by Anonymous

Amid all the solemn events and the national mourning that have preoccupied most of us over the past week, the problems around safeguarding in the Church continue. The pain of unheard survivors and unjustly accused leaders is never resolved. Today, I include a contribution from a well-informed but anonymous source, taking a hard look at the current shambles in the Church of England around safeguarding.  The power of the piece is two-fold.  First, it brings together a great deal of information on the current (September 2022) state of play in the safeguarding world in the CofE.  Second, it asks the hard penetrating and critical questions that are possible only from a perspective of deep familiarity with all the relevant material.  Those of us who try to keep ourselves up to date with the record of the CofE in the safeguarding sphere, will be grateful for this analysis.  We can also applaud the clarity that it brings to what is a highly complex and often confusing area of church life. 

What do Bishops do in response to the case of a safeguarding abuse referral?  You might think that they would all, to a man or a woman, immediately refer such disclosures. This is what clergy are supposed to do according to the guidelines from the NST (National Safeguarding Team). Clergy are supposed to listen to responses of abuse in a non-judgmental way, carefully note the allegation of abuse, reassure the victim, and then report this.

Yet Bishops do not. If the complaint is about a safeguarding abuse, notwithstanding their primary duty of care  and obligations as Charity Trustees  their default response appears to instinctively incline  towards reputational management.  First their own. Second, their line-manager (if they have one). Third, their employer (CofE).  

Victims of abuse know first-hand that in the CofE the application of safeguarding protocol is something of a lottery.  In the Chichester Diocese we have heard recently how abusers can find their way back into church without proper risk assessments.  Yet elsewhere in the London Diocese, Fr. Alan Griffin was driven to despair and suicide through his treatment by a grossly incompetent, non-transparent and unaccountable safeguarding culture that, even this late in the day,  seems to be scarcely improved since the evidence given to the IICSA inquiry.

The case of the former Dean of Christ Church, Prof. Martyn Percy also involved falsified risk assessments which were disproportionate and cruel.  The Bishop of Oxford, DSA, Diocesan lawyers, head of HR and senior clergy all deemed these assessments as fit and proper while no one in the process admitted having had any hand in writing them. What is clear is that none of the ten independent “risk assessors” approved to act  in such matters on behalf of the Diocese had anything to do with them.

All these flawed examples of process were supposed to be put right by the creation of the newly created Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).  It was designed to answer the many expressions of dismay about safeguarding practice at every level of the Church.  General Synod was treated to assurances by Bishop Jonathan Gibbs extolling the” independence” of this new body, and the huge competencies of board members. But behind the façade, things were unravelling fast.

The problem with the ISB,  apparent from the beginning of its existence, was that it was unaccountable to anybody and lacking in professionalism and competence.  In its first year there were two serious breaches of data, leading to the suspension of the Chair, perhaps permanently. The Information Commissioner’s Office ruled against the ISB over the leaking of data, and it is currently under scrutiny from the Charity Commission.

Was the ISB ever independent? No. In spite of what was claimed by Bishop Gibbs, the ISB was and remains a creature of the Archbishops’ Council. It is they who have power to appoint  and removed its Chair

In a fortnight, the first birthday (the drum roll, fanfare and announcements, welcoming the ISB) will be upon us.  But as things stand, little has been achieved and nothing has changed for victims of sexual abuse and abuses of safeguarding process in the CofE.  The decisions that are made as to who is allowed to get off scot-free and who is strung up for failings seem arbitrary. So much of what takes place seem to be about preserving good PR rather than delivering truth and justice for the Church.  

The lawyers and PR agents who enable these processes use a number of underhand practices. The Percy case seemed particularly rife with ‘dirty tricks’, like leaking false information to the press.  There are cover ups of bad practice , not least the use of anodyne “learned lessons reviews” which are designed to ensure that nobody is actually held to account for bad practice even those with fatal consequence. The Archbishops know about all this. They do nothing. 

When things go wrong there is no appeal.  If a Core Group fails you or if a Bishop abuses you through the safeguarding process there is no process for seeking redress. Remember what the Coroner said about what it described as the   ”preventable death” of Fr. Alan Griffin?  The Archbishops have opted to forget. Not one of the incompetent people or processes in this and other cases has been brought to account. Not one. That is corrupt.  There is no other word for it.

Anybody can be abused by NST processes, so it is worth reminding readers of what they can expect if falsely accused. Or, for that matter you have actually been abused, and are intending to report this to their bishop.

1. Nobody working in CofE safeguarding at any level is ever subject to any kind of oversight by an external regulator, minimum standards or professional code of compliance. This is a Wild West.
2. Each Core Group can set its own terms of reference, and is not bound by any good practice  from previous Core Groups.  No member of any Core Group has to be trained in any relevant professional skill. It is all pretty ad hoc.
3. No person working in the Church safeguarding is required to complete mandatory training in unconscious bias. Core Groups largely comprise untrained, unregulated, unaccountable and unlicensed individuals. Conflicts of interests are not identified or sanctioned.
4. Good news. You can complain about your Core Group. Bad news. You can only complain to the Core Group you are complaining about.  They are unlikely to respond to you.
5. In other news, your Core Group may let you see the minutes of its meetings. Or it may not. It may meet as often as it likes, and not tell you. It can change its membership – but as you often won’t know who is on it in the first place, this can hardly concern you. It might meet frequently. Or seldom. There are no minimum moral, legal or professional standards to which CofE Core Groups work. They can make it up as they go along. And they do.
6. Your Core Group will make important decisions that may have serious personal, legal, financial and reputational consequences for you. You can be sure that no independent legal expertise will be present in these discussions.  Nor will there be an independent person able to advice on such issues as mental health, your vulnerability and the like.  (See earlier discussion of Fr. Alan Griffin, and how to complain in 4 and 5, above).
7. Your Bishop – omniscient – is likely to know what your Core Group have discussed and decided before you do. You cannot complain about your Core Group. Or your Bishop. Incidentally, even if your Core Group make a statement, the Bishop and his Communications Director have the total and absolute right to interpret the decision as they wish, and if needs be, alter the plain meaning of sentences, or just ignore it.
8. You can write to anyone you like in the NST or Archbishops’ Council about this, and  they will tell you there is nothing they can do. They are only following process. They are only obeying orders. Nobody is ever responsible, as the Bishop of London can confirm (c.f. Griffin case).

Because the Church of England is exempt from the 1998 Human Rights Act there is no access to the Civil Courts for remedy even if there have been fundamental breaches to the principles of Natural Justice or the Right to a Fair Trial. The Church documents may pay lip service to the HRA, but that is all it is. The Church will ruthlessly plead its immunity as and when it suits. The CofE has its own legal system and the Bishops are judges, jury, prosecutor, pastor and friend to you, all at the same time. There is no conflicts of interest policy.

Would you expect to meet any sane person who, looking at the menu above, might take a chance on a process that has more in common with mediaeval witch trial than a system of open justice? But if you try and protest or complain, the bad news has one more twist. It is this. Nobody is actually running safeguarding. Everybody has plausible deniability for responsibility.  

Senior leaders in the CofE like to pretend they are on the side of the victims of abuse and miscarriages of process and injustice. They groom victims accordingly. But all the leadership of the CofE want to ensure is that they never, ever, have to face scrutiny, a courtroom or justice such as befell Cardinal Law. Because they’d end up in the dock on the defence team, explaining why they did nothing about the clergy they were all protecting and their hapless victims. Likewise, the CofE senior leadership don’t really want to be in the dock defending incompetent, corrupt and vindictive processes.

Reform will take a long time to arrive.  It takes moral courage and compassion to do the right thing, and this seems to be absent among our church leaders. Victims of abuse will only secure justice when the CofE accepts that it will always have an inherent conflict of interest in trying to self-correct its failings, corruptions and abuses whilst simultaneously preserving its reputation. It needs to hand over all responsibility for safeguarding cases to a proper professional regulator with the teeth, clout, resources and fearless courage to speak truth to power, and bring the CofE to heel. There is no other way.

