In my recent blogging and asking questions about the Smyth/Fletcher scandals, I have been wanting to do far more than simply chronicling a series of events.  As a former parish priest with almost a half-century of service in a variety of congregations, I approach this open-source material with what I hope is an informed perspective.   Congregations and their leaders, as well as most groups, behave in predictable ways.  What I offer in my commentary on this material, is a reflection about patterns of behaviour.   Placing such material into a context of history and theology is also an important task, but these speculations have to remain provisional. 

A couple of weeks back, the story of PC Andrew Harper, killed by thieves in Berkshire a year ago, resurfaced.  Those guilty were convicted and sentenced to prison for manslaughter.   The Press contained some discussion about whether this verdict should be overturned in favour of one calling it murder. The part of the story that caught my eye was not that debate.  It was the mentioning of the detail that, while the police were originally investigating the killing, they had received absolutely no cooperation from any of the residents of the travellers’ sites where the guilty lived.  It appeared that every single member of the communities where the thieves lived, was bound by an unwritten rule that cooperation with the police (and thus the wider society) was impossible.  Even a terrible death was not sufficient to overcome this.  In pondering this complex breakdown of communication and mutual understanding between two sections of society, we seem to be touching on something resembling the mindset of a cult or extremist political group.  There was a norm, a group mind, which laid on the entire community a rule of silence.  Everyone automatically fell into line.  No single individual there was operating as an independent adult with a conscience that could operate on behalf of those outside the tribe.

A similar kind of group mind seems to be affecting parts of the so-called Villages, a wealthy enclave for retired people in Florida.  Apparently, the divisions between Trump and Biden supporters have broken out into open conflict among some of these elderly residents.  Any kind of political display, a flag or poster, has the effect of creating torrents of anger among those on the opposing side.  Somewhere in the heat of political debate, groups of elderly American citizens have lost the ability to imagine that other people might have a valid reason for thinking and feeling in a different way. 

These two examples present to us a mentality that flourished in the period before the Second World War.  Two political systems were then on offer in continental Europe.  One, Communism, was represented by Stalin and Soviet Russia.  The other, Fascism, was imposed in Spain, Germany and Italy.  Both systems were a different expression of what we want to call the group mind.  The first, Communism, strove to create a consciousness that would claim to be building a communal society where corporate values were supreme.  This of course was the ideal rather than the reality.  Fascism on the other hand was promoting crude forms of individualism, the extolling of brute strength and the destiny of the strong to dominate over the weak.  The values of both systems had much mass appeal.  Anyone who happened to be living empty or unfulfilled lives could look to the leader and internalise the values that were being shared every day through the output of propaganda.  Lives that were felt to have no meaning suddenly were imbued with significance.  The secret weapon of both these systems was that once the ideals of the regime were internalised, the follower was relieved of having ever to make decisions and accept responsibility.  In psychological terms, being part of the national group mind allowed a comforting regression to infancy.  Daddy will sort everything out.  You can trust the leader to sort out your life and provide fulfilment.  For an uncomfortably high percentage of the populations, this was a cult-like consciousness they were happy to wallow in.  Devotion to the Leader or Fuehrer was total for large sectors of the population.  It was uncritical, unreflective and devoid of questioning.

Some understanding of the totalist regimes of the 1930s is helpful for the understanding of cults and cultic movements of today.  In all of them, there is the same avoidance of rational individuality which accepts responsibility for decisions.  There is always what we would consider an unhealthy devotion to a charismatic leader who does the thinking for his followers and keeps them at the maturity level of small children.  As long as no questions are asked, all seems well.  But the awakening from such cult-like control is painful.  A human being cannot live with their individuality and necessary choices supressed for ever. 

There is a painful truth that the Church is also sometimes very good at keeping people at a low level of maturity.   While we are not suggesting that the Church is like a cult or a mass political movement, there are some uncomfortable parallels.  I have often in this blog complained about the way that some church leaders adopt the role of a coercive benevolent dictator, telling their followers in detail how to live and exactly what to believe.  Membership is restricted to those who are Sound, and preferment to those who are Keen. Clearly a congregation where everyone believes the same things and adopts the same modes of behaviour, is likely to be a tidy place.   The preservation of these tribal loyalties may seem like a good thing.  The problem is that leaders are fallible.  When they fail, as in the current cases around Smyth/Fletcher, the fallout and damage can be appalling.  The tidy systems of control, that worked so well for a long period of time, start to crack open and people realise that the certainties that the institution stood for had been based to a considerable extent on fantasy and deceit.

The results of the Reviews by Keith Makin and Thirtyone:eight into the behaviours of Smyth and Fletcher respectively, are both delayed until next year.  There has been some comment about the reasons for these delays, but the outsider is permitted to speculate further on these hold-ups. Thirtyone:eight included the somewhat ambiguous reason which I and others have not known how to interpret.  “Non-disclosure-related information emerging late”.  Speculation is of course not fact but in the case of the Smyth enquiry at any rate, there seem to be one of two reasons at play.  The less likely theory, arising out of what I have said on the functioning of cultic groups, is that there is so much new material available that the reviewers are finding it hard to process what has come in.  The other more probable theory is that the communities that surrounded and protected charismatic leaders like Fletcher and Smyth are still in a state of post-cultic shock.  While they are now able to recognise a new reality, that old leaders are fallible, they have not lost the old tribal habits of the group mind.  In short, there is some suggestion that the enquiries currently under way are being met with the obstructionist habits of closed groups.

We thus suggest that a picture of dozens of individuals queuing up to speak to Keith Makin about their experiences of Iwerne camps, good and bad, is a very improbable one.  The most likely scenario is that there is considerable difficultly in getting individuals to speak openly and that makes the task of writing a Review harder. The omerta culture seems alive and well and we would naturally expect that to restrain a free sharing of Iwerne memories by the majority of the alumni.  Another thing that seems extraordinary is that there is no open debate about whether the Iwerne ideology of ‘Bash’ is still worth defending.  Am I the only person to have noticed that the military ethos of the camps was first conceived of in the 1930s and may perhaps have been influenced by other elitist youth movements were being created in continental Europe?  Has no one anywhere wanted to discuss whether the semi-militarised Christian training of Iwerne camps has done anything positive for the Church of England?  Is it raw fear that prevents this discussion?  Some of the alumni of Iwerne appear to be behaving like people coming out of a dark place blinking into the light.  Like cult survivors, they have a variety of stages yet to go through, like Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief.  At present most of them are still at the stage of shock and denial.  Perhaps church history will one day come to see, when examining this extraordinary tale of the Great Leader Betrayal, that the Church of England was let down badly by giving so much influence and power to this small but influential group of Christians who continue to operate this highly controlled form of Christianity.  To judge from the literature of cult studies, it will take several years if not decades before many of the Iwerne victims/survivors will be able to speak and speak clearly about what they have experienced.   The process might be speeded up if their current leaders, who still exercise a great deal of influence over the rank and file, were to give permission for the cathartic opening-up that is needed to heal so many, the directly abused and the bystanders.  So far that permission has not been granted and the journey through the stages of grief cannot proceed with ease.

Cults, extremist political or religious ideologies and closed communities of all kinds draw their strength and their toxic influence by drawing people into an unhealthy relationship with leaders.  That relationship can be poisonous.  It stops the process of growing into freedom and responsible living and the making of life choices. We call this fullness mature independence.  This is what Jesus was talking about when he declared: ‘I have come that they may have life, life in all its abundance.’

By Gilo

Fear of reputational damage is causing reputational damage

Some of us reflected together last week that the speech given at the Synod Fringe meeting in 2018 (published in Letters to a Broken Church) presented the Archbishop of Canterbury a critical opportunity to examine the relationship between senior figures and what I called the ‘strategariat’ – their comms, advisers and reputation managers. And to consider whether these agents were theologically equipped to deal with the crisis unfolding in the Church. That maybe something far deeper and very different from reputation management was needed to rescue the situation. The speech was prepared with the help of several others, including one Iwerne survivor. It was somewhat ironic to later hear the one thing the Archbishop was being urged *not* to do – rely on his strategists rather than his own pastoral wisdom – was the thing he immediately rushed off to do following that speech.

And now two years later, the media statement put out by the Church following the Channel 4 news story about the complaint to the National Safeguarding Team against Justin Welby was further evidence of a lack of vision. That was a very simple story. Survivor comes forward with complaint about Welby’s lack of action in 2013 over his former friend John Smyth. NST investigates. In terms of a news story, it couldn’t have been simpler. The legitimacy and newsworthiness of the complaint were considered valid enough by Channel 4 to cover in a short item. But what did Comms do? They rendered Welby invisible, citing ‘Lambeth’ instead, and reduced ‘investigation’ into the much less critical ‘review of information’. We now learn from Private Eye that there may have been an investigation in 2017 but that it was kept quiet. This laundering of reality in order to mask any possible failure stands in marked contrast to the surreal and corrupted treatment meted out to the Dean of Christ Church. In the latter case, no survivor or victim has come forward. The complainants are a group of dons who, with the help of their lawyer, have misappropriated the NST for their own ends. Given the suboptimal level that the game has been played out – it would not be surprising if there was an attempt to throw in a random complaint for good measure for failure to know about the hidden crimes of Jan Joosten (Regius Professor of Hebrew tried and convicted in France). Given the tortuous disciplinary system of the CofE, one wonders whether such a complaint would be taken up by an NST without question.

