ViaMedia

Category: Disability

  • LGBT+ Stories – The Trauma of Abusive “Healing” Ministries

    by the Revd Canon Timothy Goode, Rector of St Margaret’s, Lee, Disability Adviser to the Diocese of Southwark, Member of Archbishop’s Council and Co-Chair of MOSAIC

    Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour.’ (Psalm 8 verse 5)

    My relationship with the Church of England has always been a complex one, built as much on a vision of what the Church of England could aspire to be, as much as to what the Church of England presently is, or was in the past.

    As someone who passionately wishes for the full participation of the LGBTI+ community within the church, as I do for all who are marginalised by the church, I was deeply moved by the recent testimonies on Via Media, from those who have been on the receiving end of conversion therapy and who so generously shared their appalling experiences at the hands of a church that purports to articulate the immeasurable love of God for them.

    However, I was caught utterly on the back foot, when I found, whilst reading the testimonies, that my acknowledged feelings of solidarity and empathy swung uncontrollably into what felt like deeply unchartered territory, as I found myself sobbing; not tears that well up when one hears of injustice or when one feels righteous anger, but sobs of unprocessed pain and suffering.

    It felt like a scab was being brutally torn off revealing a deep wound underneath, which was crying out to be acknowledged and engaged with.  I initially felt shame and deep guilt that these testimonies had unearthed such suppressed feelings of confusion, embarrassment, diminishment and hurt.

    But reflecting on my response now, I feel immense gratitude to those who shared their shocking testimonies of conversion therapy, as they also unearthed the as yet unprocessed suffering that I had experienced when on the receiving end of abusive unconsented forms of ‘healing’. These had taken many forms and contexts, but all had involved the use of physical restraint and a need for my collusion. My unwillingness to play ball had on each occasion been met with projected responses of anger and rejection; so that my inability to walk unaided became my fault, put down to my lack of engagement and my lack of faith.

    I thought I had worked through these abusive experiences so that they no longer had a hold on me. Reading these testimonies revealed that, despite the support that I have received, these experiences still have the power to resurface and catch me unawares.

    I don’t want to equate my own experience of abusive ‘healing’ ministry as a disabled person with the harrowing conversion therapy experienced by the LGBTI+ community. However, each experience matters, and each experience matters before God.

    Both practices invite us to explore how it is that we as Christians can still equate a loving compassionate God with the shocking outcomes of these practices; how the reasons and means of conversion therapy can ever justify ‘the fruits’ of our actions. For it is the very fruits of these actions – the diminishing, the suffering, the pain, the anger, the rejection – that have led me to conclude that the theology that underpins it is deeply flawed and profoundly unhealthy.

    St Matthew states that ‘a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.’ (Matthew 7.18) If conversion therapy and abusive ‘healing’ causes such bad fruit, as we read in these shocking testimonies, then St Matthew’s metaphor should cause us to question both the action and the theology that underpins and motivates such an action.

    Maybe the time is right to join with what feminist theologians have been doing for decades, and critically explore and re-evaluate the biblical writers’ assumptions and unconscious biases. For example, when we read the bible through the perceptive and lived experience of disability, we may notice the biblical writers use of impairments as metaphors for sin, doubt, and unbelief, which in turn point to an understanding of perfection that is rooted more in Plato and Aristotle than the Body of Christ.

    This does not sit comfortably with the risen body of Jesus Christ, a physical body that is healed but not cured, whose open wounds are a visceral and vital part of the resurrected body, drawing us into Christ’s fullest humanity. Maybe through the risen body we are being encouraged to acknowledge, own, and ultimately love and celebrate our God given diversity.

    Candida Moss, the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology at the University of Birmingham, writes that disabled people are often used by the Gospel writers to beef up Jesus’ credentials, showcasing his divine powers.

    “When Jesus meets people with disabilities, he fixes them and that’s a sign that he is powerful,” she says. “That relegates people with disabilities to just being there to show the power of God. They’re not really real characters or real people who have feelings and needs and personalities. That pushes them to the margins of the story.”

    All groups, whether it be LGBTI+, race, disability, gender, neurodiversity, to name but five, who continue to be viewed and treated as ‘less than’ by sections of the church, find that they are being consistently pushed to the margins of the story; and yet it is in the very margins of the story that Jesus so often to be is found.

    We therefore should not be surprised that the graceful embrace of the sacrificial ministry of all who have shared their experiences of conversion therapy have reached far beyond the LGBTI+ community. Their brave and harrowing testimonies have opened the door for other marginalised groups to share their stories of abuse and diminishment, offering the possibility of true healing and hope to so many, including myself, who have suffered abusive ‘healing’ ministries within the church; drawing us all towards the ultimate truth, that we are each loved, that we are each unique and precious in God’s sight, that we are each fearfully and wonderfully made.

    As the psalmist sings:

    ‘…what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour.’ (Psalm 8. Verses, 4-5)

  • ‘Oi Vicar, Why Don’t You Heal Yourself?’

    by the Revd Canon Timothy Goode, Rector of St Margaret’s, Lee, Disability Adviser to the Diocese of Southwark, Member of Archbishop’s Council and Co-Chair of MOSAIC

    Talk about coming down to earth with a bump! The day after I was ordained deacon, and the official start of my time as Associate Curate at Croydon Minster, I stepped out, crutch assisted, into my new parish, wearing a crisp new black clerical shirt with dog collar gleaming fresh and white in the early summer sun. Though I was nervous, being the first time I had gone public in my new ‘uniform’, I wished to inhabit my new role with confidence and go and greet the hustle bustle of central Croydon life.

