Last Sunday, Easter 4, with Christians all over the world, I listened to readings in church connected with the theme of God and Jesus as the shepherd.  At least one of the many paraphrases of Psalm 23 will have been sung, as we all focused our minds on this well-known and well-loved symbol of our relationship with the Divine.  Thinking about the powerful image of the shepherd, I was reminded of the influence of one book about John’s gospel that I read and studied as a student many years ago.  It was titled The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel by C H Dodd.   One part of the book explained the structure of St John’s gospel and showed how the archetypal ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus gave the book its distinctive shape.  This structure might easily be missed if one was concerned only to find, in the gospel, historical facts about the life of Jesus.   The symbols in the gospel associated with Jesus, the vine, light of the world, the bread of life etc, create a kind of skeleton which holds the bulk of John’s gospel together.  Each one of the ‘I am’ Jesus symbols is a prelude to a number of linked teachings or miracles connected with the theme.  For example, Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is told in the context of declaring himself to be the ‘bread of life’.  In the same way, the announcement that Jesus is the light of the world takes place in the same section as one where he heals a blind man.  Thus we arrive at the idea that the author of the gospel was deliberately organising his material to fit into a literary and theological structure of his own devising.  This is a notion that might upset a conservative reader.  Many Christian readers cannot accept that truth can ever be expressed in anything other than one involving tight historical accuracy.  This is, for them, the most important manifestation of truth.  Clearly John himself had a different understanding of truth, one that was not the same as knowing or recording the exact chronology of Jesus’ life.   It is worth noting in passing that the story of the casting out of the moneychangers from the Temple in the fourth gospel takes place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, while in the other gospels it takes place very close to the time of his Passion.  Are we to conclude that Jesus performed this act twice or should we stick to the common sense answer that John changed the chronology for reasons of his own?

Most scholars work with the assumption that John’s gospel is, apart from the Passion narrative, far more a theological reflection than an attempt to write detailed history.  The book, is, in summary, about the truth and meaning of Jesus, together with an invitation to respond to him.  When we encounter the word ‘believe’, as we do in the archetypal passage of John 3.16, we note that it carries with it a strong sense of trust and relationship rather merely accepting a factual reality.  Jesus is throughout the gospel inviting the reader to embark on a relationship with him.  The main point that I take away from Dodd’s great work is the idea that each of the ‘I am’ statements in the gospel was a kind of portal into the meaning of Jesus for a follower.  Focusing with the imagination on the idea of Jesus as, variously, shepherd, bread or light of the world is a way of internalising an image of him and allowing us to penetrate into the deepest reality of who he is.  There is, importantly, no single correct way to understand Jesus as the Shepherd or any of the other Johannine symbols.  Each image or symbol evoked in our imaginations by the ‘I am’ symbols functions like an object of beauty.  There is never a single correct way to approach beauty.  Nor is there a right way to appreciate the signs or symbols in John’s gospel.  Somehow, in spite of this constantly evolving, even shifting meaning, we  find that with Christians through the ages, these symbols help us to come closer to God revealing himself in Jesus.  The preacher is also never in the situation of having to preach the same sermon about any of these Johannine images or symbols.  By their nature they keep giving us new insights and new levels of meaning.  A painting will also often reveal new facets of beauty every time we see it, as long we look at it with focused attention.

Many Christians live in a world where they believe it essential to have correct theological definitions.   Words like unsound or heretic are banded around for those who do not adopt the dominant discourse in certain religious settings.  I am one those Christians who fights shy of this world of correct belief with ‘orthodoxy’ being defined in a narrow way.  I find the Gospel of John a place of refuge because it allows me to see how to practise a faith in an environment of symbols and mystery.  Truth in John’s gospel is not defined, but it is evoked in the mind and the imagination of the believer.  Two readers of St John’s gospel may think quite different thoughts, but they are united in the fact that they are drawn towards Jesus as the Word of God who speaks to them across culture and definition.  I sometimes fantasise that Christianity might become more inclusive if we asked people who come to church, not whether they can recite the Apostles’ Creed, but whether they can relate to the symbols of encounter with Jesus that we find in the fourth gospel.  In other words, do you meet Jesus as one who comes to you as shepherd, light, sustaining food, vine, giver of resurrection etc.?  It is hard to imagine any encounter with Christ that does not draw on at least one of these symbols.  Being a Christian is, in some way, accepting the invitation to be part of a great movement towards God as he reaches out to us in Christ.  Somewhere in responding to that invitation we find ourselves wanting to use the language of one or more of the ‘I am’ symbols of the fourth gospel.

To repeat a point that stuck me strongly while listening to last Sunday’s readings.  There is no limit to the words that can be said about the idea of Jesus as our shepherd.  There is also no correct way to interpret any of the other Johannine images or symbols.  Each Christian will relate to the words in his/her own way.  One million Christians will also have processed these ‘I am’ symbols in the fourth gospel in a million ways.  It is the task of the Christian leader/teacher to encourage this task of imaginative exploration of the reality of God reaching out to us in Christ. I can think of no better way of starting this process than through the in-depth exploration of these symbols.  However tidy it might be to have everyone having identical experiences of the encounter with Christ, let us rejoice that we have a book in the Bible that offers us words which act as powerful revealing symbols, opening up our access to spiritual reality.  Each symbol seems to give us permission to explore and experience an encounter with Christ, but each in our own way.  Such a freedom to think, experience and explore truth is not always on offer in our churches.    Far too many complain that they are only allowed to experience the mystery of a divine encounter in a manner controlled and approved of by a Christian leader.  Perhaps St John’s gospel is a permanent reminder that there are dynamic flexible ways of being a Christian so that each relates to these symbols in their own time and in their own way.  St John’s gospel appears to be permitting us to know and rejoice in the freedom that God wants us all to have. 

From time to time I spot an expression on the Internet or Twitter which I immediately want to share. When I read the acronym PTCIS which stands for Post Traumatic Church Induced Stress, I knew I wanted to share it with my readers.  Obviously it is not a recognised description of a category of mental distress, but it certainly describes the situation faced by many followers of this blog.  Quite a number of individuals from around the world reach out to me as they recognise in this blog a place where their distress will at least receive a hearing.  The sufferers of PTCIS are not necessarily those who have been bullied or abused by someone more powerful.  The sufferers may be those who carry a false accusation around their neck and find that the church justice system gives them no opportunity to clear their name.  Accusations against one’s integrity are left there for ever, so that permanent stress and fear becomes part of their way of life.

My sense of the stress involved in PTCIS is probably distorted by the position of being the editor of a blog focused on church abuse.  In other words, I hear more of peoples’ bad experiences of abuse and the stress taking place in a church context than is normal.  But the fact that it exists at all is a terrible blot on our church life.  The inventor of PTCIS helpfully added a cartoon to illustrate what was meant by the term.  He suggested that one of the problems was that certain church cultures create stress for individuals by the expedient of changing church vocabulary in the way that is illustrated above.

This post is thus building on the brilliant cartoon from the Naked Pastor which I have included above.  In thinking about the seven categories that he sets out, I want to look at three examples that are vividly illustrative of what he is trying to demonstrate through the cartoon. Providing examples of what is involved in all seven would take up too much space.  There is also the perennial issue of using confidential material without the possibility of identification.  So I am going to illustrate only three of the seven practices that are routinely sanitised by ‘holy’ descriptions.  To avoid the danger of revealing private information, I am going to use the well-documented story of John Smyth and his abusive regime, written up by Andrew Graystone in the book Bleeding For Jesus.

