A clergyman, whom I much respected but who is now sadly no longer with us, told me that he had a way of demonstrating that the Bible should never be treated as a textbook containing divinely given and inerrant facts all the way through.   To show this clearly, he would, with a study group, take the first nine chapters of Genesis and analyse them at depth.  A detailed scrutiny of these early Genesis chapters would quickly make any open-minded reader aware of an extensive list of anomalies that appear in the text.  These anomalies are there for all to see but are frequently missed by many readers who want to extract carefully selected sections but not attempt to place them in any sort of context.  Far too many have also adopted the habit of glossing over difficult sections of Scripture which do not easily support the assumption, widely presented in conservative churches, that we have a Bible totally devoid of error.  The questions that arise from taking seriously every verse of Genesis 1-9 are not only the sophisticated ones that can only be answered by a knowledge of Hebrew or years of university study.  No, the difficulties in the text which need some sort of explanation are often simple ones, as, for example, why do we have two versions of the story of Noah.  Why is there, in the text, an abrupt change of name to describe God?  Even in the first few verses of Genesis, there is one major anomaly which gets overlooked by most Christian readers.  I was reminded of this clear problem as it was read in church the other Sunday as part of the creation season.  Our common sense might well ask the question why the light, that God gives to the universe on the first day of creation, is apparently distinct from the light given by the sun and the moon to give light ‘upon the earth’.  These appear only on the fourth day.  A further question that arises for the conscientious reader of the first two chapters is the fact that the Bible contains two distinct creation accounts.  Human beings are created first in the second account in chapter two, while in the version in chapter one we have the creation of humanity right at the end of the creation process on the sixth day.

It would be easy, but perhaps not very profitable, for me to point out to my readers many other passages, even in these early passages of Genesis, that can present real problems to a reader who wants to study and understand the text as we have it in one or other of the many English translations.  Some of the explanations for the anomalies are highly technical while others are very simple.  When God is referred to as Yahweh or the Lord God (Genesis 2) this is material taken from a Hebrew source that used this name, Yahweh, to denote their God.  The sections of Genesis that speak of ’God’ (Genesis 1) are from another earlier tradition that used the name, Elohim, to refer to the supreme deity.  This describing of God using two quite different Hebrew words allows us to conclude that there is more than one source for the Hebrew versions of the creation story.  Needless to say, there is a lot more to say about these two traditions and the way they each understand the character of the divine.  These discussions are contained within countless studies, books, articles and research written by scholars over many decades of detailed study.  Few others will have the time or inclination even to begin to penetrate this material.  The theological training that is provided for clergy of the main denominations in the West should at least have given the clergy an awareness of this literature.  My experience of lay people in the pews over the years of my ministry has found that many are delighted to learn a little of the methods and findings of biblical scholarship.  Many of them are intrigued to learn about Hebrew words that are difficult to translate because their meaning has somehow been lost over the centuries.  They also warm to explanations of historical events which are illuminated by up to date archaeological or historical research.  Many, if not most, lay people are ready to move from the coercive preaching of the past that says, ‘this is what the Bible says’, and ‘this is how you must understand and follow the meaning that I, the preacher, give to it’.   In the Bible there is ambiguity and uncertainty even, but this makes it exciting and intriguing to study and discuss.

In recent years we have found a further reason to wish to wean individuals off an over-literal understanding of Scripture.   Maintaining that there is only one meaning to a verse or chapter means that there will be situations when individual clergy or preachers will claim the authority of the bible to pursue an agenda of their own making.  Thus, they will quote passages from Scripture to subordinate women or persecute homosexuals.  They will also, by never addressing the issue, give the impression that they do not think that there is anything repulsive about genocide, the mass killing of enemies and the rape of the opponents’ womenfolk.  A detailed reading of the Hebrew Bible can also be used to justify a range of other outrageous behaviours with the justification that it is ‘biblical’.  A recent book by Adrian Thatcher explores the theme of an abusive theology and how it is to be found in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.   A theological scholar like him cannot simply pretend that such difficult passages do not exist.  Thatcher’s book, Ending Abusive Theologies, is an attempt to understand what is being said about a God who appears, on occasion, to behave in a fickle, arbitrary and even immoral way.   The task is urgent because, to take but one notorious example, the abusive career of John Smyth was made possible by Smyth’s own distorted understanding of the place of pain and suffering as being part of the Christian route to holiness.  His understanding of the atonement as being a literal event involving divine anger against a child, created a  toxic, even dangerous, form of teaching.  The psychological domination he exerted over his victims was made possible by using the methods of biblical interpretation that he had learnt from those who taught him within the conservative evangelical traditions of the Church of England. 

This incontrovertible fact is that Smyth used Scripture, or his fundamentalist version of Scriptural interpretation, to achieve his dominance over his victims and justify his depraved actions.  This is a point that has never been fully owned up to by the Church.  The question that arises was whether this teaching was ever a legitimate reading of Scripture or whether Smyth was simply misusing the Bible text for his own deviant purposes.  Thatcher’s book takes the straightforward meaning of the biblical text and its insights seriously, so that he can see that actions of God directed at humankind and recorded in the Bible are, in fact, sometimes abusive, violent and cruel.  If we regard the avoidance of harm to individuals as being a core universal principle of ethical behaviour, it can be shown that this standard is not always maintained in the recorded actions of the God of the Bible.  Violence and abusive acts are found throughout Scripture, and some of these are ascribed to God or those claiming to follow him.  Also, rape culture or gender-based violence is commonly encountered in the Old Testament.  It is not surprising if women may find themselves feeing unsafe in a culture that at times appears to glorify misogyny and male dominance.

It is of course possible to want to read Scripture in a way that ignores the toxic and repudiates the violence conducted in God’s name, but this cannot always happen because, as Thatcher puts it, there is ‘excessive veneration of the biblical text in the churches’.  Such veneration makes it difficult for those conservatives wedded to this idea of inerrancy ever to contemplate the notion that some passages, which speak of God commanding abhorrent actions, might in fact be wrong or misguided.  The passage in Isaiah which speaks about the thoughts of God being ‘not your thoughts’ is one that sometimes allows or excuses blatantly cruel and malicious actions perpetrated by human beings because they are believed to represent the inscrutable will of God.  At this very moment the people of the West Bank are being persecuted, harassed and killed because this territory in Scripture was given by God to the Jewish nation.  Morality and the actual welfare of human beings is thus made subservient to the words ascribed to God, a God who appears in some settings and contexts to have abandoned the principles of justice and goodness.

The notion of ‘bad theology’ is one that will be disturbing and shocking to those who follow the principle of sola scriptura.  How can we in any way loosen our complete dependency on Scripture?  How else would we know what to believe or how to follow God’s will?   But, as Thatcher points out, the real core of the Christian biblical revelation is found, not in verbal statements, but in the person of Jesus.  He sums up this point when he says: ‘the self-communication of God is personal not propositional, a human being, not a book.’   The meat of his book is to explore afresh the insights of Scripture on this theme, to find a post-abusive theology and a post-abusive reading of Scripture while introducing the reader to some contemporary modern writers.  This basic Christian message is that, in Jesus, the creator God has chosen to make himself known and accessible to his creation.  Summarising this rich material is impossible without doing it an injustice, but I do commend the book to my readers.   They can then follow for themselves Thatcher’s fascinating journey of discovery to find again a God of love.  My purpose for writing an appreciation of this book is because it is the best I have encountered for helping us, the readers, to negotiate the conundrum of having a book possessing toxic content, which also points us to a God who invites to know him and be joined with him for all eternity.  To be a Christian believer does not make it inevitable that we must become biblical literalists.   I hope that some of my readers will buy the book to follow Thatcher’s remarkable exploration to see afresh what Christians understand when they say that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’.

Ending Abusive Theologies.  Beginning Again with Love, Adrian Thatcher, SCM Press 2026

 by Donald Payne 

My mother has always enjoyed having a hard copy of the Daily Telegraph newspaper delivered to her home. When visiting her from overseas in December 2019, I picked up the paper one morning to see a front-page article detailing allegations of inappropriate behaviour by the prominent Evangelical church leader, Jonathan Fletcher. While I was vaguely aware of Jonathan Fletcher, what captured my attention was a photograph of another man who seemed more familiar. This photo of John Smyth spoke to the memory of someone I had not thought about for many years.

I attended my first Iwerne camp, aged 15, in the summer of 1981. One of my closest friends from school was going and had invited me. I was interested in the church, having recently been confirmed as an Anglican, as was the conventional thing to do at the boarding school I went to. When offered the chance to spend ten days away from home during the summer holidays, with the promise of sport every day and an opportunity to learn more about Christianity, I was curious and willing.

The camp was fun. I played a lot of football and cricket, everyone was friendly and I enjoyed the bible teachings. As was standard practice towards the end of the camp, I accepted Jesus as my saviour and was born again. I don’t remember meeting Jonathan Fletcher. I do remember his brother, David, and did not warm to him. Over the last few days of the camp, my group was introduced to another man, who was spoken about with a combination of reverence and awe. This was John Smyth – charming, charismatic, warm and hugely likable. Someone who immediately made you feel special. He gave a talk one evening. While I do not recall the details, I do remember that it was captivating. When the camp was over, we took a minibus from Iwerne to a meeting point, where our parents were to pick us up. For some reason, our particular group took a detour to John Smyth’s house, before heading back to our own homes. At the time it felt like something of a reward. I enjoyed the warmth and hospitality, and the smug feeling that our group had been chosen for an opportunity that was not afforded to everybody. We were special.

The following summer I attended Iwerne again. I had encouraged another of my close friends to attend. Two things stand out about this second visit. One was that the novelty and the excitement that I had experienced the year before began to diminish. In the year between the camps, I had spent time exploring more about Christianity with one of my school chaplains. To my initial dismay, he did not share my obvious excitement surrounding the Iwerne experience. He introduced me to a number of Christian authors, two of whom, the Anglican priest, Martin Israel, and the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, quickly became my favourites. Looking back, it is no surprise that my attempt to celebrate my enthusiasm for these two particular writers did not go down as well as I expected with the Iwerne leaders.

