it prudent to initiate a check on his safety and wellbeing. None has.

Lessons have not been learned.

To have his complaint termed “vexatious” by an institution which persistently behaves in such a manner towards the vulnerable is no disgrace.  I hope Survivor N will join me and many within the survivor community in embracing the term as a badge of honour.

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[1] See the (redacted) decision of the President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males, posted on the CofE website at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury: section-13-review-decision-n-v-mullally-12.2.26.pdf.  It is also on the Archbishop’s website: Publication of independent decision by the President of Tribunals on a complaint brought under the Clergy Discipline Measure against Archbishop Sarah | Archbishop of Canterbury.

[2] For a discussion of the legal issues related to Bishop Lowson’s suspension, see the article, published on Thinking Anglicans:  Suspension-of-Bishop-of-Lincoln-article-24.5.2019-v.2.pdf.

These thoughts on mortality were written down in response to an elderly woman of 97 who wanted to know what I thought about death and what comes after.  Although brought up as a Christian, this woman regards herself as an agnostic.  I have thus tried to present a view of death that is open to the needs of people who have not followed a Christian journey but perhaps can be encouraged to think and meditate about the topic as it grows closer to us.

 I decided to write down some reflections on the topic of mortality.  At the age of 80, I come firmly into the stage of life where it is natural to reflect and think about it. My reflections and what I think about death may possibly be helpful to anyone who, like me, is getting older.

‘All things come to an end’

My observations about death and mortality come under three headings.  The first is a pragmatic one.  This observation about death is to note that it applies to everything.  ‘All things come to an end’ as the Psalmist says.   When we think about this, we see that the limited life cycle of created things is not a statement of futility.  The existence of beauty and transcending glory in the created universe suggests something full of hope.  The things that come to an end, and these include our human existence, are also things that carry with them, in many cases, an enormous beauty that takes our breath away.  This beauty and glory that are found in many earthly things, including ourselves, coexist alongside their finitude.  ‘Coming to an end’ and ceasing to exist in a material sense is a necessary part of the pattern of existence.  This beauty and glory that is part of our human existence and the created world is something we are invited to celebrate throughout our lives. We are part of a world that reveals so many sources of wonder and glory, but all this comes with the cost of being in a world that is material and finite.  We pay this price of being subject to death because we recognise that choosing to avoid it would necessitate avoiding life altogether.  Not existing, never being born, is not a choice that most of us would make, even if it were possible.  Many lives are lived with terrible obstacles and handicaps, but every individual experiencing some level of conscious awareness can experience wonder and glimpse transcendence.  Using these words does not necessarily imply a religious perspective on existence, but everyone, regardless of their belief system or lack of it, can know something of human wonder. Life is a precious gift and, given a choice between existing or not existing, most of us would choose to experience it, while recognising that it comes, for many, linked to a package of painful experiences to endure.

Intimations of eternity. 

The next observation I make is that there is, in our human life and experience, intimations of something else.  For the non-religious person, I would want to speak about the almost universal experience of love.  Love is not just something that belongs to each of us in our individual family or friendship circles.  It is a universal, and, for human beings, it is even built into the survival mechanisms we have.  Without it we die, especially at the stage of being infants.  It is not hard to imagine love as a universal principle pervading the entire universe.  Another image is that of love being like engine oil which allows the vast mechanisms of life, in all its forms, to function. We live in a universe which has these two universal principles.  One is the constant emergence of life in many forms, animal and vegetable.  We can think of love in the same way.  It is an energy that, like life, is constantly manifesting itself.  Life and love are not material things, but they are transcendent entities or principles in which we as human beings participate, indeed owe our very existence to.  Is it going too far to say that life and love are the secular realities that religious people would describe as being like what they describe as God?   If life and love exist this side of death (not a religious insight), it is not too hard to imagine that they are universal in some way and survive our individual demise.  To die is to enter a dimension where life and love are experienced as all-pervading and all-encompassing.

The part that is played by religious faith.

The religious quest allows us and encourages us to do two things.  One is to live life always exploring these universal realities of eternal life and love.  The Christian way was to point to the utter supremacy of following in the path of life and love, seeing Jesus as its perfect embodiment.  The pagan world before Christ knew only power, cruelty and human exploitation in society.  There were those who questioned these dominant ways of living life, but they were few.  It took the Christian revolution (not always well understood) to bring this ground of hope into human consciousness.  The hope says that human beings have been allowed a glimpse of what is and is to come and we must at a deep level orient ourselves to this reality.  Meditation or prayer are different names for the activity of aligning ourselves to what ultimately is.

The experience of death

The moment of death is the moment when we cross over from a world full of incredible richness and beauty to another world possessing these things but in a completely different way.  Human existence has been a learning experience, an opportunity to recognise the important transcendent universals which never come to an end (life and love).  Somehow, I believe that whatever awaits us in the place beyond, we will be encouraged to continue to orient ourselves to these same realities. For Christians the journey is a continuation of one of identification and participation in a man who is himself a kind of bridge between two realities.  The words that resonate from John’s gospel are ‘where I am, there you shall be also.’  They hint that while there may be many ways of arriving and reaching this fuller world, holding on to (faith) Jesus is a reliable route.  The important thing for all of us is to have lived this life at depth so that we will recognise the new stage.  This will only be obvious to us if our lives have already let in the possibility of wider love.  Living our lives now with the fullest openness to this love is what we have been rehearsing for all of our human lives.