In the last week or two, we have seen a group of survivors of sexual abuse bonding together so that their joint protest can be heard.  The group in question has absolutely to do with the Church of England.  Indeed, it has nothing to do any church; it is rather a cohort of women victims of Jeffrey Epstein, those who have been abused or trafficked by him.  They are, metaphorically speaking. shouting from the rooftops.  These women realise that speaking their truth to a society, dominated by a rich and powerful elite, is an uphill task.  Their cause and their longing to be heard must be spoken out in the open air to those who are prepared to listen.  So, this group of survivors have been to Capitol Hill in Washington to tell their story to a society which has, up till now, always silenced them.   Communicating these cries of the weak and vulnerable has been hard in a society which is now under the authority of a President who cares little for truth or the rule of law.  Trump’s indifference to the needs of abused or downtrodden victims of any kind is notorious; his example has been followed by many others who do little to show compassion for ‘the least of these my brethren’.

Before I suggest some uncomfortable parallels with our own situation in Britain, I need to summarise the story that has created headlines in the States and will be familiar to the many readers of SC.  The women on Capitol Hill form part of a cohort of survivors/victims who have been both ignored and marginalised after being abused, many in their mid-teens.  Their exploiters were men, wealthy and well-connected men, many of whom control the organs of political and legal power right across American society.  What chance did such women have of being heard when they realised what had been done to them?  They had been promised money and careers as models.  The actual reality saw them picked up and then discarded the moment their usefulness as sexual play objects for the rich ceased.  Many of them are now adrift in a society where the compassion or support to help them rebuild their lives has always been in short supply.

I have called this blog reflection the ‘triple whammy’ of abuse.  What do I mean by this?  I am describing the way in which the abuse of children and young people involves three distinct stages or levels, making it far more heinous than an assault perpetrated against an adult.  Any sexual assault against a child will always be massively damaging.  Recovery from that abuse event requires the support of a highly specialised therapist and cannot be completed in a short series of sessions.  There seem to be at least two stages of recovery that have to be gone through.  My description of this process to be undertaken by the abused will of necessity contain generalities as I have no training or expertise in this area.   A first stage of recovery does, nevertheless, seem to require a victim to be able to face up to the original assault whether it was a single event or repeated many times.  It takes a very special skill and patience on the part of a therapist to bring to the surface such an event that may have taken place thirty, forty or fifty years before.  Having excavated, as it were, that terrible episode, the therapist has a second task.  This is the attempt to untangle and repair any distortions in the personality that have been caused by the assault or abuse.  The victim of abuse may typically have had to battle to preserve a capacity for trust, so that the ability to form normal relationships later in life is maintained. It is for this reason that sexual abuse is sometimes described as soul murder.  The selfishness of the abuser has been the possible cause of the death of part of the personality of a young person.   Seeing a young person as a delicate precious entity that calls out for protection and cherishing to promote growth and flourishing, should be built into the instinctual sensitivity of every human being.  To allow abuse to children, at a time in their lives when they can neither understand what is happening nor defend themselves and their emerging personalities, is a deeply serious affair.

There is a third part of the ‘triple whammy’ which we have only briefly touched on.  The victim/survivor seeks not only therapy and healing as part of the process of recovery.  He/she also may seek justice and accountability.  In the case of the Capitol Hill women, there is the profound symbolism of raised voices close to the centre of the American government and the justice system.  In a sentence, the survivors/victims of the appalling abuse inflicted on them by Jeffrey Epstein and his wealthy friends want to see that the ruling authorities are on their side and justice be administered.  They want to believe that all the material which has been gathered by the Department of Justice, the so-called Epstein files, will be shared with them and the public in general.  This information will shed light on those who knew about the scandal of their abuse as well as the activities of those who were the actual perpetrators of the terrible evils.  Why, for example, have the recordings of abuse in Epstein’s homes and recovered in the FBI raids, never been shared or made public?  Are the interests of the powerful abusers thought to take priority over the hundreds of victims who were taken to these homes?  These survivors have now found each other, and their combined voices create an instrument of real power, able to stand up against the institutional cruelty and inertia of powerful institutions who are concerned only for their wealth and their reputations.  The victims of Epstein and Maxwell who have suffered the abuse of trafficking and sexual exploitation have never had the chance to receive justice.  Together it just may be possible, even in a country now ruled by the forces of the authoritarian Right, that public opinion may demand the purging of such dreadful evils.  It is this fight, waged by the aggrieved victims against powerfully embedded systems of power, that is this third difficult stage of the struggle that many survivors are making.  The plea of the Epstein survivors is also a plea that every American citizen is or should be caught up in the same search for the path back to integrity and truth.  The current political climate has allowed many American citizens to collude with shameful and corrupting ideologies which will weigh them and their society down for many decades to come.

American society needs to wake up to the fact that the voting choices of tens of millions of its populace have created a situation of toleration for, even promotion of, misogyny, racism, greed and the constant oppression of the poor to allow the rich to become even richer.   Voting for candidates who bury truth in the cause of increasing the power and privilege of the rich is in essence a surrender to a corporate evil of massive proportions.  We do not know whether the infection of the evil, which tolerates the oppression and exploitation of the weak and vulnerable, has become so endemic that it can never be eradicated from American society.  The restoration of respect and honour for the stranger and the poor is far from the concerns of those currently in power and those who support them.  The voices of the abused women calling out on Capitol Hill are a challenge to these profoundly evil attitudes which bury and distort anything resembling a Christian morality.  The Bible that is claimed to be at the heart of American Christian values speaks extensively of justice and compassion for the poor and oppressed.  Perhaps one day the Christian instincts of the American people may return to these values and be able once more to hear those in need.

My readers will not be surprised to learn that the voices on Capitol Hill in Washington DC are a reminder for me of another struggle much closer to home.   Like the Epstein victims the survivors of sexual abuse in Christian churches also cry out to be heard by their fellow Christians and by society at large.  Also, like the Epstein abused women of the States, they also face enormous obstacles on the path to healing and justice.  The members of both groups have been the recipients of repeated blows to their bodies, minds and souls.  Indifference and acquiescence in a system that accepts without question the interests of powerful institutions is widespread.  These attitudes often re-victimise and threaten damaged and abused members of our Church.  Like the women on Capitol Hill, the survivors of church abuse face the ‘triple whammy’ of sexual abuse.  It is for the rest of us to understand and, where possible, to alleviate their pain.  We long for them to recover the shalom with which they were born.  Those of us who claim membership of Christ’s church are entrusted with the task of doing all in our power to create around us, with others, a place of safety as well as healing for all who have been wounded through the sin of others. 

For anyone who has ever studied ancient history, the religious world of the Greeks and the Romans is an enigma. Greek and Roman myth is all about the gods being capricious, spiteful, and downright cruel – and often for mere sport. Think of the worst kind of bullying at school, and map it on to some kind of spiritual cosmos. 

Never challenge the powers of the gods. Give them your total respect. Because if  you so much as look at them in a funny way, your life might be cursed and ruined.

The ancient gods were worshipped out of fear and admiration. People had their favourite gods in much the way that they love celebrities today.  Nobody expects an ancient god or a modern celebrity to be a flawless being. They just dole out favours. And the followership can be as fickle as the object of adoration on any pedestal

I am writing this on the day that Lord Peter Mandleson has been sacked as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Washington DC. It appears that the due diligence in his appointment was not as thorough as it might have been, and that Mandelson had continued to support the convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein long after was deemed to be moral or wise. Leaving aside the Icarus myth that seems to be super-glued to Mandelson’s CV, we are left with the usual questions over the probity and integrity of individuals in government.

But they are not gods. You can get rid of them. They may be tragic heroes in myths; or may prevail in some epic saga. But gods, they are not.  It is different in the Church of England (CofE). The leaders have no accountability, yet demand your fealty.

Stephen Parsons’ Surviving Church website often deals with leaders who have feet of clay, cult-like churches, cultures of obeisance and abuse, and terrifying stories of torment and anguish. So it will not surprise readers when I say that the hierarchy of the Church of England (CofE) act just like capricious Greek and Roman gods.

The gods of safeguarding are particularly fickle, vindictive and cruel, and if this were an ancient religion, they’d be venerated (or feared) for their evasiveness, spin and ambivalent relationship with truth. They would not be trusted, and could never be loved. But they demand that we take their word at face value.

Question their statements, and they’ll shun you. Persist with your questions, and they will go after you. The CofE’s Cult of Safeguarding, with its Guardian Bishops, NST, Officers, Acolyte Committees and devotees is a nasty, capricious vindictive affair. But if you don’t appease the Cult, woe betide you.

Many readers of this blog have followed the debacle with Kennedys LLP, the law firm instructed and contracted by the Archbishops’ Council to deliver a Redress Scheme to victims/survivors of abuse.  The Germanic word ‘gift’ is a well-known example of a linguistic paradox, like ‘false friend’. A ‘gift’ can be both a blessing and a curse.

The Redress Scheme fits the bill precisely. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Because it will not be what it seems.  And so it has turned out. Kennedys appear to have been involved in previous litigation against – yes, against – victims and survivors likely to be eligible for the Redress Scheme.  Did the CofE know this? Some of those pushing for Kennedys to run the non-independent scheme are likely to have known that, which raises questions as to why Kennedys were awarded the contract.