When transparency, honesty and integrity are absent, all that is left to victims is legal action.  Repentance and redress must precede any attempt at reconciliation. At present, we have victims of abuse waiting many, many years for investigations to start or conclude. These investigations are often half-baked, and lack the resources, expertise and regulatory framework to compel subjects to engage with them.

So, Happy Birthday to the ISB – a body launched with such fanfare, but was rapidly shown to be no more than a ‘sleeping policeman’. It had no legal, financial or any independent identity apart from its creator, the Archbishops’ Council. 

Fortunately, the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) have already stepped into that argument.  Plexus, the lawyers acting for the ISB, are currently under investigation for possible “serious breaches” under the SRA code. This follows Plexus’ plea that the ISB cannot be taken to court because it has no real kind of existence. Much like a Core Group for the NST. Or indeed, the NST itself. Here the Archbishops would  do well to bone up on what has happened in other parts of the world to churches and dioceses that refuse to accept responsibility for their failings, misconduct and sins. In the end, the law will change.  Perhaps  the best example of this comes from Australia, with the ‘Ellis Defence’. 

There was once a commonly used device by denominations that wanted to avoid vicarious liability and responsibility for the actions of its clergy, boards, dioceses and committees. For a  long time you could never sue churches. The Ellis Defence arose in the case of Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Archdiocese of Sydney v Ellis & others, in New South Wales in 2007.In this case, Mr Ellis brought a claim against the Roman Catholic Church for the Archdiocese of on the basis that he had suffered historic sexual abuse.

The Diocese argued that while all the property of the Church was held by the trustees in each diocese incorporated under the 1936 New South Wales legislation, those same trustees were not responsible for the conduct of the clergy and there was no legal entity available to be sued in respect of the misconduct of the clergy themselves. They kept playing this ‘get out of jail card’. It had always worked.

So the Court originally upheld the Diocese’s argument, and crushingly, Mr Ellis was ultimately denied the opportunity to have his case determined on its merits as it was found there was no proper defendant to sue.  (NB: Memo to Bishops Gibbs, Faull, Conalty and to Archbishops Cottrell and Welby – this is exactly as you are currently doing with the ISB. As for bringing Bishops Croft and Mullaly to account, must we keep on waiting for you to act?).

Mr. Ellis, however, was not finished. His case went to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and in 2018, law reform was introduced across Australia to protect the victims of institutionalised child sexual abuse. New legislation was enacted that forced unincorporated organisations including religious institutions to nominate a legal entity with sufficient assets for child abuse survivors to sue. In passing legislation of this nature in the State of Victoria, it noted it was designed to, “quash an unfair loophole preventing child abuse survivors from suing some organisations for their abuse”.

So, where Cardinal Bernard Law (Archdiocese of Boston, USA) and others had gone before, so in Australia, eventually, did the courts decide that somebody had to pay, with some body ultimately responsible.  The demise of the ‘Ellis defence’ was a watershed moment, and marked a significant step in offering redress and protection for some of the people in Australia that had been abused by or failed by the churches.  It now meant that churches were no longer allowed to hide behind the law. May the CofE learn, mark, and inwardly digest.

The other anniversary coming soon is the Coroner’s Report on the preventable death of Fr. Alan Griffin.  Most of those involved in that scandalous tragedy remain in post without so much as an adverse note on their file. The Archbishops say and do nothing.  Nor does the Episcopal Triumvirate running the NST, nor any of the various advisory bodies allegedly  advising and overseeing this shambles. They’re all doing things behind the scenes, apparently, working under the radar to reform this debacle, just like the Archbishops claim too.  

Frankly, you’d be a fool to believe such assurances. This safeguarding sock-puppet show just goes on and on.  It is a grim performance, earning nobody’s trust, respect or confidence. It is a national tragedy that the CofE is led by such people in our time – a leadership lacking in moral courage, compassion and intelligence.  As long this continues, the Church of England does not deserve to survive.  At all.

by Stephen Lewis

To a very few the recent events will have no personal significance at all, and the public outpouring of grief seem completely inexplicable and unacceptable. I tactfully suggest that I’m not writing with this group primarily in mind, and I apologise in advance for saying things which may well even anger you. 

I was out walking on the 8th September 2022, and my wife alerted me by text message that the Queen was unwell. Returning home after getting soaked in torrential rain (in hindsight it seemed appropriate, as a metaphor for tears) I turned on the news. It was fairly obvious that Her Majesty had already died, and this was sadly being confirmed gradually via other sources. In a way, this method of managing the breaking of terrible news, was quite effective and I believe I understand why they chose to do it this way. 

But thinking I was prepared for the official announcement of our monarch’s death was wrong. Alone, I wept at 6.32pm. 

I write as an ordinary person, and as someone who was never likely to have met Queen Elizabeth. So why was I in pieces? How are so many of us?

Diana touched the lives of all of us in some way. Most will recall the events and aftermath of her death a quarter of a century ago. In those middle years, for me, was the greatest reality check for my perceptions of the Royal Family, as anything other than ordinary people, like the rest of us. 

Steeped in national pride and a child’s understanding of Kings and Queens, this is how it was for me and many of us in the U.K. Aged 4, I recall being perplexed as to why Phillip wasn’t King Phillip. The answer to this and many other mysterious peculiarities of our country’s traditions have gradually but never completely dawned on me over the years. In fact I have little interest in all the paraphernalia of royaldom per se, but a great affinity for the central character. 

The Queen was different and demonstrably better than the rest. Of course she got things wrong but was prepared to change and worked tirelessly all her life to show genuine concern for as many of her subjects as she could. 

Also genuinely upper class of course, her late majesty was born into the “stiff upper lip” system in place to supply and populate the ruling class. This is, for her and for many, an accident of birth. Many of the negative aspects of this system have rightly been called  into question and eroded through atrophy and direct challenge. I believe the Queen was as prepared as many to lead the way in expressing more and more humanity as her reign progressed. Her upbringing would have strongly advised her against taking tea with Paddington Bear, but 70 years on she became adorable as well as all the other qualities we had firmly attributed to her, deep within our psyche. 

As a simple commoner, how could I be so moved by, not just her parting, but by so many of the things I’ve since seen and read about it on the news channels? At a deep level, “Queen and country”, and now developing almost strangely, “King and Country”, are set concepts at the heart of who I am, my identity. Many analysts have described these things as “Objects”, almost solid mental representations lurking centrally, but unconsciously usually, in our minds. The Queen was one of these for me, and still is. I think perhaps the same applies to several generations of peoples, not just here in the U.K., but across the world. She was someone we looked up to massively. Death does not eliminate such passionate views. We all know this is the case for other close ones we have lost, be they good or bad memories now. 

Neither can our strong views on monarchy v republics dilute our love for the Queen. All my life I have questioned the sense of it all. Would I, born into it all, be prepared to serve my entire life for my country in the way she did? Could I have endured the pre-, pan-and post- media intrusion into every aspect of my family’s life? Could I have kept working up to 96? Would the apparent reward of cooks and servants and loads of rooms to live in, have made up for the loss of freedom to do almost exactly as I choose, almost all of the time?  No. They wouldn’t, not in the slightest. I could have walked little more than a week in her proverbial shoes, never mind a lifetime. 

So I believe many of us share this deeply set holding of our leader, deep within ourselves. She’s not the only one of course, we want to look up to others to. It’s not dependency per se, rather a typical way that the mind, and indeed the communal mind is organised. We do indeed have rapid fire interconnection in this way. These mournful times are a painful reminder of how difficult it is to be unaffected by the feelings of others, despite our best intentions. I hadn’t intended to weep. I hope the neighbours didn’t hear. It was, as someone described it, a quivering lower lip, the stiff upper one being absent without leave. 

