Recent rumblings within the UCCF (Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) might never have attracted much attention but for the clumsy efforts to avoid full disclosure and transparency.  Back in December 2022, some problems in the organisation arose and resulted in the suspension of two very senior officials within the group, Richard Cunningham and Tim Rudge.  An internal enquiry on behalf of the Trustees, that was started in the early part of this year to investigate the issues behind these suspensions, has taken a significant amount of time to complete.  The report containing the results of this inquiry by Hilary Winstone KC was apparently delivered to the Trustees in June. Nothing in this report was shared with the wider public until now.  What we have now in statements from the Trustee body is a rather vague statement which suggests that there have been some issues to be resolved over the contracts and terms of service for the charity volunteers and employees.  The recruitment and support of dozens of young people who work for UCCF is a major part of the charity’s activity.  Meanwhile, the two suspended directors have apparently been found innocent of whatever accusation had led to their suspension, though it is not clear what required the suspensions in the first place.  Also, we heard another fact at the beginning of this month which was the resignation of almost half the trustees from the UCCF Trustee Board.  This included the Chairman, Chris Wilmott. Only the vaguest of reasons have been given for this event. Clearly something is going on within the organisation beyond a dispute about employment law and the practices currently used to recruit and manage those working for UCCF.

In trying to understand what might be going on in a religious organisation which many people may not have even heard of, we have first to revisit briefly the 1920s and the founding of its predecessor, IVF (Inter-Varsity Fellowship). it was realised then by evangelical church leaders across the denominations that students at university, brought up in traditionally conservative home churches, needed spiritual, social and intellectual support in order to grow in their faith. The name-change to UCCF came about in the 1970s when this work among students at university was extended to cover colleges of higher education. Christian unions attached to UCCF are currently found in almost every higher educational establishment across Britain as well as in some schools. UCCF provides a network of staff members to support these Christian Unions with training and organisational support. Almost all of these supporting staff are young and recent graduates.  They will have played an active role in their local Christian union while still undergraduates. These junior members of staff are there to help and encourage new generations of students to be active in the task of evangelism.  This is done through Bible study and prayer groups, as well as more focussed evangelistic events.

In making observations about the work of UCCF, I have the possible advantage of not knowing anyone who is currently part of the organisation.  All my comments are based on information freely available on the internet, especially the UCCF website. After studying this site, especially the potted biographies of a few of its workers and volunteers, I found myself comparing what I was reading with an institution which acts in the manner of a military organisation.  The central duty and priority for every member of this Christian army of student members was to be a follower of Christ and share freely this witness with one’s fellow students.  When not doing the work of sharing Christ with non-Christian friends, the CU requires all its members to engage with frequent attendance at prayer meetings and Bible studies.  In short, membership of a CU can be a virtually full-time occupation for both staff and ordinary members.  There would be little time for other activities apart from university studies.   The ordinary members in the structure could be likened to private soldiers in an army, while the volunteer Relay Workers are a NCO class.  Relay Workers are those who have volunteered for a ten-month period to work with the students.  Above these Relay Workers were staff members who can be considered to be acting in a junior officer rank.  They are expected to stay between three and five years working full-time with perhaps a cluster of CUs.  While Relay workers were expected to be entirely self-supporting for a single academic year, the staff members did receive some pay from a central fund.  The reality of these arrangements has been opened up in a recent Youtube video.  A former staff member spoke of his difficulties rising a third of his salary through fund-raising activities.   One imagines that many staff members find themselves subsidised by their own families.  All of the viewed sample of 120 or so members of staff that are shown on the website were inviting (begging?) the online visitor to help support them with a financial contribution.  Such a system of worker remuneration is at the very least eccentric and questionably legal.  It is not difficult to imagine that someone in UCCF has raised their concern about the exploitative culture of employing staff in this way.  It may be these strange patterns of employment have resulted in an evident unhappiness in UCCF and the suspension of the two senior directors.  My observations are of course speculations but there must be other people who regard the employment culture of UCCF as not fulfilling best practice or working for the best interests of their employees.  Another facet of this employment strategy which raises concerns, is that this way of employing staff is exploitative of youthful idealism.  Working for UCCF does not offer a secure career path, even if some go on to pursue other careers in Christian leadership. Once again employment law apparently does not look kindly on a system of compulsory redundancy after working for three to five years for the same employer.    

My description of the employment practices of UCCF as exploitative might be considered an understating of the issue in the organisation. Taking a cohort of vulnerable young people fired up with enthusiasm for God but with little experience of the world of work, and then expecting them to effectively beg part of their salary from relatives and supporters is an act of questionable honesty. Some might even describe it as something close to slavery. Clearly this culture of using young people to work for less than the going rate is one that is bound to meet a legal or moral challenge at some point. I have no idea whether the suspensions of directors and resignation of trustees has anything to do with the employment regime or not.   Clearly there needs to be a proper examination of employment practices at UCCF.  This may already have begun.

Readers of this blog know about the considerable impact of charismatic styles of Christianity among students and young people. The UCCF emerges from a different ‘tribe’ of evangelical teaching and largely sets itself apart from the charismatic style of HTB and Soul Survivor.  The same non-charismatic and quasi-military culture pertaining to UCCF was also found in the Iwerne camps.  Iwerne wanted to capture the nation’s leaders by focusing on the ‘best’ public schools.  UCCF is impelled by a similar desire to reach the educated student population of Britain with the claims of Christ.  In practice, evangelical institutions or large parishes will tend to identify with one style and culture or the other. Most large and ‘approved’ evangelical churches in our university cities, which support CU, tend to identify with the non-charismatic strand.  While I have some sympathy for the charismatic expression of evangelicalism, I find UCCF and Iwerne inspired churches decidedly old-fashioned and rigorist.  This is especially indicated in their theological statements.  The UCCF statement of belief, which consists of eleven propositions, could have been lifted straight out of a 19^th century textbook of dogmatic Protestant teaching.  From memory it remains identical to the IVF propositions set out 60 years ago when I was an undergraduate myself.  Is it a matter of pride that the same unchanging words are thought to be adequate to convey a statement of truth and belief?  The attempt to place God in a narrow straitjacket of words always seems a futile task.   Even within the New Testament itself we see the language used to describe God changing and evolving.  The writer of Mark’s gospel and that of John would not have found it easy to communicate with one another.  How is the word ‘infallible’ a helpful one when try to embrace the different cultures of truth within the Old and New Testaments?  It takes imagination beyond words to see the harmony between the differing cultures within Scripture.  Understanding truth, as having to be expressed in a precise formula of words, is not helpful for an emerging youthful faith.  One thing that all members of Christian Unions have In common is their youth.   It is, to say the least, unseemly to restrict the desire to use one’s imagination to explore the reality of God and define it in a fixed code of words which are held to be beyond discussion or imaginative interpretation.  It is also abusive and cruel to suggest that any deviation from the eleven propositions provided by UCCF is to place oneself on the path to apostasy or even eternal damnation.  Any social and emotional pressure applied on this vulnerable group within society, our student population, should be a concern those who make the laws of this country as well as all those who minister to their spiritual and emotional welfare.  It is a constant problem to those who seek to serve to minister to students who may find themselves deviating from the thinking of their Christian Unions.

Coincidentally, over the weekend I received a plea from an unknown person who is desperate to receive support from someone who can help her move away psychologically and emotionally from the damaging authoritarianism and ostracism of a Christian congregation.  I am unable to suggest any help but perhaps my readers may know of a support network of this kind.  It is much needed.  Perhaps the tensions and the divisions that are possibly evident today in UCCF may be a prelude to a new generosity and inclusive welcome among evangelicals to one another, especially in the world of supporting Christian students.  In short, the frozen culture of a century of IVF/UCCF intransigence may be ready to crack open to let in new light and truth.

Last Sunday at Carlisle Cathedral, we began a commemoration of the Safeguarding Season with a special eucharist and the launch of a dedicated prayer space in one of the side chapels.  Hitherto I have had very little awareness of the local efforts with safeguarding in my own area.  Retired clergy do not seem to be included in any mailing network for the regular dissemination of diocesan news.  What took place on the 15^th October seemed to be something much more than paying lip-service to an idea sent down from higher authority.  It felt like a genuine attempt by Canon Benjamin Carter, who holds the safeguarding brief for the cathedral chapter, to involve the congregation in this national focus.   Canon Carter was also the preacher. He knows of my safeguarding interests and he made sure that I was introduced to another local person, Antonia Sobocki. She is working in safeguarding through her Loud Fence project.  A google search will reveal the scope and importance of this international initiative for supporting abuse victims.  Antonia and I, through the medium of Zoom, had met on one previous occasion but it was good to make real, as opposed to virtual, contact on this occasion.  

In his sermon Canon Carter referred to the prayer space in Carlisle Cathedral which is being made available throughout the Safeguarding Season.  Each visitor is invited to identify with an emotion which they feel as a result of engaging with the terrible realities of abuse.  He was, of course, not unaware of the strong emotions that have been aroused in all of us as a consequence of the events in Gaza and Israel.  These emotions, whether responding to Israel/Ukraine or abuse victims, range across anger, grief, compassion and love.  Each of these was linked to a ribbon of a different colour.  I cannot recall all the different ribbons and the emotions they represent, but I was attracted to the emotion of lament, this being represented by the colour purple.  I attached my purple ribbon to the branch which formed part of the display.  This represented the feelings of anguish that I have often felt when faced with the fact of abuse alongside the grotesque failures of institutions like the Church.  Institutions have so often failed to respond adequately or to provide any kind of healing for those victims/survivors who looked to them for help.

The act of identifying with this one particular emotion involved in lament, has had the effect of making me scrutinise the word and examine my reasons for choosing it.  How does our understanding of lament relate to the enormity of church abuse with all its many ramifications?  Lament involves an expression of strong emotion. Most of the time we would rather avoid it.  Typically, it is present in the outpouring of emotion that accompanies the hearing of bad news, like the death of a loved one.  It is also a word that is used to indicate a deep sense of remorse that comes when the conscience finally reveals to us how much damage we have inflicted on others by our thoughtless or evil actions.

