ViaMedia

Year: 2024

  • An Introduction to God as Child

    by Graham Adams, Tutor in Mission Studies, World Christianity and Religious Diversity at Luther King Centre for Theology and Ministry, in Manchester

    To enter God’s alternative kingdom (a realm where the world is turned upside-down), Jesus tells us to ‘become like little children’. I wonder whether this is not only because the realm itself has a childlike quality to it, but because the one who shapes it also does. But despite increasing appreciation of the need for a variety of metaphors to reflect the fullness of God’s mystery, most of our metaphors remain essentially adult (father, mother, parent, judge, king, midwife, etc). Perhaps we are so conditioned by the prevailing power of ‘adultness’, along with the other ways in which ideologies become idols, that our childlike imagination has been constrained.

    In my new book, God the Child, I am therefore not searching for a cute or innocent vision of God, as though to focus on Jesus’ early years. Nor is it about replacing all adult metaphors, but adding to them, and in some respects destabilising them. Its primary purpose is to ask what happens when we give focused attention to childlike metaphors – and how this can shape our sense of the world, both the world as it is and the world as it might become.

    In particular, it examines the questions of God’s omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience, in order to draw out different childlike emphases – namely, the smallness of a child’s hand, present in and receptive to all belittled experiences and overlooked potential; the seeming weakness of a chaos-event, which nevertheless initiates disproportionate change, messing with the rules of our adult games in pursuit of deeper justice; and the curiosity of the horizon-seeker, empathetically yearning for greater understanding of diverse experience, making friends across borders, and encouraging us to do the same.

    So here, for instance, I affirm divine smallness –

    God is small. Small enough to be in the spaces which we neglect. The spaces we forget. The cracks. The hollows. The hideaways. Where broken toys are lost. Where the little can squeeze, either for some sense of safety, or because the giants have backed them into a corner. God is small enough to be in the margins, places of shame which are vast yet overlooked, or sites of new beginnings, ridiculous in their insignificance, but from where surprises and transformations emerge or burst, or resurrect…

    Here we greet, or are greeted by, God the Child: small enough to give value to every instance of brokenness and every site of recreation, in their very unnoticed-ness.

                  (God the Child pp.28, 31)

    Paying attention to ‘sites of smallness’ can help us not to romanticise childness; not to ignore the many real struggles of children’s experience, such as abuse, neglect, hunger, violence, lack of agency, and so on – and similarly, not to ignore adults’ pain with regards to childness: child loss, pregnancy loss, childlessness, memories of childhood traumas and so forth. God the Child, in a sense inarticulate in the face of such anguish, offers a different kind of solidarity in the midst of what might be overlooked. At the same time, I acknowledge that I am selecting certain traits – much as we select certain traits for our vision of divine adultness – and giving them a positive meaning. Of course, ‘chaos’ is not always creative or constructive – it pulls down and overthrows, just as the child Jeremiah was commissioned, in addition to building and planting – so I recognise that these ideas can be experienced in different ways. But so can our adult metaphors.

    It was also important that, in addition to the adult prose of a theology book, some of it should be expressed more playfully, creatively and poetically. Ultimately, though, I think I’m not only striving for a rediscovery of our own childlike imagination, but seeking to uncover something of God’s childlike imagination – again, this is not to romanticise it, as though to overlook the struggles of real children or any who are belittled, but to understand that such imagination does two things. God’s childlikeness not only faces the world as it is – what I call ‘the colonial matrix of adult power’, which ‘schools’ us, or conditions us, into accepting prevailing norms and patterns as inevitable – but also dares us to envisage the world as it might become. This is aided by other liberative theologies which stretch and enrich it – like Black theology, disability theology, and queer theologies. They help to expand on the location of God the Child, in solidarity with all who are belittled; the agency of God the Child, struggling against systems which disable it; and the transgressiveness of God the Child, moving across borders.

    These possibilities are gathered together in this re-working of a familiar prayer –

    God, our heavenly Child,

    May you be praised in all creation!

    May your imaginative scribbles of a new world come into being,

    May your dreams and visions be fulfilled on earth.

    May we give and receive, inspired by your open hand, until everyone has what they need.

    May we change our minds, learn and forgive, as you show us how to let go.

    May you fly a kite that guides us, caught up in the breath of hope, towards better horizons.

    May you show us how to rage against what is unfair and cruel, until these things crumble.

    For your chaos-power, your glorious imagination, and your wonder-full dream of new creation fill us with hope and determination,

    Now and always, Amen

    (God the Child, p.122)

  • Time to be Civil about Marriage

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge; Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington 

    Well, here we go again then.

    In the next few months – in an eerie echo of the same months exactly a year ago – the Church of England will once again be asking small groups to sit down and discuss queer people’s lives and loves. Despite the fact that the draft Prayers of Love and Faith have been sitting ready to go for almost a year, and despite the fact that an almost final draft of the Pastoral Guidance permitting clergy equal marriage has similarly been sitting ready to go for almost a year, the feet-dragging nature of the church’s response to love has once again been on full display. If in doubt, set up a subgroup, and so here we are, with yet more subgroups, asking exactly the same questions, and promising a solution by July.

    It would be a foolhardy House of Bishops that suggested a further delay in July – many LGBTQIA clergy and their allies are close to civil disobedience, along with an increasing recognition by a number of bishops that the current situation is not only untenable but deeply unjust. Yet it is clear that the sticking point on much of the negotiations is not the Prayers of Love and Faith, and their ‘legal route’, however much noise is being made about this by rather tiresome bloggers, but clergy discipline. The real nub of this is whether faithful, committed, partnered clergy can enter what they personally believe to be, but what the church corporately does not yet receive as, marriage, and whether the church is empowered to continue to ask prurient and weird questions about their bedroom antics.

    It does sometimes appear to be the case that those doing and promoting the work on LLF have forgotten that there are actually (despite everything) LGBTQIA people in the church. When the Programme Board was first announced, there was not a single (out) LGBTQIA person on it, and similarly you needed a microscope to find the LGBTQIA people in the small groups (something which has been, to some degree, mitigated thanks to some of us spotting it!). For all the warm words and the ‘apology’, the mode of operation of the Church of England has resolutely not changed on all this; it’s frankly not good enough, and it’s rather grating when compared to the way other minoritized groups are increasingly treated. There seems to be a wilful determination to keep LGBTQIA people out of the frame, and hence to condemn the process to an endless procession of unforced errors. LGBTQIA people remain, apparently, acceptably ignored.

    There are plenty of us LGBTQIA folk who are really willing this process, and its leadership, to succeed, despite everything – yet we are treated as though our involvement would somehow infect it with queerness. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but in seriousness there needs to be a step change in the way the Church of England engages with us if it is to gain even a modicum of trust. People like me would be perfectly happy to look over press releases and point out the obvious issues, and indeed people far more qualified and senior than me, who are themselves ‘openly’ LGBTQIA (a term reserved, it seems, almost solely for the church in the modern world), should be invited to be part and parcel of the decision-making processes rather than merely advising it from the side-lines. There remains far too much being done about us, and not with us, and until that changes, the Church of England is displaying that it has learnt precisely nothing about its institutional queerphobia.

    Which brings us back to clergy marriage. From all the whingeing and whining, you’d think that the people this most matters to are those who oppose ‘sexual intimacy’ (as yet undefined) amongst queer people, but perhaps we might just reset the dial and remember that the key stakeholders here are queer people themselves. We have heard the usual delaying clarion call of ‘we need to do more theology’ on this time and time again, and we have heard all the handwringing about the conscience of bishops, yet we have – it appears – infrequently actually listened to and thought about the impact of the current pernicious, institutional and structural violence of the current position of the church for actual, real live, queer people.

    The level of pastoral ineptitude and lack of practicality found in the House of Bishops’ ‘Pastoral Guidance’ [sic] issued on Valentine’s Day 2014 is rivalled only by the disgraceful way that this has been implemented over the past decade. Absolutely no recognition has been given to the fact that the distinction between Civil Partnerships and Civil Marriage is not present in every jurisdiction, leading to clergy in Europe, for example, facing a choice between basic next of kin rights and their licences. Clergy from Anglican provinces overseas or our other communion partners, where equal marriage is not only permitted but required for clergy in same-sex relationships, have been prevented from offering their ministry in the Church of England in an extraordinary display of arrogant inflexibility on behalf of ‘mother church’. It is interesting, of course, that it’s only the queer married clergy who are blocked, and not the straight clergy, including bishops, who have been doing the marriage services – you really don’t have to look far for institutional queerphobia.

    Yet, finally, it seems that this pernicious nonsense is about to end, and not before time. There is now a clear way forward that brings the Church of England back to a position more true to itself – generous hospitality. We appreciate that we are not all going to agree on whether same-sex unions are marriage or not, perhaps for some time, yet we are part of a church and a communion in which a variety of perspectives are held entirely within the mainstream.

    In many ways, this is just a case of recognising facts. As yet – and it is only a matter of time – the Church of England corporately does not recognise the essence, dare I say sacramentality, of the marital in same-sex marriages. That’s actually where the distinction lies – not between the civil and the church (the marriage-matrimony idea), but in the anatomy of the participants. There are also, however, a number of queer clergy who want to enter into such a vowed state that is recognised as such by the State, and indeed by many churches that presently come to a different conclusion about this than appears to be the case in the Church of England. Some of them will want to do that in a civil ceremony, and others before God (indeed, in ceremonies in which God can actually be mentioned) in a church where such marriages can be celebrated.

    Neither of those options changes anything about the Church of England’s own position on what it holds to be marital. Clergy are not entering into marriage lightly – they’re doing so because they believe it to be part of their growth in holiness. The church has accepted – and indeed encouraged – clergy entering into Civil Partnerships, and the result of making a similar decision on marriage is absolutely no different from the church’s perspective, given the Church of England institutionally continues to refuse recognise such marriages as full fat marriage. The only difference it will actually make is to queer clergy – and it’s about time that happened, and the cruelty ended.

