by Martin Sewell

During my time serving on General Synod, having acquired a reputation for raising criticism of Church Safeguarding, a survivor presented me with a lapel badge bearing the words “Persistent and Vexatious”.  It was a description which had been bestowed upon him, and I was flattered to be included in the club.

Readers of this blog may call to mind various worthy candidates for such a badge – survivors, journalists, bloggers, and some clergy.

As the story of “Survivor N” emerges into the public domain[1] (rather like the Post Office scandal), some will want to add him to the list, understanding that, as usual, the Church of England will always throw their critic under the bus rather than hold power properly to account.

It will come as no surprise that Survivor N has been engaged in a battle for justice since 2018; it is not quite over yet, though avid readers of this blog will not be overly optimistic about the likely outcome.  I shall be appropriately careful not to compromise ongoing process, but already we can draw two very obvious conclusions.

First, Canon Law does not reliably deliver a timely fair trial to anyone who encounters it in a safeguarding context, especially if the complaint touches the handling of a matter by senior people.  Second, the way the various dioceses apply the current sub-optimal legal provisions can only be described as a capricious lottery.

Let me illustrate this by sketching out how the Survivor N’s case contrasts with the treatment of the former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Dr Martyn Percy. Both cases took an unconscionable time to reach resolution, to the disserve of everyone involved: for that reason alone we should recall that “justice delayed is justice denied”.  Nobody should be in limbo and emotional turmoil for the timescales which CDM participants endure. The CofE is a rich institution, with the privilege of administering its own justice system. It should resource properly all who are forced to engage with its Byzantine complexity, both complainants and respondents.

Both the Survivor N and Percy cases have significant backstories, which I shall set aside for the purpose of simplifying this analysis.  Essentially, both boiled down to the need to try an issue of whether a single alleged act occurred and, if so, whether it constituted “significant misconduct”.

Arguably, neither case was overly complex. In the Percy case, the disputed allegation was of touching hair for a maximum of ten seconds; in the Survivor N case, the allegation was that of groping a groin without consent—plainly, and unambiguously, an allegation of sexual assault.

In the Percy case, immediate and prolonged suspension followed. In the Survivor N case, the respondent accused cleric did not spend a day under suspension and was never asked to “step back”. This is odd.

What should happen in such cases is that the period of suspension should be minimised by a swift but thorough investigation, surely including the routine commissioning of an assessment under the Safeguarding (Clergy Risk Assessment) Regulations 2016, so that independent expertise can be brought to bear to ascertain what risk (if any) an accused  person poses in his/her ministry. That minimises risk and maximises speed, as well as introducing a degree of independent oversight.

For reasons still not explained, normal process was sidestepped. Dr Percy was made subject to an irregular “in-house” process, rather than the Bishop of Oxford requiring an assessment by one of the dozen risk assessors approved by the Diocese.

The metadata of the resulting report was examined, and its provenance questioned, by the professional cyber document examiner and member of General Synod and its Archbishops’ Council Audit & Risk Committee, the late Clive Billeness. He suspected that there were more contributors than disclosed on the face of the documents. At the time of his death a year ago he was urging Archbishops’ Council to have the suspicions raised by his data analysis independently professionally reviewed and verified. The powers that be continue to evade doing so, and one can only conclude that they are terrified of the implications if Clive were to be proved correct in his concerns. The PR interests of this institution always come before justice. 

In the Survivor N case, inexplicably no risk assessment at all was required by the safeguarding team in London diocese.  Purportedly, this was because the police had determined that they did not have sufficient evidence to charge the accused under the CPS guidelines. Two observations should trouble us.

First; the evidential bar for a criminal prosecution is set at a significantly higher standard to that triggering a clergy risk assessment. Second, Dr Percy had been treated by the police in precisely the same way as the respondent to Survivor N’s complaints, by those same standards, but had been suspended. Consistency there ain’t – and that troubles me.

A further contrast relates to the different ways in which the complaints were facilitated.

The Oxford accuser was immediately “protected” by the adoption of her complaint by a cathedral canon, who was the formal CPS complainant and who brought in significant logistical support from both college and diocese in the form of the diocese’s legal advisors Winkworth Sherwood LLP and PR consultants Luther Pendragon.

Survivor N received no such support whatsoever; quite the reverse—though he is universally acknowledged to be a “vulnerable person”.

The term bears a moment’s consideration. It does not connote intellectual impairment, or complete lack of judgment. Dr Percy’s complainant was competent and assertive; she was accorded protected status, and significant resources went with it. The processes of Canon Law are complex and labyrinthine. The Percy complainant was insulated, guided, and professionally supported throughout. I have no problem with anyone being fairly supported through such processes – but “anyone” isn’t.

In sharp contrast, Survivor N was abandoned to his own devices, notwithstanding his patent disadvantage. The human rights principle of “Equality of Arms” requires both sides of a dispute to have a fair and proportionate opportunity to formulate and advance their case. This did not, and routinely does not, happen in the CofE.

As a safeguarding lawyer, I was a member of the panel authorised by the Official Solicitor. Members assess those with potential litigation disadvantage and act on the vulnerable person’s behalf, informed by their wishes and feelings, while reporting to, and receiving ultimate instructions from, the Official Solicitor.  These lawyers are the “eyes and ears” of the OS, who oversees good and fair process. The secular world gets this right; Canon Law makes no such provision.

For years, Survivor N was left without continuity of support and the vital over-view which this brings.  The Church made multiple admitted mis-steps along the way, adding to his confusion and frustration. Canon Law presents to lay people as a series of complex, unfamiliar—sometimes hostile—legal procedures; unsurprisingly these complexities can overwhelm the vulnerable. Survivor N ran out of his own initial financial support and thereafter begged such intermittent support and legal advice from friends as he could secure from time to time. He is pitifully grateful for any pastoral support or guidance he was able to source.

Within a history of confusions and alleged errors in this case, do not minimise the importance of continuity and overview which the role of the Official Solicitor offers to the secular vulnerable, helping them to focus their submissions – sifting the wheat from the chaff and advancing the best points coherently. Amateur passionate pleas for justice are no substitute for forensic analysis. Canon Law doesn’t do overall justice; Canon Law does Canon Law.

Survivor N has struggled with two specific problems.

He presents with a disclosed, medically authenticated, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (‘OCD’). Although highly intelligent and articulate, this presents him with a real and constant difficulty in “seeing the wood for the trees”. This is the major feature of his condition, of which he is conscious.

Advised early on that if he did not present evidence comprehensively, he might have difficulty introducing it later, he sent everything in, often unfiltered and duplicated; then the Diocese lost track of the case for years.  Although he couriered his large bundle of papers (500+) to the published diocesan address and office of the bishop, the office had moved.  The examining registrar accused him of not presenting the evidence (foolishly quibbling when he produced the courier receipts) and he had to spend hundreds of pounds on duplicate photocopying that should not have been necessary.

Had Survivor N enjoyed the same support as the Percy accuser, the case would not have “sunk without trace”, with evidence bundles seemingly lost.  He would not have “banged his head against the diocesan wall”, feeding a sense of injustice, frustration and despair. The issues would have been identified early, and the evidence on his behalf would have been collated properly and professionally, to the benefit of himself, the respondent, the diocese and the CofE.  The case would not have stretched over ten years, only to be “fast tracked” in panic once the institution realised the horror of the position into which its structural and pastoral incompetence had delivered itself whilst under the public gaze.

“Somebody” briefed the Bishop of London to tell the media that his abuse allegations against a member of the clergy had been “fully dealt with”, only for her to have to backtrack days later.

The now Archbishop had received “survivor trauma” training along with all members of Archbishops’ Council after the Jay report excoriated the Church. Additionally, she, with Archbishops’ Council, had received the independent psychological report which Dr David Glasgow delivered on behalf of survivors, setting out the harms this kind of institutional cruelty inflicts upon victims.  She had every reason and opportunity to appreciate and act upon the kind of harm from which Survivor N was/is suffering.

Throughout this time, this vulnerable person – who was asking nothing of the Church except basic competence and justice- was constantly remembering how he had been dragged into a grotesque game of ecclesiastical whack-a-mole.

They cock up, he complains; they do not resolve it, they cock up again. He keeps pointing it out and, at the end of all this, HE is the one being called vexatious!

However, most serious point is this; farce almost became tragedy.

As Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally held formal responsibility for the “unfortunate’ overall handling of the case by the diocese, like the respondent to the original complaint she has not been suspended for a day.

The bishop’s defence—that she merely followed diocesan advice and had no general safeguarding duty—is irreconcilable with the document – House of Bishops’ Key Roles and Responsibilities of Church Office Holders and Practice Guidance (2017), which states unequivocally that ultimate safeguarding responsibility always rests with the diocesan bishop. Nobody has explained how this core principle was honoured in practice.

I remind readers of the stark contrast with the swift suspensions of Dr Percy and, in 2019, of the former Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Lowson, who became the first Bishop suspended for not handling a case well[2].

