by Martyn Percy

Fourth in a series of Reflections

In Kazuo Ishoguro’s 1989 novel The Remains of the Day, we are introduced to Stevens, a butler who dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington at his stately home near Oxford, England. Told in the first person, the novel is set In 1956, when Stevens takes a road trip to visit a former colleague. As he travels he reminisces about events at Darlington Hall in the1920s and 1930s.

We learn that Stevens was in love with Miss Kenton (the housekeeper) at Darlington Hall, Lord Darlington’s estate. Stevens and Miss Kenton failed to admit their true feelings for each other. Their conversations as, recollected by Stevens show a professional friendship, and which at times came close to blossoming into romance. At the same time emotional reserve and professional resolve mean it is a line neither dared to cross. Stevens remained distant and never yielded, even when Miss Kenton tried to draw closer to him. As the book progresses, we also learn that Lord Darlington was a Nazi sympathizer.

When they finally meet again, many years later, Kenton has married and expecting a grandchild. Stevens later muses over his lost opportunities with Kenton. But he also comes to review and regret his decades of selfless service to Lord Darlington, whom he reflects may not have actually been worthy of his unquestioning fealty. Ishoguro’s novel offers us soft yet brutal exposure to the worldview of Stevens and those he serves.

Stevens champions dignity, emotional restraint, and the special qualities that make English butlers the best. ‘Continentals’ are dismissed for their emotional incontinence, and Celts for the fiery tempers. The English, on the other hand, are reserved, restrained and appropriately reverential n a kind of slow parody, Stevens’ elderly father – also a former butler dedicated to a life of service – is dying upstairs. Messages are sent to his son that his father is dying. But the reply is telling: “I’m afraid we’re extremely busy now…but we can talk again in the morning”.

As the death of his father is imminent, the strain begins to show on Stevens. But he carries on, regardless. As Salman Rushdie remarked “[Stevens is] destroyed by the ideas upon which he had built his life”. Much like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, we have a story that is also a critique of class, deference and emotional constipation. Stevens is a character who believes the best way to control the external chaos is by making dignity and emotional restraint internally sacrosanct. So much so, that the irrational-sacredness invested in by Stevens is believed to deliver him both safety and reward. It does neither.

There is also a sense in which Ishoguro’s novel is an exploration of the unwritten constitutions in work, society, families and other groups that are held to be sacrosanct. To question these codes is to trespass; to break the club rules is to sin; to mock the conventions is to violate the group and all it holds sacred.

‘Respair’ is an old word that one hardly ever uses these days. The opposite of ‘despair’, ‘to respair’ is to have fresh hope, and to move beyond the gloom of desolation and despondency and have faith in the future. Despair is to see no light at the end of the tunnel. Or, if you do happen to glimpse a twinkling light in the distance, it is the proverbial train hurtling towards you – so time to run and hide. Yet there is hope.

Hope may be the most important virtue humanity possesses. It believes in better, so does not despair of the present (though some exasperation is normal and perfectly permissible!). Hope can maintain relationships in rocky times. It raises our children and educates them. Hope does not give up. It wants the best for others. It is deeply rooted in God’s grace and goodness. It is turned towards a greater light and the promise of our best for all individuals, communities and countries being realised. And their best for you. It yearns, as we all do, for justice, integrity, peace, truth and kindness to flourish.

The very first words that God utters in the scriptures (Genesis) link to some of the very last words (Revelation):
God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1: 3, RNJB).
[The Eternal City] “…has no need of sun or moon to give it light, for the Glory of God its light…the nations will walk in its light… (the city) gates will never be closed…and there will be no more night; they will not need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will be their light…” (Revelation 21 & 22, RNJB)

It is into the darkness and the formless chaos that God first speaks – and light appears. Light is the first thing in these opening verses of the scriptures that God declares to be “good”. In a world where much tragedy brings darkness, and where much sin lingers in the shadows, we need to be reminded that the light God speaks into existence is “good”. It is that constant reminder, in our everyday lives, of the utter goodness, provision and love of God’s creative work. In a world where even now, and in so many places, darkness overwhelms households, communities, nations and lives, we yearn for the coming of light. Beyond the global challenges, our own lives also cry out for light – those places and circumstances in our lives where darkness has overshadowed us, and light seems far, far way. An end to restrictions, impositions, isolation and marginalisation. An end to loneliness and suffering. An end to abuse and the shame and pain it brings. An end to wars, to injustice, to suffering, to poverty, to hunger. An end to darkness.

John’s gospel starts with the eternal story of God breaking in, with light, to our world and our lives. John reminds us – with words that need to constantly ring from our hearts and our lips in faith and protest – that though our world is wounded, God has spoken:

“Light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it” (John 1: 5, RNJB)

That word “overpower” is rendered differently in other translations of John’s Prologue. Older versions have “comprehend” or “overwhelm”. The sense of the Greek, however, is that the darkness cannot “grasp” the light. It just doesn’t understand it. In modern idiom, it doesn’t “get it”. The darkness of evil, iniquity and wickedness cannot understand light.

Our politicians, and sometimes even church leaders, when they speak in half-truths, they know they speak in half-lies. Misleading, covering up, refusing transparency and humane accountability, sweeping things under the carpet: these are all the works of darkness. But God lifts the lid and speaks the light into these dark places and the nooks and crannies that cringe from exposure. Because God is the source of all light and life, the darkness will not overpower us. John tells us that in the birth of Jesus, God has entered into creation afresh – respair – to bring light and life to all. As John puts it: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” (John 1: 9, RNJB).

As we look across God’s creation, our task is to affirm with God all that is good. Wherever darkness threatens to overpower, whether in the lives of others, or in our own lives, let us remember that God has spoken the very first words in creation: “Let there be light…and God saw it was good.” God’s reign of light, love, grace, justice and mercy cannot be overcome by the darkness.

Hope from beyond, sent to the present, is what the gospel asks us to reckon with. Hope consists of God’s jump-start-leads sent from the future through time and space, wired right into our present pains, panics, pandemics and predicaments. The hope is this: that the love of God will return to govern us all. God’s reign of love is to come. In the meantime we are meant to engage in the preparations for this and undertake the work of God. How can the light of Christ illuminate this present darkness? How can the manifest love of God in Jesus overcome the shadowlands?

Perhaps we could all urge the Archbishops’ Council and General Synod to take notice of God’s motions?

The Very Revd Professor Martyn Percy is a Fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford. He writes in a personal capacity.

by Martyn Percy

Third in a series of four reflections

The famous psychologist Jonathan Haidt once said that to understand the governing narratives of our time, we needed to “follow the sacredness… find out what people believe to be sacred, and when [you find that, and the people gathered], there you find rampant irrationality”.

Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality [RSI] is also the acronym for Repetitive Strain Injury. They have some similarities, the most obvious of which is that they are painful and exhausting. Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality is everywhere, or so it seems. It describes the current state of abortion debates. Both sides are vehemently pro-life. Gun control in the USA is another. Both sides believe gun purchase and ownership should be controlled, but have very different ideas
about who should have a gun, when, where and why.

In our own country, Brexit delivered in spades on Rampant-Sacred- Irrationality.  Did our best interests as nation lie in one version of freedom and identity (that was anti-EU) or the other version that was pro-EU. People who have family – or who had been friends for decades – have split irrevocably on the pivot of Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. Like some ancient or modern civil war, we find kith, kin, neighbours and friends creating dividing lines that separate those who adhere to their sacred (that cannot be questioned or debated), and those that challenge it, who must be repelled at all costs. Debates on gender, sexuality, transgender, ethnicity and religion also pivot on Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. If my experience and identity is my right to
own, and cannot be questioned, then it becomes sacred. To challenge it, or seek compromise, will be interpreted as a violation. Suddenly, and somehow in contemporary culture, we have reached a point where everyone has a sacred right to be entirely believed.

Many also think that the right to be believed includes the right to be right. That can be irrespective of the reasoning, facts and hard data. Our brains are fully part of our bodies, and when our thoughts are challenged or perhaps attacked, the mind responds in the same way that the body does to an assault. Our minds close down to protect us from the blows. The mind forms a steel-like cordon around our thoughts, and then thinks about how to respond by going on the attack. Much of this cognition is self-justifying, rather like the reasoning for a just war might run. Thus, our inner voice might say “well he said that, and he would think that, wouldn’t he…? Because he’s against me on this matter, so that point was designed to upset me and torment me on that other front”. If your mind decides your thoughts and beliefs are being attacked, it is more likely you will close down than open up. Such attacks and assaults are more likely to harden resistance, close down debate, and create a toxic culture of right versus wrong,
true versus false, and leads us to go hunting for what is wrong and false about the other person.