The seven techniques of abusive coercion were probably all used by Smyth against his victims.  They are also, no doubt, common in other church settings. Each of these techniques has, as the cartoon demonstrates, a respectable face but also one that is less salubrious.  I am giving examples of the way that three of them work from the Smyth narrative.  Before that, I note that many young Christians are actively mentored by someone older.  That older person may possess considerable influence over the mentee.  Mentoring of course sounds innocent and even helpful.  In many contexts it remains that.  An experienced clergyperson might be asked to meet with a young curate at the beginning of his/her ministry to provide the opportunity to talk through the issues that can arise.  I have often wondered why such a system is not used more extensively in the Church of England, particularly as a way of using the extensive practical experience of older retired clergy.  The mentoring offered by Smyth was not benevolent.  It was the abusive kind.  The vulnerability in each of Smyth’s victims seems to have been what drew one to the other.   One obvious vulnerability was one known to many male attendees of an English public school.  This involved a fractured relationship with the birth families because of the boarding system, starting at the age of eight. In short, many of Smyth’s victims were emotionally estranged from their families.  They needed a relationship with an older mentoring male who could be used as a father substitute.  Having such a father figure was important to most, if not all of Smyth’s victims.  Smyth was happy to oblige to be the substitute parent.  This, of course, gave him the ability to exercise tight parental control over his protegees.  In turn it was to lead in many cases to an opportunity to physically abuse them in the garden shed at his home in Winchester.

The second part of Smyth’s ‘ministry’ to his devotees was in his playing the role of religious instructor or teacher.  The Iwerne camps were always a preserve of what we might describe as a highly fundamentalist version of Christian theology and teaching.  The Bible was regarded as the sole resource for all Christian teaching and living.  As with much conservative Christian teaching of this kind, underneath this understanding of the Bible was a pre-existing structure or system of theology which dictated how the Bible should be interpreted.  Iwerne theology was not read out of the Bible or the formulations of the early Christian centuries, but straight out of a rigid Protestantism and the 16^th century writings of John Calvin and his followers. The inability of Calvinism and its successors to tolerate much in the way of theological debate meant that it was always a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to faith.  Some aspects of Calvinism and ‘Iwernism’ should be open to objection and debate.  The fact that there has always been an absence of healthy questioning in the camps leads to a form of cult-type faith, one which often involves actual harm.

‘Mentoring’ and ‘Instruction’ can create a dynamic of power which could be and was extremely harmful to those submitting to it.  Apart from coming under a dynamic of control which was exploiting their vulnerability, Smyth’s victims were further softened up for abuse by the selective use of Scripture.  Andrew Graystone identifies two particular quotations from the Bible which were firmly drummed into the young Smyth acolytes.  One was from 1 Samuel 7.14 where the fatherhood of God is linked to the possibility of violent beatings.  From the New Testament a passage from Hebrews 12. 5-12 suggested the same idea.  Students of the Bible in the conservative wings of the church will also know about other mentions of fathers beating their children in Proverbs.  I will leave to one side the various passages that speak of followers identifying with the pain of Jesus on the cross in order to be his true disciples.

Smyth’s final practice, which shows him to be an expert in the art of PTCIS (even before it was invented!), was in the way that his teaching led his followers believing that pain was needed to make them holy and closer to Christ.  The reasoning goes along the lines that, if Jesus suffered as the result of our sin, we too may need to suffer to draw us closer to him.  The beatings in the garden shed began as a way of offering the young a means of atoning for their own failings.  It will be for others to determine how Smyth had such a complete lack of self-insight so as not to question his own behaviour in taking on this role.  The narrative that Graystone presents suggests that this infliction of pain became obsessional and addictive as time went on. Officially the victims of Smyth were being beaten to pay for their failings as if this was a normative godly discipline.  The maintenance of some discipline sounds to be a worthy aim in a church.  The examples in the Smyth story indicate that some administration of discipline in a church can have a deeply sinister and dark dimension.   Is the administration of discipline in a church setting sometimes a cover for abusive practice as the cartoon suggests?

Describing a well-established Christian practice with a pious sounding name may take away a desire to question and scrutinise what is going on.  Evil practices toward individuals are done in the name of Christianity.  Dubious claims that they are are ‘biblical’ are often heard.  Did you know that children are still beaten in the name of Christian discipline, even in the 21^st century?  Survivors of PTCIS still come to our churches seeking understanding and support to recover from the wounds that have been administered and which have led to trauma.  Can we offer them the experience of healing to replace the trauma that the Church has inflicted on them?

I have been thinking about the topic of music and worship for some time. In particular, I have been bothered by the fact that music in the Church is an area of division for many Christians. Musical style in congregations vary enormously, and those who advocate one style are often ignorant or even contemptuous of the musical offerings found in another church down the road. There are a number of sensitive issues of culture, musical taste and theology in these divisions. I am not aware of anyone discussing the damage caused by these gulfs in musical traditions. There is a need for serious writing on this topic as musical traditions play a major part in Christian worship and life . Music has to be considered a theological issue since it plays such an important part for so many in their Christian pilgrimage or journey to religious maturity. Something so important for Christian experience and growth should not be left to one side as ‘a matter of taste’ or something optional for those who like that kind of thing. What I want to do is to write a kind of introductory piece to this conundrum connected with the place of music in Church life. It will not answer all the problems. Rather it may help us to approach the subject with fresh eyes and see the discussion as important for the Church as a whole.

 There is, I believe, a ready acceptance of the fact that some form of music is normally to be expected at most acts of Christian worship. The question then arises: what sort of music?  Are we expecting to hear the music of Hillsong or Bach in our churches and cathedrals?  What kind of hymns do we sing?  Should we personally choose a church that offers the kind of music that we can appreciate, and should we avoid those churches that are jarring to us in the music they chose? The answers to these and many other questions on the musical offerings we find in our local church settings, depend in part on such things as local resources.  Also, the music we hear and sing has to accommodate itself to that mysterious entity summed up in the catch-all words ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’.  Each of us also knows that, while music in church can help to weld a congregation together, for other individuals the same music can be a serious stumbling block in finding peace or any kind of inspiration. 

Up and down the country there are churches that invest considerable resources in the music they provide for their congregations.   In some, the offering is what we can call cathedral-style music.  This is found not only in actual cathedrals but in the increasing number of parish churches that aspire to near cathedral standards of musical offering.  Each sung service is, from one point of view, an aesthetic event.  This musical offering has some of the features of a performance, like that found in a concert hall.  The presentation of such music requires dedication and commitment by all concerned.   Where such musical traditions have been preserved in Anglican worship, there has been considerable investment of money and time over a long period.  All too easily a musical tradition of this kind can be destroyed overnight by a Vicar or a PCC who decide that such an ‘elitist culture’ is unsuitable for their congregation.  There may even be a conviction that the music of Byrd, Tallis and Bach is somehow spiritually harmful to those who attend.

In contrast, another church, particularly one in the cultural orbit of Holy Trinity Brompton or Spring Harvest, may invest considerable resources in a music band and provide music suitable to a more contemporary style and tradition.  The vast range of ‘gospel music’ is not a type that I have experienced or studied.  It is, however, hard to avoid the offerings of Graham Kendrick in ordinary parish churches.  A few gospel songs make it into our hymn books, but I have never attempted to keep up with this huge repertoire beyond the few classics of this genre.  I was reading somewhere recently that 1.5 million worshippers around the world are currently listening to or singing the music from Hillsong in Australia.  I note in passing that singing music from this source has now become a more contentious act, since it is apparent that the royalties obtained by using this music flow back to Australia, enriching the entitled leaders of this church network.  Hillsong is, nevertheless, still one of the musical gospel traditions that has, in some places, superseded the music provided by organ, hymn book and traditional church music.

