At the heart of the Makin report released last Wednesday is an account of the behaviour and beliefs of one seriously damaged and dangerous individual, John Smyth.  I do not propose to say much about him here, as his activities, if not his thinking, are well documented in Makin and other accounts.  Andrew Graystone has already prepared us with his book, Bleeding for Jesus, for much of the factual material contained in Makin’s long report about the crimes of John Smyth.  What remains to be considered first of all is the behaviour of individuals, many now deceased, who responded to discovering the facts of the abuse that occurred in Winchester and elsewhere between 1979 and 1982.

A large section of the Makin account, as it recounts these events from the last century, concerns the actions and decisions of a group of prominent C/E evangelicals after the news first broke in March 1982.   It was in this month that Mark Ruston, a Cambridge incumbent, put together a report which was then circulated to nine other clergy, all trustees of the organisation running the Iwerne camps.  At that point Ruston had identified most, but not all, of the Smyth victims.  Meetings were called by these trustees as they struggled to get a grip on the situation.  From the records that Makin has gathered, there seems to have been very little concern for or interest in the welfare of Smyth’s victims. The chief anxiety appears to have been the damage the scandal might do to the reputation of the Iwerne camps.  Smyth had been a prominent leader for many years.  Mark Rushton and David Fletcher emerged as the de-facto leaders of managers of the crisis.  It was they, among others, who confronted Smyth and convinced him, with some difficulty, to sign undertakings to abandon his ‘ministry’ to boys and young men.  In the event the attempts to restrain Smyth were unsuccessful and he went on to run camps in Africa, supported by his English supporters who were still in thrall to his charismatic charm and evident gifts of public speaking.  It was to be another thirty years before information about his abusive behaviour became general knowledge.  The story of Smyth’s avoidance or exposure to justice is carefully chronicled in Makin’s report. 

Those who have the stamina to read the entire Makin report will recognise the importance of the year 1982 in the narrative.  This was the year when the abuses in England were stopped, and the small group of well-connected Anglican clergy, deeply solicitous for the reputation of the Iwerne camps, tried to decide what to do with the information in their possession.  The moral and ethical obligation to take some decisive action by the trustees who received the report is clear to us, as we examine the events from the perspective of 2024.  The trustees should have immediately referred all the information in their possession to the police and sought the advice of senior professionals in the psychological and law enforcement world, to help them both understand and act constructively with the information in their possession.  That they did not, at least initially, raises concerns in two areas.  One is that the silence and secrecy that they sought to impose on the Smyth case would go on to be a major cause of harm to Smyth’s existing victims.  It is as if the Iwerne effort was so important that nothing should or could be done to help those injured and protect other potential victims in the future.  The culture of Iwerne, or whatever was being protected through the secrecy, was itself a hard heartless enterprise.  In failing to support the Smyth victims, past and future, the Iwerne impulse was showing itself to be, despite its high-sounding language of conversion and love, to be a cruel monster, completely devoid of real compassion and healing. 

The second reality, shown in the frantic efforts to protect the Iwerne brand, was the lasting disregard by these clergy to bring in real effective expertise to resolve the issues caused by Smyth’s barbarity.  It needed resources of all kinds, far beyond what was available to a small group of clergy intent of preserving reputations, both corporate and individual.  Someone might possibly have said, ‘we need help.  This is too big to handle without the skills and expertise of a phalanx of professional disciplines’.  The reasons for failing to do this are again clear.   Secrecy and the preservation of the Iwerne name were paramount.  The culture of secrecy itself became a source of evil which was to do so much to damage individuals until today.

In the course of 1982, the offending behaviour by Smyth in England was brought to a halt, but one thing is clear in that none of the figures who exercised some authority in the situation and which enabled them to extract promises from Smyth not to misbehave, seems to have really got the measure of how serious and delinquent his actions had been.   The leaders who confronted Smyth did manage, in part, to stand up to the manipulative behaviour which had allowed him to rise so quickly in the Iwerne hierarchy, but they still believed (naively) that they had the true measure of his personality and behaviour.  In other words, they trusted their own innate skills as pastors and managers to penetrate his defensive/manipulative strategies which were employed to protect him from the accusers’ threats.  One hope by the leaders, that they could lead Smyth to a place of genuine remorse and repentance, turned out to be empty and of no value.  Dozens of children in Africa were to suffer (and one die) as the result of Christian leaders having an inflated assessment of their pastoral skills.

We come here to a failing in Christian ministry which is probably all too common.  This is the fault of believing that ordination has granted one the gift of inspired judgement in pastoral situations when, in fact, they need human judgement which is properly informed by professional (secular) skill.   Many clergy are unwilling to admit that a pastoral situation is beyond their level of competence.  In these situations, it should be possible to seek the support of consultant or experienced mentor.  I have always believed that an extra beatitude is required to add to the others.  It goes something along the lines ‘Blessed are those who know their limitations.’ Preachers/pastors who work within the culture of conservative evangelicalism, where the infallibility of the biblical text is claimed, are particularly vulnerable to the grandiose claims and hubris which allows them to ‘know’ the truth in a complex pastoral scenario such, as the Smyth saga.  Is this what we are witnessing in and around Cambridge in 1982 and later in Lambeth Palace after 2013?  One thing that is absent from the Makin report during this early 1982 period is any indication that an external professional assessment was sought to gauge Smyth’s potential for reoffending.  Nor were the psychological needs of those who had been abused looked at or considered.  Instead, the untrained amateur pastoral assumptions of the clergy, who had taken charge in managing the situation, were allowed to reign.  The results of letting this inadequate pastoral wisdom dominate the care of victims were to have baneful consequences both for the existing Smyth victims and for those who were to follow them in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Clerical naivety, compounded by a refusal to access relevant professional competence, seems to sum up one way of understanding how things went so badly wrong in putting right the evils of Smyth’s actions.  If I am right to see these failings of professionalism as being at the heart of the saga, then the case for compulsory referral or mandatory reporting seems incontestable.  Naivety and the inability to make sound judgement was just not present at the early part of our story, and the same cluelessness seems to cling to many of the actors right through till today.  The decisions and the non-decisions that have taken place at Lambeth Palace are also part of the story.   The failings of church leaders in knowing what advice to take or whom to follow are not minor failings; they can be enormously harmful and wound the Church of God in ways that cannot be measured.

While writing the above, I have become aware of the increasing crescendo of voices calling for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the Smyth affair.  My attitude to this question has not been suddenly formed but goes back to the interview in 2019 with Kathy Newman. On that occasion Welby said several things which were clearly untrue, including the claim that he ceased to have contact with the Iwerne camps after graduation and starting work for an oil company in 1977.  It is clear that he remained in touch with the camps and he and Smyth appear on the same programme in 1979. Telling even a single lie to impress an invisible audience is corrosive of trust, even with one on the other side of a television screen.  The recent article by ‘Graham’ in Via Media finally pushed me to the point where I cannot see him as a spiritual leader.  If he does not any longer have moral or spiritual authority, then there is, in my estimation, only one choice open to him -that of resignation. 

In a recent article, Nick Tall https://viamedia.news/2024/10/26/smoke-and-mirrors-and-the-alliance/does a brilliant job of questioning the claims of the pan-evangelical organisation called the Alliance to represent the convictions of 42% of the Church of England.  It is this statistic that implies that, because conservative Christians are the largest bloc in the Church, the rest of the C/E should recognise this dominance in various practical ways.  Tall queries the way this 42% figure is arrived at, and here my blog post demonstrates how I join him in his scepticism.   Were it to be indeed true that 42% of practising C/E Christians were convinced by the Alliance set of statements about gay marriage, then the future of the C/E might well be on a one-way journey to becoming a sectarian rump with minimal influence on British society.   The future of the C/E would be a very different one from what has been assumed to be true of our national Church over the past 400 years. No longer would it be the communion welcoming a variety of opinions about the nature of God and the Scriptures that reveal him.  Rather it would be openly advocating a movement to a monochrome understanding of Scripture and theology where disagreement was not tolerated or acceptable.   The precise differences between LGTB supporters and opponents is not being examined in the piece; rather what is questioned is whether there is any reliable evidence to suggest that the Alliance claim about 42% of C/E members is correct.  Would a detailed poll really reveal such a high figure on board in this conservative attempt to define the C/E in his way?  I do not propose to repeat all Tall’s points or rehearse any of the arguments for including or excluding the LGBT community. What I do wish to do is to agree with Tall that a church leader cannot be said to know and reliably represent the opinions and attitudes of his/her flock.  It reminds me of the doubtful claim, made once by George Carey in another discussion, that he both led and represented all 80 million Anglicans in the world. If any Christian leader, minister or Anglican vicar ever truly represented the thinking and beliefs of every member of his congregation or parish, then I would suggest that he/she is not leading a congregation, but a full-blown cult.  To suggest that attending a particular church is the same thing as following every aspect of a leader’s teaching, is probably not a safe assumption.  Something approximating a conformity to the ‘what we believe’ statements on church websites might possibly be found in some large city centre churches.  People in some cases are known to travel quite considerable distances to attend the church which meets their ‘needs’.  At a guess I would suggest that even here the choices of which church to attend is not primarily caused by enthusiasm for a doctrinal statement.  Choosing a church to belong to involves such things as music preferences, the quality of fellowship and the general culture found in a congregation.  Few of the students, joining new congregations in university cities this term, are going to put ‘orthodox’ teaching at the top of the list of the reasons for opting for congregation X.  They are more likely to ‘assent’ to conservative teaching rather than having a worked-out position that joins with the leadership in rejecting the claims of the gay community and their desire to belong.