The rational response to alien ideas is to either try and understand them, or admit we don’t, and shrug them off. But our minds defend us, and all too often, alien ideas are treated as threats to our existential reality. In much the way that our bodies might respond to any perceived threat. Here, we see that even a person with just different views to us can be perceived as an antagonist. In part, this explains why can feel so aggressive towards people we disagree with. Truth-decay in leadership starts when those in authority start to talk about ‘alternative facts’, or simply dismiss science, hard evidence and solid data.

We are used to hearing our politicians try this, and it has steadily eroded our trust and confidence in them. We no longer believe what they say, even when they tells they are right. The culture of spin, dissembling and briefing has eroded moral, social and political capital to a huge degree.

That our church leaders now do the same is not only sad and shocking, but also distressing because it will produce the same culture of mistrust. Yet we now encounter, consistently, bad lessons learned from politicians and PR gurus, put on the lips of what were presumably once upon a time, good bishops and decent people who had a sense of truth and justice rather than brand-loyalty. But nowadays, it is all about maintaining some fiction of perfectionism. My friend and colleague Professor Nigel Biggar think quite differently about faith and politics. One of us would be characterised as more right-wing and conservative. The other, left-wing and liberal. Leaving aside that neither of us trust these labels or categories, it would not take much to flush out our differences. (Although far more unites us than would divide).

But how are churches – and the Church of England, especially – to resolve persistent divisions within a culture soaked and saturated with its own Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality? There are lessons to be learned from the past. The American Civil War (1861-1865) pitched the southern Confederate states against the northern Union states. The practice of slavery in the United States was one of the key political issues of the 19th century, and it a primary cause of
the Civil War. For Anglicans – Episcopalians in the USA – the division was painful. The
economy of the southern states depended to a large extent on slavery. The
northern economy did not. Episcopalians split down the middle on this, albeit
only for the duration of the war. But the legacy continues to this day. Incidentally, all denominations split like this during the Civil War, and many in the American churches, including Quakers in the southern states, were more persuaded by the economic arguments for slavery than those for emancipation.

Many in the Church of England also supported the separatist Confederates. We perhaps forget too easily that even after slavery was abolished in Great Britain, many individuals and companies continued to invest in such labour overseas. Churches and mission societies did too. Slaves were economic units for investment and the means of production.

The Church of England unable to come to terms with the current issues posed by Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. It screams that church should be “safe”, and that there is no greater priority for its function and service than safeguarding. It then proceeds to make a shambolic job of delivering on this. But you cannot challenge that, as the tropes are bound up with Rampant-Sacred-irrationality.

There is a reason that no Bishop can speak sensibly, rationally or intelligently on the subject. Enquirers are either fed meaningless pastoral guff, or gloopy committee-speak. But everyone knows that safeguarding in the church of England lacks any brain, soul, heart or humanity. As a concept, it is a zombie that devours complainants, respondents, victims and the accused. It feeds off the flesh of the church. There is no accountability. The church enshrines the rights of those who oppose equality on gender and sexuality. The separatists are protected – including their own Bishops – because it is held that their beliefs and right to self-determine their identity cannot be questioned. Rather like the Confederates ordaining their own Bishop to care for the pastoral needs of slave owners, it is hard to challenge the tension between personal legitimacy and corporate agreement. At the end of the American Civil War, the Episcopalian Church was reunited, and meekly but fully accepted that Confederate Bishop as an equal.

An uncritical accommodation of Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality culture risks undermining the rule of law. Smokers may well be distressed that cigarette consumption in public has effectively been outlawed. Yet the re-introduction of smoking zones in restaurants or pubs, or for that matter, in cinemas or on public transport, is not fair to the rest of population.

Neither is sexism or homophobia fair. Sometimes, decisions are made for the common good that must overrule individual or collective appeals to personal claims on rights. We all have to breathe the same air, and share the same living space. But the Church of England still has a soft spot for affirming
discrimination in a variety of forms, and it makes provisions for those who want to perpetrate these on grounds of tradition. But like smoking, we might discover that this results in the death of us all, not just the smokers.

by Martyn Percy

Second in a series of four reflections

It is hard to imagine the Church of England hanging on to its powers and privileges in the next 50 years. Especially since the majority of citizens expect equality and accountability from their institutions as any prerequisite for trust. Moreover, as the numbers of paid-up members of the Church of England has already effectively fallen of the cliff-edge – and there is no sign that this decline is temporary or seasonal – serious questions have to be asked.  These relate to the fitness and role of an established church in one nation, yet within a devolved union of three nations, and Northern Ireland.

The present state of the Church of England would pose an enormous challenge for the very best estate agent to elicit serious interest. True, the CofE is not for sale. But it is constantly on the lookout for long-term and loyal tenants who will take care of the storefront as though they were the owners. Upkeep, appearance, productivity, regional-brand-compliance and purpose are devolved to the local occupiers, who mostly do an extremely good job on very tight budgets.

For all their labour, laity and clergy will receive little thanks from their somewhat distant landlords, who are only interested in the productivity and turnover. And compliance too, unless diversification delivers growth.  We now have a situation in which the Church of England’s senior leadership are re-mortgaging the church on a regular basis.

In this, they are banking on the past and borrowing from the future to try and resolve the present issues.  As many will know with their own homes, it is risky – and only makes sense if the value of your property goes up.  But as the social, moral, spiritual and intellectual capital of the Church of England is all in negative equity, there may be a default at any point.

A senior colleague and friend from a Diocese in the Church of England, and one that enjoys a very fine and lengthy coastline, was surprised to come back from a short sabbatical and be met by the recently appointed Leader of the Enabling Team, charged with delivering and rolling out the maps and charts for a new Mission Action Plan for the Diocese. 

Naturally, my friend had to be paid a visit by the Leader of the Enabling Team promoting the fizzy new Mission Action Plan, so everyone was “fully on board”. My friend studied the maps carefully, which showed where the new congregations were to be “planted”, and how the “old parishes” were to be “consolidated and merged” into new “Missional Minster Areas”. 

Somehow, all of this was meant to be met with breathless excitement.  Who could not be excited at such good news?  For example, the rural deaneries were to be replaced with “active-out-facing resource hubs geared for equipping disciples and enabling transformation”.  (Who in God’s name writes this stuff?). This would all be done and dusted by 2035.  There was a new catchy strapline for the Diocese too, and a specially written prayer for this bold endeavour. 

But my critical colleague asked if the authors had seen the BBC Weather App of late, and looked at the predicted 2035 climate change map for their region?  Of course this future-map had not figured in missional groupthink. 

“Well”, said my colleague, “that map shows half the diocese under water, so most of these new congregations will be submerged.  Worse still, our rural economy, tourism, fishing, shipping and port industries, and many of our current transport infrastructures will be decimated. Did the group think about what kind of world we might be living in by 2035?” Answer came there none.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has recently announced a Bond of £500 million, secured against the future Church of England.  Bonds are traditionally secured on assets, and the money has to be repaid – eventually.  Of course, £500 million in 50 years’ time won’t feel as much as it does now. And perhaps the gamble was worth it – money in the short-term, to see if the future in the long-term can be secured.  That will depend on clergy and laity pursuing the goals and vision set by Bishops and the Archbishops.

So far, there is no sign that these goals and visions are consensual, corporately owned, or collectively assented to.  Most vision-talk by the hierarchy is met with polite indifference, or just ignored. There is no leverage to compel followers of Jesus to pay obeisance to the latest episcopal strategy. Thank God for that.

Yet re-mortgaging the Church of England is going to be a risky business.  Local branches may want to start asking some quite basic questions.  Who really owns this business? Who does it serve, and for what purposes?  Who are these people in regional and national Headquarters, telling us how to run things locally, and cutting our support whilst increasing their own?

As the term zugwang denotes (in chess), every move the church makes is wrong and only makes your position worse.  Yet the player at the board cannot sit there and do nothing, as that will forfeit the actual match. The famous psychologist Jonathan Haidt once said that to understand the governing narratives of our time, we needed to:

“follow the sacredness… find out what people believe to be sacred, and when [you find that, and the people gathered], there you find rampant irrationality”.

Yet faced with difficult choices and competing convictions, most of our church leaders set aside law and wisdom, in order to accommodate all ardent opinions and belief claims.  The embrace what I call Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality, which defies reason and facts.  In the Bible there is a famous story about King Solomon (I Kings 3: 16-28), who ruled between two women both claiming to be the mother of a baby. The two mothers lived in the same house, where each mother cared for an infant son.