The content of the blog could effectively end here, with a concluding remark that church music has to be a matter of individual and congregational musical preference.  If you like the English Hymnal you need to search for a church that uses it, and the same can be said about Mission Praise.  In fact, the discussion needs to go further than appealing to individual and group musical preferences.  Music is an important part of human life and we need to be aware of how it can affect us at quite a deep level.  It has the capacity to create emotions and moods and these, as we are all aware, can range from the wholesome to the potentially harmful.

The first observation I must make is reasonably uncontroversial.  Music has a power to give pleasure and it does this by evoking pleasurable emotions.   Recently, thanks to Netflix, my wife and I have developed a taste for foreign language films.  This is not a prelude to learning Korean, Spanish or Turkish but we find the emotional tone of foreign films is quite different from those made in America or Britain.  All these foreign films use subtitles.  When music is played as part of the background, the subtitles indicate which human emotion is supposed to be evoked at that moment.   So, after the word music, there appears a single word to indicate the mood that is being expressed.  Words like romantic, suspenseful, mysterious or tense are used.  The editor of the sub-titles wants to help a deaf viewer to know what mood is being evoked, at that part of the film, by the background music.  The adjective used to describe the music mood also hints at what is coming next in the drama.  Helping to create mood is also what is going on when music is used in church.  Thus we have, for example, cheerful music and sombre poignant music when this is needed.  This is as true for the Tudor composers of English church music as it is for the output of modern praise bands. The sombre music of Bach’s Matthew Passion is for me an important part of the observance of Holy Week and carols perform a comparable role in the Christmas season.

Human emotions play a vital part in religious experience and insight.  Through them we can be led to a glimpse of a deeper sacred reality.  At the same time, we are aware that the same emotions could simply be the stimulation of pleasure centres in our brain.  When a worshipper is caught up with the words and music of a Tudor motet or the strong emotional resonance of a Hillsong piece, who can definitively say what is going on?   Is the worshipper being let into a religious experience or not?  There is, as one would expect, no easy answer to this question.  One thing that can be said fairly safely is that feelings of a religious kind are not inevitably religious in substance.  It is thus dangerous for a religious leader ever to claim that religious emotions are inevitably given by God.   Religious feelings may indeed give us access to the divine.  Alternatively, they can, as we suggested above, merely be the activation of pleasure centres in the brain. 

What will help distinguish between the real thing, music leading us to an apprehension of God, and mere aesthetic appreciation?  The answer has to lie in discovering whether the music and the religious feelings they evoke are changing us over a period of time in some tangible way. Is our spirituality and apprehension of the divine taking us beyond ephemeral sensation?  It is a question that has to be asked in Anglican cathedrals and in large crowd events where the music is loud and catchy.   Both kinds of music, that of ‘high culture’ and popular worship songs can help Christians in the path to genuine transforming religious insight and growth.  Equally, both may be mere entertainment and stimulation of the brain. 

In this piece I must confess a certain bias against the output of praise bands.  My theological and musical instincts tell me that a constant musical diet of the offerings such as are heard at Spring Harvest, or some other charismatic festival, might be leading listeners to a form of faux religious experience.  This is not an inevitable outcome, but I see two particular hazards making this possibility a prevalent possibility.  In the first place much religious music of the gospel variety is taught initially at mass events.  Large gatherings or religious festivals are notorious for emotionally ‘softening up’ the participants and making them susceptible to feelings that belong to the crowd rather than being their own.  The second danger of this kind of music is that much modern gospel music is attached to ‘heroes’ of the genre, like Graham Kenrick and the music composers responsible for the massive Hillsong output.  The institutional power of Brian Houston, the recently disgraced Hillsong leader, could be said to have been sustained by the musical offerings of this international franchise.  Once a charismatic church is identified with the ministry of a figure who is only glimpsed in a highly choreographed role on a stage, it is all too easy to draw the attention of the congregation to the glamour of the man (normally men) at the front.  Projection or hero-worship is not a healthy dynamic for any church.

My self-allocated number of words has now been breached but I hope very soon to return to this discussion in a future blog.  For me it is also a real problem that the Church, even the CofE, is divided over the issue of music.  We somehow resist discussing the topic for fear that issues of culture, class and snobbery may be raised.  Such topics are hard to deal with easily, so we retreat into our musical ghettoes just as we hunker down in our theological bunkers.  This blog is a small offering to contribute to a debate on which we all have feelings and insights.  Perhaps I am hoping to start a conversation. I know it is a topic on which everyone in any church has an opinion.  

In the safeguarding world, certain words get used over and over again.  One of these words is independence. Independence is something that is required particularly when institutions and their members are challenged for poor behaviour.  Someone from outside the organisation under scrutiny is needed to determine the guilt of otherwise of those caught up in a particular incident.  Possibly the institution as a whole has been corrupted by guilt.  There is a general common-sense assumption that only an outside body, one that does not contain members who owe loyalty of any kind to the organisation under scrutiny, can expect to get close to the truth.  The independent group is in a good position to be able to apportion, when needed, blame and responsibility. 

A good example of independence uncovering truth in the recent history of this country is found in the Independent Inquiry of Child Sexual Abuse, referred to as IICSA. This came into being because the British Government wanted to reveal the existence and extent of child sexual abuse in some of our national institutions.  The organisation to do this work needed to be, as the first letter of the acronym IICSA suggests, independent.  Its hearings were completed in 2021 but its final findings have yet to be published.  As readers of this blog will know, a considerable amount of time was given to the role and failings of the churches in this area.  The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in England were both put under scrutiny. Both can be said to be still processing a seemingly endless series of poorly handled cases which IICSA examined in detail.  IICSA represents a positive example of what can happen when an outside body is able to scrutinise the inner workings of an institution without fear or favour.    Organisations find it difficult, without independent help, properly to assess whether they are applying their own protocols and regulations to effectively protect the vulnerable. 

Institutions like the churches can and do look to independent bodies to scrutinise their work in safeguarding and other matters of governance.  The chief guarantee that such organisations are doing a good job in this area is found by looking to see, over a period, whether that body continues to maintain its reputation for integrity and competence.  In Britain one organisation that has good reputation with the churches and survivors alike is the consultancy group called 31:8.  It has recently produced reports on the Jonathan Fletcher affair and the Sheffield group, known as Crowded House.  Both of these 31:8 reports were examined on this blog.  It can be justly claimed that 31:8 has proved itself to be an independent group of the highest calibre.  Not only are the opinions expressed measured and careful, but the depth of relevant specialist knowledge to provide the tools of analysis in each situation is remarkable. 

The possibility of sound independence being maintained in safeguarding matters is provided by these two reports.  No doubt there are others. One has less confidence in a process when a church, or indeed, any organisation, takes control over an ‘independent’ inquiry to examine something that has gone wrong internally.  How can one guarantee that a report will be truly independent when the body commissioning it is paying for it?  Does calling something independent necessarily make it so?  Is it ever possible for independence to be fully preserved when the personnel and the money for the independent committee, come from the same place? When reputable independent reports are presented to the church, like the Elliot report examining the case of ‘Joe’, there also seems to be a tendency to bury the challenges contained in them and hope that people will quickly forget what was said. The new initiative, House of Survivors, will make, as Fiona Gardner puts it, this ‘collective amnesia’ in the Church harder to maintain. 

