by Janet Fife
‘You’re in a man’s world now. You’ll have to fit in.’ So said one of my colleagues soon after I was ordained deacon in 1987. That put a damper on my newly ordained enthusiasm. I’d thought I was serving God, and found I was only working in a gentlemen’s club. Not a member but a menial. Some years later, in a different diocese, that feeling was reinforced when a senior cleric told me, ‘The real reason we don’t have women on the bishop’s senior staff is that, if we did, we couldn’t tell the same kind of jokes in our meetings.’
The Church of England is infested with men’s clubs, both literal and metaphorical. It has long been clear that they do not serve the interests of women, BAME people, and what used to be called the working classes – anyone, in fact, who is not a ‘gentleman’. More recently it’s become obvious how destructive they are to the interests of survivors of abuse.
The House of Bishops excluded women until recently, and still has too few to change the culture. Since its deliberations are secret, and neither agendas nor minutes are ever published, we know little about what goes on there. We do know, however, that very few bishops against whom safeguarding complaints are made face a penalty. The most notorious case is that of Matt Ineson, who reported his rape by a priest to an archdeacon (now a bishop), two bishops and the Archbishop of York. None acted on Matt’s disclosure; CDM complaints against them were ruled out of time. Bishops protect each other.
Forward in Faith and the Society, defending the seal of the confessional, oppose mandatory reporting of abuse. Experts have expressed concern that some abusers exploit confession to free them of guilt so they can abuse again.
At the other end of the churchmanship spectrum is ReNew, the conservative evangelical constituency. ReNew is linked to Reform, AMIE, Church Society, and Titus Trust. Many ReNew leaders are products of the boys-only Iwerne (now Titus Trust) camps, as is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Titus Trust and ReNew leaders strongly resist sharing information about John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher, and other alleged abusers associated with the Iwerne camps. Titus Trust, with income nearing £2 million p.a., fought claims for compensation from Smyth and Fletcher survivors. So far they have settled with only three of over 100 victims; sums paid to them are far exceeded by the sums paid to Titus’ expensive lawyers and PR firms.
Nobody’s Friends, the elite private dining club centred on Lambeth Palace, was largely unknown until it featured in evidence given to IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse) last summer. Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a former Law Lord, wrote to Archbishop Carey on Peter Ball’s behalf in January 1993, saying, ‘”May I presume on a brief acquaintanceship at dinners of Nobody’s Friends?”’ Lord Lloyd continued to lobby Lambeth Palace on Ball’s behalf well into 1994. Nobody’s, which first met in 1800, consists of half clergy and half laypeople: Tory grandees, judges, public school headmasters, and the like. Historically all male (women were first admitted in 2004), Nobody’s has been a place for men to exercise influence and angle for preferment. It currently has over 150 members. In Lord Lloyd’s evidence we saw how such a club may serve the interests of abusers over those of their victims.
Freemasonry is one of the oldest and largest male clubs, and like the others has a reputation for secrecy. The extent of its influence within the Church of England is hard to discover, but undoubtedly exists. In 1984 a retired Sussex priest told me of his membership in a Chichester vicars’ Lodge; this was while Eric Kemp was diocesan bishop and Peter Ball bishop of Lewes. Years later the social responsibility adviser of another diocese expressed his concern that all three archdeacons, the heads of every major diocesan committee, and the diocesan secretary’s husband were Masons and that diocesan financial decisions reflected Masonic priorities.
What all these men’s societies have in common is that they have close links with the Establishment and exercise influence within the Church in secretive ways. They operate on behalf of vested interests and for the benefit of their own members, and hate transparency. Stephen Parsons and Gilo, writing on the blog SurvivingChurch, are doing much to expose the ways in which these and other groups exercise patronage and work against the interests of survivors of abuse.
The Shemmings Report into abuse in Chichester Diocese has a valuable section on networks and how they function. It notes:
“at different times, sexual offenders were operating in the organisation which, due to the particular type of inter-connectedness of the ‘network’ just described, means that they were influencing others in the network, sometimes deliberately but often unknowingly.”
This applies also to those who fail to take action against offenders. When an archbishop gives inaccurate information about Iwerne abusers, is that an honest mistake or is he motivated by loyalty to his ‘club’? When a bishop who frequents Masonic functions does not act on a priest’s confession of abuse, we wonder whether the Masonic connection has any relevance. But whatever the influences at play here, we know it is not the interests of the victims or children which rank first with these prelates.