Two things have become increasingly apparent. Firstly, fear of reputational damage is causing reputational damage. And secondly, this equation is further heightened by the wild disparity of responses from the NST, which suggest that their processes are effectively run by the comms for the benefit of PR. I want to look further at the questions that the Channel 4 news story raise. And look behind the parachute that Church comms provided the Archbishop. It’s conceivable that he stepped back from any involvement in the Smyth case in 2013 because of his past connection, in which case one would expect in formally recusing himself he would at the same have placed Archbishop Sentamu or another senior bishop in the role of independent senior responder? We do not know whether Sentamu was told anything. We do know that there was communication between the Archbishop and the Bishop of Ely. Archbishop Welby in the 2017 LBC interview with Nick Ferrari said that his understanding was that it was being “rigorously handled by the Bishop of Ely” and that they had kept regularly in touch and met often. If the Archbishop did effectively step back surely that released him from official involvement in the quasi judicial role and freed him to be more pro-active in helping the victims… but he didn’t. Justin Welby the pastor was missing in action when old friends were known to be in turmoil arising from their past experience. Why has he never asked to meet, and from what I gather, has always refused to meet with those who actively sought a meeting? The Iwerne survivors whom he knew, could have helped to put him fully in the picture. He would have been ideally placed to ensure justice and proper CofE response. Did he put his mind to the issue of potential conflict of interest? Did he see himself as a potentially important witness of background information? Did it bother him that there were those who did know and did nothing or indeed actively assisted the cover up? How different would it have been if Welby had used his knowledge of the Iwerne setup and culture, and the soft power of his office to bear, upon discovering the truth and extent of Smyth’s activities from 2013? Given what “Graham” and others have managed to achieve with no help from that quarter, it is surely the case that much would have been done better and quicker. Inaction obstructed justice, transparency and accountability. We keep coming back to this tangle of conflicts of interests. The more one analyses the situation, the more compromised the Archbishop becomes.

Archbishop Welby has had opportunity to do what his counterpoint in York had recently done – be a beacon of greater transparency. Although there is disparity too there in the way that Stephen Cottrell has been treated by the NST when contrasted with other bishops and senior figures. The bigger the mitre the larger the parachute. But Justin Welby has allowed his advisers to effectively wall him up inside his own crisis. It’s not difficult to see other bishops following similar patterns. Perhaps they look to ‘Lambeth’ for a lead. And it’s perhaps not surprising when the Archbishop’s choice of principal advisor is a bishop in disclosure denial himself. The Bishop at Lambeth has recently been the subject of a letter from seven survivors calling for him to stand down from two safeguarding panels (NSSG and NSP) pending retraining.

The cul-de-sac of denial which has been widespread across the senior layer has been entirely unnecessary. I’m not a driver but I imagine the deeper one drives up a cul-de-sac, the harder it becomes to reverse. That is the situation his team have created for the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. The more one surveys the gathering storm of fresh disclosures and reviews, particularly around Fletcher and Smyth, and the more one looks at the procedural and ethical shambles which have occurred on his watch, the more the observer is bound to ask “Is this survivable for Justin Welby?” Will he become a casualty of the culture of his advisers?

Where does the leadership come from to rescue the Church from all this mess? It’s unlikely to come from William Nye, Secretary General of Synod and of Archbishops Council. Melissa Caslake, the Director of Safeguarding, isn’t able to provide it – her ‘independence’ is too heavily fenestrated by Archbishops’ Council and their comms. And the NST has inherited too much unethical process from its previous regime, particularly around the notorious core groups, that it has yet to address. Bishop Jonathan Gibbs, although clearly wanting to see major change, lacks the power to tackle the culture resident above his head. Leadership will not come from the NSSG (National Safeguarding Steering Group) which is replete with senior bishops protecting their own and each others’ denial behaviour. So where will leadership come from? Perhaps Stephen Cottrell will be the bright angel of change. Or perhaps a prophet will arise from out of the wreckage, someone that nobody has foreseen, who will call out a startled structure towards necessary reform. If so, she or he will require the tenacity and grit to match that of survivors, and will need to resist any pretence that things are vaguely working – when clearly they are in a collapsed state. Only deep structural reform will rescue the Church from its confused moral mess.

It may not be possible for any Archbishop to provide the impetus for that reform. Perhaps at that height in the hierarchy, the person of an Archbishop becomes too swallowed up inside an imprisoning structure which removes from them the prophetic freedom they might have found. But nothing less than prophetic wisdom is called for to steer the vessel of the Church into clearer waters. At what point will someone cry out on the floor of the House of Bishops: Enough of all our broken pretence. We must apologise collectively, publicly and authentically for our failure to treat so many survivors honestly; for our insistence on distancing from their stories, our disclosure denials and “no recollections”, our reliance on dysfunctional processes; and in too many instances for our behaviour worse than denial – gaslighting and really cowardly and mean behaviour. Enough. We must do real penance, seek truth and reconciliation, and must reform our episcopal culture and reform our structures right to their bones.

One of the most challenging things in parochial ministry is the ministry to the dying.  I do hope that those who seek help to travel along this last journey, find the services of a clergyman to be a support.  For me, a greater challenge than the not-infrequent bed-side vigils with the dying, were two occasions when total strangers, arrived at the front door, apparently in good health.  These individuals, each announced that they had only months to live.  In each of these cases, separated by some fifteen years, I had no prior knowledge of their background or spiritual state.  I simply had to make up a response as I went along.

These two incidents that I remember vividly from my time as a parish priest turned out to be similar in the way that I responded.  One person was a successful businessman in his 60s and the other was a younger woman in her 40s.   Each had each received a terminal diagnosis days before.  Fortunately, neither was expecting me somehow to wave a spiritual wand and make everything go away.  We were thus able to start looking together at the fact of death and how they, with my help, could approach it and prepare for it.

Each episode consisted of my seeing them for around five sessions before the journeys to the vicarage became physically impossible.  Because neither was a formal Christian in the sense of expecting the sacraments or having any knowledge of doctrine, there was in the sessions some element of instruction, like a confirmation class.  This was followed a period of silence and deep meditation.  The main resource that I brought to bear was the gospel of St John.  It was this instinctual choice of this book as a helpful guide to the issue of dying which is what I wish to share in this blog.  What I write is not in any way meant to be a DIY to ministry to the dying, but simply a sharing of experience in case it might be useful to someone else.

St John’s gospel is for me a profoundly helpful resource for Christians as they try to go deeper into the significance of Jesus and understand the way that his teaching and life impacted certain communities of Christians around the end of the first century.  I have always found it helpful to treat John’s gospel, not as an add-on to the other gospels but as something new in the way we read and assimilate the Christian message.  It is without doubt written with an utterly different style from the other gospels.  The other three, called ‘synoptic’ to denote their similarity, seem to belong to a different world.  For me, the suggestion that Jesus may not have spoken all the words ascribed to him in John’s account is no problem.  The words ascribed to Jesus right at the end of John when he speaks about the Holy Spirit bearing witness to him, give us permission to believe that the revelation of God through Jesus was a process that went on beyond his earthly life.  John’s writing is truly inspired Scripture in the sense that God in Christ is speaking to us through it.

Christians through the centuries have spiritually fed on the words of John’s gospel whether or not they are all thought to be the actual words spoken by the earthly Jesus.   Such a discussion was certainly not appropriate for the two strangers who came to seek the resources of the Christian faith for their final journey.  What was helpful for my purpose was the way this gospel is an encounter between two sides.  One is the figure of Jesus who speaks to us from the timeless perspective of eternity.   The other is a human being who is reading the text.  That individual represents each and every one of us who comes to God, recognising a state of need. 

Much of John’s gospel consists of an exploration of the ways that Jesus encounters human longing.  He especially reveals his nature in the great ‘I am’ sayings.  He is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life and the True Vine.  The structure of the Gospel is carefully ordered to give, not just Jesus’ sayings, but concrete examples of his feeding the hungry, making the blind see, shepherding the lost, promising ‘streams of living water’ and raising the dead.  Miracles and teaching intertwine with one another throughout the gospel account.  It seems clear to me that a reader is being called to identify him/herself with the thirst, the hunger, the blindness, being lost and the one facing death.  In summary, Jesus meets all of us whenever we come to him, confessing our need of him.  Because he responds, as it were from the perspective of eternity, somehow our situation is raised out of the here and now and placed in a new dimension.   This is the sphere of being that the dying want to know about, particularly when they are preparing to enter it.

