by Janet Fife

I grew up in a clergy household, have attended church all my life – but I was 27 when I first attended a church that observed Lent.  For many years, I vaguely thought “Lent’ was something to do with lentils.

When I joined the Church of England in 1980 the pattern of the church year was one of the things that attracted me.  I saw that the structure it provides is a useful discipline. In some of the free churches I’d attended, the range of themes addressed in services was restricted to a few of the minister’s hobbyhorses. Following a lectionary compels us to cover a range of themes.

For the first few years I tried giving up something for Lent. One year I abstained from caffeine and had severe withdrawal symptoms for several days; when the same occurred the following year I gave up caffeine altogether. That stands out as one of the few spiritual benefits I’ve gained from Lenten discipline.

It was when I was ordained that my real problems with Lent began. This was partly because of the sheer grind of all the extra services and events during Lent, coinciding (as it often does) with a seasonal increase in the number of funerals. More significantly, my cathedral curacy was the first time I had encountered Lent being ‘done properly’. The cathedral was an unhappy place at the best of times, and the penitential seasons were misery. I felt I was being ground into the dust. ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return’, in the words of the ashing ritual.

I have found Lent depressing ever since. I once discussed this with my spiritual director – a nun – who said I needn’t bother too much with Lent ‘because there’s enough Lent in your life already’.

Recently, I’ve asked people who find Lent difficult to tell me why. I’ve also asked people who observe Ash Wednesday and Lent what they gain from it. Predictably, one responded that Lent isn’t supposed to be about what we gain; it’s about practicing self-denial.  Fair enough.  But it seems to me that with any spiritual practice, we ought to be able to tell whether it helps us be more altruistic, gentle, serene, and more faithful to God and other people. I consider those qualities to be gains. I honestly haven’t found Lent observance does this for me; instead I have often been morose, self-pitying, and grumpy with God and the Church. When I was in active ministry this negative effect was no doubt largely due to the pressure of extra Lenten activities, preparations for Holy Week and Easter, and the added administrative burden of the APCM.

But not all of it. Reflecting on what others gain from Ash Wednesday and Lent has made that clear.  Of those who could explain what they find helpful (and I realise something may be genuinely beneficial without people being able to explain why), most gave reasons connected to Lenten themes:  humility, repentance, self-denial and reminders of mortality. Several quoted ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return’.

I’ve never needed reminding that one day I will die. For many years my besetting sin was despair, and I can say with Keats that ‘many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.’  For me, it’s a spiritual discipline to focus on life and what brings life. That’s why I know the importance of bringing hope to others.

Repentance and humility, if unconnected to any specific offence, too easily morph into a general sense of unworthiness and gloom. At least, that’s my experience – and clearly shared by a number of others.  Self-denial can increase the focus on self and lead to spiritual pride, or simply be meaningless. ‘Repentance in public without change of heart is very dispiriting. Real questions are never asked. Put it all on the faraway death of the Saviour Sacrifice; God is satisfied and all can go on as before, with no change.’ One correspondent pointed out that the elderly often have poor appetites, so have to make an effort to eat rather than giving up treats.

Another said he finds Lent ‘too structured, too prescriptive’; his most effective way of tuning in to God is to sit by the sea. A third finds the tradition ‘sanctimonious, rather than mindful and connected’. Others replied that they find the liturgy and ritual, the Lent reading and prayers, the ‘do this thing, pray this prayer, read this book’ approach ‘weird’, ‘alienating’, or ‘meaningless’. Signficantly, I think, many of those who felt negatively about Lent were women, or survivors, or both. In my chapter ‘The Gospel, Victims, and Common Worship’ in Letters to a Broken Church, I discuss at more length why women and survivors may find the Church’s stress on repentance unhelpful and even damaging. This may be why a number of people find Lent ‘miserable’,

The words, ‘You are dust, and to dust you will return’ (Gen. 3:19) are addressed by God specifically to Adam, not to Eve. Adam, made from dust according to the Gen. 2 account, is master of creation and needs to be kept humble – literally, to be grounded. Eve, created not from dust but from Adam’s rib, will be dominated and kept humble by him. And so it has proved.

Some value Lent because it’s an ancient tradition. The first record of Lent comes from a ruling of the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. The Council was convened, only 2 years after Christianity became the official religion of Rome, by the Emperor Constantine in order to impose order and uniformity on the Church. All 1,800 bishops within the Roman Empire were invited; contemporary reports of the number of prelates actually attending vary between 250-318. To me that seems a rather flimsy basis on which to establish a practice intended to be universal; but it had Constantine’s authority behind it and it stuck – and indeed has spread to churches then outside the Roman Empire.

If you are trying to keep an unruly empire in order, adopting religious practices encouraging people in humility and reflection on their sin and mortality, can only be helpful to you. We don’t know where they got the  idea of Lent observance came from, but it wasn’t the New Testament. Jesus kept a 40-day fast only once, to prepare for his ministry. and he went alone into the wilderness to do it. Matthew ch. 6 records Jesus instructing his disciples that when they pray, fast, or give to charity they are to show no outward sign of it, but to keep it secret: an instruction which might preclude wearing ash on your forehead or announcing what you’re giving up.  St. Paul, in Gal 4:10-11, rebukes the Galatians for ‘observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years’, seeing it as a sign of spiritual regression.

I haven’t written this to discourage those who find Lenten observance an aid to following Christ more truly. They have the approval of most churches and need only continue as they are doing, if it is genuinely helpful. I’ve written for those who find Lent adds further burdens to an already difficult life, or increases their self-loathing and misery.  Church leaders, too, need to be aware that Lent is not for everyone, and failing to keep it doesn’t betoken spiritual failure.

In the early 1990s a first attempt was made by the Church of England to draw up a formal safeguarding policy.  This was undertaken by the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, Jim Thompson.  According to Josephine Stein, in her essay in the book Letters to a Broken Church, this Bath and Wells document laid down the principle that the Church’s insurers should be immediately contacted whenever an accusation of abuse against a clergyman was made.  Stein also observes that, thirty years on, the Church still operates with the legacy of this legal confrontational approach.   When survivors of past abuse appear and seek help and support from the Church, what they often encounter is not compassion and understanding, but a wall of hostility and defensiveness, erected in part by the Church’s insurers and legal advisers.  The one seeking help becomes the enemy to be fought vigorously by any legal methods available.  This is something we explored when we looked at the story of Professor Julie McFarlane.  She described the process of seeking justice from the Church as a ‘brutal’ one. 

From the Church’s point of view, the policy of the past thirty years to rely heavily on legal processes in dealing with abuse complaints has mostly been a success from a financial perspective.  The task of making the Church accountable in any way for the abuse, has proved, for survivors, onerous and unpleasant.  Many would-be complainants have simply given up at an early stage.  Others have simply disappeared, and the Church has been able to wash its hands of them, legally and pastorally.  With this disappearance, potential financial burdens for the Church have also decreased. The few that have persisted in their complaining have had to cross numerous difficult hurdles to cross.  The consensus among the survivors that I know is that the legal process to be endured after an experience of abuse is far worse than the original event.  It is not surprising that there are relatively few survivors who are still visible in the public domain.  They are a small cohort.  Perhaps they can be seen as the heroic representatives of the much larger group of fellow abusees who have withdrawn from the field.