Safeguarding cannot be effective in a Church where the interests and loyalties of clubs and networks predominate over values of justice and truth. The shepherds cannot protect the sheep while occupied by feasting.
And so I pray, in the words of the anonymous canticle ‘As one who travels in the heat’:
…you have blessed me with emptiness, O God;
You have spared me to remain unsatisfied.
And now I yearn for justice;
Like an infant that cries for the breast,
And cannot be pacified,
I hunger and thirst for oppression to be removed,
And to see the right prevail.
Amen.
Janet,
Thank you for this! The other point about freemasonry is that it has conventionally had a close association with the police. Although masonic lodges are frequently stratified by profession to some extent, I do wonder whether the investigation of some clerical malfeasance has been compromised by the clergy and the police being associated with the craft. Perhaps this might prove a rich seam for future investigation, though I suspect that getting a mason to talk might be well nigh impossible!
The close association between Church and craft in England would never have occurred in much of mainland Europe, where freemasonry was conventionally anti-clerical and subversive. From 1738 it could result in excommunication. Franco, for instance, would regularly equate the forces of masonry with communism as one of the leading threats to the Catholic Church and the state: it was a theme of his last speeches in October 1975. The phenomenon of masonry, carbonari and illuminati in late eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century Iberia, Latin America, Italy, France, Bavaria, Austria, etc., was closely associated with revolutionary ideas and a radical bourgeoisie (see, for instance: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/the-mythology-of-the-secret-societies-by-j-m-roberts-new-york-charles-scribners-sons-1972-pp-370-1750/98E7288EC61DC039720C8E7C880BA5D5). For example the radical and aggressively anti-clerical regimes established in Brazil and Portugal following the overthrow of the two branches of the Braganza dynasty in 1889 and 1910 were partly nursed by radical journalists, junior army officers, businessmen, etc., in masonic covens.
In Britain, by contrast, freemasonry – patronised by royalty, nobility and clergy alike – has been another facet of the clubability to which much of the elite is prone.
However, I do feel that the influence of freemasonry, as of clubs in general, has faded greatly over the last few decades. Since both adults in any family unit will have to work full time there has been a decreasing tolerance for the sort of ‘homosociality’ that these clubs represent. Most private schools are now co-educational, and the only single sex colleges remaining at the old universities are female. Clubs like the Athenaeum and the Reform have admitted women for many years – and what’s more, they have greatly relaxed the rules they had about who can and cannot join – so great have been their concerns about collapsing income from subscriptions and ageing memberships.
I do not mention this to deprecate the enduring influence of clubs in the Church. Old clubs can be replaced by new forms of exclusivity and conspiracy. Moreover, the baleful influence of some clubs, whose influence may have faded years ago, can still cast a long shadow over the lives of people who have been the victims of abuse, snobbery, sexism, racism and other forms of exclusion.
Best wishes,
James
James, this is my first comment on a Surviving Church post, although I have been a reader of the site for a long time. I just want to say how much I always enjoy your erudite and thought-provoking comments!
Hi Fiona. So do I!
Hello, English Athena! It’s lovely to make your acquaintance – and I also always very much appreciate your comments and honesty on this site of Stephen’s. I am learning a great deal from reading here and (hitherto silently) from sharing the experiences of those who post regularly, either as authors or commenters. This is evidently a very special community of people.
Fiona: That is extremely nice of you, although I am often irrelevant, incoherent or plain silly.
In this instance, I think Janet has written a really great post (though all her posts are great!), and I also note that it has received well-earned plaudits on Thinking Anglicans. It seems that the main point is that humans inevitably band together in clubs or associations of one kind or other. These clubs are often a species of social insurance. One of the reasons why I am so anxious that this crisis does not lead to a reduction in the footprint is that it is precisely this form of insurance that will become increasingly important if and when state welfare provision withers (owing to insupportable debts and/or economic decline) and the next cohort of old people run out of money only a short time after they retire (hence some of my recent dyspeptic remarks about pensions and churches vs clergy).