Mandelson, of course, was sacked for failing due diligence. But now we know Kennedys have acted against victims/survivors of church abuse, will the CofE act? Not likely. ‘Alea iacta est’ (the die is cast) with the CofE’s repeated re-abuse of the word ‘independent’.  The gods of CofE safeguarding have their own definition of that word. It means ‘at arms-length’; some third-party conduit.

We know this because the CofE Redress Scheme Working Group is no longer operating, yet Kennedys Law LLP still require instruction and payment from their client in order to carry out their work, task and role. The client is most likely the Archbishops’ Council, which de facto means it will be William Nye as the Secretary to that body.  If it were claimed General Synod is the client, William Nye is also the Secretary to that body. Many victims and survivors of abuse would not choose to place any matter of safeguarding redress in Mr. Nye’s hands. Ever. They do not trust him, and do not regard him as a person of honesty, probity or integrity. But he’s a god in the ancient Greek sense. You don’t cross him.

If Mr. Nye has now become, effectively by default, the senior party instructing Kennedys, that is a matter of grave concern to victims/survivors . It plainly casts considerable doubt on the possibility of this process being an ‘independent’ means of arbitrating and determining redress, as the CofE has wished to claim.

The CofE announced that it £150 million had been set aside for the Redress Scheme(https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/general-synod-approves-redress-scheme-survivors-church-related-abuse). However, we do not know how much of that £150 million will be claimed by Kennedys as part of their administration and legal fees. We do know, for a fact, that Kennedys indicated that the total amount was inadequate for the work envisaged. We also know that this was raised as an issue with the Archbishops’ Council. The gods waived this away.

Plainly, a major risk is that in the running of the Redress Scheme, the biggest beneficiary will be (drum roll)…Kennedys. For those who followed The Great British Post Office Scandal, one will recall that the first cases settled in 2017 amounted to £58 million. However, the claimants only received £12 million of that, with £46 million going to the lawyers in costs and legal fees.

In other words, victims of the Post Office injustices received just 21.4% of the amount awarded. Since there are several hundred victims of the CofE’s abuses, there is a significant risk that of the £150 million allocated, perhaps only 20% of that sum will be available to compensate survivors and those abused. [See the relevant article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal].

Without sight of the Terms of Reference under which Kennedys were appointed, clarity on who is now instructing them, and how compensation is to be apportioned from the £150 million, victims/survivors are at serious risk of (perhaps) having their cases heard; securing judgment in their favour; yet winning very, very little by way of redress/compensation.  Just whatever is left after Kennedys have claimed their fees and expenses. 

As the legislation to approve the Redress Scheme must go to Parliament, victims/survivors will be aware that another risk is that those who drafted the legislation – lawyers and legal officers working in Lambeth Palace and Church House Westminster – all reported directly to (drum roll)…William Nye. 

If the legislation is to be approved by Parliament, then victims/survivors and MPs ought to have complete and unambiguous reassurance that no senior staff from the CofE will be involved in the interpretation of the legislation. Otherwise, that could be construed as an extremely serious conflict of interest.

It could effectively lead to a situation whereby the legislation approved by Parliament will be drafted by the very body that is responsible for the abuse of the victims. To put this in simple terms, imagine a scenario in which lawyers for the Post Office and Paula Vennels set out the terms for drafting the binding legislation and the total amount for compensating their victims. Just imagine.

Given the CofE’s repeated claim that Kennedys are delivering the Redress Scheme as an (allegedly) “independent body” victims/survivors, are now placed in an impossible position. Confidentiality with the NST, Archbishops’ Council and CofE has been wholly breached. But Kennedys, are now blocking communications with victims/survivors who question this. We also have strong reasons to believe that some victims of abuse have previously encountered Kennedys acting against them.

This suggests that impartiality has already been undermined in the Redress Scheme, if not fatally compromised. Correspondingly, full transparency is now essential. But these gods do not like to be questioned.  In the CofE Cult of Safeguarding, with its Guardian Bishops, NST, Officers, Acolytes and devotees, all questions will be ignored, dissenters shunned, and complainants subjected to intense cruelty.

Remember when the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was deemed by the Archbishops’ Council to be “too independent…and too survivor-focussed”, the ISB was sacked. Can the Archbishops’ Council sack Kennedys  for the same reasons? Of course they can. So, will they sack Kennedys for the data-breach, or if it is found that they have previously acted against church victims/survivors? Probably not.

In all of this, the NST, desperate to keep control of their Cult and to appease their gods, will offer the usual crocodile tears and concern. The NST will never accept that they are a major cause and source of trauma for victims/survivors. Yet it would be astonishing if they didn’t know that. After all, it has been said often enough and repeatedly so by victims/survivors. 

Meanwhile, the NST is offering (independent) “help and support” from somebody indirectly in their employ.  Naturally, it must be somebody that the NST approves of and can rely upon for their purposes. The Cult will only use its own Guardians and High Priests that it can control. The NST will not pay contributions towards the ongoing therapy costs that victims/survivors might have already established outside the control of the Cult. The person chosen by the NST to deliver “help and support” is not regulated by an external professional body. So if that person fails any victim/survivor, there is nobody to complain to except (drum roll)…the Cult.

Does the person proposed by the NST have her own indemnity liability insurance in the event of causing further harm to a victim/survivor, or is the Archbishops’ Council covering this? The NST won’t say. The Cult has no need to answer such questions. Does the NST’s nominee have a relevant degree or accredited professional qualification in safeguarding or therapy? Perhaps an academic award such as a Masters or PgDip? How and by whom is their much-vaunted “experience” evaluated – and what are their qualifications and accreditation for doing so?  The NST won’t say. The Cult has no need to answer such questions.

Why would any victim/survivor ever want to avail themselves of another of the NST’s unqualified, unlicensed and wholly unregulated staff? Especially as the CofE’s Cult of Safeguarding operations are unquestionably a major cause of the harm and the trauma that victims/survivors experience?

Can the NST not see how inappropriate and abusive it is to compound their damage by offering to make it right? Is the position of the CofE that the best people to help survivors/victims are their actual abusers? Is this “safeguarding”?

There are no answers to any of this, because the CofE hierarchy with its Safeguarding Cult all acts “as though they were gods”. That’s why the major common denominator for victims/survivors is this: they’ve all left the CofE. This Cult is abusive, and its gods are capricious and cruel. Escape is the only safe option.

We have finally reached the end of another stage in the long-running saga of the Sheffield Nine O’Clock Service and its one-time leader, Chris Brain.  A jury in a London trial has found Brain guilty on 17 counts of sexual assault and sentencing is due at some point in the near future.  This story in one way is very old news.  The older among us have known most of the details of Brain’s offences for 30 years.   The newspapers gave extensive coverage to the scandal when it broke in 1995, and Roland Howard wrote a competent account of the story in his book The Rise and Fall of the Nine O’Clock Service A cult within the church (1996).  I do not intend in this blog to go over the details of this material which has been rehearsed again in the trial.  My task is somewhat different.  I want to remind my readers that there is another story to be told.  The Nine O’Clock Service (NOS) is an important story in any history of church work among young people in the 20^th century.  However much we want to focus on the scandalous aspects, or criticise it and its theological and practical outworkings, it did, in its day, attract a significant level of support from the wider church and its leaders.  The ‘rise and fall’ of NOS, in short, remains a notable event in the history of Church of England youth work.  The problem was, as the Soul Survivor drama also clearly demonstrates, that few people are ever willing to critique ‘success’ or ask uncomfortable questions.  Still less has there been any real understanding of the toxic dynamics that are so often a feature of large crowd events.  Even now there is remarkable little insight into the vulnerability of the young to large group dynamics which can overwhelm them, both spiritually and emotionally.

  My interest in writing about Brain now is not to comment or add anything new to the material presented in the NOS court case about his criminal behaviour towards young women.   My purpose is to recall another aspect of the Brain story, one that does not seem to have attracted much discussion.   This is the way that the NOS innovative worship style for young people had then many imitations right across England.  To say that NOS was influential is not in any way arguing for the quality and soundness of what Brain was doing in Sheffield.  But it is true to say that in youthwork circles there was a feeling that something new and exciting was going on.  Up to the moment of its collapse, NOS was also being regarded with approval by church leaders from different theological traditions.  Certainly, I cannot recall anyone speaking out against the rave services, planetary masses and the highly idiosyncratic teaching.   At the time I was open to the teaching of Matthew Fox, an American Dominican, who provided some theological mentorship for Brain and the distinctive themes of his teaching.  Like many of the fashionable ideas current in the 80s, Fox’s ideas on Creation Spiritualty have receded in their influence but, no doubt, they will be dusted down and ‘discovered’ again at some point in future.  A greater influence on me at the time were the writings of Lesslie Newbigin.  In his book, The Other Side of 1984, Newbigin, like Matthew Fox, had attempted to challenge the dominating ideas of the 18^th century Enlightenment about the nature of truth and reality.  The Enlightenment had given the facts revealed by science a privileged and esteemed place within Western thinking and culture.  This approach needed to be challenged and certainly not assumed to be the only manifestation of truth.  Interestingly, John Wimber was saying some similar things to his audiences and the resulting discussions helped to give rise to some interesting theological discussions in parts of the Church.