    Incidentally, this is not about press-ganging into marriage. For traditionalist Society clergy who are worried they might be forced to marry their same-sex partners, this is plain and simple scaremongering nonsense, often delivered to you by hierarchs in order to scare you into playing ball. Nobody is being forced into same-sex marriages, queer or otherwise, but the option is simply being put on the table. If in conscience clergy don’t want to take it, then that’s up to them – that’s the benefit of generous hospitality. Nothing has been said about civil partnerships being taken off the table, and the whole point of this exercise is surely to be expansive, and not close things down.

    And yet there are a number of ‘conservative’ bishops who continue to rail against this hospitality, and whose consciences ‘must be respected’ (again, interesting how it’s only ever one way, isn’t it). They won’t license or ordain clergy in same sex marriages, whatever the church decides, they say – and again, fascinating to see that they are unlikely to apply any restrictions to clergy from elsewhere who officiate at such marriages, but only on the queers in them. Their ongoing threat of a postcode lottery is holding the whole thing up, and they’re once again holding us to ransom. And it is all an argument built on sand, because as they like to remind us, the Church of England hasn’t changed its doctrine of marriage – and as is entirely obvious, the Church doesn’t recognise the marital in marriage between people of the same sex. It’s a house of cards, and needs calling out.

    It is high time for the Church of England to return to a sense of balance and proportion, to focus on the pastoral and not the disciplinary, and to actively find ways to enable and release its clergy into the world so badly in need of the Gospel message. We have failed – disastrously – at doing this for queer clergy in the last ten years, and at last we have the opportunity to change that. We don’t agree – maybe we never will – on marriage. But we can, surely, agree on the primacy of the Gospel. It really is as simple as that.

  • The Majority or the Minority? A Rhetorical Question

    by Rev. Yin-An Chen, Assistant Curate in the Diocese of Lichfield, Trustee of Open Table Network, and Council Member of Modern Church

    I have always believed that I need to stand in solidarity with other minorities and oppressed groups. I stand up firmly for the equality and rights of women, the disabled, transgender people, refugees, people from disadvantaged backgrounds and religious minorities. However, I do not belong to any of these marginalised groups—at least, in the British context. Sometimes some minority experiences are contextual and relative, depending on the situation.

    For example, as a Han-ethnic Taiwanese, I never feel I am a ‘racial minority’ in my homeland. I have been ‘learning’ to be a racial minority since I moved to the UK ten years ago. As a bisexual man, I am ‘generally’ a minority in both Taiwan and the UK. I am unlikely to find any place where bisexual men are the ‘majority’.

    Due to this ‘inconsistency’ of who is majority and/or minority, I am occasionally confused by what I am standing for and dubious about how “solidarity of the minorities” can be built on strong foundations and prosper—if one minority group can ‘suddenly’ see themselves as the majority, or if embracing the identity of one oppressed group over others has become more mainstreamed and more politically correct.

    Something truly heart-breaking happened in the spring of 2023 when the Church of England’s General Synod conducted a serious debate on Living in Love and Faith and the vexed question of the blessing of same-sex marriages. I was told by a campaigner for racial justice that the Church of England must consider the broader context of the whole Anglican Communion. That person continues to say that the unity of the Church must be prioritised over the alteration of the Doctrine of Holy Matrimony. (Beware! The ‘doctrine’ has a capital letter!)

    The LGBT community and its allies in the Church of England have heard enough of this stuff. It is nonsensical that the Church should hold back from gay marriage because of strong opposition from the Global Majority. And there is another parallel, which is the growth of conservative Christianity in the Global South vs the decline of liberal Christianity in the Global North. (The definition of ‘liberal’ was already ambiguous but here it simply means affirming women and LGBT people in the church to be ‘who they are’ in terms of their relationship and vocation.) The Synod should listen to what the majority of global Anglicans have taught the minority of English Anglicans about marriage.

    There is irony in the rhetorical language that is repeatedly used here when talking of majorities and minorities. The Synod debate and the ongoing conversation has confused me deeply about what I am campaigning for in terms of race and sexuality. Is it truly about the equality of the minority? What do we desire in our campaign? Why do people still assume that the majority voice remains more ‘convincing’ and ‘important’ than the minority voice?

    More fundamentally and radically, why should we always allow the majority vote/decision to override the fundamental value of Christian faith and the basic rights of the minority to equality? (I deliberately chose the term ‘override’ to emphasise the power of the majority!) This question is fundamental because how can any minority groups speak for themselves through the majority decision? The question is also radical because we may need to reconsider how ‘democracy’ is applied and fulfilled in the Christian community if the practice of loving our neighbours who are not part of the majority really is the core of Christian values. (Do Christians love our neighbours because the majority of people say so?) Can LGBT people ever win over the majority vote?

    I have no interest in arguing over the ecclesiology of the Anglican Communion or the definition of Holy Matrimony. But this part of the Synod debate was disturbing. As an ‘acquired’ racial minority in the UK, I was frightened to learn that many Caribbean Christians were ‘invited out’ when they were sitting in their parish church where they assumed that they would receive a warm welcome from their brothers and sisters in Christ.[1] What were the grounds for excluding these Caribbean Christians? It was because the majority of the white British congregation did not feel comfortable about their presence in their churches. There were certainly some clergy and Christians with a conscience who went against the majority and who wanted to create a hospitable environment for these new immigrants. However, there was also a backlash voice (with which we all are familiar) which attempted to hold back the welcoming move—in the name of the disapproval of the ‘majority’.

    Putting these two experiences together and looking at the rhetorical language of the majority-and-minority, it really shows the irony and reinforces my discomfort when I see the broken solidarity between racial and sexual minorities. In our campaigning for equality and justice, can we always rely on what the majority says and the appeal to the majority? How can the Church of England proactively avoid sacrificing sexual minorities on the altar of the majority view in the same way that it excluded the Windrush Generation? Here, now, in 2024, the Church of England continues to hang on and hang back until the day the majority vote for equality arrives—even though this will almost certainly never happen. Once again, we will be badly late—and may even wait forever.

    Note
    [1] As the Church of England’s General Synod has already admitted in Windrush Commitment & Legacy (GS 2156A, 2020): “There are Anglican Christians worshipping in parish churches today whose first experience of the Church of England was turning up at their local parish church and being told by clergy and laity alike varying versions of, ‘The Baptist Church is just down the road.’ Of those who persisted in seeking to worship within the Anglican tradition they had grown up with for generations, some were told they should sit at the back of church, some were even denied Holy Communion. We must acknowledge and lament the fact that this was due to the colour of their skin, their accent, their perceived nationality.”

  • Safeguarding & Living in Love and Faith: Learning for the Church of England from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse & Lessons Learned Reviews[1]?

    Via Media does not normally publish long pieces, but in this case we are making an exception; we have a record of expressing concern over safeguarding.[1] The following document was prepared in 2023 by Judith Maltby, a member of the House of Clergy of the General Synod.  She was encouraged to produce this paper by one of the lead bishops for safeguarding and also received critical feedback from a diocesan safeguarding professional before completion. It was presented at a meeting of the National Safeguarding Steering Group on 30 January 2024, after which it was placed on the  CofE Safeguarding Training Portal. That site requires a log-in, so we are making it available here to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of the links identified by IICSA and numerous professional Lessons Learned Reviews between the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and catastrophic safeguarding failures. All the documents cited are referenced in the notes and are in the public domain. 

     

    Revd Canon Judith Maltby is College Lecturer in Theology & Emerita Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Emerita Reader in Church History, University of Oxford, and a member of the House of Clergy of General Synod

    1. Introduction[2]

    From 2012-13 until 2022, I served as a central member elected by General Synod on the Crown Nominations Commission, the body which nominates individuals to be diocesan bishops.  I began around the time of the time of the investigation into safeguarding failures in Chichester Diocese led by Baroness Butler-Sloss.[3]  Although I had up till then followed safeguarding issues in what I hoped was a responsible way for any priest, my election onto the CNC made me realize that I needed to be much better informed as safeguarding needed to be a key element in its discernment work.  Remarkably at the time I started on the CNC, there was no explicit focus on safeguarding in its deliberations.  That has changed in the past decade.  As part of my commitment to the work of the CNC, I started reading all major safeguarding Reviews and followed the proceedings of IICSA closely.

    In 2017, I was invited in my capacity as a professional historian to join one of the disciplinary work streams for what became Living in Love and Faith.  As a member of LLF, I raised a number of times (I was not the only one to do so) that we should be drawing on external Reviews and IICSA of our safeguarding failures in our work on human sexuality.  This work did not take place.

    This paper is the result of two areas of work for the Church of England I have been part of over many years:  the Crown Nominations Commission and Living in Love and Faith.  It is not an attempt to ‘weaponize’ safeguarding in the Church’s sexuality debate, but rather to help us hear what numerous professional, independent Reviews (LLRs) and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) are saying to the Church:  that our lack of inclusion of LGBT+ people has a serious and detrimental impact on the Church’s ability to deliver good safeguarding.[4]  There is very little of my own text in this paper – it is almost entirely drawn from IICSA and LLRs.  So far, as a Church we are failing to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest’ this growing body of evidence from the very safeguarding professionals we have, in many cases, asked to undertake it.

    1. Questions in General Synod 2018 & 2019

    In the previous quinquennium of General Synod, on two occasions, I asked the following questions about making connections between the work of LLF and the learning needing to be done from IICSA.

    General Synod Questions July 2018

    The Revd Dr Judith Maltby (Universities & TEIs) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    Q43.  How will the insights and learning from the report due to be published later this year by the UK Government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concerning the culture of the Church of England in respect of gender and sexuality be incorporated into the Teaching Document on human sexuality promised for 2020?

    The Bishop of Coventry to reply on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    1. The Co-Ordinating Group for Living in Love and Faith is expected to be attentive to developments in other areas of the Church of England’s national life that are relevant for its work. When the report from IICSA is published, it will consider whether there are specific points for it to reflect on, and how to go about this. It is also likely that the report will be relevant to the work of the Pastoral Advisory Group.[5]

    General Synod Questions July 2019

    The Revd Dr Judith Maltby (Universities & TEIs) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    Q94.  The Church Times (10 May 2019) reported that the hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse this July will ‘scrutinise, among other topics … the House of Bishops’ forthcoming teaching document on gender and sexuality’ and the Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his response to the May 2019 IICSA report on Chichester and Peter Ball, responded ‘It is absolutely right that the Church at all levels should learn lessons from the issues raised in this report’. Will the forthcoming ‘Living in Love and Faith’ show evidence of learning lessons from the IICSA hearings of March, July 2018, and July 2019, as well as the report of May 2019, about attitudes in the culture and practice of the Church of England towards women and LGBT people?