However, it is unfortunately the case that clubs are also vehicles for advancement. Whilst I imagine many of us will have used our church associations for fellowship and mutual support (as well as an expression of faith), I do fear that there will always be a minority who will want to use church as a way of ‘getting ahead’ and generating a base of contacts which may be useful in working life. I suspect that this is especially true of many of the ‘successful’ ‘Boden’ churches in the home counties and well-heeled parts of major cities (some of which are also marriage agencies). Clerical clubs like Nobody’s Friends will be vehicles for careerists, pure a simple.
The other reason why I have come to like this blog so much is that Stephen is not only a superb and imaginative communicator, but he is also a very kind and considerate moderator. As such he (and other contributors like Janet and Gilo) have done, and are doing, wonderful things for people who have been let down badly by the Church. However, they are also providing a lot of useful commentary and information about Church life *in addition* to the core purpose of helping survivors. Moreover, the BTL crowd – English Athena being a sparkling case in point – seem to me to be such a nice and considerate community, which is so very refreshing in the blogosphere. Again, I think this owes much to the ethos and tone Stephen and the other above-the-line contributors have established.
Best wishes,
James
Thank you for your lovely response, James. I’m a fan of both irrelevant and silly, and of course we’re all incoherent at times!
I agree with your analysis of the “behavioural science” of clubs and our collective tendency to gravitate towards them for a variety of reasons, and am amused by the eminently recognisable picture you paint by use of the word “Boden”! It is the grey area between inclusivity and exclusivity that troubles me about Christian “clubs”, and it is very interesting to think about the way in which, and the reasons why, a group of Christians might evolve more in one direction or another, and to consider – as you outline above – what someone’s motivation might be in attaching themselves to one group as opposed to another. I have long wondered about the personal justification those involved might give, both publicly and privately, for clergy membership of groups such as Nobody’s Friends, and know that it has sometimes been mentioned and discussed here, so will search later for previous posts to build up a wider picture for myself.
Although I am a relative newcomer in comparison with much more established readers and BTL commenters here, I also absolutely agree with you about the overall ethos of that, and those, which are found here at Surviving Church. I feel safe and welcomed, as well as intellectually and theologically stimulated, and I am so glad to see that others who need it have found a sanctuary in this community and its ongoing exchange of stories, experiences and thoughts.
Best wishes back to you,
Fiona
Very many thanks, Fiona! The remarks you make about SC being ‘safe’ and as a place where you feel welcome are, I think, about the highest compliments that can be made to Stephen and his colleagues: thank you for that as well.
I’m poorly read is pyschology, but my guess is that there are two types of people who gravitate towards church: (i) those who need some form of insurance; and (ii) those who see it as an investment. There may be some overlap between the two. The ‘insureds’ look for it as a place of security, where a pool of goodwill can be developed, which the insured can fall back upon in hard times. Insureds are generally people of limited financial means and/or may be vulnerable in some way. This might explain why so many old people gravitate towards church: it is not always a matter of custom and convention, but of an unspoken economic necessity in an ‘economy of favours’ sustained by gift exchanges (whether of physical objects or of emotional kindness).
The ‘investors’ are also looking for security, but this is partly for the sake of nurturing their egos: it is part of their ‘economy of esteem’; they realise that if they can stand out amongst people whom they privately regard as mediocre, their lustre will be all the greater. They gravitate towards the Church for the sake of exerting the leadership they they perceive as being their special gift. It does not matter so much that the people they lead are meek, submissive or even sullen; rather, this makes their leadership, by contrast, seem all the more brilliant. Even if the money is relatively paltry, there are compensating and countervailing benefits: the robes, the hoods, the special seats, the titles, the residuum of establishment which permits occasional access to the genuinely powerful. The culture of clubability within certain parts of the Church is therefore one of the mechanisms through which the investors can enhance the esteem in which they are held, and through which they can realise their investment by means of preferment and access to supposed sources of power.
I was much influenced by this article a number of years ago: https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/economics/history/Paper3/gift3.pdf. I don’t think we’ve got a good enough expression for the ‘economy of favours’ in English, but the Russians do: ‘blat’ (https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blat_(Russia)). I suggest that we import the expression ‘blat’ into future discussions about the operation of the Church!