One of the babies died, and both women claimed the remaining baby as her own. Both were mothers. Both faced grief and loss.  Both represent a form of Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality.  Solomon’s ultimate justice was an archetypal example of an impartial judge displaying wisdom in a ruling.

Fast-forward to today’s Church of England, and imagine the same story.  But in our modern rendering, Bishop Solomon has left the temple, having finally entered into a co-parenting arrangement with the women, both fighting over the one child. Why? Because Bishop Solomon’s Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality is that you cannot upset either mother, and so both deserve something.  What was he supposed to do with a bereaved woman, and another one hysterical? Compromise was his solution. But not truth and justice.

In a telling article by Bailey Lemon (‘Why this Radical Leftist is Disillusioned by Leftist Culture’, Medium Magazine, 16 February 2020), she examines the inherent contradictions present in a culture that speaks about being progressive, when in fact it is aggressive, oppressive and repressive:

They talk about listening, being humble, questioning one’s preconceived notions about other people and hearing their lived experiences…and yet ignore the lived experiences of those who don’t speak or think properly in the view of university-educated social justice warriors, regardless of how much worse off they really are. That is not to say that we should accept bigotry in any form — far from it. But I would go as far as saying that the politically correct mafia on the left perpetuates a form of bigotry on its own because it alienates and “otherizes” those who do not share their ways of thinking and speaking about the world.

Bailey is talking about the Radical Left, but her analysis comfortably translates to the current culture of the Church of England in many Dioceses, and most certainly from the Archbishops. Bailey continues:

I’m tired of the cliques, the hierarchies, the policing of others, and the power imbalances that exist between people who claim to be friends and comrades. I am exhausted and saddened by the fact that any type of disagreement or difference of opinion in an activist circle will lead to a fight, which sometimes includes abandonment of certain people, deeming them “unsafe” as well as public shaming and slander. It is disgusting that we claim to be building a new world, a new society, a better way of dealing with social problems — but if a person makes a mistake, says and/or does something wrong, they are not even given a chance to explain their side of what happened because the process of conflict resolution is in itself driven by ideology rather than a willingness to understand facts. Actually, in today’s activist circles one is lucky to be given any sort of due process at all, while everyone is put under social pressure to believe everything they are told regardless of what actually occurred in a given situation. This is not freedom. This is not social justice. There is nothing “progressive” or “radical” about it, unless you are referring to fascism.

Again, the resonances with the current Church of England culture hardly need spelling out.  Yet a culture where there is no accountability, transparency or scrutiny of Bishops creates a seed-bed for inequality and injustice.  Bishops seem content to let this continue, and none call it out. 

Do they apologise for their mistakes in the here and now? No. But they will sincerely and sanctimoniously say sorry for sins committed centuries ago, but not by them. Do they acknowledge that the institution they want to see supported is broken, frail and far from perfect? No. They tell us instead that progress is being made, we are all on a journey, and that things are much better than they were ten years ago, or since they came into office. Do they provide convincing evidence for this? No. But you are still meant to trust them. Should you? Let us leave that question open.

by Martyn Percy

First in a series of four reflections

I have written about respair before, and it is a term that is ripe for revival. As a noun, respair means “the return of hope after a period of despair”. As a verb, respair means “to have hope again”. Although both forms are rare and obsolete, they seem ripe for reviving.

Most readers will be more familiar with the term despair – the verb, noun and experience.  I despair of my football team.  I despair of the government. “I despair, therefore I still am, just about…I think…?” (with apologies to Descartes). Despair is, oddly the place we end up in when there is nowhere else to go. The heart already broken into a million pieces cannot be broken into more. We are one step away from returning to our form as dust.

Yet despair is a place, and strange though this may sound, it is a temporary state and place for most of us, whilst we are gradually repaired.  It is a time for some self-compassion, and that requires honesty and realism.  The things that have brought us to this place may still be in place. But we cannot escape from despair by trying to make ourselves happy.  The repair that can come out of despair must face the darkness that has surrounded us. Until we know this – and by that, I mean understanding and accepting – we will struggle. We will tell ourselves that if we can avoid despair there may be hope. On the contrary, the despair has to be unpacked and owned before it can be left.

In an age when feelings have been elevated to a level of existential status, we need to ask if we are still able to educate one another, or only able to score points off each other from the comfort of our swivel-chairs.

The Church of England has retreated – ever-so-slowly – into its own echo chamber. It was once a support-based institution, but has collapsed into a members-only organisation. Local clergy and chaplains heroically resist this trend, and do what they can to continue serving their constituencies and communities, despite the demand to focus on membership drives.  Here, the leadership of the Church of England has been seduced by faddish managerialism and brand-strategizing. 

With a sharp decline in affiliation (of any kind) to the Church of England, and a rising tide of cultural disenchantment with its leaders, a serious crisis is emerging.  In recent decades, the Church of England has invested significant time, energy and money in branding, marketing, mission and re-organisation.  Every initiative has resulted in greater public distancing from the Church of England, and a steeper decline in attendance. 

The Church of England leadership now functions like some unaccountable executive in a political party (communist, pre-Berlin wall) that cannot step outside its own bubble. Speeches at conferences get longer, the agenda less relevant, and the procedural motions riddled with minor points of minutiae.  Party loyalists are rewarded, and dissenters quickly distanced. Or, if they persist, denounced and denigrated.  There is a whiff of dictatorship in the wind.

Culturally, we have reached a moment when even in the churches, dissent and disagreement are treated as disloyalty.  Asam Ahmad writes in the magazine Briarpatch (March 2^nd 2015) that:

In the context of call-out culture, it is easy to forget that the individual we are calling out is a human being, and that different human beings in different social locations will be receptive to different strategies for learning and growing. For instance, most call-outs I have witnessed immediately render anyone who has committed a perceived wrong as an outsider to the community. One action becomes a reason to pass judgment on someone’s entire being, as if there is no difference between a community member or friend and a random stranger walking down the street (who is of course also someone’s friend). Call-out culture can end up mirroring what the prison industrial complex teaches us about crime and punishment: to banish and dispose of individuals rather than to engage with them as people with complicated stories and histories.

Asam Ahmad added to these reflections in a follow up article for Briarpatch (August 29, 2017) he notes:

“…But sometimes the only way we can address harmful behaviours is by publicly naming them, in particular when there is a power imbalance between the people involved and speaking privately cannot rectify the situation….”.

He then concludes:

“It is important to note here that there is often a knee-jerk reaction to name many instances of conflict as abuse: the word “abuse” can end up referencing a range of harm, from sexual and physical violence to gaslighting and even straightforward meanness.

But at the same time, we must listen to survivors of sexual and/or physical violence, particularly when they tell us they have not been able to receive accountability through private interactions alone. Survivors publicly naming their abuser are often met with a refusal to listen to their stories, and with tone policing, gaslighting, and/or generally being dismissed. This, despite the fact that survivors going public often do so at an incredible personal cost, and often after years of having tried to privately rectify the situation.

When we insist that all of these conversations must remain in the private sphere, we are insisting that accountability is always a private matter. The history of our movements very clearly shows the opposite is often the case. People continue to take the side of those with more power, more privilege, and more capacity, and often these people are never held accountable for the harm they have caused. This is precisely why call-outs [sometimes] need to happen.”

General Synod is in an occasional long-distance commuting relationship with reality.  The public no longer trust a body that is not credible or relevant to their daily lives. Operating inside a culture of privilege and patrimony, and even unaccountable to loyal members, will not win new converts to the cause.

Aspects of the Church of England still constitute an important of our collective national treasure.  At local levels, parish ministry and chaplaincy continue to be cherished and valued, making appreciable differences to community and civic life. Yet that is translating less and less into church attendance.  The more the central governance of the church tries to invent new initiatives to address its own numerical anxieties and other neuroses, the more the public back away.

Yet the leadership of the Church lives in denial. And General Synod is an echo chamber for convincing the leadership that there is progress, when in fact the external evidence all points to disrepair and decline.  If we were to conduct a cultural weather forecast for the future of the Church of England, the climate change will – Canute-like – swamp it within the next fifty years.  Already drowning in irrelevance, it can neither resist rising cultural tide-changes.