I do not remember all the details of my sessions with the two who came for support, but I do remember inviting them to identify with the different aspects of longing and need identified in John’s gospel.     Then, through the process of meditation and silence, we could quietly listen to the ‘I am’ sayings and allow Jesus through them to encounter the need that had been uncovered in us.  We are all beings who at a deep level are in need and through silence we can invite Jesus to respond to that need.  These meditations and their embedded invitations to the Risen Christ were as much declarations of faith as any formulaic ‘confession of faith’.

When John’s gospel is used only as a mine for favoured proof texts, such as chapter 3.16, the full dramatic sweep of the gospel will pass us by.  What I wanted to share with those two dying parishioners was, not some short cut to faith, but an invitation to finding and being drawn into the beauty of eternity that Jesus inhabits.  The words that are often used in a funeral service are very powerful in this context.  ‘I will come and take you to myself so that where I am you may be also’.  That surely is the ultimate promise by Jesus, one that will give us courage to cross into the unknown with the assurance of his eternal presence.

As my regular readers known, the central preoccupation of this blog is abusive power and the way that this causes problems both in society and in the Church.  Another word which captures the nature of abusive power is bullying.  It is the presence of bullying in the Church that I want to reflect on today. 

Of all the things that people write to me about, having encountered me through the blog, bullying is at the top of the list.  I try to answer these emails as best I can, showing them, hopefully, that the perspective of a stranger on their problem may help them move forward.  I have learned from my reading around the topic of cults that abusers and cult leaders are very good at ‘gaslighting’.  In this they distort and confuse the perspective of their victims about what is happening to them.  It is not just the victim of a sex abuser who has their grasp of reality undermined; it is any victim of power games on the part of bullies.  This may take place in the home or in the church.  So, by speaking on the phone or by exchanging emails, I can help a victim to find once more his/her sense of reality.  This reality has been under severe attack through the abuse or the bullying 

Before I go further in suggesting how bullying can be understood and possibly responded to, I need to give examples of bullying which are loosely based on stories told to me over the past few months.   

• A member of the congregation challenges the vicar for misbehaviour of some kind.  The response is to ostracise that individual by promoting rumours of mental illness. 
• A vicar attacks an individual from the pulpit.  He does not name them but gives enough information to make sure that everyone can work out who is being spoken about. 
• An organist who is lacking in skill, picks on and humiliates a particular child who has the misfortune to be both extremely musical but not very confident.  Jealousy? 

• A treasurer who is consistently late in submitting accounts reacts by angrily threatening to sue anyone who asks to see the books.   
• A major donor to a church uses their contribution as a weapon to manipulate the agenda of the Church council of which he/she is not a member. 
• A congregation who traditionally opposes some church teaching threatens to withhold their parish share if the diocese/national church dares to appoint as bishop someone that opposes their sectarian stance. 
• An independent church secretly changes the constitution in order to give control of the assets to a small group firmly under the dominance of the pastor.  This change happens around the time when a £5 million offer for the church land was being mooted. 
• A vicar consistently undermines a curate and prevents him/her from attending a local support group in case he, the vicar, would be discussed there. 

• A minister uses passages from Scripture in his/her sermons which stress the need for obedience to ‘the Lord’s anointed’. 
• A Sunday School teacher is appointed even though he/she is known to be short tempered with children and had left the teaching profession because of this.  A close relative is a major donor to the church. The situation is made difficult because he/she insists on deciding the curriculum on his/her own. 
• A congregation told that if they individually fail to give 10% of their untaxed income to the Church (minister), their eternal destiny is in danger. 

I have not, with one exception, attempted to interpret these examples of church bullying.  In fact whatever reasons one comes up with, these are likely to be similar to those accompanying bullying in any other area of society.  The chief reason for bullying, as far as I can see, is to obtain in some way the gratification of a sense of personal power.  We all need some sense of power and most of the time we achieve it by living ordinary lives, respected in the work we do and through our relationships within our families.  The psychologically balanced healthy person has obtained a combination of self-love and the love of others and this keeps them feeling alive and grounded.  We have an identity given to us through these healthy interactions.  Justin Welby, when the story of his birth father made the news two years ago, stated that his chief identity was the one given to him in Christ.  In other words, the claim to be a Christian should help all Christians to have an extra sense of who they are without needing to invade the space of others to dominate them as bullies do. 

As a very approximate generalisation we might suggest that the reason for anyone to bully is because they feel that their sense of identity is in some way under threat.  Their own inner sense of power is depleted for whatever reason.  Bullies sense somehow that their standing in the world, the one they feel they deserve, is not coming their way.  With failed ambition or frustrated fantasies of greatness, an individual may lash out and enter the world of becoming a bully.  Watching a bullying event unfold, we, the observers, can see clearly that the short gratification of feeling power, does absolutely nothing to change the situation for the bully.  There is a kind of frustrated childish petulance about the act but, of course, it still goes on in the Church from the very highest levels down to the most humble.  Christians, whether bishops or flower ladies, seem unable to avoid bullying on occasion.  In short, many people have a frustrated need to obtain power, even those who have it abundantly already.  In this one is reminded of the title of the recent book about Donald Trump by his niece. Too Much and Never Enough.  

There is so much more that I could write on this topic of church bullying which I have not here the space to explore.  It is a key theme for this blog, so the ramifications will no doubt, come out on other occasions.   Here I want to remind the reader that desire for power and the bullying that goes with it was an issue for Jesus and the other New Testament writers.  There is a whole chapter of Matthew’s gospel, 23, which describe the bullies and abusers of power.  Jesus would find attendance at many of our churches an uncomfortable experience.  The antidote to resolve all the conflicts of bullying and power abuse is, of course, contained in the single word love.  Love understands all about the way that people are sometimes depleted of self-worth so that they feel the need to dominate and abuse.  Love is the reality that keeps us firmly grounded where we belong, supported by the love of family, friends, fellows Christians as well as God himself.  The expression being ‘in Christ’ is a shorthand for finding our place among our fellow Christians and in the arms and protection of God himself.  Why would we ever need to bully and dominate when we have this reality, the one from which our true identity comes? 

On December 27^th last year a story in the Daily Telegraph gave some detailed information about the unethical activities of Jonathan Fletcher, the former Rector of Emmanuel Wimbledon.  I commented on the story, suggesting that the Church of England public relations team might be speedily summoned out of their post-Christmas break to make some statement.  In this I was wrong.  Evidently the Church House publicity team felt that the alleged misbehaviour of this clergyman was not their affair but could be dealt with by the safeguarding officers in the Southwark diocese.  In the event it was not the diocese who acted. The parish where Fletcher had served thirty years, Emmanuel Wimbledon, was put under pressure by victims and ministers. The independent safeguarding body, thirtyone:eight, was then given the task of producing a ‘lesson-learned review on Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel Church’ .  That review is expected next month, and we hope that it will be published for all to read, as an important part of caring for victims is clarifying the nature of what Jonathan Fletcher did.

When an individual in a large organisation misbehaves, as Jonathan Fletcher (and John Smyth) are alleged to have done, it is never a matter of one bad apple in a barrel.  There will be witnesses, bystanders, enablers and colluders in the misbehaviour.  No one in an organisation likes to hear that their blindness or inactivity has allowed evil to fester or even increase.  The reaction of Fletcher’s bystanders was no exception.  There has been until now virtually no comment from the friends and backers of Fletcher over so many years.  As I commented in a previous blog piece, the Fletcher story has been accompanied by a great silence.

In the last few days, two conservative evangelical ministers, Rev. Dr. Peter Sanlon and Rev. Melvin Tinker, have broken ranks to suggest that Fletcher’s misbehaviour is an indictment on the whole of the senior level of the so-called ‘ReNew’ constituency.  ReNew is the name for an annual gathering of conservative Anglican churchmen and the title is a convenient shorthand for the entire conservative evangelical block in the Church. Its self-appointed leader, William Taylor, runs training conferences to select future leaders and appoints regional leaders to report back to him. Most of this group steer away from charismatic theology and the ordination of women is not tolerated ‘on biblical grounds’.  They remain formally part of the Anglican church, while being linked to several fringe bodies, such as GAFCON and AMiE.  ReNew is largely coterminous with the old network provided by the organisation called REFORM.  It also draws together many of the same parishes and individuals as the Church Society.  Many of these ReNew parishes have accepted the alternative episcopal oversight provided to the evangelical constituency in the Church of England who reject the ordination of women.  Rod Thomas, the Bishop of Maidstone ministers to this block of parishes.  It would be tidier (and more Anglican) to report that Bishop Thomas has a clear ministry of authority and oversight over this network of conservative parishes.  But that does not appear to be the case.