Archbishop Sarah’s record is arguably more serious; she was formally responsible for diocesan failures when the infamous “brain dump” of tittle tattle resulted in the suicide of Fr Alan Griffin and the distress of multiple clergy, who also fell under ill-informed diocesan suspicion.  Little says “dysfunctional diocese” more strongly than a highly critical coroner’s reference to the then Archbishop of Canterbury of a regulation 28 ‘prevention of future deaths’ report.

This final part is crucial to taking these matters seriously.

I have Survivor N’s consent to place in the public domain that, during this dreadful saga, he, too, has suffered mental breakdown and has been driven to attempt suicide – twice.  The “powers that be” know this. On one occasion, he was saved by a casual passer-by who discovered him in a public place.  Archbishop Sarah and the Church are deeply indebted to that anonymous good Samaritan who saved them from a second coroner’s report.

Survivor N is known and respected for his work amongst a wide and diverse community for his commitment to peace and reconciliation; both there and beyond. Every person who has heard his story (except within the Church of England Establishment structures) is appalled by what they have witnessed – every… single… one.

I am ashamed by the new President of Tribunal’s decision to designate this victim’s complaint, in these circumstances, as “vexatious”. Describing a vulnerable person, a known suicide risk, in such a way carries plain and obvious welfare risks bordering on the irresponsible. You might have assumed that in the light of past history, and amidst all the publicity, somebody in the CofE legal team, NST, Diocese of London, or Lambeth Palace, would have thought it prudent to initiate a check on his safety and wellbeing. None has.

Lessons have not been learned.

To have his complaint termed “vexatious” by an institution which persistently behaves in such a manner towards the vulnerable is no disgrace.  I hope Survivor N will join me and many within the survivor community in embracing the term as a badge of honour.

---

[1] See the (redacted) decision of the President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males, posted on the CofE website at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury: section-13-review-decision-n-v-mullally-12.2.26.pdf.  It is also on the Archbishop’s website: Publication of independent decision by the President of Tribunals on a complaint brought under the Clergy Discipline Measure against Archbishop Sarah | Archbishop of Canterbury.

[2] For a discussion of the legal issues related to Bishop Lowson’s suspension, see the article, published on Thinking Anglicans:  Suspension-of-Bishop-of-Lincoln-article-24.5.2019-v.2.pdf.

These thoughts on mortality were written down in response to an elderly woman of 97 who wanted to know what I thought about death and what comes after.  Although brought up as a Christian, this woman regards herself as an agnostic.  I have thus tried to present a view of death that is open to the needs of people who have not followed a Christian journey but perhaps can be encouraged to think and meditate about the topic as it grows closer to us.

 I decided to write down some reflections on the topic of mortality.  At the age of 80, I come firmly into the stage of life where it is natural to reflect and think about it. My reflections and what I think about death may possibly be helpful to anyone who, like me, is getting older.

‘All things come to an end’

My observations about death and mortality come under three headings.  The first is a pragmatic one.  This observation about death is to note that it applies to everything.  ‘All things come to an end’ as the Psalmist says.   When we think about this, we see that the limited life cycle of created things is not a statement of futility.  The existence of beauty and transcending glory in the created universe suggests something full of hope.  The things that come to an end, and these include our human existence, are also things that carry with them, in many cases, an enormous beauty that takes our breath away.  This beauty and glory that are found in many earthly things, including ourselves, coexist alongside their finitude.  ‘Coming to an end’ and ceasing to exist in a material sense is a necessary part of the pattern of existence.  This beauty and glory that is part of our human existence and the created world is something we are invited to celebrate throughout our lives. We are part of a world that reveals so many sources of wonder and glory, but all this comes with the cost of being in a world that is material and finite.  We pay this price of being subject to death because we recognise that choosing to avoid it would necessitate avoiding life altogether.  Not existing, never being born, is not a choice that most of us would make, even if it were possible.  Many lives are lived with terrible obstacles and handicaps, but every individual experiencing some level of conscious awareness can experience wonder and glimpse transcendence.  Using these words does not necessarily imply a religious perspective on existence, but everyone, regardless of their belief system or lack of it, can know something of human wonder. Life is a precious gift and, given a choice between existing or not existing, most of us would choose to experience it, while recognising that it comes, for many, linked to a package of painful experiences to endure.

Intimations of eternity. 

The next observation I make is that there is, in our human life and experience, intimations of something else.  For the non-religious person, I would want to speak about the almost universal experience of love.  Love is not just something that belongs to each of us in our individual family or friendship circles.  It is a universal, and, for human beings, it is even built into the survival mechanisms we have.  Without it we die, especially at the stage of being infants.  It is not hard to imagine love as a universal principle pervading the entire universe.  Another image is that of love being like engine oil which allows the vast mechanisms of life, in all its forms, to function. We live in a universe which has these two universal principles.  One is the constant emergence of life in many forms, animal and vegetable.  We can think of love in the same way.  It is an energy that, like life, is constantly manifesting itself.  Life and love are not material things, but they are transcendent entities or principles in which we as human beings participate, indeed owe our very existence to.  Is it going too far to say that life and love are the secular realities that religious people would describe as being like what they describe as God?   If life and love exist this side of death (not a religious insight), it is not too hard to imagine that they are universal in some way and survive our individual demise.  To die is to enter a dimension where life and love are experienced as all-pervading and all-encompassing.

The part that is played by religious faith.

The religious quest allows us and encourages us to do two things.  One is to live life always exploring these universal realities of eternal life and love.  The Christian way was to point to the utter supremacy of following in the path of life and love, seeing Jesus as its perfect embodiment.  The pagan world before Christ knew only power, cruelty and human exploitation in society.  There were those who questioned these dominant ways of living life, but they were few.  It took the Christian revolution (not always well understood) to bring this ground of hope into human consciousness.  The hope says that human beings have been allowed a glimpse of what is and is to come and we must at a deep level orient ourselves to this reality.  Meditation or prayer are different names for the activity of aligning ourselves to what ultimately is.

The experience of death

The moment of death is the moment when we cross over from a world full of incredible richness and beauty to another world possessing these things but in a completely different way.  Human existence has been a learning experience, an opportunity to recognise the important transcendent universals which never come to an end (life and love).  Somehow, I believe that whatever awaits us in the place beyond, we will be encouraged to continue to orient ourselves to these same realities. For Christians the journey is a continuation of one of identification and participation in a man who is himself a kind of bridge between two realities.  The words that resonate from John’s gospel are ‘where I am, there you shall be also.’  They hint that while there may be many ways of arriving and reaching this fuller world, holding on to (faith) Jesus is a reliable route.  The important thing for all of us is to have lived this life at depth so that we will recognise the new stage.  This will only be obvious to us if our lives have already let in the possibility of wider love.  Living our lives now with the fullest openness to this love is what we have been rehearsing for all of our human lives.

 Safeguarding scandals, whether they involve bullying or abuse, have hit the Church of England over the past 15 years with sickening regularity. These have cost the institution staggeringly large sums of money as well as reputational damage.    I am not privy to most of the financial details, but an event like the ‘retirement’ of the former Bishop of Winchester, a few years ago, was only managed and concluded after a great deal of money was made available to fund the whole process and the settlements that were reached.  Bishops and ordinary clergy hold offices which are protected by strong legal rights.  You cannot say to a clergyperson with a licence ‘you are fired’, even if there is a scale of offending that is blatant and obvious. The old consistory courts that used to preside in cases of clerical malfeasance have been superseded by new forms of church legislation, but the processes involved in removing a clergyman from office still involve the Church expending a great deal of labour and money.

As part of the financial education of the lay people in the Church, it is regularly being explained that the cost of one stipendiary priest is around £60,000.  Readers of this blog will understand something of how this figure is made up.  This is not anything like the salary level of an ordinary parish priest, which comes in at around half this figure.  Most church-goers have taken this financial figure on board, and the majority realise that giving to the church has become a serious obligation.  No longer do ancient endowments provide anything near a sustainable standard of living, as they did until fairly recently.  When I was a curate in Croydon in the early 70s, I managed on a salary of around £1500 p.a.  I was then unmarried, so it was possible to save quite a proportion of this income.  In the local deanery I picked up information about the stipend of incumbents, and there was some variation, thanks to the historic incomes of the individual parishes.  One Vicar in the centre of Croydon received the princely sum of £4k from the fact that the parish was well endowed.   Most of the other parishes that I knew about provided far less than this but were topped up from central funds to a level of around £1800.  On average, the endowments would have typically provided around two thirds of this sum. 

I raise this topic of finance because I believe that money, or lack of it, represents a substantial threat to both the morale and survival of the Church of England today.  The main fact about the finances of the CofE back in the 70s is that the institution was then to a considerable degree kept afloat on dead men’s money.  Endowments meant that ordinary church people could think of the church as the material provider, allowing them to have paid incumbents, living in Vicarages which had been bought by the church in earlier decades.  This mentality of the church having all the money to provide for ministry costs is now, of course, hopelessly out of date.  Inflation has almost completely destroyed the value of the historic endowments attached to individual parishes.  Also, the pattern of church life today has resulted in many, many new ways of churches spending money, especially at the level of the diocese and new national institutions.  One expensive add-on for the church is taking financial responsibility for training new clergy.  I was trained under a system which saw the local education authority pay for everything from my undergraduate course to my residential theological training.  The authority even redirected my college fees over two terms to pay for my course in Switzerland at the Ecumenical Institute.  In contrast. every clergyperson today, coming through the system, has had, in most cases, thousands of pounds spent on their training by the Church.  If ever a clergyperson ceases to follow the path of ordained ministry, they become, in an accounting perspective, a lost asset.   From the point of view of a management perspective, every member of the clergy is a valuable commodity.  He/she has cost the institution a substantial amount of money to train and is difficult to replace.  Every trained clergyperson is a precious asset, and everything must be done to protect and defend them.  They are valuable and allow the church to exist as a functioning organisation.