What is needed here is serious collective self-criticism. I doubt however, that General Synod, the Archbishops or the Archbishops’ Council can manage that. Fear of loss (face, support and control) means the grip only gets tighter, and the politics and practices meaner. Asam Ahmad (02-03-15) in Briarpatch notes:

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that there is a mild totalitarian undercurrent (even in) how progressive communities police and define the bounds of who’s in and who’s out. More often than not, this boundary is constructed through the use of appropriate language and terminology – a language and terminology that are forever shifting and almost impossible to keep up with. In such a context, it is impossible not to fail at least some of the time. And what happens when someone has mastered proficiency in languages of accountability and then learned to justify all of their actions by falling back on that language? How do we hold people to account who are experts at using anti-oppressive language to justify oppressive behaviour? We don’t have a word to describe this kind of perverse exercise of power, despite the fact that it occurs on an almost daily basis in progressive circles.

Though we still lack a word for this, I could hardly put it better myself.

One of the features of becoming an incumbent in the Church of England is the fact that you have to become knowledgeable in a variety of areas that were, in my day, barely mentioned at theological college.   The world of finance, money raising, legal protocols and the preservation of ancient buildings are not areas of knowledge where clergy have much instruction or can claim any special expertise.  This is particularly true if, like me, they have not been in the world of work before ordination.  If a vicar is fortunate, he/she will find competent lay people to assist in such tasks.  Having sound reliable lay officers in a parish situation is an enormous bonus, but it cannot always be taken for granted.  If we were to complain that the average vicar is forced to accept responsibility for areas where he/she can claim no special skill, the problem gets more pronounced as you go up the hierarchy.  I spoke in a recent blog piece about the importance of a vicar getting on well with volunteers that work in a parish church.  There might be up to twenty such individuals working in a medium size congregation.  When you consider a cathedral, the number of volunteers at work may be in the hundreds. In an organisation like a cathedral, if smooth functioning is to be achieved, considerable personnel/management skills are required of those in charge.

The administrative tasks of very senior clergy in the Church of England are, in comparison to ordinary vicars, enormously demanding.  A glimpse of the full range of skills needed for a senior bishop, such as the Bishop of London, was revealed to me in some detail when I read Bishop Chartres’ Lambeth Lecture for 2015.  Obviously, part of the skill of successful management involved delegating many tasks and responsibilities to other clergy and lay officers. The really important decisions still fell to the Bishop himself and many were to do with strategy and buildings.  We read, in the lecture, of the decisions that had to be made over redundant church buildings and vicarages.  The financial implications of holding on to a church building in a state of disrepair were potentially crippling.  Equally, releasing a piece of potentially valuable real estate in a city like London for less than its market value would also damage the church financially.   The Bishop needed help in these kinds of matters.  The nitty gritty of sorting out property deals and seeing the potential of buildings was not one to be placed on a bishop’s shoulders. Like a vicar having to deal with an area of administration for which he had no previous experience, Bishop Chartres looked for help.  In his own words, he said ‘Part of the answer was a partnership with a remarkable layman, Martin Sargeant, who had an eye for development possibilities and enjoyed considerable respect from the City Corporation and developers alike. His negotiating skills and attention to detail were also crucial in turning ideas into profitable ventures where both the Diocese and a range of Christian-based enterprises were benefited’.  

Sargeant began working for Bishop Chartres in 1997.  At first he was used as a go-to consultant for property matters, but his place in the Diocese was made official in 2009 when he acquired the title of Head of Operations.  It appears now, according to the recently published Review by Chris Robson on the Fr Griffin affair, that Sargeant, in fact, had no defined place within the formal structures of the diocese.  The reviewer could not find any contract or conditions of employment.   Even the sources of finance from which his salary had been paid were wrapped up in mystery.  It seems that Bishop Chartres had become dependent on Sargent for his range of skills in such a way that the protocols of due diligence were cast aside when the full-time appointment as Head of Operations was created for him.  To bring this story right up to date, Sargeant, on the 8^th July, has been charged in connection with a fraud case involving a missing £5 million.  Some of this money belongs to parishes in the Diocese of London.  Even if Sargeant is still allowed the presumption of innocence until proved guilty, it is hard to see how so much money could vanish without him having some knowledge of what had happened to it.  Clearly, we recognise now that, at the very least, the former Bishop’s trust in his property/financial ‘fixer’ had been grossly misplaced.

The now ex Head of Operations in the Diocese of London also plays a prominent part in another tale of London diocesan woes.  Although he is not named, Sargeant is an important figure in the story uncovered by Hobson’s 49-page lessons learned review of the Fr. Griffin affair.  The infamous ‘brain dump’ that took place during 2019 between Sargeant and the Archdeacon of London and others, was the start of the disastrous series of events leading to Fr Griffin’s suicide in November 2020.  Sargeant wanted to share information that he had picked up in the course of his work in the Diocese over twenty years.  This included personal information about the clergy, including Fr Griffin.  Some of this information was factual but much was salacious gossip. The details of what went wrong and the way that mishandling of sensitive information was to have so serious an effect on the state of mind of a priest, is set out in Hobson’s review.  The point that I wish to focus on here is when the reviewer queries the Archdeacon’s competency in safeguarding matters.  The answer he gives is that the Archdeacon was a ‘generalist’ in these matters.   At a second meeting with Sargeant, the Archdeacon was accompanied by the Head of Safeguarding who was also the Human Resources lead.  Once again, the reviewer questions whether there was in the room sufficient expertise in safeguarding matters to recognise the implications of receiving material of this kind.  Nine hours of testimony from Sargeant was received and this was in the end written up to form the Two Cities Report.  The process of scrutinising all the information by safeguarding professionals in both the Anglican and Catholic churches was eventually achieved, but the whole process took an inordinately long time.  Trust between the clergy mentioned in this report and the current Bishop of London has been seriously damaged by the ill-coordinated management of this material.

The theme of this blog piece has turned out not to be about the safeguarding failures in the London diocese that contributed to Fr Griffin’s death. It is rather about the difficulties experienced by senior church figures in coping with areas of institutional complexity which go beyond their experience and competence.  Bishop Chartres seems to have been an enormously able and respected bishop of London, presiding over the only diocese in England to record a growth in numbers in recent years.  This apparent super-competency, however, had its limits.  He put his personal trust in a property/financial ‘expert’ and the consequences of that trust seem to have been disastrous for the diocese, both reputationally and financially.  The fact that the selection seems to have been informal and outside the normal protocols of recruitment, made it his personal choice.  This also hints at the possibility that Chartres was well aware of the controversial nature of the appointment and that an open system might not have approved this hiring of someone apparently answerable to him alone.

 In the second case we have the Archdeacon of London possessing, according to Hobson’s review, ‘generalist’ skills but being expected to deal with a mass of ‘dumped’ information, giving rise to potentially huge safeguarding and pastoral issues.  Going into that meeting with Sargeant, without any clear idea of how he was going to deal with the promised information, was fateful.   A clear-eyed response to the sequence of events at this point would be to say that that the Archdeacon quickly got out of his depth and was too slow to reach out to others for the right help and advice.

The recording of two serious errors of judgment by senior members of the London diocese which led to unforeseen but catastrophic consequences, is not meant to be a suggestion that either man is guilty of some deliberate wrongdoing.  Both, no doubt, believed at the time they were acting according to the best information available.  The real problem was that in each case the skills and expertise for making a correct decision were insufficient. The Church has to take some responsibility for not resourcing its leaders better for these kinds of situations.  Property management should never depend on a bishop’s hunch about the (dis)honesty of an individual.  There have to be better and more reliable means of managing property and other administrative affairs in a diocese. Ultimately the church would be a healthier place if individuals were better at being aware of the limitations of their skills.  At present we place far too many clergy and others in places where they have to make decisions which are sometimes beyond the skills they possess.  Is it right that all clergy, from the Archbishop of Canterbury downwards, have to take responsibility for so many complex decisions, whether over finance or safeguarding?  Would we not prefer it if our bishops sometimes admitted that they did not know the answers to questions put to them?  Do we really want them to depend on their finite abilities or go running off to take legal advice every time someone challenges their authority?  We have to admit that, as much as we would like bishops in the CofE to take charge of so many policy issues In their dioceses, it is sometimes demanding of them skills and expertise which many of them simply do not have! An extra beatitude should be added to those that already exist.  Blessed are they who know their limitations!

by Gilo

We return to a familiar theme in this blog: the part played by the Church of England’s insurers, the Ecclesiastical Insurance Office (EIO), in the story of church safeguarding. In numerous media articles EIO has been found to have behaved in an obstructive and re-abusive way in its dealing with survivors.  The company had also repeatedly dissembled (put out false information) about the Elliott Review. This review had criticised the church authorities and the way in which their ‘agents’ had undermined the process for making fair settlements with survivors. In recent weeks this same insurance company has accepted liability in a data breach case.  This involved the release of confidential information on Ecclesiastical’s website which named the survivor.  This data breach has been settled by a payment of £30,000 plus costs.  Significantly at the same time an agreement for mediation (in planning stage) has been made over the past undermining by EIO of the Elliott Review.  This important settlement has been achieved by Richard Scorer and Jonathan Price (barrister) and represents an important precedent-setting outcome. It will be embarrassing for the Church, especially to a senior bishop and Archbishops’ Council from whom Gilo is now seeking mediated apologies for their part in complicity with the dissembling and the closing down across years of any questions about this. 