Effective power within this conservative evangelical network seems to be shared by the bishop with a network of leaders, all of whom share a common background in Iwerne Camps, public schools and certain prominent parishes.  Among these are such centres as STAG in Cambridge and St Helen’s Bishopsgate.  Both ministers of those churches are Etonians, friends, and met with John Smyth while students in Cambridge. The precise way that power seems to flow within the ReNew network is not always clear, but nothing seems to happen without the goodwill of a small coterie of de-facto leaders.  Among them we have already mentioned William Taylor, but prominent also are Vaughan Roberts and the recently retired Vicar of All Souls Langham Place, Hugh Palmer.  It is no exaggeration to suggest that Fletcher has played a significant role in the spiritual and professional formation of each of these men.  Indeed, the same thing is true of others who have come to ordination and even prominence in the Church of England through the Iwerne camps/public school trajectory.  All were deeply impacted by the camps. Vaughan Roberts has been a trustee of Titus Trust and used to lead on them for several weeks of his summer vacations. Although Fletcher (b. 1942) belongs to an older generation of prominent evangelical Christian leaders, there is no doubt that his influence is still strong with those who have picked up the mantle of leadership after him.  All these leaders know each other well.  They all attended the same schools, universities and have spent time in the relatively small group of ReNew parishes in England.  They each pride themselves on uncompromised clarity in their preaching of the Gospel.  By implication they imply the authentic gospel message is nowhere to be heard outside their network.  The very close and personal links that bind these ordained leaders in the ReNew network makes it hard to see how any of them could have been ignorant of the rumours which attached themselves to Jonathan Fletcher (and his close acquaintance, John Smyth).  This is not, however, an area that the National Safeguarding Team seem to want to explore.  If the power of the NST/Core Groups were to be effective within the secret world of the ReNew network, every single of the current leadership would probably have to be suspended from duty for disclosure failures.

The crimes and allegations of crimes against Jonathan Fletcher have not been openly or publicly discussed by any member of the current ReNew leadership.   They have neither admitted to knowing about the accusations, nor have they denied knowing about them.  As Peter Sanlon and Melvin Tinker have suggested in their piece, there is an ‘outrageousness of silence’.  The article which has this title, calls out to this leadership cabal to tell us what they know, no doubt recognising that, as with other examples across the Anglican Church, silence and collusion are almost as serious and committing the original evil deed.    How else is one expected to interpret such a blanket of silence which has lasted such a very long time?  To put this silence into context, we may quote some words of a long-term supporter of the Titus Trust. He  wrote, ‘Jonathan’s perverted and manipulative behaviour has been widely known within evangelical circles for decades. Most of it was in plain sight. He was a classic narcissist. He had this weird and unhealthy guru-like status within Iwerne and Conservative Anglican circles. Like Smyth he cultivated his own select mini tribe. I always kept him at arms length. I was lucky as I was warned off him. And I didn’t fancy his standard modus operandi for ‘personal work’ of naked saunas with young men and an obsession with masturbation, girlfriends etc.’

Peter Sanlon and Melvin Tinker’s article mentioned a letter sent to ReNew leaders in April 2019.  That was signed by William Taylor, Vaughan Roberts, Rod Thomas and Robin Weekes. It recognised that many ReNew churches had continued to invite Fletcher to speak despite him losing PTO. It noted that people may wish to contact the four signatories – but neither mentioned victims nor the possibility of reporting abuse to the police or Church of England safeguarding authorities. The letter concluded, ‘Jonathan has had a very significant ministry over the years and continues to be held in great affection by many.’

Further, during the past couple of weeks, there has been a small flurry of discussion about a forthcoming online conference organised by ReNew on the topic of church abuse on September 14th.  Justin Humphreys, whose organisation, thirtyone:eight, is involved with the review that is being drawn up over the case of Fletcher, had been asked to speak to the Conference.  At first, he accepted but then, after realising that the review on Fletcher in would still be in the pipeline, he decided to withdraw.  The leaders of ReNew, organisers of the Conference, have communicated with their followers to explain this withdrawal.  It is interesting to read the language used in this explanation because it is in many ways the nearest thing to a public comment from ReNew about Fletcher and his abuse that we have.  The statement does not mention Fletcher’s name, but it gives us a small glimpse into the workings of the consciences of those who have presided over a cover-up of serious sexual/sadistic abuse and abuse  – which many have known about for decades. 

 In the statement we read: ‘The ReNew Trustees and Planning Team believe what the Bible says – namely that we all have sins to repent’.  This reminds me of the logic put forward by Bishop Benn at the IICSA hearing about sin and forgiveness.  General sinfulness can somehow be bundled up with serious sins and then forgiven and forgotten. Leaders in the ReNew network do not apparently carry any responsibility for challenging such shallow and dangerous kinds of reasoning.   This sentiment is followed up in the words ‘we all have lessons to learn and because we want to repent of our sins we wanted to help churches learn from people’s experiences and consider how best to respond in a gospel centred way’.  What the ‘gospel-centred way’ comes to mean is indicated a little further down, when the document uses that appalling clichéd and offensive sentiment, ‘we apologise unreservedly for any distress caused.’ 

This short document is all we possess to give us any insight into the current way the leaders of ReNew think about abuse and the failings of their former leader and mentor, Fletcher.  From this writer’s perspective, it fails on several counts.  It comes over with all the calm arrogance of a Christian body whose confidence is rooted on an inerrant style of teaching and preaching.   We are God’s special people, not only because we have all the answers provided by God in his infallible word but because our churches are fuller and wealthier than those of the woolly liberals.  There is little charm in this approach and certainly nothing of the humility that we examined in the passage from Micah.  Calm elitist arrogance sits badly with the suspected quiet tolerance of toxic evil and the failure to protect and defend victims of that cruelty.  The ReNew leaders who produced this document, appear to have the same conscience deficit that is currently apparent in other parts of the Church.  Jesus spoke about conscience in the parable of the offering.  To paraphrase, Jesus tells the man who is going make an offering at the Temple to turn back and sort things out with his brother before making that journey.  We can ask the same thing of the ReNew leaders who are trying to dazzle us with the ‘success’ of full churches and confident ‘gospel-centred’ preaching.   No one is impressed if these same leaders with the ‘gospel’ are the ones who have buried information about abuse for decades.  In their narrow elitist world there is no need for conscience, let alone learning, growing or discovery on the Christian journey.  Mistakes are made but they can be swept under carpets.  The need for proper confession of buried evil and the normal application of a Christian conscience does not appear to operate among these Christian leaders. The only seemingly important thing for these leaders is the preservation of the ReNew tribe and the power and wealth that it possesses. 

In the last blog post we discussed the absence of the biblical virtues of justice, mercy and humility.   In visiting once again the ‘outrageousness of silence’ coming from the ReNew network leaders, I, with Sanlon and Tinker, draw attention to the enormous amount of work that remains to be done by conservative leaders as well as by the central authorities of the Church of England.  If the work is not done to restore integrity to its structures and provide justice for survivors, the Church will be seen as irrelevant, toxic and even dangerous to its followers.   A Church or network with that burden cannot survive.

Surviving Church was honoured to be asked to act as one of the platforms through which the letter to the Charity Commission about Church of England safeguarding could be circulated and made public.   The topics that we cover on this blog meant that the sentiments expressed in the letter would be of the kind familiar to regular followers.  I was also happy to be one of the signatories of the letter.

The letter to the CC would seem to have made some considerable impact since it appeared on Tuesday last.  It seems to be saying two fundamental things.  It was, first of all, accusing the Church of England and especially the Archbishop’s Council and the National Safeguarding Team of authorising and using legal processes to cope with safeguarding issues in inconsistent and secretive ways – such that do not further the cause of justice.  The letter was also suggesting that in the administration of these in-house forms of justice, fundamental ethical and biblical principles were being ignored.  Although not mentioned in the text of the letter, it is apparent that the authors were thinking about the passage in Micah 6 about the importance of justice etc.  Gilo makes clear this connection of ideas by calling the appeal for additional signatures, the Micah 6:8 initiative.

In the traditional translations of this well-known passage from the prophets, there is a question and then three answers are given.  The question ‘What doth the Lord require’ is answered with essentially three commands.  They are ‘do justly, ‘love mercy (or kindness)’ and ‘walk humbly’.   One summarised version of the letter would say simply that the safeguarding protocols of the Church of England were at present failing to fulfil any of these three principles set down by the prophet Micah.

The CC letter gives a number of examples of where principles of justice have been ignored by those who oversee the rules governing safeguarding in the Church.  Some of these principles had been laid out by Lord Carlile in his 2017 report about the Bishop Bell affair.  In the current letter there were some more recent quotes from him inserted into the text.  Of these I mention two.  He sets out the principle that anyone who is being accused of an offence is allowed to know the evidence that is going to be presented so that preparation for a defence is made possible.    The second legal principle is to emphasise the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest.  Carlile calls this the ‘law of apparent bias’.  It is clear that, in the Martyn Percy case, such conflicts were allowed to enter the process.  Those in charge of the Percy Core Group acknowledged this by removing two of their members from the team.