Times of great grief, are often trigger movements for other losses to make an appearance. For some of us, the current situation is a poignant reminder of the closeness and enduring love we did not have, but ought to have done. Grief is contagious and the 24-7 supply of scenarios to stoke these fires may not be altogether healthy, mentally. That’s not to say the continuing broadcasts are wrong. Not at all, but we may have to titrate our exposure to it. 

Queen Elizabeth is irreplaceable. My own opinion is that no one comes close to her, nor ever will be likely to, certainly not for generations. Her loss is therefore all the greater for this. Of course there is a good line of succession, and we wish his Majesty King Charles III the very best. Indeed I believe he has made a very good start in a number of ways. 

Individually my feelings don’t register much for others in the scheme of things, but collectively our shared grief is almost nuclear in its power. Not just in Britain, but across the world, we need to be sensitive to each other’s feelings and allow what is happening (at its best) to prevail. In doing so we will be part of a vital unity of humanity, which may be only fleeting, but I believe will cement new and persisting values together of what our great monarch embodied. 

For those of my friends and loved ones outside of all this, I remember you, and please bear with us for the moment. 

In respect for the solemn events of this and next week, Surviving Church is taking a pause. For my readers I offer the exquisite hymn/prayer known as the Russian Kontakion which was used at Philip’s funeral. no doubt at the request of Her Majesty.

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing but life everlasting.
Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of man:
and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return:
for so thou didst ordain,
when thou created me saying:
Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return.
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o’er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

 

When we want to describe a group of people who agree with each other, whether it be in a political or religious context, we can use positive or negative words to describe that agreement.  Among the positive words are ones like harmony, unanimity, or consensus.  The negative words include groupthink or collusion.  The word we choose to use in the context of people agreeing with one other indicates what we think about the agreement.  Sometimes agreement seems positive while, on other occasions, we suspect some political chicanery.  Deep problems are being buried under the surface of pleasing words.  But whether seen as negative or positive, getting people to come to any kind of common mind can be extremely arduous work.  It can take hours of discussion and some of this may be heated and unpleasant.  Sometimes the agreements that are reached come about because one side gives way to exhaustion from the fight.  Clearly, even when a common statement has been reached, the agreement that is presented to the world does not necessarily denote underlying peace and unanimity.

When we think about our own lives, we may be able to remember when we first began to have opinions about things.  If we had wise parents we would be asked for those opinions, even if the subject matter was relatively trivial.  A six-year-old may well be invited by the family to articulate a favourite food or a preference for a holiday destination.  Many of these opinions probably reflected the parents’ own choices but the task of listening to the child is an important part of family nurture.  True independent thinking has to wait for a later development stage.

If small children find it hard or impossible to have different opinions from their parents and the rest of the family, the same is also true when they join other social groups at school or in other settings.  A young child, boy or girl. Is desperate to belong and will go along with the thoughts and behaviour of a group, however perverse, in order to stay within it.  The common mind we have with others is likely to be a form of groupthink. Standing completely apart from the actions and opinions of others is very hard to do.   We could go so far as to say that for most of our younger years we are ‘groomed’ by our groups and the company we keep to go along with the crowd and that is something that goes on right up into adulthood.   Standing up for our unique convictions when everyone around you is thinking and acting in a predictable and identical way, is very hard to do.  Most of us, as young people, fail in this testing of our principles except in fairly unusual circumstances.

Once we become fully adult, theoretically we have the opportunity to find out who we truly are and what our personal convictions consist of.  Adults are those who are supposed to be fully responsible for their judgements, actions and opinions.  We know for ourselves this is not always the case.  The tentacles of outside persuasive forces continue to affect us from many directions. There are several possible reasons to make us susceptible to such influences.  It may be a loyalty to an institution that holds us back from our desired mature independence.  It may also be the legacy of a troubled childhood that keeps part of our functioning immature.  There may be a continuing childish desire always to please others, and this may override a more mature way of dealing with people. There are quite simply a host of ways that can undermine straightforward grown-up existence which counts as independent maturity.  We all must struggle with these different forces that may affect and weaken the much-desired mature independence to which we aspire.  We might even find ourselves accepting the proposition that, for much of the time, our words and actions owe more to others than to our own core self.

When we view the Church and particularly those who work within it as its officers and leaders, there are particular problems to be noted. Reflecting on my own past as a clergyman in the Church of England, I recall one particular tension that always existed.  Within the context of pastoral relationships, there is often a tension between the desire to be ‘nice’ and the need to challenge.   Although in the CofE the payment of the following month’s salary does not depend on preaching agreeable sermons, there were still pressures that could be brought to bear on me when the content of sermons deviated away from a notion of ‘orthodoxy’ held by prominent supporters. There are also expectations of pastoral care which could run counter to the convictions of the parish priest.  Finding the right path between doing what was popular and what was the true conviction of the leader is always difficult to achieve.  Fortunate indeed is the priest who finds that his/her personal convictions and those of the chief opinion makers in his/her parish roughly coincide.

The pressures that befall a parish priest are varied and what I say here cannot describe all of them.  I am just reflecting on this idea of expectation as it refers to the situation faced by the typical priest. Sometimes the expectations that are placed on him/her are entirely appropriate but sometimes not. Meeting every demand placed on one is likely to be impossible and probably not desirable anyway. However, the majority perform a ‘good-enough’ ministry to allow a reasonably stress-free existence.  I sense however, that the question of fulfilling expectations adequately and, at the same time, being reasonably true to one’s core-self becomes a greater problem if the priest is ‘preferred’ to a higher rank – that of bishop or archdeacon.  Such senior leaders do not just have to meet the expectation of a finite number of parishioners and church members, they also have to perform correctly within the rules and processes of the wider institution.  A bishop is now a representative figure, a spokesman for the whole, and so he/she is far less able to have, or rather express, private opinions if they deviate from an official line.  Any public statement to be made has first to be processed by a public relations expert. Also, a bishop is faced with all the serious problems of the diocese and its clergy.  He/she has to respond to many situations that no one else wants to deal with.  In our many discussions of safeguarding failures, it is clear that amid the palpable failures of those in authority in this area, there are also enormous pressures on bishops caused by trying to meet all the expectations of all the different parties. Bishops probably can never hope to meet all these expectations and at the same be true to their core being.  They have to live with the reality that they are bound to be a disappointment to one group or another, even to their own inner aspirations. Anyone with even a small amount of sensitivity will feel the considerable stress of these situations. The higher up the hierarchy the clergy climb, the greater the stress felt by those who want to do and say the right thing but cannot because they are the creatures of the role they occupy. 

The individuals who occupy the highest ranks in the Church of England have to live with further complications and these make it difficult for them to be able to experience contentment or job satisfaction.   Alongside trying to meet the expectations of those they serve, there is another challenge to their peace of mind. Bishops and clergy all occupy a place which is defined by the law of the land.  While parish clergy can refer most of their legal responsibilities to others, bishops have to accept responsibility for some difficult legal decisions. Applying regulations which in some cases have not been formulated well, as in safeguarding, simply adds to their stress.  Although some bishops acquire influence and prestige from participating in debates in the House of Lords, we have suggested that the freedom to articulate their true personal feelings and attitudes is severely circumscribed.  Bishops seem to have less freedom to speak their truth than the curate just out of college. Representing the whole Church of England and their diocese, they also have to follow the requirements of the lawyers and publicity curators who control and manage things behind the scenes.  How can any individual deprived of self-expression ever feel true satisfaction in their role?  Just as important is the question – how can a partly silenced leader ever inspire and lead his/her people in a single direction?  The job of representing and meeting the expectations of so many, as well as operating within the constraints of a cumbersome and sometimes corrupt institution, must take its toll.  This role of leader, defender and mouthpiece of a flawed institution must be an enormous burden.  Perhaps the greatest cost to be paid is the experience of being unable to be connected to their deepest truths.