Although being in the presence of someone expressing a heightened sense of grief or remorse that we associate with the word lament is demanding, we know that sorrow and tears are both stages along the path of processing terrible and seemingly overwhelming pain or information.  There can be no healing without first encountering this initial spasm of grief.  Watching someone break down in tears is never comfortable for a witness, but simply being present with someone going through such an expression of lament may be all that is required of us at that moment. Any attempt to supress or bypass this lament, for fear that it may make someone embarrassed or uncomfortable, is usually unhelpful.  Such a reaction forms part of a cultural response that wants to move suffering out of sight and pretend that pain should and can always be neutralised by the right word or the right medical intervention in the form of pills. 

As I was pondering this word lament, I realised that human culture through the ages has been far more familiar with the idea of a corporate lament.  Lamenting in Scripture seems typically to be a group activity.  In Jesus’ day there were professional mourners, such as those who filled the street outside the home of Jairus when it was believed that his daughter had died.  However we react to the idea of strangers performing the task of sharing the grief with the entire community, these formal rituals of loss did serve a clear purpose.  Those closest to the departed one were clearly the most affected, but the employing of professional mourners had the effect of making each death in the area a matter of community-wide importance.  The grief of the family was being shared right across the area.  Everyone knew of the death and each person could respond by supporting the affected family in whatever way that felt right. 

This community or corporate dimension of lament brings me to a further thought.  As a parish priest I have sat with countless bereaved individuals and families over the years.  The role of the parish priest is not to utter platitudes about death but to act as a kind of echo-chamber for the bereaved as they lament their loss.  Every visitor who seeks to bring support to the bereaved is also part of the lament process. He/she plays their part by providing a safe space for the grief to find its full expression as the bereaved individual/family stumbles on their way to find acceptance and eventual wholeness once more.  Symbolically the parish priest makes present both the community love and care as well as the intangible overarching sense of a loving God who is there to comfort us in our time of lament and our journey through pain.  

Applying the word lament to the safeguarding activity of the Church, we can see a number of parallels with the bereavement process.  The original focus of a safeguarding case is not a death but a highly damaging and exploitative abuse of power.  In the majority of cases this has left a wound similar to a bereavement.  Ideally, the injured party should be met with a respectful caring individual who understands the process of abuse and is prepared to act as an echo for the lament that survivor/victim is feeling and wants to articulate.  Just as the skilled bereavement visitor gives permission for the sufferer to express all the emotions that are pouring out, so the safeguarding listener and responder is seeking to create a space to respect and honour the flood of feelings that survivor needs to express and thus understand.  The pain and lament are real and that is why, as the Archbishop of Canterbury and others have claimed many times, the feelings and emotional needs of the survivor have to be at the heart of every safeguarding event.  When we see this lament being shuffled off to the side because it makes someone important or an institution look bad, it is right that there should be a loud and vocal expression of outrage and protest.  The string of shameful events in the Church’s story over the past twenty or thirty years is a cause for deep sorrow and lament.  If the Church is ever to recover its role of providing light and inspiration for the nation, it will need to engage properly with its past shame and learn to enter the emotions that are summed up in the single word lament.  Honesty and an appropriate level of sorrow and remorse are what are required today.  Anything else resembling triumphalism or squabbling over issues which are fought to give one faction of the church power over another, seem massively petty when set against the enormous task of rediscovering the place of mercy, humility and justice that the prophet Micah so clearly sets before the Church.  Perhaps the task of reviving the Church could be boosted if our leaders were to show some true understanding of how to repent through a real experience of lament and sorrow.  It is perhaps thus we can find again our path back to experience anew the ‘steadfast love’ of God.     

Some words from Lamentations which were read to us last Sunday morning.   These are particularly appropriate as we contemplate a possible total collapse for the Church through its own failure to honour and uphold justice and integrity.  ‘The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed within me.  But this, I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases …………great is your faithfulness.’  

Over the past few years, especially since retirement, I have found myself considering the way that confession and absolution are handled at the Eucharist. The first thing that I identify as a problem is the sheer brevity of this whole section within the liturgy. Without having timed it, I calculate that the whole action, containing self-examination/ recollection, confession and declaration of forgiveness, can take less than two minutes.  Unless we have done a great deal of self-examination before the service begins, many potential sins will be forgotten or overlooked by the typical worshipper. He/she will hear the absolution without having had the opportunity to recall and confess more than a very small part of his/her undoubted sinfulness.

I have not got any quick answer to offer to this issue of the chronic brevity of this part of the liturgy as used by the Church of England. But there are some other more serious problems to be considered as we reflect on the weekly routine of receiving a declaration of God’s forgiveness for sinful humanity. The first problem is that, although we might believe that we are good at self-examination and the naming of our own sinfulness, Christian opinion is much divided about what in fact needs to be confessed.  We might all be able to agree that harming another person, especially one with an obvious vulnerability, is wrong. But then there are a whole raft of activities, typically in the sexual realm, where there is a great deal of disagreement about what constitutes sin in a Christian context. I do not propose to dwell further on this issue, but I am sure that my readers can fill the blank spaces. The problem in a nutshell is that although we readily speak about God knowing our secrets and our desires, we cannot agree about which human activities in fact constitute sinful actions and which are innocent and harmless. Our current inability to agree what is indeed sinful is surely a matter of concern.  Any ‘gracious disagreement’ that is being practised does not help the church to be seen by the outsider as being either honest or consistent.  If the secular world begins to suspect that the Christian Church lacks integrity in its thinking by not being able to state clearly what is right and wrong, it will be less inclined to listen to whatever else this Church may have to say.

A second problem concerning sin confronts us every time we engage in any kind of self-examination.  This is the fact that society has come to recognise that our own ‘grievous faults’ are dwarfed by another kind of sin – corporate sin.  Whether we like it or not, the sins that today dominate the attention of people, especially the young who are trying to make the world a better place, are those that involve us simply because we are human beings.  As a white educated male in Britain, I am granted many privileges from my position and place in society, which may have little to do with my own effort. Equally, others are severely disadvantaged by having been born in places and environments of deprivation.  The inequalities (injustices) in society are matters which involve morality and this should concern all of us who try to live lives of ethical integrity. We live in a society beset by many corporate sins that push people down : racism, classism, ageism and sexism.  These societal attitudes impact all of us, even if we do little to disseminate them. It is hard to know how to be innocent in a world of inequality.  Like many of my readers no doubt, I am sometimes baffled by all the ways that I am expected to have an attitude about issues that simply were not discussed thirty or forty years ago.  But I do recognise that the contemporary new moral issues that emerge in our society do require our attention and thought.  Avoiding them altogether should not be an option for a responsible citizen who claims to be Christian. The topical issues of our time, whether global warming, sexual equality, migration or slavery reparations, all demand that we have an informed opinion of some kind. Whatever else we are learning from living in the 21^st century, we are discovering that the possession of an informed ethical Christian outlook is not just about personal behaviour.  It requires us to think and become informed about numerous issues. In this way an engagement with corporate sin is part of contemporary modern ethics whether we wish it or not.  Complete avoidance, whether because it makes us uncomfortable or stressed, cannot be a valid position when we come before God in our regular acts of self-examination.

Personal sin, as well as our collusion in the corporate sins of today, forms much of the conversation that we are to have with God when we come before him in prayer and self-examination.  Our conscience is, or should be, compelling us to think about such things as helping charities and avoid contaminating the earth with thoughtless disposals of rubbish.   Recycling and ever greater charity donations seem to be among the contributions we can make to a practical engagement with the pressing needs of our world.  These wider corporate sins which we have touched on do make living an ethical life extremely complex.  But we are right, I believe, to see many practical environmental issues as being spiritual as well as ethical.  ‘Negligence, weakness and our own deliberate fault’ may apply to many more things than the individual acts of spite or selfishness that we are guilty of.  The ’things we have left undone’ suddenly become so much wider than remembering to show appreciation for the acts of kindness that we receive.  Becoming informed about injustice in the world, listening to stories of pain and neglect and simply giving our time and attention to another. These are all things that life and an active Christian conscience demands of us.  In writing down even a few of the tasks that our involvement in corporate sin implies, we come to see still more how inadequate the liturgical provision is for this task in Common Worship.

 The existence of corporate sin, as I have started to describe it, might make us feel thoroughly discouraged in our attempts to deal with our personal sin and failure.  I do believe, however, it is possible to recover a degree of honest integrity as we revisit the essential ethical aspects of the Christian faith. When we strip our faith down to its bare essentials we find a single command. My summary of this command is this: Practise unconditional love as Jesus did.  Working out the implications of unconditional love for us in terms of our generosity and relationships gives us a good starting place.  If we regard sin as anything that gets in the way of fulfilling this command, we have a solid foundation for beginning to see the meaning of Christian wholeness and integrity.  The question that might be asked of each one of us when we die is whether we have been individuals showing this kind of integrity -one that demonstrates the exercise of unconditional love as Jesus showed it to us. Sin in this perspective is found in any way that we fall short of this potential for love and generosity.  That is our calling – to realise this potential as far as we can.

