We have finally reached the end of another stage in the long-running saga of the Sheffield Nine O’Clock Service and its one-time leader, Chris Brain. A jury in a London trial has found Brain guilty on 17 counts of sexual assault and sentencing is due at some point in the near future. This story in one way is very old news. The older among us have known most of the details of Brain’s offences for 30 years. The newspapers gave extensive coverage to the scandal when it broke in 1995, and Roland Howard wrote a competent account of the story in his book The Rise and Fall of the Nine O’Clock Service A cult within the church (1996). I do not intend in this blog to go over the details of this material which has been rehearsed again in the trial. My task is somewhat different. I want to remind my readers that there is another story to be told. The Nine O’Clock Service (NOS) is an important story in any history of church work among young people in the 20th century. However much we want to focus on the scandalous aspects, or criticise it and its theological and practical outworkings, it did, in its day, attract a significant level of support from the wider church and its leaders. The ‘rise and fall’ of NOS, in short, remains a notable event in the history of Church of England youth work. The problem was, as the Soul Survivor drama also clearly demonstrates, that few people are ever willing to critique ‘success’ or ask uncomfortable questions. Still less has there been any real understanding of the toxic dynamics that are so often a feature of large crowd events. Even now there is remarkable little insight into the vulnerability of the young to large group dynamics which can overwhelm them, both spiritually and emotionally.
My interest in writing about Brain now is not to comment or add anything new to the material presented in the NOS court case about his criminal behaviour towards young women. My purpose is to recall another aspect of the Brain story, one that does not seem to have attracted much discussion. This is the way that the NOS innovative worship style for young people had then many imitations right across England. To say that NOS was influential is not in any way arguing for the quality and soundness of what Brain was doing in Sheffield. But it is true to say that in youthwork circles there was a feeling that something new and exciting was going on. Up to the moment of its collapse, NOS was also being regarded with approval by church leaders from different theological traditions. Certainly, I cannot recall anyone speaking out against the rave services, planetary masses and the highly idiosyncratic teaching. At the time I was open to the teaching of Matthew Fox, an American Dominican, who provided some theological mentorship for Brain and the distinctive themes of his teaching. Like many of the fashionable ideas current in the 80s, Fox’s ideas on Creation Spiritualty have receded in their influence but, no doubt, they will be dusted down and ‘discovered’ again at some point in future. A greater influence on me at the time were the writings of Lesslie Newbigin. In his book, The Other Side of 1984, Newbigin, like Matthew Fox, had attempted to challenge the dominating ideas of the 18th century Enlightenment about the nature of truth and reality. The Enlightenment had given the facts revealed by science a privileged and esteemed place within Western thinking and culture. This approach needed to be challenged and certainly not assumed to be the only manifestation of truth. Interestingly, John Wimber was saying some similar things to his audiences and the resulting discussions helped to give rise to some interesting theological discussions in parts of the Church.
The second influence from NOS, one which affected me only indirectly, was the way that church youth work all over the country seemed to want to copy some of the practical aspects of the NOS worship experiments. Youth workers from many churches travelled to Sheffield to attend the highly innovative forms of worship and seek to copy ideas for their own ministries. Brain seems to have been able to recruit some highly gifted people to help him create dramatic expressions of worship, using light and sound to foster a highly charged atmosphere for his services. I never became familiar with the detail of these styles of worship, and certainly nothing changed at the level of our Sunday worship where I was serving. But the NOS influence was strong at the Diocesan level of youth work. The youth worker for the Gloucester Diocese had embraced the NOS vision with a degree of enthusiasm which now seems, in retrospect, to have been almost idolatrous. Once bitten by the NOS bug, the youth worker seemed unable to focus on any other type of youth work in our diocese. His whole energy seemed directed towards organising NOS look-alike services around the larger churches of the diocese. There were, I believe, some older church people who wanted to identify with this new energy for youth work and so the worker was able to raise the necessary money to buy lights, sound systems, smoke machines and other equipment for these services. The fact that my parish was right on the edge of the diocese, meant that my young people were unable to attend unless they had very obliging parents. I also had queries and concerns of my own which made me less than 100% enthusiastic for these new forms of worship.