    My planned port of call was Surrey Street Market, which has existed since the 13th century. Just as I started to walk through the market offering welcoming smiles to all who passed, suddenly at the top of his voice, loud and clear over the surrounding melee, a local greengrocer shouted, ‘Oi Vicar, why don’t you heal yourself.’

    Immediately I was aware of the eyes of the crowd turn and focus on me. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in and, with an utterly unconvincing smile, I made a hasty retreat back to the Minster, my perceived lack of agency having been publicly mocked.

    The incident confirmed for me that my physical impairment would never be allowed to be separate from my role as a public figure within the Church; the two were going to be forever inextricably linked.

    This incident, and countless similar incidences have caused me to reflect back over my own life and how my own lived experiences of disability have challenged and reformed my understanding of privilege as a white heterosexual male. Where have my own attitudes, both formed and inherited, created barriers to access and, as a result, denied others agency?

    I know that my experience of single sex education at mostly white middle class boarding schools could easily have impacted on how I engaged with race, gender and human sexuality, to name but three groups which the church has marginalised and oppressed over many centuries.

    But I am also very aware that I, and countless other disabled people, have had to confront and overcome disabling attitudes that have created barriers to access, in order to recover and restore the agency that such attitudes have denied.

    As I have sort to embrace and champion inclusion across the Church of England, I have become more and more aware of the power and potency of a cyclical motion encompassing ‘Attitude, Access and Agency’. This cyclical continuous motion all too easily perpetuates belittlement, exclusion and powerlessness.

    Disabling attitudes form barriers to access which in turn deny or remove people’s agency. This denying of agency reinforces additional disabling attitudes which form even greater barriers to access, which further close off agency and so this vicious cycle continues to revolve and evolve, marginalising and diminishing as it does so.

    On the one hand the Church of England, through the Common Worship introduction to Baptism, states that ‘in God we have a new dignity and God calls us to fullness of life.’ Yet with the other hand the Church of England withdraws that very dignity and denies the very agency required for fullness of life on those who continue to be marginalised because of economics, age, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, learning and physical disability, neurodiversity and human sexuality, to name but a few.

    These disabling attitudes have deprived the Church access to the gifts, talents and insights of countless people, people whose very agency has been denied.

    So how do we overcome this vicious cycle?

    The Christian faith shows us how the subversive and liberating actions of the incarnation not only stops the vicious cycle in its tracks, it actually reverses it, transforming the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle, where the challenging of prevailing disabling attitudes breaks down the barriers to access, restoring and enabling agency.  In turn, this restored agency challenges additional disabling attitudes, breaking down further barriers to access, further restoring and enabling agency. Thus, the virtuous cycle continues to revolve and evolve, transforming and liberating as it does so.

    We first hear the subversive and liberating actions of the incarnation in the call of Jesus’ birth, challenging the rulers of the day.

    We see it as Jesus challenges the prevailing disabling attitudes, when he eats with “sinners” and the socially marginalised as well as the ritually unclean and those considered economic traitors.

    We see it when Jesus upturns the Old Testament code by teaching a new way of understanding God in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you…” (Mt 5:38).

    We see it when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a war horse, thus demonstrating a dramatically different way of addressing injustice, without resorting to violence.

    We see it when Jesus overturns the moneylender’s table, challenging the very practices the Temple used to rip people off and exclude various marginalised groups from worship.

    Ultimately, we see it when Jesus is executed as a rebel by the establishment. The God of the entire universe chooses to be killed as a criminal on a cross. The ultimate act of subversive love and vulnerability.

    To embrace the virtuous cycle is to embrace the way of the cross. More importantly, it is to embrace the way to the resurrection, the definitive destination of the virtuous cycle. It is the Risen Body where we all are invited to find our fullest identity and image, the ultimate place of inclusion and where our vulnerabilities and abilities find their fullest expression.

    At the end of February ‘Mosaic’ – Movement of Supporting Anglicans for an Inclusive Church – went public. Mosaic’s mission is to call out and reverse the vicious cycles that blight our church, seeking to transform them all into virtuous cycles of liberation and grace.  It is through challenging the disabling attitudes, both within ourselves and within the church – those which create barriers to access and in turn deny agency – that will open streams of mission and ministry that have, for far too long, been denied access and agency within the church.

     

  • International Women’s Day – Choose to Challenge

    by the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester

    In 2019, on a visit to the Holy Land I visited the church in Magdala and found myself faced with an enormous and extraordinary modern painting by Daniel Cariola depicting larger-than-life sandaled feet which are those of Jesus Christ and those around him. There is also the hand of a woman stretched out so that it is just touching the hem of Jesus’ robes, and at the point of connection there is a vibrant, almost electric, circle of light. As I recall that picture now, it is not only deeply poignant as we live a time when close proximity and touch are things many people long for, but it also seems pertinent this week as we mark International Women’s Day (IWD) with the theme ‘Choose to Challenge’.

    We have had a bucketful of challenges over this past year and little of it has been of our choosing. Yet I am also aware that even when there is not a viral pandemic, for many people across our world there is continual and overwhelming challenge, not least for many girls and women. Not much of their challenge is chosen, good or life-giving – unlike the sort of challenge which is the focus of IWD.

    The hand in the Cariola painting is that of the woman who had been suffering for 12 years from a continuous flow of blood.  She knew much about isolation, trauma, and loss, not due to a viral pandemic but due to her gynaecological condition. I suspect her mental health was affected as well as her physical health.