The other striking memory from that second camp was the absence of John Smyth. We were told that he was very ill and therefore unable to attend that summer. We expressed our concern and sent our love and best wishes to his family. Undoubtedly, we would have prayed for him. As before, the camp was fun. It was summer, we were outdoors and there was a lot of sport. There was little further discussion about John Smyth.

A year later, in the summer of 1983, having done my ‘A’ levels, I was back at Iwerne again. I am not quite sure why I went for a third time. It might have been a way of using up time during a long summer holiday. Having been away at boarding school since the age of seven, I had no close friends who lived near me, so the prospect of two weeks away with people that I still got on with continued to hold some attraction. I had deepened my exploration of Martin Israel and Thomas Merton and had begun to experiment with mantra meditation as a form of prayer (popularised by John Main). However, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the views and practices of other Christian writers had no place within the particular form of theology promoted at Iwerne. During that third camp, my assigned mentor initiated a stern conversation with me about the heretical views that I was always keen to discuss. ‘It makes me question,’ he asked, ‘whether you really have been born again’. The atmosphere of warmth and friendship that I had experienced during my first camp had now noticeably cooled.

Fast forward to that December morning in my mother’s kitchen, seeing John Smyth‘s photograph in the paper. On reading the article, a multitude of memories began to resurface. I then embarked on an exhaustive and obsessive troll through the internet, discovering details of a Channel 4 documentary, the Rushton report, Bleeding for Jesus, Surviving Church and much more. I experienced surprise, disbelief and anger. And yet, I was not surprised. This felt familiar, recognisable. It was also accompanied by a huge sense of relief.

I have continued to follow the story although, more than forty years on, the world now makes more sense to me without God. I maintain a soft spot for Thomas Merton and have, more recently, immersed myself in the music and musings of Nick Cave. And yet I remain fascinated by this episode in my life. The trick that David Fletcher and his colleagues managed to play on us for so long was to target a group of vulnerable, impressionable young men, who had spent many years spent living in total institutions, away from family and all things familiar. The Iwerne hierarchy sold us a vision and a solution to our anxieties. They offered us meaning and, providing we embraced the whole package, a wonderful, liberating experience. Wonderful, that is, until we began to ask questions, to display curiosity and to wonder aloud about the occasional inconsistency in the teaching; until we began to express doubt. Initially, doubt was praised and encouraged. In the Iwerne playbook, transient doubt was a necessary part of the process towards faith. However, doubt that persisted was evidence of a fault – not in the teaching but in the boy. The kindness and encouragement that was experienced in abundance early on continued to be on offer, providing we accepted the message wholeheartedly. But if not, the mood began to change. There could be no discussion about the authenticity and validity of the message; no question that the teaching might not hold up to analysis. This was biblical teaching and the bible is God’s word. For those sinners who, like me, expressed ongoing curiosity and doubt, the fault was ours. At that point, the warmth and fellowship disappeared and was replaced, abruptly, with cold, callous rejection. That camp in 1983 was my last.

This cruel version of the Christian message allows flawed men to flourish. It provides a perfect environment for a charming, charismatic, monstrous man, one who makes you feel special, to hide in plain sight. I am intrigued by the knowledge that there are people, with whom I grew up and knew well in my adolescence, who continue to follow these teachings. There are others who do not just follow the teachings but have made them the source of their livelihood. And it is not just within the Evangelical world that such cruelty lurks. I think of Bishop Peter Ball, who attended services in the chapel at my school, preaching on Sundays and officiating at confirmation. A man who was held up to us as an example of kindness, humility and obedience. There but for the grace of God, go I.

by Janet Fife

Have you ever been told by a Christian leader that all your problems –
depression, mental illness, addiction – were due to your own sin? Have you
ever told a pastor of your abusive childhood or marriage, only to be told you
need to repent? Have you gone to a vicar for counselling, only to have a
Bible passage read to you, and informed that the solution is for you to put
those verses into practice in your own life? If so, chances are your leader has
been influenced by Jay E. Adams and what he termed nouthetic counselling
(from the Greek noutheteo, to admonish).

Adams (30 January, 1929 – 14 November 2020) was an American Reformed
theologian and pastor. His PhD was in effective communication and
preaching and he taught homiletics (the study of preaching) part-time at the
reputable conservative Westminster Theological Seminary. Eventually,
however, he was asked to teach pastoral counselling – although he seems to
have had little or no background in psychology or psychiatry. Adams was a
biblical theologian, so he developed his own method of counselling based on
expounding the Bible: if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, ‘Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and
like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’ (Jer .23:29). When the Bible is
used as a hammer on the vulnerable, the results can be further damage.
Adams was convinced that secular psychology and psychiatry undermined
Christianity. In 1970 Adams’ book Competent to Counsel was published, in
which he propounded a counselling method based on confrontation and
rebuke employing Bible passages. The book became enduringly popular and
has been used in theological training; generations of clergy and church
leaders have based their pastoral practice on it. Dozens of other books
followed, but Competent to Counsel is the one for which Adams is best
known. It might be thought that a book published in 1970 would be no
longer relevant, but Adams also founded the National Association of
Nouthetic Counselors (now the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors),
which still trains pastors in Adams’ techniques. It is a global operation,
based on the convictions that ‘God’s Word is sufficient, and that all believers
can be equipped to counsel one another’ (https://biblicalcounseling.com/).
There are a further three organisations based on the same theories and
practice. They offer certification in biblical counselling, but these counsellors
need not have any clinical training or awareness at all. They are not licensed
or certified to offer any kind of psychotherapy, and are not qualified to
diagnose or treat mental illness or trauma.

Adams questioned the very concept of mental illness; alcoholism,
depression, neurosis, psychosis, and homosexuality were all classed as sin.
The people he met in psychiatric hospitals ‘were there because of their
unforgiven and unaltered sinful behavior’. For him the purpose of counselling
was not to help the counsellee attain self-realisation, but to change their
personality. This was achieved by confronting the person with their sin: ‘the
more directive I became…the more people were helped. Spelling out and
getting commitments to biblical patterns of behavior after an
acknowledgement of and repentance for sin seemed to bring relief and
results.’

Larry Crabb, another proponent of ‘biblical counselling’, wrote in the
foreword to a book for sexual abuse survivors that a biblical approach to
counselling
‘must insist that our sinfulness, not how we’ve been sinned against,
is our biggest problem; that forgiveness, not wholeness, is our
greatest need; that repentance, not insight, is the dynamic in all real
change.’

As a sexual abuse survivor I’ve been on the receiving end of this approach
and it definitely did not bring either relief or results. In fact, it increased my
sense of unworthiness and shame and of my distance from God and other
people. Worse, it left me vulnerable to exploitation and abuse from others,
since it was hard to believe I deserved any better.

Rosemary Green, wife of the late Anglican evangelist Michael Green, was a
proponent of what she called ‘prayer counselling’ – nouthetic counselling
combined with ‘inner healing’ and deliverance ministry. In her 1991 book
God’s Catalyst Green describes her technique:
‘It is sometimes good to ask [the client] whether he knows any part
of Scripture he thinks is relevant. More often you will choose it, find
it while he is still talking, and pass the Bible to him…Then ask him
to read it aloud…One day [a client] read aloud some verses I
suggested from Hebrews chapter 12, then promptly slammed the
Bible shut. I asked her to open it again. She refused. I told her that
if she was not willing to see what God might be wanting to say to
her, there was nothing I could do to help her. I then left the room,
telling her she could find me in the kitchen if she wanted.’
The Greens spent years teaching this technique to ordinands and clergy in
the UK and Canada.

What exactly is wrong with this counselling approach?
Firstly, it assumes that the same answer will solve all human problems:
repent of your sin. This is like an A&E doctor treating every patient, no matter
what their injury or illness, by telling them their diet is to blame and ordering
them to change it, without offering further treatment. Or a police detective
telling every crime victim their driving is at fault. Most of us could improve
our diet and most have committed a traffic violation at some time, but that is
not necessarily at the root of our present dilemma. Many charismatic
practitioners, such as Green, will also assume that if the client doesn’t
respond ‘well’, in the counsellor’s terms, they must need deliverance
ministry. This shows a remarkable ignorance of psychological processes,
and is potentially dangerous in the case of people who are traumatised or
mentally unstable.

Second, biblical counselling is wrong because it fails pay attention to the
person who is seeking help. A pastor who has made up his/her mind at the
outset that the root problem must be sin isn’t listening. A counsellor who
riffles through the Bible while their client is still speaking isn’t listening.
Worse, they are making it very clear they aren’t listening. And it is the
listening itself which is healing. When we engage in deep listening to another
person we are making space for them – and that space is where God works
and they can begin to become whole. It is not for nothing that the name
Jesus can be translated ‘the one who makes space for’. Abuse of all kinds
overrides our personal boundaries and stunts the growth of our psyche.
Growth can only be resumed when those boundaries are restored and
maintained, and the person is free to explore who they really are when they
are not being limited or dictated to. A counsellor who imposes their own
choice of scripture on the counsellee, together with its interpretation and
application, is merely compounding the harm done by previous abuses.
Third, biblical counselling removes agency from the client and locates all the
power with the counsellor. I suspect this is a large part of the appeal for
many practitioners; it makes the pastor feel powerful and avoids the
vulnerability of opening up to someone else’s pain and sitting with them in
the darkness. It’s much easier to riffle through your Bible looking for a
favourite passage of your own, than to set your own agenda aside and really
hear someone else’s dilemma or anguish. Listening may raise questions that
challenge the counsellor’s own faith, and it will certainly entail sharing the
burden of the one who has come to us. But sharing each other’s burdens is
exactly what we are called to do: and in doing it we are not only lightening
the burden for them; we are opening ourselves to having our spiritual
horizons widened.

Those who have had their agency curtailed by upbringing, circumstances,
social frameworks, or the actions of others need to have that agency
restored if they are to experience full liberation in Christ. It is the counsellor’s
task to respect the client’s autonomy and dignity and give them real choices,
not to force on them a point of view, a presupposition of sin, or a given Bible
interpretation.

