I was having a conversation recently with a supporter of the blog about the meaning of the word safeguarding.   In my response to something she had said, I had simply used the expression ‘power abuse’.  As far as I could see, the expression safeguarding almost always involved a situation where an individual or an institution was being held to account for an act potentially involving the harmful exercise of power.  Safeguarding is the act of protecting the vulnerable against the malign intentions of the strong.  Protecting the vulnerable is a serious business and when we use the term, we should always recognise that something potentially evil is being addressed.  Unfortunately, using the word safeguarding often fails to communicate the seriousness the word deserves.  Somewhere along the line, its use to describe the numerous courses laid on to train church members from congregants to bishops has removed the urgency from its meaning.  It has become an idea that for church people has frequently become rather ‘fluffy’.  It has been detached from the horror that is implied when vulnerable people are not protected and kept safe.  As part of the conversation I was having, I suggested that we might try and do without the word safeguarding, particularly if, by using it, we sanitise and remove the horror of what may be implied by the word. 

Archbishop Sarah, in her presidential address to General Synod in February, lifted my spirits initially when she spoke about power abuse at the start of what she had to say on the theme of safeguarding.   Was she going to say more about safeguarding being rooted in the setting of power abuse or were we going to hear the same somewhat tired cliches about putting survivors and victims at the centre of everything that the Church is doing in this area?  Sadly, Sarah, writing this part of her address that seemed to promise so much, then reached for the cut and paste button on her computer, and we were offered the same stale food of promises and unfulfilled statements about justice and support for survivors.  The promise of a clear-eyed vision and understanding that safeguarding is in the last resort all about the misuse and abuse of power from the top to the bottom of the church structure was not grasped.  Safeguarding was once more to become the overworked word to be used by the Church to suggest that we now have the structures and the understanding to put an end to criminal behaviour and sexual exploitation of the vulnerable within the institution.  The insight that many observers now have is that abuse of power is a perennial problem for every church.  Power is abused not only in acts of sexual deviance but every time a member of the church bullies or obtains gratification from humiliating or dominating someone else.  Obviously sexual abuse is at the extreme end of abusive behaviour we are describing, but there are many other examples of abuse in the life of the church that need to be named and outlawed if we are ever to have a church that is truly safe.  The problem for the church is that we have tolerated for so long dominating, controlling and coercive behaviour that we have learned to overlook behaviour that is sometimes cruel, life destroying and discriminatory.  Safeguarding, in the sense of protecting people from sexual exploitation, is only one small part of the wider reality of power abuse that some church members often face. 

In having this conversation, I was realising that my own book, Ungodly Fear, published 25 years ago as a study on the abuse of power in the church, did not use the word safeguarding once.  The word was not then in common use as a convenient shorthand for the power and sexual abuse issues that we see in the church.   My insight then, when writing the book, was a very simple one.  The Church, especially in the conservative evangelical house-church manifestations that I was focusing on, has a problem with power.  If an individual or an institution is given power over others, then there is always the possibility, indeed probability, that this power will, at some point, be abused.  Independent congregations, led by charismatic narcissistic leaders, are those in the greatest danger of seeing their congregants abused financially or sexually.  Church bodies that preserve systems and protocols of oversight and mentoring may have fewer episodes of criminal abuse, but they still face issues of dealing with power.  The abuse of power in a church setting may take a number of forms.  I described in the book power abuse being manifested in financial exploitation, sexual failings, persecution and the ostracism of disapproved minorities.  There was also the appeal to the demon world to justify behaviour which would be unacceptable to most Christians.  It is my contention that whenever power is abused, not just criminal sexual abuse, it should be scrutinised and, if necessary, outlawed from the Church.  Keeping church members safe does not come merely by protecting the vulnerable from sexual predation.  It should include protection from any kind of abusive power being exercised over them.  We do not always want to recognise these situations of oppression where the strong exercise their power over the weak.  Perhaps the horrors of the past in terms of what has be done to the innocent by godly men (mainly) has desensitised us to this kind of damaging behaviour.  I do not believe it to be an exaggeration to suggest that every form of power abuse in the church is toxic and ultimately destructive.

I am putting forward the idea that the recent arrival of the safeguarding industry into the Church as response to the horrors of abuse has not made everyone safe.  Officially safeguarding is about protecting everyone.  Caring for the young and vulnerable seems to be a worthy activity that can be expected to achieve agreement without argument.  But I am contending for the idea that the use of this word has too easily made everyone feel reassured and comfortable. If, however, we were to lose the word safeguarding and replace its use, when appropriate, with the words power abuse, we change the perception of what is involved instantly.  Safeguarding/power abuse is a matter that demands our immediate attention because we hear in the words something of great seriousness, something that should be responded to instantly.  The task of safeguarding when we take it seriously is not to make us have warm, maybe, patronising feelings for the vulnerable but a deliberate decision to identify vigorously places where power is being corrupted in a way that makes the institution and the people within unsafe.

The exercise of power in the Church is always going to be an activity involving risk.  By saying this I do not mean to suggest that there is no place for authority in an institution like the church.  We need to have ways of determining what are the best ways forward and the decisions to be taken to enable an organisation like a church to flourish.   Gifts of leadership and management are vital for the church.  Simultaneously we need to be far more sensitive to the way that power acting out in a negative way is a constant risk factor in any institution.  Abuse of power, as we have seen, may involve criminal behaviour such as the sexual abuse of a minor.  But any act which has as its aim the gratification of narcissism or self-importance in a leader can easily become abusive.  The problem that often arises is a culture of ‘you scratch my back’ is that there is a corporate agreement to protect bad behaviour.  In this kind of culture those who are not part of a favoured ‘in-crowd’, can find life extremely tough.  Hierarchical churches, whether Anglican, Catholic or independent all have ways of feeding the almost universal desire for power and importance.  People use status and position to boost their self-esteem and maybe compensate for neglect from parents when children.  Such hankering after power blights the smooth running of any organisation.  Sometimes the pursuit of power is not about acquiring importance but rather as a way to avoid the opposite experience, the inherited blight of shame.  This may have been planted within the personality at a very early age by parents or contemporaries.  Warding off the demons of shame, weakness and humiliation in a lifetime of maladaptive growing up may provide a powerful motivation towards behaviour of this kind.

The word safeguarding is, we would suggest, a word that reveals almost nothing of its inner meaning and content.  It sounds neutral and formal while the reality of what it points to is often that of exploitation and abuse of power.  It would be so much more salutary as well as honest if the word safeguarding was routinely replaced with a brief two-word alternative, such as power abuse or institutional bullying.  The Church of England as an institution has, according to numerous abuse survivors, lamentably failed to meet their needs, in terms of pastoral care, compensation and justice.  By refusing to name accurately what has been going on in the abusive episodes it is asked to respond to, the church safeguarding authorities blunt any proper acknowledgement of what has really happened.   How much better it would be if Diocesan Safeguarding Officers were called something that reflected the harsh reality of what they sometimes meet?  A better descriptor might be abuse supporter or in bullying situations, a conflict mediator.  Whatever title is found to be most suitable, it would have to be one that picked up in the title something of the pain, devastation and shame that is so often found in a safeguarding situation. 

The word safeguarding is, as far as I can see, at best a problematic word for many people in the Church.  On the one hand it blunts the horror of power abuse that is often found in institutions like the Church.  On the other hand it casts a miasma of suspicion over everyone in the Church if they have in any way failed to have their training and accreditation brought right up to date.  Perhaps the time has come where we try to manage to have safety in the Church without using the over-used word.  I for one would prefer to have it that way.