    As the woman touches Jesus, he feels power go out of him and he voices a challenge, ‘who touched me?’. The question would have sounded absurd to Christ’s disciples given they were being jostled by a crowd, but it could also be heard as critical and disapproving. Yet I wonder if it was more about ‘choosing to challenge’ in order to make this woman visible, such that the ‘who’ in his question was inviting the woman to be revealed as someone with a unique identity and story. Here is a woman who has been hidden, rendered irrelevant and even stigmatised, and now she is about to be deeply noticed as a significant and loved individual.

    The gospel writers, as is so often the case where women are concerned, refer to her simply as a woman (unlike the men named by Mark and Luke in their chapters recounting this incident). We will never know if Jesus actually used her name in the moments of their encounter, but he does call her ‘daughter’, reflecting value and intimacy in relationship.

    It is this challenge to notice and recognise that the Church is called to join in with wherever people are hidden, stigmatised, labelled, or condemned as ‘other’, not only as we live a viral pandemic but as we emerge from it and shape the future we want to see.

    Yet there is another challenge in that circle of light, and it is that of the woman herself. Amid her desperation, isolation, and pain, she shows great courage in acknowledging her need and taking a decision to reach out.

    In my recent book ‘Encounters’ (which has Cariola’s painting on the cover), I reflect on this gospel story in the context of women in prison. It is not easy for those women to reach out for help, yet rehabilitation and restoration are not possible until that moment comes.  Indeed, it requires a woman’s story to be heard and her trauma to be recognised.

    This week as the Domestic Abuse Bill reaches Report Stage in the House of Lords many of our proposed amendments and challenges to the government are endeavouring to recognise the people who are powerless to challenge and remain hidden, most of whom are women, but not exclusively so.

    I am acutely aware that whenever one speaks out specifically for women and girls there is nearly always a backlash from people who want to critically point out that boys and men should not be left out. I agree. Yet, I also want to say that sometimes we need to shine a light more strongly in particular areas to change a pervasive culture which has been perpetuated down the centuries. And working for that kingdom-of-God-shaped shalom means sometimes unashamedly choosing to shine the spotlight on women in order to bring challenge so that their potential and equality can be recognised and fanned into flame.

    It is all part of the bigger picture in which we need to choose to challenge injustice, inequality, and discrimination, not least when it comes to disability, sexuality, background and colour.  At the same time,  we must never forget of course that the category ‘women and girls’ is of a different shape –  as all of those other listed categories of ‘difference’ include women, girls, men, and boys.

    As we mark IWD this year I hope that we might all be challenged about how we challenge to make visible those who are hidden in the crowd of our communities and further afield, and how we do so in a way which enables those unique individuals to recognise their own worth and needs such that they can dare to challenge the narrative they have of themselves.

    And today it is about women.

     

  • The Reckoning – Will the Church of England Survive?

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media, Member of General Synod and Member of the Government’s LGBT Advisory Panel

    They say “people in glass houses should never throw stones” – although it seems to me that the Church of England is an expert at it, and the house now has very little glass left!

    I’m sure I wasn’t alone in finding myself choking on my proverbial cornflakes last Sunday when I read an exclusive interview in the Guardian with the Church Commissioners’ new Head of Responsible Investment, Bess Joffe, outlining how the Commissioners will be warning companies “that they must do more to protect biodiversity and increase the ethnic diversity of their senior teams or risk protest votes at upcoming shareholder meetings”.

    Explaining why they were taking this action, Joffe told the Guardian: “You want to be in a world where boards of directors, management teams and pipelines of talent look like the communities in which they exist.”

    She is of course absolutely right – it’s just rather embarrassing that the Church of England has such a poor record on doing just this themselves! We have woefully few senior church leaders from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In fact, we have a pretty poor record on most areas of inclusion – looking at the current House of Bishops, and even the make up of General Synod, we still remain predominantly white, male and middle-class. We have woefully few members from any of the areas relating to the protected characteristics in the Equality Act – save of course religious belief. And then, of course there is the Equality Act itself and the preposterous fact that the established Church, which is in the privileged position of being able to make and shape British law, has been granted exemption to the one law of which it should be the Moral Guardian.

    In short, Joffe has shown us that we are guilty, yet again, of not practising what we preach. In the real world, most would call this for what it is – rank hypocrisy.

    To be fair, the Church of England has named “hypocrisy” as one of the Six Deadly Sins that came out of the Pastoral Advisory Group (otherwise known as the Pastoral Principles for Living Well Together). However it’s not something that we are really very good at talking about or owning – I mean, have you ever been in a meeting when it has been called out or addressed? Instead we tend to excuse it away privately to ourselves, saying “well it’s really a lot more complicated than that, and things are changing!”

    But are they really changing or are we just getting better at creating more fog, where we get accustomed to living in our slightly surreal world of smoke and mirrors?

    At least Bess Joffe spoke out! I applaud her for wanting to use her position to change things – and particularly for wanting to use it to address inequality. But it’s interesting to pause for a moment and reflect on why she is able to do this when so few others aren’t?

    I’d suggest that one primary reason is because she is a member of the laity and is therefore not confined by the ridiculous covenant of silence that so many senior clergy seem to have embraced. This means, frankly, that she does not need to “behave well” in order to get any form of preferment – or in other words, she is not warned off saying anything that might “rock the boat” and put any hope of future promotion out of reach.