One of the perennial complaints of those who try to understand the problems around safeguarding is the claim that the victims and survivors of clerical and church abuse are treated less well than the perpetrators.  This is one of the claims of Stephen Kuhrt in his recent book, Safeguarding the Institution. Institutional bullying by senior members of the Church is illustrated from his own story.  There are many others who have encountered the hard edge of the Church’s self-preservation mode as it acts in harsh ways, trying to preserve its reputation as well as its assets.  These assets are found, as we have indicated, not in merely in buildings and endowments, though these are important, but in its trained leaders.  The human assets are precious, not only because of the expense of training them to fill the incumbency posts up and down England, but because of the acute difficulty in replacing them when they are no longer available to serve.  This shortage is a serious threat to the church’s long-term survival but is not discussed very much. The current shortfall in clergy available to fill posts is not information that is published.  My estimate, based partly on a scrutiny of the advertisement pages of the Church Times, is that there are some serious shortages in clergy manpower in some parts of England.  I also suspect that some Diocesan bishops have quietly accepted that some of the parishes in their sees will never again be able to maintain anything resembling the structures of the traditional parish system. 

I have some sympathy for the C/E bishops who are burdened by the responsibility of overseeing a system which, for financial and manpower reasons, may never again be able to function as intended.  In a situation where able clergy are thin on the ground, needing to be encouraged and supported like some rare, almost extinct creatures, it is not surprising that bishops and those in authority will have a distinctive approach to safeguarding.  This perspective might seem to be, sometimes, over-generous and forgiving to clerical perpetrators.  Such an approach might also appear less than sympathetic to the survivors who challenge the system by demanding prompt action against abuse.   When a bishop has finally to exercise his authority by expelling an individual from ministry, he/she must negotiate numerous time-consuming financial and legal obstacles along the way.   At the end of this process, she/he will then need to find a replacement. Taking over a parish where there has been a serious safeguarding issue is seldom a straightforward challenge for a newcomer.  The outside observer does not see all the hidden processes that have been gone through.  The bishop and archdeacon will view the problem from a broader perspective and try to think of the long-term interests of the whole area affected by the abuse. The outside observer is properly focussed on the victims/survivors.  The church officials, in contrast, will possibly be taking a view that provides for the possibility that the perpetrator may eventually resume active ministry in due course.  The flawed failing clergyman remains a potential asset within the system.  If there are possible means to allow him/her to continue at a future date when the offence may have been forgotten by those involved, the bishop may well seek to make it possible.  

So, to summarise, we have two understandable ways of reacting in a Church that is plagued by a series of abuse scandals.  It is clear that there is first the moral/legal approach.  This is the one that most people, especially victims and survivors, feel should routinely be applied.  This demands that, in dealing with safeguarding cases, the path of applying strict justice should be followed.  The guilty must be held to account, and the wounded bound up with healing balm.  For most survivors and those who support them there is no other possible way forward.  Yet as we have seen there is another (pragmatic?) perspective to be considered.  This is the view of church authorities that is aware of the dire current financial and manpower shortages in the church which makes them unwilling to let them go unless absolutely necessary. They have looked at the future and possibly seen that the whole parochial system is under threat and even unsustainable over a fifty-year period.  The financial assets of the C/E are probably robust enough to face this crisis for a reasonably long period, but other assets – money poured into training individuals to serve as clergy – also need protection.    Every time a clergy person is lost to the system through premature retirement or misconduct, that is like a dagger wound to the whole church.  It also represents a loss to the whole Church in financial terms. One other possible reaction to this crisis of trained manpower is to allow the standards of training to slip so that the whole process becomes cheaper and less thorough. Lowering standards beyond a certain point would, I fear, bring is own set of problems, some touching on the area of safeguarding.  

The current decade in the Church of England may well be remembered as the safeguarding period.  The question that is being asked is whether these safeguarding issues will ultimately overwhelm the Church financially and morally.  Can we find a way of affirming compassion and safety alongside a keen protection of justice and honesty in a way that meets the demand for fair-play among church people and public alike?

Whenever I speak to another person about safeguarding in a church context, I am aware of an enormous number of variables which affect the way I understand and present the topic.  The other person may be a victim/survivor and, if that is the case, I may find myself brought face to face with the issue of trust and how an abusive experience may have undermined the ability to feel safe within a church.  A safeguarding conversation with someone who is a church employee will likely be different.  It may be important in our exchange to consider the issues around reputational damage.  I might enquire, for example, whether the steps taken to manage an abuse or harm episode have done something to mitigate the threat to the church’s reputation?  Conversations that consider this whole area of institutional damage are probably extremely common. but I usually only hear about them second-hand. 

My present situation as a retired clergyman looking at the institution from the outside, for the most part, means that for me the first type of conversation is more typical.  People are regularly contacting me about their individual experiences of abuse.  Many sufferers also want to talk about their prolonged and frequently unsuccessful attempts to achieve any degree of closure from church authorities.  Nevertheless, it is often possible to have a measure of sympathy for the individuals who have some authority in this situation, since they are often themselves victims of an unwieldy and unresponsive system.  A bishop with a substantial in-tray of incidents of safeguarding failure must feel sometimes close to despair when he realises that few of the pastoral, legal and financial demands of a survivor can be met.  Those officials who have safeguarding responsibilities within the institution, have an unenviable and well-nigh impossible duty to support all victims of abuse.  At the same time their position within the church structure requires them to defend the institution from the accusations of inadequate or incompetent pastoral care.  I am in fact quite relieved to be in a place that does not require me to justify or defend the church institution whenever, in my judgement, it has failed in some way.  

Every victim of a safeguarding catastrophe is looking for some kind of resolution or solution to their suffering.  Often all that is required is sympathetic emotional support provided by pastoral listening.   Close attention by a sensitive listener to what is being shared of abuse or bullying, is vital to help the sufferer in knowing, perhaps for the first time, that their pain is being heard.  The conversation with a survivor may need to go up a gear and offer practical help in pursuing the complaints process that the Church of England has made available.  This is not a level of support that I offer, but sometimes I can suggest names of people to talk to.  One option that I do have is to invite the survivor to write up their story and publish it on this blog suitably disguised.  The stories that have appeared from time to time on Surviving Church have allowed my readers to support the anonymous survivor, at the same time gaining insight into the enormous range of scenarios that are present in the word safeguarding. 

The sheer range of stories and episodes that are covered by the word safeguarding is important for us to embrace. As I have already indicated, much will depend on who is using the word and what perspective they have, either as a sufferer or as a manager.  Another way of thinking about the meaning of the word is to suggest that it is a notion that operates along a continuum.  In using the word at one end of the continuum, I may be speaking about the support of someone experiencing abusive behaviour.  At the other end of the continuum, the word is describing something less personal and more formal. While the word ‘safe’ normally refers to the needs of a vulnerable individual, it could also suggest the instinctive response of institutions to defend themselves from accusations of incompetence or worse. Communication will be impossible if, for example, one side in a conversation is talking about safeguarding in terms of the pain of victimhood while the other side is aware only of the word in the setting of legal process or schemes of training.

The ability to move quickly up and down the spectrum or continuum of the different meanings of safeguarding is perhaps one of the most important skills we would ask of anyone working professionally in this area.  The skill of deep empathy is required alongside the ability to enable the formal legal processes to operate smoothly.  This is particularly important for the newly minted category of church employees known as Diocesan Safeguarding Officers (DSO).   In the space of the past fifteen or twenty years we have seen this creation of a totally new church profession.  Every Diocesan bishop in England has appointed an individual to operate a local structure.  This is concerned simultaneously for the welfare of abused individuals and preserving the reputation of the institution. Part of the task of these officers is to provide safeguarding training for clergy and church officials as well as administer core groups to manage suspected transgressors in the area of sexual and physical abuse.  None of these DSOs is known to me personally, but I think it is safe for me to observe from conversations I have had, that the quality and competence of these individuals is varied.  The best dioceses for safeguarding seem to be those where the bishop has taken a personal interest in safeguarding and takes care to ensure that pastoral support is offered to both the individuals known to be the victims of abuse as well as the accused perpetrator.  The atmosphere in dioceses where senior clergy are less willing to get involved in the complexity of safeguarding can be chilly in the extreme.  Clergy may feel exposed and vulnerable if they sense that their bishop is indifferent to their plight when they are abused or accused of a misdemeanour.  The same thing goes for a lay person who fails to get a proper hearing or the opportunity to raise a complaint. 