The basic premise that what a leader says about the attitude of his/her congregation is accurate, needs, as Tall points out, to be questioned.   Some years ago, the Bishop of Oxford sent out a statement on the LGBT issue to his diocese which was, in effect, a plea for greater tolerance and understanding on the topic.  His words, though eirenic, quickly gathered a storm of protest from many conservative Christian voices.  There were supposedly 100 clergy signing the letter of protest to their Bishop from within his diocese.  Conveniently for a commentator like me, the protestors published names of all who had signed.  This enabled a breakdown which showed that a considerable number of the clergy who signed had no actual Christian community to oversee.  They were clergy who had CEO-type responsibilities for a cluster of Christian organisations, some partly or wholly funded from abroad.  There were of course a number of notable conservative parishes in the Oxford diocese with large staff numbers.  Many, but by no means all, of these ordained staff members signed up to the letter of protest to Bishop Steven.  This level of only partial support suggested that some key conservative parishes were not of one mind.  Some signed, but other clerical members of staff had not.  This hinted at the fact that unanimity was not even found among the clergy.  We would expect such differences of opinion among the lay members as well.

The 42% claim by the so-called Alliance against the attempts of the Archbishops and the House of Bishops, to press for a more tolerant approach to the gay issue, is beginning to look unsustainable.  No proper research exists to sustain a claim of such widespread support.   Even if our imaginary 18-year-old attending a large conservative church assents to the traditional conservative line, it is likely that there will be a level of dissonance somewhere in their mind.  Most 18-year-olds are tolerant by nature and the most likely reaction is to maintain a silence and agnosticism on this issue.  Why should we, or the leaders of a student congregation, expect every young person in the building to have worked out what they think and believe anyway?  Only a group which practises some kind of mental manipulation technique would be successful in policing the thinking of congregants.  Such intrusive methods would naturally arouse considerable resistance on the part of most thinking people.  I mentioned the activity of cultic groups above.  They have a variety of techniques to use to compel conformity of thinking and many of these could be considered unethical and highly controlling.  In practice, few churches in the C/E would ever resort to cultic methods of thought control.  From my membership of the organisation ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association) I am familiar with the methods employed by cultic groups to ensure ‘correct’ thinking.  These might include chanting, sleep deprivation and deliberate withholding of adequate nutrition.  I suspect that outside such groups, identical thinking in a group is an extremely improbable achievement. Most people of my acquaintance want the freedom to think through an issue in their own time and in their own way.  To be able to say at any moment that one’s opinion is fixed and incapable of moving in any way is probably never a realistic position.  My task as a parish priest was not to enforce ‘orthodoxy’ on a particular topic but encourage members of the congregation to engage with truth with all the resources that mind and heart gives to us to relate to it.  Our relationship with truth is not like having in our possession a fixed unchangeable entity, but rather the ability to explore an object of beauty.  This kind of relationship is one which draws out from us capacities to admire, wonder and be, as the hymn puts it, ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’.  

As I pondered, in my own case, how different my relationship with truth is from the unchanging grasp of ‘belief’ that seems to be the required standard of ‘orthodox’ congregations, my mind went back to the puzzling history of two parish congregations in the Oxford diocese. I knew something about each of them in the last century.  In 2018 the incumbents of these two congregations had been among those who signed the letter to the Bishop of Oxford, criticising him for his inclusive view on the LGBT question as it was being debated back then.  These two parishes stood out for me because I knew a little about their respective backgrounds, going right back to the late 80s.  The first parish in 2018 had a Vicar who had been a graduate of the Iwerne camps, and thus was deeply immersed in the ‘Bash’ project to convert the upper-middle classes to Christianity.  He was also a part of the inner circle of Jonathan Fletcher.  I knew less about the second Vicar, but he seemed to come from the same Iwerne public school drawer and was fully at home with the social mores of this part of the Cotswolds.  Both these two Vicars with their public school/Iwerne/Bash credentials had, at some point, been parachuted into these wealthy conclaves which, to my certain knowledge had not been remotely evangelical before their arrival.  

My personal links with the first parish go back to the late 60s when I got to know the man who eventually ended up as its incumbent. We were both on a four-month study course for ordinands and the recently ordained in Switzerland.  My contact with him weakened over the years and I was sorry to see that he died only two or three years after retirement.   I had a great deal of respect for this vicar.  For me he represented the essence of compassionate Anglicanism.  He spent over twenty years in the same parish and theologically he was liberal and inclusive to the core.  It was strange that after he retired, it was thought desirable to appoint someone from such a radically contrasting churchmanship.  Even if this process was conducted with proper safeguards, I cannot believe that every member of that congregation became a fully ‘converted’ supporter of the con-evo attitude towards the LGBT community and their exclusion from the church.  Parish 2 also seems to have attempted a complete assimilation into the con-evo brand.  I had known it in the 90s, practising a ‘broad-church’ ministry with a strong emphasis on pastoral care to all in the community.  This community emphasis appears to have gone, though a surpliced choir has managed to retain a place at one choral mattins a month,

The issue about these two parishes is not whether they are doing a good job or not under their current incumbents.  The question is whether parishes like these with a solid liberal past and who experience a ‘take-over’ by a con-evo incumbent, ever truly succeed in making all parishioners think in an identical way, as the Alliance 42% letter assumes.  From my experience of human nature and my direct knowledge of these two formerly liberal parishes, I suspect that these assumptions are misleading at best and fraudulent at worst.  The Archbishops and House of Bishops should not be manipulated by these blatantly false, or at any rate, questionable statistics!

Experiencing the physical changes that come with getting older, is one of the consequences of being spared to live a longish life.    The point at which one considers oneself old will vary from individual to individual, but it seems that few people (men at any rate) reach 80 without some old-age ailment afflicting them.  I have reached 79 without any real symptoms of aging, but now that is no longer true.  My doctor has noted the physical signs of possible Parkinson’s disease, and I am to be placed in a queue to be scanned and examined by a neurological specialist.  I am told that the drugs for PD potentially are effective, and it could be years before the problem becomes disabling.  I have become an avid reader of information online about the complaint.  One piece of self-help offered is the advice to keep physically fit.  Nothing about the signs so far experienced has discouraged me from taking my regular (almost daily) circular 2 ½ mile walk.  There are also two other pieces of advice, that I shall not spell out, which can be undertaken by a PD sufferer without in any way going against the medical model.  The existence of these truly complementary methods which can be attempted gives me, the patient, signs of hope that the disease process is not totally beyond my control.   The worse part of illness would be the feeling that the only way forward is to ‘give-in’.  I am a long way from feeling that kind of fatalism.  While I wait for a diagnosis, I am truly grateful to be free, so far, of two typical symptoms, the shaking and the brain fog.  Also, there is a notable absence of any pain.

My productivity with the blog has suffered over the past months as energy levels have sagged as the result of, as I now recognise, the gradual progress of a physical problem.   My typical method of producing material for the blog was to cogitate in the early hours on some issue until the material in my head had resolved itself into some kind of coherent shape.  This does not seem to be happening so regularly, and this may be a way of my subconscious telling me that I have less to say than before.  But there is another tug on my attention that says I should not throw in the towel just yet.  A by-product of the blog is my attempt to respond (by email and phone) to the needs of individuals who contact me having suffered at the hands of the church and its leaders.  Sometimes, with my encouragement, these stories become part of the blog itself.  Mostly I listen to what is said, and the individual is grateful for having been heard.  Having no access to those in authority, I do not offer to speak to others on behalf of survivors/victims.  But the very fact that I may have helped someone by listening is a positive act and a possible contribution to making the church a better place. 

What I think I am asking of my readers is to have patience if my contributions are less regular.  I am in the situation that, with 900 blogs over eleven years under my belt, I have probably said most of what I want to say anyway.  Nevertheless, I still have my commentary work.   By this I mean my attempts to react/respond to notable stories in the secular or church press connected to the issue of power in the church.   I may only be drawing out obvious lessons from these stories, but I believe my loyal readers still want to know what the elderly clergyman in remote Cumbria has to say by way of comment over some topical story which touches on church power and safeguarding.

Looking to the future I expect to have some reaction to the publication of the Makin report in November.  Those who identify with survivors have accompanied them in the agony they have suffered over the years as we have waited for this report.  It does help, I believe, if supporters articulate and reflect some of the pain felt by the survivors who have waited so long for justice and accountability.  The grotesque inability of anyone in authority to accept any accountability or responsibility for the Smyth story is a monstrous carbuncle eating into the Church of England.   So many people in the church’s hierarchy have been compromised in some way by this story, but there has not been a single substantive heart-felt apology, let alone a resignation.  Living through what are for the church, seismic events, especially for those in the ‘Iwerne’ and HTB circuits, has been deeply disturbing.  One longs to see a responsible historian getting to grips and making sense of the appalling narrative of power abuse and corruption over the past ten or more years.  Failure of accountability or evidence of remorse have deeply wounded the fabric of the Church.  Who knows whether the Church will even survive such terrible wounds that have been inflicted?

Surviving Church will be continuing as long as life, strength and inspiration remain.  There may be a concession to ‘old man’ issues, like longer gaps between my reflections.  There may also be meditations on the topic of human frailty as this may come to occupy a greater part of my thinking than before.  Blogging has quite accidentally become part of my way of life, so, as long as there is at least one human being prepared to share in my reflections by reading them, then I will continue.

As we all know, the Church of England is governed according to a system of law or internal rules, known as canons.  Some provisions in this legal system tie it closely to the secular legal structure of English law.  When we speak about the relationship between church law and secular law, we are in a complex area of legal territory which is summed up by the use of the word established.  This single word points us to the way that church rules get interwoven with the secular laws of our nation.  Because establishment only applies to England, the other British nations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have their own canons to regulate their affairs.  Few clergy have had to involve themselves with understanding church law as most of the time they are encouraged to hand over any church legal problems to the experts in this area of church life.  I once had to stand by while my local council battled the question over whether a class 6 highway, running through my churchyard, was the responsibility of the church or the local authority.   The then Chancellor of the Gloucester Diocese, Garth Moore, declared himself minded to hold a Consistory Court on the matter, since the existing rules did not provide a clear precedent for this situation.  The Court, with its massively attendant expense, did not in fact take place, since the Chanceller died before the Court could be assembled to judge the matter. 