My involvement with the safeguarding cause over the past few years has made me aware of another aspect of sin and wrongdoing which the liturgical prayers of confession do little to expose.  My summary of this 21^st century failing is what I describe as DARVO sin.   DARVO, as many of us know, is an acronym for the typical response of a guilty party when confronted with strong evidence of guilt.  Instinctively the accused person goes on to a defence mode which is first expressed as a denial.  This may be followed by attempt to attack someone else for the failing.  The third stage is to reframe or reverse the accusation so that the offender becomes somehow reframed as a victim. All these reactions and responses are made without the slightest notion of guilt or disturbed conscience. Such a DARVO response commonly occurs, as many of us have noted, when the Church makes an institutional response to cases of abuse perpetrated by its own clergy. All too often in the safeguarding narratives that I am familiar with, the original victim becomes the ‘villain’ of the narrative. Their telling of their story and what they have suffered is disturbing to the status quo.  Bishop Peter Ball successfully persuaded the then Prince of Wales that his accuser was the source of a vindictive evil.  Neil Todd, the innocent victim of this DARVO attack, took his own life.  We need constantly to be reminded of the way that DARVO sin can have far more devastating consequences for its victims than the original abuse.  Many examples of DARVO sin involve senior members of the Church of England.  Some have been exposed in the public domain.  Attacking an innocent victim or survivor by a leading church official as a way to protect the good name of the institution is a wicked devastating course of action.  These spiritual leaders have somehow been able to convince themselves and their consciences that DARVO sin, even when it involves telling lies and tolerating institutional corruption, is not sin at all.  That is a serious problem for the Church’s reputation and integrity.

I began by pointing out the issue of extreme brevity given to self-examination in the liturgy and how this raises a problem for the Church.  But in my further reflection I have come to see that not being able to agree what sin is really is a still greater dilemma.  The outside world is mystified by many of our squabbles over morality.  It will be even more unimpressed when it sees Church leaders practising DARVO sin in their misguided attempts to fend off the legitimate claims of survivors, who have suffered so long because the Church has believed that it reputation matters more than the claims of justice.  Perhaps in describing the Church we all want to see, and which would impress a waiting world, we should remind ourselves once more of the principles set out in the prophet Micah.  “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God”.

‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger Isaiah 52-.7

by Fiona Gardner

This welcome messenger is one who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, and who says that God reigns. The messenger who brings news about safeguarding concerns may not be bringing peace, but is certainly bringing good news in the sense of alerting the church to the danger that may be present to children, young people, or the vulnerable. The same messenger is also helping the church towards salvation in the sense of deliverance from danger or difficulty, and alerting people to the supremacy of love and compassion over destructive abuse. The messenger might be the victim, or might be a professional in safeguarding, or a concerned member of the laity.

However, and seemingly almost inevitably, news of a safeguarding concern is generally treated as ‘bad news’ and the messenger immediately associated with this – and so often responded to with hostility – whether through passive but aggressive silence, or an active refuting. We know this through many previous safeguarding situations, where attempts to contact the hierarchy have been met with at the best reluctant acceptance and at worst indifference or denial.

Hearing of two recent experiences, has prompted me to try and understand once again what is going on. Both situations required raising a concern in local churches where no one wanted to hear; both situations meant that what could have been an opportunity to learn, change, and improve, largely led instead to defence and avoidance. In both situations barriers were raised, and the messenger in one situation treated with hostility, and in the other by largely ignoring what had been passed on. The church family shut the door, drew the curtains, tried to ignore the messenger, and for as long as they could pretended nothing was happening, until they absolutely had to respond and do something.

The psychological phenomenon of the backlash against someone who gives unwanted news is well researched; some of the findings have special relevance to situations where concerns about a potential perpetrator are raised in the church setting. Perhaps this has to be qualified – in all the situations I know and knew about where this happens, it is when the potential abuser is seen as influential and as an established part of the local church hierarchy. The sad reality invariably used to be that if someone about whom there was a concern was then described by their supporters as ‘a pillar of the community’ and ‘so good with children’ so it couldn’t possibly be that they were in any way a problem, it was right to ring alarm bells.

When you pass on information that nobody wants to hear, you often have no role whatsoever in the events other than raising the issue. But who wants what seems like bad news and, as messenger, you become the target for a misplaced backlash in the form of people liking you less, and seeing you in a negative light, even when you may be a part of the community. The news is not seen as ‘good’ in any way, although it is good news as it could make the church a safer place. It is not the potential perpetrator who has become a liability, that title has instead been attributed to the messenger.

This scenario is so familiar and so destructive to those seeking to disclose abuse, and sadly also familiar to those trying to wake the church up to the damage being done by this ‘head in the sand’ approach. How many times in the past has the person about whom concerns are raised been seen as the ‘victim’, whilst the actual person who has been abused and injured somehow becomes the oppressor. Recall the now infamous King Charles’ letter to Peter Ball in 1997 referring to the late Neil Todd:

“I can’t bear it that the frightful, terrifying man is on the loose again, doing his worst. . .

“I was visiting the vicar. . . and we were enthusing about you and your brother and he then told me that he heard that this ghastly man was up to his dastardly tricks again. . . I will see-off this horrid man if he tries anything again.”

Why turn against the person who raises safeguarding issues? Clearly raising a concern within the church once again threatens the sense that the church is a safe and benign community – a belief in the church as a sacred and holy space is violated. The messenger in disclosing what appears as unwelcome and bad news is associated with what is seen as this negative message, and so the almost immediate response is to dislike the person for disturbing the recipient’s belief system. It seems that when we hear something we’d rather not know about, we try to make sense of it, but having to do this disturbs all our accepted and established views, and so things begin to feel out of control and unsafe; this breeds a dislike of the person who has caused this disturbance to our equilibrium. Once the messenger is disliked because of the disturbing news they bring, then the actual ‘hearing’ of the concern is also tainted, and so the information is somehow muffled and distorted, so that the messenger and message are both consciously or unconsciously denigrated. In situations where supporters, a small group, and/or the congregation have been groomed by the potential perpetrator it is even harder to deliver the message, let alone get it heard.

In the recent experience where a professional in safeguarding brought news of an unwelcome situation, rather than learning something important and changing various procedures, those involved at the local level experienced the messenger’s motives as unnecessarily trouble-making, and so the expert advice given was largely ignored, until the very last moment when it had to be implemented. In the second experience, a member of the laity raised a worry about something they had seen; the main person contacted did not respond, and the ‘whistle blower’ was led to understand from another contact who did listen that there were issues of loyalty that seemed to be more powerful than the safeguarding issue.   

Generally, the attitude to people who flag up concerns and problems is ambivalent; with many who do so experiencing highly negative responses to their actions. Perhaps it’s not surprising given the pressure we were probably all exposed to as children either at school or with siblings not to ‘tell on someone’, to be a ‘snitch’ and ‘to grass on someone’ – it’s seen as a betrayal, a disloyalty to the group. It seems as if we learn at a young age that exposing wrong-doing is in some way untrustworthy, and letting the immediate peer group down.

The response to revealing wrong-doing is largely dependent on the culture of the organization, and here there are added problems in the church. More important than policy and safeguarding procedures is the culture of the organization, and the culture is driven largely by the senior leadership. It has been said that the culture of an organisation flourishes when there is an openness, where the leaders aim to and largely do the right thing, and people feel cared for, then, in turn, the people are more communal and look out for their organisation. If the leadership is right on safeguarding, then this affects the whole culture. If the church hierarchy appears uncaring and complicit in some ways with re-traumatising survivors through their negligence, then this response unfortunately trickles down one way or another to affect us all. If the culture is right about doing the ‘right thing’, then people feel able to make disclosures without fear of reprisals and repercussions.

When I was working as diocesan safeguarding advisor there were some occasions when as messenger I was treated with disdain, contempt, and sometimes downright hostility. Two experiences stick in my mind as particularly upsetting, and both when bringing some information from the police about a highly respected ‘pillar of the community’. In the first I was initially given the silent treatment, in itself a form of psychological manipulation, finally I was excused as ‘just following orders’; in other words, the defence used by Nazis to avoid taking responsibility for their terrible crimes. In the second instance I was likened by a furious group from the PCC to the Pharisees who murdered Jesus. Neither group would or could hear what was being said – the ‘news’ I was bringing was beyond bad – unforgiveable, a betrayal. A number of years later I foolishly thought the messenger bringing a safeguarding concern might be treated in a more open and positive way – but in these two experiences I have heard of the poor messenger was once again shot – though fortunately not fatally wounded.

Back in April, Surviving Church was one of the first to jump in with comment about the Soul Survivor affair.  In view of the fact that details of any abusive practices were then not being shared (though strongly hinted at), I focussed my remarks to some general points about some of the dangers in the dynamics of large congregations led by charismatic personalities and which are attractive to young people.  Some who commented on my blog were extremely angry at my mention of the Nine o’ Clock (NOS) service in Sheffield led by Chris Brain in the 90s.  My comparison was not to link the known facts about Soul Survivor to the accounts of abuse at NOS.  Rather I wanted to draw attention to some common features inherent in both these novel ways of doing church.  Both relied on drama and excitement and were backed up by what I believe to be an unhealthy focus on personality and celebrity.  There has always been in Soul Survivor an apparent dependency on the big personality of the leadership.  Mike Pilavachi, or MP, as we shall henceforth call him, is a big person in several ways. He certainly qualifies for the description that I would give him of being a larger than life charismatic and powerful personality.

In thinking about the way people react to dominant personalities, it is helpful, I think, to look back in our own personal histories.  Most of us can remember being paraded as a child in front of an individual considered by the world to be important.  Because our parents may have stressed the importance of being on our best behaviour in responding to this VIP, we probably stood tongue tied and silent while the distinguished person addressed a few words or questions to us.  However we behaved or spoke in this situation, we were aware of strongly inhibiting forces at work.  It would not be inaccurate to describe our feelings as those of awe or even fear. 

I often wonder whether most of us ever completely grow out of these childhood inhibitions when encountering someone we, and the world in general, admire and look up to.  The presence of charisma or obvious distinction exuded by another person certainly discourages any over-familiarity in our approach to them. Childhood memories of being introduced to an important person seem to re-emerge whenever we are brought face to face with people of some standing.  Charisma is one of these manifestations of human power.  It is a hard word to define, but most of us recognise it when we encounter it.  It speaks of a power inherent in a personality which can be used to charm others. Equally it can express itself as a force to control and manipulate.  In short, charisma seems to be describing a human ability to profoundly affect and even change another person.  Whether this power is being used to raise the other person up or cast them down will depend on the motivation of the person with the charismatic power.

