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. 

A reflection for Holy Week

by Peter Reiss

Like many, I find the news from Ukraine ever harder to cope with – new and worse acts of brutality on innocent and helpless victims. I don’t want to be subjected to this news, but then how much worse to be subjected to the actual horror, or to witness it. I am also aware that this is not a new and strange outburst of brutality; it has been happening in too many parts of the world for so long; it is abuse on a massive scale, but each individual is a precious individual, not a statistic.

Faced with such brutality, I am struggling for words – whether to try and make some sense of it, or to pray. Words don’t cut it against knives and bullets and tanks. This blog asks us to wrestle with power-imbalance, abuse of power, the victims and the perpetrators.

A few weeks ago we heard of fresh-faced Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine and feeling lost; is it those same cohorts of soldiers who have become rapists, torturers and killers, or is there a different breed of soldier? How could a young conscript become so hard and hardened?

One answer may be that they were told the Ukrainians would welcome them not shoot back; when this did not happen, a new narrative was needed. Rather than consider themselves unwelcome invaders / the wrong-doers, they have relabelled the Ukrainians as a despicable enemy which does not respect Russia, which no longer has a right to live.

One answer may be that these soldiers have become used to seeing death, inured to it, scarred by it, brutalised, almost sub-human to survive. Another answer may be that they have become captured by the orders of more senior officers who have demanded these actions, until they have become customary. If I was a young soldier would I have the courage to say No?

These are only my attempts to make sense of what is happening; I suspect there is a blend of all three and more.

Three Scriptural links may be of a little help if we are trying to respond from a faith perspective.

In the masterfully written story of Cain and Abel (Gen 4: 1-16), the first violence between humans, the first mention of sin in the Bible, Cain is angry and his countenance fell – anger and jealousy are potent forces; The Lord speaks to him, and Cain has choices – “if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you but you must master it.” – he still has choices. Two things are noteworthy – first that Cain fails to master sin- the crouching sin grabs him and it is his brother who suffers – despite choice it is sort of inevitable, humans are not good at mastering a crouching sin. Secondly, the passage involves conversations between the Lord and Cain before and after the killing; the Lord is more concerned for the one who is about to sin, or has sinned than the victim; the Lord does not step in to protect Abel. Theologically this is unsatisfactory to us, but it speaks clearly of how the world is – God does not step in to protect the victims. Abel speaks only when dead when his blood cries out from the ground. I say this is a masterful composition because it speaks of God’s silence and absence as well as the failed dialogue with the aggressor. It is not the complete answer but it is an uncomfortable part of an answer; our faith requires us to live with this silent absence from the vulnerable, and the blood continuing to cry from the earth. Good Friday / Easter may offer hope. I find this passage helps me think theologically.

The second passage is one of the poems in Lamentations, or more particularly half of one verse, 1: 12 – “is it nothing to you, you who pass by? ..” How am I affected by the cries of the victims? Lamentations, like many of the psalms, is written from the horrors of war and violence, but their authenticity to their context means that others in other places may not frame their pain or their thoughts in this way. I cannot assume that their voice will be the same as the ancient voices from Jerusalem. I must listen to each voice not assume I know. The question from 1:12 catches me. Will I listen and be changed, or will I switch channel or scroll to find something easier to cope with? This passage demands a response – the wounded ask that of me.

The third very different passage I turn to, is the role of the crowds in Holy Week. The events of Holy Week do not take place in a church but outside – Roman soldiers and crowds buzzing with restless energies. The crowd on the way into Jerusalem on the Sunday are positive and excited. By the end of the week the dominant crowd are hostile and calling for one of their own people to be crucified. is this a crowd with a very different make-up from the Sunday crowd, and if so, where are the Sunday people? Is the second crowd stirred by agitators, so that the dominant voice is hostile to Jesus? I have been amazed at the courage of unarmed Ukrainians standing against Russian troops in the early days, a bit like a Palm Sunday procession in defiance of the Roman troops who presumably watched from ramparts but did not get involved. I am now numbed by the brutality of those Russian troops who have ransacked, tortured and executed in so many towns as well as shelled indiscriminately and defaced and defecated in shops, livelihoods and homes. If the story of Cain and Abel makes me ask if I can trust a God who does not protect, then this story makes me ask whether I would have remained supportive of Jesus by the end of the week or whether I would have been cowed into silence and submission by the louder voices. I don’t think that the same people who cried “Hosanna” on Sunday necessarily had shifted to “crucify” on Friday. I suspect many had gone silent in the face of opposition.