What were my worries about the stories of NOS inspired worship that came back to me as a parish priest? In the first place there was an uncomfortable level of control (manipulation?) of feelings and mood at play. If an idea is powerfully shared through the forceful use of symbols, it may have the effect of taking over the feelings and driving out any rational process. In other words, the worship was, for me, a bit too physical and overwhelming; there was no opportunity to reflect. It seemed to be a matter of surrendering to these powerfully induced emotions. Teenagers are not a group easily able to work out how best to resist uncomfortable attacks on their rationality, especially when these assaults are made with the help of sound, light and imagery.
The second and perhaps more serious problem that I felt at the time, but probably never gave expression to, is what we would refer to now as safeguarding concerns. If you are skilled at creating highly emotionally charged atmospheres in a nightclub style environment, then it is not hard to see how such a setting can be exploited. When I heard that at our local Gloucester NOS services, routine hugging was included in the expression of love and mutual acceptance, I began to wonder whether such episodes might soon get out of hand. Intimacy, embrace and love may all be words that potentially fit into a Christian setting, but they may also be words used by a predator who is able to exploit the fact that personal boundaries may be routinely undermined in the new styles of worship.
The end of NOS in Sheffield was sudden and dramatic. The NOS events that I was observing with concern locally in the Diocese of Gloucester probably did not, in fact, get out of hand because our local NOS-inspired events also stopped when the Sheffield ministry of NOS came to a sudden end in July 1995. Brain’s dominance over the project had been total and so, with his sudden resignation, everything connected with the NOS effort all over the country stopped overnight. All that was left behind was a sense of shock, trauma, disillusionment and, no doubt, a sense of betrayal. It would probably be difficult now to discover how far the NOS influence had spread around the country and whether the effect on my diocese was typical of other areas. Almost instantly after Brain left, the diocesan Youth Officer in Gloucester resigned, and all his future local planned services were cancelled. I have never seen any discussion on the impact that NOS’s experiments had on church youth work, not only in Sheffield but around the country. A ‘learning lessons’ was probably just too difficult a task. It was also realised, probably, with some embarrassment no doubt, that the oversight of Brain by senior church figures had simply not been undertaken with any degree of thoroughness. No one among the senior clergy in Sheffield, who had offered an extensive welcome to the NOS experiment, resigned or even showed a real desire to understand what had gone wrong. For me there was a realisation that senior clergy in the Church of England also had very little understanding of what I was beginning to see as the central problem at NOS – the issue of power. Throughout the project, there seems to have been an inability to understand, let alone deal with, the power dynamics at NOS. Accountability and democratic decision making were nowhere to be found and no one senior in the hierarchy was prepared to challenge the dynamics of the group as long as the project appeared to be successful. 1995 and the aftershocks of the NOS experiment also marked the beginning of my own interest in power abuse in the Church. Much of the focus of my more recent writing, in the blog Surviving Church and my book Ungodly Fear, looks back to this theme of power and its abuse and this had been vividly displayed in Sheffield. The aftershocks of NOS still reverberate. A continuing failure to fully understand how power operates within its structures contributes to a serious weakening of the Church and its capacity to influence British society over recent decades.
Brain was a bad apple, as the court verdicts confirm. One thing we like to do as a Church is to pin all the blame on the bad actors, separate them from their methodology and then once dismissed, or otherwise removed, quietly carry on using almost identical methodology to get the success and results we crave.
As I pointed out after Stephen drew out the NOS in his analysis of Soul Survivor, the Sheffield methodology was being utilised at New Wine in around 2004 at least, some 10 years after the scandal had quietly been forgotten about. I confess I loved the style of worship, but now regard it as potentially cynically manipulative.
No doubt variations on the themes are still being used elsewhere. It isn’t just young people susceptible to emotional manipulation. We all know how music affects us, particularly with all the trappings being used. It’s time for senior leaders to be honest about this.
Exactly! The soil which nurtured and spawned NOS and Brain is still there. Ian Elliott spells out the necessary change in ‘Letters to a Broken Church’: zero-tolerance of bullies-abusers-harassers, and bishops caught concealing abusers get the chop.