The circumstances of MP’s ministry and the way he was at the heart of a huge ‘successful’ institution we know as Soul Survivor, means that he had access to considerable power.  Some was linked to the personal charisma which he undoubtedly possessed.  This was combined with the power inherent in being in charge of the institution he had founded and led.  His power also came from individuals constantly looking up to him for his gifts of teaching and leading worship.   The dynamics of power flowing around Soul Survivor suggest that, without realising it, the leaders and members of the congregation were active participants in a kind of complex dance.  Those outside MP’s immediate circle may have looked on with envy, wanting access to the self-esteem that came with an inclusion to the charmed group at the centre.  The size of Soul Survivor suggests that there would likely have been a constant dance-like jockeying for position.  Those close to the leadership wanted to continue to bask in the reflected glory of MP’s attention and his charisma. Others were patiently waiting for their opportunity to replace them.  Many seeking a favourable place in the institutional hierarchy of Soul Survivor appear to have endured petty humiliations or even abuse.  This was the cost of having a temporary place of esteem and privilege in the edifice of power created and sustained by MP.

My description of a ‘power dance’ going on at the heart of Soul Survivor is my attempt to make sense of the celebrity culture that seems to be at the heart of ministries of this kind.  It remains to be seen whether SS can survive the departure of MP and Andy Croft.  I make my observation about the possible demise of the organisation based on the way I suspect that the dramatic changes in leadership can seriously disturb the delicate power balance that has existed for so many years.  The institution will not find it easy to survive the disruption that has followed the departure of key leaders.

In writing this blog I have come to have a measure of unexpected sympathy for MP.  This allows me to suggest that the final version of the saga of MP may be a little less condemnatory towards him.   My sympathy comes from the fact that, as a young man, MP was entrusted with a position of influence and power where there were few if any constraining forces.  Overlooking for a moment the recent allegations of impropriety against groups of young men, we can suggest the amount of unsupervised power that MP was given in the early days of SS was, at the very least, completely inappropriate.  From his early days it seems that he was treated as if he could do no wrong.  Backed by the resources, financial and institutional, of St Andrew’s Chorleywood, MP was offered a path to success and adulation by the entire culture of charismatic evangelicalism across the world.  To suggest that MP had his head turned by this success is probably a massive understatement.  What seems to have happened in the MP story is that crowds of young people were drawn to the music of Matt Redman and the charismatic mesmerising gifts MP possessed.  This created a situation which offered the possibility of indulging in undreamt-of levels of gratification through the exercise of power of different kinds.  Without anyone in a position to check this power or question its corrupting potential, the path to MP’s eventual self-destruction lay wide open.  A mitigating thought is that one can imagine that there are probably many other Christian leaders who might well have chosen a similar path of self-gratification, if someone had provided the means for them to do so.  What separates MP from many other wannabes may be simply the external circumstances of his life story. 

Having suggested that MP deserves some understanding for surrendering to the waves of temptation that were poured over him from different directions, we should mention another factor in the mix -the sheer length of time that MP was left unsupervised to do his own thing.  The traditional five years that Methodist ministers used to be allowed to remain in one post had a certain wisdom built into it.  While the 5-year rule might have disrupted the education of many manse children, at least abusive relationships within a congregation were less likely to develop.  Thirty years in a single role will always have some potential serious drawbacks.  These would include the power to claim ownership over a church institution and the individuals in it.  Such ‘ownership’ is dangerous and likely to be detrimental to both sides.  There are many lifetime ministries to be found in the Anglican conservative evangelical world.  While these do not lead to abusive relationships in most cases, there is something somewhat unhealthy about one individual occupying a position of influential and institutional power for a long period of time.  If Jonathan Fletcher had been required to look for a new post after ten years, much of his devastating abuse of power might have been avoided.  While there are arguments against setting time limits in ministry, there are arguments in favour.  MP might have been forced to be accountable for his ministry if there had been a time limit at Soul Survivor.

The ministry of MP seems to have gone badly wrong, in part because of the wider church culture he inhabited.   Any culture which allows unaccountable power to flourish, and fails to offer proper supervision and theological scrutiny, is bound to court danger.  Far too many people seemed to have lacked the kind of common sense that might have been able to spot the danger signs in MP’s ministry.  A ministry that depends so much on celebrity and a charismatic personality should always be subject to proper oversight.  One of the disappointing revelations of the MP story so far revealed, is the way that the independent supervision, such as it was, completely failed.  I am mentioning here the oversight of the Diocese of St Albans.  Was there not, among the experienced clergy at the centre, someone able to question what was really going on in Watford?  Had no lessons been learned from the maverick NOS experiment in Sheffield?  Is it ever a good idea to dispense with the formation process before allowing an individual like MP to enter Anglican ministry?  The Church of England is supposed to be known for its system of checks and balances.  Such measures are designed to protect the institution from rogue and abusive behaviours by any of those who work for it.

The events at Soul Survivor have yet to be fully described and understood.  My own reflections on what has so far been revealed, suggest that the Soul Survivor scandal is far bigger than the malfeasance of a single individual.  Given the numerous opportunities to offend that were presented to MP over the years, it might almost have been surprising if MP, who had never been part of some formation process, had never taken advantage of his situation.  Another way of putting it is to say that MP was himself failed by a Christian culture too interested in wealth and success to be properly aware and protective towards the vulnerable individuals in its midst.  Blame should be apportioned to many places, among them St Andrew’ Chorleywood, the Diocese of St Albans and the whole culture of charismatic evangelical Christianity which had nurtured, but then failed to control MP.  But It is also a sad and tragic day when so much trust is invested in a gifted charismatic individual and this trust is then so completely betrayed.

by Richard Scorer

A mandatory reporting law imposes a legal obligation on specified individuals or groups, usually known as “mandated reporters”, to report known or suspected cases of abuse to the statutory authorities. We don’t currently have such a law in England and Wales, where it remains entirely legal, for example, for a priest to discover that a child or vulnerable adult is being raped, and to do nothing about it.  IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse)  said that this needs to change, and recommended that a mandatory reporting law be introduced to cover ‘regulated’ settings, including churches. IICSA’s proposal has been criticised as inadequate (in my view justifiably), but the principle of mandatory reporting is right, as Justin Welby agreed in his evidence to IICSA. However, a further question is whether there should be a religious exception to mandatory reporting to uphold the absolute seal of the confessional; this issue has provoked more controversy.

Some church groups have responded with a flat rejection of any exception to the confessional seal.  In response to the recent government consultation on mandatory reporting, The Society (aka Forward in Faith, representing traditionalist, conservative Anglo Catholicism in the Church of England) argued that “Confidentiality is an essential ingredient of Confession because we regard the conversation to between Christ and the penitent and it must therefore remain ‘sealed’ by the sacrament. To qualify it in certain circumstances would be to undermine the sacrament altogether and would represent a major theological problem for us.……….We therefore regard the retention of the Seal of Confession to be a matter of religious freedom and conscience…..these are deeply held matters of religious faith and conviction, based on many centuries of practice throughout the world”.

Of course, clergy work in a pastoral role and as such, wish to be persons to whom confidences can safely be entrusted. The question is whether clergy should be entitled to claim absolute confidentiality, including in respect of information about abuse. This question has to be answered in the light of the known recidivism of sex offenders: a failure to act on information will frequently put others at risk. Professionals handling sensitive information do not generally enjoy absolute confidentiality. As a lawyer, my clients enjoy the protection of legal professional privilege in our dealings, and I have a duty to uphold this. However, this is not absolute. For example, if I know or reasonably suspect that a client might be engaged in money laundering, I have a legal duty to report this to the authorities, and I can go to prison if I don’t; this duty overrides client confidentiality. Similarly in many jurisdictions mandatory reporting laws apply to the medical profession, indeed the earliest mandatory reporting laws in the 1960s were specifically aimed at physicians. The question, then, is whether clergy should be treated as an exception if the religion deems that the seal of the confession applies.

There are numerous problems with Forward in Faith’s approach. To begin with, at least so far as the Church of England is concerned, an appeal to ‘centuries of practice’ is a rather doubtful basis for a defence of an unqualified seal. Historically, the confessional seal in the Church of England arises from Canon 113 of 1603. Canon 113 (‘Minister may Present’) concerned the suppression of evil-doing by the presentment to the Ordinary by parsons, vicars or curates of crimes and iniquities committed in the parish.  The canon concluded with a proviso relating to the seal of the confessional:

“Provided always, That if any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind from him: we do not in any way bind the said minister by this our Constitution, but do straitly charge and admonish him, that he do not at any time reveal and make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so committed to his trust and secrecy (except they be such crimes as by the laws of this realm his own life may be called into question for concealing the same) under pain of irregularity”.

As the ecclesiastical lawyer Christopher Grout has pointed out, the wording of the proviso to Canon 113 is important. The proviso applies only for the ‘unburdening of (the penitent’s) conscience, and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind’; this wording suggests that it applies only where penitence is genuine. Also, for the proviso to apply, the sins confessed to the minister must be ‘secret and hidden’. This suggests that the proviso may not apply if what was confessed to the minister was already known to him or – at least arguably – others. It also seems that the proviso may not have been legally binding upon the minister (‘we do not in any way bind the said minister by this our Constitution’), although a breach would result in disciplinary action (‘pain of irregularity’) . Most importantly, an exception to confidentiality exists insofar as ‘they be such crimes as by the laws of this realm his own life may be called into question for concealing the same’. Interpreted literally, this ‘high treason’ exception permits the minister to reveal what he or she has been told if it is the type of crime concealment of which could itself constitute a criminal offence for which the lawful punishment is execution. Because the death penalty has been abolished in the UK this exception is no longer applicable, but its inclusion in the proviso indicates that the seal of the confessional was not recognised as inviolable in 1603. This reflects the political reality of the time, in which Protestant England was under mortal threat from Catholic Spain. But if church law could accommodate an exception to the seal of the confessional in 1603 and for hundreds of years thereafter, because public protection required it, it can obviously do so again.   