Richard Scorer, the solicitor in this case, said: 

“The outcome of this case speaks for itself. Ecclesiastical initially treated the claim as a claim for a minor data breach. But they have now paid substantially more by way of damages than would ordinarily be paid for a simple breach. In addition, their CEO Mark Hews has provided an unreserved apology, and they have agreed to a further mediation about the wider issue of their public treatment of the Elliott review. By settling the matter in this way, they have in reality acknowledged that this data breach occurred in a wider context of EIO failings towards survivors, some of which were explored in IICSA, and that those failings significantly aggravated this data breach. I hope that these events will be part of an urgent and radical reshaping of EIO’s behaviour towards survivors, and the full implementation of the Elliott report”.

Gilo says:

It’s good that Ecclesiastical Insurance is finally coming to mediation over their repeated public dissembling around the Review into my case. The Bishop mandated to implement the review recommendations (Sarah Mullally) and the Secretary General of Archbishops Council (William Nye) remained silent to every question and request for help on this. Eventually an SAR (Subject Access Request) revealed complicity between Archbishops Council and the National Safeguarding Team and Ecclesiastical and showed they had sought to work together on reputational management; see link: https://survivingchurch.org/2020/09/15/thoughts-on-the-elliott-review-translation-by-archbishops-council/ 

It is disturbing that a three-day data breach which we think was likely to be accidental has had almost as much value as the abuse settlement with an impact lasting decades. I took home £3500 more than from the original settlement. It shows how derisory the abuse settlements are in the hands of the Church of England’s insurer and lawyers.

Phil Johnson comments: 

It is utterly incomprehensible that the amount of compensation for a data breach that lasted 3 days can result in the victim receiving more money than they did from a claim that involved very serious sexual abuse and over four decades of suffering its consequences.

What is more astounding is that these payments are to the same victim and come from the same insurer, highlighting how much more valuable its reputation seems to be compared with victims’ abuse, losses and suffering.

Ian Elliott, the internationally recognised safeguarding expert and reviewer, has said:

“I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and welcome the agreement to reach a mediated settlement with Ecclesiastical Insurance regarding the dissembling that has marked their response to the review that I undertook of a historic abuse case for the Church of England. Over the course of the years since I produced the report, EIO have made comments on national television, on their website, and in evidence to the Inquiry (IICSA),  regarding the accuracy of my assessments, claiming that they were flawed. These damaging statements are completely untrue. Despite this, they were never publicly withdrawn and no attempt has ever been made by EIO or the Church to set the record straight. Telling the truth is important and when that does not happen, trust is damaged and lost.”

Andrew Graystone, advocate for survivors, comments: 

“Around the world churches are beginning to face up to the cost of redress for victims of church abuse. The Catholic Church in Australia is facing a bill of £112 million. Anglican churches there are selling off land and property to meet their bills. The Church of England doesn’t appear to have begun to think about this process. As yet there I can’t find a line for redress in any church budget for the coming years. 

I wish the House of Bishops in England would step up and take responsibility for the damage the church has done. Instead, victims and survivors of abuse in the Church of England find the church’s hierarchy resistant at every stage. It’s not that the bishops don’t care about justice and healing for victims of church abuse. Some certainly do. It’s just quite low on their list of priorities. 

As Gilo and many others know only too well, every engagement with the church on this issue is an uphill struggle. Some survivors who have already lost years to fighting to have their voices heard, fear that they will face further years of legal battles to persuade the church to make redress.  

Bishops need to understand that healing for victims of abuse is not a drag on the mission of the church. It IS the mission of the church.”

Tony who has campaigned alongside Gilo for recognition of the injustice of CofE legal and insurer structures says:

“We set up House of Survivors website (www.houseofsurvivors.org) to provide a clear, indisputable and evidenced narrative of the re-abuse experienced by survivors of CofE abuse, and to hold up a mirror to the Church of England and Ecclesiastical Insurance. Survivors’ lives and chance of repair have been horse traded for corporate commercial gain by the Church’s own insurance company, Ecclesiastical. They have created a huge moral mess, which needs to be addressed by them both. To align with their charitable public PR profile, we have called upon EIO and their parent Benefact Trust (formerly AllChurches Trust) to contribute £100million into the Church’s Redress Scheme over the next four years in lieu of corporate repentance for their part in the callous disregard and belittling of the lived experience of lifelong trauma, and the denial of repair of abuse survivors’ lives.”

Bishop Alan Wilson who was present at the settlement meeting, comments:

“In all my dealings with Ecclesiastical I have witnessed their aspiration to be seen as an industry leader. But for that to happen Ecclesiastical has to build an honest relationship with all its stakeholders, including victims and survivors.

Churches and insurers tend to say that they incorporate survivor experience in their response without actually doing so. The Church produces big rhetoric about engagement whilst fashioning ‘lessons learned reviews’ that drag on for years without anyone seemingly learning any lessons. Meanwhile our insurer steers well clear of any external independent accountability whilst parading and hiding behind its Guiding Principles. I applaud survivors like Gilo and Tony and others for bringing so much to daylight and evidencing that our insurer needs serious scrutiny in its handling of survivors.”

The troubled parish of Wymondham Abbey in the Norwich diocese has given rise to two blog pieces on Surviving Church.  Looking at the situation from afar, it is a painful story of what happens when tensions between an incumbent, individuals in the parish and the authorities in a diocese, overflow into the public domain and become a cause of open scandal.  What I write now is a kind of follow-up on the story.   I will assume familiarity with what has gone before. Those who have not read it will find it http://survivingchurch.org/2021/11/15/wymondham-abbey-and-the-bishops-visitation/  and here: http://survivingchurch.org/2022/01/25/wymondham-abbey-stalemate/

On Sunday June 26^th , Catherine Relf-Pennington announced her resignation during a service at the Abbey.  Clearly the war with a considerable number of her parishioners, as well as the Norwich diocesan authorities, must have played a major part in this decision.  The way that these hostilities became what was effectively a slanging match between the Vicar and the Bishop and his staff in the early part of this year, created a point of no return in the relationship between the two.   The open conflict between the two parties must have put considerable, even unbearable, strain on both sides.  If we look at the confrontation from a power dynamic perspective, it is clear that the Vicar was the weaker of the two contesting sides.  The Bishop and the diocesan staff had a great of legal and moral authority on their side.  The power that the Vicar did have was also legal in nature.  She was able to count on ancient rights pertaining to the clergy, which prevent dismissal except in the case of criminal behaviour.  Until a week last Sunday the situation seems to have been a stalemate.  The Bishop no doubt had explored other options to allow him to resolve the situation, but he would have been cautious to do anything that might have been presented as a case of bullying.  Catherine’s supporters would have been quick to protest if any external pressure was used on the Vicar to move from the parish through some form of legal threat.

What seems to have happened in the story to bring about the resignation?  It is likely (here I am guessing) that the diocese and the Bishop, having decided that the best option was to do precisely nothing, have let events take their course.  The factor that probably was decisive in this story was money.  Covid and the fractious atmosphere around the Abbey had reduced services and visitors drastically.  Income from both sources would have been massively depleted with the deficits in the church’s finances ballooning all the time.  Even the decision to withdraw from paying the parish share to the diocese would not have allowed the other routine bills to be paid.  It would appear that one of Catherine’s weaknesses was her inability to foster good working relationships with the Abbey volunteers.  These included the choir and musicians as well as the guides and welcomers to the building.  When visitors started to find the Abbey often locked because there were no volunteers available, this would have sent a poor message to the outside community.  The Abbey’s reserves quickly started to dry up because they were being used on the few paid staff who were desperately trying to do some of the work formerly done by volunteers.   Without knowing all the details, the evidence I have indicates that, as in the Winchester Diocese, the person in charge allowed funds to be totally depleted, eventually causing the whole organisation to struggle to function.  If the wages of employees cannot be found, the Vicar and PCC will be held legally responsible.  In all likelihood there would have been, behind the scenes, this spiral of deeper and deeper indebtedness.  If the tension of a standoff with the diocese was difficult, the additional burden of having to answer to solicitors for unpaid wages would have created an impossible situation for the Vicar and her wardens.