This one event during my time in Gloucestershire was perhaps the only time when church law was brought to my attention.  Those in charge of churches and parishes now spend far more time being made aware of legal regulations that govern the running of ordinary church life.  Since the beginning of the ‘safeguarding era’, everyone with administrative responsibilities has had to spend a great deal of time ensuring that all the legal form filling is correctly completed.  Clergy now also work with the ever-present concern that one of the parishioners may file a CDM complaint, something that may require an immediate suspension.   The anxiety that someone may bring up an accusation from the past, even from the distant past, means that some clergy insure themselves against such an eventuality even though they are now retired.  In 2024, church law is no longer to do just with arcane rules and issues to do with archaic property rights.  Today it reaches far more obviously and intrusively into the Sunday-by-Sunday rhythm of ordinary church life and, not infrequently, causes distress and actual harm.

My generalising comments about church law do not stem from a place of familiarity with the topic, but rather from a place that most of us occupy, that of bafflement and occasional deep frustration.  Church law penetrates ordinary parish life far more than in the past so that it can interrupt ordinary events in an unhelpful way.  When an ordinary parish has to negotiate its way through a legal minefield, the fall-out is seldom experienced as benign.  Those who have encountered church lawyers, employed at vast expense to defend the church institution, sometimes use words like ‘brutal’, ‘dishonest’ or ‘unscrupulous’ to describe their way of working. There was nothing gentle or compassionate observable in the conduct of the Christ Church Percy case on the part of the well funded College legal team. The recent appearance of a rapidly expanding safeguarding ‘industry’ has nowhere revealed a culture of compassionate attention to the needs of survivors by the specialist legal teams. Julie McFarlane’s account on Radio 4 of her ordeal at the hands of the lawyers employed by the Church to defend her clerical abuser is salutary. Gilo also speaks about the way that well-paid church lawyers use ‘aggressive and bullying questioning to try to avoid paying (in abuse cases) more than nominal amounts in compensation’. At the opposite end of the ‘industry’ we find legal work being attempted by groups without the benefit of anyone present who has training or skill in legal matters. Much of the work of Safeguarding officers in the Dioceses will involve legal questions but few of these employees have legal training.  Forensic skills, needed to establish the truth or falsehood of an accusation, are unlikely to be in evidence within a church-based core group.  Thus, we still hear the claim, as in the ‘Kenneth’ case, that the ‘child must be believed’ without even the most rudimentary examination of relevant evidence.  In Kenneth’s case, the miscarriage of justice has now lasted over four years, and no challenge to the original assessment is possible because there are no mechanisms available to question the arbitrary judgement of an untrained core group and a DSA.  Sometimes, also, the lawyers who serve the church by holding church courts get things badly wrong.  It is now generally accepted that the enormously expensive Consistory Court against Brandon Jackson at Lincoln was wrong in its conclusions.  A similar criticism could be levelled against those senior church lawyers who repeatedly advised bishops that they could not apologise to abuse victims without incurring potential financial liability.  A legal rule was firmly re-established as recently as 2006 in the so-called Compensation Act.  This stated clearly that apologies did not affect any legal decision connected with compensation claims.

The legal shenanigans in Aberdeen and the Scottish Episcopal Church currently display another church situation where legal processes and decisions are causing enormous damage to church life.  I have no comment to make on the guilt or otherwise of Bishop Anne Dyer.  What I find appalling is that we have an extremely expensive legal structure which is unable to deliver the justice that is required for both complainant and accused.  The Procurator expressed his opinion that although there was ‘realistic prospect of conviction’, the process of giving evidence by the complainant was ‘a source of anxiety’.  Thus, proceeding with the case was not in the public interest.  My own reaction to this manifest failure in the church’s further inability to operate a functional operation of justice is a combination of frustration and disappointment.  What should we conclude from this failure to declare neither innocence nor guilt in Scotland?  Is this far smaller church also unable to operate within a functional justice system so that matters of great importance to the ordinary congregations of Aberdeen can be resolved?   In any institution a failure of justice, or even the ability to determine facts about the behaviour of its senior leader, will act as a fatal blow to the working of morale and trust in the ranks. It is hard to see where the story will go from here.  One expects that Bishop Dyer will work out her remaining years in the diocese until retirement, but without any of the fire that should belong to her ministry.  Too much information about alleged bullying has leaked into the public domain for her to be able to carry on as if nothing had happened.

There is one section in the story as recorded by the Church Times on the 11th October which I find revealing but also rather depressing at the same time.   As part of a statement from the Diocese with the announcement of the halting of the proceedings against her, Bishop Dyer added the comment that she was ‘extremely pleased that this unfortunate episode has been brought to a successful conclusion.’  I found myself slightly choking over these words as there is no evidence that the halting of proceedings has resolved anything, least of all creating a ‘successful conclusion’.  There is also a remarkable absence of regret at the serious damage that has been caused by the case to individuals, the diocese and the whole Scottish Episcopal Church.  The Bishop’s comments can, no doubt, be attributed to a publicity officer or crisis manager.  While we have been spared the Church of England language of ‘lessons have been learned’ in this statement, we are still given words that betray an appalling lack of insight or regret for an incredibly damaging episode in the life of this small Christian denomination.    The allegations of ‘bullying and the abuse of a position of trust and responsibility’ would suggest that a time for reflection and self-examination, not to mention humility, was required from the Bishop.  Humble acknowledgement of any failure on her part is completely absent from this statement.  An opportunity for using the two-year suspension for moving towards a new servant style of leadership also does not appear to have been explored in a way that might have made the picking up the task of leadership a little easier.

Over the past twenty years or so the Church (in England and Scotland) has found itself more enmeshed with the tentacles of legal conflict due to safeguarding concerns and the binary choices that the LLF is thrusting upon us.  The irreconcilable differences being laid bare by our failures to agree on same-sex issues may push the Church to having to resolve its tensions by using the law rather than the tools of reconciliation and love.  From what we have seen in Scotland and England, the law has not proved to be a good tool for resolving tensions and divisions.   We need to be able to establish reconciliation without being forced to avail ourselves of the inflexible tools of a legal system.  Until recently that was the case.   Any further descent by the Church into a world of litigation must be regarded as a step back away from the teaching and spirit of Christ.

Part Two, Exorcisms in the Church of England. (Addendum added by David MacInnes about evangelical attitudes in the 1980s. Also included is a response to the Addendum.)

Barnardo’s independent investigation of Matthew Drapper’s exorcism as part of ‘Conversion Therapy’, upheld all his original complaints to Network Church, and Sheffield Diocese. Their report was reluctantly published by Sheffield Diocese in xxx. Link.

The current Bishop of Sheffield had asked everyone who held copies of the report to shred or delete it, stating that a secure copy would be held (secretly) by the diocese. This would have been a blatant cover up of a case that needs to be brought before the public and General Synod and explanations given, as to how and why such abuse could have happened under the governance of then Bishop of Sheffield Steven Croft, now Bishop of Oxford.

According to the Church of England’s guidance on Exorcism, (the casting out of evil spirits/demons from people’s bodies and soul), exorcism should only be conducted after independent psychiatric/medical assessment, and with the authorisation of the diocese bishop, who bears final responsibility for the individual and clergy conducting the exorcism.

Testimonies are emerging from people who have suffered exorcism as part of conversion abuses, in charismatic Anglican churches within Oxford Diocese, both recent and historic.

Given the extreme abuse of exorcism in conversion abuses, and the depth and years of ensuing trauma and PTSD resulting from such spiritual abuse, and the current public failures of Church of England safeguarding at every level, from Soul Survivor, Mike Pilivachi, and the long overdue Makin report on Smyth and Fletcher, all of whom were serial abusers, trust of victims and survivors is at an all-time low.

Trusting themselves to Church of England safeguarding is unlikely to happen until trust is earnt by all concerned and healthy safeguarding proposals offered, demonstrated, and proven.

It is clear in Matthew’s case, which took five years to be concluded, causing as much pain and trauma to Matthew as the original abuses, that both church and diocese delayed, and obstructed a thorough and speedy processing of investigation.

Why would any victim or survivor of any kind of abuse, wish to subject themselves to a further five years of pain and trauma, by submitting themselves to current Church of England safeguarding practises, which are acknowledged by many survivors, as being as damaging and destructive as any original abuses?

Ironically, given the success of Barnardo’s investigation, it is highly unlikely the Church of England will allow further independent investigations into abuses by its clergy, officers, or members.

Independent safeguarding uncovers what the Church of England tries to cover up to protect itself from liability and reputational damage.

This raises serious concerns about what is happening, not just to LGBT+ students, but to any students in conservative evangelical and charismatic Anglican churches in the city of Oxford with regards to discipleship and exorcism.

For this reason, we began correspondence with Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, in June this year, seeking reassurance from him about both the spiritual abuses we recorded in our report published in September last year. Link.

Bishop Steven had avoided making any comment about victims and survivors of spiritual abuse in his own churches, despite having held the report for the best part of a year.

That struck us as potentially, both grossly insensitive to victims and survivors, and perhaps even indicative of a deliberate denial or even a spiritual blindness, – unless there were clear reasons for his deafening silence over the Oxford Safe Churches Report, which had gathered national news attention.

Denial of abuse within the Church of England is widespread, and the reluctance to engage in positive pastoral support of victims and survivors, a glaring sin of omission on their part.

