ViaMedia

Category: Safeguarding

  • Yve’s Story – “I Felt Set Up To Fail”

    by Yve, who has experienced both the very worst and the very best of the Church of England.

    I first knew something was different about me when I was six, and first started wearing my mum’s clothes. From that moment onward, what could have been a potentially idyllic seaside childhood became characterised by bullying, acute discomfort with my birth gender identity, and a love that seemed strictly conditional.

    Craving acceptance and security, I entered what quickly became a dysfunctional marriage. As always, I was too scared to talk about my feelings, feared the negative responses which occurred when I did, and never felt truly loved. I underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2012, but even afterwards, the loneliness and rejection remained.

    This was all to change – or so I thought – in 2016.

    Having been engaging with a notoriously conservative cathedral parish for 8 years and being largely ignored by the congregation, I was surprised when I was suddenly encouraged to get more involved in its activities. Feeling hopeful and included, I took up several volunteer and secretarial roles, joined a worship team, and accepted an employment offer as floor manager. It felt like God had placed me here to learn and grow as if finally in preparation for ordination, to which I’d felt called since 1994. For the first time in my life, I began to believe it was possible that my gender could be valued and accepted by a church.

    I was soon to be disillusioned. Indeed, it wasn’t until later that I found that I’d be given this faux acceptance because of an edict that the cathedral community needed to be ‘more representative of the whole city.’

    In reality, nothing changed. In my new roles, I felt continually measured against a heteronormative standard (e.g. my shirts and shoes weren’t considered ‘masculine enough’), and I was often the target of verbal abuse. When this had become a typical pattern of behaviour towards me I reported it, but nobody took my complaints seriously.

    It became clear that despite all the training delivered to everyone and their desire to be ‘representative’, the dean and chapter didn’t take their safeguarding responsibilities seriously, or have any real interest in a truly inclusive community.

    By late 2018, things came to a head. A new dean arrived who seemed uneasy about my continued involvement. Suddenly, once supportive colleagues became reluctant to swap shifts with me so I could fulfil voluntary roles. Then, a new and unprompted ruling that Chapter clergy shouldn’t interact socially with or give pastoral care to employees, effectively brought all voluntary roles to an abrupt and sudden end. I felt as if I was being slowly pushed out. Then, one day, I arrived at a meeting to discover someone else had been appointed secretary in my place, without any warning or prior consultation. I resigned from all my other roles with immediate effect.  I felt set up to fail and distraught.

    In early 2019, the cathedral had an S.C.I.E. inspection. I’ve seen less panic in a school pre-Ofsted inspection! Staff and volunteers were told what to say if spoken to by an inspector, and members of congregations carefully selected for interview by inspectors who ensured they wouldn’t say anything controversial. A banner installed by the entrance affirmed the dean’s commitment to providing ‘a safe environment for everyone.’ Knowing what I did, I found this laughable. So did the inspectors, but for a different reason: they perceived its message as unnecessary and ordered its removal. I felt deliberately blocked in my attempts to speak with an inspector. I was saddened, but not surprised, when the outcome for the cathedral turned out to be largely favourable. By now, I was numbed and deadened to the fact that people like me often had their voices silenced.

    I suffered a complete physical, nervous and emotional breakdown. Although technically furloughed, I couldn’t face returning to an environment which showed such disregard for people’s safety, health and well being. Even the diocesan safeguarding officer wouldn’t help me. I’ve been made to feel that I can’t trust anyone there. I felt I received more love and support from a secular community trust than I did from my supposed spiritual home.

    If this is the worst of the Church of England, during lockdown I unexpectedly encountered the very best. I’ve received an unconditional welcome through online worship, quizzes and study groups offered by certain truly inclusive churches in Liverpool and London. I still feel frozen out of life and pay for ongoing therapy but I thank God for what I’ve found among them. “A broken and contrite heart O God you will not despise” (Ps.51:17).