    The Bishop of Coventry to reply as Chair of the Living in Love and Faith Coordinating Group on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    1. The purpose of the Living in Love and Faith resources is primarily educational: the plan is for the resources to be widely used by parishes, deaneries, dioceses, the House and College of Bishops and members of General Synod to enable teaching and learning. In this way LLF will demonstrate its learning from the IICSA process by promoting a culture of mutual respect, clarity, openness and transparency across the Church in relation to matters of human identity, sexuality, gender and marriage. It will also provide appropriate correctives to misinformation about human sexuality and identity. We hope that the Pastoral Principles will establish a helpful culture for using the LLF resources by enabling the Church to address the evils of prejudice, silence, fear, ignorance, hypocrisy and misuse of power, all of which have played their part in the tragic realities of sexual abuse that have been the subject of the IICSA hearings.[6]

    1. LLF’s Engagement with IICSA (November 2020)

    I served on LLF from its beginning and, along with others, attempted a number of times to have learning from IICSA incorporated into its work.  In the end, the only reference to IICSA in LLF is:

    While acknowledging the reality of abuse in the church, it is important that the specific work of theological reflection on IICSA be carried out separately from the Living in Love and Faith project… (LLF, 2020, p. 87).

    As far as I know, the work to ‘be carried out separately’ has not taken place.

    1. Illustrative Extracts from Safeguarding Reviews and IICSA

    Below are extracts from recent independent LLRs into Church of England safeguarding failures.  They argue that the Church’s teaching on homosexuality is a significant contribution to what is, from a safeguarding perspective, a more dangerous safeguarding environment.

    4.1. Dame Moira Gibb Review on Peter Ball (June 2017)

    We believe that the Church’s attitude to homosexuality at the time played a part in the failure to act appropriately. Ball’s abusive behaviour was trivialised and its consequences were set aside (p. 2).

    This issue continues to be a source of division and debate in the Church, and an important concern for some of Ball’s victims. We would simply emphasise that the Church must promote an open and accepting culture in which everyone, regardless of their sexuality or their views about homosexuality, is clear about their responsibilities towards those who might be abused or who might want to raise concerns about abuse (5.7.3).[7]

    4.2.  Independent Review by Dr Adi Cooper, OBE on Stowe and Maids Moreton, 2012-2019, Diocese of Oxford (April 2022)

    In her review on the abuse and murder of Peter Farquhar and the abuse of Anne Moore-Martin by Ben Field, Dr Cooper makes a direct connection between the Church of England’s ‘wider policies regarding homosexual practice’ and putting people at risk:

    1.3.  The closed culture of the Stowe Church in general, including attitudes towards homosexuality, meant that the [sic] Peter Farquhar’s homosexuality and the relationship between Peter Farquhar and Ben Field was a ‘well-known secret’. The wider policies of the Church of England regarding homosexual practice and approach to sexuality and relationships put Peter Farquhar at risk and vulnerable to exploitation. A culture which supported openness and transparency would have better safeguarded Peter Farquhar.  Whilst people continue to feel forced to hide or lie about their sexuality, they can become vulnerable to exploitation, as was Peter Farquhar. [8]

    Dr Cooper cites the earlier report by Dame Moira Gibb on Peter Ball:

    The recommendation from a previous review, ‘that the Church must promote an open and accepting culture in which everyone, regardless of their sexuality or their views about homosexuality, is clear about their responsibilities towards those who might be abused or who might want to raise concerns about abuse’[9] is reinforced by this review.

    She continues:

    Negative attitudes towards homosexuality and homosexual practice in the Church of England reinforce internalised homophobia. An area for applying learning from this case review would be to ask, ‘How many other older men and women in similar positions to Peter Farquhar may be vulnerable to exploitation?’ There is an issue here for the wider church to consider how it offers support to its lesbian and gay members, not to ‘cure’ and ‘heal’ them as this would be a deeply homophobic response …. However, the institutional Church of England faces challenges to resolve its own positioning on this, before it can effectively support any individuals with their expressed tensions between sexuality and religious beliefs. This case review calls for a concerted effort to be made to reduce the stigma of homosexuality within the wider Church of England communion, so that it can provide a safer place for lesbians and gay men to worship, as is its intent.[10]

    The issue of how to explore issues of personal relationships and sexuality is a complex area, particularly given current contradictory expectations from the Church of England regarding homosexuality and heterosexuality, which may lead people to lie about the reality of their sexual lives. The current position taken by the Church of England, continuing to insist that sex is for married couples only and that any other partnership has to be a sexually abstinent friendship is not conducive to disclosure, particularly from young people, as well as exposing people to risk, as discussed in section 1 above. This needs to change and the Church should consider how to make it possible for people to be honest about their relationships, as well as being a safe place for lesbians and gay men.[11]

    4.3. Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)

    The connection between the Church’s attitudes towards homosexuality and creating a less safe environment, was repeatedly made in the IICSA proceedings.  What follows is a representative, rather than an exhaustive, sample.

    (i)  5 March 2018.  Fiona Scolding, QC, at the IICSA inquiry into Chichester Diocese  set out a number of questions such as:  ‘How far did the reaction of some within the church to homosexuality possibly inhibit the reporting of child sexual abuse?’[12] Later, she cited DI Wayne Murdock, a police officer involved in the investigation of the Peter Ball case, stating that ‘one of the factors that influenced his view of the public interest in bringing a prosecution was the risk that some church witnesses would be exposed as homosexuals in court. That would, in his words, have seen their roles within the church effectively finished.’ As Murdock put it: ‘“I believe that the issue of homosexuality had a detrimental effect in encouraging witnesses and potential complainants within the church to come forward”’.[13]

    (ii)  14 March 2018.  When Fiona Scolding interviewed the Bishop of Chichester, Rt Revd Dr Martin Warner, she asked: ‘Do you not think that the Church’s difficulty in coming to terms with the complexity of self-identity when it comes to sexual orientation may have contributed to the misapprehensions you have identified because, you know, certainly amongst conservative individuals, homosexuality is seen as sinful?’

    Bishop Warner replied:  ‘Yes.’ Ms Scolding then asked, ‘The idea of civil partnerships is seen as anathema and the idea of getting married within the church is anathema. Do you think the church may have, albeit unwittingly, contributed to that by its approach to sexual orientation in the past?’ Bishop Warner replied: ‘I think there has been contribution from the church on this’. He went on to talk about how covering up homosexuality contributed to a culture in which sexual abuse was also kept secret.[14]

    (iii)  14 March 2018.  Ms Scolding’s examination of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, raised the link between attitudes towards homosexuality and safeguarding failures, particularly in the case of Bishop Peter Ball.

    1. Specifically, inasmuch as you know about the case involving Bishop Peter Ball, do you think the church’s attitude towards homosexuality may have played any role in the way the church treated him either during his time as a priest or afterwards?
    2. I think so, and, again, I’m speculating, but it does seem to me that, at a time when people were beginning to feel awkward about the traditional closeted attitude, there was perhaps overcompensation, saying ‘Well, we don’t want to be judgemental about people’s sexual activities. We may formally, in a disciplinary way disapprove, we may treat them according to the protocols, but we mustn’t be seen to be – or we mustn’t be judgemental.  We must therefore give people second chances and understand the pressures’, and so on.  So I think there is an element of that coming in, a rather paradoxical consequence of the traditional view of homosexuality within the church; you want to overcompensate a bit for it.[15]

    Lord Williams acknowledged that guilt or dis-ease about the treatment of gay men, especially clergymen, in the Church of England may have allowed Peter Ball to go unchecked in his criminal behaviour for decades.  He received a lot of criticism for his remarks, but I think he was correctly describing a pattern of disordered institutional behaviour.[16]

    (iv)  24 July 2018.  Fiona Scolding, interviewing the former Archbishop, Lord Carey of Clifton, proposed that: ‘The church was so uncomfortable in dealing with and managing same-sex relationships that it didn’t really have an understanding of what was an appropriate same-sex relationship and what was an inappropriate same-sex relationship.’[17]

    (v) 25 June 2019.  In his Second Witness Statement, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, stated:  ‘I am informed by Mr Tilby that these [LLF] resources will be reviewed by the NST before they are finalised to ensure that they sufficiently address safeguarding related issues.’[18]  That review never appears to have taken place or if it did, it had no impact on LLF.   LLF states:  ‘While acknowledging the reality of abuse in the church, it is important that the specific work of theological reflection on IICSA be carried out separately from the Living in Love and Faith project…’ (LLF, 2020, p. 87).

     (vi)  11 July 2019.  Archbishop Justin Welby was asked whether ‘there is sufficient openness about human sexuality in the church now so that there is, and can be, proper debate and discussion with victims and survivors and proper work on minimising risk within the church?’  He responded, ‘Yes. I think there is far more openness than there was. I think the Living in Love and Faith Project has enabled a culture of transparency in ways that didn’t exist before.  I’ve no doubt we have got a huge amount further to go on that ….  the project was just getting going then … It is now coming within 12 months of its end and I think that that has had a huge impact, and will continue to do so’.[19]

    (vii) October 2020.  In the Executive Summary of the IICSA final report, we read that: ‘Deference to the authority of the Church and to individual priests, taboos surrounding discussion of sexuality and an environment where alleged perpetrators were treated more supportively than victims presented barriers to disclosure that many victims could not overcome.’[20]

     (viii) October 2020.  The full investigation report of the Anglican Church by IICSA observes:  ‘There was a culture of fear and secrecy within the Church about sexuality.  Some members of the Church also wrongly conflated homosexuality with the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.  There was a lack of transparency, open dialogue and candour about sexual matters, together with an awkwardness about investigating such matters.  This made it difficult to challenge sexual behaviour.  Mr Colin Perkins, diocesan safeguarding adviser (DSA) for the Diocese of Chichester, told us that homosexual clergy may have found themselves inadvertently “under the same cloak” as child sexual abusers, who sought to mask their behaviour “in the same cultural hiding place”’.[21]

     4.4. Chris Robson Review on Father Alan Griffin (July 2022)

    Shortly before the July 2022 session of General Synod, the report on the suicide of Father Griffin was published and states:

     This illustrates a divisive issue that has been at the centre of this review – the Church of England’s stance on homosexuality. Again, this issue is so complex that it could not possibly be dealt with in significant detail by this review. At the same time, it cannot be ignored.  There is clear evidence that the way Father Alan was treated was, in part, influenced by the Church and individuals’ conscious and unconscious bias around his sexual orientation (5.3).[22] 

    1. Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) and National Safeguarding Panel (NSP) at General Synod July 2022

    At the July 2022 Synod, during the presentation ‘Safeguarding and Independence: Update and Next Steps (GS2263 and GSMisc 1320)’, I asked the following question:

     The Revd Canon Dr Judith Maltby (Universities & TEIs): We have had a number of safeguarding reports and reviews, the Gibb Report on Peter Ball, IICSA and the most recent one on Fr Griffin which just came out a few days ago. All those reports make a connection between the Church’s attitudes towards homosexuality and being a less safe Church and I wonder if you as a panel have views on that.