St Michael-le-Belfrey continued its NOS-style project for several years at least after NOS ended. But the power dynamics were completely different and I never heard of any trouble arising from it. Neither did I hear of any very conspicuous success.
My experiences of crowd manipulation at Wimber conferences left me with a permanent allergy to anything remotely similar. As a university chaplain part of my job was to be aware of any cults targeting our students, and like other uni chaplains I made a study of cultic techniques. Wimber and his associates practised what in medical circles is termed hypnotism, and these techniques were even more pronounced in the subsequent Toronto Blessing.
Some of them are simple and increasingly common. For instance, if you have the words of the songs projected onto a screen placed high up, worshippers are forced to tilt their heads back to read them. This places pressure on the nerves at the base of the skull and produces sensations which might be interpreted as ‘spiritual’, when they are in fact purely physical. Add to that the lack of a hymnbook to hold, with the grounding effect of gripping something solid, and the inability to read the words of the song or hymn ahead of singing them, and you are substantially reducing the possibilities of a rational response in the congregation. You are also rendering them vulnerable to manipulation, with possibly malign effects.
‘NOS’ to the C of E is as-‘Philby’-to MI5. Anglican processes stitch up countless innocent men or women on false allegations of sexual misconduct. Yet predators thrive and take decades to be fully tracked down. Seamus Heaney said: “If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.” Sentiments helpful for those of us seeking to expose treachery within Anglicanism. Another interesting reflection, thanks.
Many senior leaders knew and effectively silenced covered up and used DARVO veiled threats and likely intimidation of victims to silence.
Richard Scorers class action is really important and vital.
Brain had willing acolytes who also took part in the abuse of vulnerable young people indoctrinated into a cult.
When will these people face secular justice ?
the traitors are the ones who silenced covered up and intimidated the victim survivor’s.
Now with split verdicts and the heat turned up to maximum how many of that rotten crew who did the clean up after Brain was exposed to protect the reputation of a tarnished Church will face the music?
Or will they plead memory loss dementia or cannot recall.
How I wish for a metaphorical Thomas Cromwell to investigate expose de frock and charge these evil Clerics with the “hamburger with the lot ‘.
Conspiracy to conceal crime. Misprision of a felony.
Intimidation of witnesses
And in canon law “ conduct unbecoming a clergy person” “ likely to create scandal”
Again I do have concerns that there are far far more alleged predators within the Church then known alleged victims of false allegation
This is not dismissing that false allegations are possible but the vast majority of systemic failures would likely be ,as seen in IICSA and Commissions of Enquiries by secular authorities independent of any Chirch based processes with massive amount of data that False Allegations are around 2 out of 100 .
If like in Australia you did a 5 year Royal Commission and got access to an immense amount of data ,less data destroyed by bad faith internal actors ,we would find that your use of the word “countless” could be hyperbole ?
James I really enjoy reading your brave honest accounts of the toxic dumpster fire omnishambles of your traumatic time within Anglican training systems that looked like they were corrupt and evil.
I still think we need to balance and quantify rather than rely on qualitative data.
I really hope you publish your own account of your lived experience as I have followed your comments over the last year or two and would appreciate a timeline and reflection of how you have arrived at a place of safety away from Traitors Gate and come in from the cold .
I appreciate your brave resilience and strength in your comments.
Thanks for your encouragement,Richie. I think one word summarises the crisis we have with our Bishops and Archbishops: ‘cowardice’.
Justin Welby, could have shown more courage on J C Smyth. Andrew John should have courageously addressed a dreadful situation at Bangor Cathedral. The Scottish Episcopal Primate has not definitively acted upon a crisis in Aberdeen Diocese. The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop John McDowell, has failed to address assorted bullying-abuse-harassment savageries in the Belfast centred Down and Dromore Diocese.
KRWLAW posted this shocking report: ‘Neely abuse: Church of Ireland Bishop ‘apologises’ for unnamed rector – ignores Belfast-Tipperary transfer’. Why is the Church of Ireland-even at the very highest level-terrified to name a deceased paedophile priest?