In writing about the power or absence of power given to those highest in the hierarchy of our Church, I am reminded of the confrontation between Jesus and Satan on the mountain of temptation.  The CofE has given enormous prestige to a small group of men and women but seems to have made the possibility of finding their real identity and truth more difficult.  The ‘kingdoms of the world’ as shown to Jesus perhaps represent all the glamour of high office, but it comes at the cost of being manipulated by many forces outside their control.  How many of the house of bishops now realise that the loss of the freedom to find and express their true selves (and thus their ability to act as leaders) is a far greater sacrifice than they had probably ever wanted to make?  

Life According to the Flesh or the Spirit?

by David Brown

An apparent increase of bullying of clergy by their ‘seniors’ may match more serious trends and challenge our thinking.   Has our Church wandered from its foundations more than we commonly recognise?  Although Jesus said to Peter, ‘I will build my Church….’. our Church seems determined to build itself, applying much effort and finance to do so.  We strangely emphasise Church Growth rather than Kingdom Growth, questionable ‘Mission Action Planning’, and latterly the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ process being spread across our denomination.

Consequences of such attitudes proliferate, fostering a straining for success, an unhealthy ‘ambition’, unthinking definitions of ‘success’ and how this may be measured.  Then, some leaders seem fond of ‘man-contrived’ diocesan or Lambeth ‘awards’ for ‘success’, maybe named after a Celtic saint from English Church history.

Does a misguided urge for success lie behind our emphasis on ‘Church Leadership’ in recent decades, able to feed man-centred religion—human techniques and a devotion to ‘top-down’ initiatives? We easily forget that Jesus’s human ministry was a public failure to a watching world, and neither did the apostles fare better.

Such appetites are discordant with that of Jesus and the apostles who did no significant planning or initiative-taking.  The word ‘Plan’ and its variations relate in the gospels only to the evil manoeuvres of the High Priest, scribes and Pharisees.  As Jesus testified, remarkably: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know ….  that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”  (Jn 8.28,29).  The Apostles, likewise, received guidance or instruction as they went along: (Acts 5.20); Peter & Cornelius (Acts 10).  Surprisingly, Paul had no strategy to follow. Directed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 13) and thereafter driven by circumstances—out of synagogues, cities, shipwrecked several times, visions—his initiatives seemed minimal.  Yet, the Kingdom grew wherever the apostles went. Planning never seemed part of it.  I imagine the apostles would have found Mission Action Planning incomprehensible whilst following the ‘Jesus-lifestyle’.

They had no techniques beyond accepting circumstances and human encounters as God-permitted or God-intended.  God’s reality was conveyed by their lifestyle and words they were given to use.  His presence and fragrant love were palpable.  Such occurrences and manifestations, promised by Jesus when He commissioned them, and assuredly valid still. Jesus’s reported prayer for you and me makes it clear, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  (John 17.20,21).  God does it all.  His, the initiative, ours the attentive obedience., Jesus stood among them after his resurrection saying, “Peace be with you.”  The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.  Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 19.20-23).

Are we consciously sent today in the Spirit’s power, as Jesus was?  Or have we replaced this approach with a jumble of doctrine, liturgy, human ideas and logic, and our idea of ‘good works’; none of which readily connect anyone to the living God?  And what are we to make of Matthew 28.19: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’?  Doesn’t this make human initiatives central?  I would suggest the New Testament accounts indicate that God is always the initiator, opening onlookers’ eyes and minds to the Jesus-like life on display before them in his people.  The Church thus has the follow-up role of gathering such people together and forming them as disciples.

Furthermore, instead of depending on our intellects and decision-making in any significant way, Jesus’s High Priestly prayer in John 17 shows he wishes to convey through us the two realities of His glory and His unity (vs.20-24). These features are either palpable or absent. They cannot be contrived.  His present reality can only be evinced in his Church by demonstration and display, not through words and wisdom.

Leadership training and emphases may thus be somewhat out of place in Kingdom life.  They may be too closely aligned to gaining results by techniques.  If an individual is a self-disciplined follower of ‘the Way’, having integrity, self-denial, trust in God to direct his path, ability to ‘read a landscape’ and to relate well with others—and filled with love though the Spirit, that is all that is needed in a leader.  Leadership does not need training.  Rather, it requires Spirit-led appointment of those God has prepared.

Managerialism is the consequence of those ‘imbalances’ already described—each destructive of godly relationships and feeding subtle appetites for ‘self-promotion’.

Is it not the case that if such themes (success/church growth/leadership etc) are evident, they will conspire to make bullying more and more probable?  With mounting pressures to ‘succeed’—for leaders’ own satisfaction, advancement and to ensure financial viability, human ‘initiatives’ will increase steadily, as will pressure on their ‘coal-face’ clergy to demonstrate ‘ministerial effectiveness’—however this may be viewed.  Felt pressures will increase, with bullying only a ‘whisker’ away.  Leaders will only be likely to spot the dangers and respond well if they have discovered how to walk in the Spirit.  Human wisdom and intellect are ineffectual here.

“In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”   (Rom 8.4-8)

Human wisdom and intellect formed the spirit of the Renaissance and I guess, the spirit of the Pharisees and scribes.  It opposes subtly the Spirit of Jesus who said, ‘I am gentle and lowly in heart’; prompting the big question, which spirit is our Church choosing to follow today?

This release of a music video written especially for survivors of Church of England abuse is a first in the history of safeguarding.  I hope my readers will listen to the song two or three times and recognise that the story of suffering by survivor N is one shared by many others.  Martyn Percy has added a commentary and this shows the way that the story of survivor N fits a wider picture of institutional incompetence and cruelty. Ed.

Liam Ó Maonlaí of the Hothouse Flowers, Steve Cooney, Tommy Sands and other international stars of Irish music have released a song to highlight abuse in the Church of England, and the victimisation of complainants.

The group calling itself “Musicians for Justice” includes stars of traditional Irish music, Liam Ó Maonlaí of the Hothouse Flowers, renowned trad guitarist, Steve Cooney, and celebrated international singer-songwriter and peace activist, Tommy Sands, as well as younger talent.  The song “Collusion” has also been published on YouTube with film footage from the Diocese of London, Lambeth Palace and Ireland, and can be accessed here, together with the full statement:

http://www.churchofenglandabuse.com/

Musicians for Justice said, “Up until now, survivors and whistleblowers of abuse within churches and religious institutions have had no anthem, no song to sing, no salving melody for pain and suffering, and so we humbly offer this Irish tribute to them all. You are true saints and true prophets of our age, and you carry the spirit of true faith more Christ-like than the institutions of abuse”.

Musicians for Justice has published a statement describing how their song “Collusion” was inspired by a horrific story broken by the Editor of the Church of England Newspaper about an abuse survivor from Ireland who had filed a legal complaint of clergy abuse with the Bishop of London under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003. http://churchabuse.org/church_of_england_newspaper.pdf

Martyn Percy adds here his own commentary on the story of Survivor N and the way that it dovetails into his own story and the wider story of other survivors who still search for justice.

In September 2020 the Very Rev’d Prof. Martyn Percy, members of General Synod of the Church of England and others requested an independent inquiry into the grossly incompetent and potentially corrupt processing in Church of England Safeguarding. This request was repeated in the autumn of 2021 to the Archbishops’ Council.  It was repeated again in March 2022, this time directly to both Archbishops. 

The requests were all ignored. This was despite written evidence presented that included conspiracy, shoddy practices, secrecy and deceit, lack of transparency, investigations that deliberately suppressed evidence, and the setting up of biased reviews and investigations purporting to be independent.

In the case of Martyn Percy, he had been subjected to irregular and faked Risk Assessments, breaches of safeguarding protocols, repeated coverups, and a refusal to own up to “project-managed-persecution” run by senior clergy and church lawyers. In March 2022, an extensive dossier of written evidence and a request for an Independent Inquiry was formally tabled to both Archbishops, with the Archbishops’ Council having previously failed to respond to the correspondence and specific concerns expressed.