    Professor Maggie Atkinson: Chair, thank you and thank you for the questions. I am going to take the first question and Meg is going to come forward and answer the second, because this is in collegium …. Meg is going to take the one that was asked about safety or otherwise if you are homosexual or an LGBTQ person, LGBTQIA and so on.

    Ms Meg Munn: Thank you, Maggie. The reason I volunteered among us to answer this one is because it sounds to me like this is a policy type question and, as I said at the outset, one of the things that the National Safeguarding Panel does is look into issues of policy, procedure and process. Looking at some of the issues that come out, including practice, of those reviews is the kind of scanning of the horizon that I would do with the panel when we are determining the kinds of issues that we might look at. That issue has not been one that has been discussed by us to date. It could well be one that we would discuss [my italics].

    The National Safeguarding Panel currently only meets six times a year. Well, in fact, we meet five times a year and one of our sessions we use for good practice workshops and to discuss issues of importance. I will certainly take that issue into our discussions. One of the things I tried to do is to make sure that we have our discussions when they are going to have an impact. If we know that policy procedure is being reviewed or due to be reviewed, then we will choose those kind of subjects.

    But we also try to and look at issues which we think are important and that the Church is not taking enough notice of – I mean the Church as a whole not just the National Safeguarding Team. For example, in the past we have put issues like prevention on our agenda and we have put issues like adult safeguarding on our agenda because we felt that they were not getting enough focus. This could well be an issue that we might look at in the future but, to date, the National Safeguarding Panel has not looked specifically at that.[23]

    1. General Synod February 2023

    In the LLF debate on the morning of 9 February 2023, I returned to the learning to be done from IICSA and the contributions from major reviews of safeguarding failures to our discussion of sexuality.[24]  In the afternoon of 9 February, there was an opportunity to ask questions of the new Director of the National Safeguarding Team (NST), Mr Alexander Kubeyinje.  Both the Revd Robert Thompson (London) and I asked Mr Kubeyinje about the NST’s engagement with the connection made in IICSA and other independent reviews concerning attitudes toward LGBT+ people and safeguarding failures.  I asked:  ‘When we have these major Reports like Robson on Griffin and material from IICSA, what is the process for learning and absorbing from those Reports by the NST?’  Mr Kubeyinje replied:

    Judith, with regards to your question, we have plans, we have a lot of meetings with other people. We are starting to do audit activity. We are trying to triangulate and close the loop. We know we still need to work on our quality assurance element, but we do take those recommendations seriously, and some of those recommendations have actually moved along quite well. [25]

    It is good to know that there are ‘a lot of meetings’ and allowance must be made for Mr Kubeyinje’s newness in the post at the time, but it is not at all clear what ‘triangulate and close the loop’ means or which recommendations in regard to sexuality and safeguarding ‘have moved along quite well’.  Synod was not provided with any actual example.

    1. General Synod July 2023

    7.1.  Questions.

    I returned the issue of the connection made by IICSA and various LLRs in a question at the most recent General Synod.

    The Revd Canon Dr Judith Maltby (Universities & TEIs) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    Q100.  Archbishop Welby said in his Second Witness Statement to IICSA (June 2019): “I am informed by Mr [Graham] Tilby [at the time National Advisor, CofE Safeguarding] that these [LLF] resources will be reviewed by the NST before they are finalised to ensure that they sufficiently address safeguarding related issues.” The only reference to IICSA in LLF (2020) is: “While acknowledging the reality of abuse in the church, it is important that the specific work of theological reflection on IICSA be carried out separately from the Living in Love and Faith project…” (p. 87). May Synod know what group is carrying out the separate work of theological reflection on the learning from IICSA to ensure the LLF process does “sufficiently address safeguarding related issues” as stated by the Archbishop in 2019?

    The Bishop of London replied:

    The Bishop of London to reply on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:

    A The question asks about two separate things. Theological reflection on the findings from IICSA underpins the work of the National Safeguarding Steering Group in overseeing the implementation of IICSA’s recommendations. Meanwhile, the materials arising from the Living in Love and Faith process are still in development, as reported in GS 2303. Material on pastoral guidance and pastoral reassurance will be reviewed from a safeguarding perspective before they are finalised.[26]

    Bishop Sarah’s answer indicates that it is the responsibility of the NSSG/NSP to undertake the work in the area of attitudes towards homosexuality and safeguarding.  However, in July 2022, in the Presentation from the NSP and ISB to General Synod, the then Chair, Meg Munn, stated that the topic has not been discussed:

    That issue has not been one that has been discussed by us to date. It could well be one that we would discuss …. But we also try to and look at issues which we think are important and that the Church is not taking enough notice of – I mean the Church as a whole not just the National Safeguarding Team (see 5 above).

    7.2. Safeguarding Code of Practice:  Safeguarding Practice Reviews GS2295

    At the same meeting in July 2023, Synod approved a proposal to replace Lessons Learned Reviews (LLR) with much more detailed Safeguarding Practice Reviews (SPR).  GS2295 speaks in numerous places about the dissemination of learning from Reviews to inform the Church’s practice.  For example:

    From the Cover Paper for GS2295

    4.4.1 Some concern was expressed that these Reviews would not hold people to account for what they had done and they would not establish guilt. We have tried to be very clear that the purpose of this process is not about managing allegations or about findings of guilt/responsibility. It is about understanding the reasons why events have happened so that an organisation can learn and improve its safeguarding. As explained in 1.3 above, there are other processes for holding individuals to account (p. 8).

    6.3 The reflective exercises we suggest are exactly that: they are suggestions to help people find the way that works best for them and for their organisation to learn from safeguarding events in a variety of circumstances. The key thing is the move away from focussing only on what is wrong with individual practice or processes, into what is hampering or enabling good safeguarding practice at an organisational level. We will continue to work on developing tools and resources to help this. 

    Main Document GS2295

    1.2 What a Safeguarding Practice Review is and what it is not

    The main features of an SPR are that:

    • It is a planned process of reflective learning by a Church body designed to improve the quality and impact of that Church’s body’s safeguarding activity.
    • The aim is to identify a limited number of key themes which, if implemented, will result in improved outcomes for victim(s)/survivor(s) and respondent(s).

    1.3 The outcomes of SPRs

    SPRs should seek to achieve the following outcomes:

    • The identification of systemic and organisational factors or failings which impacted on what happened. This should include any issues of organisational culture, the nature and quality of human relationships, resourcing and governance, and any inappropriate use of power within the Church body.

    It is worth noting that there is no mention of the Church’s doctrines or teaching on sexuality in its references to ‘organisational culture’ in this extensive document.

    From the section describing the structure of a SPR, GS2295 speaks of the importance of understanding the ‘why’, not only the ‘what’, of a safeguarding failure (pp. 26-7):

    Why answers might include;

    Whether any ‘contextual factors’ impacted on the case and in what way, for example:

    • Availability of adequate guidance;
    • Resourcing of safeguarding/workloads/staffing levels;
    • Training/supervision/support for relevant Church Officers;
    • Organisational culture and relationships;
    • Personal constraints (e.g. excessive or onerous responsibilities);

    The Reviewer’s conclusions: what are the key lessons and changes required of specific Church Bodies and/or the whole Church system?

    The Reviewer’s recommendations:

    1. These should be focussed on a small number of high priority, outcome focussed, SMART recommendations, normally between six and ten in number. The aim is to have a smaller number of achievable, impactive recommendations, rather than a large number of recommendations which are not impactive.
    2. Recommendations need to be aligned to the Safeguarding Standards:
    • Prevention
    • Culture, Leadership and Capacity
    • Recognising, Assessing and Managing Risk
    • Victims and Survivors
    • Learning, Supervision and Support
    1. Within this, recommendations should be grouped under the following headings:
    • Strategic: Recommendations relevant to the whole Church system.
    • Local/operational: Recommendations relevant to the specific Church Bodies involved in the case. This must include whether further action is needed to manage on-going risk, and whether consideration of further investigatory action should be undertaken by Church Bodies within their capability and disciplinary frameworks (These latter would not be published.)

    The section on Tone and Methodology (pp. 28-9) states:

    Adopting an appropriate tone and methodology is essential if the Review process is going to help to deliver learning which results in actual change. This is particularly the case if change in beliefs, values, behaviours and culture are needed.

    An approach which:

    • treats all involved (that is victims, survivors, respondents, clergy and staff, volunteers) with empathy, respect and compassion as valuable and complex human beings who matter;
    • is dialogical, seeing all those involved as partners in the development of understanding and solution finding;
    • is marked by genuine curiosity and transparency;
    • is marked by creative ways of exploring issues relevant to the circumstances;
    • prepares those who will be involved to address anxieties and fears, is more likely to help bring about genuine change than one marked by fear, threat, fixed and strongly held positions, and inflexibility.