Bishop Steven Croft, in his proposal for the acceptance of same-sex marriage in September 2022, ‘Together in Love and Faith’ says this scathingly disparaging and dismissive comment in reference to victims and survivors of abuse,

“While we need to acknowledge the pain and difficulty of LGBTQ+ people, given the present position of the Church, I am very hesitant indeed about ascribing this pain to particular individuals or groups within the Church or as the consequence of particular theologies. I am equally hesitant about the reaching for the emotive language of abuse, or about any language that attributes individual blame in general terms to pastors or to churches, or that suggests that the affliction of pain and difficulty is intentional.”

We would ask Bishop Steven exactly how he expects victims and survivors of any kind of abuse at the hands of clergy or churches to express themselves?

“Reaching for the emotive language of abuse.”

How else does Bishop Steven expect any victims and survivors of abuse to otherwise express ourselves?

Sadly, his statement here is as far from trauma informed as one can get.

We do not need any further stoic, detached rationalism, devoid of pastoral intent, that is already one of the Church of England’s crippling weaknesses.

Healing from abuses involves the messy, ugly, painful process of being heard by those who have the grace, empathy, and compassion to listen, wash the feet of, and minister pastorally to those physically, emotionally, even mentally broken by physical and spiritual abuse.

We heal from trauma when we are able to tell our stories in safe places.

The telling of our stories is intensely painful, visceral, and invokes strong emotions, within ourselves and our listeners.

Perhaps Bishop Steven has had to hide our report, and hide from it, because we have done, and continue to do the very thing he is so reluctant, and hesitant to do; hold clergy and churches accountable and responsible for their words and actions.

We placed a hard copy of a Lecture on homosexuality, given by Simon Ponsonby, Pastor of Theology at St Aldates Church, on Bishop Steven’s desk in June. We know he has had a copy of this lecture, since last September. Link.

This lecture was denounced by many, even one of the diocese’s own bishops, the late Alan Wilson, as “Homophobic.”

The lecture is apologetics for conversion abuses, using theology, erroneous, damaging, discredited home-made, Freudian psychology, and a very manipulated account of history and medical evidence. The lecture itself is a demonstration of conversion abuses.

The lecture was applauded by both Rector and congregation, and was homophobia being further embedded into the heart, ministry, and culture of St Aldates Church.

It has never been acknowledged or repented of.

Again, these facts should be both profoundly embarrassing, and disturbing for Bishop Steven, and would explain why he is very hesitant and reluctant to hold his own clergy or churches to account.

Whilst notable clergy, some who are advisors to Bishop Steven, have rushed to Ponsonby’s defence, stating the lecture was from 2003, and that Ponsonby has changed since then, we are unable to find any evidence of that supposed change. There is a dark shroud of secrecy and silence over St Aldates church regarding their theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policy for LGBT+ people.

This lecture was removed and hidden from the Internet within 24 hours of it being exposed. Any dialogue about it has been effectively silenced, and the godly process of dialogue, reflection, confession, apology and restitution to victims and survivors of conversion abuses, necessary for growing a healthy church denied.

Why so reluctant to walk in the light of fellowship and accountability?

This lecture is critical historic evidence of conversion abuses, and its cover up a very serious abuse of power, by both the church and diocese. It is symptomatic of the wider denial of spiritual abuse and conversion abuses by the Church of England.

The Jay Report recommends the removal of the chapter on spiritual abuse in the Church of England’s own guidance, be removed. Link.

Again, this appears an attempt to deny and cover up the hard facts and reality, that conversion abuses are systemic, and a profound and deep spiritual abuse.

We are only bringing into the light what has existed and been practised for decades in charismatic Anglican churches; exorcism and conversion abuses. That exorcisms have become a normalised part of discipleship within these churches is beyond a shadow of doubt.

We have endless testimonies from people who have been both subjected to, and witnessed exorcisms within charismatic conservative evangelical Anglican churches. Bishop Steven has been a leading figure in this church culture and ministry for decades. It is now obvious and self-explanatory why Bishop Steven refuses to acknowledge that clergy and churches under his governance have spiritually abused LGBT+ people.

We asked Bishop Steven, in our last letter to him,

“Thank you for responding to our email regarding Matthew Drapper’s ‘conversion therapy’ and exorcism, and for taking the time to read the harrowing report.

There are two issues here upon which your integrity depends, and our ability to trust you, rests.

The first is our question to you, ‘Did you know that exorcism was being practised by members of Network/Philadelphia Church, as a normal part of the churches culture and discipleship practise?’

Your careful evasion of that question troubles us deeply.

When related to the issue of whether you know whether exorcisms are being carried out in churches within the Oxford Diocese, including St Aldates, which has a long history of such teaching, preaching and practise, dating back to at least David McInnes time, (the 90’s) , and probably Michael Greens, (the 80’s), and certainly Charlie Cleverley’s, (2002-20), the latter of which is documented in our 2023 report, and for which you also hold Simon Ponsonby’s ‘Lecture’ which clearly advocates exorcism for LGBT+ people, then your refusal to answer our questions raises real questions as to whether you have any governance over your churches at all, either in your time as Bishop of Sheffield, or in your present position.

If we are to trust you, and your safeguarding, such questions cannot be ignored or swept under a carpet of power and privilege, but need to be honestly and openly discussed.

(Excerpt.)

Thank you again for your time, grace, and patience with us.

Our prayer is that even this correspondence and dialogue might lead to safer churches in the city, and more trusty worthy safeguarding process and practises.

We look forwards to hearing from you.

Oxford Safe Churches Project Team.”

Bishop Steven, presumably for legal reasons of liability, has declined to commit an answer to our two questions above, in writing.

Bishop Steven needs to turn from evasion and denial, and his very hesitant position, which is currently protecting his clergy and churches from any responsibility for abuse, to a positive and pro-active creation of trust, and offer a safeguarding solution that priorities victims and survivors, whereby they know their abuses will be dealt with pastorally, as quickly as possible, and in a trauma-informed way.

Both he and the constantly updated bright and shiny Oxford Diocese website say all the right things regarding safeguarding, but the actions and substance to prove them true, are noticeably lacking.

As vulnerable students, we would like, and need a bishop who is willing to, and will unhesitatingly, hold his clergy and churches accountable for abuses of any kind, regardless of whatever theological persuasions and practises they may hold.

Addendum

David McInnes formerly Rector of St Aldates has asked me as editor to include this correction about attitudes among evangelicals in the 1980s. My memory of conversations with DM and other charismatics in that period suggest that attitudes to the ‘gay issue’ were indeed very different to those held today.

David McInnes writes his correction in connection with following two paragraphs:

The context

‘The first is our question to you [Bishop Steven], ‘Did you know that exorcism was being practised by members of Network/Philadelphia Church, as a normal part of the churches culture and discipleship practise?’ Your careful evasion of that question troubles us deeply.

When related to the issue of whether you know whether exorcisms are being carried out in churches within the Oxford Diocese, including St Aldates, which has a long history of such teaching, preaching and practise, dating back to at least David McInnes time, (the 90’s) , and probably Michael Greens, (the 80’s), and certainly Charlie Cleverley’s, (2002-20), the latter of which is documented in our 2023 report, and for which you also hold Simon Ponsonby’s ‘Lecture’ which clearly advocates exorcism for LGBT+ people, then your refusal to answer our questions raises real questions as to whether you have any governance over your churches at all, either in your time as Bishop of Sheffield, or in your present position.’

I would like to correct this inaccurate assertion that during my time as Rector of St Aldate’s Church the ‘teaching, preaching and practice’ of exorcism for LGBT+ people was encouraged. It was not.

The background for me is this. In 1973 I was part of a Diocesan group headed by the Bishop of Aston, Mark Green and a psychiatrist Dr Anton Stevens with whom I learned about the deliverance ministry. There was never any question of exorcising gays. 

In the 1980’s I counselled a young tutor at Cranmer Hall, Dr Michael Vasey  who was gay and tormented. He eventually “came out” and wrote a significant book. He taught me a great deal.

At St Aldates, during my first ten years with the help of the then Pastorate Chaplain, we ran an annual group for young students who were struggling with their sexual development, a few because they had a same sex orientation. We affirmed the latter but in retrospect I’m not sure we did enough to help them in what was often a painful sense of isolation. We also provided a room at the parish centre for the Terence Higgins Trust at a time when we were still learning about how to provide adequate pastoral care.

Since then my understanding has evolved, greatly helped by one of our former students who is gay and has shared his ongoing experience with me. I would now describe myself as “inclusive” and willing to affirm the committed relationships of those gays who have gone through some form of ceremony, and I would dissociate myself from the arguments of the “Alliance”.

An excellent book is The Widening of God’s Mercy by Christopher & Richard Hays

A response to the McInnes Addendum

Dear David,

Thank you for the gracious, thoughtful, and informative response to our second article about exorcism within so called ‘Conversion Therapy’.

However your addendum and response starts with a false claim about our article.

Nowhere did we state that ‘exorcism of LGBT+ people happened under your leadership’. 

We were very careful to avoid saying that.

Janet Fife has bravely spoken out to confirm that exorcism did occur under Michael Green’s leadership of St Aldates.

Our point and concern is that exorcism was and is a normalised part of Anglican charismatic teaching and ministry, under it’s rebranded marketing as ‘deliverance’.

Exorcism of LGBT+ people within conversion abuses, appears to have started in St Aldates shortly after you left.

Of equal concern, is that all the testimonies we have been given, of exorcism, and exorcism as part of conversion abuse, happened outside of the Church of England’s own guidance, 

which requires prior approval from diocesan bishop, and independent medical/psychiatric assessment.

We are very grateful for you response to our article, but believe you are misrepresenting what we wrote, and thereby spreading misinformation about us and our work.

We have sought at all times to exercise a factual reporting of history and current affairs.