If jealousy and anger are potent forces for an individual, then mob-power, crowd-mentalities are even more potent in causing fear and silence. Jealousy, anger and hatred can hide the humanity of the other, so that they can be abused. The story of Cain and Abel holds individual choices and external forces in tension. The individual can lose their individual potency in a crowd, or in a mob, or even in an army, in a way that probably many of us cannot fully comprehend.

When faced with brutality, faceless brutality of a system or the heated brutality of an agressor, fuelled by seething emotions, it takes enormous courage to keep going. Holy Week for me this year will have a real edge – do I really see in the crucified Jesus the hope of the world, and if so, how might I say so in the context of such appalling suffering on such a scale.

But there are those who read this blog for whom abuse and suffering are firsthand, and I am always grateful for the courage of your comments. You have faced Cains, you have been ignored and passed by, drowned out by organised louder voices. I dare to believe that the blood of all victims cries out, and in God’s gracious economy is not lost but in Christ’s blood finds or will find resurrection life. But if I do believe that then I must find the courage not to be silenced, and the silence to listen to those who are crying.

A few weeks ago, we had one of those domestic crises which afflict all of us from time to time. Ours was a little unusual but needed to be dealt with quickly.  A jackdaw had somehow got into the chimney and fallen right down into the space behind our wood burner. Luckily the fire was not lit. There was no way that the bird could escape. What were we supposed to do? We rang up the local chimney sweep who services our wood burner and asked for his help. He happened to be 100 yards away in his van and so he immediately came round and dismantled the fire so the bird could escape. Both my wife and I felt that experience of relief when you can hand over a difficult task to somebody who has expertise and knows what to do.

This experience of handing over problems to other people with specialist knowledge is something we do frequently. We look to medical professionals, financial experts, car mechanics and the like with the expectation that they will apply their expertise on our behalf. In each case there is an internal sigh of relief as we feel released from the responsibility of sorting out the particular problem we are facing.  It is now their job to diagnose the illness, mend the strange noise in the car or whatever other problem we are facing.  Our relationship to these experts who sort out the myriad of problems that come into our lives is one of respect.  Their expertise is not one we can ever possess, however much we might like to be able to do more in the area of DIY.  Realistically we know our limitations in many practical tasks.  We defer to their expert decisions of what has to be done and try to sound as though we understand all that they are telling us. Allowing the expert to make decisions on our behalf is an act of trust and we do it willingly.  We feel very much that in this situation, they are in charge, and we owe them deference and respect.  Our part in the interaction is the ability and readiness to pay their bill promptly.  Prompt payment always seems one way we can use to express our admiration for people who use skills that the rest of us do not have.

The word deference is an interesting one and it describes a particular quality of relationship.   Deference implies an unequal partnership with another person.  We show it to a person who is our superior in age, skill, or has some kind of authority.  When we use the word in a Christian context, we are indicating that we are looking up to someone who may be placed over us in some way or is wiser spiritually and in learning.  As we know, there are a variety of formal hierarchies of authority in church life.  There are also many informal ones as well.  In all of these we may find relationships of deference at work. Some Christians have obtained defined roles as members of the clergy after training and formation.  Others have long experience or influence gained from years of Christian practice.  Deference is, in short, a word that articulates the fact that we sometimes find ourselves looking up to people because of their seniority to us in rank or knowledge.  They are also the people who seem to have something to give us in terms of encouragement and support.  For whatever reason, these are people we respect and honour.