It would be good to say that the law of the land is an institution that is designed to bring justice to every citizen.  In practice, it is those who have deep pockets who gain the most advantage from the system of law as we have it.   It is here that institutions have tremendous advantage over individuals.  An institution will, when feeling under any kind of threat, always be able to outspend an individual.  Christ Church Oxford, an enormously wealthy college, has used some (well over £1 million) of its corporate resources in its attempts to remove the Dean, Martyn Percy.  He, by contrast, has no access to the largesse of the college to defend himself from these attacks.  He has had to find, according to the press, the eye-watering sum of £400,000 to pay for specialist lawyers.  Quite apart from the rights and wrongs of this case, this situation of financial imbalance is something grossly unfair.  A well-endowed institution can, through its wealth, have a legal clout which is difficult for any individual to compete with.  As a small side point, I am proud to have made a small contribution to a fund that has helped to pay some of Martyn Percy’s legal costs,

Over the past two or three years, when the stories of survivors have come more and more into the public domain, the legal shenanigans being played against these survivors have come into clearer view.  Among the methods being employed to maximise the advantage of the institution in legal cases, here the Church of England, I have noted the following.  In one case I heard of a bishop, questioned under caution by the police about a safeguarding failure, who was accompanied to the interview by a top London QC.  No doubt the bill for this QC was paid for by the central funds of the Church of England.  Another example of playing the system to lessen the liability claims of survivors, is to employ lawyers who know how to intimidate witnesses through aggressive questioning.   Also, the Church or its insurers, employ ‘expert witnesses’.  These may, unchallenged, declare their opinion that a survivor was mentally fragile before the abuse and thus the claim for compensation should be lowered.  In one case I know about, the ‘expert’ signed such an assessment of an abuse survivor without having met him.  It is always helpful to an insurance company (and the Church employing it) to produce experts who can testify to such preexisting mental fragility.    Were a full trial of an abuse case ever to occur as way of determining these liabilities, no doubt the sums involved would be huge.  When such church abuse cases are settled ‘out of court’, as they regularly are, the sums actually paid out are modest.  To receive £20-30,000 after a life-changing experience of abuse, having also endured a gruelling legal process during which your integrity may be attacked and your true motives for bringing the case challenged, is hardly worth it.  The reason that these survivors are prepared to go on risking their physical and mental health in order to pursue these claims, is seldom about money.  It is, as far as I can see, that they have a belief in justice, justice for themselves and for many others.  These others for reasons of their own have laid low to avoid the ‘brutal’ processes that the institution throws at them through an aggressive use of the law.

Treating survivors as legal problems to be solved will of course be a long way from a pastoral approach.  Most clergy, from bishops downwards, will have a built-in pastoral instinct in their response to episodes of abuse.  The culture of legal protectionism has, however, entered deep into the system so that nearly everyone in the Church involved with safeguarding, may be inhibited in the way they react.  Instead of using their instinct for offering pastoral care, they think legal liability, protocol and the possibility of someone, even themselves, being sued.  This situation of trying to deal with a pastoral situation of abuse from within a kind of legal mind-set will, of course, create strong dissonance.  Such dissonance will be combined with other emotions, fear, uncertainty and doubt.  What should be a straight-forward task of knowing the right way to react when disclosures are made, instead becomes fraught and hard to negotiate.  What I am effectively saying is that that the legacy of Jim Thompson’s early attempts at safeguarding protocol has cast a long shadow in the Church.  We now live in an institution that is more fearful, less spontaneous and more inclined to seek safety in the place of love.  I am not sure whether we can ever return to a Church which practises trust and spontaneity again.  Perhaps we will be able to, but first we will need to identify and hopefully, exorcise the spirit of fear in our dealings with one another in the area of safeguarding and relating generally.  We need to rediscover the spirit of generosity and care when we meet others, especially those who have come through the terrible ordeal of being the victims of some kind of abuse within the Church.

A short while ago, before we had heard of Jean Vanier, Peter Ball and church leaders who deliberately ignored and belittled abuse survivors, it was possible to believe in a simple version of the Church’s teaching about repentance and forgiveness.  The Church taught us all that if we truly repent, our sins are then washed away.  Some of us were also brought up on the hymn which contains the words: ‘the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’  Suddenly we have now discovered that some good upright Christians who presumably have sought the same forgiveness as we have, have been continuously sinning with abusive crimes for decades.  The thought that such crimes are deemed always forgivable, when the evidence now points to a complete lack of remorse on the part of some perpetrators, is a repugnant one.  We feel the need of a new theology of forgiveness which will somehow face up to the reality that some Christians go on being ‘vile offenders’ even after they have uttered the correct words of confession.  The old promises that link the right words with receiving forgiveness from God does not seem to work anymore.  Whatever is true in this area needs to be re-expressed with a fresh nuance or qualification that it does not have at present. 

What the Church teaches about confession, repentance and forgiveness constantly needs to be revisited and restated.  The insights we need, will not just emerge from the re-examination of the theological traditions in these areas.  The Church also needs to be informed by experts in human psychology.   We can learn much from professionals who care deeply about the flourishing of human beings.  It was quite clear from the IICSA hearings on the Diocese of Chichester that what I shall refer to as ‘vilest offender theology’ was alive and well in certain Anglo-Catholic and Conservative Evangelical circles in that diocese.  It might almost be claimed to be one of the key elements to explain the way that this diocese, to its shame, had remained a hotbed of abusive activity for so long.   In different ways we listened to the argument that ‘the sin was confessed, forgiveness was received, let us now move on’.

Any theology that remains static and not subject to constant scrutiny is likely to become stale and not fit for purpose.  ‘Vilest offender theology’ in whatever churchmanship guise it is presented, has long passed its sell by date.  It is not that it is completely false.  More dangerously, it is at best half correct but those who sing the words do not appear to know or care which half is true.  Any future expressions of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness need to escape the bondage of such crude theology.  Teaching about such a vital topic as self-examination and forgiveness, needs to be able to resonate with modern understandings of human nature alongside the doctrine of God within the biblical and Christian tradition.

In this piece I cannot write a new Christian doctrine of forgiveness, but I can indicate a few pointers that I consider should be included.  One observation about human nature and sin that I have made in my contribution to the Letters to a Broken Church volume of essays, was to state that sin is nearly always about power abuse.  The reason for sinning, whether through theft, lying, sexual abuse or violence, is to obtain an apparent advantage or power over others.  Power is a commodity that all of us need to some extent so that we can feel alive.  A child needs acknowledgement from parents in order to flourish and establish a personal identity.  The psychological writers use the expression ‘mirroring’ to describe this process.  When toddlers pass key milestones in growing-up, they need the family audience to cheer them on and express admiration.  The small child sees the self in the mirror of parental approval and knows that he/she exists.  Any child who lacks that kind of affirmation from parental figures will sometimes learn, in later life, techniques of dominance to extract a substitute respect or feeding from weaker figures.  Such behaviour does not become less culpable because we have some insight into its origins, but at least it becomes more understandable. So, in summary, there is strong reason to suggest that a lot of evil perpetrated by individuals is an attempt to wrest back from the world the approval and significance that was denied to them as an infant or small child. 

The need to claim back a sense of power in whatever way possible, will often involve exploiting others without any thought of what they, the victims, may suffer as a result.  This deprivation model does not of course cover our attempt to understand more than a part of the evil we see in the world.  There was nothing deprived about the lives of Peter Ball or Jean Vanier.  Deprivation also does not account for the rapacious behaviour by many heads of governments around the world and the huge bank accounts off-shore that are amassed by Russian oligarchs.  Evil and greed is alive and well in places of wealth and privilege.