The principle of mercy has also been a casualty of the C/E Safeguarding industry.  The English word implies consideration and respect for all parties.  There are several examples of the opposite being practised, and these would be described as ruthless behaviour.  To remove someone from office, without giving them notice of what they are supposed to have done wrong, offends justice but also consideration and mercy.  The thought of Lord Carey being rung up by the press one evening to respond to an accusation of failure over his dealings with John Smyth, seems to indicate a remarkable deficit of respect and sensitivity.  He has, apparently, still not been told what he was supposed to have done in this regard.  The Core Group that made the decision to suspend him from his limited ministry was using its power in a weaponised fashion.  Such behaviour is cruel and unworthy of a body claiming superior moral standards, such as the Church.

To ‘walk humbly with God’ again implies a standard of behaviour which is nowhere in view in what we see in the Church of England Core Groups.   Humility is a quality that faces up to the possibility that an accusation may be wrong.  Instead what we see all too often is a group of people making up their minds, almost before they start, that a particular individual is guilty.  Leaking details to the press about supposed guilt, as we saw with Bishop Bell and Archbishop Carey constitutes an arbitrary use of power.   Humility, by contrast, encourages, as part of the process to promote justice, listening to criticisms.  These may come from experts in child protection and the Law.  Most important of all, humility in the biblical sense requires that Core Groups and those who set them up, listen to the survivors of abuse at the hands of an employee of the Church.  Humility in short is a quality that is always prepared to learn and to listen.  The NST and the Archbishop’s Council have shown very little inclination to do either of these.  By contrast they seem to be digging themselves into a deep hole.  To extract themselves from this hole, legal, ethical and practical, they need help, such as the Charity Commission may be able to offer them.

For all these and other reasons, a letter to Baroness Stowell and the Charity Commission was written.  We have not all given up on the Church of England.  We do however see that there is an urgent need for its leadership to be challenged and held to account.  We need to know that those who have the power to make decisions need, not only to follow expert and wise advice, but also to follow the biblical principles of justice, mercy and humility.  There are many people who find themselves giving up on the church because they fear that their complaints about episodes of power abuse are not being addressed.    Because we have a hierarchical church, we have allowed it to become full of people who ‘love to have places of honour at feasts and chief seats in synagogues….’  In extolling rank, we find that the ones without status, those with no wealth or position feel ignored or excluded and thus unwelcome in the Church of God. 

Some of us have a vision for the church.  It is a vision of a community that is inspired, not by rank, importance and power, but by a solemn desire to honour those who have the least power.  In our Church we have a large phalanx of survivors of abuse.  The Church has for decades tried to hide their existence by telling them effectively to go away and stop bothering us.  Such survivors need to be heard; they need to be honoured and recognised not only for what they have suffered at the hands of the Church but for what for what they can give to the Church through their experiences.   Of all the groups in or on the edge of the Church, survivors are the chief experts on justice, mercy and humility.  They know about them because they seek them even though have failed to receive them over long periods of time.

Readers are invited to add their names to this letter by following the link to Change.org petition https://www.change.org/p/the-micah-6-8-initiative

To: The Rt Hon Baroness Stowell of Beeston, MBE
Chair of the Charity Commission
102 Petty France
Westminster
London SW1H 9AJ

Tuesday 11 August 2020

Dear Baroness Stowell,

We write as interested parties to ask that the Charity Commission exercise its powers of intervention to address the failures of the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England (charity number 1074857) to devise a safe, consistent and fair system of redress to all parties engaged in safeguarding complaints. The structures of the Established Church are complex with responsibilities both devolved and diffuse. In addition to 42 Dioceses operating local jurisdiction, there is a National Safeguarding Team (NST), reporting to the Secretary General (William Nye) through a National Safeguarding Director (Melissa Caslake). Policy is devised and guidelines issued by the House of Bishops; there is a Lead Bishop for Safeguarding (currently the Bishop of Huddersfield, Jonathan Gibbs) working with two assistant Bishops (a relatively new innovation) and with further responsibility undertaken by the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) chaired by the Lead Bishop with its members appointed by the two Archbishops. In addition, there is a National Safeguarding Panel (NSP), “set up to provide vital reference and scrutiny from a range of voices, including survivors, on the development of policy and guidance” with an independent (external) Chair, Meg Munn. The power to suspend under the Clergy Discipline Measure is reciprocally exercised by the two archbishops in cases involving themselves.

There is now some urgency over addressing the impaired transparency and intermittent accountability of the NST. Within such a complex structure, it is extraordinarily difficult for aggrieved parties to secure redress of individual grievance, for questions to be raised, or for policy and its implementation (or lack thereof) to be challenged. We address our complaint to the Archbishops’ Council as the body with ultimate responsibility, established by the National Institutions Measure 1998. It is accountable to the General Synod but is not subordinate to it. In effect, it acts as the national executive of the Church of England.

We are writing as, despite raising significant questions over policy and practice, there is only a nominal institutional acceptance of the need for reform. True, there is now a process underway for a replacement of the widely discredited Clergy Discipline Measure 2003, and the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) into the Anglican Church is awaited. However, the continuing flow of cases of injustice leads us to seek early intervention from the Charity Commission. We do this with reluctance, having tried and failed to secure redress through multiple complaints across the structure.

The signatories to this letter come from a wide range of backgrounds, and all are people with interest in and experience of the current system, policies, and culture within the Church. They include aggrieved complainants, respondents, lawyers, members of the General Synod, clergy, laity and the contributing authors to the book Letters to a Broken Church (published in July 2019) which collected a range of essays exploring the many ways the current system fails all involved.

Much of the discontent centres upon the secretive world of the National Safeguarding Team (NST) core groups, which act in ways reminiscent of the Star Chamber, synonymous with the selective use of arbitrary unaccountable power, concentrating effective control of process in the hands of a very few, who exercise wide-ranging discretions afforded by guidelines devised by Church House administrators and issued by the House of Bishops. Such discretion includes ignoring those very guidelines. Even then, these guidelines are demonstrably inadequate, and are not applied consistently, fairly, or impartially. Whilst the core groups are not independently advised by lawyers experienced in good safeguarding practice, there is the omnipresence of communications advisors, sometimes more than one. The deepest suspicion of those subjected to this process, and many taking an outside observer’s interest, is that these are bodies that function as quasi-judicial adversarial proceedings without the requisite checks and balances of due process, failing all tests of natural justice, and which prioritise the reputation of the Church above common standards of natural fairness.

This letter is prompted by the processes exposed in three current cases. We do not take a view on the individual merits or outcomes of these, but refer to them as typical, representative indicators of the arbitrariness of how the system malfunctions. These case have revealed the following:

1. There is an absence of a properly constituted appeal or review procedure at any stage of the process. No matter how egregious the failures to abide by the Church’s own rules or basic principles of law and good practice may be, there is no remedy.

2 . There is an absence of a comprehensive conflicts of interest policy and, in its absence, an unwillingness to exercise available discretions in the selection guidance and management of the core group membership, so as to ensure a fair and unbiased process throughout their deliberations. A simple illustration suffices. A legal firm may act as advisors to a Diocese which may ultimately play a part in concluding a case, and may simultaneously act for a complainant, but not a respondent. This is currently happening with no institutional awareness of impropriety or willingness to resolve such blatant conflict of interest. The right to a fair trial and preservation of a degree of “equality of arms” are both observed in the breach.

3. When institutional jurisdiction is in question, the Church asserts jurisdiction, but does not explain its reasoning in matters of complex and obscure law. It is unfair to place responsibility for test-case litigation on an individual when the problem lies with the institution. The decision as to who is, and who is not, within the Church’s jurisdiction appears to be arbitrarily and selectively applied without the principles upon why such distinctions are drawn being convincingly advanced for scrutiny.

4. When there have been breaches of the Church’s own rules designed to ensure procedural fairness, there has been secrecy and reluctance to acknowledge error. Thus, in the Dean Percy case, the absence of proper minute-taking has been obfuscated and glossed over. A core group met on 13 March 2020, but no one was designated as a minute-taker. The complainants have received the ex post facto notes created three months later, whereas the Dean is refused even redacted copies. When a replacement Chair of the core group was appointed, she was the undisclosed professional referee for the Investigator.

5. There has been inconsistency and arbitrariness in the way persons were admitted to or excluded from presence or representation at core groups. Thus, three complainant dons from Christ Church, Oxford (none of them primary victims or witnesses of alleged abuse) attended the Dean Percy core group meeting on 13th March, whereas the victim complainant known as “Graham” was neither invited to attend nor attended the core group considering his complaint against the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor was he told it was being convened. This is perceived as selective and privileged access.