When I was thinking about this word deference, I realised that the English language does not have a special word to describe the individual who is acting with deference towards another person.  Neither is there a word for the person who receives this attitude of respect and honour. We really need new words like ‘deferent’ and ‘deferee’ to express such a relationship. While this implied relationship often denotes something positive in the life of the church in terms of wholesome influence and teaching, we also encounter problems with the word in a church context. A year or two back, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke about deference, and he appeared to bemoan that there is too much of it in the structures of the church. We may suppose that what he was talking about was the way that it is wearisome for him to be expected to have all the answers to difficult problems.  It must indeed be quite tough being at the top of a spiritual and theological hierarchy where everyone expects you to be an expert on many topics.  Then, in addition, as a member of the House of Lords and chief representative of the national Church, he is expected to have opinions on every political issue that is currently in the public agenda.  The place at the top of any hierarchy is a hard place to occupy.

These negative dynamics of deference are also in operation in an ordinary church congregation.  People look up to their leaders to provide teaching and guidance.  The clergyperson sometimes finds that he/she is expected to do the thinking and spiritual work on behalf of all.  The leader may indeed possess expertise to be shared with the congregation, but the expectation that he/she will always know what to do and say can be a heavy burden.  Many clergy want to encourage their congregation to think for themselves and so allow the learning and growth of each member to develop at an individual pace.  Many people, by contrast, much prefer to be told what to think. They are like the house group members in an Adrian Plass book, who turn to the group leader to find out what ‘we think’ on a particular topic. Church leaders, who place the burden on each member of making a personal pilgrimage and discovering an individual faith, are not always appreciated in a parish situation. ‘What do you think?’ is not a question that is welcomed in many congregations.  The dynamic of deference in some parishes is going to resemble a family dynamic where the children are still very young.  The stage of total dependence on parents to solve every problem is appropriate for this first part of their lives. Many churches and congregations routinely operate within such an atmosphere of immaturity and over-dependence in spite of the best efforts of the clergy. To use a Pauline image, the congregation remain permanently satisfied with a diet of milk rather than solid food.

There is another church dynamic where deference is also a problem, but for completely different reasons. The vicar or leader openly exploits the dynamic of deference, possibly to satisfy his/her own narcissistic need to be important.  Unlike the first scenario I described above, where the leader wants people to grow and mature, the people in this second congregation are deliberately kept in their infantile dependence.  The leader expects everyone to accept the teaching that is offered from the pulpit without question.  The training that this particular vicar received may have encouraged him/her to think that there is indeed only one version of the Christian faith.  This is the one he/she intends to share with the congregation.   Membership in many conservative evangelical congregations requires submission and deference to the dominant discourse and to the leader who teaches it.  Within this official teaching we will find, typically, statements about biblical inerrancy and substitutionary atonement.  We would not be exaggerating to speak of the ‘enforcement’ of these doctrines.  Quite often we find no room for discussion, difference of opinion or the honouring of other perspectives.  Clearly individuals, who do not wish to show deference to such teachings, have the option to move to a new congregation.  This is not always easy or straightforward.  I was hearing recently of a highly qualified reader who has been eased out of her teaching role in the parish by an incoming vicar.  The reader was, in comparison with the vicar, highly educated and, as far as I can work out, the vicar was afraid that her less thorough theological education might be shown up by the excellent thoughtful teaching provided by the reader.  These sermons were felt not to be showing sufficient deference to the vicar and her narrow range of theological ideas.

Deference can be an appropriate and valuable part of the way relationships are organised within a church congregation.  This short reflection has also indicated that an inappropriate expression of deference can in fact foster dysfunctional relationships within congregations.  A major part of the task of clergy leaders is to make sure that any tendency to over idealise the clergy or leaders is never allowed to create an environment of infantilism and immaturity.  Equally, the natural idealising tendencies oof congregations towards their leaders must never be allowed to create a platform for dominant, narcissistic styles of leadership.  These hold people back and even harm those who submit to their authority.  All clergy need to examine the place of deference within their congregation.  Is it to be used positively or is it to be allowed to hold people down in a permanent state of immaturity? 