Every example of an evil action somewhere involves an individual (or an institution) shutting down the altruistic instinct that most of us try to cultivate as part of our Christian ethic.  Is it possible to be altruistic simultaneously with treating an individual badly or exploitatively?  How do we understand the good being enacted in the 150 L’Arche communities at the same time as the abusive behaviour towards at least six women seeking spiritual accompaniment from Vanier? I have no answer to this question, but I would always want to question carefully a situation where an individual is being honoured and praised for their work while there is little in the way of outside scrutiny.  The greatest evil in the Ball/Vanier scenario is that neither men appeared to have had any insight into the fact that what they were doing to their victims was also destructive to large numbers who looked up to them for guidance and leadership.  Some Roman emperors are said to have had in their processions a slave alongside them who carried a sign with the words ‘you too are human’.  This did not stop many of these emperors aspiring to divine status, requiring every citizen to give an incense offering as a sign of loyalty.  Self-inflation, Roman emperor style, seems to be common among the powerful.  It results in many people today dominating and controlling those around them, creating something truly evil at times.  There are theories in the literature on narcissism which explain how inflated behaviour in adults can begin early in life.  These may be caused by over-indulgent behaviour from a parent.  There is no time to explore that further here.

Studies of human nature today may give us far more sophisticated insights as to why otherwise good people fail and sometimes fail badly.  When theology on its own is unable to account for an appalling dissonance between belief and behaviour, we need to be aware of insights from other disciplines wherever they are found.  There will be no certainty in the answers we uncover in our search, but looking for some kind of Christian infallible truth in this area is a futile task.  When I think about my own failings this Lent, I like to believe that what I acknowledge somehow approximates to reality.  I would like to believe that the kinds of severe evil that harm others would be recognisable to me or those that know me.  My self-examination is never going to be perfect, but the Church should always be providing a context where it is impossible for true evil not to be visible and obvious.  In this post-Vanier/Ball era, we need new standards of self-examination and training in this for clergy and people.  This will allow them to live together in an environment that is wholesome, helping to keep out the evil of power abuse in favour of a spirit that is truly consonant with the love to which Jesus seems to be pointing us.

I recently received an email from someone I do not know about something he had read on this blog.  It concerned the name of an offender that appeared on the bottom of the Open Letter from a group of survivors and published here in the lead up to General Synod.  The name of the offender, known personally to my correspondent, is not important to share here.  The writer of the email had done his own research and he knew that the inclusion of this name on the Open Letter was not based on gossip but rooted in solid reliable testimony. 

Apart from expressing a sense of shock in the email, the writer had an interesting piece of information to share.  He revealed that in spite of all the allegations against this clergyman, which had also freely appeared on Twitter and other social media and among the organisations that look after the interests of survivors, it was completely unknown or discussed in his former congregation.  For whatever reason the congregation has chosen to be (been compelled to be?) kept completely in the dark.  We must assume that the current leadership of this still flourishing church made a decision to keep this information from the congregation.  Something similar seems to have been attempted within the REFORM/ReNew networks of congregations in their attempts to deal with the fall-out arising from the Jonathan Fletcher saga. What might be the explanation for these attempts to block information from a church?  Neither of the explanations offered here suggests especially honourable or honest motivations.  One line of reasoning on the part of leaders might be to consider that the failings of a leader are likely to undermine the faith of followers if they become public.  Another fear that such leaders might feel is to consider that any sort of criticism of an erring leader is in fact an attack on the theology represented by the accused former leader.  This sense of scandal, as having a ‘political’ dimension, will often enter into the calculations of those who control what congregations are allowed to think and know.  Conservative evangelical congregations where many of the current crop of scandals are found, are not known for the free and open transmission of information.  Holding on to power, money and influence seems to be more powerful than the sharing of truth, freedom and growth.   

As I began to think through this attempt to ‘protect’ individuals and congregations from facing up to scandal, I realised that there is something profoundly toxic, even evil, about this behaviour.  I imagined two parents of a pre-pubescent child who are offered access to a new drug.  This drug, they are told, will circumvent all the tantrums, pain and conflict which may arrive with the onset of the teen-age years.  They will have an ever-compliant child who will never be guilty of slamming doors and raising levels of stress and conflict in the home. Were the parent to buy into this wonder-drug, we know that it would raise many ethical issues, not to mention long-term potential psychological problems.  Passing through stages of conflict or adjustment are part of life.  They cannot be bypassed successfully without causing problems elsewhere.  In summary we would say that it is at best immoral, at worst evil, to behave as the church leaders are doing at one particular church, where details of past abusive conduct are being deliberately hidden.

In contrast, I want in this post to think about the positive aspects of openness in dealing with scandal.  Scandals of course will happen in churches of every tradition but there are ways of dealing with such events in a positive way rather than going down the road of denial and cover-up.  The positive way of dealing with negative events is perhaps illumined by the pattern set out by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her description of the grief process.  Her pattern can be applied to any negative event faced by communities or individuals, such as a death or bereavement.  Everyone accepts that it is not a good idea to encourage anyone to be in denial when a death takes place.  The task of honest support for a bereaved person is what we can give them.  They need someone to be there as they adjust painfully and slowly to this new reality of their loss. Sometimes a priest is asked to collude with the bereaved person’s attempt to deny that the death has happened.  Both in the grieving process and in the honest confrontation with a terrible wrong-doing by a trusted leader, some of the other aspects of Kubler-Ross’ process may come to the fore.    Institutionally these reactions can be seen in no particular order.  We may well find the anger, the depression and the bargaining in various guises.  In whatever way these stages emerge, each of these emotions may be needed at some stage as a way of adjusting to and at the same time dealing with a shocking event.  The important thing is that the final stage of acceptance is eventually reached without any attempt to take short cuts. The whole process will require honesty, openness and candour on the part of a congregation faced with crisis.  Acceptance is also a stage on the way to facing the future.  A failure even to begin the process will freeze a congregation at the stage of denial.  This is because the leaders deem it too risky or too painful to move the congregation towards healing.

One of the issues that we touched on in the last blog post is the state of idealisation that can bind a charismatic leaders to their followers even after they have died.  Idealisation of another human being is likely to be in the long term an unhealthy bond.  The ‘worshipper’ will always have a tendency to ascribe qualities to their adored leader which probably don’t exist except in the imaginations of the follower.  Challenging idealisation of leaders in churches is always a healthy thing to do so that any situation of human frailty will be coped with far better.  Betrayal of trust by a revered leader will always be tragic and painful.  But it would easier to deal with if every leader had already constantly reminded the congregation that they shared the same humanity and fallibility with them, the congregation members.  It is the superhuman, god-like status of some leaders thrown up by the narcissistic process that is so damaging.  Having a ‘super-star’ for a leader may fill seats and increase church income, but it is a potentially a construction of fantasy which can easily collapse and fall.  Some leaders protect their god-like status by never being visible except on stage.  There they are surrounded by clever lighting effects which are impressive to followers.  When faith in God is damaged by the collapse into scandal of the celebrity preacher, one has to ask whether it was God or the preacher who had been at the centre of the action inside the followers’ heads.

Dependent passive relationships with fallible narcissistic leaders seem to be at the heart of many scandals and breakdowns in church life.  Such relationships will always exist because inside many of us is a wounded relationship with a parent.  By wounded I mean something incomplete rather than necessarily highly traumatic.  Whatever it is, it will render large numbers of us vulnerable to some extent to a leader who promises to re-parent us with offers to connect us to the ultimate parent, God himself.  That promise is also at the heart of the ‘cult’ contract.  It is helping to sort out these various layers of vulnerability and need that should be a major task of Christian leadership.  Sadly, we find that some of these leaders prefer to keep us in the place of dependency so that we can be exploited to suit their own needs and desire for gratification.  

