I used to have a book on my shelves which had the title When a Church becomes a Cult.  It has not survived the house moves since retirement, so I can only remember its contents in outline.  I believe it was written with a conservative Christian perspective so that I was not in agreement with some of its presuppositions.  But the problems that the book raised, even in its title, are important ones to all of us.  However much we want to see clear water between our churches and fellowships and the so-called cults, the contrast or differences between them are not always so obvious to an onlooking public.   How many non-church people can clearly tell the difference between door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of a local Pentecostal group? 

As the long-term readers of this blog will know, I have been a member and a participant in an international organisation which studies the groups, political and religious, that are loosely described as cults.  The organisation called ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association), has been encouraging the study of these ‘high-demand’ groups for over 40 years.  The association is aware of the difficulties of language in this area of study.  While I do not propose to offer definitions of the word cult, there is a consensus that it is appropriate to use the adjectival form, cultic, to denote the fact that there are many groups which share a family resemblance to well-known and publicly identified cults.  These latter ones would include such groups as Jim Jones’ community in Guyana, the Branch Davidians of Waco and the Korean based group, commonly called Moonies after their founder, Sun Myung Moon. 

My ICSA membership and the conversations it has allowed me to have during their conferences, has kept me constantly asking myself a key question.  While churches would normally vigorously distinguish themselves from cultic bodies, are they all justified in doing so?  This blog piece will suggest that some church bodies do stray into behaving in ways that are close to those practised by high demand cultic groups.  When they do this, it is not surprising if observers on the outside find it hard always to tell the differences between them.   The impression that the outside world picks up about the behaviour of leaders and members of some of our churches does not always conform to the highest standards of ethical behaviour.  Social media followers and readers of daily newspapers also cannot be blamed if they pick up some strange ideas about what Christians claim to believe. If the Church were to be only to be a network of closed social groups, then its public reputation and profile might not matter.  If, on the other hand, it wants to reach out to the wider society with a message, then the reputation it wants to have is of some considerable importance.

I have pondered the apparent similarities between the groups we describe as cultic and some churches. Here I want touch on three areas where there is room for misunderstandings and seeming overlap.  The first is in the area of a claim to possess utterly reliable, even infallible, texts.   For the Christian this would normally be a devotion to the Bible. On its own devotion to the words of Scripture is not in itself a sign of cultic leanings. Other groups might find their ultimate authority in other foundation texts like the Book of Mormon or the writings of L Ron Hubbard. In the second place, we would expect to find at the centre of every cultic group, and churches which resemble them, a leader who exercises a degree of charismatic and coercive control over ordinary members.  In some groups and churches this control would appear to be abusive and exploitative.  A third feature of the more dedicated cultic groups is their readiness to withdraw from mainstream society and engage in what we might regard as intense forms of community living.

In each of these three marks of behaviour or practice which can slip over into the cultic arena, we can see that some churches are not always clearly differentiated from full-blown cultic groups.  The first area where some Christian bodies seem to have much in common with cultic groups is in the way that the group treats its primary written authority.  Whether it is the Bible, or some unique revelation given to a founder, a similar dependence and devotion to that scripture can be seen.  At this point I am not arguing for or against the truth of any written authority around which a church or cultic group is organised.  I simply note that such a document is used as a touchstone for everything else.  The believer/devotee is tied to that document as the mediating force of all truth.  If a belief or form of behaviour is thought to be contradicted by the central source document, it has to be rejected.  This is what I have elsewhere called binary thinking.  Not all examples of binary thinking qualify a church to be described as cultic, but all cultic groups seem to operate with this notion that everything is either true or false.   There is no space for a gradual discovery of any new insight or revelation.  All that is important has already been written down for our learning by L Ron Hubbard, Moon or God.  From my perspective such binary thinking Christians are moving with a similar world perspective as that operating within all the cultic groups.  I have written about this attitude to truth many times.  My summary here will be to say that, if truth is found at the beginning of life’s journey, there is no possibility of discovering newness, creativity and wonder at some stage late in life. Binary thinking is a kind of intellectual cul-de-sac, and it is hard to escape from it.

Along with binary thinking there is another feature of cultic groups which they share with many Christian bodies. This is what I call the narcissistic exchange. This expression summarises a distinctive but often toxic quality of relationship found in Christian and cultic groups alike. It describes the adulation and prominence given to a leader when followers get caught up in a kind of uncritical worship of their figurehead.   It is narcissistic because first it seems to be feeding an inner need for such flattery and importance in the leader.  Often the leader is deliberately kept physically apart from the followers so as to enhance his mystique and apparent holiness.  This kind of superior detachment is apparent in both the cults and some large churches.  The inner circle around the leader is there to protect the leader/guru from getting too close to the followers. They might then see behind the curtain that the leader is an ordinary fallible human being.  The followers do, of course, have their chance to venerate a leader when he appears at a highly choreographed event like a service or gathering.  They then receive their ‘narcissistic feeding’ because the leader will do his own version of flattery towards the congregation.  He will tell them that they are the chosen saved group and he will always protect them.  The self-esteem of the individual followers is this way being fed by the scraps of attention that they receive, even at a distance. In a somewhat different context, we see something of this narcissistic exchange going on in political rallies organised by Donald Trump.

The third area of recognisably cultic experience which churches share with the cultic groups is the way that each organises the experience of community life.  Loneliness is a major problem in our society and there is particular trauma associated with growing up in Western societies. The trauma experienced by most young people is that around leaving home.  The support of parents is not always available when the adult world is first encountered. Many churches and cultic groups recognise this state of deprivation. They offer experiences of community life which may make few demands on those who come. The problem about fellowships in some churches and cultic groups is that they may be offered as a kind of palliative to the trauma of growing up.  Here you don’t have to engage with conflict and other painful learning about relationships that is the normal part of entering adulthood. To offer fellowship or an instant friendship circle to a lonely individual may act as an instant pain relief in the short term, but it may not be necessarily in the individual’s long-term interest. One of the issues much discussed at the ICSA conferences is the issue of readjustment to modern society after membership of a cult. In some cases, the individual has never had to deal with conflict, housing, money or mature relationships. At the age of 35, the ex-cult/fellowship member may find themselves all alone and unable to cope emotionally or practically with the world that they had been encouraged to leave behind at the age they joined the church or cultic group.

These three experiences, binary thinking, narcissistic exchange and claustrophobic experiences of community life – these are three areas which can create emotional, social and intellectual disability in churches and cultic groups alike.  An army of psychotherapists seem to exist in the States to help individuals recover and return to maturity and resilience, but far fewer seem to exist in Britain.  It is not that we lack qualified people to do psychotherapy, but few trained here seem to understand the religious aspects of the trauma created by cultic groups and the churches that resemble them.  The therapists in the States also face the current political madness of Trumpian inspired conspiracy theories.  This deeply corrupted thinking seems thoroughly entrenched in churches of many kinds.  To call it a political and religious craziness is probably no exaggeration

In the New Testament there is a word which is translated perfect. The Greek word, teleios, in fact means something like complete or mature. The question that we have is whether we are helping those who come to our churches to move towards completion, fulfilment and the finding of their full potential. Surely that is a good and laudable aim for all Christian churches, one that does not involve the immaturity found so many cult-like fellowships and congregations.

by Martin Sewell

“ The sky is black with chickens coming home to roost”  _{Alan Bennett}

Rarely has Alan Bennett’s  witticism  seemed more appropriate than in the Church of England as a slew of reports have begun to emerge which should call the leadership to account for multiple sins of commission, non-commission and neglect.

Autumn 2022 was always going to be a busy time for those of us who take an interest in these matters and the task is especially onerous for members of the General Synod who have to try to engage and explain all this to a membership, 60% of whom are newly elected. Getting to grips with things is easy but as an “old hand “ I must do my best to offer some pointers.

The first thing to grasp is surely this; that the Church of England does not like to hold anybody to account. It may talk of Human Rights ( especially to others) but it secured for itself an opt out from the HRA: despite occasionally referencing its principles, salting the texts of its guidelines with the language of compliance, try suing the Church for a breach and you will find what it really thinks of being held to account for its failures in these areas.

Internal processes are often opaque and those responsible unaccountable for failure so the next Synod in February will be a key test of the Church’s commitment to cultural change. Those ill treated by the Church of England will be eagerly watching to see if there are any honourable resignations or disciplinary proceedings following the reading of the promised material that is due by that time. Whether the promised reports actually arrive in time is a matter we cannot take for granted.

Let us consider what may be available for debate.

General Synod has yet to debate the report into the untimely death of Fr Alan Griffin, driven to suicide by gossip.

Nobody has seen the independent SCIE reports into the responses of the Archbishops’ offices to survivor complaints. We know they were delivered months ago but that was the last anyone heard of them; whether they disappeared under floods at Bishopsthorpe or have been consigned to an oubliette in Lambeth Palace is currently unclear.

We have seen the PCR2 reports which disclosed 383 cases of abuse which were “missed” during the first attempt at identifying historical cases. That first effort was plainly an absurd failure and whether this was by accident or design we really do need to discuss. Whatever the reason should we not be holding individuals boards and structures to account to understand how such mistakes came to be made.

Survivors have met and produced a useful list of issues about PCR2 which can be read here I have circulated this throughout the House of Bishops and have had a few positive responses for which I am grateful so it is happily not all bad news.