The name Canon W G Neely has already appeared in lots of BBC and local newspaper reports. Why can the Anglican Primate, John McDowell, not make a public statement, and in it finally confess how his Church shamefully protected a 1970’s child abuser and shifted him to a new parish?
Also, was John McDowell present as a child in the parish where the abuse was happening? When Archbishop John McDowell was enthroned a 2020 report in Irish Times celebrated the new Primate’s connection to Mt Merrion parish: ‘The new Primate is a native of East Belfast where his faith was nurtured in Mount Merrion parish where the rector was the late Canon Billy Neely’.
This reference to a Canon Billy Neely is interesting. Does it refer to Canon W G Neely, now recognised as a paedophile priest, who was secretively shifted to a Co Tipperary parish, and also given a lifetime ban by the Scouts?
By failing to make an honest public statement does the Irish Primate risk bringing further shame and disgrace upon the Anglican Church? The exit of Justin Welby and Andrew John happened very quickly and acutely, when chronic problems remained unaddressed.
Monkeying Anglican Primates-Thanks be to God-are now an endangered species.
Whose idea were age silos? Eric Nash’s?
If you can’t take your grandpa (who will be younger than Nash but have better integrity) to church, it’s not worth going.
As far as I recall, it was Robert Warren’s idea to segregate the congregations and associated house groups into age silos. The idea came from the Church Growth Movement, of which he was the leading UK proponent. I critiqued the idea at the time, in York, and got a pretty dusty reception.
Well done you Janet. I remember when churches evangelised by just doing normal. St Paul urges us each to be convinced in our own minds and not become craven to self-proclaimed bigwigs. Did Warren get his age silo ideas from Ron Luce (who advertised an observable mental effect), or did Luce derive it from Warren?
Compromise with dumbing down in not very indirect connection with something or other: the discrediting of the whole of the meanings of the whole of Holy Scriptures, is what has damaged everybody and everything most directly (took away from morale). The secular segment will naturally have its ups and downs; has the Church spurned the “non evangelicalism” gifts that Jesus sent?
Did the Diocese of Sheffield, which Archbishops of York disown, teach the young (as well as the old) to supplicate at nine o’clock (night prayer an excellent custom that helped uphold civilisation for thousands of years)? Is supplicating to come into fashion now at last?
Michael Brown slammed “microwave” (i e push button) ministry while Dallas Willard decried “barcode” faith which isn’t checking whether the contents are in the tin.
An aside about my last vicar. You got me looking up Warren and I’ve read some of Warren’s materials. The vicar – whose sermons were good in parts – was always wittering about “navel gazing”. I’m sure there is some such fault but when I enquired of the class of people in that place who were on the inside track, what was meant by it, I was met by a blank stare (and what groups they had, always fell apart in some sort of confusion; it tires one out, trying to join in).
I wasn’t aware there were serious concerns re. Nash’s “integrity”?
From all the reports, his ecclesiology, hence pneumatology, and all the rest. Kingdom of this world.
Just imagine, a Diocese (of any denomination) without a Youth Officer! What a queer idea!
Did Lord George Carey impose the “Archbishop’s Council” in order to enforce the “Decade of Evangelisation”?
No, the Archbishops’ Council was a child of the Turnbull report, Working as One Body, the response to the Church Commissioners ‘loss’ of £400 million in the early 1990s through over exposure to property. It never found its feet, and its performance over safeguarding has been utterly lamentable. It is to be disbanded. Thirty years on the CofE is still tying to work as one body.
There’s a culture of Christian celebrity epitomised by, for example Brain and Pilavachi, which is powerful and not easily resisted. When the valuable research X account:“Needs Light” collated a list of organisations linked to Soul Survivor’s leader, the number and scale was vast. It seems we all want the magic these guys deliver, even if it’s only as a guest speaker.
The momentum of their rapid growth in celebrity produces fawning sycophancy, rather than risk averse skepticism amongst senior church leaders. No one will stand up and resist this, right up until the moment the traumas all spill over. We need leaders with spine to prevent history repeating itself.
“Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” comes to mind. We put people like Zacharias, Pilavachi and Brain on a pedestal then get a bitter disappointment. The success, growth and numbers obsession comes at a dreadful cost.