As I wrote in my second piece on Wymondham, my sympathies in this scenario were with the diocesan authorities and the Bishop.  Whether or not the Direction given by Bishop Graham to the Vicar to apologise to offended parishioners was a realistic way of proceeding, this open conflict between Vicar and Diocese was unseemly and a cause of scandal for the church.  The defiant posturing of the Vicar and Churchwardens in response to the Bishop’s Direction seemed to serve no purpose except to massage a bruised ego.  The personality of the Vicar was always an issue in the narrative at Wymondham.  There was always something less than dignified about a clergyperson speaking ill of other clergy with the help of the local press.

The future for Wymondham can only mark an improvement from the immediate past.  Resources of all kinds, financial, pastoral and administrative will be needed to carve out a new future for the parish and town.  Recovery will be long and hard, but the hope is that memories of happier times in the town and Abbey will provoke a response from the congregation and town to make the needed healing possible.  On the face of it, the problems left behind may well make it very difficult for a future incumbent, but someone will come forward to face the challenge of a very important post in the Norwich diocese. Almost certainly the next incumbent will be a priest in charge with a limited tenure.  This will allow flexibility and prevent some of the problems of the past ever being repeated.

What of Catherine herself?  No one expects her to move on to another post.   She will also be damaged by all the confrontations with the Bishop, the archdeacons and many of her own parishioners.  For most of us, disputes with single individuals take a serious toll on us in terms of sleepless nights and general unease.  Having a litany of people wanting you to move on must have caused her to be thoroughly miserable.  Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, Catherine deserves the opportunity to recover and find peace.  The irony of the situation is that the energy with which she clung to her sense of being in the right and most others in the wrong, is something possibly enhanced by her Christian faith.  How many ‘persecuted’ individuals quote the passage from Matthew where it says ‘Blessed are you when men persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you…’   That passage has unwittingly been used to bolster up many Christian personalities who see life from a somewhat paranoid and narcissistic perspective.  What I believe I see from the outside is not wickedness, but a binary approach to faith and life that is a potential cause for much unhappiness.  Another passage undergirding this approach is the Matthean text that says ‘Whoever is not with me, is against me’.  No one pointed out during my training that Jesus, according to Mark, makes the same statement in a way that turns it upside down, ‘Whoever is not against us is for us’.  The inclusive Marcan version of the saying leads us to a less tidy version of the Christian faith.  The binary Matthean version, though neater, is a way of living the Christian faith with an unfortunate potential for stress and conflict.

What we can wish for Catherine and for her now ex-parishioners is a chance to find shalom and rest.  No one demands that to follow the cause of Christ has to be within an atmosphere of nervous freneticism and conflict.  The passages that I would want all to hear and reflect on are those from John’s gospel which speak of refreshment with food and drink, comfort and plenty.   The symbols of vines, shepherds and places of light should be the images that now flash through our minds.  In other words, the Christian faith, while it has to be lived in the context of a fallen world, promises us fullness and ultimately safety.  I trust that there exist, in the Diocese of Norwich, individuals who can help bring the promise of shalom to all those who are broken and wounded.  For them are offered the words of Jesus when he said, Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Those of us who follow American politics to any degree will have noted the extraordinary testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson to the January 6^th Committee in Washington DC last Tuesday.  What this 25-year-old assistant had to say to the Committee was instantly compelling.  No doubt those who arranged for her to give evidence knew that her grasp of detail, her obvious integrity and her position right at the heart of the action on the fateful day of the attempted coup, would make her a star witness.  What raised her testimony to become decisive and history changing was the assured way that she answered the questions that were put to her.  There was no point where she hesitated about what she had seen.  She had been physically present at some events about which she gave testimony, or she was able to recall precisely what others said they had seen.  To call her a star witness is probably an understatement.  She was a superstar witness in that her testimony cannot easily be destroyed by those who prefer propaganda to replace the recording of historical events. There was nothing for her personally in giving this testimony, except perhaps a place in the American history books

The performance by Cassidy on Tuesday has led me to reflect on what we expect from witnesses either in a legal trial, or from an investigation such as those conducted by the Church of England safeguarding processes.  I will have, at the back of my mind, the Cassidy performance as I try to list some of the qualities that we expect to find from witnesses, whether or not they are under oath in a court of law.  As I write this, I am aware that there are presumably formal guides for barristers and other legal personnel who work within a trial or inquiry setting.  The questions I raise here are strictly from a lay perspective but there is one basic question that we all must ask.  How do we determine that the person speaking to us is telling the truth?

For any person to tell a lie or untruth of any kind, there must be some reason for doing so. The person we are speaking to may have a vested interest in holding on to a false set of facts, because lies appear to be advantageous to them or to an institution like the Church.  ‘Alternative facts’ may help to preserve the reputations of senior leaders in these organisations in the short term.  But over a period the truth has a habit of coming out to heap shame and embarrassment on reputations.  History is harsh to those who have attempted to hang on to power at the expense of integrity and honesty.  Reputations of all, living or dead, do matter.  For the Church, the honesty and holiness of past members is able to feed the integrity of the whole institution long after they have gone.  The opposite is also true.  Immoral behaviour or dishonesty, when it is exposed, even years after the deaths of those guilty, are still able to do damage both individuals and organisations. Telling a lie may appear to provide some advantage for someone but over the long-term it serves little purpose.

Whenever an investigator is searching for the true version of factual events, he/she will be aware of any potential motive for producing a false narrative.  If there appears to be an incentive to lie or cover up facts, the questioner will want to be allowed to ask further questions.  The narrative that is given may of course be the true version but there is nothing wrong in the further questioning as a method of confirming or raising doubts over what has been presented.  The cross-examination of witnesses is an age-old part of the legal process alongside the taking of an oath by witnesses in a court of law.  Everyone, including children, knows that it is quite hard not only to tell a lie, but to sustain that lie when questioned by a skilled investigator.  Lawyers at criminal trials and the police have plenty of experience at sorting out truth from lies.  Sustaining a falsehood when further questions may be asked about the setting or context of that event is quite hard to do.  For a start you need an extremely good memory to ensure that you never swerve from the version of events that you first told.

If an individual in a trial or an inquiry is thought to be relaying a false version of events, the questioner may need to have a working hypothesis as to why and how this could be.  Among the reasons that might come to mind are the presence of shameful episodes in a witness’ life that need to be shut out from memory.   More commonly we might expect to find, behind an individual giving possible false evidence, connections to another person or group.  These external influencing forces may well play a role in encouraging someone to align themselves with as false version of the facts.  The power of a parent to compel a child to follow a particular false account of an event is often decisive.  Thirdly we have, potentially, a wide range of psychological benefits to be obtained by telling a lie.  The self-delusionary aspects of a narcissistic disorder come to mind.  Then there is the avoiding of a raw fear of the truth coming to light and what it might do to the witness and those around him/her.   All these potential causes for telling a lie will normally be grasped and form part of the background awareness of the suitably trained investigator.  In summary, the investigator will look at the relationships, the networks and the ‘political’ factors that surround a witness which may impinge on their ability to tell the plain unadorned truth.  Once again, we are not suggesting that these other factors make lies inevitable.  It is, rather, that lies or false versions of events are less unexpected when there are emotional factors or powerful networks of influence impinging on a witness.  These may alter both the perception and the recalling of events from the past.

To return to the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony, the power of her words was greatly enhanced by the fact she had apparently nothing to gain from telling any version of the events on January 6^th except the true one.  Someone might possibly accuse her of being in league with Trump’s enemies to manipulate the facts, but it would be extremely difficult for anyone to come up with a false version of events which was not contradicted on points of detail by other witness statements.  It is the sheer amount of detail, something Cassidy seemed skilled at recalling, that makes her testimony so important.  People sometimes become confused by details in giving testimony and this is especially true of older people.  While there is always this potential for confusion, It should not be difficult, in practice, for a questioner to tell the difference between the partial memory loss of an older person and the deliberate attempt to cover-up the truth in the interest of relaying a false narrative.

While, as we noted, Cassidy had nothing to gain from giving her account, she had everything to gain by keeping silent.  The political forces in the States have become polarised and potentially violent.  If, as is being claimed in the newspapers today, her testimony forms the obituary to Trump’s political career, then she has good reason to be afraid of the anger of Trump and his supporters.  We all wish her well and hope that her life will eventually be allowed to return to normal.