Hillsong, the immensely powerful network of Christian megachurches, is in the midst of a new crisis.  Readers who want to know the details of the latest reported scandals can read a huge amount of material on the internet.  A new television documentary on Hillsong is currently being released and this will contain revelations of various kinds, with much of the speculation focussed on the leader and founder, Brian Houston.  Among other things, he has been reportedly found to have been with a woman in a hotel bedroom who was not his wife.  Houston has recently been required, not only to step back from his responsibilities, but to step down as leader.  His position as the founder/leader of Hillsong seems to have been made impossible. For many people there is little surprise in discovering that Christian leaders are involved in sexual scandal and I do not intend to focus on any of the detail of the reported misbehaviour.  Rather, what I want to do is to reflect on the wider issue of scandal in the Church and how it can damage the institution in ways that are not always obvious at the time.

When sexual scandals break in the Church, the first thing often to be mentioned is the fact of hypocrisy.  The standards of Christian morality are undermined when Christians, especially their leaders, engage in sexual behaviour which, while it may not break the law, certainly offends the ten commandments and/the New Testament injunctions to love our neighbour.  Some sexual behaviour is contested as to whether it is indeed immoral.  The churches are still debating whether same sex behaviour is ever justified or whether it can be regarded as a moral form of sexual self-expression.  I have to confess to a certain weariness with the arguments on same-sex behaviour. These have been rehearsed over and over again throughout my adult life.   The area of behaviour which is regarded as invariably ‘sinful’ is that behaviour which involves betrayal and deceit.  But it still needs to be repeated that sin, as understood by Christians, is so much larger a topic than sexual misdemeanours. 

In order to escape from the popular but misleading view that Christians are only concerned with sex when they speak about sin, we need to consider what are the worst failings among Christians that we can imagine.  Betrayal and harm of another person in the pursuit of personal gratification comes fairly high on the list of sinful actions.  There is one word in English that sums up what we need to be or to have to be less likely to engage in this kind of behaviour – the word is integrity.  Integrity is one of those words that defies easy definitions but is suggestive of character, honesty and reliability.  The absence of integrity suggests many things including the potential for selfish and abusive behaviour.  A person without integrity seems to lack a core or a solid centre.  The interesting thing about integrity is that one can claim to be a man or woman of integrity without pretending to be perfect or sinless. A person with integrity may still break commandments but we have the realistic expectation that they will have enough self-awareness to pick themselves up again.  They will know when they have fallen short in some way.  If they are Christians they will often submit to a mentor or spiritual director figure who can gently put them back on the right track when they stray.

Integrity is not just a feature of individuals; it also is a description which can be applied to institutions.  Institutions fail the integrity test when their members are found to be turning their back on the standards that the group is supposed to be upholding.  Talk of ‘institutional racism’ is describing an institution failing to preserve integrity at its heart.  We look to the police force not only to treat women and people of minority groups with respect and dignity, but to observe all the other values which are implied in the word integrity.  While perfection cannot be expected in any institution or individual, even those who have integrity, we do expect things to come out right in the medium term.  Institutions which lack integrity are extremely difficult to deal with.  Unlike individuals, institutions may have power and wealth in abundance.  Such an institution cannot easily be challenged.  Money gives access to legal defences and the threat of litigation.  All that those of us outside a powerful institution with integrity issues can do, is to challenge it through publicity.  Private Eye is the journal that challenges many institutions in British society.  Whether it always get things right in its presentations of the facts, I do not know.  What I do know is that it is extremely healthy for institutions and individuals to be forcibly tackled for their failures in upholding integrity and standards of morality.