Well done to the writer of this letter in today’s Sunday Express:-
As a Christian and from a church-attending family, I wrote
to the archbishop in 2020, 2021 and 2022 with regard to bad experiences within the Church of England. His first response said: ‘Will seek further advice on the matter.’ On the second occasion, the matter was never resolved because he stated: ‘I have no locus to intervene in this matter.’ On the third occasion a reply was sent from the Records and Correspondence Officer, stating, amongst other things:
‘Archbishop Stephen cannot get involved in any local issues outside his own Diocese of York.’
The archbishop therefore has no relevance. As acting head of the C of E he should not interfere in politics but sort out all the inconsistencies and misdemeanours in the Church. Lynn Cooper-Kay,
Blackburn
Was the third occasion you wrote to the Archbishop of York before or after he became acting Archbishop of Canterbury? If before, it was correct that he couldn’t get involved in matters outside his own province. Even in other dioceses within his archdioceses, archbishops have fewer powers than many people think. Diocesan bishops are pretty much independent and unaccountable. We really could do with an ombudsman – OfChurch?
As it is, media scrutiny is the most effective weapon we have.
Lynn Cooper-Kay of Blackburn must have had some good reasons to write to the Archbishop. Presumably she felt matters were not being addressed by the diocesan team. The Archbishop is top dog or CEO in the public eye. Why would an Archbishop not respond if someone alleges significant matters are not being addressed? The idea of a bishop being answerable only to God lies at the heart of massive Anglican Church problems. It’s a paraphrase often for ‘answerable to nobody’. No other public sector body would ever now have a complaints system where escalation of a complaint to the top was barred. Several years ago I was stunned and shocked by revelations about movement of a child-abuser priest from my former parish in the 1970’s. A highly credible senior professional detailed a story in very exact detail to me. But at the time I was naive to the real situation and queried if the past horror story, spelt out very specifically to me, could possibly be true. It sounded so far fetched for child abuse to be unaddressed by the Anglican Church. But a few years later the media reported a a compensation settlement to a victim. The story, as given to me, and described as ‘an open secret’, was fully true: hook, line and sinker. Yet the local diocese and bishop still, even after all this, avoid naming the abuser. The legal group, representing the deceased victim who received compensation, posted a brief online statement. KRWLAW posted: ‘Neely abuse: Church of Ireland Bishop ‘apologises’ for unnamed rector – ignores Belfast-Tipperary transfer’. So my question to you Is a simple one. Should the Archbishop here, have zero obligation to respond to Church members, even those asking legitimate questions about the shameful failure of Down and Dromore Diocese to publicly name a deceased child abuser priest? The Diocese shifted the priest to fresh pastures in Tipperary. The Scouts have them a lifetime ban. Are Archbishops only there to burn incense and wave Bo-Beep sticks around? The stench, arising in Down and Dromore Diocese, might demand a favourable wind and tons of incense being burnt by Archbishop John McDowell. To simply name an abuser would surely be more credible. Do you really think an Archbishop is just a figurehead?
I have no information on how the Irish Anglican church is organised, so cannot answer your question about Abp McDowell.
I do know quite a bit about about the C of E, however, and I can tell you that archbishops do not have the powers of CEOs. In particular, they have scarcely any authority over diocesan bishops.
I think all bishops, including archbishops, should be more accountable, but that’s not the situation we operate within at present.
Child abuse was hidden for almost 50 years in Down and Dromore Diocese, and the deceased abuser still allegedly cannot be named, even though they got a lifetime ban from the Boy Scouts in the 1970’s. Also, latterly, multiple ex-New Wine ministry trainees have acutely vanished in suspicious circumstances in the same Diocese. There is a plain T junction here.
We go with your ‘Abp has no jurisdiction’ policy (or delusion?), and
a diocesan or bishop’s team (or other bishop’s underlings) address evidence of maltreatment. That’s the recipe which has got us into this mess.
An Archbishop can certainly fail to react, but in the face of future sexual offences or suicides or severe trauma to more victims, they cannot then get off the hook so lightly if they were warned. And what is sexual offences or suicide or severe trauma is currently being hidden, but the archbishop has failed to make inquiries on the matters arising?