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The news over the week-end that Jean Vanier had ‘manipulative and emotionally abusive sexual relationships with six women in France between 1970 and 2005’ , was a profoundly shocking statement.  I cannot be the only person who from a distance had awarded him the status of a mini- saint.  I began to reflect on the feelings about Vanier that were welling up inside me.  What was it about this news story that made it personal to me?  I thought back to the way I had nearly been drawn into an association with L’Arche some twelve years ago having been much impressed by Vanier and his writings.  The Church Times had asked me to review and summarise a Vanier book for its book study-group page.  Having expressed in print appreciation for Vanier’s ideas. a local L’Arche group invited me to visit their centre to make direct contact with their work.  To my shame at the time I did not go.  For some time, I felt bad about not following through when I written warm words about Vanier and his organisation. 

What was the basis for my enthusiasm for L’Arche and its philosophy?  To put my remarks into context I was beginning my interest in the workings of power dynamics in the Church.  What I saw in Vanier’s work was something extremely relevant to a way of doing Christianity while avoiding any of the power games favoured by narcissists and the self-absorbed.  While narcissists, and many of the rest of us, favour actions and relationships that promote our interests in some way, Vanier was showing us how to serve others with no expectation of any return.  By concentrating on ministering to individuals who lacked power of any kind, Vanier seemed to be pointing the Church to a new path of humility.  Luke’s Gospel has Jesus say (I paraphrase) when you invite someone to a meal, don’t choose the person who will invite you back.  Invite the one who does not have the means of returning the invitation.  In short do good to others when there is nothing in it for you in terms of financial or social advantage.  The work of L’Arche in caring for and serving the mentally handicapped, the disabled, the abjectly poor and the severely traumatised has little to give you back in career terms.  It is hard not to be tempted to do the opposite.   Do good to those who will repay you in a variety of ways.  Be attentive when you receive in return flattery and generous appreciation.  Give time and attention to those who give generously to the restoration funds for your church.  Much of this kind of behaviour is probably normal and to be expected.  But it is when every action towards another person in a church context has this element of calculation about it that it risks becoming something dark.  It is a relatively small step from being ‘nice’ to others to the kind of behaviour we associate with the narcissistic personality disorder.   The narcissist is an expert in manipulating every relationship to their advantage.  Even when they are being charming to others, the charm is being wielded in order to achieve their aim of being gratified at some level in terms of their narcissistic appetite.  In an appalling betrayal of love, every relationship for the narcissist becomes an act of exploitation.   This in some cases will include pursuing sexual favours.  Jean Vanier, in his work of serving the humblest and most disadvantaged in society seemed on the surface to have found a way of completely removing himself from the temptation of narcissistic exploitative behaviour.   Now from the appalling revelations of the week-end, it seems that he did not.  I and many others who had looked to  L’Arche to lead the Church in a revolution in the way it understands power, have been let down grievously.

The new Daily Telegraph revelations about Jonathan Fletcher are relevant to this reflection about Vanier.  We knew that Fletcher had been guilty of unprofessional behaviour in his work of ministry within the REFORM/ReNew networks.  Details have been sparse because his networks, by operating in a very authoritarian manner, have been able to shut down most of the details of this misbehaviour.  I am not sure how to interpret the complete removal of all references to Fletcher’s existence on the Internet.  This wiping of all information about him from the Net and the refusal of those with any kind of oversight over him to speak openly on the topic has put a definite black mark against the entirety of the network and given it, and especially its leadership, a pariah status for a long time to come.  When leaders do not speak, they collude and are thus drawn into the evil of Fletcher’s narcissism and power abuse.

The new information that has come to light in the Daily Telegraph story reports, not on Fletcher’s sexual misbehaviour, but on other more mundane examples of what we would regard as examples of narcissistic power abuse.  Martin Bashir, the author of one of the Telegraph pieces, tells of extremely controlling behaviour by Fletcher at Emmanuel PCC meetings.  He also describes the way Fletcher favouritised certain individuals, no doubt in return for the narcissistic feeding that such favoured ones could offer in return.  There is talk elsewhere of Fletcher accompanying selected members to massage clubs.  The favouritism offered by Fletcher to one individual with a chequered financial past included introducing him to a vulnerable member of the congregation with a large sum to invest.  Bashir acted as a protector for the vulnerable parishioner but, in doing so, he had to stand up to an irate Fletcher.  As retaliation for standing up to him, Fletcher began to smear his reputation.  As we can take the story at face value (assuming it to be thoroughly vetted by libel lawyers at the Telegraph), we build up a picture of a leader who is high up the scale of a narcissistic personality disorder.  Such an individual will manipulate, cajole and threaten to receive whatever others can give them to gratify a variety of personal needs.  Narcissists will always want to be thought as important, entitled and generally to be supreme in every single setting or organisation they take part in.  As I write this, I hear echoes of another prominent narcissist in the White House, whose desire for control over everything makes him a self-proclaimed genius at foreign policy, the law and economics.  Such people are always dangerous.

Once again, we have to emphasise that the failings of individuals in leadership roles can have catastrophic consequences not only for them personally but also for those around them who are followers and admirers.  I was an admirer of Vanier for the way he seemed to offer a new way to understand love and power.  The personality and teaching of Jonathan Fletcher would never have impressed me.  It would quickly have been clear to me that Emmanuel Wimbledon was locked in a thoroughly dangerously harmful power dynamic, destructive both to the leaders and the led.  The narcissistic self-absorbed habits of Fletcher have betrayed hundreds of his former parishioners.  The innocent followers of Vanier have also been betrayed because they invested their idealism, the admiration and trust in a man who is now shown to have had feet of clay.  In Vanier’s case there was less deliberate charismatic trickery (except possibly against the six abused women) and the followers may recover quickly with new leaders.  Some of the followers of Fletcher are apparently still locked in their mental prison of seeing him as inspired by God and to be followed despite the evidence of wrong-doing.  Most individuals, however, seem to have woken up from the hypnotic spell that Fletcher has exercised for over thirty years.  What I find particularly galling is the way that all the leaders of the ReNew constituency continue to remain silent on the topic of Fletcher.  This is a failure of leadership on a massive scale.  Tens of thousands of conservative Christians are at this moment being persuaded that loyalty to a disgraced leader is as important as their loyalty to God.  This is surely a huge failure of Christian leadership by the Vicars and Rectors of the churches that form part of Fletcher’s network. I for one will never set foot in any of their churches until this wrong is put right.

Two Christian leaders, each with enormous responsibility for carrying the hopes, ideals and trust of those who looked up to them, have failed their followers.  There is indeed something innocent about being a follower of this kind.  Indeed, there is something childlike in Jesus’ sense about wanting another human being who is wiser and experienced in life and spiritual wisdom to carry our projections and show us a better way.  We desperately need a new generation of leaders of integrity to come and help show new ways to follow Christ.

Coming from an evangelical background, I have always been familiar with the concept of ‘being a witness’.  It meant witnessing to the gospel, sharing your faith in Jesus.

A few years ago I found myself a witness of a different sort. Soon after my mentor and former vicar Gordon Rideout was arrested on charges of child sexual abuse, I remembered a few things he’d said which at the time had seemed a little odd, but which I hadn’t considered important. This began to weigh on my mind, so I rang the NSPCC helpline which had been set up when his arrest was announced. I was really hoping they’d agree that these comments weren’t significant. Instead, they said they thought the police would be interested – and, with my consent, put me through to one of the officers on the case. That was the start of a 15-month process.

There were several phone calls with investigating officers of Operation Piper. Then, the week after Easter, a detective drove up from Sussex to interview me. DC Harris is an expert interviewer and a practicing Christian (and had some interesting reflections on the Gospels as eyewitness accounts). The interview lasted four gruelling hours. DC Harris was courteous and sympathetic, but he was going to get every last scrap of information I could give him – and rightly so. It was a bit like having brain surgery.