Worryingly, different Diocese applied different tests so this may not represent the full extent of the problem

We were promised the long delayed Makin report into the scandal of John Smyth’s crimes in the early autumn: it has still not arrived but we surely must see it by February. Much of the material is already in the public domain thanks to the work of journalist Andrew Greystone whose book “ Bleeding for Jesus “ is a thoroughly readable account of what happened. Andrew has not been paid anything for his investigative work by the Church but the Makin Review will have cost us well over £1m. Surely a Canterbury Cross would not come amiss there? I doubt he is holding his breath.

The Makin Review will shine a light into various areas of the Church where there was indifference, neglect, naivety, PR calculation and determined-cover up., Will there be repentance,  stepping back, for penitent “reflection”, or more excuses, truculence and self pity in those quarters that finally come into the light of scrutiny? That report will be worth a Synod debate of its own.

But even such an A1 scandal will be fighting for debate time. One does not envy the Business Committee as it tries to manage a full Agenda for only three days of meeting.

We have not yet mentioned the IICSA report with its recommendations and controversies.

Mandatory Reporting, Redress and the Seal of the Confessional all deserve  consideration.

How will the proposed IICSA redress scheme fit in with that already approved by the General Synod Church of England? Will it become another excuse for delay and inaction? It is not as straightforward as it looks, and desperate survivors needing help, will be anxious whether current support will be maintained whilst the alignment of schemes is being pored over by the lawyers.

Speaking of lawyers there is the whole problem of “conflict of interests “ revealed in various cases but especially that of the Oxford Scandal where the same lawyers represented the College Malcontents, the College Governing body, the Bishop of Oxford, the Diocese of Oxford, the National Church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury – all at the same time in the same matter!

Does anyone seriously think this is not problematic ? ( except for the Church lawyers  – obviously). The Solicitors Regulation Authority is looking into this and may report by February which might make matters clearer, but surely some questions might  arise as to how this was allowed happen.

We are not going to be assisted in this by the “ Independent Safeguarding Board “ – because it does not exist.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

After Court action was initiated against it by Dr Percy, the ISB raised the defence that it could not be sued as it has no legal personality in law and so cannot have litigation brought against it. It  functions as a sub-committee of the Archbishops’ Council investigating…err…th Archbishops’ Council…independently! Members of General Synod may recall that I personally asked about this during the July Question Time. I received no proper answer neither was it clear if the ISB had independent had insurance cover.  If you do not have legal personality you cannot contract for insurance or seek ICO registration to receive  store and process sensitive data . Some of us were willing to explain the conceptual chaos to the Synod but were not called in the debate.

We were assured by the ISB Chair that insurance is not such a problem because  “ We will not make mistakes”. One or two members thought this a tad hubristic and so it has proved.

The Chair had to stand back and remains non-functional because of serious data mismanagement; adverse decisions have been secured against the ISB by the Information Commissioners Office after confidential survivor data was shared by the ISB to the NST on more than one occasion; there is much to be said about the enmeshment of the ISB and the Church that it was supposed to be overseeing.  A full debate that must surely be timetabled about the ISB debacle.

We might need to ask the following. Given the constitutional expertise within Church House and access to expensive specialist  lawyers, did nobody recognise that there was a problem with the structuring of the ISB? When folk were sent out to laud its “ full independence” ( no doubt in good faith) did no insider think to correct the error? Or is it that notwithstanding all this expert opinion, none of them recognised what some of us desperately trying to warn them plainly did? I am not sure which is the more worrying answer here.

I have reported Archbishops’ Council to the Charity Commission over  important failures.

When Dr Martyn Percy complained of institutional bullying by clergy which precipitated a medically confirmed nervous breakdown, no “Serious Incident Report” was, filed with the Charity Commission, as required in accordance with Archbishop Council Trustee duties.

The complaint had not, has not, and currently will not, be properly investigated by the Church. Due process should not be discretionary.

It was not clear by what lawful means the responsibilities over Safeguarding had been passed over to an “Independent” body.The lack of a comprehensive debate was a failure of proper governance.

The investigation proposed by the ISB into the Oxford Scandal was woefully inadequate given the broad principles involved, well beyond that of the individual Percy case.

The ISB did not have the resource to properly undertake that work.

The broad thrust of this critique was tacitly accepted by the ISB which – to the credit of its two surviving part time members-  appears to “get” that they were oversold as the answers to prayers for a proper response to the Safeguarding mess the Church continues to find itself in.

I stress here that we do not need witch hunts or humiliations but the Church’s persistent failure to call error to account , coupled with miscreant lack of awareness of the harm they have done, is offensive to justice and a serious barrier to our credibility.

The public to whom our mission is directed may not understand our problems with sexuality; they may not understand the mystery of the Trinity or the theory of substitutionary atonement, but they sure can spot a wrong’un when they see one.

 If hypocritical leaders are engaging in naked showers and massages, or thrashing young men in a garden shed, with biblical texts on their lips, Jo/e Public expects a Church to do something significant about it – yesterday . If Bishops, Archdeacons etc  turn away from complaints, the public expect that they too be held meaningfully to account. If somebody is facing serious credible allegation the public don’t expected them to be quietly moved on.  If somebody is currently facing judicial process for conduct unbecoming a priest, ordinary folk don’t expect them to get a clean reference and promotion ( it happens ).

It is not hard to understand ordinary decent people are dismissive of a Church that cannot see this ; in short they expect any institution with pretentions of moral probity to act properly and certainly no worse than any secular authority.

When a Prime Minister was perceived to have not taken lock down regulations seriously enough, the public – including his erstwhile supporters, required his resignation. Such folk will plainly have zero tolerance for a Church where multiple cases of abuse, bullying and coverups are persistently met by obfuscation.

If General Synod Members arrive at Church House in February and nobody has tendered an honourable resignation, stepped back from ministry or been made subject to due process for these failures, notwithstanding all this accumulated evidence of malpractice, the public will never take us seriously again – and neither should they.

by Graham

https://twitter.com/mandatenow/status/1586711780251914240/photo/1

The Daily Telegraph has carried an article about some proposed changes in the way that safeguarding cases from the past will be dealt with by the Church. One of those involved in this discussion is ‘Graham’ a Smyth survivor who has been at the forefront in holding the CofE to account for their many failures in bringing truth and justice into the arena of safeguarding. This article is Graham’s reaction to the recent proposals. The Telegraph article linked to above helps to put the whole story into its wider context. (the Editor is unclear whether the link to this photo is restricted to existing members of Twitter)

Consultation on Learning Lessons Case Reviews

In early 2018, the then Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, Peter Hancock, asked me the rhetorical question: “what is the difference between an Inquiry, an Investigation and a Review ?”. I was pressing for a Church of England-instigated report into the activities of John Smyth QC and the safeguarding failures over forty years. Smyth was possibly the most prolific abuser the Church of England had ever known with approximately 30 victims in England, and almost 100 in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Well, the answer to that question depends upon what you are trying to achieve. Did the Church want a comprehensive investigation of all that had gone wrong ? Or would they produce another Review that would be dismissed and ignored ? By early 2018, a year after the first Channel Four expose and six years after I had first come forward, there was still no formal C of E investigation of any sort.

I must declare my interest. In 2012, I disclosed the abuse meted out by John Smyth QC in the Diocese of Ely. By 2013, it had reached Lambeth and by August 2013, it is believed eight Bishops and one Archbishop was aware of the abuse and my disclosure. However, it is unclear what, if anything was done, and John Smyth was not stopped or brought to justice. Only some superb investigative journalism by the team at Channel 4 brought the story to light. Only subsequently has it become clear that large numbers of Church of England clergy had known the full horror of the abuse by 1982. I then learned of the death of a boy under Smyth’s charge in Zimbabwe. I learned just how little had been done in 2013. Surely this demanded a full investigation ? However, it was only eighteen months after the broadcast that a Review was announced, and it took another 12 months to set up. Coming up to six years after the Channel 4 broadcast, we still await the Makin Review.

Back to the recently circulated Consultation. What do the Church of England think that Learning Lessons Case Reviews (LLCR from now on) should look like ?

And to my horror, I find that they have been diluted out of all existence. The consultation starts with a section on “The reflective organisation” and this thread runs the whole way through. LLCRs might be renamed “Safeguarding Reflective Exercises” ( that is not a joke, it is in the Consultation) and it is clear they fall well short of anything that might be called a serious exercise. There is a section “What a LLCR is, and what it is not” which starts with the woolly definition that “It is a planned process of reflective learning”. But then it goes on fatally to limit LLCRs:

• It is not “an ‘investigation’ or ‘inquiry’ into the individual [respondent], the church body or the NST”
• It is not “A legal or disciplinary process in relation to personal and professional conduct that seeks to establish blame or guilt and/or recommend sanctions”
• It states that “…when the case involves abuse which happened some time ago…the outcomes of a LLCR for both the victims and the organisation may be limited”

The detail shows further considerable restrictions. It suggests: “The expectation is that the whole LLCR process should take no more than six months from the decision to undertake the review until publication”. This is farcical when the Devamanikkam Review is 658 days overdue and the Makin Review is 872 days overdue. In fact, the Review into Smyth was announced in August 2018, so it has actually been four years and two months since “the decision to undertake the Review”.

The Consultation states: “The Reviewers recommendations. These should usually be limited to no more than six recommendations which are outcome-focused and SMART” ( there is jargon in here Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related).