    GS2295 speaks of ‘disseminating learning’ from Reviews (p. 42):

    The Church Bodies involved in the case under review should give consideration at the earliest possible point as to how the learning from the Review will be shared and disseminated …

    GS2295 continues:

    On a wider scale, the NST will have a role in reviewing the themes that are emerging from all the Reviews carried out. This will feed back into the NST’s planning cycle for learning and development thus closing the learning loop. Linking the recommendations to the Safeguarding Standards also allows for them to be included in any further external audits, again ensuring that the learning is captured and implemented.

    It isn’t clear how the ‘learning loop’ operates or how it impacts on learning and development – especially in the light of the evidence of multiple references in IICSA and LLRs, connecting discriminatory policies towards LGBT+ people and catastrophic safeguarding failures.

    1. Conclusion

    On the basis of the evidence gathered and presented here, it appears that none, or very little, of the insights and learning from IICSA and other independent Reviews on catastrophic safeguarding failures in the Church of England and the connection to discriminatory attitudes towards LGBT+ people, are being incorporated into our safeguarding policies, structures and training or are part of our deliberations about the inclusion of LGBT+ people in the life of the Church of England, in any meaningful way.  External Reviewers cited in this paper are consistent in making the connection.  Despite this, over its six years, the LLF process did not incorporate the learning from IICSA and LLRs.

    GS2295 speaks of the importance of ‘reflective exercises’ (p. 43):

    One of the marks of a healthy organisational culture is when the individuals who comprise the organisation are personally self-reflexive and welcome feedback from others. Self-reflexivity is different from just self-reflection because it contains the idea of turning self-reflection in to actual action that brings about change.

    Dr Cooper, in her Stowe and Maids Moreton LLR, states:

    Recommendation 13: Provide strong leadership in responding to the recommendations of the case review, to ensure that they are delivered both within the Diocese and raise for wider action within the Church of England.[27]

    It remains to be seen where this leadership is being shown or where the ‘turning self-reflection in to actual action that brings about change’ is being done.

    Notes:

    [1] See also Helen King:  https://viamedia.news/2020/10/16/why-the-church-of-england-must-connect-the-dots-iicsa-and-llf/#_ftn1

    [2] This paper predates the publication of Makin on John Smyth and what will almost certainly have to be an independent Review of Soul Survivors, given the network of conflicted interests.

    [3] IICSA identified a number of deficiencies in the Butler-Sloss Review, which failed to mention the abuse committed by Bishop Peter Ball.  https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/anglican-chichester-peter-ball/case-study-1-diocese-chichester/b5-butler-sloss-report.html

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82HzdoOAC-4

    https://audioboom.com/posts/2765739-on-31-12-14-phil-johnson-released-this-march-2011-recording-of-his-discussion-with-butler-sloss

    [4] The LLR on Jonathan Fletcher (March 2021) notes how the removal of his licence was seen as weaponizing safeguarding: ‘“When the announcement was made by Southwark [Diocese] about [the] removal of Jonathan’s licence – I thought and others – this is [a] stitch up – yet again Southwark having a go at the conservative constituency”’.  See C5.3 and C4.6.2.  https://walkingwith.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Final+Report+of+ECW+Review_March+2021.pdf

    [5] https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/general-synod-july-2018-questions-paper.pdf

    [6] https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-07/general-synod-july-2019-questions.pdf

    [7] https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/report-of-the-peter-ball-review-210617.pdf.  See 5.7.

    [8] 1.3; see also 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.10, 5.11.  https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/61f2fd86f0ee5/content/pages/documents/20211012-doc-events-in-stowe-and-maids-moreton.pdf

    https://www.oxford.anglican.org/stowe-maids-moreton.php

    [9] Gibb on Ball, 5.7.3.

    [10] Cooper on Stowe and Maids Moreton, 5.10.  https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/61f2fd86f0ee5/content/pages/documents/20211012-doc-events-in-stowe-and-maids-moreton.pdf.  Dr Cooper cites the House of Bishops’ Report (2017), ‘Promoting a Safer Church policy, the Church of England’s policy for Children, young people and adults’, p. 5.  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/cofe-policy-statement.pdf

    [11] Cooper on Stowe and Maids Moreton, 5.11.

    [12] IICSA (5 March 2018), p. 116.  Ms Scolding also queried:  ‘How far did the church’s position in respect of the ordination of women and the fact that the church was, until 1992, a largely male-led-and-run institution impact upon the management of safeguarding, if it did so at all?’  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221214224622/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/4335/view/5-march-2018-anglican-public-hearing-transcript.pdf

    [13] IICSA (23 July 2018), pp. 77-8.  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221215041430/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/5977/view/23-july-2018-anglican-public-hearing-transcript.pdf

    [14] IICSA (14 March 2018), pp. 84-8.  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221215014004/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/4690/view/14-march-2018-anglican-public-hearing-transcript.pdf

    [15] IICSA (14 March 2018), pp. 143-4.  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221215014004/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/4690/view/14-march-2018-anglican-public-hearing-transcript.pdf

    [16] For critical responses to Lord Williams (14, 15 March 2018), see https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/2018/03/.

    [17] IICSA (24 July 2018), p. 25.  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221216171917/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/6029/view/public-hearing-transcript-24-july-2018.pdf

    [18] See p. 12.  https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/12831/view/ACE027710.pdf.

    [19] IICSA (11 July 2019), pp. 204-5.  https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221215044054/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/12777/view/public-hearing-transcript-11-july-2019.pdf

    [20] https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/anglican-church/executive-summary.html (October 2020).

    [21] 4.5.  See also 14.  https://www.iicsa.org.uk/document/anglican-church-safeguarding-church-england-and-church-wales-investigation-report.html

    [22] https://www.london.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/AG-report-Final-Report.pdf

    [23] See pp. 283-85.  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/general-synod-group-of-sessions-july-2022_0.pdf

    See above Archbishop Welby’s Second Witness Statement on 25 June 2019:  ‘I am informed by Mr Tilby that these [LLF] resources will be reviewed by the NST before they are finalised to ensure that they sufficiently address safeguarding related issues.’

    [24] 9 Feb 2023, p. 172.  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/updated-report-of-proceedings-feb-2023.pdf

    [25] pp. 370-71.  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/updated-report-of-proceedings-feb-2023.pdf

    [26] https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/questions-notice-paper-july-2023.pdf

    [27] Stowe and Maids Moreton (7.7, p. 26).

  • The Long and Complicated History of Church Debates over Sexuality

    by Dr Laura Ramsay, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at Bournemouth University. Her book, Sexuality and the Church of England, 1918–1980, is scheduled for publication in summer 2024.

    Recent debates in General Synod about ‘Living in Love and Faith’ have resoundingly confirmed that the Church of England is racked by deep disagreements over issues of sexuality. It is struggling to find its way towards a resolution that might enable those with opposing perspectives to move forward together. But Anglicans know that these are not new arguments or divisions. The Church has been wrangling with disputes about its approach towards same-sex relationships for many decades. The first clear sign of this was in 1974, when the Synod’s Board for Social Responsibility (BSR) appointed a working party to study the matter, which was chaired by John Yates, the Bishop of Gloucester (1975–91). The working party’s report, Homosexual Relationships: A Contribution to Discussion (1979), also known as the Gloucester report, refused to accept that all people had an “unqualified moral right to sexual self-expression” but cautiously proposed “that there are circumstances in which individuals may justifiably choose to enter into a homosexual relationship with the hope of enjoying a companionship and physical expression of sexual love similar to that which is to be found in marriage”.

    Such claims were thought to be so controversial that the BSR initially delayed publication and only agreed to this on condition that a statement of its own critical observations about the report was included as an appendix. The BSR also forestalled its discussion in Synod by arguing that more time was needed to digest the report and ensure the debate was “Christian, charitable, instructive and informed”.

    Yet, by the time the Gloucester report came before Synod in February 1981, tensions were running high and factions had formed on opposing sides of the debate. Members introduced various amendments and motions in a desperate attempt to force Synod to make a judgment about ‘winners’ and ‘losers’—to either endorse or condemn the Gloucester report’s views on same-sex relationships. Faced with these pressures, Synod decided to sidestep all efforts to force its hand. By a considerable majority, it voted to simply ‘take note’ of the Gloucester report and leave the matter open for further discussion.

    For many on the outside who are looking in at these internal controversies, it appears the Church has largely been chasing its own tail on this issue, and from this perspective it seems reasonable for them to assume that its views on sexuality have always been static and have always lagged behind those of wider society. Indeed, some speakers in recent Synod debates have similarly claimed that Church teaching about sex has always been at odds with culture (and, therefore, they argue that now is also no time for change).

    For a long time, historians agreed with such claims, largely assuming that the Churches had a limited role in the making of modern ideas about sexuality. Influenced by traditional theories about secularisation, most histories of sexuality tended either to ignore the influence of religion (and instead focused on the impact of secular ideas emerging from the fields of science, medicine, and the law), or they portrayed religion as a chief antagonist that fought against the forces of social change. However, such historical assumptions have since been overturned by a new body of scholarship which shows that Christian commentators (and sometimes institutions) actually helped to lead and drive developments in British sexual culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    My new book, Sexuality and the Church of England, 1918–1980, further enriches our understanding through its original, academic study of the Church’s role in historical processes of sexual permissiveness and religious decline. It provides an archivally rich account of the Church’s institutional grappling with matters of sex, relationships, marriage, birth control, and same-sex attraction across a long and previously underexplored chronology. I tell the story of how, despite intense internal disagreements, for much of the twentieth century the Church acted as a powerful social, cultural, and political force for shaping attitudes towards sex and morality, particularly in the years before the expansion of state welfare.

    Up until the late 1970s, British experts, policymakers, and campaigning groups generally wanted to know the opinions of the Established Church on sexual issues. They took its ideas seriously, and were willing to be guided by its views at least to some extent. In this period, the Church’s views on sex were led by its moral welfare organisations, which were designated as a centre for research, education, and expertise about sexual relationships, both on behalf of the Church and of the nation. These groups were frequently at the forefront of sexual and social changes in Britain—they made proactive moves to influence the attitudes of the Church, the state, and society by popularising new understandings of sex and desire and outlining up-to-date Christian approaches towards responsible, autonomous, sexual citizenship.