The second influence from NOS, one which affected me only indirectly, was the way that church youth work all over the country seemed to want to copy some of the practical aspects of the NOS worship experiments.  Youth workers from many churches travelled to Sheffield to attend the highly innovative forms of worship and seek to copy ideas for their own ministries.  Brain seems to have been able to recruit some highly gifted people to help him create dramatic expressions of worship, using light and sound to foster a highly charged atmosphere for his services.  I never became familiar with the detail of these styles of worship, and certainly nothing changed at the level of our Sunday worship where I was serving.  But the NOS influence was strong at the Diocesan level of youth work.   The youth worker for the Gloucester Diocese had embraced the NOS vision with a degree of enthusiasm which now seems, in retrospect, to have been almost idolatrous.  Once bitten by the NOS bug, the youth worker seemed unable to focus on any other type of youth work in our diocese.  His whole energy seemed directed towards organising NOS look-alike services around the larger churches of the diocese.   There were, I believe, some older church people who wanted to identify with this new energy for youth work and so the worker was able to raise the necessary money to buy lights, sound systems, smoke machines and other equipment for these services.  The fact that my parish was right on the edge of the diocese, meant that my young people were unable to attend unless they had very obliging parents.  I also had queries and concerns of my own which made me less than 100% enthusiastic for these new forms of worship.

What were my worries about the stories of NOS inspired worship that came back to me as a parish priest?  In the first place there was an uncomfortable level of control (manipulation?) of feelings and mood at play.  If an idea is powerfully shared through the forceful use of symbols, it may have the effect of taking over the feelings and driving out any rational process.  In other words, the worship was, for me, a bit too physical and overwhelming; there was no opportunity to reflect.  It seemed to be a matter of surrendering to these powerfully induced emotions.  Teenagers are not a group easily able to work out how best to resist uncomfortable attacks on their rationality, especially when these assaults are made with the help of sound, light and imagery. 

The second and perhaps more serious problem that I felt at the time, but probably never gave expression to, is what we would refer to now as safeguarding concerns.  If you are skilled at creating highly emotionally charged atmospheres in a nightclub style environment, then it is not hard to see how such a setting can be exploited.  When I heard that at our local Gloucester NOS services, routine hugging was included in the expression of love and mutual acceptance, I began to wonder whether such episodes might soon get out of hand.  Intimacy, embrace and love may all be words that potentially fit into a Christian setting, but they may also be words used by a predator who is able to exploit the fact that personal boundaries may be routinely undermined in the new styles of worship.

The end of NOS in Sheffield was sudden and dramatic.  The NOS events that I was observing with concern locally in the Diocese of Gloucester probably did not, in fact, get out of hand because our local NOS-inspired events also stopped when the Sheffield ministry of NOS came to a sudden end in July 1995.  Brain’s dominance over the project had been total and so, with his sudden resignation, everything connected with the NOS effort all over the country stopped overnight.  All that was left behind was a sense of shock, trauma, disillusionment and, no doubt, a sense of betrayal.  It would probably be difficult now to discover how far the NOS influence had spread around the country and whether the effect on my diocese was typical of other areas.   Almost instantly after Brain left, the diocesan Youth Officer in Gloucester resigned, and all his future local planned services were cancelled.  I have never seen any discussion on the impact that NOS’s experiments had on church youth work, not only in Sheffield but around the country.  A ‘learning lessons’ was probably just too difficult a task.  It was also realised, probably, with some embarrassment no doubt, that the oversight of Brain by senior church figures had simply not been undertaken with any degree of thoroughness.  No one among the senior clergy in Sheffield, who had offered an extensive welcome to the NOS experiment, resigned or even showed a real desire to understand what had gone wrong.  For me there was a realisation that senior clergy in the Church of England also had very little understanding of what I was beginning to see as the central problem at NOS – the issue of power.  Throughout the project, there seems to have been an inability to understand, let alone deal with, the power dynamics at NOS.   Accountability and democratic decision making were nowhere to be found and no one senior in the hierarchy was prepared to challenge the dynamics of the group as long as the project appeared to be successful. 1995 and the aftershocks of the NOS experiment also marked the beginning of my own interest in power abuse in the Church.  Much of the focus of my more recent writing, in the blog Surviving Church and my book Ungodly Fear, looks back to this theme of power and its abuse and this had been vividly displayed in Sheffield.  The aftershocks of NOS still reverberate.   A continuing failure to fully understand how power operates within its structures contributes to a serious weakening of the Church and its capacity to influence British society over recent decades.  

by Jonathan

I hope readers will have a look at Jonathan’s original article which vividly describes the vulnerability and powerlessness of a junior member of the clergy when things go wrong. This blog is a follow-up to the original story, one and describes the continuing effect of an NDA issued by the Church. This, he believes, acted as a way of trying to extinguish a significant section of his life. What has come over in both articles is the impossibility of receiving a proper hearing if those set over you have come to a determination of your guilt, incompetence or whatever puts you on the edge of the institution. Jonathan, Anne-Marie Ghosh, Fr Griffin and John Brassington have all experienced with many others having to face the debilitating power of a strong institution determined to protect itself and its reputation.

Three years ago I wrote a blog post sharing my experience of an NDA in the Church of England (https://survivingchurch.org/2022/07/22/my-experience-with-an-nda-in-the-church-of-england/) This shared something of the experience, still fresh in my memory, and the events as they happened.

It has now been three years since then and a lot has happened. I have spent the majority of that time in therapy working through the experience itself alongside all that it unearthed, exposed and irritated. I have also rebuilt a new life for my family separate to the CofE. Amidst all of this I have spent a substantial amount of time reflecting and soul searching to try and make sense of this experience and what it has taught me. Attempts to understand what happened, and how I can close this chapter and walk boldly into my future.

A term I heard thrown around a lot in the CofE is that of ‘lessons learnt’, a term I have come to despise! The way I have heard it used amounts to something to the effect of:

‘Something uncomfortable and/or embarrassing has occurred that we don’t want to admit to, or properly and robustly address, so instead we’ll reframe it as an opportunity for learning by producing a document outlining what we might do differently in the future to avoid taking any real accountability for the harm done or actually remedy it in anyway.’

So with that in mind, I want to take this phrase – that rubs me up the wrong way – and use in a more genuine way to share some of the lessons I have indeed learned from going through, processing and recovering from this ordeal.

1. It’s not really about me

As I’ve done the hard work in therapy and been empowered with tools and understanding in post cult counselling, it’s become increasingly apparent that my experience has so little to do with me. Or, to put it another way, all that happened to me wasn’t personal. If you said this to me at the time I would have scoffed and laughed you out the room! It felt immensely personal and even targeted! While the effects and impact were deeply personal and far reaching, I can now see how I was simply incidental to the deeper systemic dysfunction within the CofE. I see how various actors were simply following their programming and conditioning to ‘protect’ the institution, safeguarding reputation and those with power.

This doesn’t make it ok, but it does re-frame it for me. It feels different to see that the problem is not me, but the ugly beast that is the structures and hierarchy of the CofE following their core values. It makes it easier to walk away and cut all ties having seen the ugly face that had been kept hidden from me until that moment. But for me one of the core causes of this dysfunction is…

• The unaccountable power of Bishops

Three years on this is one of the core issues I see in regard to the great harm caused by the CofE. My experience made this unaccountable power very tangible. This can sometimes feel like a secret hidden in plain sight. How many roles and processes contain ‘bishop’s advisor(y)’ in the title? This is strictly correct. A bishop has the executive power to do whatever they want without having to justify their decision to anyone else. All anyone else can do is advise!

The ordination selection process is a good case study. The Bishop’s advisory panel is just that, advisory. The panel can only make a recommendation that the Bishop can chose to accept or ignore. Same is true during theological training. Taking it a step further, a Bishop can forego any of this and ordain someone, bypassing selection and training completely. There was an example of this in my previous diocese, which was often the talk of clergy gossip. Bishops wield a scary amount of power over people’s lives and futures and this is painfully apparent during selection, training and curacy.

This became poignant for me, when the Bishop ignored the recommendation that I had passed my curacy assessment and instead chose not to sign me off. This makes it very hard, if not impossible,  for me to get another post in the CofE. He didn’t have to justify this to anyone else or provide much of a case. It was done behind closed doors without standardised processes, accountability or proper process of appeal.

This level of unaccountable power wouldn’t be acceptable in any other workplace or organisation, why is it acceptable in the Church of England? 

How do they get away with it and keep it on the down low? Well…

3. The use of settlement agreements to silence and cover up

In the past three years I have signed a settlement agreement and an NDA in the corporate setting. However, they were very different to the one the CofE offered me.