The request especially petitioned that senior church officers, senior clergy, lawyers and PR agents would be subjects of such an inquiry. This included the Church of England National Safeguarding Team (NST), Diocese and Bishop of Oxford, the Church of England’s lawyers Winckworth Sherwood LLP, the Church-employed reputation management company Luther Pendragon Limited, and those who had been party to the deliberate “weaponization of safeguarding”, with the intention of harming Prof. Percy.  This misconduct included overt malfeasance, corruption, gross incompetence and cover-ups in the carriage of safeguarding. The misconduct and corruption also included the operations of the lawyers and reputation management agents for the Church, knowingly manufacturing, curating and amplifying falsified “safeguarding concerns” in order to deliberately cause financial, personal and reputational damage to Prof. Percy. 

The lawyers and PR agents lobbied the media to plant damaging stories. The lawyers attempted to interfere with police, Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) and other inquiries they had stoked against Prof. Percy –  in so doing potentially attempting to pervert the cause of justice. The same lawyers issued litigious and bullying threats against clergy colleagues supporting Prof. Percy. The same lawyers, who also worked for the Diocese of Oxford, had accepted legal instruction to “act against the Dean (i.e., Martyn Percy)”, even though this was a clear conflict of interest. They denied this.

The Archbishops declined to take any action against their lawyers, reputation management agents, senior officers, National Safeguarding Team and senior clergy. Instead, they commissioned the newly-formed Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) to investigate.  The ISB had never undertaken any work of this kind. The ISB drew up terms of reference that were biased and badly drafted. They would also only reinvestigate allegations already made against Prof. Percy which had already been previously dismissed. The ISB then declared it would now not be investigating the concerns he had raised. The ISB also confirmed they did not regard Prof. Percy as a victim or as even a complainant. 

The Archbishops’ Council and the Bishop of Oxford was confirmed as one of the commissioners of the ISB process. The Bishop’s lawyers are Winckworth Sherwood LLP. Their reputation management agents are Luther Pendragon Limited. The Archbishop of Canterbury also retains Winckworth Sherwood as his legal advisers. So do seven other Church of England Dioceses. Prof. Percy had requested both be investigated.

The ISB was presented to General Synod in February 2022 as a fully independent body. The ISB proceeded to assert the same at the time, and again in July 2022. Yet when it became clear the ISB was malfunctioning, improperly constituted, and otherwise inept, the ISB promptly confirmed that it had no financial, legal or governance existence of its own, let alone any independence, from the Archbishops’ Council., who were funding it and overseeing it.

The Archbishops deny there are any issues with conflicts of interest. The NST, Bishop of Oxford, ISB and the Archbishops’ Council have all refused to disclose their conflict of interest policies or even to confirm if they have one (or not).

Survivors N’s experiences are, sadly, typical of the current leadership of the Church of England. The collusion, coverups, misconduct, incompetence and corruption in safeguarding are well known. The Archbishops do nothing. The Church of England leadership is only concerned with safeguarding its own reputation. There is simply no commitment to any truth, justice, integrity, transparency, accountability, external scrutiny or regulatory intervention. The Independent Safeguarding Board and National Safeguarding Team do not operate policies or Terms of Reference that are compliant with GDPR, Human Rights Act 1998 and Equality Act 2010. 

The Archbishops deny that normal data, human or employment rights are being withheld from respondents or complainants in National Safeguarding Team or Independent Safeguarding Board procedures. The entire Safeguarding processes of the Church of England are now an indelible, immoral and festering wound in the heart and soul of the church. Church of England safeguarding processes are inherently unsafe, partial, politicised and weaponised. 

Still the Archbishops say and do nothing. That is why we must all protest, and invite everybody to show solidarity with the abused, and stand apart from the Church of England until such time as it submits, completely, to public standards of justice and truth…then repents, apologises and starts full and proper redress for its victims. Until then, the Church of England remains unsafe, and is in unsafe hands.

The Very Revd. Prof. Martyn Percy

Lyrics of the Song

I sing a song of freedom from injustice and from pain

I sing of gentle people daring to complain

I sing about a steeple looking down on London Town

I sing about a Bishop, an advisor to the Crown

And I sing of an abuser, travelling as a priest

With influence and power as a Chaplain to the police

I do not sing for vengeance, I do not sing for gain

I sing that Christianity be Christian once again

Chorus:

If there’s collusion…

Where are we to turn?  Where is right or wrong?

If there’s collusion…

When makers of the law are breakers of the law

Until there is no law at all

And I sing about Survivor N, his name I can’t release

Vulnerable and just another victim of the priest

Complaining at the station but they did not lend an ear

And so I sing my song for you that everyone can hear

And when he told his story and that cannot be denied

They hunted every law book, every loophole they could find

“You might be right but have no right to speak out as you please

Speaking truth to power is dangerous journalese!”

Chorus:

Some friends they gathered round him to share their deep concern

In an e-mail to the Bishop that they privately did send

But confidence the Bishop broke and leaked it to the priest

Who used it then to get his victim charged by the police

“Luther Pendragon”, have you heard that name before?

Priceless in defending indefensible behaviour

From the tobacco companies and those of nuclear waste

And now the Church of Jesus Christ pays them for defence

Chorus:

A young man he is dying on the banks of the Lee

As far away from steeples, just as far as he could be

A female jogger found him, she brought him back to life

Such stress upon the vulnerable can lead to suicide

So I sing a song of freedom from injustice and from pain

I sing of gentle people daring to complain

I do not sing for vengeance, I do not sing for gain

I sing that Christianity be Christian once again

Chorus:

Those of us who count ourselves as belonging to an older age-bracket will have grown up without any familiarity with the word ‘binary’.  At some point we may have had exposure to the word in a mathematics/computer setting.  Not having to deal with these disciplines on a day-to-day basis, most of us lost familiarity with the word until it reappeared in a quite new context some twenty years ago.  The current common use of the word is found in the discussion of gender identity.  Should we take the either/or, or binary standpoint that is held by many people claiming that gender is clearly to be identified as male and female? Should we alternatively accept that gender is a far more fluid concept that we were traditionally taught to believe, and that our gender/sex exists along a continuum?  The debate is not one I want to have today but clearly, were it to be explored at depth, it would draw on a number of academic disciplines – cultural studies, theology, philosophy and psychology.  The debate to be had on this sensitive topic cannot ever, surely, be closed down by simply quoting two or three verses from Scripture.

For me, the interesting part of this debate is not about where any of us stand on the transgender issue.  Much more interesting is the fact that many people chose to think in binary terms in the first place.  Binary thinking in a philosophical context embodies the idea that everything exists as either true or false.  It is the world where if A is true then B must be false.  Whether it is to do with the education I have received or for some other reason, I know that this way of thinking as a way of resolving many problems is not the least bit appealing for me.  Obviously there are examples of contrasts or opposites where two statements cannot be true at the same time.  If Bill is absent from a meeting, he cannot be present at the same time.  But there are many other examples in ordinary discussion where we find that, between two extreme opposites, there are intermediate stages or grey areas.  Human beings are very good at seeing two sides of a discussion and being unable to occupy one consistent position on either.  Absolute consistent thinking about all kinds of topics may be less common than we think.

In literature there is a character created by Anthony Trollope called Mr Arabin.  He ends up in one of the Barchester novels as the Dean of Barchester.  Set against Mr Arabin at one stage is the notorious character called Mr Slope.   Mr Slope, the chaplain of the Bishop of Barchester, is a highly ambitious cleric and uses his strong theological opinions to persuade Mrs Proudie, the Bishop’s wife, of his piety and seriousness in his efforts to become Dean.  Mr Arabin finds it difficult to have such strong theological convictions and he refuses to play at church politics.  The author means the reader to side with Mr Arabin in his steadfast determination to be free of ambition, rancour and defined opinions.  He is the classic non-binary Victorian churchman. Trollope seems to prefer this to the partisan churchmanship wrangles of his day.  These were not unlike our own.