The power of a witness to make a statement so that justice can be established is a proper part of process in every legal or quasi-legal setting.  We need to find this in the Church’s safeguarding processes.  In every case it is also important for there to be skilful questioning and scrutiny of the one making a testimony.  Problems arise when testimony is lodged, and no proper scrutiny takes place.  So often in church settings no one seems to make it their business to forensically examine whether a testimony is true or even plausible.  The evidence of a complainant is sometimes taken to be the only possible version of truth.  Perhaps what we are witnessing here is the Church trying to work off a compensatory debt to survivors.  For decades, even centuries, the testimony of the weak, the very young and the powerless was ignored.  It was the words of those in power that had weight, and these normally prevailed in church circles as in many others.  When this institutional bias in favour of the powerful finally became exposed, the Church as well as society had a lot of catching up to do.  The pendulum then swung violently in the opposite direction.  Now the witness of the weak and abused has become privileged to the extent that in some cases I hear about, not even common-sense questions are asked of child or vulnerable adult witnesses. Recently Martin Sewell has been asking questions of the controversial Independent Safeguarding Board and the way that, in a recent report, it asserts that ‘complainants can expect to be believed’. Such a statement is ‘extraordinary to find in such a body’. A declaration like this, along with the mantra we heard in the Kenneth case ‘the voice of the child must be heard and believed’, is more appropriate to a counselling service than in a body which is expected to involve itself with issues of justice and truth. A more appropriate statement, the one produced by the Cleveland Report in 1989, is ‘always listen to the complainant and take what they say seriously’. This principle would have been usefully applied in the Kenneth case. Allowing an automatic acceptance of a child’s testimony to pass unquestioned in safeguarding cases, has led to an untidy and inconclusive ending to the affair. The Carl Beech saga is also a warning of what can happen when there is an automatic acceptance of a complainant’s testimony.

Believing a testimony without any scrutiny of its plausibility can lead to thoroughly bad process in church legal protocols.  While we want to move away anything resembling the old aggressive strategies of defence lawyers in rape trials, we do still need independent scrutiny of accusations that are made in church led processes.  It does not take a top QC to establish the plausibility of a witness in a CDM process.  It does take a person who combines some basic legal training, an understanding of independence combined with a basic grasp of human nature.  Such a person, perhaps designated as a plausibility investigator, does not need years of experience to hone their skills.  We need these kinds of independent voices in the church’s legal protocols since, in some cases, compassionate common-sense seems to have left the room.  If the CDM process is not reformed speedily, many young clergy are going to feel thoroughly insecure.   The system in which they work has become untrustworthy.  I am hearing from various directions, not only cases of injustice, but also a sense of deepening insecurity, even fear among clergy, at the way the church’s legal structures are operated. 

Quite frequently in safeguarding contexts we hear the expression ‘vulnerable adults’ or ‘adults at risk’.  Without getting into detailed definitions of what these terms mean, we are referring to a group of people who, for various reasons, are in danger of different types of exploitation.  The expression ‘at risk’ is one that is not usually a self-description.  It is more likely to be used by someone in authority who wants to help and support someone in another group who may be in some sort of danger.  Our perspective on what it means to be at risk or vulnerable, comes normally from someone on the outside looking in.

This current blog post is written from the perspective and experience of an individual who readily accepts that he is part of the ‘at risk’ group. Robert, as we shall call him, knows that a lifetime of mental fragility, caused originally by a brain injury at the age of 11, has placed him with a constant need for help and support.  I am telling something of Robert’s story because it contains his alarming account of an encounter with a Christian congregation.  The attempts by a church to heal Robert of his mental distress have considerably added to his pain.  It is alarming to discover that apparently well-meaning folk are permitted to diagnose brain injury as demonic possession.  Society should surely offer some protection for vulnerable adults like Robert from utterly dangerous practices like these.  For me it is a privilege to be entrusted with Robert’s story. I ask the reader to enter imaginatively into Robert’s account as a way of gaining insight into the experience of the mentally impaired with their vulnerability.  Most of us would recognise the inappropriateness of what Robert had to endure as a recipient of Christian ministry.  That such things go on in in 2022 should be a cause of shame to all of us.  The ‘demonic abuse’ label for the mentally ill may not be mainstream Anglican thinking, but it is probably not hard to find similar combinations of bullying and abusive practices in a CofE context.  I tell Robert’s story as a way of offering a critique of a strand of teaching and theology. It threatens to severely damage members of vulnerable groups in our society and also bring discredit on the entire Church.  Finding one’s voice in any situation of abuse in the Church is hard.  The victims of abuse do not normally have the resources or stamina to fight their way to being heard by people of influence and authority in the Church.  The same predicament is doubly true for the mentally afflicted.  Allowing Robert, who has been through church-induced suffering, to find his voice, is something that Surviving Church is proud to do.

Before we get into Robert’s account, I should mention that I have received the CofE training offered to those who practise deliverance ministries and have acted as a spiritual deliverance adviser for two dioceses.   I am alert to the possible reality of demons, but also I am aware of how they seem more frequently to be created by an overheated and possibly disturbed exercise of the human imagination. 

Robert’s disastrous head injury at the age of 11, caused by a car accident, led to a later diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  This required frequent visits to mental hospitals from the age of 20.  For a time his life was marked by frequent episodes of self-harm, leaving him with scars all over the body.  A salient fact that Robert shared with me, relevant to his being able later to reach out to a retired clergyman, was that in his earlier years he had obtained an A level in religious studies.

In the late autumn of 2021 now aged 44, Robert was introduced by a friend to a Pentecostal Church near his home in the North-East.   After a lifetime of chronic depression and mental illness he was open to the possibility that a church might help in his desperate search for peace of mind.  Robert was sufficiently knowledgeable about the Bible to notice that the local pastor, Bill, was using Scripture arbitrarily as a way of backing up his personal theories.  Two themes seemed to dominate what Bill had to say.  The first was a strong emphasis on Bill’s ‘visions’ and the second was to point out the need to resist the ubiquitous presence of demons.  Unfortunately for Robert, the friend who had introduced him to the church told the pastor that he believed Robert to be possessed by a demon.  In an interesting turn of phrase, the friend described the situation as ‘fertile ground to reap a harvest’.  Bill then proceeded to exorcise Robert.  The deliverance prayer brought in a variety of phrases which must have been confusing to Robert.  The prayer mentioned ‘generational curses’ and ‘soul ties’ as well as ‘unholy oaths’ and witchcraft.  In short, through a fairly short prayer, Robert was being initiated into a paranoid universe.

After the prayer, two acolytes, who were present started to speak in tongues.   Bill then commanded the demon to name itself, but all Robert could do was to stare blankly at him.  Bill then declared that the demon had left but there were more demons to be cast out.   So the process was repeated week after week, the only difference being that Robert was sometimes responding to the prayers with an emotional outburst of tears.

It seems that Bill was new to performing exorcisms, but the level of drama created by Robert’s tears convinced him and other members of the congregation that this ministry was the new direction for the church.  By word of mouth, people started coming to be exorcised and the acolytes decided that they too had developed the power to remove demons.  Robert’s observation about the whole process was that it was a bit like a mesmerism show.  After a time of chanting Bill would consult a ‘demon manual’ before telling the person in front of him what demons were there.  Apparently one can consult a spirits list helpfully provided by Google.  All the attempts at removing the demons were accompanied by suitable shouting and screaming to fit into the prevailing atmosphere.

Robert’s concern is probably the same as my readers.  Is it ethical to take a group of highly vulnerable people, those with mental problems, the homeless, substance addicted, sexually abused etc and tell them that they have demons in them?  Who would be responsible if a person left such a service and threw themselves under a train?  Robert was also burdened or, should we say, controlled by being told the following.  His brain injury had been healed by prayer and the demons banished.  Nevertheless, the healing was provisional on his continuing to attend the church every week.

Further burdens were placed on Robert by the church.  His demons could have been passed on to previous girlfriends through the act of intercourse.  Also, a rape suffered by a previous girlfriend would have infected her with demons.  Her demons would have mixed with Robert’s demons.  Another abused girl was told that her demons could not depart unless she forgave her abuser.  Another man with mental health problems was told that his family had been cursed by witchcraft a hundred years earlier. 

In the middle of all this madness the two acolytes who had been present at the first exorcism and had decided that this was now their special calling to ‘practise’ exorcism and they wanted to use Robert as a guinea pig.  They admitted that they did not know anything about it but carried on anyway.  In one of these sessions, Robert had a laughing fit which led into a serious episode of self-harm with razor blades.  Up to that point Robert had been free of this form of behaviour for twenty years.