Of course, it is probably wrong to characterise commitments to church in such crude and reductive terms, or to articulate such a lazy, and probably unoriginal, taxonomy of churchgoers. A great many of them – if not a large majority – are perfectly sincere, but I suspect that even a portion of the sincere might fall into one or other of the two groups, with the ‘insureds’ predominating.
Very best wishes,
James
You might also say that people fall outside the church-club (or are ejected from it), where they can no longer pay the premium (as insureds) and/or their investment is dissipated. In other words, if they are perceived as no longer contributing, whether financially or operationally. I have noted this in certain ‘successful’ churches. The casual visitor is generally ignored unless s/he is perceived as a potential investor. However, there is much mutual regard in evidence for those who are obviously paying their premiums and/or investing their ‘capital’ by means of operational effort, charisma, etc.
By these means, the marginal – arguably those most in need of spiritual and practical sustenance – are often neglected.
Of course, this does *not* apply to all churches.
Best wishes,
James
Froghole’s dualistic model of “insured/investors” is a valuable way of looking from a stand-back perspective on the way our churches work.
The Blat concept, which I crudely and reductively translate as: “you scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours” is frequently operative there, if unconsciously.
There’s a certain logic in looking after yourself and your own by mutual exchange, for example by baby-sitting favours in young families.
The problem with this from a leadership perspective is that it tends to be self-limiting and leads to decline. This is because outsiders are intrinsically excluded, lacking apparent utility.
Churches are prone to cohort cliques. These are groups of individuals/families sharing very similar demographics such as age, economic status, family stage etc. They are very hard to break into for the reasons cited and gradually get older and older, with few/no new entrants and natural wastage at the top end.
For example, I was in what effectively was a large “singles” group. Ostensibly aimed at 20s, young 30s, realistically it became older 30s looking for love. Many found a partner of course and that’s a lovely thing. But as they did, they drifted away to married-dom. Without an external focus on what the group stood for apart from its own needs, new younger members were not recruited. Indeed the gap between potential recruits and an ageing remnant became progressively wider, with the diminishing numbers reducing “choice”. If the sole purpose was to pair up, the group was destined to disappear with these factors against it.
Obviously this is a crude analysis and several sincere outward looking members were frustrated by the decline and eventual group euthanasia by the vicar.
Outside the church, I’ve seen examples of growth and less self focused thinking.
A friend of mine is a keen gym-goer. Pre-lockdown he was going to the gym 4-5 times a week. I say “gym”, but it’s a more nuanced approach to exercise; more of a whole life thing. The coach was distraught when the gym had to be closed. But he had generated significant goodwill in his congregation by individual and collective encouragement over a sustained period. So much so, that many maintained their (not inconsiderable) standing order bank payments and do stuff online. Good leadership.
But also good community, because the gym-goers maintain mutual encouragement and friendship ACROSS THE GENERATIONS. Yes, seriously. Why? How?
Of course there is still self-interest, but the community there is thriving and I’m still trying to figure out how. There’s a common and healthily powerful interest. And they’re sharing it, not in a sales-ey evangelism but in a subtle how-healthy-is-this way.
I should emphasis that these growth examples need leadership.
So much rich material for thought here James, but the “long shadow” is something I too have had to address in the form of trauma.
Traumatic effects, not always identified by therapists have a sticky quality. Contributors here, for example Trish and JayKay8 have put me onto some good material for study to find assistance. “Seek and ye shall find”.
Raised blood pressure!
Thank you so much, Janet, for this post. Your words are greatly appreciated and food for much thought. I am from an evangelical background and am at the moment spending quite a considerable amount of time processing the implications of the existence of exclusive communities such as Iwerne and Nobody’s Friends, and whether such exclusivity has Christian validity. When I was a schoolgirl and then a student, and instead involved with CYFA as befitted my state-school status, Iwerne and what it represented was a source of some mirth to some of my Christian friends and me. Years later, I am not longer amused but instead experiencing an ongoing struggle with its fundamental reason for being, and it is so encouraging and reassuring to be able to benefit from the wisdom and experience of those who are further down this path of thought than am I. Thank you again.