There is also extreme naivety. Under the theme of “reflection” it states that “In ideal circumstances [behaviours] that fall short of a reasonable standard of practice or behaviour….will have been identified by the Church Officer themselves through an iterative process of reflection and discussion….It is part of the Reviewer’s role to help bring those individuals to this place..” I do not care about “reflection”: I want to know how eight Bishops and one Archbishop failed to act on my disclosure of John Smyth’s abuse. I want to know which Church Officers, and Christian people, knew of Smyth’s horrific abuse in 1982 and did nothing, some facilitating his move to Africa.

So, the Consultation describes a watered-down process that falls far, far short of an analysis of what went wrong and who might be accountable for safeguarding failings. And this is an enormous gap in Church of England processes. NST and the CofE have not themselves undertaken any investigation into the Smyth abuse. They have been unwilling to start disciplinary processes against anyone involved ( bar, briefly, Lord Carey). They refused to investigate my formal complaint against Archbishop Justin. They have refused to investigate Titus Trust and the Iwerne camps, despite both organisations being populated with Church of England clergymen. Among other things, the National Safeguarding Team just do not have capacity to undertake a serious investigation: last time I looked there were just two Case Officers. There has not been a Core Group ( to be called a Safeguarding Case Management Group: lipstick on a pig) on John Smyth since 2018. Bishop Peter Hancock was unable to tell me if there was even an open file.

This Consultation comes on the back of the IICSA report and the redone Past Cases Review (PCR2). Confidence in CofE safeguarding is at an all time low. The ISB is disintegrating and does not yet provide any independent oversight. PCR2 “discovered” 383 cases of abuse, not discovered for the first time, but recorded and subsequently “hidden” from PCR1. IICSA itself reports (p6 Executive Summary) that “Some internal past case reviews were flawed and inaccurate, and there was a tendency to minimise offending.”

Who has taken this decision to water down LLCRs ? Has General Synod ? Has the Independent Safeguarding Board ? Has the House of Bishops ? Have they all agreed a policy where there will not be comprehensive, wide-ranging, well-resourced investigations* of safeguarding failings ? (* call them what you like: it is the intent that is important). Would Peter Ball not get a proper investigation if commissioned now ? just a reflective exercise ? Would the John Smyth not get a proper investigation: his abuse spanned four decades in three countries, and was known about by a raft of Church Officers ? Under the current proposals, the Makin Review would just not get commissioned.

And how are victims meant to feel about a process that leads to just navel-gazing ? ( oops, sorry, “reflection”). We will get a new raft of LLCRs that name no names ( Griffin report) that get dismissed ( Elliott Review), have “themes” rather than recommendations and that hold no one to account.

The sheer length of the recently published IICSA report was intimidating when I started reading it last Thursday. How can anyone summarise a piece of work with 483 pages, and which has been some seven years in gestation?  The focus of the report, the issue of child sexual abuse (CSA) in Britain, is, of course, by no means just a church matter.   CSA stretches its evil talons right across British society, as this report makes clear.  But whether CSA takes place in the home, school or a church, its cruel effects on victims are going to be the same.  To quote the report: ‘the devastation and harm caused by sexual abuse cannot be overstated’. Why should our children have to endure devastation of this kind? No one in society can completely escape the shame of what is revealed in this report.   For those of us who are members of the Church of England, we find that we have been part of an organisation where cover-up and denial have been practised for decades.  So none of us can say that this is outside our concern.  All of us to a greater or lesser degree are caught up in the guilt and the shame of what has been done, not only by individuals, but also by the institution itself.  The sheer seediness of an institution, like the Church, practising power games in order to protect its name and reputation has diminished us all.  Long after IICSA and its reports have been forgotten, there will be a lasting impression about the CofE in some people’s minds.  That is the group where CSA took place, and the main concern of leaders was to put up barriers preventing the discovery of the truth.  That may be a thoroughly unfair judgement, but we cannot blame the public for picking up such an impression. The task of safeguarding and protection of the young has taken a long time to become a priority matter in our Church; even now we find it hard to listen to the witness of victims/survivors.  We have also been guilty over a long period of time of failing to hold to account those guilty of abuse.

One of the striking features of the report is that it does something that in-house church reports seldom do. It gives the victims of CSA an effective and compelling voice right at the beginning of the narrative.  So often in our church inquiries and reports, victims and survivors are not at the centre.  Even if a narrative is clearly recounted, there is still an apparent reluctance on the part of the institution to learn from what is being said, let alone suggest providing the help that is needed for the purpose of helping a victim’s/survivor’s recovery.  It has always been a complaint of mine against the National Safeguarding Team that they seem to regard it as unnecessary to employ a trauma-trained member of staff for the purpose of listening to the abused.   The last time I looked at the professional background of those employed by the NST, there seemed to be an emphasis on legal and social work skills rather than anything from the psychotherapeutic professions.

The expedient of recording verbatim some of the words used by the 5,000 + victims who came forward to tell their stories to the Inquiry through the Truth Project is powerful.  These words are thus unmediated by the prism of any interpretation.  They stand out starkly and convey to us the horror of the experience of CSA.  The report also shares with the reader the range of the other types of abuse, some to do with neglect or physical violence.  The headings of part C in the report give us some of the flavour of what was shared with the Inquiry about abuse right across the board, especially in children’s homes or in a domestic setting.  ‘I became a punch bag’, ‘I was neglected and surrounded by chaos’, ‘I had a deep sense of loneliness’.  Many of the victims quoted in Part C seem to be victims of a Care System functioning poorly.  Others had to live with inadequate or absent parents.  But, for whatever reason and in whatever context the child was made to suffer, the testimony influences the reader.  No doubt the Inquiry wanted to ensure that everyone reading the report would not remain unaffected.  The more that an evil is identified, the greater the chance that those among us who have the power to create change will feel moved to do so.

The Section D, which deals with what is at the heart of the report, the experience of CSA, is also hard to read.   Not only does the child have to cope with the awfulness of the original experience, but the legacy of the attack remains.  The report acknowledges the variety of the ways CSA manifests itself after the original event.  We too easily forget the subtle ways in which CSA can attack the personality of the young person.  It affects many aspects of behaviour, such as the ability to trust and make relationships.  Also, all too easily the victim becomes addicted to self-destructive behaviour, such as alcoholism or drug abuse.  Although CSA takes place right across a variety of different settings and institutions, there is nothing about church abuse that makes it any less harmful and negatively life changing.

This IICSA report does what few reports have successfully done before.  It makes sure that the child victim is placed firmly at the centre of the entire narrative.  If we were to divide the report into three sections, the first one would be telling the story.  The second could be summarised as the consequences of these grim events.   The third section concerns the societal and legal attempts to respond to the awful betrayal of so many innocents within our society.

Beyond the deeply shocking and revelatory tales of abuse, are the attempts, some successful, to reach out for help.  Some victims found therapeutic support which was timely and effective; for others the help offered was inadequate or out of its depth.  There seems to have been something of a postcode lottery in this respect.  Mental health services are much stretched in this country and privately available counselling is an option available for only a few. Perhaps one of the biggest blockages in the past was finding therapists who understood that the abuse of a minor was not in some way consensual.  This ‘myth’ about child sexual behaviour was apparently current among the police investigators in Rochdale.

My comments about the IICSA report are admittedly subjective and do not attempt, for example, to do justice to the extensive legal material.  Of relevance to church interests is the question of mandatory reporting.   IICSA does recommend the imposition of an obligation, enforced by criminal sanction, to compel the reporting of incident of CSA to the relevant authorities.  This is a demand that has been sought by the organisation Mandate Now for some time.  While strongly supporting this proposal, I find myself more drawn to what the report has to say about the provision of support to victims/survivors in Part H.  Existing regulations, under the Code for Victims of Crime in England Wales (Victims’ Code), already state that victims and survivors have the right to be referred to services that support victims. We learn, from the report, of the existence of specialist independent sexual violence advisers (IVSAs).  Such helpers work within the criminal system and help victims/survivors negotiate their way through system of justice.  They can also access therapeutic support.  Other models are mentioned including the Barnahus model originating in Iceland.  One issue that IICSA identifies is the way that a victim has repeatedly to tell their story to a succession of investigators and social workers.  This can be very taxing   Therapy from trauma-trained counsellors was found to be beneficial, but it is not widely available.  One individual had to travel 200 miles to receive this form of specialist support.  Funding, waiting lists and time limits all undermined the possibility of suitable help going to any but the few.  It is clear, according to the report, that the current system for commissioning support services is not working well. There is scope for the UK government to require the introduction of a local commissioning partnership to coordinate support services for CSA.  In summary, after noting the current failures of support and provision for child victims, the report makes as Recommendation 16 ‘the introduction of a national guarantee that child victims of sexual abuse will be offered specialist and accredited therapeutic support … fully funded.’

The task of safeguarding vulnerable people is enormously complicated both in terms of practical action and of legal process.  Most of our bishops and church leaders have been reluctant to get involved in the minutiae of what is involved. There is nothing particularly rewarding about setting up structures to do the necessary prevention work. The safety of children should be something we take for granted but doing all the hard work to make that happen has no obvious sign of a job well done. You cannot measure success in this area when it is something which should be there anyway. It seems clear that many who take on this area of responsibility do not feel much appreciated by others in the Church.