     

  • Steven’s Story – “I felt I had no option but to make a formal complaint to the Garda”

    by Steven Smyrl, a married gay former elder in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

    I was ordained an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) in 2007. The PCI is the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland, and also has a significant presence in the Republic. Until about 25 years ago the PCI was, in the Irish context, regarded as a middle-of-the-road, mainstream Christian denomination, and even moderately liberal among the island’s Reformed Churches. It had begun ordaining women as early as 1976. But in the intervening years more and more of its newer, younger ministers have been openly espousing hardline conservative views, notably in relation to women’s ordination and LGBTQ+ issues.

    Nevertheless, until 2019 as a gay man I have felt nothing but acceptance and support within my local congregation and from many ministers and elders (albeit discreetly) across the Dublin & Munster Presbytery (akin to a diocese in other denominations). So when I married my same-sex partner, Roy, in November 2018 in a civil ceremony, I was delighted to receive warm words of congratulation and encouragement from fellow Presbyterians, including ministers and elders.

    However, my delight was short-lived.

    Just six short months later Roy and I were distraught as we found our marriage under siege, belittled and disparaged by a small group of evangelical zealots, all PCI ministers attached to the Dublin & Munster Presbytery. It was the beginning of a relentless quasi-judicial process which left me feeling demeaned and dehumanised by a Presbytery Commission, whose campaign to remove me as an elder was conducted without mercy, it would seem on the basis that the ‘ends justify the means’.

    Where did all this come from?

    Homophobia has been growing within the Presbyterian Church of Ireland for years, all part of the toxic mix of religion and politics emblematic of Northern Ireland. This came to a head a few years ago when those opposed to female ministers and elders as well as LGBTQ+ rights finally got their hands on the Church’s levers of power. The result was the adoption, at the 2018 General Assembly, of a motion subsequently widely decried as homophobic. This stated that due to their supposed “outward conduct and lifestyle” gay people were forthwith excluded from church membership unless they voluntarily submitted to living lives of destructive, self-imposed solitude. In addition, their children were to be denied baptism. And astonishingly, because this was in the realm of ‘religion’, this sort of blatant discrimination could be openly imposed without, it was thought, fear of legal reprisal.

    In such an atmosphere it was my misfortune to be the first victim to fall foul of this resolution.

    Out of the blue I received a phone call from two leaders of Presbytery, demanding that I meet them alone to discuss “concerns” about my position as elder. Though I sought further information then and in the following weeks, this was repeatedly denied – the clear intention it seemed was to ambush me in a face-to-face meeting. I had to rely on my own tenacity and GDPR Subject Access Requests to eventually discover that the issue was in fact my marriage. I was astonished to find that two ministers in Presbytery had colluded in producing a dossier of ‘evidence’ of my gay relationship (a tactic, as reported in the Belfast Telegraph, reminiscent of the East German Stasi).

    Presbytery was prevailed upon to set up a formal Commission, though without ever being informed what was to be investigated. Four months later it issued a Finding dismissing me solely on the grounds that my same-sex marriage was incompatible with eldership. All of the arguments and submissions I had made in my defence were ignored or rejected: it appeared that proof of my marriage was the only relevant issue.

    Yet, I had discovered (through GDPR) that my detractors had obtained my marriage certificate a week before the Presbytery meeting that had established the Commission, and they therefore could have sought my removal there and then, without any trauma or drama. But they withheld this evidence, which meant I was still subjected to a humiliating and stressful formal enquiry.  It felt like a ‘show trial’ intended as a warning to all others.

    My experience of the Commission was traumatic, and had a profound effect on my physical and mental health. From the start I felt like a prey being pursued by a pack of wolves. My own concerns were ignored, and none of my responses were given any respect or attention; the Commission merely seized upon nuggets that they could use to back up the outcome they had it seemed pre-ordained. What is more, procedures were often insisted upon when they suited, and discarded when they were inconvenient. The balance of power was horrendously skewed – most telling was the demand that I should appear before the Commission of six senior church officials, alone apart from “a member of the church not qualified as a lawyer … in a supportive, non-speaking capacity”.