In writing these comments about safeguarding, I want to repeat the suggestion that everyone involved in its implementation should recognise that the word always has at least two meanings.  At one end of our imaginary safeguarding continuum, we find one form of its implementation that focusses on compassionate protection and care.  In other words, the safeguarding that is being practised here is an expression of what Christians call love.  Christian safeguarding is, or should be, an expression of the same quality of care that that Jesus commended to his disciples as they seek to serve and care for one another.  While this love, expressed in compassionate safeguarding, exists at one end of the continuum or spectrum, there is another use of the same word which, at the opposite end, aligns itself to the notion of justice.  Safeguarding can be seen, not only in the story of the Good Samaritan but also in the story of the unjust judge who was pestered by the widow demanding to be heard.  This latter story is the typical narrative of many safeguarding sagas.   What a story of this kind tells us is there was initially a failure of justice and fair dealing.  What is needed to resolve and complete such a narrative is a successful appeal to the institutions of justice.  We want to see vindication and justice provided for the complainant.   In this case safeguarding involves the pursuit of truth, transparency and honesty.

Safeguarding, if it is done correctly and properly, will respond to these two Christian imperatives -the call to love and the call to provide justice for the discouraged and down-pressed.  At any one moment the task of safeguarding will necessarily prioritise one of these, but both will always need to be present in any proper display of safeguarding within the Church.   When either love or justice is taken from the safeguarding process, what remains is something hollow and empty.  The church as a whole must ensure that a one-dimensional safeguarding is never allowed to reign supreme and that both ends of the safeguarding continuum are permitted to have equal emphasis in making our church safe for all its members.

It has become apparent from a news report in the  Church Times that the Diocese of St Albans are in the process of injecting fresh money and support into the Soul Survivor congregation in Watford, formerly under the leadership of Mike Pilavachi.  The congregation in Watford are being regarded as part of a ‘missional engine’ for work among young people in the Diocese.  What the diocese effectively appears to be saying is this.  Although Pilavachi has been identified as running an exploitative and abusive ministry over a period of 30+ years, it is still possible to sponsor future youth work operating within the same cultural and theological setting that he was using.  At the time of writing, there is some debate as to the extent of the support being offered, but we still seem to be facing an example of ‘bad apple’ thinking.  The diocese and the promoters of this backing appear to believe that, having removed one corrupt individual who has been identified as responsible for exploiting many of the individuals within the institution, what is left in the structure can be assumed to be sound and healthy. 

When the scandal of Pilavachi’s behaviour broke in April 2023, there was an ominous silence in terms of reaction from the church authorities.  There are two possible reasons for this.  The first was a shocked realisation that a large cohort of young Christians had passed through the Soul Survivor camps and thus the malign influence of Pilavachi on the Christian formation of these young people had been substantial.  The second devastating realisation was discovering that virtually nobody in the hierarchy responsible for Pilavachi’s oversight, whether CofE or Vineyard, had ever raised questions about his style and idiosyncratic practice.  His forceful charismatic personality seemed to have silenced or controlled everyone, both those above him in the hierarchical system of the CofE and the unprotected young people who looked up to him as a model of Christian living.  This silence that accompanied the revelation of what had really been happening for so long indicated a failure of understanding of what Soul Survivor stood for.  There was also an unhealthy attachment to the idea that if a ministry appears as successful in terms of numbers attending, it must be receiving the approval of God. 

When the Pilavachi story broke, I penned a piece for SC which was not popular with some of my readers, especially as I compared aspects of the the story with events at Sheffield in 1995 with the 9 o’clock Service.  I also suggested that the charismatic style of worship centred on a powerful celebrity leader was never without risk.  Even if God appeared to be present in the captivating music and the charismatic worship, it was still important that there were people with oversight, whether locally or nationally, prepared to ask hard questions about what was going on.  This was essential even when things seemed to be going well.  Going beyond the character and potential personality flaws of a single individual in charge, other issues needed to be faced.  These often involved an understanding of the wider culture as well as the history of what was taking place.

Throughout my ministry I have always been sympathetic to the ideas and practice of charismatic theology and styles of worship.  I am old enough to remember the generation of British pioneers like John Richards, Michael Harper and John Gunstone.  The charismatic scene is much changed since the 70s and 80s and, to my regret, there are few signs left of the generous, ecumenical and inclusive feel that was often a feature of that early time.  It is probably forgotten by the current heirs of this impulse that much energy for the movement internationally came from the writing and teaching of an Episcopalian priest in America, Dennis Bennett.  His style was, if anything, middle of the road Anglican, but his experiences and life recounted in the book, Nine O’clock in the Morning (1961), were very influential.  The later conservative ‘take-over’ of the charismatic impulse was a disappointment to me.  I had written my first book for SPCK, The Challenge of Christian Healing in 1986 and at first, I was invited to speak to conservative leaning groups about healing and how I had discovered healing within a charismatic setting.  The 90s seemed to reveal the more hard-edged defensiveness to these groups, and an individual, such as I, who would never sign up to theories of Biblical inerrancy or infallibility, became less acceptable.  I was regarded as unsound.

My personal religious journey has combined a liberalism affected by academic study with a sympathy towards the charismatic.  This combination has allowed me to believe that I have something of value to say to the Church on the matter of what is, and what is not acceptable in the area of charismatic practice.  Of the two approaches above that I reject, one is the distant but uncritical admiration of the phenomenon without any real in-depth understanding or experience of what is going on.  Charismatic worship, such as we see in churches following the HTB model, is admired as it successfully draws in the crowds.  If ‘bums’ are on seats, then we must welcome and encourage this style even if it is incomprehensible and offends our taste and maybe our theology.  The other approach involves the arrogant assumptions made by its enthusiastic devotees.  This is to think that there is no other theology or style of worship that is worth considering.  We find ourselves in a ‘might is right’ situation of uncritical admiration. Hybrids like me are excluded.

There is a possible third way of approaching this issue.  This approach would suggest that the recent decision of the Diocese of St Albans to fund and support a revived Soul Survivor structure in Watford carries with it a number of risks and could turn out badly.  This is the middle way approach.  It allows an appreciation of charismatic phenomena while recognising the need for caution.  This evaluation mixes a sympathy for charismatic worship with generous helpings of realism, honesty and truth.  Realism might suggest to such a third way yet dispassionate observer that there are questions still to be asked about Pilavachi’s hold over tens of thousands of young people.  This phenomenon needs to be thoroughly understood and studied, certainly before handing out hundreds of thousands of pounds to promote it.  What do we know, for example, about the thoughts of a young person who was led to faith by a mentor whose behaviour turns out to be exploitative and abusive?  I have not seen any studies of this kind.  What are Christian counsellors who have spoken to the cohort of young Christians feeling betrayed by Pilavachi telling us?  What is the Church doing proactively to prevent another charismatic leader being appointed and creating the same damage among impressionable young minds.  If I were a young Christian whose faith had been formed or created by the style and antics of Mike Pilavachi, I might want to feel that those who had put him in this place of responsibility for my wellbeing, were working hard to explain to me what had gone wrong.  The Soul Survivor movement was a movement heavily indebted to one man, but it emerges out of a religious culture which could be, and was, highjacked to serve the narcissistic needs and purposes of its founder.  Another way of putting this claim is to say that the conservative charismatic culture of Soul Survivor is very easily corrupted to become the tool of a needy individual leader to gratify psychological needs.  The gratification processes that have been identified in Pilavachi’s abusive ministry are not an inevitable part of this culture, but they happen with sufficient regularity for outside overseers to need to be on constant alert for these signs of narcissistic abuse.  Surviving Church has written about the potentially unholy alliance of narcissism and charisma many times over the years.  It was clearly identified in my discussion of Michael Reid, the former head of the Pentecostal Peniel Church in Brentwood.  I have also discussed the academic work of Len Oakes, the Australian writer.   He was, to my knowledge, the first author to link the charismatic cultures of evangelical Christianity with narcissistic disturbance and disorder.  The main finding of Oakes was to point out how the dynamic of large crowd gatherings is a perfect setting for someone who is emotionally needy and who (like Donald Trump) craves the attention and adulation of the crowd.  The enthusiasms exhibited in a large charismatic event may often be the setting for less than healthy emotional dynamics combined with acute psychological neediness.  This is not the same as saying that true charismatic worship and healthy transformation cannot exist.  It is saying that leaders must be acutely sensitised to discerning when the worship event and the music of worship songs is the setting for something phony and lacking in any spiritual depth. 

Those who are providing new support for Soul Survivor in the Anglican diocese of St Albans are, no doubt, anxious not to have a repeat of the Pilavachi affair.  To help these authorities who want to help both the reputation of the Church and the spiritual needs of young people in the area,at the same time avoiding a repeat of the events of the past, I would want them to ask the following questions.  These questions go beyond the therapeutic needs of those actually identified as victims of abuse at the hands of Pilavachi.