Reading (or more accurately in my case skim reading) this very long IICSA report reminds us that church CSA is just one manifestation of an extremely serious social evil.  The idea that the Church is not a particularly safe place for children comes as no surprise to those of us who have been observing the scene for a number of years, but this report may help to undermine the complacency that has prevailed in so many.  We need alertness to the dangers of CSA together with a passionate desire to support the survivors among us.  Once again we are alerted to the fact that it is only by dint of the hard work of many that we can hope to preserve the cause of justice and prevent the reputation of our Church from being completely destroyed.

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/31216/view/report-independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-abuse-october-2022_0.pdf

Although the final report of IICSA has been published today (Thursday 20^th Oct), I recognise that it needs more time for reflection before I am ready to make any comment.  I hope to present some observations over the coming week-end.  This piece looks back to the earlier report PCR2 which was a distinctly CofE document.

When I was a child, our family possessed an old brass telescope.  Like many of the things in our home, it did not work very well.  The effort to make a far-away object appear slightly bigger seemed hardly worth it.  I believe this struggle by a six-year-old to create an image may have made a later comprehension of lenses in physics lessons a little easier.  As an object able to perform any useful function, the telescope failed and was thus useless.

Struggling to make a telescope work was not only useful as a background to a later grappling with the physics of optics.  The other outcome was a ready comprehension of the expression which speaks of looking the wrong way down a telescope.  Instead of objects coming closer, they go much further away.  In addition, the view is narrow and lacking depth.  The expression looking down a telescope the wrong way is a good description of any investigation where those involved find it difficult to see things in a coherent ordered way.  Reading further the Past Cases Review 2 (PCR2), there seems to be a considerable element of getting things the wrong way round and thus not seeing them with any degree of clarity.  How does the enquiry fail?

In reading the report of the main section, one comes to see quickly that there are some obvious, even glaring, shortcomings.  In spite of all the protestations of recent years that the Church wants to put survivors right at the centre of their concerns, this report seems uninterested in their well-being and their interests.  Rather, the emphasis is on uncovering from the files any existing unresolved cases and perpetrators who might still be able to do harm. If potential perpetrators have died, it seems that the PCR2 process shows no interest in these cases at all.  This stance of ignoring cases where the perpetrators have died, but their victims may be very much alive, seems an inadequate way of bringing justice and healing to survivors.  It certainly does not point to these survivors being at the centre of anything.

How does one search the past to bring healing and justice to survivors?  If the survivor is indeed at the centre of the process, then you would begin the enquiry by asking survivors what they want.  I would imagine that most survivors want their cases to be opened up and explored from every angle.  The needs of those who have perpetrators still alive would not differ significantly from those whose abusers have died. For both groups the metaphorical telescope needs to be in operation, working well in focusing on and enlarging all the relevant information.  Survivors of abuse of course know a lot about their own cases, but there is still much that they do not know.  They might want to know why a bishop in charge of their case years before had ignored or mismanaged the original disclosure.  Who else had known what was going on and who, if anyone, had shared their misgivings about a perpetrator?  The questions in each case will be numerous and survivors need to feel that all these questions are being taken seriously.  Only then can we call an enquiry about abuse cases ‘survivor-centred’.  Even if some of the questions now have now no means of being answered, at least they need to be articulated and made part of the opening up process.  By contrast, what we find in PCR2 is a document that concerns itself more with correct application of church process than the questions and needs of survivors.  Preserving institutional reputation and fulfilling the requirements of legal processes seem to be at the heart of this lengthy document.

The Smyth case is perhaps one episode that illustrates well how important it is not to lose sight of salient information just because an individual perpetrator has died.  The law may declare that an individual who never stood trial is technically innocent, but this legal stance brings no comfort or closure to his many victims.  The Church of England recognises, in commissioning the Makin report, that the death of a perpetrator does not close down the need for victims to understand the total context of an act of abuse.  We hope that this report will help to make sense of all the many strands around this episode.  One conclusion that the Makin report will clearly demonstrate is that there are many others involved in the Smyth drama.  Smyth may be at the centre of the action, but there are numerous enablers and bystanders who are implicated in some way in the appalling events spilling out of Iwerne Minster to Winchester and Zimbabwe.  We hope that those carrying guilt in this case will be named.  In contrast, the PCR2 process seems to be taking a different approach.  Because Smyth has now died, all the other information about his associates and his crimes is now of no interest and not even mentioned in PCR2.  Thankfully this PCR2 approach to the Smyth horrors (which is to ignore them) is not being followed by those commissioned the Makin report.  It remains to be seen whether there will be an attempt to bury all the bad news that the Makin report contains when it is finally published.  We look for, with not a great deal of hope, someone to accept some responsibility for the additional pain experienced by survivors.  Many senior individuals in the Church of England saw what was going but chose to pass by on the other side.

The single fact that PCR2 has no interest in the files or records of clergy who have died makes it clear to any reasonable person that the whole review cannot claim in any way to be survivor centred.  Survivors know that they have a just complaint, not only against an original perpetrator but often against the organisation.  All too often the response that they have encountered resembles the turning away of the priest and Levite on the Jericho road.  The infliction of pain against a survivor is multi-layered.  If the Church, or its representatives, want to do something about this pain, it needs to recognise all these contributing factors within each episode that have accentuated the survivor’s suffering.  All stories of abuse have these many levels.  We dishonour the survivor/victim if we do not patiently uncover as many of them as possible.  It would of course be convenient for the church institution if everything could be laid at the feet of just a single perpetrator.  The reality of abuse cases is that things do not work like this.  Recalling our telescope analogy, this contrasting approach is like the two ways of using a telescope.  The survivor is using the telescope correctly.  He/she sees all the facets of the case.  A church leader, by using the telescope the wrong way round, sees only the one thing.  Having identified what, if any, legal obligations are required by a victim from the church, this leader will then want to find a way of burying the episode as fast as possible.  Looking at these cases of power and sexual abuse through a telescope the right way round might well prove to be a painful and costly undertaking for the leader.   

The PCR2 is not without its good points as it identifies a large number of things to be done in the realm of safeguarding by the Church of England.  The review at one point mentions the need for a ‘sustained delivery of high quality, trauma-informed, survivor-focused standards.’  But there is no indication that such delivery has been achieved anywhere.  Our criticism and the criticism of survivors remains.  When are the bishops, those overseeing the process, going to provide the kind of justice that survivors require and indeed justly demand?  How does the PCR2 help in this process?  It probably does little or nothing for survivors since, as we suggested, it is looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope.  Instead of bringing the complete picture into view, PCR2 is focusing on only one small part of the whole story.  Perhaps this blog piece is inviting our church leaders to do a bit more to look at the full setting of an abuse event.  We want them to see the whole picture in a completely focussed form.  To get that picture, they should join survivors and start looking with them from the other end of telescope – the correct way.   Then they will be able to see what they, the survivors, already see. 

When writing about the ‘Kenneth’ case on this blog, I had cause to wonder whether any other justice system, apart from the Church, could be so indifferent to the cause of truth so as to believe an allegation of abuse without a proper investigation.  Are other organisations so incurious that an uncorroborated allegation of abuse will be left unresolved and unexamined?  Do other legal organisations or structures within British society allow the assumption of guilt to be upheld so that an accused can be left in a state of despair and trauma?  Was it possible that the old principle in British law, that the accused are deemed innocent until proved guilty, is thought not to apply? 

The Carl Beech (otherwise known as Nick) affair resulted in the most appalling set of allegations of abuse being made against prominent people in Britain.  This created untold suffering and vast expenditure of resources of time and money.  It had a massive effect on the trust that people felt overall for the police service and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in particular.  Was it possible that the police could get things so wrong?  Could the unsubstantiated word of a single disturbed individual ever be allowed to exercise such power to corrupt the thinking and the common sense of so many in a normally well-respected institution?

I recently had my attention drawn to a document that helps us to look at the blunders of the MPS and the way that the original false claims of Beech were not more quickly picked up by the police.  The document examining these failings is one written by Richard Henriques, a prominent retired High Court judge.  He looked at the police culture that was then current nd which had enabled the claims of Carl Beech, to be accepted as true for so long.   Henriques noted the way that belief in the testimony of ‘victims’ was not just the bias of certain individuals; it had become institutionalised in the policing culture that was prevalent right up to 2016.  A published policy of the College of Policing, dated 18^th March 2016, stated: ‘When someone makes an allegation of crime, the police should believe the account given and a crime report should be completed.’  This follows another report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in 2014 which put the requirement to believe the victim more strongly.  It declared: ‘The presumption that the victim should always be believed should be institutionalised’.   

The College of Policing recognised the importance of detailed investigation of allegations, but Henriques points out that if investigations go on over six months with a built-in assumption of the truthfulness of a ‘victim’, this will affect the way that evidence is gathered. To quote the report:’ Was the obligation to believe the complainant to continue over a six-month period?’  In other words, it is very hard to gather corroborating evidence to support or undermine a claim, when the one investigating has internalised and assumed the truthfulness of one party from the beginning of the enquiry.  While it is of vital importance to make victims of sexual assault feel believed and listened to when making a complaint, this does not stop the one listening having an open mind as they investigate.  Objectivity and impartiality can and should prevail throughout the process of enquiry. 