The NDA related to sensitive business information that needed to be kept confidential during an investigation. I was required to sign the NDA in order to continue to handle this sensitive information in my day-to-day job. It made no claim to anything that had happened to me or was my own personal information. This is how NDAs should be used. To protect data belonging to a business, not to cover up wrongdoing. Changes in law should better enforce this going forward preventing unethical use of NDAs to cover up and protect failure and shortcomings of those in power.

My CofE issued NDA made everything I had done in my 4 years of curacy confidential including material of my own creation. It prevented me speaking of what had happened to me first hand and hence sharing my story. In essence, it tried to take ownership of my lived experience and buy it from me. They tried to take from me that which is rightfully mine having lived and breathed it in painful Technicolor. They wanted to condemn me to living the rest of my life bound to lie about a significant period of my life. It was this dehumanizing aspect that pushed me into the realm of suicidal ideation as I contemplated signing the NDA. This was the chief reason I didn’t sign it. It felt like giving them parts of myself they had no right to claim. 

I have also since been offered a settlement agreement when being made redundant in a corporate setting. What was most striking was that this agreement protected both me and my former employer from negative comments. In contrast my CofE issued settlement agreement protected anyone I had ever had any dealings within my curacy from negative comment regardless of its factuality and offered me zero protection in return. As above, they were silencing me, taking my story, my lived experience from me. For what? The initial offer was less than my stipend till the end of my license. I gained more money by not signing and seeing out my license.

In hindsight the CofE settlement agreement was a significant power move trying to own me, my work and experience even after I had been evicted from ministry. It was so all encompassing to take four years of my life from me in a controlling and dehumanizing way. I am not the first, I will not be the last. This is their standard operating procedure for handling inconvenient truths and whistle blowers.

4. What I wish someone had told me before making a complaint

I look back and realise how naive I was going into the complaints process. Though really this was all symptomatic of the belief that I could trust the hierarchy to act with decency, fairness and integrity. In many ways I look back and see that as the main mistake I made in everything.

When I was contemplating raising a formal grievance against my first training incumbent, my new training incumbent was very encouraging and supportive. However, in hindsight – given what I’ve learned since – I wish someone had said something more like this:

‘I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been treated so poorly, I believe you and you deserve so much better. It’s not fair and it’s not right but please know that unless you have significant amounts of clear, explicit evidence of the abusive behaviour its very hard to adequately prove in an investigation. Given the power dynamics in play, it will just end up a case of your word against his and he has power and diocese favour on his side which will all work against you. If they can, they will side with him.’

In so many ways the number one thing I wanted was to be believed and validated in how harmful the experience had been. That’s what I hoped for from a grievance process, but in hindsight I see my folly. Working through my need for validation has been a key part of my therapeutic work and being able to offer that to myself empowering and healing.

From where I stand today, I think there are two options for dealing with a bullying superior in the church or work.

1. Set out to gather conclusive evidence of this behaviour sufficient for a grievance process. This requires staying in the situation and possibly even deliberately provoking the abusive behaviour in order for it to be observed by others or recorded in some way. This can take an enormous emotional toll.
2. Get out of that situation one way or another, remove yourself from the abuse and work on your own healing and recovery away from the abuser.

Justice is a wonderful ideal, but bullying is complex and nuanced with a lot of subjectivity. Is it defined by intention or impact? Of course, some behaviours are clearly and objectively inappropriate, but much manipulative and bullying behaviour is subtle and cumulative. Proving it to a third party, especially one not well versed in coercive control and manipulation, can be near impossible. It is harder still when they have conflicts of interest and other biases that means they don’t want it be true…

When I found myself working for a bully once more in the corporate workplace, I handled things differently having learned the hard way before. Of course, in a conventional job your housing and career are not tied in the same way, it’s easier to leave a job knowing you can stay in your house and simply move to a new organisation – The cost is less. But it explains the culture of fear I so often encountered amongst other clergy. 

5. From Victim to Survivor

These terms are used somewhat interchangeably, and I’ve had time to think about what they mean specifically for me.

From my vantage point ‘Victim’ is a noun, something I am. Survivor relates to a verb, describing something I’ve done: survived. I have moved from being identified with ‘victim’ as my identity and something that imprisons me, to shedding that identity and instead being a ‘survivor’ describing the active work of healing and re-building.

I remain anonymous as ‘Jonathan’ not because I fear the CofE and am not willing to put my name to this, but instead because I have survived and I don’t want to be forever linked to, and defined, by how they treated me. I have built a new life free of them and I want to keep it that way. I survived the hell they put through me, allowing it to be a crucible of deep and lasting, if painful, healing and formation. It has not broken me, in some ways it has been the making of me, not that I don’t carry the scars, and they don’t twinge from time to time.

6. There is hope on the other side

When I was ‘in ministry’ in the CofE that was a strong stigma attached to those who had ‘left ministry’. It wasn’t seem as a reasonable choice someone might make but was associated with moral failing, not being able to hack it, or losing their faith. In the moment, it felt like I lost everything. It felt like there was no hope or future beyond ordained ministry in the CofE. I had been told that was my purpose, and calling and vocation after all! Some of those around me also acted like this was a death blow with comments like ‘did he hear God wrong?’. I’ve reclaimed my vocation from them, it never belonged to anyone but me. Equally I no longer feel the need to equate it a particular job, role or function.

I’ve since met people within the CofE who wish they could leave but don’t feel able to, or fear there is nothing good on the other side. I want to say that in my experience, this is simply not true. I have built a good life for my family, even a better life than we had in ministry. We own our own home, live the life we want to, without the higher-ups breathing down our necks. I am healthier and happier than I ever have been. Ordained ministry doesn’t have to be for life, it’s ok to leave, to walk away to do something different. That’s not failure. In fact, It’s the mark of something operating as a cult when leaving has so much stigma.

I have also finally taken the step to utilise the clergy disabilities act to cut the final tie to the CofE. This changes my status in law to no longer be a priest of the Church of England with all the limitations that come with that for my new life.

I have survived, I am free I am living my life and there is hope and life and joy on the other side. 

“We wish to close this determination by expressing concern about the route by which this matter came to be before this tribunal. False allegations, rumours and assumptions have been blindly accepted to create a situation where significant harm has been caused. Insufficient time has been taken to question motivations and perspectives, and questions which should have been asked have not been asked until too late. There are two instances which stand out sharply in this case.

“First was the decision of the diocese to move the respondent’s abusive husband into a vacant vicarage within the parish in which she was working.

“Second is the worrying acceptance without question (my emphasis) of that husband’s allegations of an affair between the respondent and Mr Slate….

“We trust lessons will be learned and that the support that the respondent should have received from the Diocese of Coventry will now be provided to her in order to support her flourishing in her future ministry.”

Extracts from the published Determination of a Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Coventry, dated 22 July 2025[1], following the recent trial of a complaint made under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 (‘the CDM’).

The words above in italics and in the blog heading form part of a Church tribunal assessment, responding to a case based on a CDM complaint against a female priest in the Diocese of Coventry.   The case against the Reverend Anne-Marie Ghosh[2] for alleged conduct unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in Holy Orders” was rejected.  In delivering their judgment, the tribunal articulated firmly their criticism of the process that had led to the bringing of the formal complaint against the priest.

The story attracts attention, not only because of the vivid, even colourful, detail contained in the account set out in the Church Times, August 8th, page 3: ‘Clergy reproved over case’.  It is also a clear example of how poor and bungling process can upend a diocesan attempt to manage a case of clergy discipline.  Whatever went wrong in the Diocese of Coventry, whether it was faulty groupthink, unprofessional decision-making or misogynistic attitudes, there is clearly a considerable task to be undertaken to rebuild local trust in the way church discipline is administered.  The case often mentioned by Surviving Church, that of ‘Kenneth’, is another example where allegations have been accepted without question and where considerable pain has been caused to an individual. 

In this blog post we have been permitted to refer to Kenneth by his real name which is John Brasssington.  His case involves an accusation of the abuse of a child which he has consistently denied over five years.   There are, of course, important differences between the two cases.   In John’s case, the alleged offence involves causing harm to a child; in the other the alleged offence is that of engaging in adulterous behaviour. 

Two other features draw the two stories together.  Both of the cases belong to the Coventry Diocese, and both involve systems where individuals have proceeded with allegations based on faulty assumptions.  John has never been permitted to challenge the assumption of the core group in his diocese that he is guilty.  In the CDM case there was, fortunately for Ms Ghosh, an independent tribunal able to see through the accusations brought against her.  No such tribunal exists to examine the accusations against John, so he still lives with the cloud of being considered ‘high-risk’ and unable to play a full part in his church.   

Before we suggest further links between the Ghosh case and the Brassington case, we need to spend a little time noting some of the other details of the current story which have allowed the most appalling suffering to be experienced by the Coventry priest.  The acting archdeacon who brought the CDM complaint would seem to have been too ready to accept the allegations of guilt made by two men in the account, the ex-husband and the training incumbent.  This latter individual had a duty of care and nurture towards his curate, especially in the first two years of ministry when she was having to deal with a failing marriage.  The thought that a vicar, one presumably vetted before being given this delicate task of helping a novice priest, should behave with such apparent malevolence is a cause of dismay.  This apparent antagonism shown towards the curate on the part of the vicar suggests that he is unfit to exercise the ministry of training/supervision for a fellow priest ever again.[3]  No doubt the stories of late-night vigils outside the curate’s home trying to find direct evidence of ‘unbecoming conduct’ will have circulated among his congregation.  Such behaviour will, no doubt, have undermined the relationship of respect that normally binds priest and people together. 