1. What evidence is there that the damage caused to many hundreds of young people who looked to Mike Pilvachi as someone to emulate and look up to as a model for the Christian life has been properly understood?  Have the thoughts and feelings of those who have left the orbit of Soul Survivor been examined?
2. This blog piece has criticised the ‘bad apple’ approach to the Pilavachi issue and has suggested that there are and were serious dangers in the assumption that we might call loosely the HTB model of Christian formation is always healthy for young people.  Will the diocese be prepared to consult with sociologists, psychologists and others who possess an approach to the issue of Christian formation of young people outside this HTB/Church plant model?
3.   I have reread the Scolding report which inevitably is mainly concerned with structural issues like failures of accountability and responsibility.  The deeper challenge for the Church of England and the St Albans diocese in particular is also proper assessment of the theological issues involved in the saga. Serious issues of authority and power are to be found in the scandal and are yet to be addressed. Although we live in a Church that has a variety of approaches to formation and discipleship with young and old, it might be claimed that the Soul Survivor/HTB model is too much geared towards an entertainment approach to the faith.  Such an approach may have little to commend itself over a period.  If the church invests considerable sums of money in an approach to youth work yet to prove itself, then we are risk of tie ourselves to a single model of youth ministry which may prove problematic over the decades. 

This short critique of the decision by the Church of England to invest considerable sums of money in a system of youth ministry, yet to face detailed professional and spiritual scrutiny, seems ill-advised.  To repeat, this is not a blanket criticism of the theology and worship inspired by the charismatic impulse operating in some the ‘successful ‘churches’ in Britain.  Rather it is plea that we should all have a far better understanding of the wider context of this ministry and why it has sometimes gone seriously wrong, damaging unknown numbers of our young people within the Church of England.

by Anon

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This is the tenth time I’ve written to you at the start of a new year as your bishop. As you know, I don’t usually send Christmas cards (I’m far too busy at that time of year), as most clergy are. And I don’t read the cards I get sent either, so this is just a gentle reminder to you all not to bother sending me a note enclosing a schedule of all your various Christmas services and other activities. I don’t read them. I already know you are all quite preoccupied at this time of year. That is why I leave you completely alone during Advent and Christmas.

But now that we have entered 2026, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that, every year I’ve written to you, one thing remains constant: change! Yes, change. The sheer pace of it takes us by surprise all the time, and with it come challenges, the highs and lows of ministry, and just trying to keep up. Change is here to stay, as they say. How true that is.

Take AI. A year ago, I had little idea of how it would revolutionise our Diocese. But it has. The executive planners at Diocesan HQ set a target last year of writing at least four email messages a day to all of you – the clergy, lay workers, special ministers without portfolio, church wardens and others. These were timed for breakfast, lunch, teatime, and after dinner, and all with helpful advice, reminders, prompts, prods, resource updates, Instagram news, Tweets, forms to fill in, questionnaires, surveys and other forms of social media engagement.

Some of you were unresponsive to our messages. And after four months, we did a little bit of research, and it seemed that some of you had issues with your spam or junk folders. But I am glad that the Archdeacons put you right on that. It is important that we keep in touch with you all the time (except when we choose not to), keep tabs on you (the devil makes work for idle hands!), and maintain constant digital communication with you.

Our goal this year is to reach you every hour of each and every day with a new message or communication from the diocese, sharing our vision, goals, needs, updates, demands and successes.  What is really remarkable about all this is that AI is helping us generate these communications. We have seen a positive response to the AI Chatbots assisting the Bishops’ Chaplains and Archdeacons, and this is an excellent example of how technology and ordinary ministry come together as one. 

Yes, we have had some teething troubles. Not all of your pastoral problems were well-handled by the recently commissioned and licensed AI Pastoral Chatbots, but please be patient, as this technology has to learn on the job and must evolve.

It is therefore very important that you don’t abuse, tease or bait the Pastoral AI Chatbots we’ve installed. You might inadvertently train the Chatbots to give completely insensitive and incorrect advice in response to innocent and genuine pastoral queries.

For example, we’ve already had instances of incorrect automated advice being given on same-sex weddings that were non-compliant with the advice the House of Bishops may or may not have communicated last week/month. (Although I know we are all finding it hard to keep up with what the latest line to tow actually is). As a result of mistreating the AI Pastoral Chatbots, two unfortunate episodes involving the unexplained deaths and unplanned funerals for members of the Senior Leadership Team left many of you confused, as nobody had actually died. The Liturgy AI Chatbot had to be reprogrammed after a Wicca Ceremony involving a Dame Mary Berry recipe for seasonal muffins went viral.

The AI-generated clip of me ignoring the clergy and going on holiday all the time (these are pilgrimages, incidentally) was False News, as was the deep-fake clip of me angrily banging my crozier on my desk and demanding a 30% rise in giving from parishes to re-equip Diocesan HQ with handsome new office furniture and a bespoke barista café. (NB: I wouldn’t complain if this were true, and if you ever had time to visit our Diocesan HQ, neither would you!).

The AI-generated bar graphs and charts, claiming to be from the Diocesan Finance Office, and that y/our clergy numbers were also going to be cut by 20%, weren’t very helpful either. These were drafts. We have not finalised those numbers yet, and this is an example of AI forming an alliance with a damaging and demoralising culture of leaks, run by Gloomsters and Doomsters plotting against the leadership in the shadows. That might be normal for political parties, but it has no place here in our Diocese.  So, AI can sometimes be unhelpful to our mission when abused.

But as you know, we are using AI to help parishes understand that the church is growing, not shrinking. That is not Fake News. That explains we can look at shaving even more of our clergy numbers this year, because there will be more people in church who could or really should be busy with ministering.

Some of you have written in quite personally to ask if your role in ministry is safe in these challenging times. Nothing pains me more than having to write to you all at 4am in the morning to alert you to the hard road and difficult decisions that lie ahead, and how much it costs me, personally, to be the one making those calls. I know it is hard for you to wake up to that kind of news. But just imagine how demanding it is to be writing to you all in the small hours, knowing that nobody will be able to respond with an immediate note of acknowledgement and support.

As you know, one of the costs of ministry is risk, and it pains me more than anyone else when we had to let (valuable?) frontline clergy go last year so we could shore up the hard-pressed administrators and executives at our Diocesan HQ. I am pleased to say that their visionary plans for expansion and growth continue apace, and thanks are really due to you all for the sacrifices you make at the parish level so that the Diocesan infrastructure can continue to expand.

People these days say there are no good news stories about growth. But that is so untrue. Our Diocesan HQ is living proof that if you talk enough about growth and invest in it, the growth will happen. We have doubled the number of executives and Associate Archdeacons over the last three years, and (praise the Lord!), with your support, those numbers are set to rise again this year.

I know that some of you see this next year as another descent into our Diocesan ‘polycrisis’. But I like to call this ‘polyopportunity’, or ‘polyops’ for short. As we explore new ways of funding traditional ministry by cutting away at the tired, existing forms of support that were holding everyone back, we can now see that less does indeed mean more. That is one of the rich ironies of ministry today.

As we reduce Diocesan support – but not our communications or control – clergy face new challenges in raising awareness over the pressing need to fund their local ministries. This has got to be good news for the church.  A strong Diocesan HQ, coupled to clergy learning to “live off the land” and not relying on handouts and support from the Diocese. That can only make the clergy stronger – and leaner (not bad for a New Years’ resolution, eh?).

Our clergy conference happens later this year. It will be fun to be together again. Please remember that you are expected to invest your own time in this (i.e., holiday allowance); you must be self-funded (i.e., show your commitment); and attendance is mandatory.  But do remember this is fun!

The inter-deanery cage fighting competition was a big hit last time, and some of you were able to channel your frustrations, exasperation and passion for ministry in ways that released a lot of pent-up energy. I know that some of you witnessing this event felt you were put in a position of discomfort, and three of you had to go to A&E and now wear neck braces. But there is no substitute for harnessing the raw power and even aggressive energy we need for everyday ministry.

As in previous years, it will simply be impossible to meet with many of you in person for almost any reason. Fewer confirmations and spending a lot of time with all my senior staff working on strategy and comms means there is not much opportunity to get on the road these days and spend time in the parishes with the frontline clergy. There are only so many hours in the day to work with, and I have to prioritise my diary.

Added to which, Diocesan HQ is very time-consuming, and one of the reasons we send you so many emails and other digital media communications is to remind you that we do think about the clergy, even though we rarely get to meet you. Should we happen to meet, please make sure you are wearing your diocesan lanyard with your name and parish clearly displayed.

In the meantime, if you have any issues you think need attention, or pastoral emergencies, please follow the guidelines link on the diocesan website, and remember to speak clearly in response to the Chatbot questions and dialogue buttons so your query can be appropriately directed (and hopefully resolved). I am pleased to report that, following a grant from the Church Commissioners, we are also hiring a new team of social media influencers to smooth the implementation of these welcome changes.

We are living through unprecedented times that require unprecedented levels of time, energy, commitment and sacrifice from you. Being a Bishop is something I remain fully committed to. And I can honestly say that I am as pleased and proud to be your Bishop as you are to be my clergy. This comes with my prayers and good wishes to you all for this new year, as we step into the future, where we’ll all encounter lots of new ‘polyops’. Just remember, change is here to stay!