50% of UK Irish Anglican Primates have had their career’s extinguished within the last year or less. The Archbishop not being accountable, or having no responsibility-jurisdiction, looks very much like ‘skating on thin ice’.
“Certainly, I cannot recall anyone speaking out against the rave services, planetary masses and the highly idiosyncratic teaching. ”
Melvin Tinker did for one, writing in Churchman in the late 1980s. However, maybe he and it were outside of Stephen’s usual sources?
NEW WINE perhaps deserve much closer scrutiny. I did a 2015-2016 course overseen by New Wine following a selection interview with my local diocese. As a seasoned professional moving towards retirement, and also a holder of an MA in theology, I rapidly became suspicious of how adult students were treated.
It felt as if there was an obsession with prophetic ‘words of knowledge’ and ‘exercising authority’. I came to view the latter two words as sometimes meaning an aversion to following UK law, Church rules or the Bible. The academic content of the course was at best mediocre, or worse. A sloppy approach, to marking course work and/or practical portfolios, was infuriating.
Two out of five students in my group complained how they faced foul (or incredibly coarse) allegations of sexual misconduct, these being delivered in a stunningly sadistic fashion by a New Wine course tutor. Senior education professionals, a professor and a senior schoolmistress, were astonished at how the students were maltreated, and the failure of a regional New Wine leader to fairly address matters.
Nothing about Brain and the NOS fiasco really surprises me a great deal. The charismatic-evangelical faction within Anglicanism can, literally, be a law unto itself. New Wine representatives tried to coerce me and my partner into getting married. We declined and parted from our local diocese.
New Wine representatives refused to believe how we have a longstanding celibate relationship on account of my partner’s health status. I will never forget the words spoken to me by a New Wine representative, on how I was ‘living in sin’ and my presence would ‘defile a pulpit’.
The NOS story in one sense is still a live one. The fiction of Anglican BAH (bullying-abuse-harassment) being a ‘historical’ problem is a pack of lies in my estimation. Likewise, this idea of diocesan protection systems being reformed ‘into shape over the next decade or so’ is a distracting fantasy.
There are compelling arguments to report BAH directly to Archbishops, and to bypass diocesan systems. There is also a strong case for keeping the media informed about complaints to Archbishops. Left to their own devices, I form an impression of diocesan bureaucracy keeping reports of BAH (metaphorically) in a guarded basement safe to gather dust.
Let’s not ever imagine the idiotic oversight which facilitated Brain and NOS has been exorcised.
I recall that after the Greenbelt planetary mass with dancers in black bikinis, there was quite an outcry – in the Church Times at least.
While I do not disagree with any of the analysis of power misuse or emotional manipulation above, I want to say something about the longings among younger people which perhaps made us easier to exploit. I was a curate in the diocese of Sheffield in the early 1990’s and often used to go to NOS services once I’d suffered through Evensong at my curacy church. I was 30 when I was ordained so a bit older than the NOS crowd, but I longed for something that mainstream church seemed uninterested in providing. Forgetting or ignoring the hunger which drove us there only makes the young people of today more vulnerable to those who would lure them into something with abusive motivation.
Thank you Cheryl for saying this, which is so hugely important. If the church doesn’t offer anything relevant and accessible to children and young people, they will be vulnerable to narcissistic charismatic abusive leaders who do. Thank answer is not to avoid fresh expressions of worship and ministry, but to ensure more are developed with appropriate safeguards and accountability.
From the comments of Jane and James H: the paradoxes about the externals: neither need we exactly “avoid” the “ritual” of the onetime strengths (if they are to our taste) – flowers and prayer books, 1980 will do – not “showcasing” eucharists – and with the clergy in fairly plain dress – it’s especially about the spirit and the depth of all that is going on.
I like your description of rural chapels James. Hughes Oliphant Old in The Patristic Roots (Wipf and Stock 2023) shows how church authorities pre and post reformation restricted prayer.
Meanwhile as the real Ordinance of Jesus was to not despise the gifts in those smaller than ourselves (His Body), I can’t help thinking forms of eucharistolatry (wrong essentialising or wrong positivism) even in the most casual of low churchers have obscured the best that western spirituality really has to offer.