Fourth, ‘biblical’ counselling is not really biblical at all. It is certainly not the
pattern I see in Jesus’ dealings with those who came to him for help or
healing. The most obvious feature of those encounters is that Jesus did not
have one technique which he applied to everyone: each person was an
individual who received individual treatment. Notably, he seldom spoke to
those in need about their sin – he saved that for the wealthy, the powerful,
and those who were confident of their own righteousness. When the
disciples asked about a blind man, ‘Who sinned, this man or his parents, that
he was born blind?,’ Jesus replied, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned;
he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him’ (Jn 9:2-3).
Jesus often healed people without mentioning sin or repentance at all;
sometimes he simply told people their sins were forgiven without either he or
they needing to voice what those sins were. Sometimes he asked people
what they wanted of him, or whether they wanted to be healed. Sometimes
he challenged people in order to bring out their faith. But he did not say, ‘You
must admit to your sins before I will heal you.’ He explicitly refused to
condemn the woman caught in adultery, though the gospels do not record
any expression of penitence on her part. I doubt if he would have been so
popular down at the tavern with tax collectors and sinners, if he had insisted
on pressing all those outcasts to admit to their sins.

When Jesus spoke of his purpose on earth he didn’t speak solely in terms of
forgiveness of sin. His mission statement in Lk 4:16-21 does not refer to sin
at all:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Significantly, the Hebrew and Greek words translated ‘salvation’ denote
safety, deliverance from danger, and freedom from restriction. Sin is only one
of the things that restrict us. Fear, shame, despair, self-loathing, poor
decision-making, and the actions of others hamper us; these and
psychological limitations such as the inability to set boundaries or trust one’s
own perceptions are properly a part of the work of salvation. They are
therefore the proper work of all pastors – including those not ordained. It’s no
accident that Christian movements of spiritual renewal have so often resulted
in action to right wrongs and further the well-being of others. From ancient
Rome to early medieval Britain, Christians bought slaves in order to set them
free. In the 18th and 19th centuries Christians in Britain and the USA
campaigned against the slave trade; in the 20th and 21st centuries
Christians have worked for racial integration and ecumenical harmony.
Victorian Christians worked for better conditions in factories, the end of child
labour, and prison reform. The list is endless: as sadly is also the list of those
claiming to follow Christ who have worked against all these endeavours to
set people free.

Many of these people mean well, but they have oversimplified the gospel
message. They believe that the main – or even the only – thing that
Christianity has to offer is the forgiveness of sins, and (often) that forgiveness
can only be obtained after a suitable period in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus
did preach the need for repentance (in Greek metanoia). But metanoia means
a change of direction, not necessarily a guilt trip. For the vulnerable and
downtrodden; for those who believe they are unloveable, worthless, or bad,
metanoia involves an acknowledgment that they are made in the image of
God, and there is much in them that is good. For those who are comfortable,
metanoia means bettering the conditions of those in need, and sitting with
the pain of those in darkness. Repentance means curbing our urge to offer
quick and easy solutions, saying there is peace where there is no peace.

For some reason, the fictional character of Violet Elizabeth Bott has inserted herself into my mind when I was considering the state of power dynamics within some parishes in Britain.  For those who have not been reared on the antics of the William books by Richmal Crompton, from the 40s and 50s, Violet was a subsidiary character who was kept firmly on the outside of the boy-only group of William Brown and his friends.  Although Violet was usually excluded from the male activities of the boy gang, she did possess one weapon which allowed her a small part in some of the escapades.  She had a mantra which she was able to use every time she sought inclusion into the male world.  She threatened the boys with the memorable words ‘I will scream and scream till I am sick. I can.’  The threat of being forced to listen to her screams produced a small amount of compromise on the part of the boys, but I cannot remember how this worked in practice as I no longer have any of these books.  No doubt an adult reading Violet’s words might well comment that this was the action of a woman without power trying to take power for herself when being denied any part in the world dominated by the boys. 

From thinking about Violet, I went on to recognise that there is another example of powerlessness using screaming in order to get noticed.  The classic supermarket tantrum is an experience that most parents have had to negotiate when their child is around 3 years of age and is wheeled round the local Sainsburys.  Watching his or her mother removing highly coloured packets and place them in a trolley is an action that looks rather fun, especially when the child sees that there are also aisles full of sweets and biscuits.    The classic supermarket tantrum begins when the child is wheeled quickly past the biscuit aisle without stopping and the small person makes their protest.  The battle that begins at this point is not only between the child and his/her mother, but it also rages inside the mother’s head.  Should she turn back and include the desired item, thus pacifying the child?  Alternatively, should she explain to the child how there are limits to the objects taken that form part of the weekly shop?

Supermarket tantrums and Violet’s attempted manipulations are both examples of attempts to exercise control by the use of emotion.  Sometimes the emotion is gentle or understated, like a smile aimed at persuading someone to agree with us in a meeting.  On other occasions the emotion demonstrated is disturbing or excessive, as in an outburst of anger or tears.   But, in each case, there is a fundamental common factor.   The expression of emotion is intended to make another person act in a particular way.  A smile may be a means of persuading us that being part of a majority view is much more comfortable than being on the outside.  Taking the opposite point of view to a leader who is skilled at emotional manipulation is, by contrast, highly awkward and uncomfortable.  Making a principled stand against a proposal in a meeting is far more difficult to follow through when we are expecting that the proposer will display a strong emotional reaction.  The sheer power of that reaction can be deeply traumatising as well as creating an atmosphere of real fear. Violet’s screams or the toddler’s meltdown in the supermarket are small fry compared with a key committee member not getting his/her own way.  Sometimes merely the threat of an emotional outburst is able to bring a disagreeing party to heel.  Even those not party to the divided decision can feel deeply shocked and wounded by the outburst.

There is nothing unusual in seeing strong emotions erupt in organisational life.  In most cases tempers and passions subside and peace is found through some sort of compromise.  The problem arises when an individual, possibly a leader or someone else in some sort of authority, becomes adept at the skills needed to manipulate and control a meeting or an entire organisation through the skilful use of what we are describing as ‘tantrum power’.  On the surface everything seems smooth but there is in the dynamic of the meeting a subtle threat that if things do not go in a certain way, there will be an emotional outburst of some kind.  Everyone wants to avoid a distressing ‘scene’ which is why tantrum power is so effective in an organisation.  It may be the Vicar who tells his PCC that no one is allowed to follow any path but the one he/she suggests.  To challenge his/her power will unleash anger on a massive scale.  Power, in other words, is being exercised by emotional blackmail and the threat of violent, even terrifying, volcanic eruptions.  If the congregation gets used to submitting to the threat of violent or frightening outbursts on the part of the one in charge, there will always be a miasma of genuine fear in that congregation.  This will stifle growth and real flourishing.  When the dynamic of surrender to the one who exercises tantrum power becomes stabilised, and an authoritarian peace is allowed to prevail in that congregation, things may appear to be peaceful and calm.  It may be difficult for an archdeacon or a bishop to get the measure of the true dynamics of that particular church as free exchange of opinion and the possibility of new ideas being explored have ceased to take place.  Everyone has got used to the faux stability of a church that follows a volatile narcissist in charge who cannot tolerate anyone else having ideas or opinions.

Over the years I have become privy to unfortunate dynamics in a number of parishes and congregations.  Many of them are victims of what I have described as tantrum power, the threat of unleashing fear-inducing outbursts by someone in the church.  It is of course not only vicars who exercise such power.  Prominent laypeople can hold entire congregations under their control by the same implied threat of violent outbursts of destructive anger.  Organists can be the centre of tantrum power, as can a churchwarden or Reader.  In a recent case of an unhappy congregation who were subject to the authoritarian whims of a Vicar and churchwarden, the fear miasma spread beyond the church itself.  Attempts by the local archdeacon to get the measure of the congregational unhappiness were stalled by the ability of the church leaders to intimidate these visiting senior clergy, by making it clear that those officially holding oversight had no power to change the dynamic of their church.  The semi-autonomous role of a Vicar has, in the last resort, a great deal of power to intimidate archdeacons and even bishops who try to intervene in parish disputes.  Many simply give up the struggle.  Tantrum power seems to win the day, and congregations are left to their long-lasting disruption and unhappiness.  The lay people in this case had researched the possibility of bringing in the police to intervene but having a fierce temper and the ability to spread slander is not against the law of the country.

Tantrum power, or emotional manipulation within a church congregation is a real cause of unhappiness in many places.  It also exists within families, committees and organisations of every kind.  Quite often it exists as a threat rather than as an actuality.  It is however something that needs to be identified and named so that it can be dealt with.  My experience of the Church of England suggests that far too many individuals live in a situation of genuine fear of emotional outbursts from some of the individuals they work with.  Unlike the business world where relationships are defined and there is normally a clear code of behaviour being enforced by HR officials, the Church has less ability to ensure that members behave in a consistently correct manner.  Without an enforceable code of conduct which can be policed, there are many situations in church life where things can go badly wrong.  At present, access to a just hearing when something goes badly awry, is a hit and miss affair and depends almost entirely on the diocese you happen to find yourself in.  Some dioceses have excellent fearless archdeacons and employ professional safeguarding personnel who take a pride in delivering a first-class service.  Other dioceses have safeguarding officials who need to be important and enjoy the trappings of authority and power.  Those who cross their path may be further humiliated and pushed down, finding their dignity battered and almost destroyed.

Safeguarding in the Church should be about making sure that power at every level is used responsibly and aimed at creating healthy flourishing spiritual institutions.  Protecting the weak and the vulnerable is only one part of the work.  A further task is to understand and critique the power structures of the church.  The power I have been discussing in this blog is different from most of the other forms which are built into the structure of the institution.  I have invited my reader to be alert to invisible power that exists in emotional manipulation, what I call tantrum power.  Tantrum power has the potential for harm in the Church as much as many other forms.  Its very invisibility makes it perhaps the most dangerous.

The Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) of the Church of England was in action this month, examining the past actions of two senior Anglican clergy.  These were the investigations and findings in the cases of Canon Andrew Cornes and Bishop Paul Butler.  In the case of Paul Butler, there has been an admission of misconduct, though we have not so far been provided with the details of the complaint against him.  Without access to new information, my reactions to his case, if any, will have to be held back for a future occasion. The Cornes judgement has been in the public domain for a week or two and was delivered after an examination of an alleged failure on his part back in 1982.  The complaint against him was in relation to a case of serious professional neglect. This involved his failure to take appropriate action after having information disclosed to him about the behaviour of the notorious abuser, John Smyth.  Cornes was then a curate at the important London parish of All Souls Langham Place.  He had always been part of the Iwerne network but was never a major player. In his book on the Iwerne network, Bleeding for Jesus, Andrew Graystone only mentions Cornes once. Nevertheless, in Makin’s account, Cornes’ lapse was found to be a significant one.  Having received this first-hand information about Smyth’s behaviour from one of his victims, Cornes then failed to take any appropriate action.  He believed that the information he had received was being handled by someone else.  We could describe Cornes’ behaviour, at the very least, as neglectful of the responsibility required of a priest to care for a vulnerable person.  In his defence it was argued that modern safeguarding priorities, structures and concerns were not in operation 44 years ago.  For this reason, it was argued, Cornes, in his early 30s, could not have been expected to report to anyone the information shared with him by the Smyth victim.  The disciplinary tribunal considered this defence but concluded that his professional obligation to care for those who revealed such a disclosure, would have required him to act on this information, thus helping to protect other potential victims from harm.  While he may have shared something of what he knew, these efforts were not followed up.  This neglect allowed the abuse to continue.

I do not know Cornes and our paths have never crossed.  I do however feel a connection with him and his story, since he is only a few years younger than me and the reported events took place in 1982, at a time when I was finding my clerical feet as a young incumbent near Hereford.  Cornes’ clerical professional path has followed a very different pattern to mine and his career has been one of some distinction.   I had begun an independent role as an incumbent in 1979.  This followed two curacies in the Canterbury diocese and a self-funded time of research for two years.  Attaining this post of sole responsibility brought me to a place of cherished freedom and independence, with the opportunity to create something new.   Cornes’ professional trajectory went in a very different direction.  Instead of moving from a team situation to one where he had sole charge, Cornes opted, after his first curacy, to serve a nine year second curacy at the high profile conservative evangelical parish of All Souls Langham Place.  This is one of the London parishes which employ numerous curates.  This pattern of employing a dozen or more clergy creates a very different parochial model to the traditional one.  Within this system, ambitious conservative clergy are given the opportunity to polish their theological and preaching credentials so that they come to the notice of the ‘right’ people, those who employ patronage power within the conservative network. The movers and shakers within that world would see you and eventually you would come to occupy one of the ‘plum’ livings around the country that identify with the All Souls/St Ebbes Oxford style of Evangelicalism.  The churches of this ilk, typically in university cities, are deeply involved with the ministry to students.  The Christian Union network looks to this powerful cluster of churches right across the country to cooperate with its efforts of evangelism.  Working with these churches, there is an active pattern of study groups, prayer teams and numerous other activities that make membership a demanding commitment. 

The tribunal declared that Cornes’ failure to report about Smyth’s behaviour made him guilty of a serious lapse of professional behaviour, even judging the episode by the standards of 1982.  This was long before safeguarding was a ‘thing’ in the Church.  I do not intend to repeat all the arguments that led up to this judgement, apart from noting that they seem eminently reasonable.  Having lived through the period of the early 80s as an incumbent I have tried to think what I would have done faced with the same situation as Cornes.  I believe that in 1982, also in my 30s, and three years into my first incumbency I would never have attempted to deal with such a disclosure alone.  I would have consulted the oldest and wisest priest in the Deanery (who was acting as an unofficial mentor) and sought his advice.  I suspect that he would have directed me, or come with me, to the Archdeacon or suffragan bishop.  Cornes’ failure to do something similar was, I believe, the result of his training and early ministry having placed him in what was effectively a cultic institution.  There are many similarities between the Iwerne network and a full-blown cult.  Each followed a tightly defined version of Christian  orthodoxy which was set out by controlling leaders.  Iwerne’s potential for good was deeply compromised by the behaviour of Smyth and both the Fletcher brothers.  Certainly, the combined capacity to mediate harm by the three, John Smyth, Jonathan F. and David F. was massive, even though many still claim to be grateful for their teaching and ministry.  Cornes had been, like many other alumni of Iwerne, faithfully following the teaching of his mentors while aspiring to eventual leadership in the network.  At this early stage of his life, he would still have been integrated into the black/white cultic thinking of Bash and his followers.  Control by mentors to ensure correct thinking and beliefs would have been part of the quasi-cultic experience.  Are any of us surprised that an intelligent young Christian leader, under these influences, would have failed to take an independent stand when receiving a disclosure of abuse by a cult leader of such charisma and charm?   Independence of thought, especially over moral issues, was not going to be well developed in a young Iwerne alumnus such as Cornes, even in his early thirties.  My own experience of meeting members of that conservative culture during that period was to find myself encountering, not an individual personal appropriation of the Christian faith, but meeting the confident and fluent belief system of a ‘sound’ adherent.  In the immortal words of Adrian Plass, the young Cornes would likely still have been still turning to a metaphorical leader to discover what ‘we think’.  He would have found it quite hard to reconcile two dissonant realities.  There was on the one side the heroic gospel preacher (Smyth) whose gifts of oratory had inspired and encouraged young men like him over many summer camps.  Then there were reports of the same admired individual committing barbaric actions against dozens of men and boys.  One way to process such unpalatable information was to minimise and supress it.  That is what Cornes seems to have done.

 The second cultic aspect of Iwerne theology and culture that seems to be relevant in this situation is its tribal nature.  I have written about the collective mindset carried over from the English public school system and which finds a home in the Iwerne camps and in certain parts of the Church.  The values of loyalty to the team and not letting the side down were extremely important in all the schools that recruited for Iwerne.  For Cornes, there was likely a strong loyalty to this tribe he had grown up with through school, university Christian Unions, theological college and the All Souls network.  All these encounters had made him an honoured and important member of the evangelical tribe.  In this early stage of his life, he would, we have suggested, still have been operating according to the simplistic codes of thinking and morality taught by Bash and his successors to countless generations of young men of his background.  There would have been strong resistance to doing anything or thinking anything that might have been considered disloyalty to this tribe. In summary we seem to be describing the behaviour of a young man enmeshed into a state of dependency and immaturity by the Iwerne cult.    No doubt the post-cult mature Andrew Cornes eventually appeared, having escaped from the spiritual constrictions of his youth. I am confident that the theological method of Bash, which was to apply a favourite bible quote to deal with every problem, would eventually have been set aside.  Iwerne had never encouraged theological reflection, but the needs of ministry demanded it.

Andrew Cornes is, some would think unfairly, being held to account for what he did not, and perhaps could not, do 44 years ago.  He was, it seems, faced with a moral dilemma which the received theology of Iwerne was unable to resolve.  The wider intellectual and spiritual resources of the Christian faith, I would argue, had been denied him by his narrow restricted cultic Christian education and so he failed to make the right call.  By allowing John Smyth, David Fletcher and his brother Jonathan to act as mentors, those within the Iwerne experience were hardly likely to promote wholesome moral teaching among their hearers. Is it surprising the moral teaching imbibed by Cornes as a young man, was off-centre, to say the least?   The finding of the tribunal against Cornes may be quite simply a judgement, not against him personally, but against what many would see to be a morally compromised version of Christianity.  Even now Conservative Evangelical teaching is being allowed to have enormous power in our universities and other institutions where young people are being taught the faith.  In some respects, the black-white thinking of conservative theology is not just wrong – it is often actually traumatising and dangerous to those who hear it. 

At the end of this tribunal process we have a wounded elderly priest who has, no doubt, given of himself to the Church faithfully and loyally over many years.  I am certain that, with his evident gifts, he has been a blessing to many.   The conclusion of the Tribunal has not made a finding against his personal morality which, no doubt, is excellent.  What it has done is, indirectly, to expose the spiritual dangers of poor Christian teaching given by men (in the conservative tradition) who are seduced by the gratifications of power and influence over others.  The procession of leading conservative men who have now been revealed as corrupt, abusive and self-serving is alarming to any who want the Church to be a force for good in our society.  Andrew Cornes, is not, and never has been, as far as I know one, of those who directly harms others.  He is, or has been, for the reasons we have started to explore, in some sense, himself a victim or survivor of an abusive cultic manifestation of Christianity.   

by Anon

The Odyssey (2026) is an epic action-adventure movie written and directed by Christopher Nolan adapted from Homer’s ancient Greek poem. If you haven’t seen the film, I recommend it. If you haven’t read the book, I also recommend it. The Odyssey consists of 24 books and was written down during in the 7th century BC, so committed to parchment in the same kind of era as much of the Old Testament. Both The Odyssey and the Old Testament existed in oral form for many centuries before this. Both share chequered histories of contested versions, with the same stories adapted for different contexts and cultures. (See Bruce Louden, Greek Myth and the Bible, 2019).

Nolan’s film is widely regarded as an enormous feat as much as it is entertaining. True, purists snipe that the film is not faithful to Homer’s original and takes liberties. That may be so, but it rather misses the point. These stories were epic sagas that were vehicles for moral instruction, cautionary tales, and freighted with warnings about the dangers of hubris, irony biting back, the inevitability of betrayals, and the virtues of faithfulness, patience and perseverance.

But suppose for a moment we see The Odyssey as a vehicle for ecclesial parables? This is neither strange nor original. In Gods of Management (1978), Charles Handy examined managerial and organisational cultures through four ancient deities: Zeus (dominance and monarchy), Apollo (communication and order), Athena (cooperation and practicality), and Dionysus (creativity and individualism). Handy highlighted the tension between organisational imperatives (Zeus and Apollo) and individual imperatives (Athena and Dionysus), which cannot be fully resolved. He argued that treating people as individuals instead of mere resources is crucial.

In typical parish settings, cultures may reflect Athena and Dionysus, but many Protestant ecclesial hierarchies tend to be influenced by Zeus and Apollo. This situation will lead to growing dissonance. When self-identified leaders and their compliant followers stop engaging, what happens? Bishops and senior pastors may hold their titles but lack true power, acting like modern versions of Zeus or Apollo while increasingly being ignored.

Simon Western, in Leadership: A Critical Text (2018), argues that “leaders are authentically transformational… they increase awareness of what is right, good, important, and beautiful.” Western identified three primary forms of leadership discourse in the twentieth century: Controller, Therapist, and Messiah, with a fourth suggested. Controller discourse focuses on efficiency and social management, rooted in early twentieth-century scientific rationalism. In contrast, Therapist discourse emphasises personal growth and well-being.