6. Having expended charitable monies on independent reports to make recommendations on safeguarding practice, for the benefit and safety of complainants and respondents alike, and having accepted the recommendations thereof, there has been a longstanding failure to make timely changes by the implementation of rule revision, protocol, or any other practical means to put right the historic failures and malpractices which have continued. Thus, all but one of the recommendations of the 2017 Carlile Review into the Bishop George Bell case were accepted, but not implemented; and the process errors are still replicated at this time in current cases. Lord Carlile has recently opined:

“I do not believe that the Church has got to grips with the fundamental
principles of adversary justice, one of which is that you must disclose the
evidence that you have against someone, and give them an equal opportunity to
be heard as those making the accusation.

“And you cannot give them an equal opportunity if there are conflicts of interest
involved. Anyone with a conflict of interest must leave the deliberations and take
no further part. This is what lawyers understand as the law of apparent bias. It’s
not to say that such people are biased: that’s often misunderstood. It is the
appearance of bias that matters.

“Having people on a core group with a conflict of interest is simply not
sustainable and is, on the face of it, unlawful.

“And to fail to allow the person accused to represent themselves, or be
represented, in the full knowledge of the accusation, is not sustainable, and is,
on the face of it, unlawful.”

7. There is a regime in which partiality, privilege and reputational management have taken precedence over due process and proper standards appropriate to an adversarial quasi-judicial process. Thus, the 84-year-old Lord Carey had his Permission to Officiate (‘PTO’) summarily revoked in June 2020 within days of historic information arising (relating to events over 30 years ago), and the press notified, whereas the newly chosen Archbishop of York retained anonymity from the outset of process until a benign judgement was announced. We take no position on the justice of the outcome but highlight the contrast which brings the Church and its systems into disrepute though a perception of bias and privilege.

8. When unfairness and breaches of principles of natural justice and human rights legislation have been brought to the attention of those charged with the responsibility to manage fair and proper process, there has been a refusal to set aside bad process and a prioritisation of “saving face” rather than a willingness to rectify error and restore proper process.

Any one of the above reasons is serious to those adversely affected by the Church’s longstanding poor practice in this field. Collectively and cumulatively it is a picture of ongoing injustice. The institutional strategy persistently to ignore or deny the serious character of these deficiencies falls well below what is expected of the Established Church, and the failure of Archbishops’ Council to call those with operational responsibility to account represents an important dereliction of trustee duties.

Many of those affected or potentially affected are significantly conflicted. At the recent ‘virtual’ meeting of the General Synod (on 11 July 2020) we learnt that there are 27 extant NST core groups. We understand that they relate to complaints against senior clergy, namely bishops and cathedral deans. Some, undoubtedly, will relate to currently-serving diocesan bishops. Virtually all the CDM complaints against the episcopacy of which we are aware result in “no further action” in the cases of currently serving bishops. Those no longer in office seem less protected. It is probably fair to say that there is a powerful disincentive to speak publicly for reasons of collegiality and self-interest. Those who manage the processes within the administration defend reputation and the retention of the powers they de facto exercise. Yet, those of us who have campaigned for reform are often privately urged to “keep doing what you are doing”.

These problems need resolving and the ongoing replication of the same errors in current cases lead us to the reluctant conclusion that outside intervention is now needed, and so we come from many perspectives, many experiences, and many parts of the Church to ask that you intervene to mandate the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England to account for its failure to rectify serious errors or manage these processes in the interests of justice towards complainants and respondents alike. The risk of not doing so is that this charity sector as a whole will suffer, and that the egregious failures of safeguarding practice and protocol, with the Archbishops’ Council over the NST, will affect churches and charities across the land, causing further and significant collateral damage.

Yours sincerely,
David Lamming Member of General Synod; Barrister (retired)
Martin Sewell Member of General Synod; Child Protection Solicitor (retired)
Lord Carlile of Berriew CBE, QC
Lord Lexden
His Honour Alan Pardoe QC
Sir Jonathan Phillips KCB
Prof Sir Iain Torrance President Emeritus of Princeton Theological Seminary KCVO, Kt
Prof Nigel Biggar Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, University of Oxford
Prof Linda Woodhead Lancaster University; contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’
Revd Jonathan Aitken
David Pearson Founder of thirtyone:eight – Christian Safeguarding Charity
Mike Hames Former Detective Superintendent and Head of the Paedophile Unit at Scotland Yard
Gilo Co-editor of ‘Letters to a Broken Church’ ; IICSA core participant; ‘victim of the NST’
Christina Rees CBE Contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’; member of General Synod 1990-2015; founding member of the Archbishops’ Council
Andrew Carey ‘Victim of the NST’
Dr Ruth Hildebrandt Historian and freelance writer
Grayson
David Mason Former Assistant Diocesan Secretary, Lincoln and Governance and Administration Manager, Chichester
Lizzie Taylor
Prof John Charmley Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic Strategy & Research, St Mary’s University
Revd Simon Talbott Member of General Synod
‘A Survivor’ Survivor of sexual assaults by the Revd Meirion Griffiths
Richard Scorer Head of Abuse Law, Slater & Gordon, solicitors; contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’
Revd Valerie Plumb Member of General Synod
Rt Revd Alan Wilson Bishop of Buckingham; contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’
Graham Sawyer ‘Victim of Peter Ball, the NST and the Church Establishment’
Revd Stephen Heard
Simon Barrow Director of ‘Ekklesia’
Revd Stephen Trott Member of General Synod
Revd Paul Benfield Member of General Synod; synodal secretary of the Convocation of York
Margery Roberts Secretary of the Society of the Faith
Revd Canon Angela Tilby Canon Emeritus of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Julian Whiting ‘Victim of the NST’
Simon Sarmiento Editor, ‘Thinking Anglicans’ blog
Rev. Janet Fife, survivor of Rev. X and the NST’.
‘Graham’ Iwerne Trust/John Smyth survivor; ‘victim of the NST’
Andrew Chandler Professor of Modern History at Chichester University; Biographer of Bishop George Bell.
Revd Canon Rosie Harper Member of General Synod; contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’; Co-author of ‘To Heal not to Hurt’
Dr Janet Lord Bishop Whitsey and NST survivor; contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’
Rev. Mark Carey, respondent, and victim of the NST’.
Revd Dr WS Monkhouse
Revd Matt Ineson Victim of the Revd Trevor Devamanikkam, CofE bishops and the NST
Revd Nathan Ward
Revd Stephen Parsons Editor, ‘Surviving Church’ blog
Kathryn Tucker Member of General Synod
IICSA core participant Victim of Bishop Peter Ball and the NST
‘AN 87’
Tina Ney Member of General Synod
Andy Morse Victim of Iwerne Trust/John Smyth QC
Revd Peter Ould
Dr Josephine Anne Stein Contributor to ‘Letters to a Broken Church’
Dr Tom Keighley, Clergy victim of the NST PhD, FRCN
April Alexander Member of General Synod
Dr Adrian Hilton Chairman of the Academic Council, the Margaret Thatcher Centre
Jane Chevous Survivor of clergy abuse by two bishops; founder of ‘Survivors Voices’ – survivor-led peer support
Dr Gavin Ashenden Former chaplain to HM The Queen; now supporting victims of abuse and maladministration
Very Revd Michael Sadgrove Dean Emeritus of Durham Cathedral
Philip French Member of General Synod
Kate Andreyev Clergy wife
Revd Andrew Foreshaw-Cain Chaplain, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Revd Dr Carrie Pemberton Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Life,-Ford Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology
David Greenwood Head of Child Abuse Compensation Team, Switalskis Solicitors
Janet Garnon-Williams CPS prosecutor (retired)
Richard Symonds The Bell Society
Revd Canon Dr Robin Gibbons Ecumenical Canon, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
Sue Atkinson Writer; survivor; member of ‘Survivors’ Voice’
Rt Revd David Atkinson Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Southwark; supporter of ‘Survivors’ Voice’
John Tasker Lay Worker in the Church of England
Dr Peter Owen Member of the Church of England
A Survivor ‘A survivor of Diocese of Chichester abuse

Every year there is a small miracle that takes place in every cathedral across the land.  Perhaps the word miracle is a little strong, but the event is still remarkable and deserves to be noted and commemorated.  At the end of the school summer term, the most experienced four or five boys/girls who have led the treble or top line in the choir leave for new schools or because their voices change.  At one stroke up to a third of the senior children in the choir, those with the most experience of solo work and leading all the other children, disappear.  What happens then is that a new more junior group emerges to take their place.  The ‘miracle’ is in the fact that within a few weeks these younger members of the choir have overcome their lack of experience and their habit of depending on the more senior children, to fill the shoes of those who used to be at the top of the choir.  They invariably, as we say,’ rise to the occasion.’  Certainly, by Christmas the choir is back to strength and to the standard it had achieved under its old leaders.