Given the suicide rate amongst LGBT+ students, incidents of self-harm, suicide attempts and isolation due to being shamed by conservative, evangelical, and charismatic teaching, discipleship and ministry, churches and families,

we think it would be good if you could correct the record you have created.

We will add your article, if it is revised, to the project report for 2024/25.

We thank you for the journey you have made in becoming an ally to LGBT+ people, and are indebted to you for that.

Yours, sincerely,

Oxford University Student LGBT Society’s, Oxford Safe Churches Project team.

ReplyForwardAdd reaction

This is a detailed account of the challenge offered by LGBT students against the dominant culture among evangelicals that assumes the gay-affirming position is inevitably wrong. While Surviving Church has not hitherto entered this territory, one that occupies a great deal of discussion and debate among many Christians, it is right for us to be informed as to what is being said in this debate. These two posts do not represent a shift towards debating the issues on a regular basis but simply to ensure that the topic is tackled once in a while. The main reason for avoiding the issue has mainly to do with fact that the whole debate has never been among my personal interests.

Last year a team of ten students from Oxford University Student LGBT Society created, and published the Oxford Safe Churches Project, it received national acclaim.

https://www.oulgbtq.org/oxford-safe-churches.html#:~:text=The%20Oxford%20Safe%20Churches%20project,want%20to%20go%20to%20Church.

Consequently, they entered a dialogue with students in Cambridge, Sheffield, Nottingham, and Brighton. This led to collaboration, sharing their research and information, which revealed further potential dangers in some of Oxford’s churches.

The student’s objective for the project was to try and protect students from entering churches with hidden agendas of conversion. It became clear to the students that some churches hide their theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policies and practice, relating to LGBT+ people, in order to attract queer students, but hold a hidden agenda to convert then from their identities as LGBT+ people, and wanting them to repent of, and end their relationships; loving someone of the same sex.

These conservative churches and clergy had made this clear in their letter to the Oxford Diocese bishops in 2018.

“We are concerned too by the references to LGBTI+ ‘identity’, when as Christians we want to urge that our identity is to be found ‘in Christ;’ “

Letter from Concerned Anglicans in the Oxford Diocese in Response to Ad Clerum of 31st October 2018

In a questionnaire sent to Oxford’s clergy and churches, the student team asked for honesty, transparency, openness, and clarity from churches, in declaring their theology, discipleship, pastoral care policy and practise towards queer people, especially students, who can be amongst the most vulnerable, in this formative and changing season of their lives.

They want all students to be able to make fully informed decisions, before joining churches, becoming members, and before church becomes their new chosen family.

The project student team said, “This is essential where churches hold a hidden agenda of ‘conversion’. Very subtle coercive dynamics happen too easily, due to authoritarian beliefs and teaching, where highly loaded imbalances of power are operating between clergy and students. Queer/neurodivergent/vulnerable students, or those who have lacked affirming parents, or even had hostile parents, can be very susceptible to clergy who use pastoral gifting and authority, to ‘win’ us over to their beliefs. The need for affirmation lacking in the parent/child relationship is then, even unwittingly, used to ‘save’ us from our identity and or relationships. Sincere compassion can be hard to resist, but motivating beliefs can be deeply damaging”

The student team say they have seen too many friends, students, youth, and adults, severely damaged by homophobic, transphobic theologies, discipleship, and pastoral care practises.

They recorded a sample of their testimonies as evidence, in the 2023 Oxford Safe Churches Project published report.

Since the Oxford students published the report last September, they cite two subsequent events as having a major impact on the ongoing story of the project and its aims.

The 2024 student team continuing the Oxford Safe Churches Project wrote this brief report for their 2024 publication, timed for this year’s Freshers Fayre on October 9/10th;

“Part One. The Alliance, A Brief History.

In September 2022, Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, proposed the acceptance of same-sex marriages, within the Church of England.

https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/61f2fd86f0ee5/content/pages/documents/together-in-love-and-faith.pdf

In reaction, the conservative sects within the Church of England, formed a lobbying parachurch power group, named, The Alliance, bitterly opposed to Bishop Steven’s proposal for the acceptance of same-sex marriage.

Plotting the Division of the Church of England

Their beliefs make homosexuality a salvation issue, for which a person’s destiny is either heaven, or hell.

According to The Alliance, and their conservative theology, following it to its logical extremist, fundamentalist conclusions, using their fistful of ‘Terror Texts’, from Ephesians 4 v3-5, Revelation 21 v8, as their punchline; those enjoying same-sex relationships cannot inherit the Kingdom of heaven, and their destiny, is understood as being hell.”

https://cherwell-org.webpkgcache.com/doc/-/s/cherwell.org/2007/06/01/principal-says-95-of-people-face-hell

The students Safe Churches team write,

“Clergy and churches who align with The Alliance are rejecting the governance of affirming bishops and dioceses like Bishop Steven and the Oxford Diocese. They cite Vaughan Roberts, a director of The Alliance.

“My reaction to the latest vote (The proposed Blessing of gay individuals, who have been married elsewhere.) is, therefore, exactly as it was then, when I wrote that the decision “represents a shocking departure from the truth of God’s word, which will have serious and distressing repercussions”.

Vaughan Roberts. St Ebbes website, 10 Feb 2023.

Roberts and St Ebbes have refused Bishop Steven a place at their communion table.”

There is now no way Bishop Steven can paper over the cracks in the deep division in his churches, and rejection of his governance by Roberts and The Alliance, this has grave implications over our safeguarding as queer students.”

They point out, “Roberts flew to South Korea, for a global evangelical gathering, to address what he considers the ‘sin’ of same-sex relationships, and the war raging over their love relationships of consent, commitment, and marriage.

“Roberts reminded the audience that all people are affected by the fall, including their sexuality, and that no one is righteous on their own. He referenced 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul instructs the church not to judge the world but to extend a welcome to sinners, as Jesus did. At the same time, Roberts highlighted the need for church discipline when sin goes unrepented within the body of believers.”  (Clearly referring to same-sex relationships.)

Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, South Korea. September 23, 2024. Katherine Guo, in the China Christian Daily.

https://chinachristiandaily.com/news/world/2024-09-25/lausanne-4-rector-vaughan-roberts-advocates-christ-revolution-in-response-to-sexual-revolution-14526

As queer students, we have found ourselves unwittingly, and unwillingly caught up in this internal war raging over and within the Church of England.”

Oxford Safe Churches Project’s student team analysis of The Alliance;

“They will not submit to the governance of affirming bishops, dioceses, or their safeguarding. It would interfere with their ability to ‘discipline’ queer/LGBT+ people for their relationships, without restraint, pastoral care, or respect for our dignity, equality, human rights, mental health or safety; because their theology does not recognise them.

Theirs is a theology of judgement and dominion over us.

Their own Parish Safeguarding Officers will only be chosen if they hold to their beliefs, authority, and attitudes towards us and our relationships. Prejudice is built into their safeguarding system.

As queer students we know, students will be very vulnerable if they enter inadvertently enter these churches, not knowing their theology.”

The second matter which the Safe Churches Project students team said they find deeply disturbing is the actions and behaviour of HTB Network Churches, as they write here;

“Enter HTB* Network Churches.

(*Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, London, the Church of England’s largest, richest, and most powerful church.)

At the 2023 summer meeting of General Synod, the gathering of the CoE governing body, it appeared that Bishop Steven’s proposed compromise had been agreed; Same-sex marriage would not be allowed or recognised by the Synod.

For clergy who wanted to, the option to bless two individuals of the same sex, who had been married elsewhere in a civil wedding, not in a dedicated stand-alone service, but incorporated into a regular service, in the same way that they already have permission to bless hamsters, pets, warships, urinals, and new church halls – seemed to have been approved as ‘The Prayers of Love and Faith’.

This triggered the leadership of the HTB Network, who had hitherto been carefully keeping silent about their theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policies and practice regarding LGBT+ people, to join The Alliance, thus blowing their cover of reticence to speak about LGBT+ people and relationships. Enter Nicky Gumbel, Archie Coates, former and present vicars of HTB. Gumbel president of The Revitalisation Trust.”

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/prayers-love-and-faith

Chapter Eight: Here Come the Generals

The project students say,

“Nicky Gumbel and HTB Network Churches have been recognised by many, as having held for many years, an unspoken policy of secrecy and silence over their theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policy for LGBT+ people. Even their own resident historian evidences this,

Part Eighteen: Sex, spin and the Bible in One Year. Does the model change the message?

St Aldates Church, under the control of Stephen Foster, is now part of the HTB Network. Stephen Foster led Alpha from HTB for ten years prior to taking charge of St Aldates.

St Aldates Church, have claimed during their services, to have a student fellowship of 240+ students.

What does Stephen Foster believe regarding our lives and relationships as queer students? His only public statements so far have been,

“It’s complicated.”

For us as students, this is disingenuous at best.

Foster is a senior figure within the HTB Network leadership, in his role as a trustee for Alpha International, helping manage its annual turnover of £16.5 million.

Stephen Foster would not be allowed to hold such a trusted and exalted position unless he subscribes to the same core beliefs, theology, and practise as Nicky Gumble and HTB Network’s Senior Leadership Team.

Stephen Foster’s secrecy and silence over theology, discipleship, and the pastoral care policy of LGBT+ people, is totally opposed to the values of honesty, transparency, openness, humility and love we are calling for. Such secrecy can, and has, caused real and lasting damage to young and vulnerable LGBT+ lives.

Yet each week he asks us as queer/LGBT+ students to commit our money and time to serving his vision and mission?!

For us as queer students, this secrecy and silence over theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policies in his church creates a culture of fear, over and in us. We do not know how we will be treated.

How can this be healthy for a church, especially the young LGBT+ people growing up in it?”

Lizzie Lowe – a death and a congregation transformed

.