The latter part of the 20^th century saw the rise of the fourth type of leadership, namely Heroic-Messiah discourse, which promotes charismatic leadership in uncertain environments. This discourse promised order amid chaos and encouraged transformative change by highlighting heroic actions and visionary outcomes, suggesting that progress is essential to achieving success. Western’s book is a seminal study in leadership and offers a relevant critique for our times.

Similarly, Mateusz Grzesiak’s Leadership and Narcissism in the Organization (2022) reveals the rise of messianic discourse in an age of anxiety as institutions face existential threats. While true messiahs are rare, faux messiahs—who elevate themselves above others—have become increasingly common.

The myths of Narcissus, particularly as told by Ovid, provide insights into institutional behaviour. Both Narcissus and Echo illustrate how organisations can become fixated on appearance, echoing only what they hear, and are ultimately ensnared by self-love and inflated self-regard.

Narcissus is alive and well in the Church of England. Its leaders hear that working in teams, strategy, vision, corporate branding or comms are the way to go. Or that something must be done about climate change, or inequality. The leaders only repeat what they last heard.

That said, we note Richard Sennett’s careful reframing of the myth. He argues that in narcissistic disorder one sinks into oneself. And that without meaningful references and valuing of others, no stable character or self-image is ever formed. Sennett writes that

‘…as a character disorder, narcissism is the very opposite of strong self-love. Self-absorption does not produce gratification [but rather] produces injury [italics mine] to the self; erasing the line between the self and other means that nothing new, nothing “other”, ever enters the self; it is devoured and transformed until one thinks one can see oneself in the other – and then it becomes meaningless… The narcissist is not hungry for experiences, [s/he] is hungry for Experience. Looking always for an expression or reflection of [oneself]…one drowns in the self.’ (The Fall of Public Man, New York: Norton, 1992, pp. 324-25).

Sennett argues that narcissism often hinders goal achievement. In corporate narcissism, as with individuals, there is a tendency to avoid closure on measurable outcomes to escape external judgment that could weaken self-esteem. This avoidance is unintentional; those affected engage in repetitive self-referential patterns that prevent stable character development and lead to self-absorption. While others may remain captivated by what these individuals or organisations might do next, ultimately, nothing changes. (Yes, Fresh Expressions fits the bill).

Translating this into ecclesiology, it seems to be a particularly compelling preliminary diagnosis of the Church of England’s safeguarding debacles. Everything goes round and round and round in circles in a kind of endless death-loop. Nothing changes.  Narcissism craves your admiration and devotion, and commands your deference and fealty. But it never wants judgment or accountability. QED the CofE? (QED is from the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, which means “that which was to be demonstrated” or “what was to be shown”).

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the endless cycle of ‘lessons learned reviews’ in Church of England safeguarding belongs to this world. Like Groundhog Day (another version of an ancient Greek myth), the Church of England just repeats the past in the hope that it will eventually get it right. The myth of Tantalus is instructive. So Einstein was right. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

There is a heuristic pragmatism at work here, but it could also apply to many contemporary Protestant denominations. The Church of England, to compete with modernity, will adorn itself with trendy, secular rhetoric and processes because it thinks it “must look good”. It rarely thinks past this. Furthermore, it seems destined and bound to deliver precisely nothing.

As Sennett would concur, the narcissism is found in the journey and process that never achieves closure. Diagnosing corporate narcissistic personality disorder in the Church of England in an organisation becomes possible when we understand the origin of Narcissus.

Other myths also illustrate the dangers of hubris. Icarus, who flew too close to the sun against his father’s warnings, fell to his death when his wax wings melted. Similarly, Narcissus, obsessed with his own beauty, rejected those who loved him and ultimately died alone, transforming into a flower. Both stories emphasise how hubris can lead to isolation and ruin. These are ecclesial parables.

James Hopewell, the Anglican contextual theologian (Congregation: Stories and Structures, 1987) writes of the Zeus-myth at work in a specifically church-based context as a case of “an arbitrary and dictatorial rule…punish[ing]those who dared to oppose him…a one-man show who got his way…[by] the acquiescence of corporation-minded members…[and ridiculed opponents]”.

For Hopewell, the myth of Zeus serves that purpose, as it narrates the emergence of a supreme ruler from the Titans (the Elder Gods). Zeus dethrones Chronus (in Roman religion, Saturn), the most important god. Zeus has unequalled powers thereafter, but is not omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent. He can be opposed, deceived and evaded. Zeus nonetheless functions as an arbitrary and dictatorial ruler, and a cypher for the leadership of congregations.

In ecclesial terms, the minister is a ‘one-man show’ with exceptional managerial gifts and can often be a Zeus-like figure. But such leaders also thrive on manipulation and can ridicule opponents with ‘thunderbolts’. Nonetheless, the minister may present as a fine and hospitable pastor, and provided members stay on the right side of this Zeus-like figure, the congregation is likely to be convivial. Hopewell accepts that his characterisation of a church or denomination where Zeus reigns, as

“…not a pretty story, but its very aptness and ugliness might awake its actors both to their plight and to their Christian promise…” (Hopewell, p. 188).

The stories of the gods evolve. Humans can be elevated to godlike status after their deaths, as with Heracles. But in many cases, there is an obvious sense in which one can read the persona and actions of many of the charismatic church leaders featured in this blogsite as befitting a Zeus-like figure. Pilavachi, Brain, Smyth, the Fletchers and others all come to mind. One can compare the eldership gathered around them to other Titans or lesser gods.

What is clear is that the epic accounts of such churches can be more Greek myth and ancient saga than many might suppose.  Furthermore, such ancient narrative plots are easily detectable in other revivalist ministries, with leaders exercising extraordinary powers and holding unmatched authority and powers over their devotees. Indeed, these stories and plots are alive and well in contemporary culture and appear to resonate with everyday life.

Hopewell’s interpretive analysis, rooted in myths, narratives, ethos, and worldview, explored the collective unconscious. The archetypes in shared memory, often repressed, continue to influence congregational life and macro-denominational polity. For example, we can think of Anglican bishops known for their unpredictable bullying. While some might experience the bishop as pastoral and visionary, others can find them to be a trigger of fear.  The bishop can be armed with thunderbolts, and the laity and clergy are unsure of who could be punished next. Some might view the bishop as a storm bringing misery, while others saw the same leader as essential for growth, as though they were like nourishing rain. Regardless, all may live in apprehension of the bishop’s retribution.

Those familiar with Greek myths will recognise Zeus, the god of weather, thunder, and lightning. Zeus could manifest as a ferocious storm to control others. Or he might transform into a swan to seduce Leda, a mortal queen, leading to the birth of influential mythological subordinates. Bishops can wield significant powers but be utterly unpredictable, punishing those who question their authority and rewarding obedience. Colleagues, congregations, and clergy can live in fear of banishment or punishment, unsure of when wrath or favour might come next, or why.

The Odyssey still has a lot to teach the Church of England. But the lessons lie not in heroism or some longed-for homecoming. Rather, we find the lessons in the lack of accountability, hubris and failure of moral leadership, and the absence of transparent governance. Bishops hide behind their clouds in their heavens, dwelling in Olympus. Nobody trusts these gods and demi-gods who lead the Church of England. They are capricious and unaccountable. They seek only obeisance and control. Like the ancient cults that Homer knew, such deities are just feared – or increasingly ignored. The epic saga that is the Church of England will end when this ancient cult is abandoned, and the people turn once again to a true faith rooted in Christ, and grounded in truth, justice, equality and mutual accountability. 

In the past week or so there have been two well-publicised challenges to those who occupy the places of power in the Church of England.  In the first place, the safeguarding organisation INEQE described, with a certain frankness, how their work of review of the Church in its safeguarding work had been impeded and obstructed by individuals at the top level of governance in the Church of England and in certain dioceses.  Those of us with ears to the ground will have some idea as to the identity of these individuals.  There has been a pattern over the past ten years of the Church commissioning reports and recommendations for action in the matter of safeguarding.  A common theme from these reports has been to urge the Church to set up bodies to oversee safeguarding work, which are truly independent of the institutional church structures.  Somehow something happens always to prevent these suggestions ever coming to fruition.  A major initiative, the setting up of the ISB (Independent Safeguarding Board), was closed with a brutal suddenness after operating for just months.  This was a bitter disappointment for the group of survivors who had already started work with this group.  Every time there is a hope for a new initiative to help the cause of survivors and their endless search for healing, something gets in the way.  The reasons given for such obstructions include issues of ecclesiastical law, administrative blockages or theological objections.  For whatever reason, the Church of England at the highest level has appeared to be applying the reverse gear.  Instead of a smooth sense of progress in the carrying out of safeguarding work, there is the loud sound of jarring metal in the workings. 

The protest contained in the INEQE report (well publicised in Thinking Anglicans and elsewhere) is supported by a new open letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York from a group of 20 interested individuals.  They wish to see action taken over the INEQE complaint.  What is called for is an “independent urgent review” of safeguarding in the Church.  The main signatory of the letter is well-known to everyone who follows this topic of safeguarding in the Church of England, Martin Sewell.  He is a former member of General Synod.   Also a signatory is Jane Chevous, the survivor who has allowed her story to be told not only on her blog but also to the British public through the medium of Women’s Hour. The thrust of this Open Letter is to reiterate the observation of the INEQE report about the individuals who obstruct ‘justice and reform’.  They are described in the Open Letter as a ‘group of influential senior officers at the diocesan level and certain individuals within the national Church’. 

The letter goes on to note that in our society there is an increasing lack of trust in national institutions, illustrated by the Post Office IT scandal, the Hillsborough cover-up and the Infected Blood scandal.  The letter acknowledges that the role of Archbishops in the Church is not to operate like CEOs, with the ability to hire and fire as they wish.  Power and responsibility within the church system operates according to a different model.  It is the fact that there is enormous complexity in the way that power operates within the Church that has allowed a ‘small group of influential senior officers’ to take charge.  It is inconceivable that INEQE did not know the names of those in this ‘group’, just as it not credible to claim that the Archbishops themselves are unaware of who is in fact pulling the levers of power and influence in the Church.  The letter bluntly calls for those officers to be ‘removed from influence as a matter of high priority and urgency.’  It also demands that those removed must not be ‘replaced by like-minded subordinates.’  The letter reminds the Archbishops that the Charity Commissioners are taking an interest in the situation of ‘drift and delay’.  They will not accept further obstructionism on the part of the Church.  The Church seems to be promoting and preserving its vested interests at a far higher level of importance than transparency and justice for the group of survivors.