It remains to be seen whether the cathedral choirs of Britain will be able to rise to recover quickly after the considerable blow to their functioning caused by the corona-virus.  No doubt cathedrals all over the country are dealing with this crisis in different ways. Perhaps the recovery time will be a bit prolonged but we can still trust that the younger choir children will still find their place of responsibility within their choirs in spite of the disrupting pause they have experienced.  Right across society, in institutions of all kinds, the juniors and underlings are all the time learning to adapt and respond to the new demands and responsibilities that come with time. Most people seem to be able to meet the challenge of promotion.  The Church is no exception to this process, one which places the young and inexperienced in new places where they are expected to become mature and confident.  Callow young curates with little confidence turn into competent vicars over a period of time.  Some vicars manage a further transition to become archdeacons, deans or even bishops.    The potential for these higher promotions is not of course given to everyone.  The Church has found ways to spot and nurture the talent required for such posts so that the Church can provide for itself individuals who can lead and inspire within the institution those set below them.

Unfortunately, the theory, that competent inspirers and managers for the Church can always be found by promoting the underlings, does not always work in practice.  While most probationers become competent choristers in choirs, the same is not necessarily true within the Church.  There are potential pitfalls in the assumption that this will happen smoothly, particularly as in the Church at any rate, the choice of candidates is shrinking in number.   Also, to take another example, if a particular member of the clergy has a severe personality disorder which no one has picked up during his/her training, the individual will not function well where they are and certainly never be able to fulfil a new wider role satisfactorily.  He/she may receive promotion as a way of moving them out of a situation where they have created a great deal of unhappiness.  In popular parlance this is known as throwing a dead cat over the wall.  There are numerous examples of bishops writing letters of recommendation to other bishops so as to be relieved of a problem clergyman.   It is here that we need to bring in the idea of the ‘Peter Principle’.

For those who do not know of the Peter Principle, it is an idea familiar in business settings.  It states that everyone rises to the level of their incompetence.  Another way of saying this is to point out the way that those who fulfil a role within an organisation satisfactorily will be eligible for promotion until they arrive at a rank where they are out of their depth and cannot perform competently.  The organisation will thus theoretically be brought to a virtual standstill because everyone has been overpromoted and cannot do the tasks that are required of them.  People will mutter Peter Principle whenever they observe individuals who flounder with their job descriptions.  While it is sometimes said in a jokey fashion, there is potentially a serious case of unhappiness when you see someone who was an excellent assistant struggling to manage a department without any gift or calling to organise other people’s work.

How does the Peter Principle apply to the Church?  The vast majority of clergy never achieve or seek any sort of formal promotion. Most achieve a level of competence necessary to do the job of parish priest adequately. Chief of these tasks are the ability to preach, teach and to care. What normally happens is that they manage the bulk of the expectations made of them but then they find certain areas where they are indeed incompetent. The real problem arises when they have no insight into their inability to do certain things.  For example, the politics of church life, locally and nationally can be hard to negotiate.  Conflict resolution skills and psychological insight are needed in many places but few clergy are equipped in these areas. Another area of incompetency is in the theological arena. A strong evangelical or Anglo-Catholic training may have prepared well someone for churches of those traditions but elsewhere adherence to one of these traditions may be experienced as something harsh and inflexible. The ‘incompetence’ here is seen in the inability to have the flexibility to understand how different traditions work for people. Clergy may also find themselves incompetent in dealing with attack.  A determinedly difficult parishioner, now armed with the possibility of making a CDM against a member of the clergy they dislike, can cause sleepless nights and even a breakdown in their victim.  

A vicar who shows competence and comes through the stresses of the post reasonably intact, may be offered promotion.  Promotion to a residentary canonry or an archdeacon’s role may be considered an honour.  In practice these posts may not be all that rosy and the candidate may simply be having to go through the experience of finding news areas of incompetency in a fresh context.  There are just so many variables in these posts.  Clergy training cannot be expected to prepare the individual for some of the contradictory and conflicting expectations involved in these more exalted roles.  Negotiating the petty jealousies of a cathedral close, for example, is reputedly appallingly difficult.  To take other examples.  An archdeacon is required to act in some quasi-legal ways for the Church.  They are also the ones that gives to parishes the news that a vicarage is to be sold off or a parish church closed.  Most archdeacons have served as parish priests, so they are sensitive to the real pain of parishioners.  It cannot be easy having to represent the institution when you are required to act against the perceived interests of a group of lay people.  These are the ones who have given so much to their churches locally.

It is when we get to the top of the ‘food-chain’, the House of Bishops, we really begin to discover how difficult it is to remain competent.  A bishop may have been chosen, for example, for his/her proven competence as a parish priest of a large London Church.  Does this really prepare him/her for the tasks of managing/defending/serving an institution, possibly creaking with unresolved power issues going back decades?  The CDM discussions have drawn attention to the contradictory expectations laid on a bishop to be both a pastor and a prosecutor to the same person.  The IICSA hearings gave us some insight into the way that decisions were taken at Lambeth during George Carey’s time.  One thing we learned was that the officers in Lambeth seemed to be reluctant ever to draw in expertise from outside.  A small group of top advisers felt that they could advise the Archbishop to make crucial decisions about Peter Ball. Is this reluctance to consult outside the small group of advisers still the current philosophy?  Lambeth/Church House seems to be in desperate need of sound legal advice to find its way through the current quagmire of core groups and suspensions of senior figures that are filling its in-tray.  Real questions are being asked connected with the competence of the Church at the national level to conduct its own affairs unaided. 

The word incompetence, when brought into the Peter Principle, is being used in a fairly light-hearted way.  To be incompetent is not necessarily a serious matter.  It only becomes such when an institution has no means of correcting the terrible mistakes that incompetent individuals are liable to make.  Incompetence whether caused by ignorance, conceit or malevolence, is a particularly important matter when the individual refuses to admit to it and own up to it.   The Church of England needs help at the highest level but seems reluctant to ask for it.  

By Janet Fife

In Part 1 I discussed a few of the concerns I have about Bethel Sozo (BS) and its parent church, Bethel Redding (BR). Since then I have discovered that BR’s influence is even more pervasive than I had thought:  there are churches not listed as ‘Sozo churches’ which nevertheless have links to BR and run ‘Healing Rooms’ based on BR thinking. And, according to the BS UK website, ‘Bethel Sozo is being offered in hundreds of churches across the UK from almost every denomination & stream. They have opted to offer this ministry within their own church community. Accordingly, they do not appear on the Bethel Sozo UK website.’

Are these churches with BR links aware that 3 of the church’s senior leaders are vocal Trump supporters? That serious questions have been asked about the church’s finances? That it has been accused of promoting conversion therapy for LGBT people? That its theology is not orthodox?

Let’s take a look at Bethel Sozo. In this blog there is not space for a thorough treatment of what is a complex and often ambiguous system, but I want to point out a few areas of concern.

When you book a Sozo you’ll be issued with paperwork, including an indemnity release (aka liability release) form and a forgiveness sheet. But if Sozo is as gentle as they claim, why do they need clients to affirm that they will ‘release Bethel Sozo Ministry…from any harm or perceived harm resulting from my voluntarily receiving of [sic] free prayer’?

The 2-page forgiveness form advises clients not to proceed with a Sozo unless they are willing to forgive everyone who has wronged them, as ‘forgiveness is vital to deliverance and freedom’. While this is true, forgiving deep traumas such as abuse is best seen as part of the lengthy process of healing, not as a prerequisite to it. Here the pressure is piled on in a way calculated to hinder healing rather than facilitate it:  ‘Unforgiveness…Binds you in a prison of torment’ and ‘allows the enemy [Satan] to have access to you.’

The Sozo session will last anything from 90 min – 3 hours.  The client will find herself with the Sozoer (their term), a notetaker who will remain silent, and possibly a third, and will be asked to close her eyes for part of the session. Outnumbered, and with closed eyes while being observed by the Sozo team, the client is put at an immediate disadvantage. Yet despite this power imbalance, the liability disclaimer states:  ‘I understand that…I am under no obligation to accept or reject any of the advice or help that I might receive from the team members.’

The aim of BS is to ‘build strong connections’ with each member of the Trinity. Four ‘Tools’ are used in basic Sozo (there are also advanced Tools and Sozo for children, couples, finances, sexual abuse survivors, and education). There are problems with all the Tools, but there isn’t space in this blog to discuss them. I’ll focus on the Father Ladder. In BS theory, each member of the Trinity corresponds to a part of a human being with its particular needs and fears; which in turn corresponds to a role in the nuclear family. The chart below is reproduced from Sozo:  Saved, Healed, Delivered (SSHD):

The separation of soul and spirit is simplistic and doesn’t do justice to biblical concepts; the family roles are stereotyped. The division between members of the Trinity is pursued to the extent that they will ask the same question of all three Persons, expecting different answers. This is a version of the Modalist heresy. Yet these concepts are at the heart of what BS believe and what they do.