Some church authorities’ not intelligibly articulating concretely (on spiritual basis) what they “are for” and “against” culminated at worst in something inadvertently resembling bait and switch.
You’re right, Cheryl. I was a university chaplain in the 90s. Now and then a student would come to faith, and start trying out local churches. They usually came back saying, ‘There was nothing in the service that reflects the experience of God I’ve had, and I didn’t feel I could be myself.’ The comment “I didn’t feel I could be myself’ turned out, on enquiry, to mean that they might accidentally let some bad language slip and be judged for it. ‘Nothing in the service that reflects my experience of God’ was a little harder to pin down, but seemed to be partly about the lack of a sense of the numinous in the worship, and partly that nobody seemed to talk about their Christian experience, as opposed to doctrine and beliefs.
That was 30 years ago, but I don’t think the situation has improved.
I professed belief in middle life and found some congregations visited plain weird. A great mass of people in some Churches had very unusual ideas. Tradition and ritual ruled supreme.
‘Supernatural experiences’ were mocked. Deliverance and healing were questioned. Apologetics was scoffed at and derided. Evangelism had no place. There seemed to be minimal interest in evidences for design in science.
The charismatic-evangelical wing of Anglicanism can slide into faddish nonsense, along the lines of exorcising demons from door handles. But does the liberal mainstream often live comfortably with some kind of agnostic deism?
Smaller churches, with a midweek prayer meeting, and offering food-fellowship are always a great find. The school assembly stuff, with a Mike-the-microphone-Pilavachi figure, is often unedifying. But the very worst of all in my estimation, is a large fundamentalist leaning church where sexual misdemeanours and money pursuit are fine, provided they are done discretely.
I was sickened by maltreatment of people which I witnessed while doing a New Wine course, and by the way New Wine failed to address a trail of savage bullying. I saw four mature adults leave in disgust after feeling unfairly accused of sexual misconduct in very crude language.
I dread to think how much harm might come to vulnerable teenagers or young adults in some charismatic-evangelical groups with a cultic leadership installed. I have often found rural Calvinistic congregations very kind and welcoming to all.
‘longed for something that mainstream church seemed uninterested in providing’: yep. Same here. Still do probably, although I was forced by poor health to walk away some years ago, abandoning my full-on quest. The void left behind was considerable.
Be interesting to hear more from Rev Cheryl, and from anyone else who hasn’t already contributed?
Pick’n mix spirituality abounds: accept the visible Church for sacraments and rites-don’t overcommit in terms of time/£/emotion-contribute where possible to mercy missions-do evangelism yourself rather than delegate it to others-join an informal midweek prayer and lunch group. I think lots of believers keep the formal church at arm’s length, and with good reason……
A very interesting piece; thank-you. And also interesting comments. I need to reflect on both. I attended NOS on a number of occasions over several years, whilst it was at both St Thomas Crookes, and in the Rotunda at Ponds Forge. I also took an interest in other projects in the “Alternative Worship” movement, as it was termed – more varied than “Rave Worship”, with each project responding to local context.
I have a few comments for now.
I don’t think that framing NOS as a “work among young people” is necessarily the best description, or complete enough. I attended a conference organised by Greenbelt in I think 1991, titled “Your Vicar Wouldn’t Like It!” with speakers from several projects. NOS were due, but did not make it – they tended to stand apart in that way.
That standing apart was described to me at NOS services as being around the need to be separate because NOS was different from ‘normal church’ (my phrase) and concern around intense media interest (of which there was a lot). It was notably closed to detailed discussion. Later of course we learnt that there was an inner group where Brain had abused his victims, which explains much.
One reason that no one else could put on a “NOS” was that they had a number of people – 6-7 was quoted to me at one time – working full time on the service; that is something that can be done when living in community. No one else had those resources, so would more often experiment with different innovations such as Taize, celtic or artistic forms of worship. The common feature was the framing – mission to an emerging culture. Again, Cray framed that as a gradual change in society’s culture which started around 1975, and would maybe continue until perhaps 2025 – another good insight. And there was specific identification of “pick and mix” culture in the Rave scene, for example around “sampled” music; NOS used projected film clips and images as one of their features, which Robert Warren compared to “modern stained glass windows” – that latter I think in the “Nine O Clock in the Evening” chapter of his book “In the Crucible”.