One thing that is worth pointing out is the different treatment afforded to church members depending on whether they are lay or clerical.  One speculates that John might have received a proper hearing if his case had gone down a tribunal route equivalent to that under the CDM.  Such a tribunal would, hopefully, have been alert and able to see through the assumptions and faulty reasoning on display in his diocese.  The safeguarding process in the Church does not seem to know what to do with a layman who stubbornly refuses over half a decade to admit guilt for an offence that he maintains never occurred.  Over five or six years, John, supported by his friends has had to stand up to a long and debilitating demonstration of raw institutional power.

The final chapters in both the Ghosh story and that of John Brassington have yet to be written.  As regards the Ghosh case, the new Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Revd Sophie Jelly, has the difficult and challenging task of picking up a demoralised and institutionally battered priest and seeing what the future holds.  One hopes that the diocese has resources, both financial and pastoral, to deal with this situation so that Ms Ghosh can make a new start in ministry where she is surrounded by people of understanding and compassion.  As far as the Brassington case is concerned, is it too much to hope that a certain humility might yet prevail among the diocesan safeguarding authorities which will allow them to remove his ‘high risk’ status and allow him again to play a full part in church life?  Several attempts have been made to close his case down, but the attention of outside bodies, including now his MP, have kept his case alive and attracting support.  No doubt, the new Bishop will be wanting a fresh start in managing discipline matters so that her diocese can move forward in this area without unresolved past cases continuing to remind people of serious failings in this area. 

Public exposure of unprofessional behaviour by clergy and poor judgement shown by professional committees do not inspire confidence in any institution.  Is it just possible that the salacious detail of the Ghosh saga might create a new appetite for the Church in the Coventry diocese and throughout England to get things right at last in the way discipline cases are handled?  The criticisms of the Coventry handling of a falsely accused priest will not vanish quickly from peoples’ memories.  The Ghosh case and the comparable Brassington case are too serious to be forgotten.  There is, of course, the hopeful possibility that instead of cover-up, denial, and silence, the Church in Coventry and elsewhere may move forward in a way that chimes in with the zeitgeist of the moment, one which is desperately seeking transparency, honesty, and integrity.  The correct way forward will require decisive leadership, perhaps to be provided by a new Archbishop. Is it too much to hope that the cancer of weakened reputation and collapse of trust in the Church will be decisively checked by a new leader?  He or she will have to opportunity to offer spiritual and moral leadership to the nation.  It may be that in the middle of all the political and moral chaos in the country and the world, these values of clarity, honesty, and integrity may be rediscovered.  The Church may indeed rediscover its role of providing inspiration and moral guidance for our nation.

[1] The full Determination can be downloaded from the Church of England website: determination-the-revd-anne-marie-marsh-22-july-2025_0.pdf

[2] In the tribunal’s Determination the respondent priest is referred to by her married name, Anne-Marie Marsh.  The Church Times report states that she has reverted to her maiden name.

[3] The tribunal said this about his evidence at paragraph 12: “We found the evidence of Mr Gold to be troubling. It was quite apparent that he was trying to minimise the length and extent of the difficulties in his relationship with the respondent. He demonstrated a worrying willingness to believe the worst of the respondent. We were concerned that he had clearly been told about Mr Marsh’s abusive relationship with the respondent and yet he still accepted without question the allegations made against her by her husband without speaking to her about them.”

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Before the July General Synod in York, I attended a secular wedding where the young ring bearer shyly approached the front of the gathering . To ease his nerves, the civil celebrant reverted to humour ; “ It’s alright son, you’re safe with me – I am not a real priest”.

Everyone laughed. I laughed too, even as I winced at the very low regard which ordinary people were comfortable to be publicly exhibiting at the mention of what a real priest represents in most people’s minds today.  The witty quip works in the public sphere, because, sadly, real priests are no longer trusted (c.f., Church Times, https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/4-december/news/uk/public-trust-in-the-clergy-has-dramatically-decreased-in-recent-years-survey-finds).

As a member of the General Synod of the CofE for ten years, I was part of a body bearing a share of responsibility for that decline; during my term of office safeguarding scandal after scandal hastened the collapse in public opinion. In helping to bring those scandals to the attention of Synod members  I had played a part in dragging the truth into the public domain thereby hastening the nation’s falling out of love with the Church. Yet these horror stories were only “the canary in the mine” signalling danger. As I lay my burden of responsibility down, here are my reflections on some of the other ongoing causes.

The late Queen was unquestionably committed to the health of the Church of England, but we now have a Supreme Governor  who seems happier to commend the merits of other faiths. He has not yet visited the elected  institution which significantly oversees  the Established Church in his name.

 His own well documented support for  one of  principal abusers – Bishop Peter Ball – is an awkwardness for him, but it might have been overcome with humility and honesty. However the institution he leads does not prioritise either in any real sense. When failure is identified the buck stops nowhere from top to bottom.

In 2018 a number of us sought to set out the multi-dimensional character of the Churches problems as viewed through the lens of those seeking justice transparency and accountability. Within the National Church. We did so in a book named Letter to a Broken Church. Looking back we were incredibly naive. We believed that if only people with knowledge experience and professional experience put the issues into the public domain  the Church Authorities, Parliament and the public would be able to see the full depth of the problems. We hoped there would then be a serious engagement and a purposeful  rectifying of the fundamental weaknesses that had facilitated both the harm and the cover-ups.

I think I first realised the complexity of our task when in the middle of addressing Synod at the Question and Answer session, I found myself stumbling across the question  “Where does the buck stop?” nobody had an answer, and neither did I, so I began looking.

With the help of colleagues I realised that amongst the “McCavities” who are “never there” to own responsibility of failures are –  the Archbishops, the House of Bishops, the Archbishops Council, the Secretary General, the Synod itself, its Standing Orders Committee, its Audit Committee, the establishments at Lambeth Palace and Church House, the Canon Law and its benefitting legal servants, the Charity Commission, and the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament.

At every turn, whether we are talking error , misjudgement, constitutional log jam, or , as some say, moral failure and/or corruption,  there is an entrenched  culture of plausible deniability. This is not the time to set out the evidence for this proposition; a simple Grok search will deliver multiple examples from this and other Blogs which have assiduously catalogued the problems in detail over the last decade. Their record of service to victims and the truth far exceeds that of the various responsible bodies of the National Church.

Some may wish to use the comment section to record which issues strike them as especially egregious.

Few invested within these structures are willing to speak openly with similar clarity, but  many would be surprised at how many – and who – is willing to privately acknowledge that this most establishment of institutions is deeply dysfunctional in the face of the moral challenges it has faced.

A number of conscientious Synod members have confided in me that they have had enough and will not seek re-election; this is a disaster. When historic memory departs the culture of dysfunctional accountability will renew its confidence and dominance to the detriment of good governance.

A few Synod voices ended up expressing what others could not or would not say; it has not always been comfortable and whilst I saw a useful role,  I remained. I no longer see that as a viable option. Synod is plainly part of the problem and not part of the solution. A few recent examples of will briefly illustrate.

In York this year following the death of Audit Committee member Clive Billeness I sought to finalise his work by raising issues he had told me he had intended to attend to immediately before he died.

Victims were getting no answers to legitimate questions about monies attributed to the; complaints against the Secretary General had disappeared without trace, credible evidence of impropriety in the presentation a document presented in legal proceedings had been detected by Clive in the exercise of his professional skills and his warnings were being ignored. The report f the Audit Committee rested on the authority of one member of Archbishops’ Council ( The body being audited) and a single elected member; he reported that the independent members had resigned but  explanation was offered as to why and most extraordinary of all, he was flippantly incurious.

A “following motion” to ask that when brought up to strength the audit committee should revisit Clive’s concerns and report; although unusual. This it was in order having been approved through the legal office – very helpfully.

Yet again, the issue was timetabled late in the evening and again a member of the Standing Order Committee preferred to play what we simple Child Protection lawyers used to call “silly buggers”   “Next business” was called before anyone had an opportunity to explain the merits of the case.  The vote was taken without the serious merits of the case being heard.

Although I have already decided I would be resigning, this confirmed the wisdom of my decision. I am convinced that Synod is not a place where serious reform has any prospect of being  initiated from the grass roots, and much of the superstructure of power is as complicit in the injustices as our victims are telling us.

One small additional anecdote; Clive was so concerned at the rational inexplicability of  some attitudes and outcomes, that he had begun to seriously consider the influence of Freemasonry. He had acquired the forty year old report to Synod which had overwhelmingly accepted and expressed concerns at its influence. Freemasonry has traditionally had strength within the cultures of the Law, the Civil Service, some parts of the Church  and the police (from whom many safeguarding advisors are drawn – all of which are “in the mix” in the eyes of reformers like myself.