A redrafted canon and proviso which removed the words in brackets and sought to strengthen the principle of the seal of the confessional  was proposed in 1947 by the Archbishops’ Commission on Canon Law but was never promulgated. It appears that legal advice was received that a new canon in this form was unlikely to receive the Royal Licence, because the implication of this more absolutist canon was that clergy would now have the privilege of not being obliged to disclose information received in the confessional, if called to give evidence in court, and it is very doubtful that such a privilege ever existed under English secular law. Rather than risk a refusal, it was decided to retain the proviso to the old Canon 113, whilst repealing the rest of the code of 1603. Resolutions were passed in the in support of the seal of the confessional at the Convocations of Canterbury and York in 1959, but Acts of Convocation have moral force only, and are not law. Historians have observed  that the canon of 1603 represents a watering down of pre Reformation Roman Catholic ecclesiastical law in which secrecy was seen as the essence of confession, and it clearly is. It is certainly a weak foundation on which to build an argument that in the Church of England the seal of the confessional has always been inviolable.

As Canon Judith Maltby pointed out recently in a letter to the Church Times, the Forward in Faith paper is also thin on evidence. As Maltby noted, it entirely fails, for example, to grapple with the evidence amassed by Dr Marie Keenan who worked with clerical sex offenders in Ireland; evidence which relates to the Catholic Church, but which has obvious implications for debates about the confessional seal in any religious context. Keenan spent decades interviewing clerical sex offenders and unpicking the cognitive distortions underpinning their offending, and the ways in which the culture of the Catholic Church itself contributes to the problem. Keenan found that eight of the nine clerical sex offenders who participated in her main study had disclosed their sexual abuse of children in confession. The confessional, it transpired, was their main place of respite and support from their “emotional conflicts and loneliness”. Several of them explained to her how they used the confessional to cope with their abuse of children, and thus to facilitate it. As one told her: “The only ones who would have sensed what I was going through were my confessors – they were carefully selected by me, and time and time again I recounted my temptations and falls, my scruples and shame. They after all were bound to a strict code of secrecy. I was known personally to them all. They were my lifelines.”

As Keenan sets out, for these clerical sex offenders, the confessional became a secret conversational space, not only of forgiveness but also of “externalising” the issues “in safety”. One said: “After each abusive occurrence I felt full of guilt and at the earliest opportunity I sought to confess and receive absolution… There were times of guilt, shame and fear that I would get caught but I used confession to clean the slate. I minimised everything in this area… convincing myself that I would never do it again, especially after confession.”

Tellingly, one recalled: “In all the times I confessed to abusing a minor, I can only remember one occasion when I got a reprimand or advice not to do this again.” Thus “in a strange way the sacramental Confession let us off the hook rather lightly, and perhaps allowed us to minimise what was actually happening… Not confronted adequately, we experienced only a short duration of guilt and no sense of responsibility for how we hurt others, only the alleviation of our own guilt and shame.”

Keenan observed: “Receiving confession played a role in easing the men’s conscience in coping with the moral dilemmas following episodes of abusing, and it provided a site of respite from guilt.” She concluded that these offenders’ stories “give rise to important observations regarding the function of confession”. It was “notable that only one confessor on one occasion, among the many times that the men disclosed their abusive behaviour in confession, pointed out the criminal nature of the sexual abuse”. Thus, Keenan concluded, “the very process of confession itself might therefore be seen as having enabled the abuse to continue not only in how the men used the secrecy and safety of the confessional space to resolve the issues of guilt, but also in the fact that within the walls of the confession, the problem of the sexual abuse of children was contained”. She also observed: “While the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) makes clear that the seal is a fundamental aspect of the theology of the sacrament of confession, and it is not the function of the confessor to judge the confessant, nonetheless no pathway existed for this important information of abuse by clergy, which was emerging in the confessional, to flow back into the system, to alert the church hierarchy to a growing problem… The fact that the problem was individualised at the level of the confessional is an important feature of abuse by clergy.”

Keenan’s research is multi-layered and nuanced, but it certainly suggests that far from creating an opportunity for abuse to be discussed and challenged, the confessional can operate as a forum in which abuse is forgiven and the slate wiped clean. Far from creating an opportunity to tackle clerical sex abuse, the seal of the confessional can be an enabler of it. This research, and the known cases in which a failure to act on disclosures of abuse in the confessional allowed further abuse to occur (I wrote about some of the Catholic cases in my book Betrayed) cannot be ignored; those who seek to defend an unqualified seal need at a minimum to engage with the evidence, something the Forward in Faith document entirely failed to do.

What should the Church of England do now? IICSA has recommended mandatory reporting, and the government has endorsed the idea in principle, although its insistence on a further consultation after an 8 year public inquiry suggests a desire to delay implementation. The Labour Party has long been committed to mandatory reporting, as has Keir Starmer personally since his Victim’s Law report in 2015. So mandatory reporting is almost certainly coming. And IICSA was categorical in rejecting any religious or confessional exception to it. As its final report observes:

“Some core participants and witnesses argued that a mandatory reporting law ought to provide exemptions for some faith-based settings or personnel and, in particular, in the context of sacramental confession. As the Inquiry has already noted, the respect of a range of religions or beliefs is recognised as a hallmark of a liberal democracy. Nonetheless, neither the freedom of religion or belief nor the rights of parents with regard to the education of their children can ever justify the ill-treatment of children or prevent governmental authorities from taking measures necessary to protect children from harm. The Inquiry therefore considers that mandatory reporting as set out in this report should be an absolute obligation; it should not be subject to exceptions based on relationships of confidentiality, religious or otherwise”.  

This is right. As the Australian Royal Commission also concluded, the free practice of religion is not an absolute right and can be reasonably abridged to protect the “fundamental rights and freedoms of others”; and mandatory reporting is a paradigm case of protection of the vulnerable needing to take precedence over a religious right (and rite).   

In this context, rather than a die-in-the-ditch approach, the Church of England and other religious organisations need to think creatively about reforming church law on the confessional to accommodate the reality and necessity of mandatory reporting. In IICSA some senior Church of England figures seemed open to this, others not.  The most sensible position was articulated  by Canon Dr Rupert Bursell, a distinguished ecclesiastical lawyer who also happens to be a child abuse survivor. He pointed out that reporting requirements already exist in relation to terrorism and money laundering, with no exemption for information imparted in the confessional and, as he put it, these duties exist “whether the Anglo Catholics (ie in the Church of England) like it or not, and whether they are aware of it or not”. The same principle, he argued, should apply to child abuse. Church of England guidelines on clergy conduct published in 2015 state that if the penitent discloses a serious crime, but refuses to report it to the authorities, the priest should withhold absolution. This approach is sometimes presented as a solution by those seeking to preserve the confessional seal in the face of mandatory reporting of child abuse, but of course it is no solution at all, since mandatory reporting means exactly that: the priest has to report, irrespective of whether absolution is granted or not.  

A more progressive approach is the one adopted by the Anglican Church in Australia, a country which has strong secular mandatory reporting laws in most states and territories. In 2014 and 2017 the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia passed new canons, the first of which created an exception to the principle of confessional confidentiality in relation to a “grave offence” (meaning child abuse) by providing that the church minister

“is obliged to keep confidential the grave offence so confessed only if he or she is reasonably satisfied that the penitent has reported the grave offence to the police and, if the person is a church worker or a member of the clergy, to the Director of Professional Standards or other relevant Church authority”.

The second canon expanded the definition of “grave offence” to include abuse of a vulnerable person, and expanded the exceptions to confidentially to include non-criminal conduct that is reasonably believed to put a vulnerable person at risk of significant harm. The canons are only effective at diocesan level if passed by diocesan synods; my understanding is that all Anglican dioceses in Australia have adopted the first one, and most have adopted the second.  Personally I am not entirely persuaded by the language of the canons which leave the decision on reporting to the minister, albeit with the benefit of legal advice if required. In IICSA I criticised Church of England safeguarding procedures which were insufficiently directive in requiring reporting, using the word ‘should’ in relation to reporting instead of ‘must’. The same point could be made about these canons, which are designed to leave the reporting decision to the conscience of the minister. But the bigger point is that these canons disapply the seal when it comes to knowledge and reporting of child abuse, and as such remove any direct conflict between church law and secular mandatory reporting.

This is to be commended, and I hope that other religious organisations will follow suit. The idea that the seal of the confessional is sanctified and justified by centuries of tradition entirely misses the point. Clerical sex abuse of children has been going on for centuries too, but has only recently been exposed. Its exposure means that centuries of tradition – if it can even be characterised as such, which in the Church of England is doubtful –  are no longer a reliable guide to future action. When the seal of the confessional stands in the way of action to protect children, this is simply a religious privilege too far; churches would do well to recognise that reality, and engage sensibly in a process of change.

It is a little over twenty-five years since the American religious leader, John Wimber, died of cancer aged 63.  Those of us who were at the time active in church life will have known his name and reputation.  Wimber may have affected as many churches across Britain as Billy Graham did for an earlier generation.  By visiting Britain in most years between 1980 and 1995, Wimber’s influence was felt by many congregations across the UK.  His impact was felt far beyond the Vineyard network of churches that he founded around the world, and his distinctive theological teaching and musical culture reached many congregations in the Church of England.  Most of the current powerhouses of charismatic Christianity in Britain today, Anglican or not, can trace their lineage back to the work of this single individual and those who worked with him.  Unlike Billy Graham, who wanted to reach audiences of the unchurched in their tens of thousands, Wimber focussed his efforts mainly on those already members of church congregations.  His aim was to rejuvenate church life with what came to be known as power evangelism.  I was able to attend a Wimber conference in 1992 at Holy Trinity Brompton and, in spite of initial reservations, I was impressed with the style and content of the teaching.  In summary, Wimber’s teaching focussed on what he believed God was doing powerfully in the here and now rather than repeating the age-old and rather weary themes of traditional conservative Christian teaching.  We heard nothing about the substitutionary death of Christ; rather we were called to feel and display God’s power in the present.  It was thrilling stuff and the audience was never bored.