The preservation of objectivity and impartiality during the process of interviewing victims in an abuse case should not be incompatible with providing support to these complainants.  It should be possible to say to the complainant, ‘I support you and take your complaint very seriously.  At the same time, I am investigating what you say without fear or favour’.  If assumptions are made and a complainant is ‘believed’ at any point of the investigation process while evidence is being gathered, that will mean that the other side is, at that moment, being disbelieved.  Just because a complainant (typically a rape victim) was often treated in the past with suspicion and distrust, it does not mean that the system has to swing to the opposite extreme of treating every complainant as having to be believed as a matter of course.  Henriques sums up this point rather elegantly when he says: ‘Replacing an unsatisfactory state of affairs with a flawed system is no solution.’ He says further that ‘any process that imposes an artificial state of mind upon an investigator is, necessarily, a flawed process….  The imposed “obligation to believe” removes impartiality.  

Although it might be argued that complainants have no reason to make up their stories, the possibility that there are fantasists and liars among those who complain to the police must be allowed for.  If a questioner at the outset of an enquiry has to ‘believe’ the complainant, this will affect the way the questions are asked.  If the police questioning process does not allow for some element of doubt about what the true situation is, the questioning process would seem to be biased.  A policy of ‘believing victims’, Henriques declares, ‘strikes at the very core of the justice process ‘.  These are strong words; they can be seen to be true wherever forms of justice are being applied in various walks of life.  Outside the police and justice service we have individuals working in such areas as social work, HR and employment tribunals.   All of them would be failing in their responsibilities if the impartiality required in the legal process was abandoned.  This is what evidently happened in the Carl Beech disaster.  That case was not just catastrophic for those immediately involved, the falsely accused.  It was a disaster for others in further cases where individuals have been at the wrong end of an obligation to believe by investigators.  False accusations do occur, and it is here that impartiality and good judgement are not just desirable qualities in those who administer justice.  They are literally a matter of life and death in situations like the one in London which involved a priest taking his own life.

I began this blog piece with a mention of the ‘Kenneth’ case where things continue with no sight of proper resolution.  Although no offence has been proved and none admitted, the case cannot be resolved with the existing system in place.  Those with oversight of the core group apparently declared at the start of the process that the complainant must be believed.  They maintained that this mantra is required in the House of Bishops’ advice on safeguarding. I have no means of knowing whether this is a misunderstanding or genuinely episcopal guidance.  Whatever the situation, it has led this core-group into taking no further action in proving or disproving the allegation.  Thus, the case remains in a state of limbo because someone has been infected by the same faulty reasoning as that which was infesting the MPS in the Carl Beech case.  No one seems to have thought to share with the NST or the Diocesan safeguarding teams the excellent legal reasoning of Richard Henriques report. This compelling report has exposed the damaging and even dangerous way of thinking that has infested the safeguarding reasoning of much of the CofE. Because of it, Kenneth’s case, and maybe others, remain in a state of limbo.  There are no obvious ways of moving forward.  The truth of what really happened in the Kenneth saga seems to be of no real concern to those who sit as judge and jury in his case.  Although Kenneth is now no longer being actively pursued and can now attend church, the cloud over him has no means of ever being removed.

It would be a good thing if the internal justice system operated by the Church of England – the one that creates phoney risk assessments, allows bishops to ignore complaints against individuals when it suits them, and keeps cases unresolved and without any decision being made for years at a time – could receive a thorough reform.   A justice system which, for some, is experienced as corrupt and not fit for purpose is hardly conducive to the good name of the Church in the wider society.  Do the Church of England and its leaders really care so little for its reputation, that it tolerates the poorly functioning legal system that we have created, to deal with safeguarding issues?                                                             

by Anonymous

Ed. This is a third contribution from a well informed anonymous writer who wrote two earlier articles on the topic of Safeguarding in the Church of England.

I had better come clean at the start. I woke up the other day to find that I was part of Liz Truss’ Anti-Growth Coalition. Or rather, I am part of the one that the Archbishops often refer to.  In the CofE, you cannot move for chiding, chivvying or church conferences dedicated to growth, growth, growth. Apparently, Truss is “getting Britain moving”. That is odd, because where I live, nobody is standing still at the moment. We all have jump around on the spot just to keep warm.  Meanwhile, Welby’s chums are “unleashing the laity (etc)”, because as you may recall, the CofE is being held back by its own clergy and needs to be “freed from [such] limiting factors”.

I am against growth for the sake of growth. I protest when Conservative Evangelical churches and HTB plants get all the money and grants for becoming “resource churches” or “missional hubs”. That means all the other churches just pay much more for getting far less. I think lots of these new church ‘start-ups’ cost a lot to set-up, and pay nothing back.  Most of Welby’s experiments have been expensive foibles that we’ve all been forced to fund. But now he’s spent all the money, he’s even taken on £500m of fresh debt in the form of a “growth bond”, which we’ll all have to pay back sometime in the future. Kwasi Kwarteng went to Eton too, you know. Personally, I’d rather see our cash go into much needed repairs and maintenance for churches, vicarages, and perhaps a decent holiday for the clergy. But I am part of that Anti-Growth Coalition. And I have come to realise that the CofE is being run by the Conservative Party at prayer.

The question is, what kind of Conservatives are todays Bishops and Archbishops? Socially, politically and theologically they are conservative, for sure. Gender and sexuality remain difficult issues for any Bishop to speak out on.  They stick to safer terrain: climate change, Ukraine and the other matters that don’t require episcopal attention. It is sad, if not tragic, that at precisely the moment when we might need radical and brave Bishops to speak, we have a bench that is permanently ‘on mute’ until the Comms-Team tells them what to say. 

OK, the Bishops are conservatives with a small ‘c’, but in terms of conduct, this is very much like the current Conservative government under Johnson or Truss. We estimate that over 40 Bishops have CDMs against them at the moment. But like Partygate, the rules they helped make don’t apply to them. They just carry on.  Yet the rules do apply to rest of the clergy, who have to step aside from ministry with the presumption of being guilty-until-proven-innocent. Even if found innocent, your Bishop might decide that you no longer enjoy their favour or confidence. A kind of ‘one-strike and you’re out’ approach.

Other similarities come to mind. General Synod will be briefed about new national CofE initiatives through the media, just like party MPs. The inner-cabinet running everything for the CofE may not bother to consult with the majority of Bishops about policy changes, new initiatives or major expenditure. There is no democracy or accountability, and anybody breaking ranks is swiftly disciplined. Nobody knows when the House of Bishops acquired a system of Party Whips, but nobody is allowed to be “off message”.  General Synod, and most Bishops running their own Diocesan Synods, have far more in common with a Party Conference run by Truss or Johnson. Even fringe events are checked out for potential dissent.  If all else fails, there are still three ways to deal with dissenters from the Handbook of Political Arm Twisting. First, promote the dissenter – so they have to behave. Second, sack and banish them, and remove the whip. Third, smear them, so they have to resign.

So, I choked when I saw that the CofE – Truss-like – was now publishing something called ‘Promoting A Safer Church’.  This was the CofE’s take on over 800 recommendations made in Past Cases Review 2 (PCR2).  When you read PCR2, you have to ask who in the CofE hierarchy pared the 800 down to a couple of dozen, editing them into a very weak set of national recommendations, and by what authority they did this? Somebody pasteurised, skimmed, filtered and strained these 800 recommendations. Who did this, and why?

Bishop Gibbs was on hand to trot out that we are all on some kind of “change-journey”. So like Truss “getting Britain moving”. It is good to know that Gibbs is finally cranking up the safeguarding engine. We have no indications on speed, direction or destination. Gibbs also noted the CofE is “putting in place scrutiny of diocesan safeguarding operations”.  That will be surprising news to many Dioceses. But as Gibbs is a Welbyite speaking to the media, there was no need to check whether anybody was ever consulted. That’s government for you.

Meanwhile, the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) is apparently ready to roll out their website. But it has no independent Information Sharing Agreement logged with the Information Commissioner’s Office, so is not GDPR-compliant. Yes, a small detail, but it does mean that the ISB cannot handle data securely or independently.  Gibbs told General Synod the ISB was completely independent of the Archbishops’ Council.  The ISB says it isn’t, and has no legal personality or any kind of independent financial identity outside the Archbishops’ Council. Amazingly, the National Safeguarding Panel and the National Safeguarding Steering Group, both chaired by Meg Munn, claim that the ISB is not a governance issue for them.  So that’s OK then.

So who is running safeguarding in the CofE? But before I answer that, let me point out some of the issues that now bedevil safeguarding in the CofE. First, it is plain common sense (and obvious legally) that in terms of safeguarding, the category ‘vulnerable’ refers either to a child, or to an adult who is known to require protection, and for whom safeguarding measures are already in place. Labelling any other adult as ‘vulnerable’ only after an event would render all adults as potentially vulnerable, with safeguarding then simultaneously becoming everything and nothing.  Yet hundreds of clergy have been hammered by a retrospective and invidious Catch-22 scenario, in which the last visit they made, a sermon they preached or conversation they had is now treated as a “safeguarding matter…because someone has complained”.

Second, whilst I think churches should not be treated differently to other bodies, there is such a thing as proportionality. Many, many church events never have employees or licensed persons present, and so there are no contractual arrangements in place. A church outing to a zoo is an entirely voluntary day trip. It is not like a school trip. If all our church events now need a safeguarding risk assessment, here are some events we currently don’t risk assess: funerals, weddings, baptisms, parish lunches, visiting old people’s homes, coffee mornings, home groups, and more besides. Would we risk assess our home group leader inviting their group to a lunch, or out for tea on a National Trust daytrip? Who would that safeguard? Church is an inherently multi-generational gathering, and it is voluntary, not compulsory. By all means prosecute people who exploit children and vulnerable adults in civil and criminal proceedings.  But nobody can make the context of church “safe”, let alone promote a “safer church” for everyone.