Thank you, Fiona for your encouraging comments. It helps me as editor to know that there are real people lurking out there who appreciate our efforts. Going back to the blog’s beginning in 2013 the main focus of the blog then was to give encouragement to people like yourself who had been reared solely on a diet of conservative ideas within Christianity. The focus of what we offer here is never to say ‘we are right and you are wrong’. The emphasis from the beginning has always been to say ‘have you considered that Christianity might actually be larger and broader than what you have been taught?’ Too much conservative Christian teaching encourages the wearing of straightjackets and SC thinks that these are extremely uncomfortable and even painful.
The other emphasis that has grown up organically and now probably dominates, is simply to reflect and comment on topical issues in the Church by keeping abreast of ‘political’ and other issues around power. At the heart of human motivation, especially for men, is a desire to exercise power. This comes out in the church as well as well as everywhere. We keep banging on about this power issue because to get people to see clearly how this works, is to help to make the church a better and kinder place. The support of abuse survivors is a particular focus at present. The powers that be, often because they are busy playing their power games, would like survivors to crawl under a stone. To this end they use all kinds of methods to intimidate them, legal and institutional. Non-survivor but supportive individuals like myself want survivors to know their cause is just, even if the church finds their claims embarrassing and inconvenient. Most of us are sensitised to bullying from other life-experiences, so we can begin to imagine something of the horror and pain of being a survivor of abuse within the Church. Hearing from a variety of such survivors is part of the work of this blog and as you can imagine, bullying and abuse is going on all over the world.
The extraordinary way that the internet allows SC, edited in the depths of Cumbria to know, by careful scrutiny of the internet, what is going on is remarkable. So there are two words that describe SC, encouragement and challenge. I hope we can keep this going as long as possible.
Thank you, Stephen.
For now, I’ll just say ‘Amen’, and thank Janet in ‘God’s Own County’ as well as you, editing the blog in equally beautiful Cumbria. (And I hope that by saying this I’ve not set up rival factions to reply!)
Blessing and best wishes from rural Suffolk,
David.
Born in God’s own county myself! And recently removed from Cumbria!
Thank you, Stephen, for your lovely reply. I cannot remember for the life of me how I first stumbled upon Surviving Church, but am really glad I did. It is so very important that survivors of abuse have a source of support, a community and a shared platform, and that supportive non-survivors and allies are able to come to some sort of understanding of what has been experienced and what the consequences might be for some. I went to school with Kate, who wrote a guest post featured here a couple of months ago, and it is so good – and, as you say, absolutely right and just – that she has been able to share her and her family’s story and receive encouragement, reassurance and support from your readers and contributors. And just as is happening elsewhere and in other spheres, the challenges you mention in your penultimate sentence have started, and must continue.
Your comment that, “too much conservative Christian teaching encourages the wearing of straitjackets and SC thinks that these are extremely uncomfortable and even painful”, rings very true for me with the benefit of hindsight, as do your insights about power. I think if one spends a long time within one context without the benefit of much input from elsewhere or a wider perspective, it’s easy to become narrow in one’s thinking and both trapped and fearful as a result. If you are familiar with Penelope Wilcock’s writing (she is probably most well-known for her Hawk & Dove series), you will already know that she says similar things on her own blog about power and its sometimes catastrophic and damaging manifestations. And it is of course very interesting to consider the consequences of misused power within both sacred and secular contexts. Thank you so much for your ongoing work in building this community, which is obviously greatly appreciated by many people.
Stephen, I hope so too, a Cumbrian by birth (Carlisle), descent (east Cumberland), upbringing (Langwathby) and education (QEGS Penrith). Keep up the good work as long as you can. I’v always encouraged my flocks to heed the words of Diderot: enlargissez Dieu.
Thank you both. I appreciate that.
Arguably Surviving Church is actually a church. At one time some would argue that you’d have to meet physically in a building to be an actual real church. Now with lockdown many will have the opportunity to see that this community isn’t a whole lot different from what mainstream churches are doing on t’Internet.
Here there is teaching, prayer, fellowship, worship even, if you will allow the demonstrable utilisation of considerable gifting to be included. We have pastors, teachers, preachers, apostles even, certainly prophets.
There is also I must confess (and include myself) a certain amount of bickering, self-promotion, nit-picking, pedantry, a virtual pecking-order, flights-of-fancy and loss of concentration on the task in hand. In other words, exactly like a church!
One thing clearly does distinguish this place from many others: you have a voice.