Gordon was the first person I had told of my childhood abuse, and he followed this up by a series of sessions of ‘pastoral counselling’, in which he had asked me every detail of the abuse. Much of the information I had to give the police concerned what Gordon had said and done in these counselling sessions. Remembering this was doubly traumatic: not only did it mean retelling for a police statement the original abuse; but in doing so I began to realise the extent of Gordon’s betrayal of me and the harm he had done me. And this was a man to whom I owed much of my spiritual formation as an Anglican. It was devastating.

Worse, I faced the prospect of having to repeat all this in court.  I asked for anonymity, but worried how I would explain my absence to my parish. I had taken on a challenging post on the understanding that the diocese would support me, but the reality had been worse than any of us expected, and support less effective than I had hoped. An unexplained absence, possibly at short notice and an inconvenient time in parish life, was an additional complication I could do without.  And if there was a leak about the nature of my evidence – I just couldn’t contemplate that.

I told my churchwardens and archdeacon in confidence that I was a witness in a major child abuse case. To their credit, the news did not leak out. The archdeacon, however, pressed me repeatedly over a period of time as to the nature of my evidence. I told him that as the case was sub judice I couldn’t discuss it, but he made it clear that he was not satisfied.

I contacted the diocesan pastoral adviser, who arranged for a counsellor to support me through the process. This was valuable and I don’t know what I would have done without it. However, I also needed my line managers to take off some of the pressure in the parish, and this didn’t happen.

The months dragged on, with the police coming back to me now and then with further questions. The pressure was enormous. A few weeks before the trial I was told that I would not be required to appear in court, which was a big relief. However, I was advised that this might change so I couldn’t really relax.

Then came the trial itself, and the evidence of the victims. It was appalling.  I had somehow assumed that although Gordon faced 36 counts of child sexual abuse, the assaults had not been very serious. Maybe I was just trying to convince myself. Instead, it emerged that, especially during his time as chaplain at Barnardo’s children’s home, Gordon had behaved with a cruelty bordering on sadism. Moreover, he had told the children that the abuse was part of his ministry. He told one vulnerable young girl that his genitals were ‘the hand of God’. How do you cope with the knowledge that your spiritual mentor has been capable of such a blasphemy?

I began to regret that I had not been asked to testify in court, simply to demonstrate to those brave victims that there were clergy who were on their side against this terrible evil.

And all the time, with reports of the trial on the news daily, I was having to carry out my parish ministry as if nothing were wrong. The day the trial ended, with a guilty verdict, I was en route to a remote holiday without TV, radio, or internet coverage. I spent much of it trying to glean news, without much luck. That had to wait until I got back home, and resumed my parish duties.

The archdeacon made an appointment to visit me; I assumed he wanted to see how I was following the trial. I was worn out, grieving my loss of contact with the Rideout family, and still reeling from the impact of what I had learned about Gordon. I told the archdeacon I was struggling, and felt I needed a 3-day retreat in which I could work through the spiritual issues. He refused, saying he’d had a complaint I wasn’t doing enough work. Three weeks later I had a breakdown.

The prophet Amos has God saying: 

          ‘let justice roll down like waters,

          and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ (v. 24, NRSV).

Last week, in the General Synod debate on the IICSA recommendations, we at long last started to see justice beginning to flow. There was talk of redress for survivors, and a promise that money would be available. The passion for justice shown by many Synod members in that debate refreshed my soul.

If righteousness is going to continue to flow, the Church needs to do more than just make financial reparations – as right and necessary as those are. All senior personnel in the Church need to be much more aware of the enormous burden borne by those involved in abuse cases, and prepared to offer whatever support is needed. My experience was as a witness, and I didn’t even have to appear in court. How much worse must it have been for the survivors, who did appear and were cross-examined? They are heroes.

When we do justice, we do God’s work; justice is God’s business, and should be ours. Justice and redress have been a long time coming for too many of the Church’s victims. Now, at last, may righteousness become a stream which flows through the Church – and keep on flowing..

Last week at Synod the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a Presidential address which made various references to the metaphor of lions.  He mentioned, in particular, a story he had heard on a recent visit to Africa.   This story was about a shepherd boy dealing with the threat of lions.  It made the point that lions are far more dangerous when they are silently stalking.  It is then, not when they are roaring, that they are preparing to pounce on their prey.  His reflection on lion behaviour was linked to the image from I Peter where the lion is the devil/enemy which ‘walks about seeking whom he may devour’.  Archbishop Welby identified many things as the enemy.  He mentioned ‘culture, cruelty and lack of love’.  There was also a mention of the lion ‘biting …. through social media in a way we have never known before’.     It was striking how much of the address came back to this lion image from I Peter. The lion seemed to represent, for Welby, a whole host of things that posed a threat.  Some of these were going to be faced by the gathered bishops at Lambeth.  In Welby’s words, the bishops were going ‘as shepherds to be gathered together from around the world (to) recognise and name the face of the lion in each place.’  The speech went on to speak about shadowy threats in society, ‘scientific change, biotechnology, information technology’ and other forms of new knowledge.  From the choice of the I Peter passage, I began to ask myself whether the Archbishop’s words were tinged with the same fundamental emotion as the shepherd boy referred to in the story, the emotion of fear.

The unspoken subtext of the Archbishop’s speech may be the fact that both Synod and he himself were having to face, at present, a number of threats and events leading to a sense of dread and even powerlessness.  There are in front of him the many unresolved issues of division to be faced at Lambeth 2020, not least over same sex behaviour.  This is quite apart from all the issues around safeguarding which came to a head last week.  To navigate through any of these major topics requires superhuman skill.  To have two or more of them bubbling up at the same time must represent for the Archbishop a burden of enormous personal stress. The subtext of Welby’s speech may have been suggesting to us that he felt himself being stalked by a silent deadly evil force.   The demonic lion of I Peter could well represent the impossible burdens that he feels he is being called to carry now.

I went back to my bible to look up the I Peter passage about the ‘enemy’ oppressing us being like a lion.  I then used a wonderful internet search engine to find out what else the Bible had to say about lions.  In most of the references, lions are thought of terrifying creatures which can only be defeated by people of great strength or cunning (Samson and the young David).  Thus, most of the time, the Bible sees them as creatures which are a real threat to animals or human beings.  Two passages stand out, possibly being written by eye witnesses, showing the sheer destructiveness of lions.  One is the passage from Amos which is ascribed to Yahweh.  Here is described what remains of a sheep after a lion has finished with it.   ‘As a shepherd rescues out of the jaws of a lion two shin bones or the top of an ear’,  Amos 3.12.  More terrifying than this is the behaviour of a lion attacking a human being in Psalm 7.  There here is a disturbing reference to a lion tearing at the throat of its human prey.

Generally speaking, the lion in the Bible is a powerful foe living in remote places, but it represents a constant threat to human beings and their domestic animals.  The ability of Daniel to avoid being destroyed by the lions’ savagery was evidently a sign of extraordinary power, comparable to the avoidance of the heat of the burning fiery furnace.  The power of lions to destroy and terrify was evident and widespread. 