Since Wimber died, the churches who came under his influence have had the opportunity to ponder what they received.   No doubt there will be a wide range of opinions on his legacy.  Some will be adulatory while others will be aware of negative aspects about his teaching and theology.  Possibly the one thing that people will agree on will be the fact that Wimber’s impact on church life across the denominations in this country has been profound.  History has yet to declare its final verdict on the contribution his ministry has made to church life in Britain.  Obviously my own comments will carry a considerable element of subjectivity and personal bias.  With that proviso, I believe my observations of the man and what he represented have some value, especially as I was witness to his ministry in person.

There was much to like about Wimber in his preaching style and message.  He came over as man of humour, with a tendency for self-deprecation and wit.  He seems to have gained the trust and friendship of all the the key religious leaders in Britain who were then highly respected and prominent in the charismatic world.  Among these were David Watson, John Gunstone, David Pytches and the then Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, Sandy Millar.   I have not found myself holding the same respect and trust for the generation of charismatic leaders who came after Wimber, but I remain personally indebted to two aspects of the Wimber tradition.   These have resonated for me in my personal Christian pilgrimage and my priestly ministry.

I spoke above about the ‘weary(ing) themes’ of much current evangelical preaching.   A great emphasis is laid on Calvinist reflections on the meaning of the death of Christ and how Christians are caught up in the complicated transaction involving the wrath of God and the removal of human sin.  Many of the key texts which set out this somewhat severe presentation of the Christian faith are found in the epistles of Paul.  References to the personality of Jesus and what he believed about God and his loving purpose to bring about a transformation of humankind are seemingly pushed to one side.  Speaking generally, Wimber’s preaching and the books he wrote were focussed on the Jesus that is found in the Gospel accounts.  There was the implication that in Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God, there was an invitation for Christians to experience this Kingdom and learn to live in it as a contemporary reality.  The arrival of God’s kingdom ‘among you’ was the gospel or good news.  It was clear for Wimber that this Kingdom reality involves power, healing and the driving out of all that opposes God’s will.  The three-word summary of much of Wimber’s teaching and preaching, Signs and Wonders, encapsulated many of the main themes of Wimber’s distinctive message. Wimber’s services were always exciting and full of drama.  It was certainly a strong antidote to any dreariness if that might be found in experiences of church worship elsewhere.  It also allowed one to expect the unexpected in our Christian life and ministry.  I should also add that Wimber’s emphasis on healing as a normal part of ministry left its mark on my daily practice.  I imagine that many clergy, like me, were encouraged and emboldened to offer effective prayer for the sick after attending a Wimber conference or reading one of his books. 

So far, I have spoken appreciatively of the legacy of Wimber on the church.  There is, however, one area where his teaching has had a detrimental effect on Christian practice.  In the late 80s Wimber got to know a group of American Christians known as the Kansas City prophets.  These individuals were brought to England in 1990 and made a number of predictions about a revival coming to this country.  These prophecies and the prophets themselves were the focus of enthusiasm by many Christian groups here and in the States, but these were let down in various ways.  In the first place the ‘prophetic’ ministry of such individuals as Paul Cain and Bob Jones, was associated with notions about prophecy which have little to do with those in the Bible.  Without going into detail about the meaning of prophecy in Scripture, it should be explained that the word has far more to with an understanding of God’s word to the current generation than to describing in detail future events.   Uncovering the future sounds much more like an exercise to do with crystal balls than divine revelation.  The ‘gift’ of prophecy that was encouraged by Wimber and his followers has often been marked by its sheer banality.   ‘Words of knowledge’ that are banded about in charismatic settings seem often to speak of the fairground rather than the mystery and power of God. Prophecy in the Old Testament simply does not work like that.  The only ‘prophet’ who shows an interest in proclaiming future events is Daniel.  He, however, is never regarded by the Jewish compliers of the Hebrew Bible as a prophet comparable to Isaiah and Jeremiah.  The book attached to his name is placed in the ‘writings’ along with wisdom literature and the Psalms.

Wimber for a time became quite fixated on the Kansas City Prophets.  When they foretold a great revival coming to pass in Britain in October 1990, Wimber brought his whole family to London for this event.  Nothing happened in spite of an enormous amount of prayer and preparation for this prophesised event.  Some have tried to suggest that the timing of the revival was four years early and that the real event, the Toronto Blessing, was to take place in 1994.  In view of the eventual tense relationship between the Toronto Blessing leaders and Wimber himself, we would suggest that a simpler explanation is called for.  Quite simply, Wimber seemed to allow his spiritual enthusiasm to run away with itself and that his judgement about the Prophets and their prophecies was faulty and misplaced.  One of them at least had an association with William Branham who flourished in the 40s and 50s.  In summary, Branham was not a character whose career stands up to close scrutiny on theological or personal grounds.  We might well describe him as representing the extreme ‘wacky’ school of theology.  American Christianity has many examples to choose from in demonstrating its attraction to the strangest and most maverick notions of faith.

One overriding fact stands up, however, to make Wimber an exemplar in church history.  While some aspects of his theology and understanding can be critiqued and his judge of character was not always of the highest, no one has ever, as far as I know, accused him of abusive behaviour.  At the moment, we are all reading of ‘substantiated concerns’ over safeguarding allegations made against Mike Pilavachi.  As a youth leader at Pytches’ church in Chorleywood, Pilavachi probably met Wimber in person. It seems clear that whatever the relationship may have been, Soul Survivor owes much to the traditions that Wimber created for his followers in Britain.  Pilavachi was, in other words, using Wimber’s methods to evangelise but also sometimes abuse young people over four decades. The damage wreaked by him against his victims must be extensive.  Alongside those who attracted his predatory attentions, there is another group, much larger in number. These knew of Pivalachi’s behaviour but did or said nothing.  In summary, we can see how the actions of one man affected huge numbers and, arguably, infected the entire culture of what we describe as charismatic Christianity.  The original revelations about Soul Survivor in April this year were greeted with a kind of stunned silence from those who had expressed their approval of the Soul Survivor brand.  How Pilavachi’s admirers, and indeed the entire charismatic impulse in the Church today, will cope with this further information, now flowing from its network, remains to be seen. it is therefore refreshing to be able to recall another Christian leader from further back who had an apparently unblemished moral record.

Wimber was a rare figure embodying integrity and complete honesty. He seems not, as far as I know, ever to have been tempted by any of the trappings of power or money.  Remembering him as a man who possessed blind spots but having at the same time essential qualities of honesty and integrity, means that he occupies a place that few, if any, of his successors have achieved.  The impulse we call charismatic Christianity is still widespread in Britain but tragically the brand has now become muddied by sleaze and even corruption.  If this impulse of God contained in the ministry of John Wimber is to survive and be able to inspire a future generation, it will only succeed in this task if the augean stables of power abuse are thoroughly cleaned out. Tragically we find at present just too much suspicion attaching itself to the leaders who claim the Wimber legacy.  They will not find their work of leading another generation of Christian disciples to faith easy.  

When I began my interest in the world of cultic studies some twelve years ago, I had all the misconceptions about cults that most people in our society possess.  The main failure of understanding on the part of ordinary people, when looking at cults, is the difficulty of appreciating how deeply these harmful groups may have burrowed inside their acolytes, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually.   The task of escaping from a cult ideology or world view is, in fact, very hard.  Surely, we naively think, exiting a cultic group is just a matter of sitting down with a well-informed and sensible person and having the errors of our thinking pointed out in a conversation of an hour or two.  The reality is of course very different.  Most cultic groups are skilled in the task of taking the identity of an ordinary person and utterly transforming it.  The individual member has effectively become, in a negative sense, a new person.  Although the idea of becoming a new person has biblical echoes, the cultic version has little to do with anything set out in the New Testament. The cultic new person possesses a created identity which imitates the model designed by an exploitative leader.  Such a leader is typically motivated with a malign desire to exercise power.  The cultic identity of the acolyte is one ripe for exploitation, financially, sexually or emotionally.

The field of cultic studies is not without its contested areas and arenas of deep division.  One group of academics study and describe what we have outlined above – the profound personality changes wrought by various controlling groups.  Another group of academics want to sit lightly on the idea that belonging to a religious or political group can ever be of lasting significance to the individual concerned.  They seem unwilling to consider seriously the risk of massive harm that exists in such groups.  They also seem not to have noticed the hollowed-out identities that belong to many of these dedicated cult members.  The assumption of our legal system is also, not unreasonably, that any political or religious decision made by an adult has to be respected.  Moral choice is assumed to belong to everyone and a functioning conscience and intellect exists for all unless compromised by mental incapacity,  Everybody can make the choice to surrender property and self-determination to a small coercive group.   That is a sacred right even if, in the process, it takes that individual to a place of extreme harm.

During my time as a member of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) I have got to know a distinguished British therapist, Dr Gillie Jenkinson, who is active in the field of helping cult survivors.  She has recently published a book Walking Free from the Trauma of Coercive, Cultic and Spiritual Abuse.  It is a workbook for individuals who are seeking to recover from cult membership and any abuse encountered through such an involvement.  My motive for buying the book was not personally to undo the effect of a malign group, but to understand better the way cults are understood by therapists who take the whole topic seriously.  Gillie’s approach to the impact of cults can be summed up in the expression, the pseudo-identity. This is the identity given to the acolyte by the cult and it overlays the core identity with which one was born.  The traditional way of speaking about cults was to describe some kind of indoctrination as is implied by the word brainwashing.  The new model is to conceive of an identity which is being built up layer by layer with emotional and intellectual material from a cult leader.  This way of describing the process is to think of an onion.  At the heart of each individual is a core identity which pre-exists cult membership.  Over time, the membership of a cult has built up an accretion of layers like an onion, to cover and bury that original authentic identity or self.  What is presented to the outside world and internally experienced is the cult self, or cult identity.  This notion of a cult member having a core/authentic identity overlaid by one created by a group leader for the members, seems to be a illuminating way of speaking. It is also the one that it has largely superseded the old brainwashing language of the past.