In the safeguarding echelons of the Church of England we have an organisation called the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB).  Two problems exist for this group.  One is that it is entirely funded by the Church of England.   That fact alone makes it hard to trust it completely since the paymaster can always subtly compromise the work of an organisation that it is paying for.  The ISB has also not been around long enough for it to have gained a reputation for rugged independence.  There is yet another problem facing the ISB.  The Chairman of the Board, Maggie Atkinson, is only able to give a small amount of time to the role.  It is hard to see that anyone not full-time in such a role will ever obtain the ‘narrative-wisdom’ that is needed really to understand the range of historical and other material that exists.  If the Church of England wishes the independent voice to be really heard, then it must invest much more by appointing a high-flyer, as Maggie Atkinson undoubtedly is, to give expertise, resources and adequate time to accomplish this role.

Before we offer further thoughts on what might be the way forward for building into the Church’s structures something that is truly independent, I want to give some thought to the word itself. I always find it helpful to examine individual words and see whether there are nuances of meaning can be extracted that I and others may have missed.  The word independent has two parts.  The second part of the word, ‘dependent’ is formed from the Latin word to hang.  The simplest example of this would be in the word pendant.  From the idea of simply hanging, we come to the idea of one thing firmly attached to another, like a child holding on the mother in the process of feeding.  As the Psalmist puts it, as a child, he ‘hanged yet upon my mother’s breasts’ in order to survive.  This picture of the child at the breast is the ultimate symbol of what we mean by the word ‘dependent’.  There are obviously numerous other examples we can think of to denote dependency within the context of human relationships.  Beyond that context, we can think of a factory manufacturing a product which needs raw materials to do its work.  It thus depends on an uninterrupted supply of these materials.  We can all think of numerous other examples of this kind of dependency.  But here our main interest in the word is in the way that every human being is caught up in relationships that involve dependency, at least some of the time.  This is a rich area of discussion and discovery.  Sometimes dependency is life-giving and appropriate.  At the same we know how dependency can sometimes be emotionally crushing and destructive.  An entire blog post could easily be spent on this discussion. Here I want us to think of dependency as simply being the situation when individuals look to others to provide for their survival/physical/emotional needs. 

The addition of the prefix ‘in’ to the word indicates that an individual is attempting to operate alone without any of this dependency.   Independence as a word is applied to the young adult leaving home and a country shaking off colonial rule.  If we are right to note the emotional, relational aspect of the word dependent, we may be correct in suspecting that many examples of ‘independent’ may also have a strong emotional flavour.  There is this hint of proud maturity in the one using the word.  We, the independent ones, no longer look to mother in order to survive and flourish.  

One of the major issues in the safeguarding world is that the one searching for justice following abuse is still likely to be caught up in a maelstrom of emotions about what happened.  He/she wants or needs a number of maybe conflicting things.  The survivor above all wants to be heard.  The need for compassion and independence on the part of the one listening is also of crucial importance to the survivor.  Any sense that this independence is compromised in any way will damage the potential for healing in the relationship.  I want to articulate in bullet points what true independence might look like from the perspective of a survivor.

• Independence requires that a listener, who is interacting with a survivor, can remain free of all outside agendas.  Even if the listener is a member of a church that is somewhere involved in the case, for the purposes of the conversation, that fact should be placed to one side.  The listening should be done by someone with no other concern except to hear and learn from the experience of another human being.   The humanity of the listener is here the main requirement needed to be a listener and the survivor needs to feel that humanity.
• Every listener to survivors’ stories should have the skills of imagination to anticipate the survivors’ needs.  Outbursts of anger, grief and shame may all enter into the interaction, but the independent listener should have the professional and personal skill to be able to handle these and not allow them to label any survivor as ‘difficult’.  Those with the right skills should be able to gain the trust and respect of both sides, the church and the survivor, without compromising the need to be independent.
• The independent helper will be able to marshal not only considerable pastoral skill and expertise, but also have a proper immersion in the literature of abuse.  Because safeguarding is a new profession, those entering it inevitably come from backgrounds which routinely have little insight into the history of the church and the variety of cases it has been involved in.  Recently I have heard of highly paid safeguarding individuals who are not familiar with the IICSA material, let alone the dozens of individual reports and accounts that have appeared even in the past ten+ years. This process of familiarisation should be alleviated by a familiarity with material presented by the House of Survivors website
• Independence requires that, when necessary, the investigator should be able to offer a challenging critique of those who are abusing or have abused power.  Confidence in the Church of England’s own ISB has been lessened because only once have we heard a challenging remark coming from its chair, Maggie Atkinson, about CofE structures. That was at the February 2022 General Synod.  This comment, apparently aimed at the NST, was later, apparently, modified by her in a subsequent clarification.  Exactly what was happening in this exchange is unclear, but the confusion has not created confidence in the true independence of the ISB.  One suggestion that I have heard, is that the ISB is laying the groundwork for another organisation in the future able to provide independent scrutiny over the CofE.  Survivors and those that support them want to see real evidence that the meaning of independence is understood within the Church of England and among its leaders.  The evidence for that has yet to be revealed.

by Anonymous

This is the fourth episode in the Kenneth Saga. For those meeting with it for the first time there are other blogs on this site:  the first one, published December 13th 2021  written by Stephen Parsons and the second one January 7th 2022 and the third February 11th 2022 written by me.

For those following this tale of bullying and victimisation by a safeguarding core group, you may be wondering what has been happening since the last meeting I mentioned on February 2nd 2022. This was to discuss a negotiated safeguarding agreement between Kenneth and the Core Group. In the event, all Kenneth’s attempts to insert appropriate conditions to fit the actual circumstances of the case were deleted. What was left was an model agreement that might be used to monitor a convicted sex offender after release from prison for serious offences. Needless to say Kenneth was not prepared to sign such a document.

UPDATE

1. Serious Time Delays and excuses:

i) A Subject Access Request was made for all information on Kenneth’s case from October 2020- February 2022. Kenneth wanted to see the minutes of meetings, the emails and other information – of all information from the meetings and emails about Kenneth. instead of being delivered March 14th as legally required for these things, it came April 21st with many paragraphs substantially redacted. The excuses for these delays were ‘the level of work’

ii) Safeguarding Agreement with two representatives of the core group, one being the Assistant Safeguarding Adviser. Kenneth wrote on March 30th to the ASA asking the reason he had not heard anything about the safeguarding agreement since the meeting of February 2nd. Her reply  was:  ‘I am seeking further advice in regard to this matter.  I have also been attending training, and as you are aware I work part time. I shall be in touch with you as soon as I am able’. On April 7th Kenneth rang her to ask if she had sent him an email. She had not, (surprised?) but went on to say a Senior Member of the Clergy (SMC) who had been involved with the Core Group but who was not a member, would be in touch.

The Meeting between a Senior Member of the Clergy (SMC) and Kenneth The SMC visited Kenneth at home the following Friday (Good Friday) to discuss his return to the church. Apparently he had been intending to contact Kenneth for some time! At the beginning of the meeting the SMC told Kenneth that he would be informing the  Assistant Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser of the meeting. As usual, with meetings with Kenneth, no notes were taken.