There is however, another biblical take on the topic of lions that I must confess never to have noticed before.  In a little-known passage right at the end of the book of Genesis the aged Jacob blesses his sons.  When he comes to his son Judah, Jacob likens him to a ‘lion’s whelp’.  He goes on ‘you have returned from the kill, my son’.  Some kind of dominance, represented by a lion’s strength is then ascribed to Judah in the words of the following verse.  ‘The sceptre shall not pass from Judah…’  A clear connection to this Genesis passage seems to be implied in a passage of Revelation 5.5.  Here one of the elders speaking to John declares that ‘the Lion from the Tribe of Judah, the Scion of David has won the right to open the scroll and break its seven seals.’  Without getting into detailed comment about this passage, I note that the Lion from the Tribe of Judah seems to become quickly merged with the image of the Lamb who appears in subsequent verses.  The symbol of power is at the same time the symbol of weakness and sacrifice.  Both the strands of symbolism are summed up in the figure of the risen Christ.  He is the figure of power and at the same time he is the sacrificial lamb.

Following the way the Bible understands lions, the most famous Christian exploration of the lion image is to be found in the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis and the Christ-like figure of Aslan.  I am not familiar with any discussion of how Lewis created his all-important figure of Aslan the Lion, but it seems reasonable to suppose that he may have been inspired this somewhat enigmatic symbolism in the Book of Revelation.  Whatever has been noted by the critics, the figure of Aslan clearly fits the profile of Revelation more than that of 1 Peter.  Aslan is a creature of great moral stature and strength.  Lewis also sees him as the one who makes no resistance when required to surrender himself to his enemies.  In the Synod proceedings last week, it was interesting how Martin Sewell, in his speech about safeguarding, picked up the lion theme through the Aslan story in his remarks about future change.  The fact that Martin likened the whole safeguarding topic to the Narnia story suggests that for him, at any rate, the Synod engagement with this topic has in the past seemed to have something of the nature of conflict about it.  According to this way of understanding, one which I have supported, a powerful ‘establishment’ has been battling for a long time to silence survivors.  The survivors, carrying all the wounds of their abuse, have had to struggle to be heard.  In one case, as Rosie Harper reminded us in the same debate, a survivor has been battling for seven years to receive a hearing.   For that survivor and those like him, the Synod debate represented a battle within a long drawn-out war.  The weapons given to survivors to fight in this war have been few and weak.  But finally, their constant efforts have started to have results, such as we saw last week.  The central government of the Church of England, the ‘establishment’ over which Welby presides, has had to acknowledge this cause as a just one.  Is it not too fanciful to suggest that this is one more strand creating the sense of fear and beleaguerment being felt by the Archbishop and those around him?

The Archbishop painted for us a picture of a scenario where the Church was in conflict with a powerful enemy in the form of many different aspects of modern life.  We surmise that much of the conflict he detected was being personally felt, the cares of Lambeth, safeguarding and a general sense of the way the Church’s reputation is in decline as it enters a new decade.  

This blog reflection ends with a question.  Which image of lions fits in with our understanding of the contemporary state of the Church.  Do we have a sense of siege with enemies like Satanic lions all around?  Do we by contrast believe in a Church that is finally waking up to a new start of honesty and justice?  The lion for this version of the story is Aslan/Christ leading us and the whole Church to a place of wholeness and new beginnings.

The debate at General Synod on Wednesday 12^th February may yet come to be seen as a decisive moment in the history of the Church of England and its task of safeguarding.  In the words of Martin Sewell, a lay member from Rochester, the distant sound of a lion’s roar could be heard and the sound of ice cracking.  Winter was ending and Aslan was about to arrive.

What follows in this blog is not a systematic objective analysis of the Synod proceedings but a subjective editing/selecting of some parts of the speeches that were given.  It is offered not only as an informative snapshot for those who were not there or could not watch it online.  It can also be regarded as an aide-memoire for the future, when checks are being made of whether progress towards helping survivors and victims of abuse is on track.  Everyone contributing to the debate last Wednesday emphasised the importance of action rather just words.  The words in the debate that were uttered by both leaders and ordinary Synod members, all need to be remembered and recorded for posterity.  Above all we need to have a sense of the mood of the debate in the future.  This blog piece will be trying as much as possible to use the words actually spoken by the debate contributors.  But, in making a choice of which words to use or summarise, this blog piece may give a biased account of the proceedings.  I am not sure how this can be easily avoided.  My readers who follow this blog will realise that I will be focusing on a perspective supportive of survivors and their interests.  I am unsure if it is even possible to present this kind of material in a totally objective way.

Four bishops and one archbishop spoke in the debate.  I have made a choice only to record the words of two, Philip North, the Bishop of Burnley, and the new lead bishop for safeguarding, Jonathan Gibbs, Bishop of Huddersfield.  These two bishops have had a personal and public identification with the cause of survivors’ welfare and the whole topic of safeguarding.  They each appear to have earned the trust of the survivor community, even though there is a recognition that there is still an enormous amount more to do.

Philip North spoke memorably on the importance of seeing the church through the eyes of survivors.  He also embarked on a reflection that I have never heard from the mouth of a bishop, a reflection on power in the Church.  He spoke of the personal power exercised by bishops and the power inherent in the institution.  He also mentioned the ‘faux-humility’ exercised by Peter Ball.  He called for power to become transparent and open so that people can see a greater sense of accountability among those who have power.  He also described survivors ‘as prophets calling us to greater gospel faithfulness’. 

Bishop Gibbs of Huddersfield, as the new lead safeguarding bishop, had a major part in rescuing the amendment put forward by three lay synod members, including Martin Sewell and David Lamming.  His words were to be listened to carefully as clearly his influence in the future will be crucial for the future of safeguarding and the welfare and interests of survivors.  He gave us a hint of the negotiations behind the scenes that had gone on to bring the rescued amendment to the floor of Synod.  That there had been ‘constructive conversations’ in the National Safeguarding Steering Group, a possible euphemism for heated debate, seemed clear.  Clearly the conversation had gone the right way as far as survivors are concerned.  As I pointed out in a previous post, words like apology, action and change appear in the proposed amendment.  There was a real sense that Bishop Gibbs has seized the ‘reins of power’ in this committee in a way that his predecessor had not.  One particular word came through, which other speakers picked up.  The word was redress.  The word picked the other new emphasis that was coming through the debate.  Action and change were a necessary follow-up from mere words of apology. 

Bishop Gibbs seemed to have a real grasp of what the church looks like from the perspective of a survivor.  Safeguarding will always, in the future, reflect that perspective.  The perspective of survivors must also be allowed to shape the way we ‘reshape our shared life in the church’.  In a memorable remark, Bishop Gibbs said that ‘too many of us just don’t get it’. 

Bishop Gibbs’ comments about the financial implications of ‘redress’ are an indication that he has had scored some real victories behind the scenes with those who control the purse-strings of the Church.  He spoke about ‘serious money’ being needed.  Working out how this money will be funded will be complicated, but it will be done, ‘shaped by the righteousness and compassion of God’s kingdom’.  He clearly recognised that such planning would be done and the process will ‘not be led by the-short term and short-sighted financial and reputational interests of the Church’.

In his final remarks, Bishop Gibbs referred to the final IICSA report on the Church of England to be issued later this year.  ‘That will not make comfortable reading’, we were told.  The bishop went on: ‘we need to do more than just respond.  We should be concentrating on making the Church of England into what it should be, a beacon of excellence in safeguarding, recognised as a community that excels in promoting the safety and wellbeing of every single human being and one that acts as a voice for the voiceless and a refuge for the vulnerable.  Now is the time for action and for change.’