Your Bishop, ChatGPT

AI Side Bar: Good stress on change. Would you like me to create a slide deck from the middle paragraphs for PCC presentations, and some bar graphs and diagrams for the upcoming Diocesan Synod? What about a dashboard?

Spellcheck – completed.

Grammarly: Do you want me to improve this? Here are some ideas for your letter. Add impact? Make it persuasive? Make it more assertive? Make it more ‘on brand’? Shorten it? Simplify it? Report any offensive feedback? What do you want me to do?

by Robert Thompson

Remain here with me. Watch and pray. Matthew 26:38

Safeguarding failures in the Church of England are often discussed in procedural terms: governance, independence, lines of accountability, and the adequacy of review processes. These questions matter, and they deserve serious attention. But they do not, on their own, explain why safeguarding crises continue to recur, even after repeated assurances that “lessons have been learned.”

What is increasingly clear is that the problem is not only structural. It is theological.

The theologian Marika Rose has argued that Christian theology is marked by a persistent desire for innocence: a wish to present the Church as fundamentally good, morally coherent, and well-intentioned, even when confronted with evidence of harm. In her work A Theology of Failure: Žižek Against Christian Innocence, Rose suggests that theology repeatedly seeks to protect itself from failure, rather than allowing failure to speak truthfully.

This insight has particular resonance for Anglican safeguarding culture.

The Church of England often responds to safeguarding breakdowns by emphasising process: the independence of reviews, the robustness of structures, the good faith of those involved. These claims are not necessarily false. But they function theologically. They reassure the institution that, whatever has gone wrong, its moral core remains intact.

For survivors, this reassurance often lands very differently.

The insistence on institutional good intentions can feel like a refusal to remain with the depth of harm that has occurred. Anger and grief are treated as threats to stability. Calls for accountability are experienced as challenges to ecclesial unity. The result is a culture in which safeguarding is endlessly reformed but rarely re-imagined.

Rose’s theology helps name what is happening here. Failure is treated as an interruption to the Church’s life, something to be resolved so that normal service can resume. But a theology of failure insists that breakdown is not merely accidental. It reveals something true about how power, authority, and self-understanding operate within Christian institutions.

This matters because Anglican ecclesiology is often tempted to resolve safeguarding tension by appeal to balance: pastoral care on the one hand, institutional continuity on the other; accountability tempered by grace; truth held alongside unity. These instincts are deeply Anglican, and often admirable. But they can also function as mechanisms of avoidance, softening the force of failure before it has been properly faced.

The cross challenges this instinct. At the heart of Christian faith is not balance, but exposure. Authority collapses. Innocence is stripped away. Religious power is revealed as capable of grave harm. Any safeguarding theology that rushes too quickly to reconciliation or restoration risks bypassing the truth that the cross discloses.

This is where Anglican debates about safeguarding independence often falter. Independence is treated as a technical solution, rather than as a moral and theological demand. Reviews are expected to restore trust, rather than to tell the truth, whatever the cost. When independence becomes a means of institutional reassurance rather than institutional vulnerability, it reproduces the very dynamics it claims to address.

A theology of failure suggests a different posture. It does not deny the importance of structure, policy, or leadership. But it insists that the Church must relinquish the desire to appear innocent. It must accept that some failures permanently wound the institution, and that trust cannot be managed back into existence.

For bishops and senior leaders, this is an uncomfortable position. They are tasked with holding the Church together, maintaining public witness, and preventing collapse. But when stability is prioritised over truth, the Church risks repeating the conditions under which harm occurred.

Safeguarding reform that is not accompanied by theological honesty will remain fragile. Procedures may improve. Language may change. But survivors will continue to sense when the institution is more concerned with its own coherence than with their reality.

The Church of England does not need to become flawless in order to safeguard well. It needs to become truthful. That truthfulness will not always look like success. It may look like loss of confidence, loss of authority, and loss of control.

A theology of failure does not offer a programme for renewal. It offers a discipline of staying with what has gone wrong, without rushing to redeem the institution’s image. In the long run, that discipline may be the only ground on which genuine safeguarding culture can grow.

The gospel already gives us a language for this moment. In Gethsemane, Jesus does not ask his disciples to act, resolve, or redeem. He asks them to remain: “Stay here with me. Watch and pray.” Their failure is not cruelty but flight — an inability to remain present to fear, grief, and impending loss.

Safeguarding cultures fail in much the same way. The rush to process, closure, and reassurance often masks a deeper refusal to stay awake to what has been revealed. A theology of failure is, at heart, a Gethsemane theology: a discipline of presence that resists sleep, refuses innocence, and remains with truth long enough for something other than self-protection to emerge.

Until the Church learns to remain with failure without rushing to redeem itself, safeguarding reform will remain fragile and the gospel’s judgement will remain quietly in place: then he came and found them sleeping (Matthew 26:40).

by Stephen Parsons

Looking back over my time as an incumbent within the Church of England, I realise that one of the most difficult tasks I faced was promoting a style of music and worship that people coming from a variety of church backgrounds would find acceptable.  There appeared to be, in my second parish where I served 16 years, no overarching local parish tradition stretching back decades.  Everyone seemed to have arrived at our church from somewhere else. Their worship and music preferences were based on the way things had been done in their old church.  These preferences might reflect a memory of a much-loved Father X.  He was the main influence who did things properly when they were young adults.  Others had memories of lively London churches where the sermons had lasted thirty minutes or more and everyone was expected to follow the preacher as he flipped from one biblical passage to another with great speed.  We, like most churches at the time, followed a middle of the road approach, with the hope that every member of the congregation would somehow fit in with what was on offer without too much struggle.

In this difficult process of finding a middle way in worship, I was helped in 1995 by the publication by Kevin Mayhew of Hymns Old and New, Anglican Edition.  This hymn book made a genuine and, for a short time, successful attempt to weld together in one book all the different strands of hymnody used then by Anglicans.  Thus, we had all the old favourites which older members had been singing for a lifetime, combined with newer gospel songs and Taize chants.  For Anglo-Catholics there were some loved hymns like Sweet Sacrament Divine.  It was indeed a comprehensive attempt to allow everyone literally to ‘sing from the same hymn-sheet’.  The illusion of a successful uniting of everyone in singing from one book did not, sad to say, last very long.  New gospel songs were being written and were in demand by evangelical members of the congregation. Because they were too new to be in the hymn book, any use of this kind of music involved printing the words on sheets of paper or having them projected on to screens.  We were having, of course, to fill in forms from the copyright organisation, CCLI.   This method of keeping bang up to date with some of the music that was appearing all the time was made possible by a small but enthusiastic music group.

My final parish in Scotland did not have any relationship with this contemporary strand of gospel music and so I personally have little understanding of this style of Christian worship.  In the 23 years since leaving the earlier parish which had explored this music, at least some of the time, I have been aware of a variety of current styles that have appeared and sometimes disappeared during this period.  John Wimber made quite an impression on me in 1992 when I attended a conference using his so-called Vineyard style of music.  There have been in later years other genres, among them Hillsong and Bethel, injecting their distinct contributions of musical style into many congregations.  My reader might wonder why I have introduced this topic of gospel music, while admitting almost total ignorance of what it is.  I do, in fact, from the little I do know, recognise that these types of music may, for some, inject something valuable into a contemporary search for God.  Nevertheless, my wider experience of worship and study of the Christian tradition over several decades suggests certain important caveats.

 In years gone by there was always an understanding that the ultra-Anglo-Catholic styles of worship involved an audience in some kind of ‘show’, one which is not all that far from the experience provided by a theatrical entertainment   A catholic mass, whether or not held in an Anglican setting, has typically sought to engage a range of senses, including sight and smell.  Such an engagement with the senses is, of course, quite different from the experience of listening to the melodies of a worship-band, but both involve an aesthetic (enjoyable) engagement of some kind.  Art in the broadest sense, whether visual or auditory, has this capacity of pointing an individual to God while transcending the intellect.  This non-rational dimension (as opposed to irrational) needs to be valued in our understanding of how we approach the divine.  The problem arises when we value one and downgrade another. Many Christians become so accustomed to one form of aesthetic experience that they are dismissive of any other attempt to articulate any other cultural expression of the divine.  In short, they want their hymnbook to leave out all the hymns and songs that do not pass their test of being sufficiently on trend or in accordance with contemporary taste, however this is judged.

A second issue I have with gospel music is the way that it is inherently fickle.  Today’s trending band which produces an acclaimed Christian song, which is sung in evangelical churches all over the world may be forgotten tomorrow.  Fashion seems to be a phenomenon of the Christian music industry, and this might explain why the vast majority of Gospel music songs have only a short shelf life.  I understand that much of the substantial output from Hillsong music has already disappeared after the discovery of financial and sexual scandal in the sprawling empire created by its Australian founder, Brian Houston.  Having never listened to this genre of music, I cannot comment whether these extinctions are justified from an artistic/theological perspective.  But purely from this inability to survive and become part of the classical repertoire of mainstream Christian worship needs, allows one to suspect that much of the so-called modern Christian music scene will never become part of the classical Christian repertoire in the way that much hymnody has, in some cases, survived for centuries.