    I’m sorry to name it, but I think this is where so much of our real problems lie. We have created such large central structures at both diocesan and national levels – which we can barely afford in these financially strapped times – where in order to be able to be part of it you need “to conform”. And of course many understandably want to be “part of it” – they want to progress, often for the very honourable reason that they want to get to a place where they feel they can “make a real difference”. Although of course, few truly feel able to do so when they do actually get “there”. It’s “smoke and mirrors” after all!

    I am speaking perhaps more bluntly than I normally do because I am deeply concerned that the Church of England is currently facing a crisis of such enormity that I fear few have truly taken its severity onboard. It is my sincere belief that we have only a few years left (if that) before we implode – under the weight of our central structures, under our inability to make decisions, under our crushed and demoralised parish systems and under the glare of a general public who have given up on an institution that they see as steeped in hypocrisy and puritanical legalism.

    Believe it or not, God has not promised that the Church of England will continue for ever. The Christian faith most certainly will be carried from generation to generation, but God does not have to use an institution that has lost its ability to speak truthfully, act righteously and has chosen to exempt itself from standing up for the marginalised.

    These next few years will be years of reckoning, and it’s about time we started facing some hard truths…we need to come off our fences, come out from our hiding places and allow the wind of the Spirit to blow away the fog and smoke that has blinded us so that we can look ourselves clearly in the mirror, and be honest about what we see.

    Maybe then we’ll have a chance, but only if we’re humble enough to get on our knees and recognise how badly we’ve got so many things wrong – and how we have hurt so many people in the process!

    We can but pray…

  • Covid, LLF and the Power of “Lived Experience”

    by the Revd Canon Timothy Goode, Rector of St Margaret’s, Lee, Disability Adviser to the Diocese of Southwark and Member of General Synod

    ‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God’.[1]

    On the 8th October Radio 4’s Moral Maze explored the concept of ‘lived experience’ and agreed that, taken solely on its own, ‘lived experience’ is an unreliable position for moral authority, as it leaves itself open to manipulation by our unconscious and conscious biases.

    However the panel admitted that when matched with rigorous and careful reflection, drawing into a deeper empathy with those with similar narratives, ‘lived experience’ acquires a legitimate moral agency that has the power to change attitudes and transform lives.  The program concluded that ‘Lived Experience’ speaks particularly powerfully when it states that ‘there is only so much we can do unless we have a voice at the table.’

    Within this context ‘lived experience’ becomes a plea from the powerless to the powerful. Compare Donald Trump’s recent responses to his ‘lived experience’ of Covid-19 to the rallying cry from the ‘lived experience’ of disabled people. ‘Not about us without us’ becomes a direct plea to the powerful to listen and respond to the narratives of those who are being disabled by the very people who hold power and influence.

    Although the Church of England’s new teaching document ‘Living in Love and Faith’ reflects on the lived experience of many within the LGBTI community, am I alone in wishing that the writers of LLF had had the opportunity, before going to publication, to hear and reflect on the lived experiences of the powerless in this pandemic?  For this pandemic is robbing many of the very action that is the LLF’s elephant in the room, namely physical intimacy.

    People with serious underlying health issues have had to shield from their sexual partner, mirroring the lived experience of many for whom this is their daily existence. Others have found themselves geographically separated from their sexual partner due to lockdown. As previously stated in Savi Hensman’s Via Media blog on “life without closeness” this pandemic has forced us to step back from embracing or shaking hands, all but robbing us of a vital part of our humanity and that loss has hurt us profoundly.

    It is within this context that I have been reflecting on my recent lived experience of being shielded, cut off physically from family and friends, and in particular having to live socially distanced from my wife for two weeks at the beginning of lockdown.

    As a physically disabled person I experience physical intimacy as a gift of immense grace. To offer myself completely to my wife, emotionally, spiritually and physically; for that offer not only to be received but desired and for that offer to be reciprocated in kind, has been for us a perpetual manifestation of God’s love and grace. For to offer oneself so completely to another is an act of risk and vulnerability, one which opens us to the possibility of rejection and immense hurt, but also the possibility of profound transformation and healing.

    Being desired so completely by my wife has confirmed and affirmed that I am fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God. Physical intimacy continues to be for us a gift and vital sign of the vulnerable, selfless and graceful love of God.

    Bernie and I do not have children and our sexual relationship is not open to the procreation of children and yet there is nothing about our experience of physical intimacy that in anyway falls short of God’s purposes, but rather continues to be an ongoing sharing of grace that has drawn us both into a deeper and closer relationship with each other and with the incarnate God; the Word made Flesh; the Risen Body, both fully divine and fully human that invites us to gaze upon the open wounds of Christ and respond ‘My Lord and my God’.[2]

    That two weeks at the start of lockdown, when self-distancing denied both of us the possibility to be physically intimate, afforded me the gift of a glimpse of what the Church of England demands of clergy living in loving committed same sex relationships.

    For the Church to demand that others are denied the experience of physical intimacy; to deny the possibility of offering oneself completely – emotionally, spiritually and physically – to the one they love and to deny that offer being reciprocated – all whilst denying them and their life partner a covenantal relationship with God, is to deny the graceful action of God and to fall desperately short of God’s purpose. 

    It is the action of a powerful Church, selecting and predisposing particular passages of scripture to the judgmental pronouncements of the powerful over the powerless. In doing so ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’ has all but robbed LGBTI clergy of a vital part of our shared humanity and it has hurt them and the Church profoundly.

    Many Christians respond with ‘you cannot bless a sin’ and I agree with them.

    ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’ has not been a blessing for the Church of England, because it has denied God’s graceful action and therefore colluded with sin. ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’ has brought about serious safeguarding issues which the church can no longer ignore; for its pronouncements deny and abuse God’s purposes within loving relationships, profoundly impacting on the mental health of so many LGBTI Christians and denying the opportunity for the church to be for them a sacred place of safety and sanctuary.

    My ardent prayer is that through the upcoming publishing of LLF and the conversations that ensue, the Church becomes a blessing rather than a barrier for LGBTI Christians, a Church that truly listens and responds to the lived experiences of the powerless, transforming fully into the Body of Christ, leaving no one behind –  a true agent of God’s grace, living out the Gospel clarion cry:  ‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God’.

    [1] The First Letter of St John, Chapter 4, verse 7

    [2] Gospel of John, 20 verse 28

  • World Without End…?

    by the Bishop of Buckingham, Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson

    On 13 August 2012 ministry took a new path for me. A journalist had alerted me to untoward goings on in Sussex. Young peoples’ lives had been damaged. The Church shied away from taking proper responsibility. Survivors felt they were being treated as an embarrassment, sidelined then blocked.

    As a result, my colleague Revd Rosie Harper and I were invited to meet some of the people concerned and listen to their stories. When all is said and done the Church is a pastoral organisation. It exists to bring the grace and truth of Christ to a generation within its care. This calling had been massively betrayed, and I felt ashamed of the Church I represent.  Things had to change.

    More and more people were getting in touch. Very often what they craved was someone to listen to their story and take it seriously. I realised that very often the most healing thing was truth about what had actually happened and, above all, honesty.

    One emerging common theme shocked us. Male or female, high or low, recent or not, every person we listened to told us things had got worse for them after they reported.

    In 2013 Pope Francis saw the Church as a field hospital. Imagine a field hospital in which all the wounded soldiers leave more shot up than they were when brought in. That couldn’t be entirely their fault.

    I was comforted in July 2013, though, by our new archbishop’s recognition of the problem. He apologised and seemed to understand the systemic dimension of our failings as he articulated for General Synod “a profound theological point. We are not doing all this – we are not seeking to say how devastatingly, appallingly, atrociously sorry we are for the great failures there have been, for our own sakes, for our own flourishing, for the protection of the Church. We are doing this because we are called to live in the justice of God and we will each answer to him for our failures in this area”.

    Time passed by. Budgets for training and advisers began to grow. I was encouraged.

    In 2015 our archbishop told us “We failed big time, we can do nothing other than confess our sin, repent and commit ourselves to being different in the years ahead.”

    Time passed by. A new project was in the air, collaboratively developed with survivors — “Safe Spaces”

    2017 seemed less hopeful. News broke of John Smyth’s sadistic abuse of teenage boys whose trust he had betrayed as he blighted their lives. But at any rate the Archbishop was still sorry. We were told he “apologises unequivocally and unreservedly to all survivors.”

    January 2018 saw preliminary hearings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. Rightly, our Archbishop had lined up the Church for early examination, a brave and honourable act.

    And when the atrocious Chichester tale was revealed, giving substance to what we had heard on 13 August 2012, we were as sorry as he:

    “You can apologise and apologise to survivors, and I would want to put on record again — I don’t know how to express it adequately — how appalled I am and ashamed I am of the Church for what it did.”

    Time Passed by.

    More money was spent, training improved and Safe Spaces underwent a reboot and would soon start for real. That was the good story. We continued to hear not so good stories from survivors, all of whom wished they never had reported to Church authorities.

    We wrote a book, taking survivor experience seriously across a very broad spectrum of church abuse. We tried to understand the roots and cultural context of our failures, and proposed a fresh approach. It was mentioned by enough survivors for IICSA to call for material from it as evidence in 2019.

    When our archbishop read the latest IICSA report last week, he was still sorry not only for what had happened but for the Church’s failure to respond pastorally.  “We cannot and will not make excuses, and I must again offer my sincere apologies to those who have been abused.”

    After 8 years of sorry, then, from our Archbishop at least if not others, how do I feel about the post-IICSA future?

    I am encouraged to see that our new Archbishop of York whom I like and respect very much as a former close colleague, is sorry too. He said on national radio how shocked he was by the report. Rosie pointed out he’d known about what was in it for years.

    He replied personally “Shocked to read it again, Rosie. I suppose what I’m saying is I hope I’ll never stop being shocked and distressed until we have changed. I am in a position to really help make that change. I am determined to do so. And quickly.”

    I am sure he will be supported, as will survivors, by Rt Revd Jonathan Gibbs, the Church’s new safeguarding bishop. Not only in General synod, but in a really helpful Religion Media Centre IICSA report briefing with survivors and advocates, Jonathan clearly demonstrates fresh commitment to drive change at every level.

    Oh, and Safe Spaces actually started, albeit with a few learner driver’s kangaroo jumps, on 29 September 2020.

    I return to Archbishop Justin’s words in 2012. But… How long O Lord?

    Jesus said “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

    Martin Luther King said “It is always the right time to do the right thing.”

    Rosie and I have met many survivors, courageous and wise people, who have often tolerated years of being ignored, patronised, lied to and blamed. They feel they have been going round and round in circles for ever.

    After multiple forced apologies from a surprisingly small selection of bishops, a few training and cosmetic changes have happened at vast cost. Dr Josephine Stein reminds us this all dwarfs provision for survivors. Then somehow all the regret ends up back the too-difficult box…  until the next shameful revelation.

    As it was in 2012, is now…. and ever shall be? world without end? Really?

  • Resignations, Dysfunctionality and the House of Bishops

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of ViaMedia, Director of the Ozanne Foundation and Member of General Synod

    I resigned from my Bishop’s Council this week.