Gillie’s book shows us clearly the way that this model is helpful for thinking about and mentally grasping the complex phenomenon of cult membership.  The book Walking Free, is to a considerable extent a description of these onion layers and the way each has to be in turn stripped away in order to reach the core pre-cult identity.  Here is found freedom and the ability to choose and make decisions for oneself.  I have not yet finished the book, but I want to speak about two of the onion layers of cult membership which must be dealt with along the journey of recovery.  I choose them in part because we may see, in considering them, how it is not just hard-core Scientologists or Moonies who have external things wrapped round and obstructing the authentic identity.  These restricting layers may be encountered in places where so-called ‘orthodox’ church life is practised in Britain today.

One of the sure signs of an unhealthy political or religious group is the way that doubt is handled.  We find that a coercive group will typically refuse to allow members to question leaders or challenge their decrees or their teaching.  Members of closed groups are, at the same time, restrained by the need to remain in good standing with this leadership.  A rebellious confrontation risks expulsion.  When such action is taken against a member, that individual may believe that his/her assurance of salvation is instantly taken away.  The dynamic of cultic groups is well versed in such tactics of inducing fear.  Needless to say, when ordinary questioning is supressed, the human intellect can hardly be described as functioning well. Can it ever be described as healthy to encourage the notion that there is only a single answer to a problem?  We have spoken about the limitations of binary thinking before.  Whenever doubt is discouraged in any area of human thought, we find what we can only describe as a vacuity in the human soul.

Gillie describes in detail how other facets of the cultic identity have to be dismantled one by one in the journey to release the authentic version long buried by cult membership.   Some, like doubt, are to do with the thinking intellectual side of the individual and others are to do with emotional and personal functioning.  One fascinating notion, which introduces for me a brand-new word, is contained in the section where Gillie speaks about ‘confluence’.  Confluence is a word to describe the way that we all have the capacity to flow or merge into other people and they into us.  This of course is appropriate when we speak of mother and child, but it is less welcome when a similar process happens as part of the functioning of a coercive group.  Too much confluence can involve the partial or complete dissolution of the individual human personality.   Although Christian love might seem to some to require a partial merging into another person, any excessive loss of boundaries or personal space would appear to be too high a price to pay.  Even the marriage partnership does not demand we relinquish our separateness in the name of unity.   From the outside it is not difficult to see that confluence in a cultic setting is potentially toxic, benefitting only those who have power and control over the group.

Forbidding doubt and encouraging confluence and fuzzy edges in a cultic context are just a sample of the onion layers described in Gillie’s book which have to be peeled away in the journey towards wholeness.   Gillie’s other metaphor is to describe the journey to wholeness as a pilgrimage with a heavy bag. Cultic membership may have required the acquisition of ideologies and burdensome ideas which have be let go as we seek to make our way through life.  To assist this process of unpacking and abandoning the things that are not required for the task of abundant living, the book introduces us to some valuable and up-to-date psychological insights.  These help us to understand how human beings can learn to function better and thus to find healing and true human flourishing in a world beyond coercion and control.

Walking Free is not overtly a Christian book. But, as the author spent twenty-five years in a Christian cult, she does understand and describe implicitly how the Church itself can become involved in cultic dynamics. My final comment is to hope that this wise book will reach the hands of many Christian leaders, especially those who minister to those fleeing from abusive and coercive situations.  We need such a clear guide to protect us from the ravages of cultic dynamics that seem in some places even to plague our churches.

by Martin Sewell & Richard Scorer

This week, the Lucy Letby case has brutally exposed the lack of regulation and accountability of NHS managers (link to Lucy Letby: NHS managers must be held to account, doctor says – BBC News). Whereas clinicians are subject to professional scrutiny and accountability by independent regulators, NHS managers are not, even when (as in the Letby case) they may have prioritised the reputation of a hospital over patient safety.  This is a feature they share with those in leadership and managerial roles in religious organisations. Both NHS managers and Bishops are amongst the dwindling band of professionals still not subject to independent regulation. This urgently needs to change, and as far as religious bodies are concerned, Professor Jay’s taskforce on independent regulation of safeguarding in the Church of England has an opportunity to set this change in motion.    

A brief recap of where we are. In response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), the Archbishops Council of the Church of England set up what purported to be an “Independent Safeguarding Board” (ISB) to provide independent oversight of CofE safeguarding. In June its two remaining members, Steve Reeves and Jasvinder Sanghera, were summarily dismissed. Meg Munn, whom the Archbishops Council had tried to impose as chair, also resigned. The ISB project in its existing form thereby effectively collapsed.   

There are some in the CofE safeguarding who seem relatively relaxed about this. Colin Perkins, a leading figure in CofE safeguarding whose work in Chichester one of us commended at IICSA, tweeted in response to the ISB fiasco that “there is some crisis in the centre, yes, but please don’t confuse what happens there with what happens on the ground, where, on the whole, good people quietly get on with it and do a very good job”.  Our experience is that safeguarding responses across the Church of England vary: there are some good people and responses, but some poor ones too, and far too much staff churn.  But events in Soul Survivor, where it seems likely that safeguarding concerns were deliberately brushed under the carpet for years, even as the CofE was telling IICSA that everything had changed, should strike down any complacency. If a cover up can still happen during IICSA, how effective is the CofE’s safeguarding system in reality?

Professor Alexis Jay, the former chair of IICSA, has now been effectively tasked with completing what was designated as “ Phase Two” of the old ISB, by which we mean the conceptualization of “shape” of the replacement iteration of the body to oversee the Safeguarding of the CofE. That work seems to have stopped with the suspension of the first Chair Maggie Atkinson; bluntly, it was the responsibility of the Archbishops’ Council to fill that gap and they signally failed to do so; worse still, the Council sought to frame the independent ISB members, gaming them for that stalling when they were never tasked with that remit.

No member of the Council has taken the honorable path of resignation over this or the lack of any proper planning for survivors in terms of securing data protection, pastoral support, suitable future advocacy recommendation, or delivering on the only completed review to date – that of Peter Spindler in the case of Survivor Mr X.  

At the point at which “Phase Two” stalled, there had been a winnowing of options which were presented to Synod members for feedback. The options were fourfold: a regulator, an Ombudsman an “ACAS” or a hybrid.  Realistically, it should take less than four and a half minutes to see that the idea of the Regulator is “the only show in town”.

The ISB as created by the Secretariat and endorsed by the Archbishops’ Council was a largely secret hybrid in that it was both named and sold as “independent” but it was never intended to function independently. As Steve Reeves told Synod, when the Church says “ independent” it means “semi-detached”. It was closed down as soon as it demonstrated worrying signs of non-compliance. When it attempted to advocate the safeguarding of its only review subject Mr X, by following the recommendations of the Spindler Report, the ISB members were ignored and ultimately sacked.

Add to this toxic history the way in which the original attempts at  examination of the ISB project was cynically shut down by a shabby procedural motion at Synod to move “next business”, and readers will understand that trusting the Church of England again with devising a novel structure would be like trusting teenagers with the whiskey and the car keys the day after they have written off the Volvo.

That issue of trust effectively removes the other two options from the table. Both Ombudsman and ACAS models are predicated upon that one simple and necessary commodity. If you are going to sit down with another party within either structure, there has to be a presumption of mutual respect and good faith, and there has to be an agreed sense of direction of travel. This has no chance of existing in the current circumstances. None of the Church leadership is trusted by the survivor community or their supporters. The responsibility for this tragic state of affairs is so obvious that you have to be a member of Archbishops’ Council or the Secretariat to even consider contesting it.

Like the failed managers of the NHS trusts, the buck stops plainly with the CofE leadership;  although it has constructed a confusing historical structure so that Archbishops Diocesan Bishops. Secretary General, Lead Bishops for Safeguarding, NST Directors and Archbishops Council Members all claim “plausible deniablity”, surely no secular investigator such as Prof Jay need spend too much time excluding these two options.

The CofE has had too many chances to rectify the situation and IICSA was its last chance saloon. Worse, it has consistently shown that it is not even willing to afford its supposedly legislative/ oversight body, The General Synod, time to comprehensively consider and debate these complex matters. A recent 75 page proposal drawn before all these latest crises arose to complicate matters was debated at York. The “debate” was afforded only 10 minutes of time with speech limits of 2 mins. This is what passes for scrutiny in the Church of England.

Of course the House of Bishops had separately considered it so all was well from their point of view, and therein lies another can of worms. As things stand, secular activity such as safeguarding is having to be recast within the mindset of medieval Ecclesiastical Law. The role and authority of the Prince Bishop within his/her Diocese is not to be interfered with. Secular Safeguarding law and culture has no problem with Human Rights Act compliance, there is a strong move towards greater transparency in explaining decision making, Freedom of Information principles and data protection  laws are upheld, there is a culture of collaborative problem solving and most important of all, secular lawyers know what a conflict of interest looks like, they are required to have clear and transparent policies and are held accountable for failure. Bishops are not.

The only credible option left on the table is that of Regulator.  Everyone knows what a regulator is; we trust them in many areas of life especially within the professions. A Regulator is not there to make the rules but to impartially administer and enforce them. Their bona fides and competence is overseen by a Trustee Board and it is important that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Bar Standards Board, the General Medical Council and the Nursing & Midwifery Council, all have majority lay Trustees overseeing the development and enforcement of professional standards.

The first question for Prof Jay to ask the CofE is surely this. “What precisely is the reason for the Church of England resisting the establishing of an independent Regulator overseen by competent and professional Trustees in the area of safeguarding?” 

We doubt any resistance will long withstand scrutiny by Parliament which may become necessary given the inadequacies of Synodical processes which are controlled by the forces of conservatism both within House of Bishops and Secretariat alike.