Third, I predict that there will be no safeguarding in 10-15 years. It is a voracious industry-concept, and the churches will not be able to afford it. With fewer paid clergy in the future, reliance defaults to the laity. Bluntly, they won’t do it. It’s time consuming and fraught with huge risk and responsibility – yet no reward. It has no job satisfaction such as maintaining buildings, visiting or hospitality. The laity will just refuse to manage this.  It will eventually dawn on the CofE that:

A: Most denominations outside the British Isles don’t do safeguarding or anything like this. Common sense with due regard to civil and criminal law suffices for everyone else.

B: There is nothing at all to show for safeguarding – teaching, preaching, pastoral care usually produce gratitude and growth – whereas safeguarding literally produces nothing.

C: The actual people being safeguarded are mostly children – with very, very few exceptions. Most children grow up. They seldom record debts of gratitude for their crèche or nursery school.

Social Exchange Theorists would take a cold sober look at this and begin scripting the last rites. Safeguarding is what sociologists call a high-investment-low-reward activity. They would also concur that it is high-risk-low-yield.  Mostly, what we want from our churches is low-investments with high-rewards. You turn up to church, hear a great homily, and experience fabulous liturgy, numinous worship. There is no price on this.

Safeguarding is the opposite: huge outlays of time, energy and work (labour), and literally nothing to show for it at the end (no measurable result), other than a meaningless slogan that has no quantifiable outcome. “Promoting a Safer Church” is akin to “getting Britain moving”. As churches have found to their cost, you can plan as much as you like, but you are still stuck with no power or predictive skills to prevent anyone who exploits your trust. Yet you are left with total responsibility for anything that goes wrong. The answer simply cannot be to adopt the premise that we trust no-one. But that is the ultimate trajectory of safeguarding. No-one is safe. Everyone is potentially vulnerable. Nobody can be trusted. In Welby-World we all need to be risk-assessed, policed, checked and re-checked. If you don’t agree, you can leave. Or you’ll be dismissed.

None of this undermines the fundamental  imperative for redress, justice, truth, repentance and integrity, and the urgent need for victims to be fully compensated. That really is a proper task. Safeguarding culture is of its time and has a limited shelf-life. Yet more worryingly, it belongs to a certain kind of hysteria that stems from ‘moral panic’. That is another concept from sociology, that helps to explain how “safeguarding the American way of life” in the 1950s meant every single town searched harder for the Communists, left-handed folk, homosexuals, student radicals and other (so-called) deviants that apparently threatened to undermine the very fabric of American society by brainwashing the unsuspecting into changing their political beliefs or identity.

Child sexual abuse was hidden in our churches for many years. Churches colluded in cover ups, and still do so. But a culture of predictive correction can swing the other way, with the unwary and accused quickly caught in a drama-trap akin to Kafka or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. McCarthyism found very few reds under the beds of ordinary Americans. Believe me, they looked hard, and frequently in places that had no registered democrat voters, socialist-sympathisers, or any other people to be suspicious of.

Cynics might say that ‘Promoting a Safer Church’ – uncannily reminiscent of  “safeguarding the American way of life” in the 1950s – is just another example of our cultural captivity. Of the church being a slave to contemporary culture. That is probably true, but it comes at a price. We need to remember, and as Jean La Fontaine’s anthropological study discovered, when push came to shove, there were no cases of satanic ritual abuse in places as far apart as Shetland and Nottingham (see: Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England, 1998). Yet a plausibility structure and a culture of ‘moral panic’ had prevailed, and put the innocent through hell. We also forget that it really rather suited the Conservative government of the 1980’s and early 1990’s to support that kind of moral panic and fear. In the same way, only an innocent would see no evidence of intentional political guile in ‘Promoting a Safer Church’.

Meanwhile, today’s ecclesial culture is being worked over and water-boarded by re-branding the identity of the churches, whose sole purpose has now been reduced to a safety-first machine geared for growth, growth, growth. Take a look at your Diocesan HQ the next time you visit.  It will be open-plan, replete with board rooms and breakout spaces, like some churchy version of Ricky Gervais’ The Office (2001-2002). Episodes in our ecclesiastical adaptation can stick closely to the original, and cover mergers, annual appraisals, company awaydays, growth targets and the like.  (I wish I could say I have never met a version of Bishop David Brent, but in truth, every Diocese has at least one Bishop Brent).

Alas, I do not think this ‘safeguarding culture’ is quite the unfortunate accident it can masquerade as. Like McCarthyism’s campaign against Communism and all-things-deviant, safeguarding is a serious tool of political oppression, and an instrument for intimidation. It stems from a bullying culture that can be quite sadistic. It uses punishment, terrorising and harshness to keep order. It factors in its own randomness. Now anyone could be found wanting. This reflects the elite public school ethos we have seen in our political leaders, and it’s now baked hard into the CofE. Most bishops behave like compliant-cruel prefects.

Most of our Bishops are no longer allowed to care, and have more in common with the brutal chums of Flashman in Tom Brown’s Schooldays [1857]. It is a measure of our bullying culture in the CofE that a Bishop known to be an uncompromising bully effectively destroyed a diocese, but still got ten years’ tenure in post. Elsewhere, a bishop silences critics through ‘lawfare’, destroying colleagues who speak out, and using his comms-team, senior staff and lawyers like some kind of regional mobster with muscle. Critical clergy, or those daring to openly complain of his bullying, will get the threat of a CDM by return. This will destroy the church. But the fish rots slowly from the head.

This bullying culture stems from a school-based context rooted in elitism, class and entitlement.  This culture flows from the God of Wrath that was drummed into heads at summer camps like Iwerne.  God is some Big Headmaster who dwells on high, ruling distantly and possibly benevolently, provided you keep your head down and do exactly as you’re told. Dissidents and troublemakers will be made an example of, and publicly shamed. Bullying is tolerated, even though the edicts against it will pinned-up every week on the school noticeboard and be re-issued at assembly.  The tasks that keep the pupils in order are often repetitive, numbing and pointless. Punishments can be random and cruel. But if you dare to question the system, you are in line for a suspension. 

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of all this is that it you can see it so clearly. Tens of millions of pounds are being wasted every year on ‘Promoting a Safer Church’.  Yet few victims of abuse are ever helped. The keyword is ‘promoting’. This is an exercise in the dark arts of spin and PR. But the money spent on this “change-journey” could be given to victims of actual abuse who are not being compensated.  We know that the CofE entirely lacks a leadership with wisdom, courage and compassion. Yet the ‘safeguarding culture’ grows evermore obese with each passing month.

Herewith a fine example.  The Makin Review that deals with Smyth’s abuse, so touches on what the odd Archbishop and a few Bishops may or may not have known, said and done to stop this.  The Review is around 850 days late. Mr. Makin was only given two days per week in the published Terms of Reference to get to the bottom of this barrel. He started in 2019, but is known to have increased his time commitment to three or four days per week. The combined cost of him and his associates is estimated at around £1400 per day, plus VAT.  Add in transcription costs, lawyers fees and the like, and the costs might rise to £2500 per day. The total cost of this Review is coming in at somewhere between £1.25 to £1.5 million.

The punchline in this is Makin has yet to interview Channel 4’s Cathy Newman, and most of the investigative team who broke the story of John Smyth’s abuse. It is also believed that in the three-plus years of the Makin Review, the relevant Archbishop and Bishops have yet to be seen. As Churchill might have said, never in the field of ecclesial conflict has so much money been spent on defending the few – yet at the expense of the many.  The many victims of Smyth won’t get a fraction of what the Makin Review costs.  And there is, as yet, nothing to show for this. Where successive Conservative governments have gone with whitewash and exonerating ‘independent internal tribunals’, the CofE has followed with their ‘lessons learned reviews’.

One primary function safeguarding is maintain the position of those in power, so Makin’s Review will never see the light of day if it so much as dares to criticise an Archbishop or Bishop. The Comms-Team will never let that be published. The other primary function of safeguarding is perpetrating processes and perpetual terrorisation to keep the clergy in their place.  But as their numbers thin-out, age, and many just leave, it is only the laity that remain.  Yet the laity don’t have to do as they are told. The laity don’t have to put up with uncaring prefects or headmasters who preside over this toxic version of Erving Goffman’s total institution, or Michael Foucault’s carceral system and panopticon. The laity can vote with their feet and don’t have to submit their CV’s into some safeguarding portal just to help out the Vicar with home visits, or serve on another rota.

I predict the laity will vote with their feet. By the time we get 2050, you will have to look up the term “safeguarding” in a dictionary. People will scratch their heads and ask “what, who and why?”. In the meantime, we are set to be run ragged by this Conservative Party at prayer.

Choosing which part of the lengthy recently published PCR2 report to comment on was not easy.  I did, however, find myself drawn to the section of the report that discusses the culture in the Church of England and the way that this culture can worsen safeguarding failures. This section listed, under nine headings, various aspects of church life that are thought often to be impeding good safeguarding practice. These nine headings help us to appreciate the current problems faced by the CofE as it tries to undo the legacy of the past.  In my judgement there is one named aspect of the CofE’s culture that stands out.  This particular heading in many ways sums up and largely encapsulates all the other eight themes that are listed.  The word is protectionism.  In my view, attempts by the CofE to preserve reputation, status and privilege have led to many, if not all, of the problems that the CofE is now facing as it seeks to drag itself out of the mire of the past safeguarding catastrophes that the PCR2 report is describing.