    The decision has been a long time coming – I’ve felt I’ve been hitting my head against a brick wall over our failure to prioritise the poor and disadvantaged, especially given we are such a rich diocese, for years. In fact, I’ve been banging the drum since I got onto Council five years ago. Interestingly, even though we constantly rated serving the poor in our diocese as a “the top priority” during our discussions, it rarely seemed to make the cut into any paperwork . In virtually every meeting I can remember I have had to remind those in authority of the commitments we had agreed as a Council.

    I realised things would never change when after one Diocesan Synod meeting I was told, when the priority yet again failed to be mentioned to those gathered, that it was because it was too long to fit on the slide! All rather ironic given that we’d just had a report that emphasised the real issue in our diocese was that of “hidden poverty”!

    In truth, I know I was as tired of banging my drum as Council members were of hearing it.

    So, eventually, it got to the point where I felt that the best way for them to hear me was by my absence. You see, sometimes leaving is the only way left for people to be heard….

    Since I resigned, I’ve been reflecting on why it is so difficult for those in the central Church or Diocesan structures to hear what those outside or on the fringes of the Church see as completely obvious. It came into sharp focus again this week with the IICSA report which stated what so many of us have been saying for some time now – that we need a completely independent safeguarding system in the Church in order for it to be fully functional.

    I have decided that the real problem is that our boards and councils are populated by mostly white, mostly male, mostly middle class and mostly middle aged (and that’s being kind) people who all hold virtually the same world view – and who are incapable of recognising that there is legitimacy to any other view other than their own. Because they all end up endorsing each other, they confirm their own legitimacy, and nothing therefore ever changes.

    That’s why we find it difficult to embrace those from other backgrounds – those that are different to the monochrome “norm” that the Church of England has built into the warp and weft of its very foundations. You just have to look at the make up of General Synod to see what I mean.

    It is why we’ve an appalling record on nearly every measure of diversity – we are seen by those “on the outside and margins” as racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic. We are outrageously bad at dealing with people with differing abilities too. Although it’s “not good show” of course for us to admit this in public.

    And what does this “monochrome” system result in? Well, I won’t be popular in saying this, but I believe this ultimately results in the single most critical problem for us as a Church. It’s the real root of most of our problems, which few are prepared to admit let alone publicly name – it is that we have a leadership structure that is, I’m afraid to say, deeply dysfunctional. It seems our House of Bishops operates like a boys public school, with prefects and head boys who whip the younger boys (and they are of course mostly boys!) into line. It may seem like the body that so many aspire to, but once you’re there you get sucked into colluding with a system that few feel able to break free from. Although thankfully, there are some brave individuals who do.

    It is interesting to question why so few have called this out publicly over all these years?

    Especially given that to many of us on the outside and fringes this dysfunction is plain to see. We have bishops leading double lives, which no one seems to bother about or challenge. We have bishops preaching one thing and practicing another, particularly when it comes to the way in which they treat LGBT+ clergy in their midst. We have bishops who lament safeguarding failures, but whose own record is pretty poor. It all leads to a postcode lottery, which everyone knows about but no one does anything about because they (we?) have all got too much to lose…or worse, that they don’t think that somehow anyone will notice.

    But we do, and we all know. The charade was up a long time ago.

    It’s just like my own experience with Bishop’s Council – no one can be bothered to bang the drum any more. We are resigned to letting it all continue, with no one rocking the boat.

    But time is running out. Many are tiring of this game. And they’re leaving.

    So much so that soon the primary problem won’t be the fear of people rocking the boat, but rather the fear of ensuring that there are still people who are prepared to sail in it!

    So reform is needed – and it needs to start at the top.

    The House of Bishops is about to release resources for the Church of England to engage with over sexuality. What they seem to have failed to see (again!) is that the vast majority of people in the pews made up their minds about LGBT issues long ago….what they’re waiting for is for the House of Bishops to finally do so themselves. And to do so in a way that has some credibility.

    So it’s time the House of Bishops had an OFSTED inspection. They need to turn the mirror on themselves and take a long hard look at what they see. They need to be honest about their dysfunctionality, their divisions and their double standards.

    Miracles can happen – and with God’s grace this might just be one of them. Goodness knows we need it!

  • One for All and All for One?

    by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s, member of General Synod and Vice-Chair of the Ozanne Foundation

    The words which bind together Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers are also the unofficial motto of Switzerland, and date back at least to Shakespeare. It might well be a Christian motto too, echoing Paul’s reference to Jesus’ cross and resurrection (‘one has died for all’, 2 Corinthians 5.14) and affirming our loyalty to him, and to one another as members of Christ’s body.

    But it’s not a motto which the Church is or has been good at living out. The COVID-19 pandemic, Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and Living in Love and Faith together open a window of opportunity – of necessity – for the Church to do things differently. We are offered the chance to live radically with difference. But will we take it?

    In his September 15th blog on Via Media, Charlie Bell highlighted the importance of ‘intersectionality’ and that the Church has largely ignored it. Most people, including many Christians, will be unaware of the word (I had to look it up!). But nearly all of us, whether Christian or not, are caught up in what it refers to. Formally, it means the interconnection of various forms of oppression. That’s often what people experience: for example, an older black trans working-class person living in poverty suffers in themselves the intersection of multiple discriminations and oppression.