His views on the Safeguarding Core Group The SMC began by telling Kenneth the Safeguarding  Core Group were stuck and could not move on this issue. He thought the whole process had been dreadful and he was very sorry Kenneth had been through such suffering. He did not see how the Core Group could now come to an agreement. He could not defend the Core Group: that’s the way they are; reacting against past experiences of children not being believed. This represents a significant change in his thinking. This strong reaction had  led to carrying safeguarding procedures to unlawful extremes as was clearly pointed out in The Micah 6:8 Initiative (http://chng.it/HLF4dhVd6Q). This  had been sent to  him and other senior clergy in the diocese but never responded to.

Wrong Procedures The SMC said he had made protests about what was wrong with the procedures not providing justice; to seek clarification on this point  he was going to contact the National Safeguarding Team. Even during this meeting, the SMC showed how he did not have the full authority to make or override Core Group decisions. This was in spite of his seniority in the diocese and the fact Bishop of the Diocese knew about Kenneth’s situation.

How Kenneth might return The SMC said he was anxious for Kenneth to return to the church.  Kenneth understood, (remember nothing was written down) that the  Safeguarding Agreement discussed at the meetings on January 26th and February 2nd 2022 was now unnecessary. Some precedent existed for this (although no details were given to Kenneth). He said the Bishop had asked if it was safe for Kenneth to return and the SMC said  it was.  Sadly though, we find that  Kenneth’s acceptance into the church  is not unconditional by any means.

Details of conditions for Kenneth’s return At the meeting with the SMC on Good Friday Kenneth understood:

There is still the a continuing influence of the boy and his mother. They are to be told that Kenneth has gone back. In order to avoid any ‘unwanted encounters’, if the boy and mother are to be in church, then the Director of Music would know that and report to the SMC so Kenneth would be told not to attend. Thus, Kenneth cannot go to any service if the boy and his mother are there. It was not suggested that the boy should not go if Kenneth was there. There is still the attitude that the boy must be be believed without any  investigation.

2. Kenneth  can only go to services but may sit where he wishes.  He has always enjoyed going to concerts in the church and wants to do so again but that is still being denied him.  

Easter Sunday Return On Easter Sunday the SMC met Kenneth before the service and walked hand in hand with him  into the church to a side chapel.  Eight of Kenneth’s friends were waiting for him at the entrance to the church and informally followed behind. Other friends joined us during the short service we held there. We all exchanged the peace and then the SMC went to robe for the service.

The procession of choir and clergy came in. At this Easter Service the Bishop was present and came in last. He  left the procession to come to Kenneth (whom he knew and recognised and was sitting on the end of a row, central aisle), clasped his hand and said, ‘It’s good to see you, Kenneth; welcome back”. I was sitting next to Kenneth who then shook uncontrollably, but a friend and I held him until he was calmer. After the service the bishop came to the area where we were and spoke to Kenneth in a general conversational way.

The response by the congregation was overwhelming; many of them were not expecting him to be there. Many, many were the hugs of love he was given and over and over again I heard, ‘Welcome home’, ‘We have missed you”, “It has been too long”, “We are glad to see you”. They came to where he was sitting and sought him out there, ignoring refreshments being served at the back of the church.  After more than two years of having these people torn away from him so abruptly, he felt his Church family was with him again. His joy was palpable.

Editor’s comment

The story reads as though it ends with a happy conclusion. It is clear that the Bishop of the Diocese and the Senior Member of the Clergy were fully briefed on all the details of Kenneth’s situation and both appeared to believe, by their words and gestures, that, at the very least, the whole case should end. But not even a bishop in his diocese has the power to reverse the activities of a Safeguarding Core Group. The obvious way forward in a secular context would be to send the case back for some sort of re-examination. But the problem is that the evidence to suggest offending behaviour had never been properly examined in the first place. The whole case had rested on the principle that ‘the child must be believed’ even though, in this case, there were serious discrepancies and contradictions in his evidence. The fear of ‘retraumatising’ the child had prevented any attempt to interrogate the evidence by consulting other witnesses. The date and place for the alleged offence have never been securely established. Kenneth’s re-acceptance by the congregation and the senior clerics of the diocese seems not to be able to override his official guilt. The conclusion of an outsider looking in must conclude that the whole creaky structure set to manage a situation like Kenneth’s is abusive and not fit for purpose. Whatever system is being used in this case is contrary to normal principles of truth and justice and it abuses the accused who has no chance to defend himself.

One of the expressions that I and other commentators in the safeguarding world use constantly is the expression ‘narrative wisdom’. This expression means simply a familiarity with the documents, speeches, reports and literature of safeguarding over the past 10 or so years. There is a lot of material.  It is a matter of frustration that people who are appointed to senior positions in the Church’s ever expanding safeguarding industry often appear not to know much about the history of the whole enterprise. It is hard for those of us who are reasonably familiar with this material to have a conversation with someone professionally involved in this area but who is simply ignorant of all that has gone before.  How can anyone work in this field who does not know the reasons for all the unhappiness of survivors?  The performance of the Church in this activity has been described by one of its own leaders on some occasions as ‘shambolic’. One would like to see as a requirement that all employees and church officers, who have responsibilities in safeguarding, should read the key documents associated with safeguarding that have appeared over the past ten years or more.  The survivors that they meet will certainly know them and be able to quote from them.  Without a sense of the history, the current generation of leaders in safeguarding are in danger of repeating all the mistakes of the past.  As the saying goes “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

The new website, House of Survivors, launched on Friday, and which has been produced by Gilo and Tony is to be an important resource for ensuring that the history of the Church’s response to survivors is never airbrushed out of existence.  It is also designed to help survivors navigate the tortuous structures of the Church of England and help them make claims for support.  From my perspective, its major value is that it prevents the past simply being forgotten or subject to an institutional amnesia.  Here in one place we find the text of speeches made to General Synod since 2014 relevant to safeguarding. We also have links to the issues raised in various notable cases such as the one examined by the safeguarding expert, Ian Elliot.  The material on the website is obviously incomplete but there are enough examples of institutional ‘cock-ups’ to show the high degree of failure in official church bodies over the years. In re-reading some of this material, one is reminded of the high levels of professionalism and integrity that the secular safeguarding bodies display.  In contrast the church’s own efforts to do the right thing seem sometimes to be less than robust.

One of the interests of the two survivors, and which shows up clearly on this site, is the part played by lawyers and insurance companies.  Much safeguarding work in the past was, at enormous expense, outsourced to these firms by the Church of England.  Survivors’ own investigative work, assisted by an award-winning journalist in the insurance world, revealed shabby and dishonest practice which harmed survivors.  The failure of ethical behaviour in some of these insurance dealings was sufficient to attract the attention of the Independent Inquiry for Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).  Two insurance company senior executives were required to attend for a second cross-examination because Ecclesiastical’s original evidence was inconsistent.  The details of this and many other incidents of unethical behaviour by these agents of the Church are recorded on the site. There are echoes of acute discomfort about all this in a powerful speech preserved by the site in the Synod speech of Julie Conalty, now Bishop of Birkenhead.

One section in the blog to interest me are the records of demonstrations made by interested parties on behalf of aggrieved survivors.  I attended one such demonstration in February 2018 outside Church House during a meeting of Synod.   It is from that date, that my deep concern for church safeguarding became firmly established.  Another important demonstration took place when the Bishop of Oxford was enthroned in 2015 with survivors protesting outside the cathedral. The fact of this protest may have been forgotten by people in the diocese of Oxford. 