It remains to be seen whether this letter will achieve any of its aims, or whether it will sink into the abyss where other initiatives, buried by apathy and the inertia of the status quo, lie forgotten.  But one word in the letter is crucial and sums up what is contained in this appeal to the Archbishops.  That word is independent.  There is a call for a wholly independent reviewer, one who might also represent the interests of the Charity Commissioners who are pressing the CofE to get its act together over institutional and safeguarding reform.    The Sewell letter is one more attempt at prodding the Church to do the right thing and coax the institution to move forward, in spite of the impediments of vested interests and monopolies of power at the heart of the national Church.

When we look back at the past ten years of safeguarding reform and progress, we note that the achievements have been mixed at best.  Substantial progress has been made to promote awareness of safeguarding issues at every level of the Church.  A proper reckoning with past failures is, nevertheless, still woefully incomplete.  When looking at the past performance of the Church, we find stalling, the dragging of feet and the preservation of vested interests at all costs.  The culture of safeguarding is at best defensive in many areas.  Yet there is one important spark of light on the horizon which may prove to be of decisive importance in the way the future unfolds.  In the past week Lambeth Palace has announced the appointment of two senior advisers to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Both appointees are highly qualified and experienced women who bring real knowledge of the non-church world into church structures.  Neither, apparently, has any specialist knowledge in safeguarding but both will have insights into the importance of institutional reputation.  In other words they will be aware of how any appearance of poor decision making or failures of integrity and honesty does a great deal of damage to the Church.  The first of the two new arrivals is Becky Clark and she is to be Archbishop’s Chief of Staff.  The other appointee is Anna Dulic-Sills and she is to be Chief Operating Officer.  Both these women have impressive CVs which indicate a familiarity with the detailed working of large secular institutions.  In Clark’s case, there is previous exposure to the workings of Church House.  The detail that intrigues me is that Clark has spent the past four years in the Falkland Islands working as a senior civil servant.  Having been so recently completely outside the church system, she will, no doubt, have now a totally fresh perspective on the church’s problems.  There will also be a solid feminine perspective on many of the issues that have appeared to get mired in the somewhat public school and upper-middle class hierarchical male culture found in the elites of the Church of England. 

The Martin Sewell letter may yet turn out to be another failed attempt at appealing on behalf of the wounded victims of church wanting to be heard by those with power in the national church.  It may also be a timely message that coincides with the arrival of what may be a completely new culture about to take over at the heart of the Church establishment.  While we must not allow ourselves to deal in stereotypes, there is a strong chance that the new female triumvirate taking over the reins of power will want to address safeguarding issues in a new way.  Typical female qualities of empathy, compassion and patience are much needed at the centre and especially in dealing with decades of hurt and damaged lives.  Instead of the male values of hierarchy, control and coercive power which were forged on the playing fields of Iwerne Minster, we may find a church leadership that is better attuned to the values of care, encouragement and healing.

The Church of England leadership has recently been given two challenges to do something to recover its reputation and integrity in this crucial area of safeguarding.  Both initiatives, the INEQE challenge and the Sewell letter, are declaring unambiguously that the old centres of power within the church are no longer fit for purpose.  Past leaders need to be let go and new styles of leadership be allowed to flourish within a different culture and under new leaders.  Am I too optimistic in seeing such a new start arriving with the new appointees to work closely with our female Archbishop of Canterbury?  Even if these two experienced women have currently little direct experience of safeguarding, they will quickly learn the importance of getting things right in the area.  The most urgent task for our Church of England is to regain the confidence of its members and promote an images of integrity that will regain the respect of the wider British public.    

https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/61f2fd86f0ee5/content/pages/documents/26-07-final-report-for-publication.pdf

It has not been easy writing this blog piece as new information keeps appearing.  Thus, the drafts I put together earlier in the week have had to rewritten more than once to keep the piece more or less up to date.  The main focus for this blog is a document published on the Church of England official website,122 pages long, entitled Independent Review of Case TT commissioned by the Interim Commissioner for Independent Case Reviews.  I hope that this short summary of its contents in this post will encourage many of the Surviving Church followers to read it in full.  In summary it contains a frank and detailed critique of the poor treatment of an abuse survivor by individuals and groups acting for the Church of England over several decades. When the document first appeared on July 15^th 2026, the survivor’s name was anonymised but, since publication, other published references to the case have revealed her name.  I understand that this survivor, Jane Chevous, is happy for her name to be used rather than the TT in the Review.  This is in spite of the fact that the Review refers to some quite sensitive information connected with her personal life. 

In urging my readers to persevere with a detailed study of the 31.8. Review of Jane’s struggles to be heard by the Church authorities over several decades, I am hoping that, like me, they will feel themselves also much better informed about the traumatic experience involved in being a survivor.  They will also become more familiar with the protocols and processes employed by members of the National Safeguarding Team and other professionals doing this work. The detail in the Review helps us to understand how complicated is the task that professionals face in delivering safeguarding. From this current Review we gain a level of familiarity with the processes used by these NST officers, caseworkers and core groups. Attempting to deliver safety protocols to the church institution when there are competing interests and priorities in operation at the same time, can result in confusion. Even if the Review does not answer all the safeguarding queries that many of us continue to hold, this is a document full of good sense and clarity. Asking the right questions of safeguarding experts may eventually produce a system which is easy to understand and does not add to the pain of those who are victims/survivors of a dysfunctional institution. The current 31:8 published Review on the story of Jane’s experiences as a victim of both abuse and insensitive management is an important staging post on the way to a renewed system of safeguarding which will promote justice and healing.

In pursuit of a clear understanding of all that has happened to Jane over the last 40+ years, the Reviewer has consulted numerous document and conducted many interviews. From the documents, from emails to SAR requests, we get remarkable insight into the way that safeguarding is done.   No doubt, as the result of this critical glimpse of the operation of core group meetings set up to examine Jane’s story, there will be a call to make changes in safeguarding processes all over the country.  

Jane’s story can be told in a few broad strokes.  Back in 1979 she was working in church youth work and she was involved with two ordained youth leaders who abused her sexually and spiritually over a number of years.  As with many sexual victims, the behaviour of the abusers was not immediately recognised as abusive by the victim.  It was only in 2001 that she made a formal approach to the Diocese of Southwark to report the abuse.  This was resisted and she herself was subject to victim blaming.   She later discovered that her claims of being subject to rape were dismissed in the belief she was a ‘gold-digger’ and also ‘hysterical’.  The two bishops in the diocese and the archdeacon involved with her case seemed to have no interest in establishing the facts, all their sympathy and support being extended to the perpetrators.  Jane, unsurprisingly, was seriously dismayed by this response and she abandoned her membership of the Church and her roles within it.  Her mental health was severely affected, and she made attempts on her life.

The next stage of the narrative begins in 2019 after Jane had heard about the work of IICSA and the setting up of the NST in 2015.  From the beginning, her approach to the NST was affected by a serious misunderstanding about what they were able to provide for her.  In her words, ‘I entered full of hope and optimism in a place of relative healing and left distressed, broken and with no justice, accountability or healing’.  As the 31:8 reviewer has pointed out, the NST had a protocol which was always focussed on the need to manage risk.  If an accusation was made, the priority was not to establish responsibility or accountability, but to take steps to remove the potential risk of future abuses or harm.  The reviewer gives quite a bit of space to this early misunderstanding that arose because of this protocol embedded in the NST that their task was to manage future threats.  It certainty did not meet Jane’s felt need to be believed and to receive some kind of apology for what she had suffered.  For the outside observer trying to understand other cases with similar misunderstandings, it is useful to see this discussed in the Review from both perspectives, that of the survivor and that of the church institution.

The following three years of work by the NST with Jane reveal a number of obstacles identified by the 31:8 reviewer which militated against smooth functioning at the NST.  Jane herself was spending time abroad and the Covid epidemic was raging.  There were also problems and serious mistakes at a practical level with some poor record- keeping.  This was compounded by a number of changes of staff which made continuity hard to maintain.  Long delays in communication with Jane because of these bureaucratic delays made her often feel disconnected from the NST process.        

The misunderstandings that bedevilled the safeguarding process for Jane throughout her interaction with the NST from 2019-2022 should, we might feel, not have been unexpected when they occurred.  The reviewer expresses some surprise that a leaflet to explain the meaning of ‘managing risk’ was not made available.  My own observation is to express surprise that the leaders of the NST had not met a similar situation before like Jane’s.  Her complaint, which any intelligent individual might make, was to question whether it was appropriate to use the word ‘safeguarding’ to describe a process that seemed to have as its main purpose the protection of an institution. This seemed to take precedence over caring for a wronged individual.  If we examine the use of the word ‘risk’ in this NST context, we find that the most important thing being protected is the Church itself.  Legal advice being given to the NST in its early days seemed to have suggested that any admittance of responsibility might involve the Church in huge financial liabilities.  This prevented the NST providing the one thing that might have brought healing and closure for a victim – an apology and some accountability.  That legal advice turned out to be completely wrong and, in an earlier blog, I have quoted the relevant legal evidence to refute the liability argument.  This was provided by a legally trained relative.