I asked a Synod question on what happened to the report – and the response from the Bishop of Europe was not dismissive but he lightly confessed that he had had trouble locating it – which raised a few smiles. Suffice it to say – and without breaking confidences –  I was surprised at who sought me out to confess that they too shared Clive and my concerns. I hope somebody picks up the baton. But I doubt this will happen. Freemasonry is not something that those running the agenda of General Synod really want discussed. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

More generally, we often hear that “Synod is over managed” – it is a common internal complaint. “The same people get called to speak”; “ I never get called in debate”; at Synod Q&As, questions are evaded – “they treat us like fools as if we don’t notice” etc.

So 18 months ago, I and a few others called a meeting of the House of Laity to offer everyone and anyone a chance to set out their grievances and above all to listen. There was no mono directional motion. It was timetabled for late in the  evening and many absented themselves. After one dissenting voice was called and declared “ We can discuss this down the pub” a canny member of the Standing Order Committee moved “next business” it was carried so the debate ended. No supportive voice from the floor got a word in. There was frustration and anger at the game playing on display.

Did we all “go down the pub”? Did we discuss it outside of our circle of friends: did we hear from those outside our “tribe”. The initiative was killed off by shallow naivety and gamesmanship from the establishment.

As for myself , now  that I have time on my hands I am free to indulge a separate passion – to learn to play guitar in the “gypsy jazz” style of Django Reinhardt – an equally challenging task to reforming the CofE.

I am however encouraged by a superb mentor who not only can hold his own with the world’s greatest players, but is acknowledged to be  one of the finest teachers in the genre. It is refreshing to work with those who know what they are doing.

As he unpacks the mysteries of  crafting a limitless flow of complex innovative improvisations, he breaks his approach down into small  steps and principles – the motif, the minor 6th arpeggio, the “quotation” etc . His zen like mantra is always “This is simple – but difficult”.

The Established Church is utterly in love with its “special” status; outsiders disturbing its sustaining of complexity are to be resisted by all means possible. It will not change easily. I have come to realise that the remedy is indeed “simple- but difficult”

I confess that I have become  a late convert to the view that putting this right will only begin with the root  and branch reform that would follow disestablishment of the Church of England. Nothing less will suffice. Only that end will, finally, place the Church of England under the same laws that govern every other person and institution.

Disestablishment will stop the Church of England being “a law unto itself”, marking its own homework on safeguarding, perpetrating discrimination, abusing HR, ignoring employment law, and otherwise “straining the gnat whilst swallowing the camel” (Mt.23: 24). That day cannot come quickly enough.

by Martin Sewell

At the York Synod I indicated that I would be tendering my resignation from the General Synod and I now confirm that, having, fulfilled promises to individuals to deliver whilst in post, I have now felt able to make good on that promise.

In this piece I shall set out my principled reason; in a second post I shall explain why I felt remaining was not a good use of my time. The culture of Synod is broken and I see no way forward during my term of influence. 

There is a year left on my term of office, and I could have let it quietly expire, but decided it was better to go early for a number of reasons. Some might be interested in them so here is a brief outline,

First, when re-elected I had indicated that I would not be seeking any further term, so my time for departure was already fixed. As matters have developed I became convinced the I could achieve none of my purposes by remaining and so it was time to go. 

When I first secured election I had stood on a platform to promote “transparency and accountability”; I disapproved of candidates who did not set out in their election addresses precisely what they stood for, often running under coded phrases instead of being honest. 

I had recently read Douglas Carswell’s excellent book “ The Death of Politics and the birth of I-Democracy” in which he had won approval across the political spectrum for identifying how “ the Internet would change everything”. I saw how this would impact the Church and its governance and wanted the CofE to be readied for the culture of disclosures that was plainly about to impact the Establishment in its multiple forms.

Having recently recently retired as a Child Protection lawyer I added – almost as a throw away line- that my experience in Safeguarding might come in handy, and so it transpired.

When I entered office I was followed  by a number of  “headline cases”on Safeguarding  in which I became involved – Bishop Bell, Matt Ineson, the Iwerne Camps/Smyth scandal events in the Oxford Diocese and several others of importance; it is not immodest to say that together with my colleague David Lamming, we became the voices of victims of injustice within the Synod itself; other voices were making equally important contributions outside of Synod. They were turbulent times., yet we were met with obstruction and obfuscation of those who cannot see that the times were changing  

Amongst the advocates for change there was then a simple unity of vision. The Church was unjust to complainants and respondents alike, it was complacent arrogant dismissive and frequently obstructive. Even when their leaders did “get it” Synod often did not – many still do not.

Yet determination and public opinion did achieve some purpose and  those abused by the Church  adapted to the new environment in a variety of ways and I make no criticism of them for doing so. 

Some have walked away; some have received a measure of satisfaction for their grievances; others have resolved to abandon trying to work with the Church and to concentrate on Parliamentary lobbying. Others are waiting on the sidelines to see which of these disparate strategies offers them the best way forward. There is similar variety in determining how one defines “independence” in future Safeguarding structures.

Be that as it may, and wholly respecting each perspective, I came to recognise that whereas once I could legitimately claim to speak 

“for survivors” ( who at one time were united in the singular purpose of seeking justice) this was increasing becoming less so. It was not for me to adjudicate such differences of approach or lend such credibility as I possessed within the Synod Chamber to one view or the other. 

I have, over nearly ten years said what I thought on Safeguarding matters: collectively the Synod knows my views and if  they have not taken my points already, there is little more I could say to improve on that.

With the passing of the Redress Scheme and the kicking into the long grass of the reform of Safeguarding oversight, there seemed to be nothing of consequence likely to be decided in the remaining months of this quinquennial. It was time to go.

I should offer sincere thanks to Synod colleagues who offered me personal support and encouragement; they know who they are, and they do not know how important they were in sustaining me in the toughest of times.

My decision does not mean that I shall cease supporting the reform project, it is simply that I need not do so from within the  institution. I shall expand upon those additional reasons for walking away in a separate post. 

There are a number of words in the English language which need always to have other qualifying words to help us understand how they are being used. One word which illustrates this point is the word gratification.  On its own we do not know if the word is being used to describe something good or bad.  The addict seeks gratification by indulging in his/her drug of choice, whether it be alcohol, heroin or food.   There are various examples we can think of when we use the word in proximity to this notion of desperate craving or addiction.  These forms of behaviour, involving an intense need to satisfy an overwhelming physical/emotional desire, lead to a temporary relief or gratification of physical urges.  The use of the word gratification in this context will normally indicate a level of disapproval on the part of the speaker.  The same speaker may well add other words, like ‘desperate’ or ‘out of control’ to indicate further their sense of powerlessness or dismay at the plight of the addict.

The fact that gratification is a word that is often used in a negative context should not blind us to the fact that it is, when used in a positive sense, a very useful idea.  It can be used in a positive context when describing honourable activity and human flourishing.  Many of the patterns of behaviour that we want to see encouraged in our fellow humans are activated or motivated by the promise of gratification at the end of the process.  The effort of writing a book, for example, which includes physical and emotional input, seldom brings wealth or fame, but it normally offers to the author a sense of achievement and satisfaction that we describe as gratifying.  Writing books is, of course, not the only key to honourable gratification.  There is one particular experience common to the bulk of the human race, that of forming intimate relationships, which brings gratification.  Parenthood in particular leads to the reward of experiencing gratifying satisfaction.  To see one’s children ‘brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord’ is an achievement of great importance and the cause of enormous contentment and the right kind of gratification.

The many examples of human activity which lead into satisfying and lasting gratification can be added to at length, but they all have characteristics in common.  The first thing about them is that they draw out from the individual some area of skill and creativity which reveals some of the potential for full humanity with which he/she was born. What makes this skill/creativity special is the way that other people are often enriched by it.  It does not have to be special skill honed by years of practice and training.  It can simply be the readiness to offer help to a stranger.  I have now reached the time of life when young people offer me their seat on buses or trains.  I accept readily, not just because I do not want to stand on a crowded train, but also, I sense the opportunity of allowing a person the chance to perform an act of generosity is giving a blessing to the giver.  The simple human act of giving will always bring grace as well as gratification to the giver.

Gratification of the honourable kind can first be found in these two forms.  The first is through the development of our gifts and abilities whatever they may be.  Then there is the joy of forming intimate relationships, especially those which cross the generations in the institution we call family life.  The task for each of us is, in different ways, to share what we are and what we have with others so that the world is a slightly better place for our having been part of it.  All of us will want to be remembered as individuals who gave more than they took from others.  If that memory is true of us, then we have cause to feel, in old age, the gratification of a life well-lived.