Contemporary gospel music and bands seem to be an essential part of the activity known as Church planting.  Typically, a large successful congregation which models itself on the style and theology of Holy Trinity Brompton, will hive off fifty or so of its members to go off to another geographical area and start a new worshipping congregation.  Such church plants are not always successful, but the reasons for their success or failure are not the focus of our concern at this point.  What is of interest is that in every example of a church plant I am aware of, a band able to play gospel music is an essential ingredient for the plant.  The calculation is that new members, particularly the young, will only be attracted to the new congregation if they can identify with the style of worship music on offer.   It is no coincidence that if a church plant is successful, and some are, the culture and atmosphere of the congregation will be markedly different from traditional Anglican worship.  The output of gospel songs that is inevitably a feature of these new congregations may indeed attract a new clientele but there is little to hold older members of the Church who have known from childhood a totally different style and culture of Christian worship.

If, as we suggest, the Church of the future is going to be marked by strong cultural and theological divergence, this future is also a place where we may find ourselves in mourning for the days of the single ‘hymn book’.  The culture chasm of the present, that is clearly visible in the radically diverse variety of music and song, will eventually become an unbridgeable gulf between two non- comprehending and mutually alien styles of worship.  I recently heard of a parish priest not far from here who had never engaged with the 1662 BCP or attended or led a traditional Evensong.  This was not just a regrettable absence from the worship pattern of a single modestly sized parish in a rural location, but a lacuna to be found within certain parts of an entire theological training tradition.  Liturgy as a distinct discipline within the study of theology for those preparing for ordination seems, in this case, to have been entirely dropped for this group of recently ordained clergy.  Another casualty seems to be the study of Church history, particularly the period from AD 100 -1500.  When the planting of new congregations is left to individuals who have little or no understanding of the past where the rich springs of Christian worship are to be found, we quickly find we have a denomination that is unable to communicate with itself. 

To sum up my reflection on Christian music and the current style of worship songs that are strongly promoted in the congregations representing the ‘church plant generation’, we have a problem.  The problem is not whether the music and lyrics of these songs are good or bad; that is an aesthetic and theological question.  The problem arises from having two mutually uncomprehending styles of worship in the same Church.  I personally value the hymn book tradition and the choral foundations that are maintained in our Anglican cathedrals.  I do not expect everyone to share my appreciation of these traditions, but I ask that both sides of our current cultural chasm, especially the leaders, make some real attempt to understand what else is going on in the Church through the medium of music and well-ordered liturgy.  That might enrich our understanding of God as we engage with the rich traditions that have sustained Christian worship for two thousand years.

By Anonymous

Editor: This is an account of an individual who, in the setting of a university Christian Union, encountered terrible spiritual abuse leading to serious trauma.  I do not intend here to draw out all the lessons to be learned in this story but the depth of cruelty exhibited in the mentoring by a female Christian leader is breath-taking.  To call such conservative teaching biblically faithful is a dishonouring of the Christian message.  Is it necessary to impose such grotesque suffering on an individual in the name of Christian Orthodoxy? Spiritual torture is strong language, but for this description of Anon’s experience it seems fully justified. 

This story begins in 2001 when I began medical school training to become a doctor.  From that year until 2023 I believed that the emotional and spiritual torture I was enduring was part of the cost of being a Christian trying to follow Jesus.  In summary I have now come to understand that my entire adult life has been destroyed by abuse within the part of the church that describes itself as conservative evangelical.

Looking back to the beginning of my medical training I can remember vividly the welcome given me by Christians as a young vulnerable woman of 19.  I was then desperately missing the close-knit rural community which was my home and my boyfriend of some years. The relationship we enjoyed was deep and committed and it was maintained during the first university years in spite of the inconveniences of distance and train travel.

My initial relationship with the Christian Union was unexceptionable and the group I mixed with were inclusive and non-judgmental, though I was aware from early on that something stricter reserved for those who made more spiritual commitment. For the first two years I was on the fringe but in my third year started to attend events more regularly. I was drawn by the clarity, certainty and earnestness of the Bible studies and gospel presentations.  Two of my best friends had committed to a large student C of E Church and I followed their lead.

I started to realise that my relationship was not approved of – it was sexual and he wasn’t a Christian. These issues around sex were a major focus of teaching among students at the time with the “Pure” course being promoted heavily by UCCF. The CU in my city had also split over doctrinal issues and only students from the four most Conservative Churches were attending. The inference was that if you could not sign the UCCF doctrinal basis of belief you were not a true Christian. Churches that did not teach these doctrines were considered not biblical and not true to Jesus.

I found myself in an irreconcilable bind.  On the one hand I believed Jesus had died for me and wanted to follow him. But I also loved my boyfriend of five years and we were totally committed to each other. He didn’t want to pursue a faith but was supportive of me doing that.

I felt under pressure to stop the sexual side of our relationship, and he still stood by me.

I was invited to join a six-week course with a group of girls from the Church, looking specifically at what the Bible had to say to female students. This was led by a full-time female staff member of the Church and a medical student, also female, who had taken a year out to work for the Church.

The course started with broad messages of forgiveness and acceptance through Christ. As the weeks went on the applications became more focused on analysing our thoughts and behaviours looking for areas where we weren’t living with Jesus as Lord. The last session wasn’t on university premises but at the home of the main leader. She delivered a blistering case for how having a non-Christian boyfriend was not consistent with a wholehearted commitment for Jesus. She said that marrying a non-Christian was unthinkable.

Hearing this caused me to break down in tears at the impossibility this presented.  The younger leader put her arm around me. The older leader looked disdainful, angry and pleased. Following the course, I tried to put this out of my mind and continued in my relationship with my boyfriend. I wanted to pursue my faith but in a way that was faithful and loving to my boyfriend.

Sometime later, I had the offer of a one-to-one Bible Study was made through the Church and I signed up. My friend had had two very good experiences of this with older women in the Church. Either of whom I now think would have been much better equipped to mentor me.

However, I was allocated (and I wonder if this was intentional to my circumstances) to the woman who had led the course which had caused my upset.

To start with, I was wowed by the way she explained Mark’s gospel and Jesus seemed to walk out of the pages. Jesus’ deity, authority and the stark call to follow him wholeheartedly, or not at all, seemed impossible to deny or resist.

This mentor also encouraged me to attempt to present my own evangelistic talks for her to critique. I tried to decline saying that I didn’t think I would ever do that in real life. She was stern and overrode me. Said it was important to “train for the harder thing”. She gave me clear pointers from the passage for the first talk and was full of praise for what I produced and my “gifts” and intelligence. The next session was a different matter. She did not guide me on what my main point should be that time. She slated me for my misinterpretation of the passage. I felt humiliated.

In our sessions, we would often talk about my boyfriend and his family.  I hoped that, as she realised the depth and quality of the relationship, she would see that the hard line, “you must not have a non-Christian boyfriend” didn’t apply in my situation. However, when we came to talk about it several months in, she indicated firmly that her view had not changed at all.  She added that none of the vicars at the Church would marry us as it would be against their conscience.

She took me on a tour of the Bible pointing out many passages that forbade a Christian to marry a non-Christian. She was persuasive, convinced and zealous on the issue.

I felt utterly trapped with no right course of action ahead of me. Both my boyfriend and my parents thought this teaching was bizarre and wrong, but their opinion was dismissed by my mentor because they were not Christians. The same thing was said about the opinion of believers from other denominations.  It was decried on the basis of it not being biblical and coming from a lack of submission to the authority of Scripture.

My boyfriend went on a Christianity Explored course and started to attend Church. He even made a profession of faith and begged me to marry him. I desperately wanted to but had been made to feel that to do so without certainty he was a Christian was unwise. My mentor advised me that if I couldn’t marry him then I should end the relationship to reduce the damage to each other and so my boyfriend had more chance of meeting someone else.

I was beside myself.

I went on my elective placement in West Africa for six weeks. As soon as I got back I went to see my boyfriend. I was delighted and relieved to be reunited with him. It had been very difficult to communicate while I was abroad. We did not talk about matters of faith until later in the day.      But, when we did, he told me that he hadn’t been to church while I was away. He wanted us to stay together but he couldn’t pretend that he could live the conservative evangelical lifestyle.

A guttural sound of pain came from out of my chest. I felt that I had no choice but to end our relationship, that it was what Jesus required of me. But nothing in me wanted to do it.

We said an agonized goodbye and I was utterly distraught. We had been together for nearly seven years. I had never known adult life without him. I went back to university in a dreadful state. My mentor met with me but was harsh. She said that my pain was the consequence of sex outside of marriage. She suggested I ask the Holy Spirit to show me more of my sin.

That night I prayed and came to think that I was so selfish I hadn’t wanted my boyfriend to become a Christian. That I had selfishly wanted the relationship to meet my own needs but that I hadn’t put God or him first. A couple in the Church noticed my distress and tried to support me, though they still kept to the party line that I couldn’t marry him. I had done the right thing.

I went to speak to a Church staff member who was known to offer grief counselling.  He was also desperately cruel, told me to put my grief in a box, stop wallowing and that I was going around trying to find people to tell me what I wanted to hear. Chillingly, he also said if I continued in that way, I was in danger of never getting over my boyfriend.