The 31:8 Review consists of 122 tightly typed pages and the fact of its appearance at the beginning of the summer holidays and after a meeting of General Synod might seem to be an attempt to condemn it to a quiet burial. Were this very important Review to be forgotten, it would avoid some frankly embarrassing criticism of the Church’s leadership alongside some challenges to the official protocols for safeguarding practice.  I am hoping that many who read this summary will take the trouble to read the full Review.  They will learn a lot about the inner workings of the CofE and the way that it sometimes strays from its claimed high standards.   The Review is extremely critical of the church leaders in the Southwark diocese who, in 2001, received Jane’s complaint and then treated her with such cruelty and disrespect.  The Review records the later efforts by the NST to challenge the earlier behaviour of these church leaders in the 2001/2 period when Jane’s case had been brought to their attention.  The leaders concerned, two bishops and an archdeacon are not named, but are clearly identifiable from the information that is revealed about them.  The negotiations with these leaders were not concluded satisfactorily even though a great deal of effort and time was expended on meetings and contact with them.  Ideally the breakdown in relationships that had occurred in 2001/2002 should have been worked through and somehow resolved.  That never seems to have happened and the 31:8 reviewer accepts that this was the case.  The DSA in Southwark did however accept, after the conclusion of the NFT process and its 8 (!) core group meetings, how deeply traumatising the original abuse had been for Jane and how the processes would have been far less disruptive for Jane if she had been allowed to tell her story on tape to avoid seemingly endless re-questioning and cross-examination.  A further bright spot for Jane came as the result of the current Bishop of Southwark writing to her supportively after the end of the NFT inquiry.  He was able to apologise and express his regret at what she had to endure, both in the early days and after she brought the incidents to the attention of the church authorities.  Above all the Bishop of Southwark expressed his belief in her account.  Seemingly he was unafraid of Jane initiating some massive lawsuit against the Church of England.  The Bishops of Oxford and Dorchester also listened to Jane’s story and apologised for the abuse she had suffered. Both dioceses followed this up by agreeing to make financial provision towards the cost of her counselling.   

There is much else in the Review in terms of good and bad practice to be mulled over, but I have to say that having reached the end with its descriptions of bullying and power abuse throughout the narrative, I am left feeling myself somewhat traumatised.  The assumption that someone making a complaint is automatically a mischief maker and should be frightened off by a solicitor’s letter does not create a trusting mutually supportive Body of Christ in an area.  The lack of any pastoral response or insight among church leaders when Jane’s original complaint was made, meant that the suffering that Jane endured continued for decades.  Jane’s story and the failures in response are important and the Church of England will become a better place if even some of the lessons are learned from her story.

by Stephen Parsons

One of the things that is constantly changing in the world of safeguarding and abuse is the vocabulary used to describe it.  New categories or expressions that are used to describe all the different forms of abuse appear all the time.  The studies and reports of today are resourced by the results of research in varied disciplines and the language they use.  Two examples of this refined language come immediately to mind.  One is the expression ‘coercion and control.’  Whatever the precise history of this expression, it gave to lawmakers in Britain, in 2015, the ability to describe and sanction non-violent forms of control in a domestic situation which was criminal.  It has now become a common expression to describe other examples of pressurised control and is used in contexts beyond the domestic sphere.  The addition of ‘trauma-informed’ into the discourse also allowed all of us who were concerned for the victims of abusive behaviour to understand the ongoing and lasting consequences of spiritual abuse.  Even the word safeguarding itself is of relatively recent origin.  When writing about power and its abuse in the Church during the 90s, I never had cause to use the word. 

With the arrival last year of a new book by Tom Wilson, Safer Faiths, Safer Followers, I am once again reminded how thoroughly out of date my own research has become.  This new book deserves to be widely read by those who want to understand more on the safeguarding theme, not only in Christian contexts, but right across the religious map of Britain.  This post I am writing here is not intended to be a review of Wilson’s book, which I have enjoyed for its many insights.  I am, however, unashamedly wanting to mine a single word from his book which I find to be enormously useful in my understanding of the dynamics of church power abuse.  Power abuse in a religious setting, as we need to remind ourselves, manifests itself in many forms. The single word introduced into Wilson’s discussion, which I find helpful for my own thinking, is ‘agency’.  For Wilson, agency is what is taken from an individual when subject to spiritual or any other kind of abuse.   Losing one’s agency sums up the post-abuse sense of humiliation and demoralisation that typically overcomes the victim of a degrading episode.  That loss of confidence in one’s decision making and one’s ability to be in control of one’s own life is often, as readers of this blog will know, the lasting legacy of abuse of whatever kind.  We see the most obvious, as well as most extreme, example of loss of agency in the experience of enslavement.  Slavery is a situation of total disempowerment where one person is forced to submit to the will of another.  It is not only defined by physical shackles.  The individual becomes a slave psychologically when they learn to accept a situation of their total subjugation to another.  There are many forms of bullying and dominance which try to crush an individual.  Torture, rape and threatening behaviour also, in their different ways, deprive the abused individual of their freedom and their agency.  They have become in effects slaves of another or, maybe, of an abusive institution.

 We have explored very briefly how losing agency is a good description of the situation that many abused individuals find themselves in after an abusive episode has taken place.  Such abuse or coercion that leads to a long-term loss of agency does not have to be violent or sexual.  Wilson’s book explores the case of a teenage boy who came under the influence of an Anglican parish priest, Timothy Davis.  The intensive spiritual mentoring that Davis offered was clearly unhealthy and harmful.  While, in this case, no physical or sexual activity was involved, the relationship was such that the 15-year-old was clearly in complete thrall to the older man.  The language of agency loss was not in fact used to describe this case, but it fits the situation well.  Peter Ball, Mike Pilavachi, John Smyth and Jonathan Fletcher could all be said to have held their chosen mentees in a similar state of slave-like dependency.  It is clear that, whatever else may have been going on within these relationships, the victims were all having their self-determination attacked to gratify the psychological needs of their abuser.  The Davis case reached a conclusion in 2018 when he was found to have abused ‘spiritual power’ and authority over the boy and was removed from ministry. 

One thing that is helpful about Wilson’s analysis is the way that, by using the language of ‘agency’, the observer can see clearly how the actual moment of abuse is not necessarily the worst part of the narrative.  At the heart of Wilson’s understanding is the idea of the long-term diminishment that is the likely result of any abuse committed by one individual against another.  The important question that now should be asked in every abuse episode is not just the detail of an act of abuse, but whether it has created trauma and the long-term undermining of the victim’s agency.  Obviously, this notion of impaired or weakened agency will have a whole variety of manifestations and meanings, according to the precise nature of the abuse that has been perpetrated.  For example, the experience of ‘gaslighting’ may well undermine the ability to know one’s mind or make decisions.  This type of behaviour is likely also to have devastating destructive effects on the ability to feel safe.  It will take a careful sensitive approach to reveal this damage to the agency of the individual who has been abused.   Whoever is given the task of uncovering the truth of an abuse event will need wisdom and sensitivity of a high order, together with a questioning that understands the ways that a victim may have had the core of their being undermined.  Damage that leads to a loss of agency is always serious. Having read Wilson’s sensitive exposition of what it means to lose agency through an experience of an abusive event, one longs for this level of awareness to be present in every core-group or safeguarding body so that they are always alert to this experience of loss that is encountered by many victims of power dominance or abuse.  The old Latin tag directed at medical doctors, Primum, non nocere (first, do no harm) should always be applied to those meeting and responding to survivors.   A failure to be alert to loss of agency among abuse survivors puts such survivors at risk of additional suffering.   The evidence points to many occasions where the process of investigation proves to be a additional source of suffering, sometimes far greater than the original wrong.

Our brief discussion about ‘agency’ and the way that it can be damaged or removed by an act of abuse of some kind, leads into another reflection.  Briefly stated, it is this.  If a negative abusive event care can result in loss of agency, how does the Church try to ensure that proper care is in place which will seek to build up the agency that has been lost in the abusive episode and its aftermath.  My response to this is first to look back on my own ministry over many decades and look at what I believe were my aims as a parish priest/pastor.  I would want it to be true that all my pastoral relationships were about supporting and enabling, in Wilson’s language, the agency of everyone for whom I had a pastoral responsibility.  The parish priest has a commission to build up the sick and encourage the broken and the bereaved.  All this, involving frequent visits to the homes of parishioners, could all be described as ‘agency work’ and we must not forget how it is also found in the teaching role of the clergy.  Reaching an ‘aha’ moment with adult confirmation candidates (less easy with teenagers!) was one of the highlight moments of parish ministry.    Helping the bereaved, the sick and the demoralised to recover their hope was always a crucial part of the daily visiting tasks.  By modern standards the strong emphasis on home visits, that was drummed into us curates in the early 70s, might be frowned on in today’s safeguarding culture.   I cannot imagine being a parish priest where visiting was not the core activity.  After retirement I was privileged to act as a ‘bank’ chaplain at a local hospital.  It was good to return, briefly, to role of encouragement and the task of helping patients to recover hope in the face of serious fears and vulnerabilities. 

I am grateful to Tom Wilson for introducing me to the notion of ‘agency’ in the middle of his discussion of the contrasting and often destructive and damaging forms of ministry conducted by Jonathan Fletcher, Peter Ball and others.  I have in this post attempted to turn around the word to look at its meaning when used in a positive perspective. By thinking of parish ministry as the task of recovering and restoring agency in every member, we find that we are thinking of ministry in a quite distinct way.  This is a style of ministry that actively promotes agency, hope and spiritual growth without any of the shadows of authoritarianism and control so often found in churches today.  Many of us are deeply uncomfortable at the adulation given to the larger-than-life charismatic personalities on the stage who are, for logistical reasons, unable to get to know their ‘sheep’.  This kind of ministry is strong on entertainment but sits lightly on the importance of increased agency and spiritual maturity.  The question for ministry now becomes: ‘Is the congregation individually and corporately able to increase its agency?’   Answering this question successfully will require us to have a fuller understanding of what it might mean to have agency in the Christian life.  Wilson’s book tackles the important question of how agency is taken away by various examples of manipulation, bullying and other forms of spiritual abuse.  So far the full description of what it means to have full agency and be supported in obtaining it has not been mapped out.  Perhaps this short piece may help us to start thinking afresh, not about abusive ministry, but about supporting parishioners to live out the Christian life with greater abundance and agency.

by Anon

If you follow football, you’ll know that when a team fails to perform, they often dismiss the manager. In the 21^st century, Watford has changed its managers 24 times. Other clubs with significant managerial turnover include Chelsea and Nottingham Forest. Leeds United, Sunderland, and Crystal Palace have all experienced 20 or more permanent managerial changes since 2000. In contrast, Arsenal and Manchester City have had the fewest managerial changes.