This is a great place to say what’s been on your mind, hopefully within the bounds of taste and good manners obviously, and be heard. I’ve found it astonishingly cathartic to discover others who have encountered the same things as me. I’ve also savoured many of the high quality analyses presented here by editor, guests and commentators.
We worship God with our voices here, written to pursue justice, honesty and truth. We are faulty and frail of course, but serve as we can. There is the sense of a common effort and even a place of rest. We’re learning and growing. Welcome to this house!
Thank you, Steve, for your lovely welcome of others and of me. That is a wonderful way of looking at the Surviving Church community and it is very clear to me that there are many very gifted people involved here in a variety of ways. The opportunity to be given a voice is such a precious thing. And I agree with you about the catharsis of meeting like-minded people and entering into a dialogue with them. I always look forward to new posts and the subsequent BTL discussions – they are so encouraging, stimulating and thought-provoking. I’m really glad to have found you all! (and it’s lovely to meet some more northerners, having recently moved from Durham to Warwickshire. Feels like home!)
Ah, Newcastle me! Anywhere beyond Durham was considered Southern up there. It was almost preposterous to go to London, never mind the South East. Brazenly I did both and recklessly stayed!
I was reminded of C S Lewis’ essay, written I think back in about 1945, on “The Inner Ring” – an article about it is here: https://tinyurl.com/ybxaqey2. He delineates quite accurately the human desire to be “included” and “accepted”, especially if the consequences can be the gaining of power or the receiving of ‘secret’ information; and he tells us how corrupting this is. He also shows how the official structures of power and authority can be effectively neutralised and undermined by those who are in the “ring”. Of course he was particularly thinking of the intense power struggles that could occur within Oxbridge colleges (C P Snow did the same in some of his “Strangers and Brothers” novels written a little bit later), but the principle has wider relevance.
I have heard the Inner Ring by C.S.Lewis being quoted before. I need to read it again as I can see that it would make a good blog post. What occurs to me now is that when you are in the Ring, you feel at the centre of things, in a place of power. Those immediately outside the Ring, wanting to get in, will help to foster a fantasy of importance and power. It is only when you look at the Ring from a distance or from the perspective of history, that you see how much people devote themselves to struggling to gain importance and power in trivial futile ways. People who struggle to be important today to feed narcissistic hungers, are likely to be completely forgotten tomorrow. There is no greatness, honour or integrity in such struggles. Indeed, the struggle to be ‘top-dog’ in any institution looks in the end rather pathetic. Somewhere into this equation come the words of Jesus about greatness coming through service rather through domination. Most people do not get that insight.
Stephen,
This is a very interesting train of thought. Noting Wordsworth’s expression that the ‘child is father to the man’, I have come across a fascinating article by Patricia and Peter Adler ‘Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Preadolescent Cliques’ in the Social Psychology Quarterly v. 58 (no. 3) (Sept. 1995), 145-62. Absent my childhood experience, I know nothing of this subject. Their analysis holds that:
1. Cliques maintain their exclusivity via careful screening processes, where recruitment is via invitations extended by existing members, the newcomers having to endure a probation.
2. An invitation to join a popular clique is irresistible and will often result in breaking long-established friendships.
3. Stratification techniques within the clique are only applied once the newcomer has been admitted (before that point only the ‘good’ characteristics of the clique are made evident to a candidate member).
4. Once newcomers are established in a clique they will often abandon the members who invited them in so as to advance their status within it. Stratification encourages lower-grade members to strive upwards. This involves dynamic realignments of followers.
5. Clique leaders will often co-opt the friendship of potential rivals to forestall and neutralise any threat to the leadership (especially if co-option cuts a rival off from his/her support base).
6. ‘Ingratiation can be directed upward (supplication) or downward (manipulation)’ (p. 152); this often involves imitating the leaders’ interests or style.
7. Leaders will exert superiority and extract loyalty over and from followers by giving them material or moral ‘help’.
8. Members seek to influence outsiders, but this is often an exclusionary tactic, in which ridicule and rejection are routine. Outsiders invariably align themselves with the bully against the bullied. Compliance with bullying is also essential to secure hierarchies within the clique. Expulsion is rare but a constant and useful threat, since a person expelled will be a pariah, even to outsiders.