The current culture of the CofE, as described by PCR2, seems to be one that seeks to promote, above all, good public relations and also to preserve a wholesome reputation in the eyes of the world and of its members. Avoiding the appearance of scandal and side-stepping any suggestion of corruption within its ranks seems to be – understandably – a major preoccupation.  Church leaders have found it difficult to face squarely the catalogue of abuses and safeguarding shame that has been a feature of the past decade or two.  From leaders downwards, there has thus been a notable reluctance to listen carefully to survivors and what they have to say.  The report names ‘disbelief’ and ‘blaming the victim’ as two of the nine aspects of a negative church culture.  These have made it hard for the church to move forward to deal with the toxic legacy in its past.  The report counts almost 400 cases of abuse discovered in the files.  These are new in the sense that they are not listed, according to church records, as having reached some kind of resolution. In the overall atmosphere of reputation protection, how many more other cases brought to the attention of leaders disappeared into the shredding machine or on the bonfire in someone’s garden?  The report also indicates the existence of bullying within the hierarchical structures of the church.  How many cases are there of bullying or coercion of victims into silence?  We don’t know the answer to this question, but I would not be surprised if other new cases appear – the ones that were shredded or bullied out of sight and now only live within the memories of the suffering and still traumatised survivors.

The very first heading, in describing the culture of the church, is the word deference. This is a word we have discussed on the blog more than once. It often creeps into discussions about power in the church. Deference to those who are important in a hierarchical system is part of what keeps its structure intact. For that reason, it is likely encouraged by those with power in an organisation. Institutions, like any product of human invention, have built-in survival mechanisms.  An institution comes into being, not just to exist but to maintain and extend its influence and power.  Those who are at the top of the pinnacle of power in an institution will have a natural interest in making sure that lines of obedience and deference are preserved unchallenged. There will also be personal psychological reasons at work among organisational leaders.  Being considered important and receiving the deference of those lower in rank will be a strong boost to the self-esteem of many. Deference can be expressed in a variety of ways as, for example in the correct use of titles. I remember an ordinary parish priest who received the title of honorary Canon from his local cathedral. From what I could tell, his main achievement had been to have stayed a very long time in his parish. Whatever his achievements, from the day of the announcement, he insisted on being addressed as Canon by all his parishioners. I detected in this demand for deference, a self-aggrandisement which was far from being healthy.  Unfortunately, the Church does sometimes operate in a way that encourages this appetite for deference among those who crave importance and status.  In this environment the free and honest exchange of information may be inhibited. People may treat the one who is the object of deference as having power and no one finds it easy to speak truth to power. The flatterer, the smooth speaker may hope that he/she may somehow be rewarded for never being the bearer of bad or challenging news. The individual in authority will naturally prefer to hear information that does not cause discomfort or pain.

The safeguarding scandals of the last 20 years have caused a great deal of discomfort and pain to those in positions of authority in the CofE. Indeed, it might be claimed that this pain is so great that there may be some among our bishops who regret ever having taken up the responsibility of episcopal office. Learning about and being confronted with events from the past connected with abuse must be harrowing for those who hear these stories. It is likely that those in authority will want to do all that is possible to shutdown painful information of this kind. PCR2, in the section on culture, identifies several ways the church sometimes behaves in order to deny and avoid this type of pain. Those who do have official safeguarding responsibilities, and this is true of all the current leaders of our churches, must have a hard and difficult task looking objectively at what is presented to them. The PCR’s list of 9 cultural factors shows how the Church, and especially its leaders, attempt to push away the pain of confrontation with the suffering of others. The following are mentioned: disbelief, inertia, inaction and blaming the victim. All of these are classic avoidance techniques. We can say as a summary that, when anyone hears painful information, there is often an attempt, an instinctive attempt, to sidestep the full emotional toll that comes from listening to that other person’s pain. That is something that all of us can understand at a human level.

The pain that is the consequence of a safeguarding disaster operates at many levels.  There is the pain of the original abuse.  In many cases the individual concerned has not even begun to deal with, let alone heal, the resulting trauma. That pain needs resolution and requires the resources of money, time and compassion. The second level of pain is felt by those who hear about the pain and distress of the victim. Many of us find it just too hard to sit with the wounded person on the road. We hurry by, hoping that no one will notice that we failed to offer human compassion to the one in distress. The third level is the pain experienced within the institution itself. It is the pain of unresolved evil, damaged reputation and a total lack of will to set in place the strategies needed to deal with it.  Meanwhile the Christian Church teaches that there is a way through the most appalling pain and suffering as well as the evils of deliberate cruelty by one person towards another. The way that does not resolve such horrors is the way that the Church so often chooses.  It continues down the path of denial, deflection and sometimes outright dishonesty.

I encourage my readers to look at the section on culture in the PCR report. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/Past%20Cases%20Review%202%20-%20National%20Report.pdf  Each one of the nine identified themes are areas of failure in our Church today.   Each one needs facing and dealing with over the next 20 or 30 years. Protecting the Church and her leaders may seem on the surface to be a good and honourable thing to do. Respecting and always supporting the men and women who lead us in the Church of England may help to preserve institutional stability.  On the other hand, this automatic protection of leading individuals and the institutions they preside over, can be, in reality, deeply harmful. When people on the outside of our Church see a panicky self-serving response, one that puts the task of protecting reputation as being the most important thing, they quickly lose respect for it. The Church of England is in danger, not because people do not hear the words it utters, but simply because they fail to see integrity in its leaders and the way the same leaders are refusing to follow the costly task of facing and dealing properly with the horrors of the past.

By

Stephen H.

For 3 years I have been subject to the painful experience of being bullied with attempts to drive me away from my parish church.  Here I have served for 27 years, 6 of them as Churchwarden. My role within the church and the PCC has been deliberately eroded by a bullying culture in the PCC.  This was led by an interim minister and his actions infringed my human rights. As a result of this treatment, I took out a CDM against the interim minister. The local bishop who reviewed the complaint, described some of his actions as shocking. It had also prompted the comment ‘painful reading’ from the President of Tribunals.  In spite of this, my complaint did not meet the requirements of the Measure and the minister was moved and promoted! Thus, though breaking the priest’s code of conduct several times, the minister was rewarded.  Meanwhile the bishop agreed in a letter that the situation in the parish needed to be addressed and she offered mediation.  This I agreed to. The situation came to a head 2 weeks ago when I attended a meeting at the bishop’s home.

I met the local retired Archdeacon outside the bishop’s home before going in to meet her.  This former archdeacon had acted as my support person throughout the CDM process which I had brought against the interim minister. He asked me why I thought the diocese safeguarding adviser (DSA) was included in the meeting. I told him I hoped it was because they were at last recognising the issue of spiritual abuse in this case. Three months had elapsed since the first meeting, and I understood this was to be a follow up. The support archdeacon had written to the bishop on my behalf on the 16^th August requesting that she move forward on her offer of mediation because the bullying and discrimination was continuing.

We went into the meeting, but God was not in the room. Instead of an opening prayer, the bishop started to attack me in a premeditated way. She opened by saying that her PA had informed me, by email, that the mediation was not proceeding.  Neither I nor my archdeacon supporter had received this email so the change of mood in the meeting was unexpected.  The bishop’s diatribe against me was connected to a complaint I had made to the Charity Commission about failures of administration over the church building.  Whistleblowing is a legal activity and protected under the 1998 Public Disclosure Act. I could not convey this at the time because the attack was too relentless as well as unexpected. I was also accused by the bishop of wanting to damage the church when in fact I had been trying to make the church ‘fit for mission’, addressing such issues as disability access.  This is the slogan for the whole diocese as it faces the future.

The bishop went on to taunt me about the failure of the CDM which I had submitted about the interim minister. I believe that this minister had contravened the code of practice for clergy and that his actions towards me were discriminatory and against my human rights. He had also enlisted the support of the present Archdeacon in his bullying actions towards me. This has had a devastating effect on my mental and physical health. I responded that my first CDM was a hard copy and had not been actioned because it had gone missing(?). The bishop then claimed I had submitted a CDM against her Archdeacon which was untrue. I wanted to tell the bishop how I experienced the behaviour of the minister and others in the church as spiritual abuse, but she scoffed at that idea.

At this point the bishop invited comment from the DSA.  He claimed that he had a raft of safeguarding concerns about me.  I could not gather what these concerns were about, but somehow mentioning them may have been thought to be another way of silencing me by making veiled accusations.   The way these allegations were brought up, seemed to have no connection with proper procedure.  I am confident that I have never contravened any safeguarding protocols. I told them I would meet any allegation head on because I had served the parish for 27 years with integrity. The bishop then told me that I should stop going to my parish church. I replied this was not going to happen, God wanted me there and I wanted to serve God there. The DSA then suggested they would pursue some kind of restraining order. I felt very threatened by this suggestion even though it did not seem to be a threat they were entitled to make. At this point I was feeling very distressed and told them that I was going to leave. I stood up, but was derided by DSA who said, “Is this how a Churchwarden behaves?” I said “I am not a CW.” The bishop then brought up the matter of my placing a portable image of the Virgin Mary on the altar of the lady chapel at the request of the Non Stipendiary Minister.  I wondered whether mentioning this episode was suggesting undertones of sectarianism. The bishop then said that I was responsible for the last three members of the clergy leaving, as though I was some kind of 5th columnist. She said she had reservations about licensing a new priest for the parish because of me. I said that if she believed all she said was true, she should hold an independent inquiry. I would welcome that. I had by now deduced that this meeting was a set up and not, what I was led to believe, a way forward. I told them it was an ambush. I did not feel comfortable and left the meeting and her house. The DSA ran out and caught me entering my car shouting ‘Stephen’ twice. I told him I would not be driven out of my parish church, and I drove off in a confused and distressed state.