The House of Survivors is an important addition to the many resources that have become available to the Church of England in its effort to clean up its patchy record on safeguarding and responding to the needs of abuse survivors. My main interest in the site is to have so many documents and speeches connected with the past gathered together in one place.  No doubt the editors will increase these as time goes on.  Meanwhile we read documents such as the Micah letter and the Bread not Stones and many letters of truth spoken to power.  Even among enthusiasts for the cause of safeguarding in the church, such crucial moments can be quickly forgotten.  Thanks to this site, House of Survivors, corporate amnesia in those who manage the response to survivors on behalf of the Church will no longer be an acceptable excuse.

The compilers of this new website are obviously highly critical of a managerial and corporate mindset which puts the interests of an organisation above the needs and requirements of individuals within it. One summary of what survivors are trying to achieve is to make sure that the testimony and story of individuals is never allowed to be buried in files or under piles of paperwork. There is, of course, material which refers to the institutional processes of the Church of England. One speech at General Synod was especially important to indicate something of sea-change in attitudes among those who run the Church of England.  The speech by John Spence indicated a change of direction from the traditional dependence on lawyers and insurance companies, which had allowed them to dominate and control the proceedings. A real attempt was going to be made by the authorities in the Church to introduce proper redress for abuses suffered by survivors.  This would be in accordance with the principles of justice and compassion. Questions remain a year or two later whether these fine words, uttered by the church through Spence, are really going to be honoured.  But the fact remains that we do have his recorded testimony to refer back to. So many of the promises made by the church to survivors and others have routinely become lost in an institutional amnesia.  This is so common within the church structures.

In commending this new website to everyone in the Church of England I am especially applauding its ability to restore narrative memory to the church on safeguarding matters.  This is the most important part of its purpose from my perspective.  The website of course is recognising other interests and needs of survivors, both in terms of understanding better what has happened to them and what they can do to find healing.  This historical material still remains, for me, of the upmost importance for helpers and survivors. One can imagine a survivor visiting a bishop or a senior church official and saying to them in so many words: ‘have you read the section which contains speeches by senior Synod members on the topic of redress?’. Having instant access to all this important material means that the authorities can never say that something was never said or meant something different.  Anyone with access to a smart phone can lay before a figure in authority all that has been said and how the church appears to be currently trying to move forward in safeguarding matters. The ability to hold senior church figures to keep promises and undertakings over safeguarding is something that this website can do a great deal to assist.  Such a resource is something we can all applaud and celebrate.

The recent history of response to victims and survivors in the Church of England, its successes and failures, is encapsulated on this website.  Of course the material is incomplete, but we can imagine that it will be treated as a work in progress. And I gather that the website will gradually include more links to reviews. One thoughtful feature of the site is that the reader is given the option of making a speedy exit if something triggering is encountered. One hopes that this will not be used often, as the whole is carefully written for the benefit and wellbeing of survivors. It is meant to be a place that survivors will find supportive as well as informative.  It certainly feels to be that way.

http://houseofsurvivors.org

by Martin Sewell

There was a time in the Church of England when Safeguarding was barely recognised as a problem. Whatever one thinks about the  current state of affairs in terms of efficiency, structure, focus or delivery, there can be little doubt that it is now a high priority area of concern with a substantial allocated budget to match. Every Parish and Diocese will have its officers and regular reports, and no PCC meeting or Synod meeting will pass without some reference being made to it.

An Independent Safeguarding Board is being established under a conscientious Chair: there is continuing controversy over its scope resourcing, powers and speed of delivery, but at the very least, one must acknowledge that there is a recognition of the need for continuing this as a “work in progress”.

But what of bullying in the Church – are we as clear cut in our thinking about this? Is there a difference between “strong leadership” and bullying? Do we have clear and robust policies impartially enforced against choir master and clergy alike? What can you do if the bullying is by one’s colleagues, the Bishop or the Diocesan staff – how easy is it in practice to secure redress in that instance?

Towards the end of the last General Synod quinquennial ( group of sessions) with one eye on the gathering storm at Christ Church Oxford, and the tragic death of Fr Alan Griffin, some of us made tentative enquiries about the place of bullying within our Guidelines for Clergy Conduct, only to learn that the  section referencing institutional bullying had been drafted  with a mindset directed towards the context of care homes rather than a deep sickness within the wider church or Diocesan culture. Bringing a Clergy Discipline complaint against a bullying culture is a task too far for most defeated and depressed clergy, a task akin to nailing jelly to a wall as matters stand. It is tough to prove, and it is frankly abuse stacked upon abuse to tell a clergy person to gird up their loins for another few round against an institution where it is virtually impossible to succeed against an abusive or neglectful bishop.

The Editor has received a challenge from a solicitor about the accuracy of some of the comments in the rest of the article. It seems prudent as Surviving Church does not carry insurance for this kind of challenge, to withdraw the contentious section. I had not spotted any offending material in the article but this severe pruning of the piece seems the safest thing to do. We hope that this withdrawal of Martin’s material may be a temporary action but I await clarification and advice from legal experts. The issues in the original article have not gone away! Watch this space.

When the word addiction is used, our minds quickly turn to alcohol, drugs or possibly gambling.   The more our minds think about the phenomenon, the more we realise that addictions exist in many areas of life.  Addiction seems potentially to involve any human activity where the pleasure centres of the brain are stimulated so that we develop a strong craving for a repetition.  There are some addictions that I can confess to which are relatively harmless.  For example, I am ‘addicted’ to a cup of strong coffee with my breakfast.  Fortunately, because of the side-effects, I am put off repeating this experience during the rest of the day.   The pleasure centre receives its kick and remains satisfied until the same time the following day. 

Many addictions are in fact harmful.  If the pleasure people receive from viewing pornography or playing computer games is sufficiently powerful, they might be tempted to put off all other activities that demand their attention.  This might include physical self-care, like eating and sleeping.  The most serious addictions are those that fill the imagination and attention even when we are not indulging in them.  The drug or sex addict may spend much, if not most, of his/her time thinking about the next fix.  Whatever else can be said about this physical longing, we can observe that it is unproductive of any worthwhile activity.   From a Christian point of view, some of our energy should normally be focussed on others.   If we spend all our time thinking about satisfying our brain pleasure receptors, then that that means there is no time or imagination left for thinking about others, let alone supporting or caring for them.

My thinking on the whole area of addictive behaviour that people indulge in has been greatly influenced by some words written by the distinguished psychoanalyst, Heinz Kohut.  He is one of the two theorists who, in the 1970s, along with Otto Kernberg, gave shape the emerging concept of the narcissistic personality.   Both these writers wrote in dense prose, so their thinking has not penetrated far beyond specialists in this area.  Kohut himself did write one accessible piece in a book preface.  There, in three pages, he linked the narcissistic personality to the individual with addiction issues.  Addiction and narcissism are linked, Kohut declares, because each is attempting to fill the hole caused by a defective ‘self’.  The word ‘self’ is being used in a very precise defined way to signify the way the human personality can only flourish when it has inside what he calls ‘self-objects’. These self-objects are what the parent provides for a child in terms of affirmation, so that a secure and coherent sense of identity can be achieved.  The self is a kind of co-creation between parent and child which results in the child having a solid sense of self and a firm psychological core. It is an absence of such self-objects (parental attention) which can cause the child, and later the adult, to reach out for substitute objects to make up for what is missing in the construction of a secure personality.  In other words, Kohut sees all the addictions as attempts by a damaged or incomplete self to fill up the empty hole of relationships.  The lack of these has taken away the possibility of having something solid and secure at the centre of one’s being.