They conclude: ‘The inclusionary dynamics are central to cliques’ foundation of attraction. Boundary maintenance makes cliques exclusive: they can recruit the individuals they want, wooing them from competing friendships, and can reject the supplications of others they evaluate as unworthy… The exclusionary dynamics are central to the bases of cohesion in cliques. Clique members join together in disparaging outsiders, they learn that those in the in-group can freely demean out-group members, and that their targets will return for renewed attempts at acceptance… The periodic minicyclings of exclusion serve to manipulate followers into dependence and subservience while enhancing leaders’ centrality and authority… In addition to teaching children the dynamics of power and manipulation, clique interactions impress upon children the importance of conformity’ (pp. 158-9).
James
Some interesting questions have been raised here.
It’s a truism that prophets always come from ‘outside’, and I have always assumed that’s because outsiders see some things that can’t be seen from inside. A fish doesn’t know it lives in water.
The biblical prophets mostly lived long spells in the wilderness, like Elijah; or were rustics, like Amos; or were from a different country, once Israel had split into two kingdoms.
I wonder if, in our much more connected world, prophets are sometimes those who simply aren’t attracted by the ‘inner ring’? Those who, from temperament, principle, or self-discipline aren’t into playing power games or political manoeuvring.
And sometimes, of course, prophets are those who have been rejected for being the ‘wrong’ colour, class, sex, gender, or orientation. ‘Come to Jesus, outside the camp….the stone which the builders rejected has been made the cornerstone.’
I am writing a blog post picking up this theme. The survivor as a prophet speaking truth to power. Out next week.
Speaking out the truth of God, with a blend of divine inspiration and human wisdom in indeterminate proportions: what would it look like?
I suspect God wouldn’t limit himself to pre-existing human arrangements for delivery, much as we’ve always wanted him to. But we would do well to study the history of prophecy, that which we know, and that which we’ve overlooked.
Perhaps God uses disruption to alert us to new things, to shake free our clinging to rigid habits and ideas? Perhaps also he might even use the most unlikely people.
Stephen, thought you’d like to know that a would-be DSA preparing to work for a diocese asked someone recently for helpful resources. In addition to various books –
Letters to a Broken Church
ed by Janet Fife and Gilo
To Heal and Not to Hurt: A fresh approach to safeguarding in the Church
by Rosie Harper and Bishop Alan Wilson
Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating Healthy Christian Cultures
by Dr Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys
… a certain blog was also cited as an essential resource for any DSA. I suggested one article a day read for a couple of months would cover much ground and point to things that are really going on in the Church of England…. which many DSAs haven’t much of a clue about because they’re not told.
As a regular guest contributor to this blog, thank you for your extraordinary work in raising the veil on much that the ‘powers’ would prefer kept hidden. Thank you for helping survivors speak truth to power.
Amen.
So much rich food for thought that I don’t know where to start! Feeling a little battle weary and consequently incoherent.
So simply thank you Janet and everyone for insightful material as always. And a warm welcome to Fiona.
I was thinking that the combination of club & transaction (love Blat!) connects with the more recent thinking about social capital and inclusion, which interestingly is a key feature of my current Mental Health course, as seen as core in recovery. Teasing out what turns friendship into Blat, and healthy social connection into clique is clearly key.
I suspect that even Bishops and senior clergy can find themselves outside of the club, judging by the apparent disparity in the use of CDMs…
Survivors as prophets..really looking forward to reading this, Stephen. For a number of years we provided a platform for those prophetic voices at Greenbelt, with a programme of survivor-led talks, seminars and workshops. I would love to see this start again.
Hi Jane. Sorry you are feeling battle weary. ‘And when the strife is hard, the battle long, steals. on the ears the distant triumph song. Then hearts are brave again and arms are strong. Alleluia!’
Can you explain what ‘Blat’ is? I’ve googled it and I’m getting the definition ‘to make a loud noise’, which I suspect isn’t what you mean?
Janet,
Re blat: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/sociology/political-sociology/russias-economy-favours-blat-networking-and-informal-exchange?format=HB&isbn=9780521621748
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(favors)
Kind regards,
James
Thank you. I learn something every day from this site!
Thanks Janet, this space is so encouraging.
Yes, the Blat reference was from James, for which much thanks, I am entertaining myself trying to work out how to get it into my next letter to the core group…
That sounds like fun. In a way.