When I had first contacted my diocese in April 2021 about the bullying I was subjected to, including nasty WhatsApp messages, they had no policy on bullying and harassment. On the 29^th July this year the diocese published its first policy on Bullying and Harassment.  There was also a procedure for making a complaint about safeguarding among several policies which had been absent. What I had been subjected to was behaviour which contravened both policies. I believe it is my persistence which has woken the diocese up to missing policies especially that complaints against clergy can be made through a process other than CDM route.  I had never been advised about it. It states on it that method of complaint will always be presented as a first option by the diocese, but it never was with me and it was not visible on their website.

So, after all this time I am still subject to bullying and spiritual abuse.

    Ed’s comment Today (Wednesday) we have received the vast report of PCR2 which contains up to date information about bullying and abuse in Church of England going back 70 years. No doubt the material provided by the Report will feed into my comments on the issue over the coming months. Meanwhile, I include here a first-hand account of the experience of one individual of church power abuse. I am aware that hearing only one side of a story about abuse raises potential problems of partiality. While obviously we do not have all the details of the background to this narrative, there is a part of the story which gives us reason to believe that the whole of Stephen H’s account is plausible and credible.  A bishop in the CofE might well suggest a mediation between the two parties following an unsuccessful CDM and use his/her authority to bring this about.  The fact that the expected mediation process was suddenly, apparently, abandoned by the bishop is an unexpected twist to the story.  The bullied one became further bullied by a double attack from the Safeguarding Adviser and the bishop herself.   Whatever animosity the bishop may have felt towards Stephen H, this intimidating behaviour, as reported by Stephen, is unbecoming of any church leader.

I recently had cause to read through the summary of the Clergy Discipline Measure (2003) as set out on the official CofE website.  Although the Measure is now due to be replaced with a new revised version, this original attempt to put something in place to check malfeasance among the clergy, seemed eminently sensible and measured.  As I read it, I tried to shut out the reports of CDM disasters that I have heard about that have taken place since it came into effect in 2006.  Some have reached the public domain while others have been privately shared with me as a concerned blogger.  Surely the combination of a qualified legal adviser and a diocesan bishop, which the Measure sets up as a quasi-legal determining body to deal with clergy disciplinary cases, would have the wisdom to administer truth and justice in every case that comes before it?  Bishops, we would hope, possess the status of trusted leaders and will only be appointed to their position because they have gained the respect and confidence of those who have worked alongside them over their years of ministry. Are not such figures all able to demonstrate the qualities of pastoral wisdom and goodness?  With these qualities, surely it is impossible for them, with the help of legal guidance, to allow any injustice to occur when dealing with clergy accused of malfeasance?  Sadly, this hope sometimes turns out to be misplaced.

My reader will not be surprised to discover that the CDM process has, in many instances, failed to live up to its aim to be a simpler, more straightforward method than the old consistory courts for dealing with problems of discipline among the clergy.  When I review some problem areas in its implementation, there is one thing that inevitably creates problems in providing justice.  This can be summed up in the single word – malice.  In using this word, I am far from suggesting that every disciplinary case in the Church involves the presence of any malice.  No doubt there are dozens of cases which are dealt with equitably and justly.   I would hope that most of the cases that come to the attention of the Diocesan bishop and his legal adviser are responded to expeditiously and well.  These are never heard of again.  It is only when malice comes to be a factor within the process that real problems can occur. 

Malice can come into CDM processes from at least two directions.  The first direction is from anyone, lay or clerical, who dislikes a particular clergyperson and decides that complaining about them will somehow make them disappear from the post they currently occupy.  Most of these malicious complaints are picked up at an early stage and are quickly dismissed.  But the very fact of facing a CDM may be extremely demoralising to the respondent.  They will live with uncertainty and stress for some time and, even if they are eventually found innocent, their self-confidence as a pastor to their flock may have been irrevocably undermined.  

The second potential scope for malice in the CDM process is more serious.  This is when a member of the clergy finds themselves the object of dislike or even enmity by other senior clergy who then use the CDM processes to harass them. A failure to be neutral on the part of a diocesan bishop is not unheard of, and this hostility is extremely difficult to counteract by the affected clergy.  The Christ Church drama demonstrated the way that the CDM process became used at one stage to further the deliberate malice against the Dean from other clergy as well as members of the College.   Few of us would have the necessary stamina to withstand constant attacks of this kind.  One of the most depressing things about the saga is the way that official church structures, in the form of the NST and the diocese of Oxford, had allowed an evidently spurious CDM claim to be pursued for months against the Dean between March and September 2020.  Seven allegations against the Dean were eventually dismissed.  It was especially striking in this case that no vulnerable person existed on whose behalf a safeguarding inquiry could properly have been instigated.  There was actually no complainant individual at all: the issue had been entirely fabricated by the Dean’s enemies. Eventually it dawned on the church authorities that their processes had been highjacked by the Dean’s enemies and the complaint was thrown out.  In the meantime it had taken several months of deliberation to arrive at this conclusion.  It was quite clear to those of us on the outside, that malevolence was at work and the whole CDM process was being undermined and manipulated by what appears to be a very public manifestation of spite.   Even a single example of church processes being manipulated by the malice of identifiable individuals helps to destroys our ability to have confidence in such processes.  If a bishop, and here I have examples in my mind, ever uses the church disciplinary processes to undermine a member of his/her clergy for reasons that have to do with dislike, then the integrity of that bishop as well as the whole CDM process itself is bound to be seen as flawed and without credibility.

Another serious problem with the CDM process has been the inordinate time for some investigations to take place.  The ones we hear about are those that seem to drag on interminably, putting a clergyperson and his/her family under appalling stress.  I am not sure that I would be able ever to recover from six months enforced ‘gardening leave’.  This talk of suspension brings one on to another issue which is the fact that it is very unclear why some, but not all, clergy are forced to ‘stand back’ while their case is considered.  This inconsistency can give rise to massive injustices.  George Carey was forced, in a fanfare of publicity, to surrender his permission to officiate for a time because it was discovered that the known abuser, John Smyth, had attended the college, Trinity College Bristol, while Carey was principal.  Smyth’s attendance was part-time, and he probably only rarely visited the college.  Why the NST made such issue of this detail, when a rapid examination of facts clearly exonerated Carey from any culpable behaviour, is a mystery.  The Smyth allegation clearly upset Carey quite badly. Those looking on must have wondered if this was an example of a weaponised disciplinary action. Was it that Carey, now in his 80s and on the edges of the national Church, provided an opportunity for those who are senior in the safeguarding world to show that they can act tough to protect the vulnerable?  The same solicitude for protecting the vulnerable was not taken in a far more serious ongoing case where there is an unresolved CDM.  This particular individual, known to readers of Private Eye, has allegedly committed far more serious misdemeanours.  Not only is this clergyman allowed to continue in his current post, but he is also permitted to apply for a senior post elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.  Having an ongoing and unresolved CDM against you is, apparently, no impediment to promotion in the Anglican Church.  A bishop issuing a ‘safe to receive’ letter for a clergyman with an unresolved CDM may be committing a falsehood, but he also may be wanting to remove a suppurating sore out of his jurisdiction.  In popular terms, the bishop is flinging a dead cat over the wall for someone else to deal with!

If we were able to claim that the CDM process is conducted everywhere with perfect justice and impartiality, we would still be left with fact that the whole system is often shrouded in secrecy. Sometimes we are told a lot about the individuals caught up in the process; on other occasions we are left in the dark.  I probably hear more about individual cases as people write to me.  I am quietly appalled at the level of malice that is found in some of these cases where things have gone badly wrong.  Speaking very generally, the complaint I hear again and again is that those at the highest levels of authority in the church are far more interested in shutting down inquiries into bad behaviour than in finding justice and reconciliation.   Meetings with bishops are sometimes described as experiences of being bullied so that the victim will not seek to reveal their story.  The focus is on the reputation of the institution and its officers rather than on putting right a past wrong.

A hierarchical episcopal church like the Anglican Communion has the chance to be an excellent model for Christian bodies everywhere.  For this model to work well, however, there has to be complete integrity within the structure and among the leaders, so that every member of the body has confidence and trust in them.  If any of these episcopal leaders engages in malice or dishonesty, it does not take long for a cancer of suspicion to spread across the whole body.  It is also not easy to be a bishop when previous holders of this office have spent time in prison or others are found to have involved themselves in lies and dishonesty in order to defend the institution.   The statistics that were revealed recently about public attitudes towards public institutions, show a significant decline of trust toward the Church and the clergy who lead it.  The bishops of the Church of England should perhaps be spending far more time in discussing how to communicate their absolute integrity to the ordinary people of Britain.  Churchgoing Christians also need to show themselves as decent wholesome people before anyone will want to hear what they wish to communicate about God.  At present we have been witness to too much outright seediness in our Church for the outsider to feel attracted to what we may have to offer.