    In all their dealings with me the Commission showed a total lack of compassion, grace and empathy. It felt as though there was a growing vindictiveness when I failed to cave in to their expectations. Even when made aware of the effect their tactics were having on my health, which was supported by medical certificates, they continued in their relentless pursuit. (Sadly, the effect on my health has been long-lasting: I was recently admitted to hospital with a suspected stroke, due to on-going stress.) It seems that the overarching imperative was always to enforce their current orthodoxy, regardless of whether individual lives were crushed in the process.

    The Commission’s Finding generated considerable attention from the national print and broadcast media over several months, in which its actions were repeatedly described as oppressive, unethical and dehumanising.

    This seemed to enrage Church authorities even further, prompting them to set up a second Commission (still ongoing), primarily focused on interrogating the minister and church council of my local congregation because of the constant support they had shown to both Roy and myself over many years. Answers have been demanded to 43 of the most divisive questions imaginable, seeking private and personal information without any regard to the confidential nature of pastoral care. The questions appear to have been contrived with the express intention of provoking conflict between the minister and members of the church council so that each might inadvertently incriminate themselves or each other.

    The way I have been treated by the Commission has convinced me that PCI is a church deeply infected by personal and institutional homophobia, which leads it to act in a fundamentally unchristian manner. I have sought justice and accountability from church authorities, but have been rebuffed at every turn. I therefore felt I had no option but to make a formal statement of complaint to the Garda (Irish police) under hate crime legislation. At the time of writing, my complaint is under active investigation.

    While this story has yet to run its course, without doubt the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will, by its appalling actions, only prove to have caused irreparable damage to its own already tarnished reputation.

     

  • Jaime’s Story – “They had absolutely no idea what to do with me”

    by Jaime Sommers, a bisexual 50 year old woman whose story of abuse by the Church of England will shock many

    My name is Jaime and I am 50 years old. I have been dual-attracted to both men and women since about the age of seven. However, my mother told me in no uncertain terms when I was a teenager that she would throw my brother or myself out, if we were gay. So I learnt to be quiet about the large part of me that was same-sex attracted.

    At the age of 17, I became friends with an evangelical Christian girl at my local sixth form college. She took me to various church events. I started reading the New Testament around this time and I just knew Jesus was real. New to the faith, I became submerged in the evangelical movement, and at University, became involved in a burgeoning Vineyard Fellowship. They made it abundantly clear to me that homosexuality in any form was a sin, and on numerous occasions both at church and at New Wine festivals, I was subjected to prayer ministry to ‘heal me’ of my homosexual feelings. I was encouraged by my young pastors to marry, though I was struggling with my feelings for women. I knew neither my family nor church would support ‘the real me’ – this was the early 90s – so it felt playing it straight was the only option.

    My husband was my best friend and I still love him dearly. I was attracted to him, but not with the same intensity I experienced for women. Nevertheless, we had three lovely children together and shared many happy memories. But I was suppressing a major part of myself, and this gradually took a toll on my mental health. In 2006, I was prescribed anti-depressants by an incredulous GP who strongly recommended I faced up to my sexuality, for the sake of myself and my children. But I had a successful role as an unlicensed preacher by now in a large evangelical Anglican Church and it just felt that I had too much to lose. This decision was confirmed when I was approached by my vicar to explore ministry. I explained to him in confidence that I had some reservations as I was bisexual and that coping with this affected my mental health. He told me on no account to mention this to anyone at Diocese during the exploratory process. So I kept my mouth shut. Nobody ever asked about my sexuality anyway, so that was easy. It was assumed since I was married with children that I was heterosexual.

    However, just after I turned 40 and I had begun Reader training in the Church of England, the same-sex attracted ‘demons’ started to emerge with a vengeance. My service leading and preaching gifts meant I was frequently up the front at church, which saw me enjoy a certain degree of adulation. One woman in particular made it very clear she had feelings for me and began to hang around after services to speak to me. Though I smelt danger, I was struggling with depression and repression of who I really was and eventually I succumbed. She was attractive and only a few years younger than me.