    Perhaps less surprisingly, Sexuality and the Church of England, 1918–1980 also uncovers a long and complicated history of Anglican disagreements and difficulties in decision-making about issues of sexuality, leading up to the beginnings of the Church’s contemporary impasse. In doing so, it points towards some of the underlying reasons why these divisions have proved so difficult for successive generations of Anglican thinkers to resolve. Historically speaking, disputes and tensions were built-in to the very nature of Anglican sexual politics. As Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945–61, put it, “in the Church of England and throughout the Anglican Communion we jealously guard the freedom of people to have their own opinion and express it”.

    For this reason, questions of sexual morality were not regarded as definite issues on which the Church could speak with one voice or formulate an official policy. Instead, the Church sought to function as an agent of mediation and compromise in contentious debates about sexuality. Due to its deep-seated awareness of the intensity of disagreements existing both inside and outside of its membership, the Church consistently found ways to reconcile conflicting viewpoints and build towards a consensus broad enough to unite Anglicans across a range of churchmanship.

    Up until the furore over the Gloucester report, the Church’s historically established technique of mediation had worked well and allowed it to construct compromises and mid-positions on issues of sex and relationships. But, by the late-twentieth century, Anglican viewpoints had polarised and become entrenched. This presented new challenges for the Church, which it struggled to overcome. Previously, the Church’s national legislative assemblies had not been considered an essential forum for the discussion of sexual issues, but now these spaces were transformed into a key site of deliberation and confrontation. This development meant that, while the Church had previously experienced greater room to act flexibly and hold together a range of conflicting perspectives, it was now increasingly pushed towards committing itself to more definite pronouncements about sex and morality.

    By the late-twentieth century, the Church’s former ability to construct mid-positions and accommodate a range of perspectives (even at the cost of producing some quite ambiguous statements about sexuality) was increasingly constrained. Previously, there had been at least an implicit acceptance of the Church’s role as an agent of compromise and mediation, even if the intricacies of Church policymaking were not fully understood by the general public, campaigners, or even some Anglicans, who occasionally wrote to Church leaders requesting greater clarity on matters of Christian sex teaching. For much of the twentieth century, such complaints caused few problems and could usually be assuaged with a brief explanation about the complexity of Church viewpoints. As Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of York (1956–61, later, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961–74) explained to one correspondent, it was not possible or desirable to “formalise” ecclesiastical support about sexual issues “on which the Church, as such, has not, and cannot have, an official line”.

    Yet, by the late 1970s, with the escalation of internal splits and the rise of a new cultural climate that increasingly demanded more precise and committed approaches towards issues of sexual identity and relationships, Church leaders struggled to present vague, diverse, or undecided Anglican approaches in the ways they had done previously. The situation was further exacerbated by the intense media publicity surrounding the Gloucester report, with internal and external critics applying increasing pressure to settle the conflict by picking just one side of the argument. But this was completely at odds with the Church’s established means of operating by holding opposing views in tension and seeking to avoid further polarisation of attitudes. `

    After the 1981 Synod debate, Church strategy faltered quite dramatically. For some internal critics, the Gloucester report had conceded too much ground to the so-called “propaganda” of gay activists. These commentators criticised the Gloucester report’s re-reading of Scripture and tradition and firmly argued that the Church should not change its sex teaching to suit contemporary mores. Meanwhile, the Church was also increasingly criticised by gay campaigning organisations who had once considered the Church a powerful ally. While these groups had previously looked to secure Church support for their campaigning initiatives, they now hit back by publicly attacking the Gloucester report’s views as “patronising,” “woefully misinformed,” and lacking in “faith, hope and charity”.

    Even though the Church remained committed to its historically established strategies of reconciliation, the intensification of internal splits and skirmishes between moral campaigners and gay rights organisations only served to attract negative publicity, and the Church lost control of its former ability to contribute to national debates about sexuality. In turn, the Church became a target of critics and lobbyists who could no longer comprehend its apparent inability to move forward decisively. With that, the Church’s former means of operating as an agent of compromise and consensus was largely forgotten and its long tradition of thinking flexibly about issues of sexuality (even when this inevitably involved a challenging and painful process of reconciling conflicting perspectives) became lost to history.

  • Check Complete: Nothing to See Here

    by Rev Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    After the publication of a report into the appointment of the Bishop of Blackburn and its implications that has taken almost a year, the Church of England has issued a simultaneous press release headed ‘Independent reviewer upholds appointment process for Bishop of Blackburn.’  Or, in other words, ‘Nothing to see here.’

    Having not seen the report in advance, Women and the Church (WATCH) – which first submitted concerns to the Independent Reviewer, Canon Maggie Swinson, in April 2023 – has taken some time to digest the 45 pages of the report and finds that actually there is quite a lot to see.

    In summary,

    • Swinson flags up that the Church of England has still not done the work that was recommended by her predecessor, Sir Philip Mawer, in 2017 on the theological and pastoral work that urgently needs to be done to take account of the impact on women’s ministries and well-being when they have a diocesan Bishop who is non-ordaining.  The current 2014 House of Bishops Declaration (‘the Declaration’) is one-sided and only concerns itself with protecting the interests of those who do not fully accept women’s ministry.  It makes no provisions or protections for women whose ministries and lives are affected by those who don’t fully recognise them.  Swinson concludes that this work must be done – but, as yet, the Church of England has done nothing about this or stated any intention to do so.
    • Swinson recommends that ‘consideration is given to re-examining the scope of the Independent Reviewer’s jurisdiction’ so that it can consider the concerns and grievances of women and those who do fully accept women’s ministries, rather than just those who do not – as is the current arrangement.
    • She makes recommendations as to how the Vacancy in See Committee might avoid conflicts of interest in the future and make truly ‘safe spaces’ for consultation; and impose a minimum timescale to give proper opportunity for good and thorough consultation.

    Furthermore, although the appointment process may have met the letter of the law, Swinson refers to flaws in the process, and says:

    • In response to concerns about the appointment being rushed through and the process not being well-managed:

    *‘Both the correspondence I received and the conversations I had with individuals involved in the diocese… suggest that there was an actual or perceived sense of time pressure. It is possible that some of the perceived pressure was exacerbated by the language of “jumping the queue” [used in the letter dated 4 April 2022 and sent out by Bishop Jill Duff, Bishop of Lancaster and Chair of the Vacancy in See Committee], what some interviewees understood from comments in meetings, and the Jotform completion time, messaging and deadline.’

    *‘A sense of haste was evident in respect of the consultation.’

     *The letter from Bishop Jill (dated 4 April 2022) which states that the consultation form “only takes five minutes to prayerfully complete” ‘risks trivialising the input.’

    *‘Communications had not been particularly effective in generating awareness or understanding of the [consultation] process.’

    *‘The [consultation] forms did not include a direct question eliciting views on the future bishop’s position on the ordination of women.’

    *‘I recommend consideration of a minimum consultation timescale for the statement of needs as this would have been helpful in allaying time anxiety in this case and could be similarly helpful more generally.’

    • In response to concerns about Bishop Jill having a conflict of interest in chairing the Vacancy in See Committee (she was a colleague of Bishop Philip and known to be supportive of his candidacy; clergy in the diocese could have felt under duress not to oppose her or Bishop Philip):

     *‘The principle of who chairs the Vacancy in See committee would benefit from review in light of the potential conflicts of interest which have been identified here.’

    *‘My conversations leave me in little doubt that the presence of a person who is, in effect, line manager of ordained and some lay attendees and who has an interest in the appointment process because the new bishop will have authority over them, will probably stifle open contribution from those individuals and does not make for a “safe space”.’

    • In response to concerns about the consultation process not asking specifically whether the next bishop should be someone who will or will not ordain women:

    *[It] ‘should be considered – how to ensure there is a conversation in the diocese, not just in the Vacancy in See Committee, to ascertain whether the diocese would welcome a bishop who will ordain women or one who will not.’

    *‘A question for further consideration… is whether dioceses should explain the rationale behind their decision not to express a view [as to whether the next diocesan bishop should be someone who will or will not ordain women].’

    • In response to concerns about appointing diocesan bishops who do not ordain women, without the Church of England having implemented the recommendations of the Independent Reviewer following his review of the nomination to the See of Sheffield (the Sheffield Report) and recommendations of the Implementation and Dialogue group (IDG):

    *‘I recommend that resource is identified to take the necessary theological work forward alongside the theological reflection requested in the report of the IDG.’

    *‘It would not be unreasonable to expect that some review mechanism should be available to those whose ministry the bishop does not accept. Such a mechanism should not isolate female clergy from the life of the diocese but should provide for them in a reciprocal manner to the review arrangements already articulated in the Declaration.’

    Overall, Swinson’s report is gently excoriating.  She affirms that the process for the Bishop of Blackburn’s appointment, while flawed, was in line with regulations.  She also affirms Mawer’s observation and concern that the Declaration and role of the Independent Reviewer are one-sided and there is nowhere for women to go within the Church of England with their concerns and grievances relating to the Declaration.  While she says that pragmatically she does not support a moratorium on the Church of England continuing to appoint more diocesan bishops who are do not ordain women, work needs to be done to understand the consequences of this policy.

    She states that the Church of England is not required to consult with campaign groups like WATCH about the arrangements it makes for the ministries of women. But, unfortunately, she includes NADAWM as also being unnecessary for consultation. NADAWM is the National Association of Deans of Women’s Ministry and exists to communicate between female clergy and bishops about the lived experience of women in ministry. They are not a campaign group. We feel, therefore, that a further recommendation should be made that NADAWM is consulted in the process of implementing the recommendations of Swinson’s important and considered report.

    The matters raised are not abstract theological arguments but impact on the lives of women in both ordained and lay ministry. The continued unfairness in the Church of England creates an unjust and unsafe environment for the many women who continue to work so hard and graciously in all our dioceses.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Some Are More Equal Than Others

    by the Venerable Christine Allsopp, archdeacon emeritus of Northampton, exercising a retirement ministry in the Diocese of Oxford

    As the actual date of the 30th Anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood approaches, I have been going through the jumbled collection of papers, scattered through several file boxes, that relate to the 1990s. In one box I found the texts of the presentations that I had given prior to the 1992 vote in General Synod; presentations given to several parishes, to deanery synod, and to a religious community.