    But as Charlie Bell noted, this also applies to struggles for justice. Solidarity together by those oppressed in different ways is a powerful response, affirming intersectionality. Think of Desmond Tutu’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ and the welcome given to gay people as well as people of all colours – though this isn’t a welcome affirmed by the whole Church. Which is why the Church is perceived as oppressive: because it divides people and makes different rules to apply to them. On ‘theological’ or ‘practical’ grounds we split up those who are discriminated against – by the Church and by others – into different categories. We encourage them to remain in their boxes as individual problems to be solved, rather than taking the risk of helping them come together to work for shared love and justice for all God’s people, of whatever age, sex, gender, race, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, marital status or belief.

    There’s nothing new in this. The New Testament offers the picture of a Church called to live in radical love and justice, preaching the gospel of God’s loving salvation for all equally, living together in mutual love; and at the same time the picture of a Church struggling to make this real in practice. Whether it’s the book of Acts describing Palestinian and Hellenist Jewish believers squabbling over money in Jerusalem, or tensions between Gentiles and Jews in the early churches; or Paul addressing disunity in Corinth and elsewhere; or John writing about God’s love while excluding others from that love – the Church has had to work hard, and often failed, to transcend the social divisions and prejudices of the world around it, and has too often aided and abetted oppression rather than brought justice and love.

    Ask black people about the churches’ role in profiting from slavery and its support for the injustices of the British Empire in the past, and their experiences of racism in churches in the present. Ask working-class people of any colour about how welcome they feel their ministry is to the church. Ask women, gay and trans people how they feel about churches continuing to exercise institutional discrimination against them. Ask the survivors of abuse in the churches how they have been treated by the systems meant to protect them.

    How do we do it differently and together: ‘One for all and all for one’? The Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process in the Church of England is an opportunity to work in an intersectional way, and open up the conversation to include people of disability, people of non-white colour and non-middle class background, women in ministry and those who don’t believe they should be there – and of course LGBTI+ people who have often felt marginalised and excluded. But that requires local churches to not only own and take part in the LLF process, but to use it to listen and respond positively to all who have experienced structural oppression in church life, and look at how to work for justice not only within the church but also in the structures of society.

    In a recent newspaper article the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London wrote of the need for local decision-making, with central authority doing only what it has to do. It was written against the background of disquiet about central Church of England guidance about responding to the coronavirus, to reaffirm the importance of parishes and local Christian communities in living out the Gospel of Christ locally in practical as well as spiritual ways. And if local churches don’t take seriously the issues of oppression and social justice, then whatever archbishops may say, the Church of England as a whole will continue to relinquish its role and mar its commendation of the Christian gospel to the nation.

    The point of being local, and maintaining thriving local churches, isn’t to perpetuate the existence of the church; it’s to transform people’s lives and the life of society – to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with the Lord. Together. One for all and all for one.

  • Lockdown Testimonies – Sue

    by Sue, a Lay Minister who was born as a deaf person  Sue - Deaf Church

    Lockdown/shut down, frustration, isolation, loneliness was a normal life for me…then Covid 19 came to stay and our lives have turned upside down!

    I am used to being isolated and frustrated, as are most deaf and deafened people, but this was something new and a challenge – how would I survive this?

    No one to Skype with as my camera packed up, and peering at my phone to Skype gives me a headache. No text messages from the grandchildren (should I text to let them know I am still alive?).  At least I have Facebook and can have a little chat with my brother who lives abroad, but no-one else uses it or thinks to use it to chat with me.

    We have two family allotments next to each other.  I can go there and have a chat with my daughter and a cuppa together on each others’ plots without breaking the rules and a distant chat with other allotment holders – except they are too far away and I can’t see to lipread, so we inch a little closer because they can’t hear my soft voice, (soft because I am terrified of having the classic ‘loud deaf voice’). The sun is in our eyes so we stand under a nearby apple tree and now it’s too dark for me to see to lipread again. A bit of shuffling about again, like some sort of weird crabdance, and we can converse.

    And then there’s church.

    I mainly only attend the small Tuesday morning service (in one church of the team) where we sit round a table in the back.  Despite being only at arms length away I can’t hear the person opposite me or sometimes next to me, but we are a friendly little group and we manage together. I attend church (main one of the team) some Sunday’s but if it wasn’t for the service sheet handed out it would quite literally go through one ear and out the other. There being no other deaf person there I sign to myself. A brief text informed me church was closed and my heart sank – how can I live without my Tuesday mornings?

    Facebook came to the rescue.

    Church services online and hopefully subtitled or at least with things written down to follow, except it rarely happens. A still photo of the church, while someone talks in the background is no good to me.  Even being informed to download the service sheet doesn’t help as I have no idea where we have got to.

    Please remember the deaf and hard of hearing. Do I know how to do open subtitles? Alas no. One day they did have a go but they forgot to tell me, so I missed it. It didn’t work very well, it was hilarious (or so I am told) with mistakes but at least they tried. Nor does informing me near the end of the service that there will be open subtitles on Youtube – what good is that? It’s a bit late isn’t it? And as far as I know it hasn’t been done again.

    The vicar has a go at signing the Peace (got it off google) and I sit and cry. Not because he has done it for me, but because I have sat for months in church on Sunday’s and only one person has asked me to show them how to sign the Peace – and it wasn’t the vicar. Why couldn’t you ask and do it for me in all those months? Why have I had to wait until now?