The Oxford Safe Churches Project teams students, are well researched, and informed, and have the support and advice of many clergy, university chaplains, tutors, and professors, across many disciplines.

The Safe Churches Project students conclude their report;

“HTB Network Churches, Alpha, and its powerful partner, Revitalisation Trust, with their immense wealth and power, carry huge influence upon and over many bishops. We hear some say that bishops are fearful of HTB Network/Alpha/Revitalisation Trusts power, wealth, and influence, and of losing their ‘blessing’ and ‘sponsorship’.

It appears to us, that HTB Network Churches and Revitalisation Trust, now, as part of The Alliance, have the capacity to make, or break, a bishop’s career, and determine a diocese’s ‘success’, or failure. Under the leadership of Gumbel, Coates, Bishop Ric Thorpe,and others, it seems the balance of power lies not with affirming and progressive bishops like the two remaining bishops of the Oxford diocese, but with the clergy and churches aligned with, and loyal to The Alliance and the HTB Network.

HTB Network, Alpha Churches, and the Revitalisation Trust model, are central to the Church of England’s vision and strategy for the future of the church, therein lies their real power.

Yet, simultaneously, the Alliance is openly calling on clergy and churches to stop giving their Parish Share to affirming bishops and diocese. A blatant threat and abuse of power.

The Oxford diocese bishops need their blessing and sponsorship.

The opposite, we feel, cannot be said to be true; The Alliance have already rejected the governance of affirming bishops and diocese.

Why is all this politics critical to us as queer/LGBT+ vulnerable students?

Because for clergy and conservative churches aligned with The Alliance, (and their Parish Safeguarding Officers), any treatment they mete out to queer people is understood by them as being an issue of ‘discipline’.

For us, it will most likely be experienced as judgement, exclusion, rejection, coercion, and bullying,

• especially when we did not know this was the church’s position, prior to becoming a member.

As students we are caught in a very powerful trap by both conservative churches and the diocese.

As Richard Moy points out in his blog article linked above, Sex, spin, and the Bible in One Year, HTB Network are silent and secretive about their traditional and conservative theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policy for LGBT+ people, because they do not want to jeopardise the success of Alpha in reaching students and young people, by appearing homophobic.

Stephen Foster, and St Aldates Church are clearly operating under this policy, a sudden, almost overnight reversal, and stark contrast to the open and very public and vociferous campaigning against LGBT+ dignity, equality, and rights, by St Aldates Church under the previous Rector, Charlie Cleverly and Pastor of Theology, Simon Ponsonby, for almost twenty years. A history well documented in many places.

We would ask Stephen Foster, and Bishop Steven to reconsider St Aldates current policy of secrecy and silence in the light of the bishop’s guidance. ‘The Six Pastoral Principles’, given to the Church of England, alongside their ‘Living and Love and Faith Materials’, to help inform how they speak and act towards us, as queer/LGBT+ people;

“The Pastoral Principles identify six ‘pervading evils’: prejudice, silence, ignorance, fear, hypocrisy, and power. These ‘evils’ hinder our personal growth as Christians, hurt other people, and create barriers that stop our churches from growing into Christian communities of welcome and belonging.” “

https://www.churchofengland.org/about/general-synod/structure/house-bishops/pastoral-principles#:~:text=The%20Pastoral%20Principles%20identify%20six,communities%20of%20welcome%20and%20belonging

If we join a church, not knowing its theology, discipleship and pastoral care policy and practice, believing it to be an affirming and inclusive church, as many have already done, only to subsequently discover, many months, or even years later, it is not, and we then suffer teaching, and practices of judgement, exclusion, and ‘discipline’, this is clearly deliberate, deceptive, manipulative, coercive, and dangerous practise by churches and clergy.

If Bishop Steven knows the theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policy of St Aldates Church regarding us as queer students, but is also keeping a silence over it, then he too, is complicit in the wounding been done to LGBT+ people by such churches, as published in our report.

If Bishop Steven, like us, does not know the theology, beliefs and policies of Stephen Foster, and St Aldates Senior Leadership, then that proves he has no governance over St Aldates.

Secrecy and silence regarding theology, discipleship, and pastoral care policy for LGBT+ people cannot be considered gospel practise, or safe or healthy practise for a church or diocese;

only cults keep secret how they disciple their members.”

In Part Two, the Oxford Safe Churches Project Team talk and write about  the use of exorcism, both integral within ‘Conversion Therapy’, and as a normalised part of discipleship within charismatic Anglican churches over the last forty years.

May I be among the first to congratulate you on your recent appointment to the post of Second Estates Commissioner.   No doubt this appointment has drawn you into a world of numerous documents, reports and briefing papers. These will, probably, try your patience and stamina for many months to come.   The Church of England is, as I am sure you are aware, an enormously cumbersome and complex organisation.  Representing this institution to the potential questions and scrutiny of the House of Commons will be no straightforward task.  You deserve the support, goodwill and understanding of the many people in the Church of England that you now represent. 

This letter comes to you from a single individual with no official role or position.  I am a retired priest who has held posts in both the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church.  My current unofficial role is as editor of a personal blog on the topic of safeguarding and power abuse.  It is entitled Surviving Church. Over the past eleven years of the blog’s existence, I have found myself busy in writing commentary and interpretation on the stories of abusive power that have, at times, threatened to overwhelm the Church.  I have, I believe, gained the respect of my readers in offering fair-minded and measured criticisms of institutional failures when these occur.  I do not claim to have mastered all the legal aspects of safeguarding or even to understand all the detail of General Synod debates on this topic.  In this I have found myself more and more learning from the skill and expertise of others.  My contact with a group of experienced safeguarding experts has also brought me into touch with many survivors.  Some have written up their experiences on the blog, while others have spoken on the phone.  Thus, I would claim that although I am not technically a survivor, I believe I have a feel for many of the concerns of these courageous but often wounded individuals.

While I do not know all that is involved in your new role, I suspect that safeguarding issues will find a prominent place in your in-tray.  It will become apparent to you that there is widespread concern and disquiet in the Church and beyond connected with this topic.   Among many clergy and parishioners there is considerable unhappiness over some recent safeguarding decisions taken by the Church at the centre.   Both the Secretariat based in Church House and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff working in Lambeth Palace have been challenged robustly by members of General Synod and others who have a lively interest in the topic.  You will discover that the unhappiness of many over the topic of safeguarding has impacted extensively on the sense of wellbeing in the Church as a whole.  In short, there is a serious problem of morale within the Church of England in 2024, closely connected with failures over safeguarding.

In finding your feet in your new role as an Estates Commissioner, you will be given briefing sheets and summaries of recent activity by the Church in areas that concern Members of Parliament.  It will be difficult, initially, for you to do anything beyond following the advice of those who produce this material.  The sheer weight of documentation will overwhelm you unless you have already some familiarity with it.  In view of the sheer complexity of the Church of England’s affairs, you would not be blamed for allowing advisers to dictate your response to difficult and demanding questions about safeguarding from members of the House.  My informal advice to you is this.  Recognise that however politically sophisticated are the responses being prepared for you to use, there is nearly always another point of view which may be quite deeply at variance with the ‘official establishment’ line.  I am not claiming that the criticisms of bishops and senior church figures are inevitably correct.  Rather the reasons for the existence of these deeply held, but contrasting, opinions need to be to understood and appreciated.

A second piece of advice, linked to this first recommendation, is that you should become familiar with the past in the safeguarding records.  I think that most historians find it easier to see which side in a finished conflict was in the right.  Among survivors and their supporters, there is a term we use which we call ‘narrative wisdom’.  As part of their survival strategy, survivors have made it their business to understand and interpret every detail of their case.  Thus, in many cases survivors know far more what is helpful in a safeguarding crisis than the majority of highly paid professionals.  It is a source of deep frustration to survivors to find, sometimes, that ‘experts’ in safeguarding have no knowledge of anything that happened more than six months previously.  If I were to create a course to teach safeguarding, I would insist that every candidate was familiar with the narratives of the past, including such things as the personalities of the perpetrators and those who stood up to them.  Unfortunately, the accounts that describe success in this area of church life are relatively few and we still lack the decisive leadership which would make power abuse in its various forms impossible. 

I am well aware that you may be hoping that safeguarding will not be a topic on which you will be questioned in Parliament.  I understand, however, that already members have been lobbied by their constituents to bring to your attention to matters that concern them in this area.  I hope that you will be able to help create an environment where the legitimate concerns of ordinary voters can be addressed and the senior church officials can be prevailed upon to seek new answers to alleviate this area of human suffering.

If you would like to be in contact with me further, my email address is given in the welcome page.

There is an important word in the English language which is familiar to anyone who works for an organisation, especially its leaders.  The word is morale.  An organisation needs to cultivate morale so that the employees and customers feel that things are going well, their work is properly valued and appreciated.  It is difficult to describe every aspect of morale, but most people instinctively know what it is and when it is absent.  I would be confident that, given the choice, most people would prefer to work for an organisation possessing high levels of morale than one where workers feel unappreciated, even if on a higher salary.

The Church of England into which I was ordained in 1970 was in many ways an institution with good morale.  The reason for this state of optimism has many aspects but there was one factor which I want to think about in this piece and that was confidence in the quality of leadership.  My own curacy days were difficult, but I still never lost my sense of working for an organisation where even the most junior employees were noticed and valued by bishops.  The confidence that bishops were men of integrity and would ultimately sort out problems created an air of stability, one which counteracted the experienced fragility of my own curacy years.  Whatever my personal crises I was still part of a just and solid institution called the Church of England.

In thinking about stability, or lack of it in the Church, it occurs to me that there are three important ways that bishops can ensure that it is present.  This list of three qualities in episcopal leadership will not be a complete one, but it still represents what I have looked for during my ministry from those who were charged with overseeing my ministry and helping me accomplish my vocation to serve the people of God.