To return to the topic of Hillsong.  What struck me as I waded through some of the predictable stories of financial and sexual excess was the sheer seediness of the culture that has grown up around parts of this church.  Whether it is the rave character of much of what passes for worship or the stories of credit cards handed out to members of staff with no credit limit, there is a lot that fails the ‘smell test’.  Institutional integrity expects there to be in a church, above all, a place which preserves the values of honesty, openness and justice.  Any institution will self-destruct or become enfeebled if it does not observe these protocols of integrity.  This applies to every institution including the Church.  There is no ‘get out of jail’ card available to a church because it claims to have God on its side.

My final remarks (being written on the train to London!) is that reputational damage is a serious problem for all churches today.  A failure to control the behaviour of leaders in their hedonistic lifestyles is a problem for some churches.  Another problem is the way that leaders, even in the the Church of England, are found to have failed the integrity test in areas which have nothing to do with personal morality.  When information is blocked, people are silenced and when lies are told by senior figures in the church in the cause of maintaining reputation and power, then we still have a problem every bit as damaging and corrosive to a church as what is now being revealed about Hillsong. These failures of integrity have to be considered over and above the failures that are apparent in individual bullying and abuses of power. The question that remains for all of us to ask is whether our church is an institution which still has integrity.  The answer is unlikely to be a simple yes/no one.  The fact that it even needs to be asked is an uncomfortable reality.  I leave it to my readers to answer the question for themselves.  I hope that for your spiritual and mental health that you have found places and people with the integrity to allow you to follow the Christian journey safely and well.

These days I do not have many face-to-face conversations about God.   In my local parish I keep very much in the background.  An application that I did make over a year ago for a PTO seems to have been lost in the bureaucratic in-tray of my diocese.  It did not help that the mission-community leader, then overseeing our parish and my application, left the area two weeks after signing my form.  This diocese seems to have ample supplies of retired clergy so that my potential contribution is not missed    The sermons that I don’t preach in a real pulpit have to appear from time to time on this blog.  

The short conversation that took place after church followed a sermon from our new Vicar which was a commentary on the first section of the Alpha Course.  This is being used during Lent.  I am not attending these sessions, but I gather that one question in the first session concerns the historical reality of Jesus.  There is a real effort made to convince the Alpha attendees that Jesus can be believed in because both the historical evidence for his existence and his claims to be the Son of God are strong.   There is the usual apologetic mention of Josephus and Suetonius which I believe are frequently appealed to in this context.  The argument seems to be that if Jesus existed and the evidence for believing the claims made about him are strong, we have solid grounds for following suit.  Everyone is faced with a choice – to believe or not to believe.  If we do believe, we have solid reliable historical evidence to back our choice.

My quiet conversation after the service was with a man who has, like us, only moved into the area in the past few years.  His wife is an enthusiastic Christian in a way that he is not.  He comes along apparently to support her.  His words to me were few but they communicated his difficulty in ‘believing’ what had been said in the sermon.  There was no opportunity to go into the detail of the Alpha reasoning or what I might describe as black-white theology.  I simply said there is a third way to approach the question of belief.   We can, in the words of a course that I used in my church some years ago, be ‘living the questions’.  I explained that the place of living inside a question was to allow that question to be alive and active inside us.  The alternative positions, total acceptance or total rejection both seemed problematic. Each of these options did not appear really to engage with the discussion. One side was walking away from even considering the question.  The other was claiming to have certainty over the question of belief without having necessarily engaged with it at depth.  To claim to have certainty in respect of a religious topic may not necessarily be a healthy position.   It implies that you feel you have arrived at a point beyond questions and doubt.  You cease to be a position to learn anything further. Your stance appears to be sterile and implies that you have reached the end of your journey. 