    Bored, I explore Facebook.  I come across the Ex -Salvationists and, as I was brought up in the Army (I haven’t been for the last 40 yrs) and have relatives still there, I sign up and joy of joys, someone posts the UK Territorial Officers doing a little talk with subtitles.  I fall on it like some starving soul desperate for bread (it’s been 5 years since I last had any access to a sermon).  I can’t wait for it each week. I pray that when this is all over they will continue, otherwise I will die of starvation for want of spiritual food. Even the General has a little talk, subtitled, and if it isn’t, it is written out in full. By contrast I have yet to find one by the Archbishop of Canterbury with subtitles.

    Things have improved – there are services with signing (thank you Gill), which allowed me to join in with the retirement service of the Archbishop of York and I was delighted to see him sign (I wonder who taught him?). Locally Evening Prayer, although not subtitled, is at least written out so I can follow it.  I have my Bible to hand, but I have to read fast and ahead to make sure I know where we are when the virtual page changes. Prayers, I do on my own as I can’t hear that bit and on Sunday’s I don’t hear the sermon but that is normal life for me to miss out on things. and I do what I normally do – I either think on one of the readings or I daydream instead.

    Zoom is useless as I can’t lipread everyone.  I can’t help smiling when the muted mic causes problems for people – welcome to my world!

    But…despite the problems I do get more out of the online services than sitting in church.

    Normal life for me is to feel shut down, isolated and very frustrated and very lonely and that is just in the church service. Online, despite the problems, I am equal, one of them, part of the world-wide company of Christians.

    Lockdown is easing, life is slowly returning to ‘normal’ but will the services still be online? Or will my lockdown/shut down, frustration, isolation, loneliness be once again normal life for me?

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Our Old Familiar Cages!

    by the Revd Tim Goode, Rector of St Margaret’s, Lee, Disability Adviser to the Diocese of Southwark and Member of General Synod

    Tim Goode

    ‘I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.’ John 10.9

    The theologian and author Martin Laird[1] shares a story of walking across a moor with a friend who had four dogs. As they walked, three of the dogs would run out across the moor, leaping over creeks and chasing rabbits and joyfully exploring their environment. But one of the dogs would only run in a small circle right in front of his owner. No matter how many miles they walked or how far afield the other dogs went, this dog would only run in a tight circle very close to them. Laird asked him why, and he replied:

    “This dog was kept for his entire life prior to coming to me in a very small cage. His body has left the cage, but his mind still carries it with him. For him, the world outside the cage does not exist, and so no matter how big and beautiful the moor, he will never run out across it. I bring him here so he can breathe the fresh air, but he’s still running circles in his cage.”

    During this season of pandemic I have found that many of my own mental cages have been well and truly rattled, and their gates have been flung open.

    My parents live a considerable distance away and are both in their late 70s. I have noticed how this pandemic has drawn my attention far more keenly to their vulnerability and focused on my desire to be alongside and support them through this bewildering and unprecedented time.

    Though, in our pre-pandemic age, my parents had embraced modern technology up to a point, it has taken our present lockdown for me to encourage them to embrace video formats such as FaceTime and Zoom as a means of communication. As a result it has been deeply reassuring not just to hear that they are both in good health, but to see that they are both in good health as well. These video conversations have brought us so much closer and have been as much a support to me as they have for my parents.

    But why did it take a pandemic for me to respond to my rattled cage and step up and help my parents embrace video communication?

    Since my ordination I have dutifully said the daily offices, with one or two members of the congregation, and I have understood that part of my priestly ministry is to say the daily offices on behalf of my parish and worshipping community as they go out to love and serve the Lord, living out their priestly ministries in the workplace, in the home or whatever context they find themselves.

    But why did it take a pandemic for me to respond to my rattled cage and acknowledge that, through our online worship, many of our worshipping communities wish for a similar rhythm, a daily space and reminder to place God at the very centre of all that they do? Why had I only offered my parishioners the church building as the place for these daily services when I knew that it was not feasible or possible for so many to access the church during the week? I knew before the pandemic that the daily offices could be brought into their homes, their digital devices and to their places of work, so why did it take a pandemic for me to act?

    As the Disability Advisor for the Southwark Diocese, I have the privilege of being alongside people of extraordinary faith who have all too often been denied access to their local parish worshipping communities. I have observed the existence of online church before this crisis, but I have also heard the cries of frustration of so many who, through no fault of their own, find themselves excluded from their local parish church community.

    But why did it take a pandemic for me to respond to my rattled cage and seek to bring the worship of the local parish church to those who are unable to be physically present and in doing so to actively create opportunities and spaces for all to serve and to minister, regardless of age and ability?

    It has become patently clear. I cannot and will not go back to how things were. These cages have been rattled and their gates have been flung open. I do not want to be like the fourth dog, I wish to run out across the moor, and be open to new horizons, new possibilities.

    The Church of England is going to be a very different church when we finally all return to our church buildings. For too long we have built cages around ourselves to feel safe and secure. The pandemic has forced us to respond to Jesus’ invitation to open the gates of our cages and relate to the world as it is, rather than as we would want it to be. As Jesus says in John 10.9, ‘I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.’

    Jesus is the gate out of our many cages, out of our hardened hearts. As we finally accept this, that Jesus is the entry point into all change, depth, struggle, and love, may we as a church be empowered to step out of our cages and boldly embrace the ‘new normal’ with confidence and hope, rather than retreat back into cages of fear and cynicism.

    I for one don’t want to retreat back into my own old familiar cages once this pandemic is done. And neither do I want the Church of England to do so either. As the saying goes, “God loves us exactly as we are, and God loves us far too much to leave us that way.” As we journey through this pandemic together, God is clearly revealing to us that he loves us far too much to leave us as we are.

    [1] Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land. Oxford University Press 2006, page 19