For the sake of clarity, I offer here three words to describe the needed qualities that I believe are essential for all our episcopal leaders and which I believe were more in evidence when I began my ministry 50+ years ago.  The words that sum up these qualities are teacher, just and integrity.   If a bishop cannot fulfil all that is implied in these three words, the ability of the church to flourish and function well is impaired and the morale of employees and members is weakened.

The role of teacher and preacher in the church is a quality that would have been expected and valued right back to patristic days.  We still possess the lengthy sermons of such episcopal luminaries as Augustine and John Chrysostom.  Those who listened to these expositions when they were first delivered must have had considerable reserves of mental and physical stamina.   Few preachers today emulate their style in an age when sermons seldom extend beyond ten minutes.  Nevertheless, congregations still value sermons, and they still look to bishops as being in some sense ‘experts’ at preaching and interpreting the essence of the faith.   Theology remains important for the Church, and we expect our leaders to provide good theological leadership on difficult questions.  The impression I get is that the theological expertise among the bishops, such as we looked for in an earlier generation, is no longer with us.  The clergy who do possess intellectual giftedness are few in number and the majority of them are found in the theological faculties in our universities.  If people of theological wisdom and experience are absent in the task of leading the theological debates that are thought important, the arguments that we hear in the public square can be shallow and trite.   I find it an interesting point that among the bishops who have earned the title of PhD and are identified as evangelicals, few seem to have chosen the theme of Scripture and its interpretation as their special focus of study.  Overall, the role of authoritative teacher and interpreter of the Christian tradition seems no longer to belong to our episcopal leaders.  When incisive theological competence is no longer an expectation for our episcopal leaders, a situation of ignorance and confusion can quickly take over, with cliché and banality replacing spiritually and theologically healthy articulations of the faith.

The second quality that we expect to find upheld by our bishops is summed in the word just.  By using this single word, I am referring, first, to the whole legal structure that governs the Church and its administration.  Rules exist and the bishops must both understand and enforce them.  The bishops are also guardians of justice in the church as it touches morality and correct behaviour.   Sometimes this involves the pursuit of malefactors so that they are disciplined.  Even more important is to ensure that the institution itself is totally free of blame or any hint of corruption.   Corruption is difficult to banish from an organisation and it appears in many guises.   I would not expect any bishop to completely drive out things like preferential bias to certain groups or theological parties, but I would expect a much higher standard than we have seen in the episcopally-led cover-ups as in the case of John Smyth and Peter Ball.   There have been other cases known to me, but not in the public domain, where bishops have failed to act or speak up when shocking abuse cases take place on their watch.  It is sad to have to conclude that some of our bishops seem instinctively to prefer the protection of the church institution to the promotion of justice and truth.

Any failure to promote justice by the one in a situation to take action can be described as a serious lapse of human integrity.   This third word describes something I have found to be regrettably absent in many of the stories that come my way.   Integrity should imply that honesty, straightforward dealing and consistent moral probity is always to be expected from Christians and their leaders.  Sadly, that assumption cannot be taken as a given.   Too many lies have been told in the course of enquiries or in the course of interviews with newspaper reporters.   When anyone encounters even a single false statement coming from a church leader, the effects can be disastrous.   Anything that implies the idea that honesty is an optional quality and need not be expected of leaders, will have an enormous demoralising effect on those who work for the organisation.  Here we are referring of course to the clergy and ordinary quota-paying church people.

The most recent story to cause church morale to plummet is the nomination of a new Bishop of Wolverhampton, Bishop Wambunya.  It transpires that this bishop, who has been working in the Diocese of Oxford as an assistant bishop and an incumbent, was party to a service in Berlin to ordain a bishop in a free church outside the orbit of the Anglican Communion.  A video exists of this bishop designate of Wolverhampton wearing episcopal robes and using the words of the Common Worship to ordain the candidate, Wamare Juma, as bishop.   I need not spend any time explaining how this action was highly irregular.  The problem is here not one of misbehaviour, as it was probably caused by an ignorance of the strict rules and protocols of the C/E.  To have any bishop operating outside the norms of church order will, naturally, undermine the morale of the clergy and people who believe that working within the rules of canon law and Catholic order is important.  All, not unreasonably, expect the bishop to observe the same rule book.  Was there no one in the appointment process able to establish that the bishop-designate understood the protocols of working as a bishop in England?  To call his action lawless is not an exaggeration.  It might have been done in a spirit of innocent naivety, but the result of this action will be deeply harmful in a number of ways.  If a bishop breaks canon law, why should the clergy who owe him canonical obedience do anything to follow the same rules? 

Lawlessness, lack of trust in the probity and integrity of the leadership and an inability to look up to leaders for guidance and inspiration – all these will take their toll on an institution like the Church.  To return to the word with which we began, the morale of many is damaged, and it is not easy to see how it can be repaired.  The succession of church leaders, including several bishops, who were told about safeguarding failures in the activities of such men as Peter Ball and John Smyth but did nothing, are guilty in at least two ways.  They are guilty of an original act of cowardice, but they are also guilty, in their lack of courage, of contributing to a destruction of trust and even affection that used to be felt by many in this country for the C/E.  If the numbers of those seeking to become ordained fall in number, can we really be surprised? Instead of seeing hope, confidence and joy expressed in the Church, far too many are going to see only sleaze, power abuse and self-aggrandisement by its leaders.  We need a new spirit of penitence and perhaps the place where it should begin to be articulated is in the English House of Bishops.

Final instalment in a series of five guest articles detailing the unhappy situation in the Church of England with regard to its failures in the management of Safeguarding.

By Anon & Friends

No. 5: Reaching Towards Truth and Justice

Trust and confidence in the Archbishops’ Council and National Safeguarding Team is broken beyond repair. The statements made on safeguarding and issued by both Archbishops, senior staff and Lead Bishops seem designed only mislead both church and public. Yet ordinary members of the church seem to be powerless in the face of the lack of accountability and competence over the ways in which safeguarding policy and practice is being operated.

Recently, the Archbishop of York was found to have deliberately lied to General Synod over progress on reviews and the closure of the ISB. Victims of abuse are now writing to their MPs and calling out the deceptions, incompetence and cover-ups. In a short series of five extracts of letters sent to Members of Parliament, the case for root and branch reform is set out.

These short extracts detail the deceptions fed to General Synod, the wider Church of England and general public. On the scales of justice, we find that statements from either of the Archbishops cannot be trusted and have little weight. Furthermore, little, if anything, that the Archbishops’ Council says to General Synod about safeguarding is likely to be true.  The scales of justice can no longer be balanced, and victims are now calling upon Parliament to intervene as a matter of urgency.

In five brief extracts taken from letters to MPs, the issues now being put to Parliament are carefully set out, and the call for independent statutory regulation of church safeguarding is made. Victims of abuse and injustice have no confidence in the Church of England’s leadership being able or willing to address the abuses it continues to perpetrate. Only external legal independent intervention can right these wrongs, and finally put a complete stop to all of the continuing injustices that the Church of England’s safeguarding policies and practices perpetuate.

From: Archbishop Justin

To:      Survivors Representative

July 2024 

Thank you for your recent email dated 16 July 2024 and I am grateful for you taking the time to write to both myself and Archbishop Stephen. Stephen is currently away on holiday, but we didn’t want that to delay a response to you. 

Following the termination of the contracts of the ISB members, the Archbishops’ Council have sought to ensure the survivors you reference are being cared for. As you know, it has not been a straightforward process to establish contact with all of them and understandably some have been hesitant to engage.

For several months support and advocacy has been available to these individuals through FearFree and I understand that many have made extensive use of this service. You may be aware that we now have the framework in place so that appropriate independent reviews of cases can be provided as was set out to the General Synod in GS Mis 1393.  Whilst the survivors have requested their engagement is kept confidential, there are some who wish their review to take place, and these will shortly be commissioned. I hope these reviews will be part of a process which allows the individuals to be both heard and to bring a certain level of closure to the trauma and abuse they have suffered.

My hope is that others who to date have not had the confidence to engage in this work, will do so in the future. But of course, trust must be earnt, and this is something both Stephen and I, along with the Archbishops’ Council are acutely aware of. 

I note the point in your penultimate paragraph around suicide ideation which is deeply distressing. As the names of those in the group are unknown to me, if you have concerns about any individuals, please can I ask you to report this to the appropriate statutory service if you haven’t done so already.

There is no room for complacency within our structures around safeguarding and as you will be aware, the General Synod mandated the group who authored The Future of Church Safeguarding, to report back in February 2025 with further analysis and recommendations which I look forward to engaging with.

I am very grateful for you taking the time to write. With best wishes,  Justin

Again, very little, if anything above, is true, or bears any relation to reality. The “ISB-11” are unanimous that they have been left without independent support, and continue to be denied the reviews they were promised. More recent concerns and abuses have included:

1. Members of Archbishops’ Council repeatedly lying to General Synod.
2. Stephen Cottrell lying to Synod about the summary closure of the ISB.
3. Stephen Cottrell lying about a promised independent review.
4. The continued perpetuation of abuse and the re-abuse of victims.
5. Constant delays in reviews.
6. Cover-ups of corruption and incompetence.
7. The total lack of transparency on legal expenditure.

The Lead Bishop for Church of England Safeguarding has no relevant professional qualifications or externally validated training in the field. Nor does her work fall under any independent or statutory regulation body. Her role is to be a spokesperson for the Archbishops’ Council, who in turn continue to perpetrate the main abuse. Most people inside the Church of England and at General Synod will be under the impression she has accountability and some recognised training. She has none. Given that nobody could ever teach in a school, practice medically or in law, the claim to be the “Lead Bishop…” of anything is a likely deception, and especially in safeguarding.