    In them I describe how I became convinced of the rightness of women’s priestly ministry long before I felt a personal call: “The process began when I realised with a shock the similarities between George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and the Church of England. The unjust position of women in the Church of England is like that of the animals who discover that while all are equal, some are more equal and others!”

    For me, the role of women in the church was a justice issue. So I quoted Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words to his provincial synod: “The Bible is quite clear that the divine image is constitutive of humanity irrespective of gender. I cannot have struggled against an injustice that penalises people for something they can do nothing about, their race, and then accept with equanimity the gross injustice of penalising others for something they can do nothing about, their gender.”

    I argued that the Church of England had, unlike the Church in South Africa, lost the opportunity to lead the way against discrimination in our own society. Instead of being at the forefront of the fight against discrimination we were limping along behind, with the inevitable accusation that the church was merely following secular society. Nevertheless we could and should have a prophetic role as part of the universal church. Sadly, with some notable exceptions, church leaders often avoid confronting injustice; the prophetic role is inevitably uncomfortable.

    In the months following the vote in General Synod in 1992, I was focused on preparing for my priestly ordination and in moving to a new post. I was hardly aware of the implications of the Act of Synod hurriedly introduced by the House of Bishops to General Synod in 1993 to give more “protection” to those opposed. Yet over the years that followed, its language became subverted in a way not unlike changes in Animal Farm’s Seven Commandments. Wording that had a clear meaning was quietly altered to mean something quite different. “Extended Episcopal Oversight” as exercised by Provincial Episcopal Visitors (Flying Bishops) became “Alternative Episcopal Oversight”; “the integrity of differing beliefs and positions concerning the ordination of women” became “the two integrities”.

    In 2005 I was appointed as an archdeacon and later the same year I was elected to General Synod. I experienced a sense of déjà vu when the same arguments that had been used against the ordination of women as priests were repeated as arguments against their consecrations as bishops. Women were referred to as a problem to be dealt with rather than a gift to be valued. I did not remain on General Synod for the final vote. I am not certain that I could have voted for the Five Guiding Principles that  replaced the Act of Synod, although I can understand why those that did so were weary, and anxious finally to have women as bishops.

    Since then, the language of the Five Guiding Principles has often kept women quiet. All ordinands are required to affirm them before ordination, as if the Declaration of Assent and Oaths to the Bishop and the Sovereign were not enough. The Principles begin by asserting that the Church of England is “fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender”. All three orders of ministry may be open to us, but there are altars where we are forbidden to preside, posts for which women may not apply. Women continue to be underrepresented at Bishop’s Staff level and underrepresented among leaders of large churches. Nearly ten years after the first woman became a bishop, only seven out of forty-two diocesan bishops are female. While all are equal, some are more equal than others.

    Thirty years on from those first ordinations to the priesthood, what has changed? “Women seem to be getting angrier” observed a bishop to me recently. Anger, or at the very least, frustration, may be understandable reactions to the injustice of a church that still treats a male model of ministry as a norm. Bishops still appoint, and need, Advisors for Women’s Ministry to flag up areas of concern. There are more women in non-stipendiary ministry and fewer women in incumbency roles than men. It is not clear whether the non-stipendiary route is through choice, or whether more accommodation to ensure that roles are possible alongside family responsibilities would encourage more women into stipendiary ministry. How are all women clergy, whether single or married, expected to flourish alongside those who do not accept that we are priests?

    Not all women clergy feel angry or frustrated, and even those that do admit to these feelings can also speak of the great sense of fulfilment that their calling brings to them. Nevertheless, anger can be used productively if it results in challenges to a culture in the Church of England that for too long has avoided dealing with the injustices in the treatment of its women clergy. For we follow the One who challenged the norms of his society in his engagement with women; who was sufficiently angry to challenge the everyday practices in the Temple by overturning tables.

    I am looking forward to attending the Not Equal Yet Conference organised by WATCH (Women and the Church) on 20th April 2024.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Posing a Problem: Not Equal Yet

    by Ruth Harley, curate in the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership

    “When you expose a problem, you pose a problem.” So writes Sara Ahmed in her book Living a Feminist Life. Ahmed is talking about that phenomenon, well known to many of us, by which the person who names a problem within an institution, group or culture, becomes seen as the source of the problem. It happens to black people exposing racism, to women exposing misogyny, to disabled people exposing ablism, to LGBTQ+ people exposing homophobia and transphobia, indeed to any person naming a dynamic to which the institution would prefer to remain oblivious.

    It happens to women when we expose misogyny and sexism in all sorts of places: in the academy, which is Ahmed’s context, in the workplace, in our communities, our families and, yes, in our churches. It is so much easier to say that the problem is these uppity women who won’t shut up and be grateful for what they’ve got, rather than to confront the underlying and persistent inequalities which they are naming. (“Easier for whom?” we might ask.)

    To say, 30 years on from the ordination of the first women as priests in the Church of England, that women are still not equal yet in the church is to expose a problem. But it is also to state a fact. The statistics back it up: in the most recently available set of ministry statistics, just 33% of stipendiary clergy are women, and women continue to be under-represented in senior roles, with just 7 women out of 42 diocesan bishops. Women’s experiences back it up too, though that hard-won knowledge and wisdom is rarely afforded the respect or consideration it is due.

    Indeed, that women in the Church of England are not equal yet is enshrined in the legislation of the church, in the form of the House of Bishops Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests (GS Misc 1076) which, among other things, introduced the Five Guiding Principles. There are churches in which women are prohibited from presiding at the altar. There are no churches in which men are prohibited from presiding at the altar. We are not equal yet.

    But to say that, to state that women are not equal yet (in this and so many other ways) will always attract a hostile response. Why can’t we just be grateful for what we’ve got? Why do we have to make everything about gender? What about the feelings of those who can’t or won’t accept our ministry? Why can’t we just be kind?

    This is exactly the sort of response Sara Ahmed predicts: “When you expose a problem, you pose a problem. It might then be assumed that the problem would go away if you would just stop talking about it, or if you went away.” But of course, that is not true. If we never spoke about it, the problem would still remain. But those who are unaffected by the problem would be allowed to preserve the privilege of their obliviousness. They would not be confronted with the problem. The problem would persist, but the burden would be carried only by those who do not have the luxury of being able to choose to ignore it: in this case, women.

    So we must speak. We must say what we know to be true. Women are not equal yet in the Church of England.

    And we must say other things we know to be true too. Women are made, equally with men, in the image of God. The subjugation of women is not the will of God. The body of Christ is damaged when women are not able to exercise their God-given gifts and vocations. The fact that women are not equal yet is not just a problem for women, but for the whole church. And it is not only an ethical problem, but also a theological and ecclesiological one.

    Women are not equal yet. And that is a problem. Like any problem, it will not be solved by being hidden away. It can only be addressed by being brought into the light, spoken about openly and without fear. The Not Equal Yet conference organised by WATCH, aims to do just that: to state openly that women are not equal yet. And to ask what we, as a church, are going to do about it.

    We have to be able to have that conversation, however difficult or painful it might be. To expose a problem is to pose a problem. But I would rather pose a problem, than persist in the lie of pretending that there is no problem here to be exposed.

    It is obvious already from conversations online and offline that even to have the conversation, even to state the truth that women in the Church of England are not equal yet, evokes angry and defensive responses from some. That should not deter us. As Jesus said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And as Gloria Steinem said: “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”

    Exposing the truth of women’s inequality in the church is a vital step toward ending that inequality. And a church in which women and men are equal, a church which reflects the equality of people of all genders in God’s sight, is good and liberating news for all.

    To expose a problem, to pose a problem, is hard. It is hard to make ourselves so exposed by admitting the truth: that we are not equal yet. The naming of truth is hard and holy work. And it is necessary work, in order to live ever more fully in the way of Jesus, who was never afraid to name the hard and exposing truths of injustice, and in order to bring God’s church ever closer to embodying the justice of God’s kingdom.

     

     

  • Mike Pilavachi: The Elephant in the Room

    by Augustine Tanner-Ihm and Jonny Masters. Augustine is Team Curate at St James & Emmanuel, Didsbury, Manchester and winner of the 2020 Theology Slam: Jonny works to ensure the voices of young people shape decision-making in the charity sector and is married to Alex, his husband.

    Jonny Masters begins with a personal reflection:

    I imagine Mike Pilavachi would make a self-deprecating joke about the title of this article, and then belittle someone else in an even more severe way, back when he was front and centre at Soul Survivor festivals. I’d probably have laughed.

    When I think back and remember laughing at Mike’s insults to other leaders on stage at Soul Survivor my soul curdles a little inside. Was I complicit in long-lasting abusive behaviour? 

    Lord, have mercy.

    The situation regarding Mike Pilavachi has been widely discussed in Christian media and by the evangelical Christian community on Twitter/ X. The impact of Mike’s actions, first reported by The Telegraph last year, has rippled deeply in the hearts of those who had previously felt positive about his ministry. Now, tainted by confirmed allegations of sustained abusive behaviour, many Christians have been questioning their experiences of the Holy Spirit at Soul Survivor Watford, and Soul Survivor festivals. Youthscape have written an excellent article for youth workers to process the situation. It is also full of wisdom for others indirectly impacted by Mike’s actions. Premier Christianity have released a great podcast investigating Mike’s actions. However, in all the discussion and conversation (though at the time of writing not all podcast episodes have yet been released), the condemnation and the concern, there has been a silent elephant in the room.

    Sexuality.

    Mike’s actions, particularly massages, have a sexual edge to them. We need to acknowledge this as a Church. A well-respected Christian man spent time massaging young men, sometimes on his own bed. This caused immense harm to young Christians who had taken time and space to serve God. Could our overwhelming silence of decades regarding sexuality be bearing rotten fruit? Could the way we treat LGBTQ+ people be causing harm? Could our interpretation of Scripture be harmful? We would suggest yes, yes, and yes. The silence surrounding homosexuality and the wider LGBTQ+ community that has lasted decades in most evangelical churches has echoed profoundly in the conversations surrounding Mike’s actions. Yes, Mike’s controlling behaviour has been roundly condemned, celebrity culture in the church has been critiqued, but we have seen very few people raising their hands (or should that be heads above the parapet?) to ask how silence around sexuality could lead to such actions.