Of course, leading a denomination is nothing like managing a football club. Yet there are some striking parallels. Supporters have expectations. Season ticket holders – or the regulars and frequent attendees – will know that the fanbase is wider than those just turning up every week in the cold for a couple of hours. Football, like religion, is an all-consuming affair. There is morale to consider. And performance on and off the field. The parallels are plain to see.

At its most basic level, psychologically, supporting an underperforming team can be a miserable and frustrating experience. Everyone on the terraces – or in the pews, for that matter – will have an opinion on who to select and play, tactics, and management. They can all do a better job than the manager.

Of course, denominations tend not to sack their managers (or “let them go”) unless they have no choice. Welby went. In Wales, Archbishop Andrew John (Anglican) and the national team parted company. In Scotland, Archbishop Keith O’Brien (Roman Catholic) also resigned. Performances and perceptions do matter.

Sarah Mullally has been managing the Church of England side for several months. So, it’s still early in her tenure. There are the coaching grounds in Canterbury, but the main stadium is at Lambeth Palace. This is a national team with a respected global pedigree and international following. Appointed in October 2025, Mullally took up the reins in March 2026. She’s the first female appointee to take the role. Like all new managers, many were ready to believe that this time it would be different (even if they could remember thinking that last time).

After all, it would be fair to say that the last half-century has been a ropey affair for managing the Church of England team. When the England football team won the World Cup in 1966, Michael Ramsey was Archbishop of Canterbury. Coggan and Runcie followed. In the run-up to the millennium, it was the turn of Carey, who was replaced by Williams, before being succeeded by Welby. And now Mullally. Modern Archbishops tend to average a ten-year stint.

Like her immediate predecessors, Mullally’s brief will have been to turn around the fortunes of a national denomination that is haemorrhaging support, experiencing a marked decline in prestige, unable to recover its international marque, and struggling with morale, results and overall performance. The terraces (or the proverbial pews) have levels of expectation and hope. They always do.

But the modern era for this game is tempered with realism, and the statistics are brutal. Only one in five of the population opted for a Church of England funeral in 2024; 80% chose an alternative. The figure for weddings is rapidly collapsing to one in ten of the population, with 90% choosing not to involve the Church of England.  In 2024, infant baptisms conducted by the Church of England accounted for 5% of newborns. National figures for confirmations were 22,000 in 2010, but by 2024, that figure had halved to 11,000. By any yardstick, those numbers are grim.

As a supporter or pundit following a football team, you can see how the team and the manager are performing from the statistics. The numbers don’t lie. They tell a story. Points accrued, goals scored, possession percentages, and the like all point to results. You can tell the fans as much as you like that your team played a great match and deserved something from the game, but were just unlucky this week. Or that things will be turned around next season. So, you must have the time to rebuild the squad, and the fans will just need to be patient.

The trouble is, for the Church of England, the fans have had this message from the Board of Directors for the best part of half a century. New managers come and go. Players, likewise. But the team continues to slide in national standing, and the decline internationally is even more marked and alarming. Here, parallels between the national church and the governance of England as a nation are striking. There have been seven Prime Ministers in the last ten years (Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer and Burnham). Perhaps running the country might be compared to the difficulty of managing Chelsea, Watford, or Nottingham Forest? Yet with expectations running way too high (and some might say unrealistic given the global context), mediocrity and mere survival are not tolerated.

According to one recent commentator (Claire Berlinski, ‘Changing the Undertaker Won’t Halt the Decline’, The Cosmopolitan Globalist, June 24, 2026), “Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer – each in a different way was consumed by the same unresolved event…the country keeps changing the undertaker and wondering why the corpse remains dead.” The same could certainly be said of Scotland’s football efforts at the 2026 World Cup campaign. But a change of managers won’t help, as Tom English noted (c.f., ‘Scotland’s ill-fated World Cup story finally at a sorry end’, 28 June 2006: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c5yzdwz890go). There were multiple layers to Scotland’s failure. As might be said of Church of England bishops too, Scotland’s team was “a squad full of endeavour…but the collective is decidedly average at best”.

And it’s hard to argue with those numbers. In the FIFA world rankings, Scotland sit at 42, so it would be a stretch to suddenly break into the top 30 at the group stages of the World Cup. England sit in fourth place in the FIFA world rankings, which suggests a spot in the semi-finals but not beyond. That is where it ended for England. They did great, for sure, finishing third, and the nation can be proud. They really can. But what is it about the hubris of a nation that presumes it deserves to do better?  The fans may well be full of passion and optimism. But that doesn’t increase the chances of outperforming the ranking. Many views from the pews would concur. Likewise, from the voters. The football team, the country and its national church are stories of struggle (or perhaps slow decline?). We need to engage with and accept that reality, not keep denying it, pretending we can somehow cheat it.

A selection of the more memorable books from the 20^th and 21^st centuries, all suggest a catalogue of collapse – an English empire descending into decay:  Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh, 1928), The Strange Death of Liberal England (George Dangerfield, 1935), The Collapse of British Power (Correlli Barnett, 1972), Farewell the Trumpets (Jan Morris 1980), Britain in Decline (Andrew Gamble, 1994), The Abolition of Britain (Peter Hitchens, 1999), The Strange Death of English Conservatism (Sam Tanenhaus 2005), The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (Piers Brendon, 2008), English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit (Martin Wiener, 2011), and Can We (Britain) Be Great Again? (Jeremy Hunt, 2025). These are mere samples. But no country produces a Library of Lament such as this unless despair afflicts the national psyche.

Why is England in decline? While this situation partly stems from the loss of its empire, the deeper issue lies in the nation’s inability to develop a suitable post-imperial governing identity. The country has clung to the habits, symbols, and structures of a former world power, even as its economy shrinks and industrial regions decay. This has led to a political landscape that confuses sovereignty with productivity and values nostalgia over strategic vision.

But the decline began even before the empire began to fade. England, as the first industrial nation, initially benefited from advantages that later became rigidities, such as outdated factories, management practices, class structures, educational biases, financial habits, and a political elite focused more on imperial administration than on industrial modernisation.

In the 1960s and 1970s, political theorist Tom Nairn and historian Perry Anderson formulated their theory of English decline. They argued that early English capitalist success allowed outdated institutions and class structures to endure, in contrast to continental European countries such as Germany, which modernised through efficient administrative tiers and effective education systems. For England, the triumphs of the past become the blight of the present. The grip of nostalgia on the psyche of its national church is also part of this problematic ecology.

The English are still chewing on the thick curdled whey of Empire Glory Days. That makes realities hard to stomach, and sober realism is an even harder sell. The Church of England’s national demise, to say nothing of the global Anglican Communion’s rapid dissolution and increasingly fractious divisions, is fully part of this story too. It is also hard to manage a team that doesn’t really want to be managed.

As with politics and football, so with the Church of England? In which case, Mullally is a symptom of our times, and no cause of malaise. There was a time when new leadership in the Church of England represented genuine change. So mere managerial competence will not be enough, and besides, the Church of England is already weary – some may even say cynical and suspicious – of bold new visions.

The 21^st century has seen far too much promised (mostly about growth), and far too little delivered. As with the country, the national church needs the leadership to provide a cohesive spiritual, theological, emotional, and moral account of the institution that is honest and truthful too. That is simply lacking. So, there is no credible visualisation for better days ahead.

As politicians will confirm, technocratic improvements often falter when public frustration is high. Church of England clergy and laity are disenchanted and demoralised by the clear signs of decline in the quality of episcopal oversight and support they currently receive.  Anger over the deterioration in the standard of spiritual and pastoral care at the hands of senior staff they encounter is further fuelled by bloated diocesan staffing levels and burdensome, intrusive bureaucratic processes. Clergy and laity feel that their hard work no longer matters and that their endeavours don’t even guarantee that their future ministry will be valued. They suspect, with good reason, that their leaders lack a credible plan for recovery, or possibly even for survival.

The clergy and laity need a leadership that can hear, articulate and understand their concerns and unhappiness. But instead of articulating their discontent, the Church of England’s hierarchy merely seems content to manage it.

The Church of England will not be saved by more strategies. Or worse, glossing over the ingrained depression and disenchantment with more PR. For Mullally, presenting herself as a competent Archbishop could be dangerously misleading, as it suggests that effective administration can resolve much deeper structural problems. When it doesn’t, one risks being seen as disingenuous.

Church leaders need to educate the clergy, laity, and the wider public about what truly matters in mission and ministry. But Mullally is not a teacher, so that aspect of leadership (the need to inspire through rich public theology and spiritual wisdom) is essentially out of range. Mullally may say many of the right things. But whether she can or will deliver is questionable.

For example, she recently called for clergy to be treated with more care and respect, mindful of the overwhelming evidence we have for the stress and mental health issues that clergy regularly report in surveys. Mullally seems to be (wilfully?) indifferent to the notion that the primary cause of the harm clergy experience is the diocesan hierarchy and structures of the very institution she represents. Yet Mullally addresses the abuse and harm clergy are reporting as though it were perpetrated by some vague third party. But the Memo from the employees and volunteers to HQ could hardly be plainer: “you are the problem”.

As the recent report from Veronica Hope Hailey confirms, there is ‘pervasive distrust’ in the Church of England’s leadership which can only be restored through accountability. That must begin from the top, with the Church of England’s leadership becoming accountable and transparent for their actions. Without this, they will not be trusted by clergy and laity, and nor will they deserve to be. (https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/gs-2354-trust-and-trustworthiness-within-the-church-of-england-a-preliminary-report.pdf) 

There are no quick fixes for these troubles. History teaches that we must live through long social and cultural cycles that we can neither control nor evade. Part of the cost and vocation of leadership is to make the burden of such times more bearable for everyone else, if we can. Changing Prime Ministers, Archbishops, or football team managers is unlikely to transform the ultimate destiny of a country, church, or soccer squad, magically turning them into winners overnight.

Football-wise, these decades have been tough to endure. Disenchantment still reigns. As for overseeing the Church of England, scaling back ever-increasing layers of managerialism will now be very welcome. If trust is to return, clergy and laity want leadership that is pastoral, compassionate, honest, accountable, humble, transparent, spiritually wise, and theologically rich. History will be the ultimate judge of how the Church of England was managed in our time.