Robert shared with me in his email a series of other themes of Pentecostal teaching that were presented to him.  One of these mentioned the language of demonic strongholds.  Ephesians 6 with its militaristic language was constantly appealed to.  This chapter can be read as an instruction to Christians to see the whole Christian life as an endless battling with demons and Satan.  Much of the new teaching was being reinforced by an institution called the Northern School for Prophetic Ministry.  Here, for £350, members of the church could learn how to prophesy and cast out demons. It seems that Robert became a suitable ‘patient’ to practise on.  No thought seems to have been given to the ethical implications of using him in this way.

Various other bizarre items of teaching on demons and their activity were mentioned.  Many of them have become widespread in the States.  Expressions like ‘demonic portals’ and the Courts of Heaven find their place on videos freely available on Youtube.  My own tolerance for being up to date with this paranoid universe is probably limited, so I won’t weary my reader with sharing any more.  Robert in writing to me was no doubt processing all the dreadful things that had happened to him and said to him.  He was realising that he had found the means to escape from their grasp.  But that was not true for all the others who had fallen into the trap of believing that this church could rescue them from their vulnerabilities.  I finish with a plea from Robert in his own words.  It is a plea to me personally, but I read it as a plea to the wider church from a vulnerable victim who has fallen victim to unethical, possibly illegal, behaviour which somehow claims the name of Christian. The only way that such behaviour can be checked is by other Christians (like us) standing up and saying clearly: Not in our Name.

 I am writing this to you, because I believe what they are doing is morally wrong, in that they have no formal training in counselling. Yet they are telling vulnerable people that they are full of demons and they can cast them out. As I have previously stated they will character assassinate me, saying I’m paranoid, or alcohol-dependent (who isn’t after lock down?). But I give you a litmus test: ask them to swear on a Bible or on Jesus that what I have written is lies.

Few of us have lived through a moment in history that could truly be described as revolutionary.  The historians among us can point to certain pivotal episodes that powerfully changed for ever the experience of whole countries and the individuals within them.  Three political upheavals come to mind which have a clear claim to be called true revolutions.  In each case the populations are still experiencing the effect of what then took place.  These revolutions that come high on the seismic scale are, respectively, the American (1776), the French (1789) and the Russian (1917).  There have of course been numerous other lesser revolutions in Britain and elsewhere, but none come close to these three I have named. In each of them there was radical change – change that happened almost overnight.   

What are the features of a revolutionary event that make it significant and history-changing?  The word implies a turning upside down of the old order.  The old has passed away for ever, never to return. An entire population may be forced to accept a new reality about the way they are governed.  Resources of property and power may be reordered.  Sometimes the rich and powerful are deliberately persecuted, and an entire new class of people is created to manage the new system.  The only time in my life that I have witnessed, at first-hand, events which were thought at the time to be a revolution, are the political upheavals in Greece in 1967-8.  I watched the way that the traditional intelligentsia was shoved into the shadows (or prison) and a new bullying class of bureaucrats elevated to run the government and the police.  In short, officialdom became harsh and coercive.  Fear of strangers became the norm. The person you were speaking to might be an informer reporting to the State.  What I am briefly describing has been the norm for many unfortunate nations, and, tragically, is once again being reasserted in the occupied areas of Ukraine.  The deep irony of so many of these oppressive regimes is that they believe themselves to be pursuing commendable revolutionary aims.  In the case of Russia and the political oppression of parts of Ukraine today, the political justifications (removing Nazis) have turned out to be totally spurious. 

The word revolution is one that can also be applied to an event in any institution where dramatic irreversible changes take place.  Looking back over the past ten years in the CofE I detect three events that are revolutionary in the sense that they were unprecedented and at the same time irreversible.  To describe any event as revolutionary is of course a subjective assessment, but I would suggest that as the result of these three moments something really important has taken place.  The first pivotal moment for the CofE, and indeed for the whole of British society, was the revelation of the horrendous behaviour of Jimmy Savile in 2012.  I do not intend to dwell on this evil individual and his nefarious behaviour, but rather comment briefly on the seismic shift in attitudes which we witnessed throughout every institution.   After Savile, many abused individuals were able to come forward to disclose their stories and know that they would now likely be believed.  Many British institutions have had to face up to the presence of sexually abusive individuals within them.  The way that football, athletics, schools, and prisons were found to be infested with many abuse cases is an issue that we are still dealing with. The CofE, along with many other institutions, has been compelled to allocate considerable sums of money to provide training and expertise for both its employees and its members to deal with this massive problem.  Safeguarding for the vulnerable, however much we may critique its implementation, is something that is here to stay.  From a historical perspective, I see a direct link between Savile’s dreadful behaviour and the setting up of our NST in 2015.

Locating a second revolutionary moment in the CofE takes us away from the world of safeguarding to another theme often considered by this blog, the exercise of power in the Church by bishops.  It could be claimed that in our CofE, the power of the bishop to teach, admonish and discipline has been traditionally unchallenged.  In recent decades we have seen the growing influence of synods, but these have not claimed ownership of all manifestations of traditional episcopal power.  The power available to diocesan bishops remains considerable.  If a bishop decides to use his power arbitrarily, even tyrannically, there is nothing readily available in the system which has the right to challenge it. Only criminal activity or breaches of safeguarding rules are subject to sanctions exercised by other authorities.  Traditionally, the system has worked through the expedient of extremely careful vetting and formation for senior posts in the Church.

 The second revolution in the CofE took place in the Winchester Diocese in 2021 when a group of senior clergy expressed their intention to propose a vote of no confidence in their diocesan, Tim Dakin, at the Synod.  +Tim was not being accused of safeguarding or criminal offences but rather of presiding over a regime of bullying, fear and the destruction of morale in the diocese.  As far as I can tell, such a challenge against a bishop has never before been recorded in the CofE.  The fact that this threat ultimately led to the retirement of +Tim indicates that a powerful precedent has been set.  It is now possible for Synods to challenge the power of bishops when they are believed to be abusing this power.  Diocesan Synods would only ever rarely seek to propose such a vote, but the way that bishops exercise their power in the future must surely subtly change to take account of this event in 2021.  Another such challenge may well resurface at some future point in another diocese.  The genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back.

The third revolution that has taken place in recent weeks is the extraordinary sight of a bishop seeking to control criticism of his actions by resorting to legal processes and the threat of a defamation suit.  Such an action has never, as far as I can gather, happened before in the Church.  I am course referring to the recent story of a CofE bishop publicly trying to shut down critical comments made on the Archbishop Cranmer blog.  The basic issue here is not who is right in the interpretation of the events under dispute.  The question that has to be faced is whether a bishop or, indeed, the wider CofE, stands to gain anything from an extraordinary and clunky demonstration of episcopal power.  Threatening anyone with legal action, before other methods of conciliation have been explored fully, does not make good publicity for the Church. Indeed, even the threat of such action may change the way that bishops are regarded in the future.  The public will be aware that such legal action costs money and institutions which spend money in this way rapidly undermine a willingness to provide voluntary donations in the future.  The law is a clumsy way of settling disputes at the best of times.  When legal processes are used by an organisation which purports to believe in reconciliation, love and goodwill, something looks out of kilter.  A bishop is known as the chief pastor in his/her diocese and any recourse to legal threats seems to be a denial of all the values implicit in a pastoral relationship.   My instinct tells me that this precedent of invoking the law to intimidate someone who is raising their voice to challenge power will not end well.  It will have a variety of unforeseen and possibly damaging consequences both locally and nationally.  I doubt if the bishop, using the sledgehammer of legal methods, has thought all these through. The political climate of the Anglican Church is already fractious over matters of sexuality and doctrine.   Opening fresh ‘fronts’ with critics in new areas is wasteful of energy and much needed resources.  The Diocesan Synod in this case will be concerned to see any of their charitable funds expended in this way.  There will, rightly, be calls for mediation and dialogue rather than the use of the blunt methods of a legal process.  The story, whatever its outcome, will be long remembered and the reputation of all bishops diminished in the eyes of many people.  The ordinary churchgoing population of the diocese will also have less incentive to attend, let alone give generously to their local churches. 

Three events or episodes- each may be seen as revolutionary in their implications for the life and functioning of the CofE.   Each episode was an unprecedented moment which has perhaps changed the history of the CofE for all time.   First, we are all living in a post-Savile world.  That horrendous episode forced everyone including members of churches to take the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable more seriously than before.  The enforced retirement of the Bishop of Winchester has changed the idea that bishops in the CofE are beyond criticism or accountability.  In the same way the use of legal threats against an individual for exploring what happened in a notorious episode of power abuse within the church, suggests that the role of bishop currently needs re-examination and re-discovery if the idea of episcopal oversight is to remain a viable and helpful one for the Church of the future.