So far, we have identified two ways of describing human gratification, the honourable over against the self-indulgent/selfish manifestations.  We come now to a third manifestation of gratification which, when placed on a spectrum, embraces both the good and the bad.  I am referring to the pursuit of gratification through the exercise of power.  Some individuals expend enormous energy chasing after the gratification that seems to be given to those who are famous and influential or who simply have the levers of control over other people.  Power over other people is sometimes mixed up with other things, like wealth or emotional control.  This possession of power is not inherently corrupting or selfish, but it very quickly can become something toxic if the person exercising it is also subject to some existing personal compulsion.  This may result in bullying or dominating behaviour, perhaps compensating for some traumatic event from childhood.  Exercising power in a just compassionate fashion may also be, at a different point along our imaginary spectrum, a way of making life better for others.  A medical worker or a teacher has to assert authority and exercise power as part of their work.  Their training and professional skills should protect them from any personal aggrandisement or need to dominate.  Gratification is still to be found in this responsible expression of power.  The satisfaction and gratification created by doing any task well is owed to such professionals.  By contrast the selfish use of power over others seems to promise an instant gratification for the bullying individual, but such behaviour clearly demonstrates a distorted approach to relationships.   Sadly, many people only understand power in relationships in terms of aggression and coercion.  Somewhere along the line they have lost touch with the healthy longing to give to others rather than to take.  We could all speculate why some individuals tip over into the realm of seeking gratification through angry attempts at control rather than giving.  Whatever answers we come up with, we could probably agree on one thing.  In all institutions and settings where some exercise power over others, there will be occasional clear examples of bullying.  For the sake of the well-being of all, processes and procedures are needed to deal it quickly.  While a healthy institution should always be aware of the need to respond and outlaw such behaviour, the main antidote is good leadership and example from the top.

It would be good to make the claim that the Church is an institution infused with the love of God, making bullying and the exercise of power gratification among its leaders impossible or, at least, unusual.  Sadly, power games and the pursuit of what we call toxic gratification are extremely common.  The Church does not help itself through its apparent unwillingness to be sensitive to the ways that human beings can so easily lapse into patterns of dominance that we have learned to associate with secular organisations.  The task of identifying individuals who are trapped in their personal need to dominate others and thus destroy the proper working of the whole organisation is vital.  One person, seeking the toxic gratification of their power needs, can undermine the possibility of true communication right across a congregation.  Instead of what we long for, accepting loving fellowship, there is an atmosphere of suspicion, fear and tension.  The possibilities for each individual to grow spiritually to discover the shalom of God at work in their lives are thus much diminished.   That shalom, however one translates the word, is the true gratification that is offered by our faith.  The desire of a few among the leaders and their immediate circle for the gratification of power, influence and sometimes sexual exploitation over others is deeply destructive.  Many who attend church faithfully and regularly are thus denied the fullness of a nurturing experience.  This they might otherwise have enjoyed but for the selfishness of the few who demand their gratification ‘needs’ be fed through exploiting or ignoring the needs of others.

This blog post has been about the possibility of all members of a church enjoying the shalom/the gratification of living and enjoying the nurture of a Christian fellowship.   Alongside the possibility of living with such a great gift is the common reality, even in churches founded on the teaching of Jesus, of toxic gratification practised by leaders.  Perhaps what I am seeking from the church is far greater sensitivity among those who select and train ministers.  They must be more alert to the likelihood that some who seek leadership in the church are pursuing a path to exercise a toxic dominance over others.  There is much talk in a safeguarding context of protecting ‘vulnerable’ individuals from exploitative behaviour.  Perhaps a still more urgent task is to recognise that when leaders find their gratification in the wrong places, much harm is caused and stumbling blocks are placed to the well-being of the flock.

by Stephen Parsons

This blog post is written at a time when we are witnessing some deeply destructive divisions in the Church.  In surveying some of these dividing issues, I am certainly not the first person to notice how many of the contemporary points of profound conflict among Christians have links to issues of human psychology. The classic theological conflicts of the past – the filioque debate or the question of whether the second person of the Trinity is of ‘like substance’ to the Father or of the ‘same substance’ as the Father – were of a different order. The winning side in this latter debate was the ‘same substance’ cohort.  Their victory is written into the so-called Nicene Creed, an elaborated version of which we still use today after 1800 years.  Another debate which caused bloodshed and acrimony at the time, the Filioque controversy, has settled into an uneasy truce, with the Western Church adopting it and the Eastern Churches with the Anglicans of Scotland opting to leave out the word from their versions of the Creed.  In summary, Christians are still divided but the things which separate them now are quite different.

What are the issues that currently divide Christians, even those that belong to the same historical groupings/denominations?  If we dig into church history, we encounter many debates and divisions, such as those dividing Arminians from Calvinists.  Today we find, in some circles, lively debates centring on the attempt to create a normative statement to explain how Jesus’ death on the Cross allows his followers to obtain salvation.  Such theological debates are still important, but the topics that today are really causing the greatest passion, as well as division among Christians, seem to have less connection with purely theological matters.  My contention here is to claim that by making some church issues, like the ministry of women, of ‘first order’ status, they are given a centrality which does not belong to them.  To argue for or against the ministry of women in terms of priesthood, ministry and leadership is surely not a key matter affecting our ultimate eternal destiny.  No Christian should wish to place another Christian who had another view on women’s ministry into ‘Room 101’.  And yet the contemporary debates about women (and the LGBT divisions) seem to inherit some of the passion of the mobs that plagued the streets of Constantinople in the 6^th century, killing rivals from another theological position.  Will the Church ever be able to flourish when we anathematise each other with such passion over these second order issues? 

Perhaps I should summarise my observations about the discussions on the role of women in the Church in this way.   Those who debate in this arena on both sides seem to derive much, if not most of their energy to sustain their position from their personal psychology.  In other words, we are normally witnessing more in the way of passion than a rehearsing of the traditional theological debating points.  Over the years, I have listened to the arguments from Scripture about the need for women to accept subservience in church matters and keep silent in church.  Then there are the other stock arguments from the Orthodox and Roman traditions about the witness of 2000 years of male priesthood, as well as the evident maleness of Jesus’ original band of apostles.  All these arguments have been rehearsed countless times.  As far as the Anglican Communion is concerned, an unsatisfactory truce has been declared, and two integrities, representing both sides of the debate are allowed a place at the table of normative Anglicanism. 

My position in this debate is to side strongly with the cause of women’s ministry.  I nevertheless regret the fact that we have these deep damaging divisions fed, I believe, by the passions of human psychology rather than reason and theological debate.  I do not propose to raise further issues that surround the LGBT debate.  I merely observe that it is hard to even think about, for example, homophobia in the Church and not recognise that personal psychological issues on both sides are embedded in this debate.  Many of the issues which are brought up in discussing the place of women in Church draw on similar human passions connected with human identity.  Each side in such a debate will draw much from the individual’s personal psychological story while trying to wrap it up in the calm rational language of theological discourse.

As a supporter of the cause for women in ministry at every level, I draw attention to the way that there have been many parallel attempts to downgrade the role and status of women in the secular world.   As a school leaver who worked for a short while as a hospital porter, I found that the women I was working alongside were being paid substantially less for the same job.  The unfair treatment of women, then and now, could be summarised as an institutional misogyny.  Misogyny is a word which covers a range of attitudes towards women, some involving strong emotions of hatred for the female sex.  The word is also used to indicate a low-level irrational dislike by men for the opposite sex.  Misogyny and its associated feelings creeps into the arguments and divisions about the place of women’s ministry in the Church.  Whether we are aware of it or not, misogyny is never far away from the discussions about the role of women in church and society.  Because misogyny is a feeling it draws its energy from irrational roots, making it a poor guide to justice and clear reasoning.  Emotional energy will always be a part of any debate but a reliance on such primal energy is dangerous for the cause of truth.  We need to admit that such feelings can act as a distorting lens for any issue under debate. Identifying misogyny (and homophobia) should alert us to the probable emergence of passion and primal feeling.  These so quickly distort and destroy calm and rational process.  Arguing from a position of passion and feeling makes it likely that we have gone beyond a position of compromise or reconciliation.   The supporters of feminism and female leadership draw on their own resources of passionate argumentation.   It sometimes seems that neither side in the debate has any incentive to give way to the other, and so we are not likely to see the argument ever resolved this side of the Second Coming.  

What are the classic reasons given to explain the appearance of misogyny in contemporary society, one which feeds and encourages the stance, one seeks to deny women an honoured and full place in church ministry? It will not be a surprise to see that I neither have the space nor the expertise to answer such a mammoth question.  But amid all the material on the topic, there is one fascinating observation from the psychology literature which throws unexpected light on the male-female struggle.  I am not sure of the origin of the psychologically based observation that I am attempting here to summarise.  Books on feminism and Christianity mostly disappeared in my great book purge of recent weeks.  The argument that I want to rehearse here, which I found very compelling when I read it, starts with the insight that many men feel a strong need to control the women in their lives.  They find it difficult to accept them as equals or, worse still, stronger in some important respects.   Women seem to have access to dimensions of emotional power which most men do not have, and many men are afraid of it and jealous of that power.