The couple continued to support me but stopped me from phoning my boyfriend or from contacting him when I went home for Christmas. They primed me not to listen to my parents who were begging me to reconsider and worried I was in a cult. The couple said they couldn’t understand as they weren’t Christians.  Over this time, the husband gradually groomed me into a sexual relationship with himself. He told me it was good for me to realise I could fall in love and have sex with someone else.

He knew that I was suicidal and hearing voices. He and his wife set themselves up as the only people who could support me through my trial.

The earlier coercive control by the Church leaders and the couple rendered me additionally vulnerable to the sexual abuse from a predator.

Eventually I escaped them and tried to build a life. I had convinced myself that I had followed the only biblical course of action, that I could not have married my boyfriend. Though I never understood why God would put me through all of that.

I became a GP, married a Christian, had three children. I thought I was perfectly happy.

Then my ex-boyfriend’s Dad died. My life imploded, I was hit with a wave of dreadful realisation that what I had believed to be conviction by the Holy Spirit 18 years previously had in fact been coercion.

This triggered an unravelling in my life akin to coming out as gay. I realised that I had suppressed an exclusive lifelong love for my ex-boyfriend because of the pressure from my Church community. That suppression was only ever going to be temporary and time had run out.

I have had extensive counselling and fantastic support from friends (mostly outside the Church) and family. I believe the best outcome from here is for me to get through each day as best I can for the sake of my children.  I fight for admission of wrongdoing and apology from those involved but (apart from one person who has apologised repeatedly and supported me hugely) this has not been given.

To return to my title, what about the women?

Attempts were and have been made to achieve justice in some form for John Smyth’s and Jonathan Fletcher’s male victims during the lifetime of the abusers.

David Fletcher’s female victims were not acknowledged until after his death.

Does the Church find it even easier to discredit, blame and discard the testimony of women abused while under their “care”?

Does this make it unsafe for women to disclose until much later in life?

Carrying the shame and blame that belongs to their abusers for them.  Potentially twenty years longer than their male counterparts?

This misogyny provides a greater protection for those who abuse women. They may never have to face up to the consequences of their actions in their life.

I believe research is being carried out into what happens to women when they speak out about their abuse in faith settings.

My experience suggests this is greatly needed.

The psychological, spiritual and relational scars I bear are lifelong and debilitating.

Not all abuse is visible – or provable.

Not all torture involves physical injury.

Coercive control in a spiritual setting removes meaningful choice and invalidates consent as much for women as for men.

The effects wreak havoc and destruction at the deepest level of your being, regardless.

 

In the Channel 4 programme, See No Evil, we revisited the horrific activities of John Smyth and some of the pain experienced by the victims of his sadistic cruelty.  The bulk of the facts in this story have already been laid out for us in Andrew Graystone’s excellent account, Bleeding for Jesus.  While we learnt little new information about what went on in the shed in a Winchester garden, there were aspects of the story which were fresh to us in the new programme.  For me, and no doubt for many of my readers, there was a welcome attempt in the programme to understand the part played by John Smyth’s wife, Anne, in the saga.  It is clear from witnesses that she was close to the shameful events that took place in England and Africa, but always seemed to be in the background, unable to do or say anything decisive to ward off the cruel and criminal activities of her husband. 

In the Channel 4 retelling of the story, we watched once more the confrontation scene in Bristol when Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News ambushed John Smyth and challenged him to defend himself from the accusations of abusing young men through his regime of beatings.  This now familiar episode which has been played every time the Smyth story has been told, also contained images of Anne a few steps behind him.  It probably did not strike me the first time I watched the drama, but eventually I cottoned on to the fact that Anne’s expression on her face was wildly out of kilter with what might have been expected in this situation.  When a wife sees her husband accused of a terrible crime, the expected response might be an angry rebuttal.  Alternatively, there might be a concerned look of fear or shame etched on to the face.  Anne’s face showed neither emotion.  Instead, what we witnessed might be described as a embarrassed grin.  This was suggestive of a total detachment from the dramatic and life-changing events taking place on this Bristol street.   The half-smiling face that Anne was presenting to us revealed absolutely nothing of her actual feelings at that moment.  This apparent lack of engagement with the Bristol drama suggested that Anne had indeed already found a way to cope as another ‘survivor’ of Smyth’s crimes.  In the later interview with two of her children, which was part of the second instalment of Channel 4’s programme, she confessed to her children how she had shut down part of herself in order not to allow herself to react or get drawn into the dramas around her.  I leave it to others to decide as to whether this kind of repression is any defence which might lessen her guilt and responsibility.  Guilty or not, it may be right for us to suggest that Anne’s responsibility in Smyth’s crimes can be compared to a situation where cultic dynamics are at work.  One of the situations that presented Americans with a far-reaching moral debate in the 70s was the case of Patty Hearst.  Patty was kidnapped by the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army.  Somehow her captors succeeded in persuading this wealthy heiress to become part of the organisation and Patty was recruited to take part in a bank robbery where she was clearly seen to be using a rifle to threaten bank employees.  We can think of this turn-around as a kind of inverted conversion experience.  Such conversions are frequently discussed and analysed in the cult literature.    The human brain certainly seems capable of making a 180-degree change when certain forms of persuasion techniques are applied.  This can be observed within the context of political settings as well as religious contexts.  Was Anne Smyth the object of a cultic conversion in the context a cult-like environment which John Smyth had created within his own home?

To continue my speculation on the baffling key role that Anne Smyth seems to have played in Smyth/Winchester crimes, I believe that we should see her personality formation as belonging to two distinct phases.  The first of these phases would have been as a child in what was likely to have been a conventional conservative Christian family.  For many such families, making a good marriage was counted more important than having a successful career.  While we do not have access to the detail of Anne’s early family life, it is not unreasonable to suggest that her upbringing was preparing her to conform to biblical ideas of what a good Christian wife should be.   There are various key passages in Scripture which describe the ideals to which a good Christian girl should aspire.  Words like obedience and subservience to parents and to a future husband would have formed a prominent part in the culture.  There has been much discussion over recent decades over the meaning of complementarian to describe the relation of the sexes, but in the typical evangelical interpretation of this word there always seems to be a surrender of initiative and power to the men in the relationship.  No doubt Anne was reared to accept these ideas of female subordination as a given.   The Iwerne culture, which has been examined on many occasions in this blog, forbade the women, who were recruited to do the chores in the camps, to interact with the men.  It was probably thought to be a way of training these young women to look up to the menfolk.  They were, biblically speaking, thought to be in command and, in the context of marriage, these men would always to have the last word.   Anne may have been one of these ‘bunnies’ but, even if not, the model of subservient womanhood so valued by evangelical leaders from their reading of scripture, would have been practised in the Smyth household.

Alongside this biblical model of how to be a woman as promoted by mainstream evangelical culture, there seems to have been a darker dimension of dominance, subordination and control alive and at work in the Smyth household.  The very fact that there were happening in the garden of the family home secret episodes involving trauma, pain and the shedding of human blood was extraordinary.  The dynamics of the Smyth family have the hallmarks of a small cult.  The typical pattern of a cult will include a strong centre of control, normally a male, who carries all authority over the women and children under him.  These dominant male figures in a cultic situation typically suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder.  This is a personality type that thrives on constantly occupying the central dominant role in a group.  His (typically male) position flourishes in having others under him, preserving a stance of constant obedience and subordination.  John Smyth was known for his volcanic temper which no doubt had the effect of preserving his position in the family by means of exercising a fear-engendering control.  Fear of John was spoken of by one of the Smyth daughters and we may reasonably conjecture that the dynamic of fear was firmly embedded in the husband wife system of relating.

John damaged and destroyed the lives of many during his lifetime.  There were in England and Africa at least 100 victims of his sadistic behaviour wrapped up in a faux Christian rhetoric.   The family should be included in this total for reasons that were made abundantly clear in the second Channel 4 programme.  One of the appalling lessons of the Smyth story is that John may have failed to realise even with the wisdom of old age that he was behaving in a way that completely denied the central tenets of the faith.  The corrupt theology that he lived by caused terrible damage to everyone that he came into touch with.  He seems to have genuinely believed that he was practising a way of life that promoted human flourishing, through adherence to certain passages of sacred Scripture.  As we all know, he will be remembered as the most prolific abuser that the Church has ever known.  The unnamed ‘spear carriers’ in John’s story, those who taught him his cultic version of the faith or those later who did nothing to challenge his behaviour, have also played a part in the story.  Other unknown individuals played a part in Anne’s story by having taught her a version of the faith which encouraged her to acquiesce in a position of meek female subjection to the dominance exercised by John in the home.   However we look at it, there is a disturbing and unsettling coda to the terrible pain that existed and emerged from the Smyth family.  Can we really slip away from the story by claiming that the Smyths failed to live up to the clear moral imperatives of the Christian faith?  Should we not begin to recognise that the most dreadful psychologically disturbed individuals can, if not challenged, justify cruel destructive behaviour with the words of Scripture.  Perhaps we need to be far more careful before we decide that we know what the Bible truly teaches.