    There was just one kiss, but it was enough to unleash what I can only describe as a tornado of evil from which it took me many years to recover. We both told our husbands straight away what had happened. Neither partner decided to make a big deal of it, and I naively thought that was the end of it. Unfortunately, the woman in question confided in a retired clergy couple at our Anglican Church, who were known for their hard-line fundamentalist views. “The kiss” was escalated upwards to the Suffragan Bishop, who deemed it a homosexual act. My vicar was then placed in the awful position of having to pay a home visit, accompanied by two fellow church members. Clearly upset on my behalf, he read out a cold statement from the Bishop. I was to be withdrawn from church leadership and Sunday’s preaching duties with immediate effect, on the charge of ‘unwanted sexual advances’ against a congregant.

    The scene in my living room was pure carnage. I was shrieking in absolute shock at the injustice and skewing of what had happened, while my husband was furious. I later learned the other party had received a friendly visit from the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer, herself a repressed queer Christian.

    My husband and I were then summoned to Diocesan House, where we sat opposite two stony faced senior clergy from the Diocese. They had absolutely no idea what to do with me. They clearly knew nothing about bisexuality and were confused that I was married with children yet had same sex attraction. I admitted I had made a disastrous error of judgement in kissing this woman, but I was not going to apologise for making unsolicited sexual advances to her, which was what they seemed to expect. They didn’t even see us to the door.

    They then spent over a month deciding on a course of action. In the course of these weeks, I became very ill and could not be left alone. I remember looking up how many paracetamol it would take to end my life. I lost over a stone and a half in weight and was force fed sandwiches by my husband and church friends. Diocese literally left us to fend for ourselves as a family, while the woman in question carried on singing in the church worship band and co-leading youth group.

    The Suffragan Bishop then shared with me that I would be indefinitely removed from training. Church was my whole life at that time, and this felt catastrophic. The sense of shame and injustice was crippling, but through the loving support of family and church friends, I managed to hold it together – until one terrible evening when I received a phone call from the vicar.

    He told me that around a dozen church members had received an anonymous letter accusing me of being a sexual predator of women and that my husband and I were into threesomes.  We lived in a small community and this was absolutely terrifying – what if my school age children found this out? The PCC held an emergency meeting. My husband and I wanted to go to the police, but the vicar dissuaded us. There was panic in his voice.

    I tried to go back on several occasions, but I just couldn’t shake off that awful feeling that somebody in the congregation had written that letter, which was distinctly possible owing to the choice of recipients – all current and previous PCC members. In the end, we left the church – which I suspect was the result the Diocese had hoped for. My husband and I did eventually receive an apology in all but name from the Suffragan Bishop.

    Our marriage lasted another four years. We are both now happily engaged to strong Christian women. We never talk about what happened but I still have awful flashbacks. I remain on anti-depressants, though the dose is smaller.

     Jaime Sommers is author of 119: My Life as a Bisexual Christian which can be accessed through the Kindle Store.

     

  • Rachel’s Story – I Don’t Want to Be Part of An Institution that Allows Abuse

    by Rachel, a 30 something Christian, hockey player and lesbian whose experience in an HTB plant has seriously damaged her faith. 

    My name is Rachel and I am a 30 something hockey player, Christian, theatre-goer and lesbian. I came out in my early 30s and at the time was going to a conservative, evangelical church that was a HTB church plant. While exploring the intersectionality of my faith and sexuality, I started blogging and wrote this very early on:

    ‘My experience of conservative, evangelical churches is that they are welcoming but there are limits for the LGBTQ+ community. Hidden limits. Glass ceilings, that no one speaks of. The challenge for me, is that I joined an un-affirming church before coming out and am now trying to work out what their glass ceilings are and if I can stay to be the change that I want to see without getting hurt or worn down too much in the process.’

    This excerpt from my blogging reminds me of the hope I had in my church and vicar. The hope that I would never be defined by my sexuality and that we could agree to disagree well. It makes me incredibly sad to read this now and I wish I could run back to that younger me and tell her to get out of there.