The Regulator would need to liaise with the Church to ensure that its decisions will be directly enforced via the Clergy Discipline measure. A substantial breach of Episcopal or Clergy Standards would need to be actionable by the Regulator as of right and provision duly made within the new Clergy Disciplinary Measure currently being drafted. This will of course offend and upset some sectors of the Church not least those who have been missing in action whilst Bishops have covered up abuse on multiple occasions. There may be a small amount of room for negotiation. It may be that just as the constitutional monarch formally assents to legislation, so a similar nod to Episcopal amour propre could be permitted – but only if there is wholesale surrender of power.

It is not actually much of an ask. No Diocesan Bishop wanted the job of lead Bishop for Safeguarding. None has shown much aptitude or inclination for the task. The newly appointed incumbent has declared a heart for the work but with appropriate modesty acknowledged she has no background. It will take three years to get up to speed by which time she will, on past form, be burnt out and moved on. It is time to stop this absurd merry go round of serial incompetence and appoint a proper Regulator for the CofE with proper skills and resources to do the job properly.

So this is what Jay needs to do: recommend a truly independent Regulator, and recommend that parliament intervenes to create it. And that in respect of safeguarding at least, the CofE becomes subject to the Human Rights Act, freedom of information laws and the Nolan principles– the mechanisms which underpin accountability and transparency in other public bodies, The authors of this article disagree on whether we should have an established church, but as long as we have one, so far as safeguarding is concerned the Church of England surely cannot continue to evade the legal protections which govern the rest of the public sector. The Archbishop of Canterbury, so keen to criticize human rights violations elsewhere, must surely agree that the church ought to be subject to codified human rights standards too?     

Although the above relates directly to the CofE, there is, of course no reason why the costs and activity of such a Regulator should not be spread beyond the CofE. A successful piloting of the scheme could in due course be applied to other Churches and faiths. It is not the task of the Regulator to do other than ensure that the vulnerable are kept safe and that people can gather in worship contexts confident that any issues of concerns will be addressed with professionalism, competence and impartiality. 

The Office of the Faith Safeguarding Regulator is surely something all people of goodwill can surely welcome.

Richard Scorer is Head of Abuse Law and Public Inquiries at Slater & Gordon Lawyers. Martin Sewell is a retired child protection lawyer and General Synod member

I think I was twelve or thirteen when another boy countered what I thought to be a factual statement I had made with the riposte – it is a matter of opinion.  I was faced at that moment with the notion that what I believed to be a true fact could be understood in more than one way.  Truth and falsehood were thus not always the neat categories I had always thought they were.  As life went on, I discovered that debate might be a good way of moving towards what is true and bringing clarity to whatever was being talked about.  But even lengthy discussions did not always uncover an authoritative truth which all could agree on.  Inside one’s own head they were beliefs and personal opinions, but I understood that other people could hold very different notions, even when using the same words. Thinking and feeling alike, to paraphrase Philippians 2.2, was never a simple straightforward matter.  Finding out what one really believes and thinks in areas like religion and politics is, for most of us, a work in progress   Thanks to the slippery, even provisional nature of language, many of us are somewhat reticent in the way we communicate our deeper beliefs and convictions.

As small children, most of us were alert to the expressed opinions of parents and respected teachers.  The opinions that were expressed on the things we could understand, had enormous influence on us as we negotiated our way to learn about the world in all its complexity.  Eventually we had to decide for ourselves which ideas and convictions truly belonged to us and were not just the pale reflection of a parental opinion.  The teenage years are a traditional time of questioning and creating personal value systems.   For those of us who attended university, there was an additional allocated space for questioning life and discovering personal identity and conviction.  The majority embrace these new arenas of thinking and working things out with excitement and relish.  Others shrink from the pain which comes as the result of having the safe patterns of childhood thinking undermined.  Some find their way into membership of ideologies or groups where thinking and coming to an opinion is done for them by a figure with charismatic authority.   I am always struck how cultic groups have much appeal for those confused and disoriented by the difficult task of growing up.

 For Christians and others involved in a spiritual quest, the task of finding a place of spiritual and intellectual coherence is an issue always being worked upon.  If we have, in fact, a position of faith able to be put into words, it is likely to be a combination of what we have experienced, what we have been taught and the use of our reasoning and linguistic abilities.  However enthusiastic we are for speaking about this personal spiritual journey, we are probably aware of limitations in what we say and how we communicate it.  One limitation is the fact that language, as we have suggested, is a slippery construct.  What I mean when I use a particular word is not necessarily how another person hears and understands it. This flakiness of everyday language, if we may describe it as such, results in some Christians taking refuge in the belief that the words and text of the Bible have a supreme privileged status.  A quote from the Bible is thought to be a clinching argument against which there can be no counterstatement. This propositional way of understanding Scripture is one I personally find hard to deal with.  This approach side-steps so many difficult issues in discovering the best way of understanding Scripture, that I avoid this kind of discussion.  The Jehovah’s Witness on the doorstep or the fundamentalist preacher expects me to agree with their approach and their dogmatic understanding of the text.  When I do not, there is little purpose in debate or even attempts at communication on the issue.  Consensus or anything resembling agreement is a long way away.

The parading of texts of Scripture in our current debates about sexuality and the place of women in the church seems to be, from my perspective, an unrewarding, even futile task.  There is a chasm which exists between those who argue with a defensive use of bible quotes against others who seek to apply other insights from human thinking and reflection over the centuries. The issue is not primarily about one side being right and the other wrong.  It is that the starting places of the two sides makes logical coherent debate impossible.  Any attempt, for example, to pit a believer against a non-believer in the ‘young earth’ theory is clearly an unhelpful exercise. To have any kind of debate on a topic, there have to be a number of agreed ground rules.  Both sides have to be ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ as the expression goes. In many contemporary debates this is not the case.  The classic notion of debate, typified by those which take place at the Oxford Union, has as its aim the presentation of arguments that can change minds and beliefs.  In church debates we often seem to encounter the parties concerned behaving like two deaf individuals shouting at one another.  The supporters of the complementarian point of view cannot really expect to change minds by endlessly repeating the same overworked texts from Paul’s epistles.  As a student of the Bible, I found, for example, the scholarly hypotheses about the structure of the book of Genesis to be far more convincing than a theory of a single author.  I have no intention of expending energy arguing for the existence of these source documents, respectively known as J, E and P.  For me, the settled convictions of much biblical scholarship, the non-Pauline authorship of the so-called Pastoral Epistles and the primacy of Mark’s gospel make sense and have stood the test of time.  There will of course be refinements and revisions to such theories, but the fundamental claims have held sway for a long time.  No attempt by conservative evangelical Christians to persuade me or one of my college contemporaries, to turn our backs on the broad outlines of these positions, is likely to succeed. 

In our crazy contemporary world of political and religious differences, we sometimes arrive a place where it is clear to see that two opposing positions are never going to be reconciled.  No amount of discussion is going to make chalk into cheese or a lie into truth.  If one party in a dispute persists on maintaining a totally implausible theory, (as in Trump-world), then the other side may choose simply to withdraw from the field.  This is not because they have been defeated, though it may look like that.  It is because the truth speaker recognises the futility of pretending that the dispute merits the description of being called a debate.  A proper debate is, to repeat, an honourable and worthwhile activity and it has the possible outcome of changing minds.  In contrast, the endless repetition of propaganda or ideology does not deserve such a description. 

There is one interesting current example of what seem to be two opposing opinions or minds being unable to meet.  This is in the sanctioning of Lord Sentamu by the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley.  The removal of the PTO from a former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has been applauded by many as an example of firm management.  While my strong sympathies and support are with Bishop Hartley in this case, the question of who is right and who wrong, is not the most striking feature of this event.  What is important is to note to the way that Bishop Hartley, in issuing this sanction, clearly saw that the time for dialogue or debate was over.  The strongly held beliefs about a past safeguarding case held by Sentamu had to be overruled and declared to be completely out of order.  A peer of the realm and, for a couple of decades, a bishop of the Church of England was being told decisively by another bishop, you are wrong, and I cannot allow this discussion to continue.

 The sanctioning of a senior retired archbishop and a member of the House of Lords sends a chill through the entire Church.  We fear for the institution, not because the decision was wrong, but because the clash of such opposing irreconcilable positions should never theoretically have been allowed to happen in public.  Our belief in leadership always depends on our trust that those in charge will always make the correct decisions.  Even if we do not agree with them, we trust that senior figures in the Church (like Lord Sentamu) will have the experience and the advisors to protect them from serious errors of judgement.  If they do make mistakes, we trust that these mistakes are never serious in nature.  If a senior church figure is declared officially to have made a serious mistaken judgement, something in the structure of the institution is weakened.  We desperately want our leaders, political and religious, to make sound decisions and for those decisions to stand the test of time.  In this case that assumption no longer holds.  For the rest of us it is disturbing and deeply uncomfortable to witness the failure of debate together with non-communication among our leaders.

Non-communication and a complete failure to agree, has always been a feature of political life. We may always have wanted to believe that Christians were somehow always eventually able to reconcile their differences and come to a common mind.  The situation of General Synod at its recent session is perhaps demonstrating to us that there are situations where two or more parties in a dispute can never agree, because objectively their arguments and perspectives are rooted in places where communication does not take place.  American politics has given us another dramatic example of human non-communication.  The gulf that has opened up between the parties can no longer be resolved by an appeal to truth.  For some reason, which is deeper than psychology, personality or education, individuals take a stand on issues which are, to the opposing party, incomprehensible. Understanding the inner workings of a MAGA mind, or a believer in the young earth theory, involves penetrating a level of irrationality which is impossible to do without some risk to our own sanity.  Some current differences in the Church also are going way beyond the apparent rules of useful debate.  The two positions are starting from such different places that we cannot reasonably even speak about ‘gracious disagreement’.  Some discussion about this current crisis of non-communication is urgently needed.  Admitting that we sometimes start from places at total variance to another may be necessary.  Only then can a process be set up to explore where the bonds of a common humanity can perhaps be rediscovered.  Human communication in some situations is something that needs to be learnt all over again.