Rosie Harper spoke a little later.  She asked the perennial questions which are on the lips of every survivor.  ‘What has really changed?  Can the bishops be held accountable for implementing their promises?’  The patronising answer she had received was ‘along the lines of trust me I’m a bishop’.  There had been changes but what had not changed was the way ‘survivors feel about the church response’.  In Rosie’s words, survivors ‘are still waiting for genuine Christian and human interaction’.  They know ……’that they are still spoken about as difficult or persistent and vexatious or tricky or damaged and they wait.  They wait for apologies. They wait for fair and just restitution, they wait for proper pastoral care’.  This theme of waiting underlies much of what Rosie went on to say.  She spoke of a Iwerne survivor who had been waiting seven years for some kind of response from the Church. She concluded her remarks with a plea to the House of Bishops to put the Archbishop’s promise to put survivors ‘at the centre of what we do’ and make it a reality.  She looked for accountability in those who have responsibility for putting things right.  There needs to be ‘consequences for failure in this area.’  

Some powerful words from Martin Sewell followed.  He was a co-author of the amendment, which was now before Synod in its revised form.  In Martin’s words: ‘Last week Bp Jonathan acted decisively encouraging his colleagues in accepting that the initial motion (before the amendment was added) was in no way good enough; it was not a proper response to the Peter Ball story.   Anger and frustration is widespread not only among survivors but in the church itself.’  Martin went on to speak about the word ‘redress’. ‘For victims it means hope.  It means binding up the wounds of victims beyond what the lawyers advise.  It means actively nurturing victims back to as much wholeness as possible in a host of ways, even if they (the survivors) never can forgive us.  Christ requires nothing less; ask the Good Samaritan for details.  Don’t ask the Levites and don’t ask the reputation management consultants.’  He continued: ‘Don’t let any of us professing Christians here dare to think about letting them down again.  Bp Jonathan told us yesterday at the safeguarding fringe meeting that he has talked to his colleagues and he has assured that they know that restorative justice will be costly.  To their great credit they have accepted that this is the right thing to do’.  Martin’s final words covered the theme of love in action, linking them to Archbishop Justin’s words on the topic.  Such love is costly in every sense of the word.   In an allusion to the mythical kingdom of Narnia, Martin ended with these words: ‘My friends the ice is cracking, come with us on this journey of penitence and hope.’

The presentation of Susie Leaf indicated a degree of personal experience of a bullying abusive scenario, not fully spelt out.  Evidently the memory of these experiences had been in part triggered by the publicity over Jonathan Fletcher last year.  Her response to her own and other people’s experience of bullying and abuse was to encourage listening to victims, speak up as much as one can and prevent secrecy.  She stressed the importance of all Christians in taking responsibility to remove this evil.  Susie kept the attention of her listeners and every word seemed to echo deep personal connection, both with an experience of abuse and with those she was in touch with among survivors/victims.

Julie Conalty, an Archdeacon in the Rochester diocese, gave us the sense of someone firmly connected to the topic of safeguarding.  She was also in touch with both the survivors and the efforts to help them.  She had realised that rather than bemoaning the issues of support and settlements to survivors, it was up to her to take action and use her position within the structure to help to make changes.  She was in the position to ask awkward questions both of church lawyers and insurance companies.  If such individuals were not delivering ethical behaviour in their dealing with survivors, then it was up to the Church to consider changing and moving their custom elsewhere.   The Church was committed to ‘do justly and act mercifully’ and it was always right to ask awkward questions of others when these principles are being betrayed.  Her final words were as follows.  ‘Survivors are watching and wanting to help us but we must not hold out hope and disappoint them we must go back to our dioceses and do something’.

Peter Adams signalled how he welcomed the motion and the amendment.  He gave us the story of Robert who had been abused as a cathedral chorister sixty years ago.  Peter’s encounters with other abuse victims had given a clear sense of what was involved in a lifelong impact exposure to trauma and PTSD.   Such trauma affects people in different ways.  Some get to live a relatively normal life. For others, ‘the depression in dark times comes upon them unexpectedly.  Too often, others find it hard to keep down a job decades after their abuse. Almost all tell of how life gets harder and even more so when they are not believed again and again.’ Paul concluded with these words: ‘ ‘We need to learn from our survivors suffering from trauma and PTSD.  Those who have been deeply wounded need appropriate redress.  Child sexual abuse can have a trauma that impacts individuals for the rest of their lives. Nothing we will do will change that but today we can lay a foundation for a response to make that journey easier.’

Debbie Buggs drew the attention of Synod to a poster which was being hung from the gallery but invisible to those of us watching at home.  It stated simply the contrast between the cost of £23.5 million which had been spent on the new library at Lambeth Palace and the allocation of £0 to the cause of supporting survivors.

John Spence, a senior member of Archbishop’s Council, left us with a few words suggesting that real change is on its way.  ’Let us be very clear, this is not about affordability; this is about justice. Justice cannot have a value according to the finances of this or that.  Whatever we are told is required by those responsible is required for redress, those funds will be found.’

In my last post, I suggested that the way power operates in the Church of England has some similarities to a system of government in an Eastern European communist regime.  Two centres of power seem to exist.  One is equivalent to a central politburo, a hidden cabal of power answerable only to itself.  The other is a parliament-type structure which is the public face of power.  Here the power that it possesses is at best merely advisory.  We should be careful not to press this analogy too far, but there has recently been some evidence of conflict between a powerful central Church executive and members of Synod. This has been over a proposed amendment to a proposal in General Synod connected with a safeguarding debate due to take place tomorrow morning (Wednesday 12th).

Let us retrace our steps so we can understand better this power conflict as it is currently being played out.  As things stand currently, there does seem to be a state of calm and unanimity between both sides.  In preparation for the current Synod meeting in Westminster, a proposal about safeguarding was sent out to members in preparation for the debate due to take place tomorrow morning (Wednesday).  The paper, officially entitled GS 2158, contains the official Church response to the recommendations of IICSA. IICSA had made five recommendations as part of its reports to the Church.  The Archbishops’ Council, having studied these reports, is signifiying its intention to pursue these recommendations in full.  Although GS 2158 is an important document, it does not really engage with some of the issues that survivors and their supporters are looking for from Synod.  Several proposed amendments to GS 2158 were lodged by a group of Synod members with managers of Synod and these were also placed on this blog by David Lamming on February 5^th .  It was an attempt by the authors to move the debate on from the rather dry committeesque language of the original AC proposal to something that contained a real sense of emotional engagement with the topic and the survivors themselves.  Among its ideas, it wanted the notion of lament to be expressed.  It also suggested that the Church’s response might mirror the response of the Blackburn diocese to the IICSA findings.  This Blackburn document, examined on this blog last year, had genuinely tried to give a real sense of the need to honour survivors and respond to them appropriately.  The Lamming et al. amendment also called for concrete proposals to help survivors, while allowing Synod the power of oversight for ensuring that the task of care actually took place.

We then heard, in the middle of last week, that the members’ amendment to GS 2158 had been overruled.  For a day or so it looked as if Synod was to be in direct conflict with Synod business managers for reasons that were not immediately evident.  Then last Friday it was announced that the new lead Bishop for Safeguarding, Jonathan Gibbs, had ‘rescued’ the Lamming proposal and had succeeded in getting a version of it on the agenda for the debate that is to happen tomorrow on Wednesday.  Jonathan Gibbs, Bishop of Huddersfield, is a fresh face in the Safeguarding world.  Although he is not a Diocesan bishop, he is, by all accounts, someone whose loyalty is above all to issues of justice alongside the pastoral and practical care of survivors.  He is also, as the lead safeguarding bishop, the chair of the National Safeguarding Steering Group. The amendment goes as follows: The Bishop of Huddersfield to move the following amendment– ……..(b) welcome the statement in paragraph 4.1 of the response that the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) “remains committed to ensuring that words of apology are followed by concrete actions”; (c) urge the NSSG to bring forward proposals to give effect to that commitment that follow a more fully survivor-centred approach to safeguarding, including arrangements for redress for survivors; (d) request that the NSSG keep the Synod updated on the development and implementation of responses to recommendations relating to the Church of England that are made by the Inquiry, including by submitting a report for debate by the Synod not later than July 2021.”.’