This construct by Kohut, that a damaged or incomplete personality desperately reaches out to extract pleasure, praise and other forms of personal gratification to fill an emptiness inside us, does make a lot of sense.  I am not sure that, as a theory, it helps us to describe all that is going on in the cases of what we might refer to as accidental addictions.  There must be, among the many manifestations of addiction, some which are purely physical and may not owe their existence to a prior emotional need at all.  In other words, some manifestations of addiction, including drugs, sex and alcohol may be originally to do with staving off mild boredom rather than experiencing emotional deprivation.  The reason for an addiction being hard to shed may be to do with the way the pleasure centres of the brain are activated, and these are difficult to switch off.  Withdrawal symptoms are physically real and painful.

In the last resort, we may suggest that addictions of whatever kind may be a combination of narcissistic needs which may arise from a defective upbringing, together with a simple search for thrills caused by an environment where ‘everybody is doing it’.  In this blog we have identified how many of the power games that we encounter in churches have narcissism at their heart.   The bully or the abuser is quite likely to be exposing some deeper need in these acts of power abuse.  There may also be, as we suggested, the enjoyment of and addiction to power for its own sake.  Where one ends and the other begins is never easy to specify.  There are likely to be elements of both in anyone who manifests an addiction, such as the compulsion to bully.  We come back to that central question which we often ask on this blog.  What is going on here?  The answer we give may utilise elements of psychologically informed insight alongside a gut feeling about the true motivations of individuals who display abusive behaviour.

Narcissistic/addictive behaviours are found in a variety of scenarios in the churches.  The sexual abuser may well be working out an addictive need for power and domination, while also possessing the narcissist’s giftedness at manipulating others.  The bully may well have an identical psychological profile but avoids crossing the boundary into criminality.  The sense of gratification through being powerful may be in the context of a life carrying the imprint of past shame and humiliation.  Bullying in this setting will often have the signs of addiction about it.  This is especially dangerous in any institution run on goodwill like a church congregation.  It ought to be possible to identify the would-be ministers who have this tendency to pursue narcissistic gratification before they begin service.  Unfortunately, these same individuals are often skilled at making a good impression with selectors.  The abusers do, in fact, often get called out and we must be grateful to the anonymous selectors who put a block on John Smyth’s desire to enter the ordained ministry.  It is interesting, in passing, to observe the way that Smyth’s compulsion to beat boys became more and more extreme as time went on.  There are suggestions in Graystone’s account that Smyth himself recognised that he was in the grip of terrifying addictive compulsion over which he had little control.

Addiction and narcissism being acted out in bullying abusive behaviour, have a further thing in common.  They seem to have an obsessive quality about them.  Addictions and narcissistic compulsions also do not necessarily lessen with age.  If anything, they can become worse.  Drug taking, excessive alcohol and gambling often become more severe as time goes on.  Also, the self-inflated narcissist in a church may become more outrageous with the passage of time.  The people around them have been, over the years, successfully coerced to support them in their self-delusions of fame and control.  If these bystanders had wanted to criticise or stand up to the narcissist, they would have found themselves forced off the scene a long time before.

It is a sad fact of life that Christian people, even Christian leaders, can become addicted to forms of behaviour that harm and hurt others.  Most addictions do considerable harm to the one suffering from them, but here on this blog, we constantly meet the places where the pursuit of power and gratification spills over to damage others.  We have asked the question what is going on here?  But the further question needs to be faced.  Where is the power in this situation?  If we can answer that question, it may be possible to see clearly what is going on and how power is being misused.  The Church may need to become better at removing people from leadership positions where they are actively harming others.  But before that is possible, there will have to be a far better understanding of the dynamics of power that I have outlined.  We may need another generation to arise who can be taught the rudiments of power in institutions and the corruptions caused by narcissistic behaviour.  We are, sadly, a long way from this kind of insight!

by Peter B

This uncomfortable reflection on the Passion and Easter stories (received on Good Friday) is not one designed to be a popular or reassuring piece of writing.  But in the very honest way it is written, it gives us pause to think afresh about what we are doing and thinking at this very solemn time in the Christian year.  Perhaps there are more of the sentiments in the piece that we can identify with than we dare admit.  I am struck by my thought that the story of pain and brutalisation reminds us vividly of the ghastliness of the war in Ukraine and the individual stories of suffering that are etched into the lives of abuse survivors.  The writer of this piece cannot be the only individual who struggles with the story of the Passion.  I have yet to see any writing on the topic of the way that the Passion of Christ may trigger serious flashbacks for members of the survivor community.  Perhaps our response to Peter’s personal piece is to be more aware of the ‘destruction’ that exists in people’s lives, and which is evoked by the story of the Passion.  Those of us who preach need fresh sensitivity about the way that preaching about the pain and suffering of Christ needs to be done with extraordinary care. Editor 

This Easter is the first I’ve made the choice not to do anything.

No walk of witness through the town, embarrassed as I thrust tracts at harried shoppers.

No 3 hour reflective service of self-examination.

No stations of the cross.

No services and vigils 3 nights in a row.

For I have a dirty secret. Holy Week destroys me.

This destruction has been growing since I entered my teens. As the son of a Church of England preacher-man, Holy Week was an important event.

As a teenager the hardest were churches that did the heavy Good Friday service and then everyone magically brightened up and we went for a picnic. Did people not read the mood? Did they not care as tomato pips ran down their fingers that thirty minutes prior they were bowed at the suffering of Christ and now were tucking into their pork pie as if nothing had happened?

Later there were churches where Good Friday is about looking at Jesus’ agony on cross and being told over and over again that you put him there. It’s YOUR SIN that is keeping him there. I mean what am I meant to do with that except feel more awful about myself than before? I am the one who is torturing him. I deserve to die, not him.

Even worse is when the preacher is telling you to picture yourself as Jesus. You’re being beaten. They’re nailing your hands. You’re being hoisted up. You can’t breathe.

Ever wanted to scream and scream in church and run out? Felt like you’re suffocating in the service? It’s not a good feeling.

Do people not have imaginations?

In one city the churches put on an outdoor passion play. It was laid on thick – think Les Misérables for Christ – and watching it I was overwhelmed and in tears by the end. Others from my church were not understanding at all – why emotional? He had to do this, and he comes back on the Sunday so okay.

Ever been so emotionally drained after Maundy Thursday and Good Friday that on Saturday all you want to do is stay in bed and hide under the covers?

Or wandered aimlessly on Holy Saturday not knowing what to do, after the sadness of Good Friday and Easter Sunday has not come yet. What to do in that space, suspended between despair and hope?

And on Easter Sunday you have flip to the opposite because this is the MOST AMAZING day!! And I do – only to find out most have moved on because apparently in (conservative) evangelical circles Good Friday is the important one because SOMEONE DIED FOR US, while someone breaking the chains of death and coming back to life is a footnote. Nothing important to see here, move along.

I’d started thinking about pulling back in 2019, and then the last 2 enforced Easter absences were enforced by Covid. Only then, despite the strains of the pandemic, did I realise what a release it was not to go through the Passiontide again.

I felt guilty at my relief. Horrifically guilty, as if by not putting myself through the wringer I was letting God down. Wasn’t this the payment I needed to do to say thank you for saving me?

And, said a little voice in my head, wasn’t this the culmination of my backsliding?