In psychological discussion it is noted that some people find ambivalence or uncertainty about people or ideas quite hard to deal with. The following account of how people deal with this is found in an article in the Wall Street Journal from early 2021 by a psychologist, Andrew Hartz. According to his account, this ambivalence is a state of mind creating anxiety and this needs urgently to be resolved.  One way of resolving the tension created by such internal anxiety is to react with a psychological defence mechanism called ‘splitting’.  This, in the short term, resolves the contradictions of the ambivalence by retreating into a binary or simpler way of thinking.  The other person is treated or projected upon as though they are perfect and all flaws are ignored.  Alternatively, they are regarded as completely evil with no trace of goodness at all.   The origins of this way of thinking seem to go back (according to Melanie Klein) to the world of the infant where the mother is experienced as all good or all bad (good breast and bad breast).  The healthy response to the mother moves towards to successfully holding these two extremes as reconciled opposites.   That stage, recognising good and evil in the same person, requires a certain level of psychological maturity.  Up to that point the safe place is to be in one of the extremes which is easier to understand and make sense of. The process of splitting creates its own set of problems.  If everyone exists only as a good friend or an enemy, such things as dialogue with opposing opinions and empathy for others are harder to find. In our imaginations other people are sometimes made into an ‘enemy’, possessing hostile intentions towards us.  This projected role may or may not exist in realty.  When we come to things like race, sexual identity and politics we find many examples of splitting and projection going on.  It is quite hard to occupy a middle place in these discussions.  The extent of binary thinking (and feeling) in these worlds of debate and discussion means that some people, including myself, hesitate to enter into any of them.

Binary thinking is, sadly, rife in church circles.  I am aware of those who read this blog but differ profoundly with my approach to the Bible.  Many Christians live in a binary world where there is a simple choice between ‘believing’ the Bible or lapsing into atheism.  Having studied the Bible over a lifetime, I happen to believe that such an approach to scripture does serious damage to the test and also dishonours the intelligence of people who might otherwise be attracted to the Christian church.  When such people approach the Church for a new understanding of life and profound insights into its meaning and purpose, they find themselves facing stumbling blocks and what are felt to be insults to their intelligence.  Are they really required to read the stories of Genesis as historical accounts or maintain a single doctrine of the atonement when the words of the Bible give us several models?  Should we not celebrate the way the Bible introduces us to rich varieties of symbol and meaning rather than a single ‘correct’ way of interpreting it?

Apart from religious debates, the world of binary strongly impacts the world of politics.   I used to think that everyone believed in the values of democracy.  This was before the world of extreme right-wing ideology started to impact the politics of democratic nations.  According to some pollical commentators, some ordinary people have been persuaded that their political hero (Trump, Putin or Orban) is so admired and trusted that they do not want untidy institutions such as an opposition to waste time challenging their vision.  The political leader is so venerated that they have acquired an almost divine status, rendering an opposition completely unnecessary and redundant.  The same right-wing adulatory thinking about leaders also sweeps through many churches.  I still remember an earnest Baptist telling me that a biblical discussion group was a contradiction in terms.   How was it possible to ‘discuss’ the Bible when God’s will was so clearly set out for all to read?  Needless to say, the local leader had been firmly projected upon. He was ready to take on the mantel and responsibility for revealing God’s inerrant Word and in the process be treated as infallible himself.

Clergy of my generation were not trained to occupy a place in a binary defined theological universe.  When we see the temperature of the CofE turn more and more in the conservative binary direction, some of us wonder whether we would now commit so readily to an institution which appears, in many places, keen to exclude the non-binary vision.   The LGBT debates are only one example where we are presented as involved in some kind of betrayal rather than simply as people who do not agree with the binary arguments about sexual/gender identity.  Binary Christianity in this matter knows only one version of truth.  Those who do not agree with this binary vision are deemed by some to be worthy of expulsion from the institution.

The recent Lambeth Conference has not yet expelled the so-called liberal wing of Anglicanism.  It has, however, become increasingly clear that, in large swathes of the Communion, tolerant attitudes on sexual identity issues and liberal views on Scripture are becoming less and less acceptable.  To repeat what I have said on occasions before, the problem is not what I think about the theology of conservative traditions, but it is the problem of their refusing to accept that my theological vision has a right to exist.  I feel now that I am a member of a minority political party which for the time being is allowed to exist.  In time it may be destroyed or exiled when the binary version of Christianity in charge has the power to get its own way.  Something similar is being attempted in American politics.  The party of Trump wishes for dominance in the country just as conservative binary Christians seek to exclude liberal views in the churches.  Binary Christianity and politics clearly have an appeal to many people.  To return to an earlier part of this blog, it may be simply because ambivalence is a hard reality to live with.  Certainty is always more popular than uncertainty and security more appealing than risk.  Some of us believe that the adventure of ambivalence and uncertainty is a better option than the straitjacket of authoritarianism.  This is what we might describe as the modes of thought belonging to the extreme right-wing which has taken up residence in many Christian churches.

The amount of attention given to safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults in churches across the world varies enormously.  We should, nevertheless, be able to expect that the abuse of minors and women would be universally recognised as evil, and that all Christian leaders will treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. Sadly, however, we read reports of Christian leaders themselves being involved in cases of abuse and these are distressingly common.  In the last blog piece, we encountered another familiar theme – the tendency of many in positions of seniority in churches to put the protection of institutions and financial interests above the pain and damage suffered by abused individuals.  The story of the Church’s failure in this area is well documented in Australia, Britain, the States and no doubt, in other nations.  What does vary from nation to nation is the speed and effectiveness shown by the secular authorities in their response to the abuse problem.  One nation, and I am here thinking of Australia, was ahead of the game in setting up a government Royal Commission to examine the whole issue.  We in Britain were two years behind in seeing a government-sponsored body set up to look at the problem of child sexual abuse across the institutions, including the churches.  This setting up of IICSA nearly did not happen because of a flagging political will to see the process through.  Also, there was the difficulty of finding a suitably qualified person to act as Chair.  The IICSA process is now almost complete and the whole conduct of safeguarding in the UK will draw on its truth-finding and recommendations for decades to come.

Across in America there is, as far as I can ascertain, nothing resembling the IICSA process or the Australian Royal Commission.  The size of the country and its fragmentation into individual states no doubt makes such a project impossible.  Nevertheless, America does have certain organisations equipped with both money and expertise to undertake important work in this area.  I am in particular thinking of the work of the powerful and effective organisation known as GRACE.  GRACE is a much larger set-up than our nearest UK equivalent, 31:8.  Its expertise covers all the areas that the British organisation is involved in, namely responding to and analysing the institutional failings in the area of abuse.  There is one major difference between the two organisations apart from size and budget.  GRACE is deeply embedded in the legal aspects of safeguarding.  It does not just offer consultancy advice to churches faced with abuse allegations.  It will, when necessary, involve itself in the pursuit of legal claims against individuals and organisations.   GRACE was founded by two individuals in 2004, one of whom is Billy Graham’s grandson and a lawyer, Boz Tchividjian. The acronym GRACE stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment.  Boz brought to the organisation all his background of being part of a premier American evangelical family, but he added to this the incisive understanding of a lawyer who possessing a passion for protecting the weak and vulnerable. 

The work of GRACE across the churches has had considerable impact on American church life in the twenty or so years of its existence.  Several important investigations have enhanced its reputation and demonstrated its skill and effectiveness. Among its early pieces of work was a report which identified terrible abuse of all kinds being inflicted on the children of missionaries, popularly known as MKs or Mission Kids.  These children had been taken with their parents to countries overseas to live in boarding schools while the parents were working in remote villages which were unsuitable for children. The GRACE report focussed on one group known as the Twelve Tribes Mission working in Senegal.  GRACE located as many of these children as it could and learnt from them the appalling conditions that they had been subjected to.  This included sexual and physical abuse.  The report published in 2009 was meticulous and highly critical of the Mission.  The organisation was severely censured for showing little interest in the interests and safety of these vulnerable American children under their care. The work of GRACE included in this case legal action against the Mission and a number of involved individuals were fired from their posts.  Some congregations involved with the Southern Baptist scandal described in the last blog piece, also drew on the forensic wisdom possessed by GRACE in the task of understanding the corruption and failures of the SBC.  It should be mentioned that Boz is no longer, since 2021, the executive director of the organisation, but he remains on the advisory panel. 