The fact that the male sex is biologically able to exert physical power over the female sex is an important given in the ‘battle of the sexes’ being played out in our contemporary culture.  This potential for physical dominance is acted out in many domestic situations, and it is suggested as many as 25% male/female relationships see violence as being part of the relationship.  One factor that is often overlooked and may provide a key to understanding why men feel a need to physically dominate their female partners so commonly, comes from a universal male vulnerability.  Every boy was once a small defenceless creature, utterly dependent on a woman for food, safety and the physical touch needed for survival.  In other words, every male child was once totally dominated and dependent on a female.  Men can never escape that memory of physical enmeshment with their mother.  For many men, determined to fulfil the male role of being the one in control and a powerful creature able to dominate and exercise power over others, this is an intolerable memory. Might we suggest that violence and the mistreatment of women is a kind ‘revenge’ against the female embedded in one’s memory and who was once in total control.  This insight makes a lot of sense as it seems to explain that strange combination of fear, worship and resentment towards women that exists in many men as they fail to produce rational patterns of thought and attitude when debating the role of women in the church.  For that debate to take place properly there needs to be a far better capacity for the sexes to engage with these psychological primal issues.  I fear that many men, even in the Church, will be unwilling to make this journey to face their vulnerability in this way.

by Anon

The latest diocesan guidelines for ministry in our local church have just come though the letter box. It is exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to read. It is a document drafted with “legal support” from the diocese, and by our “safeguarding team”. My reaction to the document, as a clergyperson, was one of fear and incredulity.  The letter and document tells me that failure to comply could result in the loss of my ministry, and perhaps in criminal prosecution.

Some of the letter is very sensible, albeit lacking legal nuance. I am told that the definition of a child is “anyone under 18”. I have a small youth group that are under-18s, and am keenly aware that the age of consent is 16. The laws on the consumption of alcohol are rather grey at the best of times, and once a child reaches the age of 16 they can join the armed services, and will soon be able to vote. They can drive a car at 17, and with parental permission, marry at 16. Treating a 17-year-old as a child in any church youth group doesn’t seem very smart to me, but I understand the need of the diocese to be risk-averse.

The definition of a vulnerable adult (or protected adult) advanced by the diocese is also vague. The diocesan document says “temporary impairment” could place any adult in this category. So it will cover anyone recently bereaved, or struggling with some other serious pastoral or personal crisis. (I think to myself, the church is full of such people all the time, and all of us who minister, including me, fall into this category – surely the church is a God’s field hospital for the broken?).

My diocese says that everyone who ministers in the congregation is now required to be regulated according to the new guidance. If someone is in regular contact with children or vulnerable/protected adults in any interface that is “ministry”, this requires “authorisation” by the bishop. Ministry is defined as “anyone who has regular contact providing religious activities”. That could be overseeing the orange squash and biscuits for the children after church. If that is a regular duty, and there is a rota, then this falls within the regulatory framework, and so volunteers who are on the rota need to trained and subject to the criminal bar (DBS) checks.

The guidance acknowledges that someone stepping in to help on this rota as an emergency to fill a gap would be acceptable. But if that person is regularly helping, they need to be checked, regulated and licensed/authorised. Anyone with “regular contact” in any sphere of ministry with children or protected/vulnerable adults is now subject to such regulatory scrutiny.

The diocese tells me that this is my responsibility. It also tells me that in the church “safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility”.  All of this is presented as “new guidance”, though please note, it is not guidance, because the threats and penalties for not following it make it clear that these are mandatory stipulations.

My diocese also has some other mantras that appear, on the face of it, to be unrelated to the new safeguarding .guidance. We have been repeatedly told – I cannot remember a decade of my ministry when the bishop at the time has not said – that we are to encourage “every-member ministry” in our churches. That “all Christians have a ministry and vocation”. That the church – especially the laity – have to be “released” to discover what ministry they have. And that being part of the church is to belong “to the whole ministry of the baptised people of God”.

If this is true, then I think to myself, not unreasonably, that it would appear that everyone attending church, unless very occasionally or just very casually, needs some kind of licence to enable them to be part of a congregation. After all, if they are doing so regularly, they must have some kind of ministry and vocation. 

Anyone could find themselves ministering to a bereaved person who happens to come to church, and simply asks for prayer and consolation from the person they are sitting next to. I’d hope most of my congregation would know what to do, and could extend compassion, help, support, prayer to such a person. (But please note, the new guidelines from my diocese say that anyone sitting in the pews faced with this kind of pastoral situation should immediately find the licensed or authorised person to respond to the person in need, and absolutely not step in – so the bereaved must be left until the correctly vetted respondent is found).

Then I think of those in our congregation for whom the legislation and ‘guidance’ ostensibly protects.  Our youth group takes an evening service once a month, and it ministers powerfully to the rest of the congregation. Those who are retirees and of advanced years find the energy and exuberance of the youth-led services to be inspiring and moving, and a young person will often deliver a short talk that rouses the congregation.  Does the youth group leading the worship and the ministry like this need to be vetted by the diocesan safeguarding protocols? Or should such ministry not be allowed, as the youth are all under-18?

Every week the Sunday School children give us feedback – within the worship – on what they have learned. Many adults in the congregation can find this more inspiring and moving than the sermons. Jesus and the New Testament had some important things to say about the wisdom that comes from the (seemingly) young and foolish. I wonder if these short, regular children’s slots in worship need vetting?

And we do have some in our congregation who are, quite clearly, protected or vulnerable adults. They have a range of physical and mental disabilities, and live in either nearby sheltered accommodation or a local care home. They vary in age from young to old. They always come with their carers or are accompanied by family and friends. But they have a ministry in our congregation too. Some take a slot by being on welcoming duty, in leading our intercessions, or being on the rota for reading one of the lessons. Without fail, the rest of the congregation testify to how much this ministers to them. So I find myself asking who is offering the ministry here, and who is being ministered to? 

If I read the guidance from the diocese correctly, it operates with a prevailing presumption that he able-bodied and ‘mentally-normal’ (for want of a better phrase) are the those who need to be licensed, and those who are less able or classified as children or vulnerable are the ones to be protected. But the experience of my own church suggests that this paradigm doesn’t work. We minister to each other. 

The safeguarding guidance we have seems to have missed the quiet revolution in disability theology that has matured in power and influence over the last 25 years, and which grew out of secular developments in disability studies. The guidance also seems peculiarly ignorant of the literature in the field. I think of Nancy Eiesland, The Disabled God: Towards a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1994). Or of Josie Byzek’s assertion that “people have disabilities because people are human –  impairment is a natural part of the human state.” We all have vulnerabilities. That is part and parcel of what being a human is.

To begin with, disability theologians had focused on issues of accessibility of places of worship. But the same theologians would later argue that theological reflection on disability could not be limited to questions of rights and access alone. They began to question the underlying theological anthropology of Christian churches. Theologians such as John Swinton, Brian Brock and John Hull have written powerfully and persuasively in this field. Part of their argument is that the majority of theologians in history were ‘able-bodied’ and that, therefore, the experience of disability had not been taken into account in the development of doctrine.

For example, in John Hull’s case (a theologian who gradually went blind), he showed how most theologians had developed negative biblical hermeneutics on the metaphor of blindness. But that only works because the people writing the theology were sighted.  Hull developed a hermeneutic that narrated blindness in a more positive theological light. (John Hull, In the Beginning There Was Darkness: A Blind Person’s Conversations with the Bible, London, SCM Press, 2001).

The new diocesan safeguarding guidelines seem to be oblivious to these major developments in theology. And it reminds me of the puzzling ‘Q&A’ that features in Luke 10: 10:25-37.  A lawyer asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”. Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a story about a good Samaritan – a person who would have posed all kinds of ritual, tribal, religious and implied threats and risks to the victim of the story, who would have been a God-fearing Judean.

One important feature of the parable is that the Samaritan would have been perceived as posing an additional threat to the most vulnerable individual in the parable. So we could argue that in being perceived as a potential threat to the victim, the Samaritan also renders themselves vulnerable. Come to think of it, I find it hard to imagine any ministry that does not involve some risk and vulnerability on the part of those giving or receiving. So, having taken another careful look at the new diocesan guidelines on safeguarding, I have concluded the following.

First, the guidelines assume that all ministers are able-bodied and in a constant state of optimum mental stability, and thus not vulnerable persons. To me, this seems a paradoxically vulnerable and exposing position to inhabit, and a theologically elitist way of understanding ministerial roles. It is almost bound to create additional cultures of risk rooted in dangerous fantasies of impeccability. Even if such projections are rejected by the minister, others could hold the minister accountable to them, and ask the church hierarchy to weigh and judge a minister against them.

Second, our children and vulnerable adults undoubtedly have ministries, and the scriptural witness affirms that factors of age, infirmity, capacity and agency do not inhibit any person from being an agent of God’s grace.  They can plainly minister with considerable power and impact. If any person who meets this criteria has a regular slot or designated role (e.g., reading a lesson, welcoming duties, leading prayers, etc), then the diocesan guidelines on safeguarding say that these persons should be vetted, regulated and licensed.

Third, since it is hard to exempt any person attending church from processes of diocesan authorisation – the bar is set very low as “regular contact with children or protected adults in any recognised role…” – who in my congregation is exempt from this? If safeguarding covers everything, then surely it is nothing? Unless, of course, everyone attending church as part of the ecology of every-member ministry needs vetting and authorising, simply in order to fulfil their vocation as a faithful Christian.

Having read the new diocesan safeguarding guidelines, and as a minister, I can only say that I feel vulnerable and unsafe as never before. But the same guidelines make no provision for me in what has clearly become an extremely precarious role.