    It seems like Mike found a line that he would not cross and went as close to it as he could. Mike’s moral compass, informed by the evangelical charismatic Church, allowed his actions to go as far as they did, but no further. Mike’s understanding of morality in relation to sexuality consisted of clear, boundaried, actions. The boundary was sex. As far as we know, Mike committed no overtly sexual acts with another person. However, the pattern of intimate physical contact with young males raises the question of whether the acts he did commit may have offered some form of sexual gratification.

    Mike’s behaviour is considered abusive and has led to disciplinary measures. How can a well-respected, celebrated, man of faith go so far wrong?

    Silence. That would be the short answer. Let’s explore what we mean by that.

    The evangelical wing of the Church has not wrestled adequately with the question of human sexuality. It has placed it in a box. Mike, trapped in the box, banged loudly on the sides of the box and caused himself and those he loves considerable harm. Perhaps we need to think about human sexuality differently. Excuse the pun, but we need to think outside the box.

    When we look at the broader implications of conservative culture and its handling of sexuality, it’s essential to consider the wider context in which figures like Huw Edwards, Phillip Schofield, Mike Bickle, Mark Bailey, and Revd Mike Breen operate or have operated. It’s critical to clarify that the specific “downfall” or scandalous behaviour attributed to these individuals varies greatly, and in some cases, public allegations or confirmations of misconduct might not exist. Therefore, discussing their personal faith, alleged scandals, or impacts without verified evidence could be misleading and potentially harmful. Instead, the discussion will pivot towards the systemic issues within certain evangelical communities that have broader implications.

    The conservative purity and evangelical culture, noted for its often-stringent views on sexuality, has had profound effects on individuals within these communities. These views are often implicit and rarely spoken about or open to challenge. This culture, which sometimes harbours dangerous homophobic theology, can create environments where individuals feel compelled to suppress their true selves. This suppression can lead to significant psychological distress, strained relationships, and in some tragic cases, self-harm or suicide.

    This culture of silence seems to have spread because the church is not talking about a very important thing; the behaviour of Church leaders whose sexuality is not admitted because it does not conform to the ideal they are promoting. Mike Pilavachi is a man who has attempted to follow Christ and listen to His Spirit for many years. Thousands of young people have come to know Jesus Christ because of his ministry. But sadly, many people were harmed during his ministry too. His controlling and coercive behaviour played a large part in this. However, the reluctance of the wider church to challenge the potentially toxic theology he believed and preached regarding sexuality also needs to be considered. Many of our charismatic evangelical churches, organizations and groups, have ignored the elephant in the room. A wise question to ask would be, “Did we as a community enable Mike to do this to young men because of the potentially toxic theology we have preached or sometimes chose not to engage with?”

    The theology often preached within some conservative evangelical circles advocates for a strict adherence to traditional gender roles and sexual abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage. This approach can lead to harmful practices such as conversion therapy, which has been widely discredited and condemned by medical and psychological associations worldwide for causing significant harm to LGBTQ+ individuals. The Church of England has also condemned the practice of conversion therapy.

    Conservative evangelical environments can also be fertile ground for abusive behaviours to be masked or excused under the guise of spiritual authority or correction. When leaders or influential figures within these communities fall from grace, it often prompts a period of reflection and questioning among their followers. However, the systemic issues that enabled such falls remain entrenched and difficult to address without a fundamental shift in theology and practice.

    Quotes from individuals who have experienced harm from these cultures often speak to the profound sense of betrayal and loss. They may have felt a deep connection to their faith and community, only to find themselves ostracized or harmed when their true selves were revealed or when they questioned the status quo.

    The path forward requires a re-evaluation of the teachings and practices that have led to such harm. It calls for a theology that embraces love and acceptance over judgment and exclusion. It is a theology which allows Christians to be open and honest with one another. There is no shame in mistakes – that is the joy of the gospel because of Jesus Christ. This shift is not just about preventing the “downfall” of prominent figures but about creating a faith community that uplifts and supports all its members, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.

    In conclusion, while individual scandals may capture public attention, the deeper issue lies in the theological and cultural practices that contribute to systemic harm. Addressing these issues requires courageous conversations, openness to theological thinking, and a commitment to love and respect as core principles of faith.

    It’s time to address the elephant in the room.

  • Mini-MBA Talent Pipeline Group, Module Seven: Managing Synods

    by Anon.

    Memo

    Following the recent updated modules on marketing and strategy, and then on safeguarding, a number of you have written in to request that we bring forward the module on Managing Synods. Apparently there has been some alarm at recent meetings of General Synod, with reports coming in of hitherto composed people on the podium looking uncomfortable, and some even appearing to look downright shifty. Some of you have also – and we thank you for this – pointed out that the clergy and laity should not be given opportunity to ask difficult questions, raise awkward issues, or otherwise disrupt the smooth flow and seamless webs of meanings being spun from behind those sitting in the front row (bravely facing the firing line).

    At this stage, we judge the mood of General Synod to be no more than a level-3 “disconcerting”, which is well down from the level-6 “ugly train crash” of July 2023. There remains the possibility of a full-on revolt, or perhaps the slow handclap delivered to Prime Minister Blair at the Wembley Arena by the Women’s Institute, almost 25 years ago.

    Were that to happen to the Archbishops, please don’t worry: pre-emptive measures are already in place to restore the appearance of order. Specifically, in the event of a slow handclap at Synod or similar disruptive revolutionary acts of misconduct, you may like to know that both Archbishops would:

    1. leave the podium at that point, and join Synod members in their protest at the appalling conduct of those seated on the podium.
    2. lead Synod, from the floor, facing those responsible seated on the podium, in an act of quiet and silent reflective prayer-protest, and also pin ribbons and messages to any LOUDFence erected.
    3. make it clear that the Archbishops always stood with victims against the powers of oppression, so of course they are standing with those on the floor of Synod who believe that they now represent the dispossessed, and are being robbed of any proper democratic processes.
    4. Immediately issue a press release stating how much sadness and frustration the Archbishops share with the protesters. (NB: we do not quantify what is meant by “how much” in such gestures – enough to make a PR impact on the day and grab some headlines, naturally; but not enough to make any difference in the future, obviously).

    The drama thus concluded, Synod can return to business as usual, with the scripted motions, appropriate redactions, normal censorship and other attention to detail contained in the paper GS 101 (entitled “Ensuring Appropriate Scrutiny at General Synod” – but not a public document available for members to consult).

    It will be apparent to everyone in the Talent Pipeline that the Secretary-General of the General Synod, who is also the Secretary of the Archbishops’ Council, the CEO of Church House, Lambeth Palace and the remainder of the Church of England, cannot, de facto, have a conflict of interest in any matter under discussion. Like the reigning monarch, or perhaps a President for Life in some distant micro-state that once rashly flirted with democracy and other modern innovations such as an independent judiciary, the Secretary-General cannot do anything about the role and position he finds himself in.

    He did not create this system. He must just inhabit the role as humbly as possible. He rules by the Grace of God and the Consent of the People. Alone. But with the backing of Lambeth Palace lawyers and PR officers also around to help, and a Dark-Ops team who work off the grid, and can remove staff in the blink of an eye.

    However, Talent-Pipeline attendees enrolled on the Mini-MBA module are invited to take a step back from General Synod, and assess it as a whole. The take-homes should be obvious, but in case you cannot spot what is hiding in plain sight, we list a few of the lessons to take away. Watch and learn!

    1. The role of the Secretary General. The Secretary-General never speaks at Synod, yet controls everything that goes on. Like a monarch or some reclusive Japanese Emperor, he rules through force of law, silence and conducting all the real business in toto behind the curtains (Ed: ah, a veiled reference to the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s dog? Sec. Gen.: Take this as your first warning).
    2. Voting. Remember, democracy is never one-person-one-vote. You might learn that kind of idealism at Primary School, but General Synod is Real World Politics, my friend. On the floor of Synod, the following rules apply:

    a) The purpose of voting is always to get the right result. The right result is the result required before the voting was allowed to happen in the first place.

    b) Voting is tedious, annoying and time-consuming, as we already know what we want to do, so the only question is how to achieve the correct outcome if people still insist on voting.

    c) Some voting is done by clergy/laity/bishops’ houses, and the lawyers decide which, on advice from the Sec. Gen., sitting behind. The lawyers answer to the Sec. Gen. The Sec. Gen. answers to nobody, symbolised by his silence (Ed: You mean his refusal to speak or listen? Sec. Gen.: Second warning, seriously).

    d) If in doubt, call a Tea Break, then 10 minutes later ring the Division Bell very quietly (so as not to interrupt the fellowship over a cuppa).

    e) It is unclear if abstentions count as votes against, don’t count at all, or can be used as votes not counted in favour. The Sec. Gen. will advise the lawyers on what answer to give, depending on the issue up for debate. For example, if 100 people can vote on same-sex blessings, and fifty vote in favour, that is only 50%, so a fail. If 25 people abstain, and 25 vote against, you might think that 2/3 of the votes cast were in favour. But, duh! The ‘ayes’ only got half the votes. If, however, the same voting patterns were repeated for approving new mission communities to replace tiresome parishes, then the mind of Synod is clearly 2/3 in favour, with only 25% unable to make up their mind, and 25% against. Simple.

    f) Unclear? Good. This is why you need the lawyers on the podium, and experts like the Sec. Gen, to safely guide you through such labyrinths. Thank God democracy is in such safe hands (Sec. Gen.: You are now on your final warning. Don’t even think it).

    1. The agenda. Try to be imaginative about how you use Synod time. Remember, the more time you spend on launching initiatives and making presentations, the more it looks like you have a fresh and urgent energy about you, and are someone who is willing to try something new. It also means there is less time to dwell on difficult topics like money, income, statistics, morale, the mental health of clergy, etc – which just gets everyone down. You need to keep away from that sort of stuff, as people might hold you to account.

    Schedule business right at the end of the day, when everyone wants to go home or has already started drifting off. Or, schedule it just before lunch, as people need a loo-break by then. Or better still, put it right at the start of day, as it implies there is nothing to see here, and “there will be much more substantial things for Synod to be discussing later”.

    If you have passed this module, trust me, there won’t be.