One of the features of the safeguarding world in the CofE is that when we look for the church lawyers involved in abuse cases, we find many of them firmly lined up on the side of the institution.  Survivors do not find legal assistance from the firms of lawyers who specialise in church law.  The legal assistance they do receive comes from a number of specialist ‘secular’ lawyers.  These are the ones who negotiate with the CofE’s insurer for compensation claims.  I have good reports of their understanding and compassion towards survivors.  There is also a third strand of legal activity in this area which my readers will be familiar with.  This is found in the work of two doggedly independent retired lawyers, David Lamming and Martin Sewell.  They are a source of much appreciated help and advice for survivors.  The moral support they offer victims and survivors caught up in the Kafkaesque structures of church law is incalculable.  Alongside this important task of supporting victims and survivors in their gruelling confrontations with the church authorities, these two also are constantly questioning and attempting to interpret for Synod members the application of church law to safeguarding.  David is no longer on General Synod but still works tirelessly for survivors.  One suspects that the Archbishops’ Council would prefer ordinary members of Synod to leave all legal matters to their ‘experts’.  The notion that the legal opinions of senior church lawyers close to Church House and Lambeth Palace can be thought to be beyond the need for scrutiny and close examination by ordinary Synod members and clergy has proved to be a dangerous assumption.  Anyone with the slightest sense of what is legally appropriate will have been alarmed by the conflicts of interest apparent in the Percy affair.  One does not need to be a legal expert to realise that an ‘independent’ core group should not have known opponents of the one accused allowed to sit in judgment. With 60% of the current Synod unfamiliar with the history of the tangled legal trails around safeguarding over the past ten years, the legal memory and skill of the remaining independent lawyer on Synod, Martin Sewell, is needed more than ever.

This piece is meant to encourage the reader who is interested in holding the Church to account in its legal and moral failings over safeguarding, to have a look at the work of GRACE in America.  We already possess high professionalism and insight in the organisation 31: 8.  This needs to be combined with the probing questioning of GRACE or lawyers like Sewell and Lamming.  In other words, we need the independent and informed work of both these independent entities, legal and professional, working together.  Perhaps the Charity Commission will respond to Sewell’s recent challenging letter about incompetence and failure in the CofE and Archbishops Council with a similar suggestion.  Might we dream that the Charity Commission demands that the CofE submits itself to a professionally competent body, outside its control, to offer advice and support in all matters to do with safeguarding?  Independent is a word that perhaps needs to be avoided, as it has been thoroughly misapplied in recent months.  The ombudsman role that is needed will need to be ‘third party’.  They could do worse than consulting the directors and staff of the GRACE organisation in the States as well as talk to the two real ‘experts’ in this area that we have in Britain.  Between them, they seem to be doing much that we need in our present safeguarding crisis in the Church of England.   

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the States is, after the Roman Catholics, the largest denominational church in the country.  It claims a membership total of some 14 million members, mainly in the southern states.  By British standards, the prevailing denominational structure is a very loose one. The Convention to which Southern Baptists congregations are affiliated, possesses no hierarchical structure as we would understand it.  The SBC can best be described as a confederation of independent self-governing congregations, united only by their adherence to a common doctrinal statement.  In practical terms this doctrinal unity allows all ministers in the denomination to train in one of the approved centrally funded colleges and also to cooperate in missional efforts overseas.  Real power or authority is located within each local congregation.  Somehow this loose confederation of what we would describe as conservative evangelical congregations has held together for 170 years.  The ‘Southern’ part of its title emerged as the result of 19^th century theological arguments over the position of the church with regard to slavery.  Those in the southern regions of the States decided that they could not retain fellowship with the northerners who had taken up arms to abolish the institution of slavery.

In spite of what we in Britain would consider to be a very loose denominational structure, Southern Baptists have maintained over the decades some aspects of system of a centralised bureaucracy, based at their headquarters in Nashville Tennessee.  SBC congregations send to the centre the dues needed to finance some administration, missions and educational projects.  Representatives of the entire SBC family also gather annually in June for a huge assembly or Convention.  Here doctrinal matters are discussed and voted on by congregational representatives known as messengers. Such a gathering is of course enormously cumbersome as a decision-making body, so it has not been difficult for an Executive Committee (EC) to control the agenda.  It took considerable effort and lobbying for the issue of sexual abuse to become a topic for the Convention but eventually it broke through into the awareness of the entire gathering and an investigation ordered.  It is this investigation by a professional body called Guidepost Solutions that produced a substantial detailed report in May this year.  Although some of the story of cover-up and abuse had been earlier covered by the Press, notably the Houston Chronicle, the tale that is contained in the 288-page report is still shocking.  One commentator described it as apocalyptic.  I have skim read the entire document but much of what I write here, to be truthful, is more indebted to the excellent summary put out by the magazine Christianity Today.

In many ways the most predictable parts of the Guidepost Solutions report are the shocking and disturbing accounts of abuse.  The common theme of powerful men, even a President of the entire organisation, exploiting their power in order to sexually abuse women and children is something that, tragically, we have often met before. It seems that nothing had prepared the SBC for these kinds of revelations.  What is perhaps of more immediate interest to us on this blog is the way that some of the EC, especially its leaders, had known that something was going on. Those in the know had failed to deal with the problem over twenty or more years because of the legal advice they received.  The frequent stories and disclosures of abuse had been received, but the lawyers working for the SBC at the centre warned the leaders against getting involved.  The EC is a group of around 70 that met throughout the year, but it seems that there was an inner clique that exercised the real power in the committee.   It was this small sub-group, headed up by an elected President that bears much responsibility for the cover-ups that took place. 

 The EC, encouraged by the in-house lawyers, was always keen to emphasise that they had no executive power over the SBC congregations.  All the real authority in the SBC structure belonged to the individual congregations. This claim of official powerlessness provided a convenient excuse for doing absolutely nothing when disclosures were received about sexual abuse in Baptist congregations around the country.  Briefed by their lawyers, the EC fended away complaints and disclosures by saying that they had no means to intervene with the affairs of local congregations.  This failure even to make any record even when ministers were sent to prison for abuse offences meant that abusing ministers and lay workers were able to flit from congregation to congregation without anyone in a position of authority keeping an eye on them.  In fact, the SBC did possess a secret list of reports of abuse committed by affiliated ministers and paid officers, but this information was never made available to congregations wanting to appoint a new member of staff.

If there are ‘villains’ to be found in the narrative of the abuses uncovered by Guidepost, they are numbered not only among the actual abusers and those ignored the abuse stories, but among the legal teams who advised the SBC and the EC over 60 years.  One particular firm that was giving obstructive legal advice is named as Guenther, Jordan and Price.  The lawyers in this firm were consistently advising against any action on the part of the EC.  They feared that the EC might become legally liable if it in any way involved itself in any of the affiliated local Baptist congregations.  Even when the incidence of sexual abuses in the SBC were becoming widely known across the nation, the same mantra-like legal advice was being put forward as sound legal counsel.  It took the bravery of individuals like Rachel Delhollander to tell the church and the nation what was going on. http://survivingchurch.org/2018/02/02/the-rachael-delhollander-story-abuse-forgiveness-and-church-exclusion/  She and others had to endure years of vilification, shunning and shame for their valiant attempts to draw the attention of the whole country to the problem.  The culture of the EC was one where any report of abusive behaviour was treated like a threat.  Every episode was seen, not as a cry for help, but as an attack on the institution of the SBC.  Thus, it had to be resisted by all means available.   It was only when a chorus of voices from outside, shared through the internet, eventually became impossible to ignore, that something had to give.