I’ve done the Easter story at least 39 times. I know it. The suffering is part of my DNA.

Maybe many people need to relive it each year. I don’t – I’ve lived it and it’s within me now. I don’t need to re-live Jesus’ suffering every year. It’s ingrained in me. I don’t have to retraumatise myself every single year.

Me and other people’s suffering, we don’t get on. I struggle to touch anything to do with the holocaust as the weight of that evil threatens to overwhelm yet feel I must know for their memory. The Easter story, the accounts of genocide at Auschwitz, Srebrenica, Rwanda, the recent torture and executions in Bucha, the brokenness of human life – they all sit together. All make me sad, and I am heartbroken for the people involved and their loved ones.

And yet. Easter is the only one where life comes back. Jesus rises from the dead and appears to his friends and others. He gives us hope that we can be saved, death is overcome, and we too can be united with the Father. It is different.

I can be without the self-flagellation this Easter.

I love my Father and my Father loves me.

There are a few books in one’s life that create an indelible impression, so that one never forgets the basic argument.  Among the books that for me fall into this category is one entitled The Discovery of the Individual 1050-1200 by Colin Morris. The principle insight of the book is to show how the roots of the Renaissance and the Reformation are to be found in intellectual developments in a number of centres of learning in early mediaeval Europe.  For me, the appeal of the book was in the way that it explained the cultural and philosophical meaning of ‘individual’ and how this idea needed to be discovered or re-discovered.  Before 1050, so the book claims, the intellectual traditions of Western Europe were unable to entertain any kind of novelty in their thinking.  Everything was derivative of what had gone before.  In order for the great explosion of revolutionary ideas that we call the Renaissance to emerge, there had to be, over a couple of centuries, a gradual building up of new intellectual traditions where scholars and thinkers could start to think for themselves.  In the modern parlance, there had to be an increasing tolerance for ‘thinking outside the box’. The new revolution in thought, which collectively is referred to as the Renaissance, burst into full view in the late 15^th century.  The world, especially in its art, literature and political thinking, has never been the same since.

These new traditions of thought and artistic achievement in so many arenas of human enterprise during the Renaissance were movements made possible by a relatively few brave pioneers being given permission in various centres to experiment and think new thoughts.  The Renaissance itself was given impetus and energy by the patronage of popes, kings and princes.  Many fell over themselves to be seen to celebrate this new movement in both learning and artistic discovery.  St Peter’s in Rome was built as much to symbolise the achievements of this new age of human endeavour and creativity as it was erected to celebrate the glory of God.  New thought being applied to art, literature and architecture was one thing.  Applying it to the religious traditions which had been handed down from the Middle Ages was a much more contentious process.  It was one thing for a pope to sponsor the music of Palestrina or the art of Michelangelo; it was quite another to listen to new religious ideas that might challenge the power complex of the medieval Papal establishment.  New thought could be tolerated, even encouraged, but not if it challenged religious privilege and power.

The personalities that created the Protestant Reformation can be seen to emerge from the same creative impulses that nurtured Da Vinci and Botticelli.  Of course, they, Luther, Calvin, Arminius etc., excelled in quite different spheres of human achievement and activity, but they had this one thing in common.  Each had given themselves permission to take forward the task of thinking new thoughts in ways that had never happened before.  Even fifty years before in Europe, any new thought in matters of Church discipline would have been met with harsh treatment from all sides, whether secular or religious.  Luther, in the 1520s, was able to find allies among the secular authorities to protect him. There was, providentially, a friendly German prince prepared to give him hospitality in a castle for a number of years, keeping him away from the many who would have preferred him to be arrested and killed.  The religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation were long and bloody.  It was not until the middle of the 17^th century that continental Europe reverted to a semblance of an uneasy peace between the Catholic and Protestant nations. 

Many of us have read accounts of this period of history, 1530-1648.  On continental Europe it is sometimes summed up and described a time of religious wars.  The whole period does little to honour the cause of the Christian faith.  But one thing I take from the story of the Reformation is the way that each side in the dispute, Catholic and Protestant, embodied some part of the truth.  For the purpose of this blog post, I am going to ignore the theological disputes, such as biblical authority and the nature of salvation.   What comes out of my attempt to view the Reformation dispassionately (if that is possible!) and informed by the perspective of Morris’ book, is to note two distinct ways of being human and Christian. I risk a verbal battering from my historically informed readers when I liken the traditional Catholic style of practising the Christian faith as being in some sense ‘tribal’.  By this word I am referring to the fact that most people practised their faith as part of a community or nation of faith.  Catholicism was part of the fabric of the social order.  The Catholic faithful were not expected to look back to some conversion event in their lives.  It was part of what it meant to be alive and being part of their society.  Conforming to the authority of the priest was in many ways an extension of their submission to a feudal lord.  In return the Catholic faithful were offered the assurance that, provided they fulfilled the obligations of the Church, their place in heaven was secure.

The Protestant way of doing religion, again stripped of its doctrinal wordiness, honours the part of us that questions and argues our way to truth and faith.  When we use the word protest, it brings to mind an argumentative, forceful style.  We know also that, in practice, many protestant churches today are good at providing a non-demanding reassuring form of faith, but this was not true of the early pioneers.  They fought for their version of truth, using rhetoric, verbal and physical force to protest what they believed to be true about God and his relationship with humankind.  None of them seem to have been easy characters and they certainly did not seek for a comfortable life.   John Knox, for example, could be brutish and unpleasant by all accounts but, for good and ill, his version of Christianity remains influential in Scotland.  It is my thought that each of these two tendencies or ways of doing religion can exist in us simultaneously.  We swing between wanting a safe and predictable safe way of practising the faith and a more argumentative style.  Part of us is perhaps roused to a state of passion by the claims of Christianity.  We may sometimes even feel that we want to stand on a street corner challenging others to wake up from their complacency about spiritual matters.

My suggestion is that many of us have a Catholic sub-personality alongside a Protestant one.  This may seem to suggest that I think there is something wrong with us.  What I think I am saying is that we oscillate between different modes of functioning in our religious expression.   In other words, some of the time we need reassurance and comfort from our faith, but on other occasions, the faith we have leads to protest and strong affirmation. This is probably also true of our political thinking.  I sometimes say that I am, in my politics, intellectually left wing but temperamentally right wing.  The important thing is we can learn to be honest about what we think on religious topics and how, sometimes, two quite opposite thoughts can be felt by us to be true at the same time.  Those familiar with the novels of Anthony Trollope will remember the theological stance of Mr Arabin who became Dean of Barchester. 

The book, The Discovery of the Individual, helped me to become aware of the dual nature of my personality.  Two aspects of the same individual, the part that prefers the corporate safe way of doing Christianity and the forceful individualistic way, may live side by side.  I quickly add that this piece of spiritual self-awareness was probably nowhere in the author’s mind when he wrote his important work.   Nevertheless, I find it helpful to be reminded that I can swing between these two manifestations of religious personality.  I should not expect to live in one spiritual place all the time.  It also helps me to value another who chooses at any one moment to live in a different place along this continuum between the positions I have loosely called catholic and protestant.  That designation is not meant to be a scientific or psychological description of two types of personality but perhaps a convenient shorthand to describe two ways of practising the Christian faith.   Probably we need to recognise both styles, in ourselves but also in the wider Church.    I am not minded to emphasise either one as a way to exclude the other as both have a part to play in the wholeness that God is calling us to fulfil in our membership of his Church.