The Sozoer typically begins by asking the Sozoee (their term) why they have come. Using this information, the issue is linked with a Person of the Trinity and a family member.; or they may detect a poor relationship with a member of the Trinity and deduce the source of the problem from that. An example given is of a woman who felt ‘Father God’ was cold and distant. The Sozoer’s immediate response: 

         ‘Repeat after me: ‘I forgive my earthly father for being distant, for not wanting to be near me, and for not creating a space for me to feel safe or accepted. I renounce the lie that Father God does not want me close and does not have a safe place for me.’

The book gives many such examples where the Sozoer dictates a prayer to a Sozoee without first confirming their assumption of the family member’s failings (and in some cases, crimes)  is correct, or asking the client if they are willing to pray as directed. The interview may continue with further dictated prayers of repentance, renunciation, and forgiveness, or demonic influence may be detected and banished. The liability waiver begins to make sense.

At some point in the session the Sozoer will ask the client to close their eyes and think of ‘Father God’, Jesus, or ‘Holy Spirit’. This may happen at the beginning or further into the session; with only one of the Trinity or with all three – but, crucially, only one at a time. The question follows:  ‘What do you feel, hear or see?’ Depending on the response, the Sozoer is ‘able to discern which lies hinder that person’s connection to the Lord’. The pattern of forgiving and renouncing is followed each time, to ‘remove each negative presence’.

BS, and its parent church BR, teach that when a person is in a good relationship with Father God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, and not ‘partnering’ with wrong spirits, their other problems are resolved and their needs met. Sometimes this belief is implicit rather than explicit, but it lies behind many of the examples given in SSHD and on the BR website. Thus, the struggling single mother who has been taken through repentance, forgiveness, and deliverance is now free to ask for help, with the implication her financial worries will be solved.

No doubt many of those offering BS ministry will have a sincere desire to help; and some Sozoees will feel they have been helped. In some cases renouncing unhealthy attitudes and behaviours and forgiving others will have been what they needed. Others will be disappointed and disillusioned when expected improvements do not occur. Significantly, a Shabar ministry has now been established for those who ‘have been unable to hold on to’ their healing through Sozo. I fear some will find that the power imbalances, assumptions made, unfulfilled expectations, and distorted theology of Bethel Sozo will have only damaged them.

Among the many theological ideas that can be read out of the Bible, there is one that declares that human beings individually are intrinsically evil.  I do not here propose to agree or disagree with the notion that we as humans have ‘no power of ourselves to help ourselves’.   I mention it at this point merely to note that such teaching exists.  In some churches it is not only believed to be the starting place for a theology of salvation, but it seems to provide the single most important area of discourse for sermons.   Such sermons will spend time in contemplating the terrible fate of unrepentant sinners who never turn to God. 

One of the reasons that I, for one, want to sit lightly on some of the classic statements about human evil and sin is because these doctrines do not really engage with the reality of human evil as we experience it in our modern age.  Evil is found in individuals, but it is seen far more often in groups, corporate institutions and mass movements.    Let me explain.  The individual person is limited in the amount of evil that he/she can accomplish unaided.   To become really effective in the evil stakes, you need to cooperate with others.  The most evil people in the world are the ones that can somehow manipulate others to do their evil bidding.  Alternatively, there will be the ones that, with varying degrees of culpability, get caught up in a thoroughly corrupt or toxic movement.  On my own I can spread a lot of unpleasantness around.  But when I get together with others, I can be a super-champion in the tyrant stakes or inciting violence and hatred in all directions.

This observation about human evil, that it is more effective when mixed up with other people’s malevolence, is accompanied by another observation.  Just as certain forms of group activity seem to bring out most effectively the hidden Beelzebub, so time spent alone can help the individual find a personal morality less affected by the ‘passions of sinful men.’  I would hazard the thought that not only do individuals have limited capacity to do a lot of evil on their own, they also are quite good at discovering the good things about themselves when allowed time to be properly alone.  In their alone time, people like you and me will be quite good at having a longing for noble or even heroic actions.  These will allow us to want to leave behind something good on the earth.  Few people want to mess up the activity that most ensures us a lasting legacy, that of parenting.  Parenting is an activity that the majority of us get to experience.  It brings out any number of desirable qualities, patience, the capacity to forgive and all the feelings and actions we associate with the single word – love.  Parenting is not something we do at odd moments.  For it to be effective, it has to be practised continuously over years, even decades.  Those who are not, for whatever reason, human parents still experience the same nurturing instinct which draws something out of ourselves to make most of us decent, even if often flawed individuals.

There is a reason that, although many Christians are prepared to recognise that the greatest evils occur when we get together with others, much Christian teaching remains obsessed with the failings/sin of individual people.  I believe that one reason for this is because many Christians have in modern times become totally obsessed with sex and sexual activity.  The wider public beyond the Church has got used to thinking that the only sin Christians really care about or want to discuss is to do with sex. Sin is seen to be straying from certain narrow rules and decisions about the way we express our sexuality and such decisions are made by each of us individually.  We all recognise that our sexual lives have the potential to provide enormous fulfilment but also massive harm to self and others.  But however terrible the effect of an individual’s sexual sin can be, such as in abuse and rape, the obsession of many Christians is not about this rare possibility, but to object to anything that does not fit a narrow definition of ‘normal’.  In this respect the choices of some Christians to defy the norm is trivial compared with the evils we have hinted at above.  This blog piece cannot set out a complete charter of sexual morality but merely make one simple statement.  The task of Christian sexual ethics is to find a way that links sexual love to love and the values of mutuality, care and respect for others.  Such a morality of sexual behaviour is attainable, but many seem to fail. 

Let us stay for a moment with the hypothesis that on our own, we, and most other people are mostly decent and caring and want the good of those around them.  What causes some people to be sucked into groups or mobs that seem to cause most of the damage and toxicity in society and the world?  I am thinking of any group from a small committee to extremist political groups with fierce tribal or nationalistic aims.  These so easily, in some parts of the world, can cause bloodshed.  St Paul speaks about the principalities and powers. I wonder if he is describing the attractive and seductive option to become merged into a group, large or small.  In this way a person moves away from being a conscience-listening individual to the faux freedom and exhilaration of being part of a ‘mass-mind’.  Making this transition to thinking and acting with the power of the group is still our choice.  Further, the responsibility for deciding to remain there is ours.  My short theory about these powers, those that create the gang, the group or the mob, is that they provide very quickly to each member an experience of feeling instantly powerful.    Power of this kind is not always or even necessarily toxic, but it can quickly become such.  An otherwise well-meaning individual can even be corrupted by being on a committee.  Perhaps such a committee has reached a point where the group they represent can destroy a rival organisation by some underhand method.  Are you as a loyal member of the committee prepared to forget simple ethics for the sake of the organisation?  Do you go along with the use of possible ‘dirty tricks’ which, while not benefiting you personally, will be able to profit your group financially or in terms of power and prestige?

In our political life and even in our Church we know about group power games that are evil.   Personal and corporate morality can often be seen to be going off in two directions.  The morality of each individual member of a group may be of the highest in terms of personal ethics and behaviour.  But, somehow, the situation of membership of some groups, allowing ourselves to be sucked into some less than honest networks, has the effect of creating something evil in our lives.   Within the group context we may find ourselves tolerating dishonesty, lying, cruelty and insensitivity towards other people.  My reader may well be filling in the blank spaces for recent examples of behaviour of this kind. The fact that individual members, such as ourselves, would not behave like this when working alone, does not excuse any of us from the corporate guilt if we are in this situation.  It still belongs to us personally even though the conscience and the guilt has been dulled because the evil is spread over each participant.   

Membership of a gang, mob or powerful committee will normally give to the individual the reward of an intoxicating experience of power.  Whenever we are with others who believe they have the power to change things for good or evil, we will also feel a kind of excitement.  Our psyche is being roused at a deep level; at the same time it feeds the part of us that longs to be important.  Power, the feeling that raises us above a sense of inadequacy, has an addictive intoxicating quality.  People will often sell their integrity and their very soul to possess it.  For this reason, the groups that offer this power, will always have their loyal servants.  The possession of power, even when we dilute it by sharing it with others, is perhaps the greatest motivator for action.  That is perhaps why people will be drawn to the groups that offer it.

The Christian teaching about sin has tended, in modern times, to focus on the individual struggling with sexual temptation.  That picture of the nature of sin has taken our eyes off the more realistic picture of human evil which is found when an individual allows themselves to be drawn into a group for the sole purpose of exercising power – the power to dominate, to bully, to feel important.  When we focus only on individual failings, we miss the terrible principalities and powers, the group allegiances through which people bring much evil, unhappiness and malevolence into the world.