The task of survivors and advocates in trying to bring accountability to the SBC was in many ways harder than for those undertaking the same task in Britain.  Such whistle-blowers were constantly told that they did not understand the legal basis of the SBC or its organisational structure.  Alternatively, they were accused of being out to destroy the denomination.  Two lawyers in particular, Augie Boto and Jim Guenther were successfully peddling this narrative to successive presidents who, with their close circle, heard many abuse stories.  Any intervention on their part would create massive liabilities for the whole denomination.  Like the three wise monkeys, it was better for the presidents and their advisers neither to see, hear or speak anything on the topic of abuse.  Ignoring the pain and harm that came to hundreds of abuse victims at the hands of their predators was considered a price worth paying for the protection of the reputation of this denomination.  Time will tell whether this wickedly inappropriate advice has contributed a single thing of value for the SBC or whether it has fatally undermined the cause of Baptist churches, not only in America but right across the world.

I am sure my readers can think of a number of parallels in the UK.  Legal advice is offered to protect an institution, like the CofE, but it ends up causing serious damage to individuals.  The SBC scandal, if we can call it that, will take several decades to heal, if it ever does.  In Britain too we have seen attempts to resolve issues relating to abuses of power by the use of ecclesiastical legal tools.  These often do little to help individuals.  The use of legal processes in church life may sometimes be necessary, but quite often they increase a sense of stress among all concerned.  Many of us would like to feel that the legal cases that the church gets involved in will become fewer in number.  Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.  The use of legal protocols and processes seem to increase, adding to the sense of fear and fragility among those who work for the Church in a variety of capacities.

In a final addendum, the BBC website reported that the SBC is to face an investigation by the American Department of Justice.  One wonders whether our own Church will face the possibility of a secular judge-led investigation of its internal processes. Currently we are waiting to see if the Charity Commission will recommend any outside intervention in the Church’s affairs.  Certainly, a sense of incoherence in church business over safeguarding and similar activities appears to be getting greater.  Perhaps we are closer to the SBC situation of being investigated by outside authority than we might have thought possible.

I have more than once complained that it is difficult to penetrate the complexity of safeguarding organisations at the national level of the CofE.  Most people become bewildered at the plethora of organisations with the word safeguarding attached to them.  Janet Fife wrote a very helpful glossary on this blog in an attempt to demystify the way things work in the CofE. http://survivingchurch.org/2020/12/15/alphabet-soup-a-glossary-of-safeguarding/  One of the issues that helps to muddle the situation still further is the fact that when survivors are included in a national body working for safeguarding, we cannot know for reasons of confidentiality who these survivors are.  Are we to take on trust that the survivor members of the group are true representatives of this group and that they are in constant touch with others in a similar situation?  There is no way that we can know whether the survivor representatives on the new Redress Scheme Project Board or the National Safeguarding Survivors Group (NSSG) are reaching out to others to gauge their opinions and ideas.  If there is in fact a lively interchange and proper communication between these ‘official’ survivors and others who remain suspicious of these groups, I am ready to be corrected.  All I can say that the survivors I know do not feel safe at present to engage with any of the national Church structures. For a variety of reasons, they stand apart from them.  

One individual who works tirelessly for the cause of survivors at General Synod and in many other ways is the retired lawyer and Synod member Martin Sewell.  He has been an occasional contributor to Surviving Church and has taken a prominent part in supporting the cause of survivors, becoming especially involved in the case of Dean Percy.  As a lawyer, he brings all his analytical skills to the table and helps the rest of us understand the legal complexities of the structures set up by the CofE.  He was one of the authors of the so-called Micah 6:8 letter. http://survivingchurch.org/2020/08/12/letter-to-charity-commissioners-over-concerns-about-church-of-england-safeguarding/  This was addressed to the Charity Commission (CC) and drew their attention to the failings of CofE safeguarding processes.  As far as I can tell, this 2020 letter was never replied to but it was a significant support to survivors in the way it articulated some of their longing for justice and transparency in the safeguarding processes.

Recently Martin Sewell has written a further letter to the CC.  This time it is not a letter which supporters were invited to sign. https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sewell-letter-to-Charity-Commission-Earner-5.8.2022-v.2-9.8.2022.pdf  It is a letter of some 13 pages, so it requires to be read more than once to extract its meaning.  In essence it is claiming that the CofE has gone beyond its level of competence in trying to resolve numerous failings in the safeguarding sphere.  Its efforts to set up safe and independent structures to bring support to the survivor community are failing.  There are two key case studies where these failures are explored, the Dean Percy case and the anomalies and problems for the CofE in setting up the so-called Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).

Sewell does not mince his words in the CC letter.  He looks back over the last few years of safeguarding activity in the Church and finds that word ‘incompetent’ is a good description for what has gone on.  He mentions the Matt Ineson affair and the Makin review on John Smyth, now 800 days late.  More recently we have had the failures revealed in the Fr Griffin case and of course the never-ending Percy scandal.  Martyn Percy has written a detailed complaint to the Archbishops’ Council (AC) about the many legal and moral failures in his case. He still awaits a complete response to the many issues he raised.  What the AC have put in place is a ‘lessons learned’ enquiry from the body set up less that two years ago, the ISB.  This was commissioned before the Chair of the Group, Maggie Atkinson, was required to ‘step back’ from her position at the request of the AC.  Given the fact that Atkinson was the most experienced of the three (part-time) members of the ISB, it is hard to see how they are equipped to tackle the much-needed review of the issues in the Percy affair even if they had their full complement of members.  Having lost their Chair, the ISB will find it difficult to function effectively even with the most straightforward of commissioned tasks.  According to Sewell’s detailed analysis of the problems surrounding the ISB, the needed expertise is simply not there to undertake something as complex as examining the Christ Church affair and the questionable behaviour of certain clergy in the Diocese of Oxford

Apart from the issue of whether it has the competence to do a technically complex task, the ISB is also critiqued by Sewell’s letter for its questionable claims of independence.  For such a group of people to claim to be independent when they have no legal identity apart from the group that brought them into being (the AC), is impossible to do.  As we have discussed on this blog before, independence requires a number of conditions to be in place.  The ISB is appointed and paid for by the AC.  Also, recently, the AC has shown itself to have the power to compel the Chair to ‘step back’.  There appears to be no other body in any way involved in overseeing the ISB’s work. When these questions over legal and independent status were raised by synod members in July, the answers that were given were vague and confusing.  It seemed to Sewell that senior members of the CofE had not thought through or worked out what structures were needed to provide a robust system of independent safeguarding for the Church.  His purpose for writing to the CC was an attempt to again force the CofE to put in place a system that would ensure a level of adequate professional competence in the whole safeguarding enterprise.  Victims and survivors need to know that they will receive a hearing and justice from the Church.  Those accused of abuse would also need to know that they would receive a proper hearing and that their story too would be heard and considered impartially.

Readers of this blog will know many occasions in the history of CofE safeguarding when impartiality has not been preserved.  From the refusal of a serving diocesan bishop to cooperate with the police when trying to protect Peter Ball from prosecution, to the appalling treatment in court of Julie MacFarlane at the trial of her abuser, the Church has often shown a determination to protect itself at all costs.   Many clergy live in dread of the power of the CDM and the fear of being considered dispensable when the reputation of the wider institution is under attack.  We must be grateful when so much effort and money is being spent on institutional self-defence by the church, that we have these few individual legal voices, notably Martin Sewell and David Lamming. They are there in the public arena defending victims and the wrongly accused.  I have no notion how much in total the CofE spends on itself for legal and public relations purposes, but the sums must be counted in the millions.  On this other side, for the defence of the survivors and the wrongly accused, the total sum is infinitesimal in comparison.  Lamming and Sewell are, fortunately for the cause, both now retired and each contributes much of their available time to the task of bringing light, truth and justice into the Church.  It is bizarre that they are opposed by senior members of the CofE when they are working so hard to preserve impartiality, integrity and honesty in the Church.   Surviving Church applauds them and all that they do for justice and for the needs of abuse survivors as well as the falsely accused.