Graham Cray, who was involved in the Nine ‘O Clock trust, framed it as “centred on 18-30 young adults, but open to everyone”. The reason given was that it was an experiment with emerging church, and that ‘youth’ could not bear the weight of that (any more than eg any parish can be a fully-orbed church if there is an age cut off at 18. He said than an attempt to make it a youth event would mean that it was “driven by the things that make teenagers, teenagers”. Those are good insights, whatever our view of Cray (and his later disciplining in 2024 relating to Soul Survivor for failing to pass on information).
The perception was of cross-cultural mission to an emerging culture, which is a framing following Lesslie Newbigin’s insights from a few years earlier.
The thinking of the wider movement runs alongside Brains’ abuse, and imo one important lesson for the Church is how to supervise and ensure accountability of sodalities. I think that it occurred in a semi-detached context made it more difficult to handle; and also that the abuse (according to the trial as reported in our better media) also related to offences started years before (from 1981 iirc) so Brain was able to create, intentionally or otherwise, a setup which gave him protection.
Prophetic last words: ‘Brain was able to create, intentionally or otherwise, a setup which gave him protection’.
Substitute lots of other Anglican villain names for ‘Brain’.Our episcopal system of Church government has let these characters slip in rather too often. Does the bible advise us, from the Torah onwards, lots of times, about the value-validity of ‘2-3 witnesses’?
Anglican scandals typically see a bully-abuser-harasser get away with savagery 2 or 3 times, become a law unto themselves, and do pretty much as they please for decades. The maltreatment of Anglican ministry trainees depends on lots of people keeping quiet.
Other trainees want Church careers, the wider laity want no fuss, junior clergy self-protect via silence, senior clergy want to protect a diocese or denomination, tutors or the director of ordinands dislike education programme bullying getting negative publicity.
Ideas have consequences, and an absolute need to cover up or minimise abuse exposure sometimes appears to know no limits. But for me, a KRWLAW statement on one Belfast Anglican scandal in Ireland really drives home how bad things are.
Why decline to name a deceased abuser priest almost 50 years from the time of offences, if those offences resulted in his lifetime ban from working with children from the Scouts? Archbishop John McDowell, Ireland’s current Anglican Primate, should surely issue a statement on the late Canon W G Neely.
An online newspaper article (Irish Times, Church of Ireland notes, April 27 2020, ‘New Primate’) is about Archbishop John McDowell . It refers to a ‘Canon Billy Neely’ in this sentence: ‘The new Primate is a native of East Belfast where his faith was nurtured in Mount Merrion parish where the rector was the late Canon Billy Neely’.
Are our Anglican Archbishops slow learners? Welby gone, John gone, within the last 10 months. Archbishop John McDowell should surely be commenting formally and publicly on Canon W G Neely.
One PS on the extent of Alternative Worship services.
Those represented at the 1991 Conference included:
The Late Late Service from Glasgow, which was headed up by a musician called “Andy Thornton”, who is fairly well know.
The World Service, which was put on by Greenbelt-associated people.
And one from St Aldate’s, Oxford.
A common feature was wanting to look beyond 70s soft rock in church to something less superficial.
Andy Thornton has put up a page of videos, tunes etc here, including of the Late Late Service itself – which stands up in part, and does not in other part. That’s just what I would expect of a thing which was for a moment:
https://andythornton.me.uk/the-late-late-service/
Direct link to the 20 minute video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQQbcb5YPBA
Here’s a song which does stand up: “God is with the walking wounded.” I’d use that in church today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW0ro2rMlwU
This is Andy’s description of what the Late Late Service was about – parallel to how I described NOS, but for Glasgow and doing what was possible then and there:
“The Late Late Service was an experimental Christian Community in Glasgow. In the 90s I was involved in setting it up with a great bunch of talented folk. It was a committed attempt at reinventing Christian worship for the post-modern era. We had some acclaim for creating visuals, writing music and words and setting them in an original format using references from all aspects of Christian worship over the last 2 millennia.”