Under the circumstances, with no regulation, training, accountability, transparency, professional standards or any other safety mechanism one would expect from a public body, we ask for the following. That all responsibility for safeguarding is stripped from the Church of England forthwith, and transferred to an independent, regulated body, who will be funded by the churches and other stakeholders (as in other industries). This will enable:

1. Minimum standards of compliance be applied to the Church of England with immediate effect in data compliance, employment rights, financial oversight, charity regulation, etc.
2. Minimum standards of trustee compliance are made mandatory and statutory in every sphere of Church of England governance, especially in relation to conflicts of interest policies and registers of interest.
3. Law firms and auditors engaged by dioceses, National Church Institutions, Lambeth Palace and Archbishops’ Council must be changed regularly, and the contract open to properly regulated competition.
4. The Church of England complies with the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, especially the right to a fair trial. At present, like the Post Office, clergy and others can be taken to court by one person who will be, simultaneously, the complainant, investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury, bishop and pastor. This is not justice. This is Orwellian – the Church of England being “a law unto itself”. Clergy have committed suicide facing this (see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57780729). 

We are writing to you as our Member of Parliament, since the cost of all of this is now increasingly falling on the taxpayer in any case, as victims of abuse cannot secure reparation, justice and closure as a result of the continued actions of the Church of England.

The NHS and mental health services are under severe threat, and social services are hugely overstretched. Yet the Church of England’s opacity of operation and dishonest dealings with victims of abuse is only adding to the burdens that the UK taxpayer is being asked to carry. 

Furthermore, it is unconscionable that Bishops – unelected, and only from one home nation – should be privileged with seats in the legislature (House of Lords) and able to claim expenses and other ‘perks’, when they themselves are under no form of mandatory, statutory or professional regulation, and exempt from laws that bind others.

We are firmly of the belief that these matters now need statutory intervention, and the Church of England – with a £10 billion endowment, and in receipt of millions of pounds of Gift Aid tax revenues every year – must comply with the law like any other public body. If it will not do so, then the government should consider withdrawing its privileged, charitable and established status forthwith.

Truth and Justice are no longer to be found within the Church of England hierarchy. Its leadership have opted to speak from a post-truth PR platform, and operate outside any normative standards of justice, and sits aloof from any accountability and transparency. We believe it is not safe practice or good stewardship to donate to any charity that is run like this. Such an operation should not be funded or supported by donors. Weighed and found wanting on the scales of justice, only externally imposed reform can save the Church of England from itself. And doing even more damage to so many others. These ongoing abuses must be stopped at once, and for all.

by Richard Scorer

The ‘Independent Review into Soul Survivor’ by barristers Fiona Scolding KC and Ben Fullbrook  was published on Thursday. The report has generated some criticism from survivors: this piece (link to Scolding, Colluding or Both? My critique of the Scolding Review into Soul Survivor and Mike Pilavachi – God Loves Women (wordpress.com)  is a particularly incisive critique, and articulates some of the feelings which I know some survivors have about the review’s approach. In this piece however I want to highlight some other issues arising from this report. As I observed earlier this year, the Soul Survivor scandal has important implications for the Church of England. As the review makes clear, complaints about Pilavachi were deliberately brushed under the carpet for years, even as the CofE was telling IICSA that everything had changed. This should strike down any complacency about the state of safeguarding in the CofE. If a cover up can still happen during IICSA, how effective is the CofE’s safeguarding system in reality? On this subject, where does the report take us?

Evidentially, of course, this review was handicapped from the start.  God Loves Women raises concerns about the review’s approach to contacting and speaking with survivors – I cannot comment on these, as for the individuals I represent I acted as conduit between the reviewers and my clients. I know however that many survivors were also unwilling, understandably, to speak to a review commissioned and paid for by Soul Survivor itself.  For legal reasons, the Church of England National Safeguarding Team did not share all or even most of the information in its possession with the reviewers. The reviewers also confirm that “We have not been permitted to see Mr Pilavachi’s “Blue File” (a file held by the Bishop which acts as a personnel/HR file for the diocese and which is transferred between dioceses) because of data protection guidelines. We therefore have to rely upon what the diocese has told us about the information contained within it”. In addition, a police investigation remains ongoing. Clearly, therefore, much primary evidential material was unavailable to the reviewers. Hence, for reasons which are not necessarily the fault of the reviewers themselves, the evidential foundations on which this report are built are deficient. 

The report concludes that many if not most in the Soul Survivor leadership knew about Pilavachi’s behaviour. This is not a surprising verdict, and given the known facts any other conclusion would have been nonsensical. However, the question of who knew what and when needs more forensic analysis. There is some of this in the report, but overall the reviewers conclude that “It has not been possible for us to identify exactly who knew what and when, but we consider that those most involved in the church and its leadership would have known about Mr. Pilavachi’s behaviours towards others”. To be fair to the reviewers, it would have been difficult for them to reach definitive conclusions without seeing all the primary material. But there remains a need to properly pin down responsibility and culpability for the enabling of these shameful events (beyond the obvious primary responsibility of Pilavachi himself). This is not about trying to notch up legal ‘gotchas’. A hard analysis of who knew what and when, and what they did with that knowledge, and how they reflect on their behaviour now, is important for several reasons. Without it, those individuals who enabled Pilavachi’s behaviour can hide behind the conclusion that ‘everyone’ knew, and thus by implication everyone was at fault, whilst in effect evading personal responsibility. But it also leads onto another fundamental question:  how can Soul Survivor truly reform itself when so many of the people leading it now were also heavily involved, and some were in leadership positions, during the years when Pilavachi did these things, and was widely known to be doing them?  

To give just one example of continuity of personnel at Soul Survivor between the Pilavachi period and today, the new associate pastor at Soul Survivor, appointed in 2024, was deeply involved in the organisation prior to his ordination in 2016. Before his 2024 appointment, the Soul Survivor leadership expressed its intention to recruit from “outside the church” to bring “fresh perspectives and strengths” (see https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/soul-survivor-watford-appoints-former-member-as-new-associate-pastor ). Given the promises of change in the Soul Survivor statement accompanying the review, I would have welcomed some discussion about this appointment and especially the apparent reversal of a promise to recruit from ‘outside the church’, as this might raise questions about the extent of commitment to change. It would also have been useful to understand what the new associate pastor feels about the handling of earlier complaints about Pilavachi’s behaviour, and how that failure informs his approach to safeguarding and his leadership of Soul Survivor now.  The question of how cultural change is achieved in an organisation afflicted by scandal when there is continuity of personnel arose repeatedly in IICSA; as well as being a fundamental problem for Soul Survivor, it also cuts across the wider Church of England, where many in the current ‘purple circle’ are implicated in previous failings. As someone said to me today, referencing Graham Cray, “there is no real action in the Church of England against Bishops who have failed. How could there be? There would be no-one left”. The report makes some specific recommendations about changes to Soul Survivor’s culture and governance, and the public statement issued by Soul Survivor seems to include a commitment to provide regular updates on the implementation of these. On this we shall see,  but crucially, how is the Church of England, or anyone else, going to monitor this? Reversion to type becomes so much easier when the media are no longer on the case. As Matt Drapper observed online, “without social media, and print media, none of this would have come to light in this way and he (Pilavachi) would likely not have been held to account in any meaningful way”. This is a very important point, and one true of so many CofE scandals, as I noted in IICSA. But the same point also has force looking forward: once the media spotlight is switched off, will past behaviours simply resurface? Absent effective oversight, this is a real risk.

However, on the question of how the CofE– provides that effective oversight, the reviewers could only go so far given their remit. The report makes some pertinent comments about the dangers of quick-fire ordination, an issue which has arisen in other CofE scandals, and about the difficulties in overseeing Bishop’s Mission orders. It emphasises the need for better diocesan oversight “particularly in respect of large churches since these have often been associated with more high profile failures of governance”. Again, it makes some specific recommendations.  However, its ‘Broader recommendations for the Church of England’ at the end of the report have a somewhat motherhood-and-apple-pie  flavour ( e.g. “Those who wish to be in communion or part of the Church of England should recognise that this comes with rights, but also responsibilities”; “An individual’s reputation or prominence must never be a reason not to challenge poor behaviours”; “The Church must continue to promote a culture where the reputation and wellbeing of its members are more important than the reputation of the organisation or any individuals within it”). These are not really ‘broader recommendations’ so much as patently unrealised aspirations.  I don’t particularly criticise the reviewers for this because a comprehensive wider analysis of where this scandal leaves the Church of England was not in their job description.  One of the people we need to hear something meaningful from about this is the CofE’s Lead Safeguarding Bishop, who so far as I am aware has remained largely silent throughout this unfolding scandal. 

However, one of the most troubling passages in the report was the suggestion (in section 4.23) that “Mr Pilavachi’s  view  was that the Church of England’s attitude to the allegations changed markedly from the point at which they reached the public domain and the press”. Whilst this may be a self serving claim, the implication that the Church of England National Safeguarding Team only started to take the allegations against Pilavachi seriously when the media got hold of them is extremely troubling. There is already widespread concern that the CoE safeguarding is  unduly influenced by reputational factors, and is not objectively applied, (for example being weaponised to settle internal scores).  We still have no detail about what the NST actually did in this case, what they unearthed, exactly what action has been taken and against whom, and whether they could plausibly act as neutral investigators given that so many prominent leaders in the CofE have Soul Survivor connections. As some members of General Synod have said, there still needs to be a proper independent inquiry into the Church of England’s failings in this case. I hope synod members will continue to press that case. There are, of course, many more points that can and will be made about this review in the coming days, but the reckoning from this awful saga is far from over.  

 Richard Scorer is Head of Abuse Law and Public Inquiries at Slater & Gordon Lawyers (UK). He acts for some of the Soul Survivor complainants