The conversation lasted only a minute or two and I did not develop it beyond the point of encouraging the man to think through the meaning of the phrase to live the questions.   But it got me thinking about how I would have, in the past, preached a sermon to encourage people who found difficulties with aspects of belief and faith. To offer people certainty in religious or political situations is seldom the best option. The current crisis in Ukraine reminds us that certainty can be a lethal and dangerous commodity.  Putin is an example of the way that one man’s certainty can lead others into a dark place where questioning and doubt are erased.  Such a place can have terrifying results.  Should not Christian believing always have an element of uncertainty about it?  There are, I believe, reasons for us to hold strongly to a position where ‘living the questions’ is the right and healthy reaction to both the way we learn, and the way we practise our Christian faith.

The first good reason for some provisionality, even uncertainty, to exist in our Christian faith is that it allows an individual always to be open to something new.  Scientific discovery, we are told, depends on a readiness to discard old theories when these cease to work.  Truth for the scientist represents something tentative and provisional.  If certainty were to be the goal of scientific enquiry, then scientists might believe that it was right to hope for a point where they no longer had to experiment or question their theories.  While I am no scientist, I note the huge adjustments that have had to be made when a scientist probes the sub-atomic world.  Common sense physics simply ceases to work at this level.  The scientist has to operate in the mysterious language of mathematical formulae which are a closed book to the majority of us.  Is it not reasonable to suppose that the Christian faith might be expressed in ways that transcend the limitations of our human languages?

 One of the things I am grateful for in my life is the privilege of having studied theology at university level for eight years.  The chief reward for this study is not some prestigious job in the Church but a wider sympathy for the infinite variety of ‘languages’ in which theology can be expressed.  I am not talking about the actual languages of Hebrew and Greek in which the Bible was first written, but the way Christianity has adapted itself to the variety of cultures that are found in the world.  Culture does involve languages, but it is also operates beyond words and concepts.  To say that we truly understand any culture fully, even our own, is probably a dangerous claim.  It is even more doubtful to lay claim to a culture that is not our own or expressed in languages which we have to work at studying.  My theological journey has taken me across a variety of cultural and linguistic boundaries.  18 months of the eight years studying were spent attached to institutions abroad where English was not a first language.  This privileged exposure has not provided me with superior knowledge of theology but has made me aware of the limitations of what I do know.  Wisdom comes from recognising how much my background of being a middle-class English male have shut off huge areas of wisdom that are given to those who think and speak using totally different words and ideas.  In short, my privileged theological education has allowed me to realise how much I do not know rather than what I do know.

Grasping that one does not know much in an area of knowledge, allows one to be extremely allergic to the language of certainty.  A lot of my theological opinions are a work in progress.  I shrink from settled opinions that are set in stone for fear of being suffocated by these opinions, when I want to take a new look at what I really mean in expressing them.  Many of my readers will be sympathetic to the analogy of the journey or pilgrimage as describing the Christian faith.  Because journeys involve movement there is always variety and newness built into what we can see.  We can never see the totality of the journey, but we can describe episodes that occur along the way.  The pilgrimage analogy is a good way of helping people, like the man in church, to realise that they can belong, even when they are uncertain about what they believe.   The same humility could be asked of the militant atheist.  How can anyone possessing the limitations of a single brain and living inside one culture feel able to pontificate what is ultimately real and true?  Humility is required of the atheist dogmatist as much as it is of the religious believer. 

The task of learning to be a Christian does not fit a textbook pattern.  We do not learn something as children and then cling to it for the rest of lives.  In practice all of us struggle with doubt, uncertainty and sometimes despair.  The alternative to struggle and untidiness would seem to be something far worse.  Coasting along, afloat on a raft of certainties and settled opinions, may sound all right, but it seems to offer a life devoid of texture, colour and meaning. 

Christianity suggests that one day we shall face our maker to face some process of judgement.  The idea of this judgement is often presented as a way of discovering whether we have lived good moral lives.  If that is true, I also believe that we will be questioned about whether we have been living lives involving adventure and courage.  Have we intellectually and physically pursued all our opportunities for learning and experience?  Have we, in other words, lived life to the full, exploring the options given to us and opening ourselves the infinite variety of life?  Have we, as well, pursued the many questions that life throws at us concerned with meaning and the nature of reality?