Although the original Lamming amendment has been substantially shortened, there are in this proposal some decisive changes of mood to be discerned.  The NSSG as a body, hitherto beyond the direct control of Synod, is now being made accountable to them in this proposal.  It will be hard for the NSSG to be able to ignore Synod when it has been ‘requested’ both to adopt a survivor-centred approach and also keep the Synod updated on the progress of the ‘concrete actions’ that are expected.

To use the analogy of the previous blog post, the parliament of the communist country is flexing its muscles and demanding power back from the old guard in the central politburo.  To use another analogy, the ice is breaking and the thaw, long awaited for by survivors, has begun.  That Jonathan Gibbs’ proposal has reached the agenda at all does suggest a hidden palace revolution.  The NSSG represents the establishment in the Church with only senior church leaders and legal representatives as members.  There are no survivors present.  Now that this group is being required to put survivors at the centre, it is hard to see that they can stop the atmosphere changing decisively.  The establishment point of view, which could be summed up briefly by uttering the mantra ‘preserve the assets and the institutional reputation above everything else’, has to change.  If Bishop Jonathan Gibbs is successful, a revolution at the centre to serve survivors far better, has begun.

Tomorrow, General Synod is likely to pass an amendment containing the following words.  Each of them will be sweet to the ears of survivors.  Apology, concrete actions, a more fully survivor-centred approach to safeguarding, redress for survivors, request that the NSSG keep the Synod updated, implementation of a report for debate.

I hope that some of those who read this will be able to watch the streamed debate from Synod on Wednesday 12^th February.  By any measure it will be one of the most important in the hitherto tortuous history of safeguarding practice in the Church of England to date.

One of the ways that this blog is maturing is in the way that it is beginning to develop a feeling of ‘we’ about it.  One regular contributor spoke of Surviving Church as being for him a virtual church.  I am not going to argue for or against this notion but I am certainly pleased when commenters say they feel ‘safe’ in each other’s company.  I am always grateful when there is a contribution to what I write in terms of new information or helpful discussion.  Today I am particularly grateful to ‘Froghole’ both for having interacted with one of my posts and set me off on a new path of reflection about the Church of England.  Froghole gave us the vivid fantasised image of someone important at Church House sitting down with an actuary, in order to make a decision about the way that the Church of England was going to deal with future claims of compensation for past abuses.  This process of calculation, he suggested in a memorable phrase, would be based on ‘balance sheet thinking’.  The outcome of the calculation in this fantasy exchange produced the conclusion that it was better for the Church’s future survival never to admit liability.   Froghole suggested that the ‘ethical and reputational pain’ which the Church would suffer as the result of this calculation would be regarded as worth it for the sake of the future financial viability of the institution.

I want to think through this picture that Froghole has shared with us.  The key points in the current survivor/Church fall-out are made easier to grasp by this construction from the imagination.  It has the effect of simplifying a quite complex issue into a simple us-them scenario.  On the one side we have the as yet uncalculated number of people who have legitimate claims against the church.  They need to be heard and receive all the help they require, financial and otherwise, for the abuses they have suffered.  On the other side is ‘them’, leaders of a large wealthy institution, the Church.  The leaders of the Church evidently believe that they have to do everything possible to protect themselves against these claims.  It is a potential nightmare scenario for the Church, especially as it has no way of estimating the potential financial liabilities that may be demanded of it in the future.

Setting out the problem as a confrontation between two sides who have such different perspectives obviously risks becoming a caricature.  But there is enough of value in this picture to help us tease out further nuances that are present.  Because we are talking about the Church in this scenario, we have to recognise that there will be ethical factors to be taken into account.  The most obvious of these is the imperative of the priority of love.  This has the practical effect that ‘adversarial’ encounters with claimants should be declared inappropriate and unbecoming.  If you claim to love everyone as part of your faith position, it is then not possible to treat them as an enemy.  Nor is it right to set up obstructions which prevent a claimant finding the best solutions to resolve pain and promote their healing.  We would expect to see dissonance in the body language of someone who is trying to promote love and balance sheet thinking at the same time.  That, sadly, is exactly what we did see in the body language of the Archbishop of Canterbury when being interviewed about safeguarding issues.  He often appeared conflicted in these encounters.  On the one side he showed real and genuine remorse for the sufferings of the abused.   At the same appearing unable to say anything practical or pastoral which might have sounded really helpful to survivors.  It is as though there was a mysterious powerful force just off camera.  This was controlling him and preventing him going further in his expressions of regret and sorrow.

Our commentator, Froghole, has something further to say about the power that exists at the heart of the Church.  He suggests that we should not look to Synod to find the source of real power in the Church but to the Bishops and the Commissioners.  This group (Diocesan bishops are ex-officio Commissioners) forms an ‘executive’ where most of the real power is invested.  This power, Froghole claims, arises from their access to the funds of the Commissioners.  Decisions as to the extent of financial support of abuse survivors will be, no doubt, decided by small committees within this group.  Within these committees will be mainly the voices of those fully immersed in the ‘balance sheet’ ways of thinking.  It is unlikely that the minutes of such meetings will ever be shared with ordinary church people or even the members of Synod.

The public face of the government of the Church of England is General Synod.  It is, however, becoming clear, especially over the past few months, that the ‘managers’, members of the powerful ‘executive’, are in charge.  At the same time these managers are becoming increasingly out of step with GS members.  The points of disagreement seem frequently to be over the same issues that concern this blog – safeguarding and abuse.  A recent attempt by the executive to control the interests of members was seen in the way that an amendment by David Lamming and Martin Sewell on safeguarding was peremptorily declared to be out of order.  The original content of that proposal is to be found in one of the comments from David on a recent post.  The detailed points that are made in this amendment are not important here, but it was the way that a challenge to the centres of power was received.  That is telling.  As I write I am aware that something is being rescued from the rejected motion and the drama will be played in the course of next week at the full meeting of Synod in London.

In my own mind, thanks to Froghole, I have begun to think of the management of the Church of England as being a bit like an enormous juggernaut of power, similar to a political system in the former East Germany or Soviet Russia.  Each authoritarian political system has its own public elected body or parliament.  They pass laws but real power lies elsewhere out of sight.  In the case of the Church of England, power seems to lie not with Synod but with its executive, the Commissioners or the committees that do its day to day work.  In recent history, the juggernauts of power represented by Apartheid or the Eastern European regimes were replaced, not because of direct confrontation but through subtle pressure over a period of time.  The final victory came about because the powerful side glimpsed how, in the long term, it has to give way to justice and ethical behaviour.  It will always be wrong to oppress and pile on suffering on those who are already in pain, as is happening with survivors.  The challengers to the ‘balance sheet rulers’ of the Church of England are the survivors, their supporters and the weight of moral opinion in society at large.  The pressure is continuous and continuing.  At some point in the not too distant future it will occur to institutional leaders that, although they still have structural and institutional power, they do not have moral power.  Without the latter they must know that their stance towards survivors cannot be sustained in the long term.  It was the moral authority of Nelson Mandela that destroyed Apartheid.  There is no obvious single Mandela figure to defeat the balance sheet thinking of our church leadership.   There are however a number of us who claim that it is right to continue to struggle on behalf of many who have endured decades of pain, made worse by the indifference of a Church that still seems so often not to understand.