    I was at that church for 4 years. I was part of an awesome community, adored being able to serve through leading in Bible study groups and saw my faith grow while I was there. About 3 years in I came out to myself as a lesbian. In May 2019 I came out to my vicar and I asked him specifically whether, if I was in a same sex relationship, I could still lead a Bible study group. He said yes. At this point, I thought this was clear.

    Time passed and in January 2020, the vicar asked me and other leaders to meet to discuss our Bible study groups. We were told it was to share how we had been getting on and talk about the future. During the meeting, he explained that all leaders would be expected to attend workshops that would discuss lifestyle choices and how, as leaders, we needed to be ‘beyond reproach’.  My stomach turned and I was very scared that what I thought the vicar and I had agreed had somehow changed and I was about to be seriously hurt. When I pushed him on what that meant for me, he went on to say that:

    1. My social media posts about equal marriage and having an affirming theology were a problem.

    I was being silenced.

    1. He had to follow the Church of England’s and the bishop’s teachings on traditional marriage.

    Many, church leaders within the Church of England follow the Church of England’s teachings on sexuality and marriage and have congregations that are inclusive.

    1. For me to continue as a leader, I needed to discuss my stance on this issue with him but have refused. 

    I told him that I didn’t feel safe to discuss my ‘stance’ with him because I felt that we had an unequal relationship (him being theologically trained) and that he didn’t want to just listen to my views but to change my mind. He admitted in the meeting that he did hope to change my mind!

    1. Finally, I asked several times whether I would have to stop leading a Bible study group if there is a new expectation for LGBTQ+ people at the church.  He was silent. He didn’t ask me to stay, he didn’t ask me to reconsider and stay, he was silent. 

    By the end of this meeting, I was distraught. I was sobbing, my co-leader was sobbing and clearly both of us were devastated. I was left with a clear message that because of my sexuality, I could not lead a Bible study group and was not welcome at the church.

    For two weeks, no one contacted me.

    After this I sent the church wardens and the local bishop an email, copying in the vicar. The emails spoke about how appalled I was at being kicked out of my church because of my sexuality and the lack of pastoral care.

    At this point, I received a letter from the vicar that thanked me for my service. He didn’t acknowledge my hurt nor did he state that I had been wrong and that I could lead a Bible study group or stay.

    I did have contact with the church wardens. We had a lovely meeting where they listened really well. At the end, I gave them a list of recommendations that I wanted to see implemented to ensure that this never happened again. Nothing on that list was acted upon.

    As a result of the lack of engagement from the vicar and how fearful I was that this could happen to someone else, the bishop suggested I take this to an informal investigation to ensure that lessons were learnt and this didn’t happen again. The investigation produced almost identical recommendations to the ones that I had originally given the church wardens.

    It is over 18 months since those recommendations were given a second time to the church and vicar. Half of those recommendations have still not been carried out and one of the most central– a risk assessment to keep those in the LGBTQ+ community safe for the future has not been started, let alone completed.

    After the informal investigation, several meetings with my local bishop and a meeting with the Bishop of London, the list of recommendations still hadn’t been completed and there was no sign that they were about to be. Out of desperation, I went to the newspapers with my story. This was incredibly tough but I hoped would raise the profile of my story and make change where we hadn’t so far. After fair and detailed pieces in the local newspaper and the Church Times, I am still waiting for those recommendations to be fully implemented.

    This experience has seriously damaged my faith.

    Often, when trauma happens to someone in a church context, it affects their view of God and it certainly did for me. The PTSD I am experiencing has and will last years. Currently, attending church, in any format, causes me to have a panic attack. Regardless of how affirming the community or service may be, my body does not trust it to be safe and goes into fight or flight mode. I fear that the church and vicar that I once belonged to will never fulfil the recommendations that it agreed to, allowing others, like me, to be repeatedly traumatised.

    I do not want to be part of an institution that allows this abuse.

  • Lesbians, Sex and the Church of England

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

    I could see that the bishop was going red, and as he did so nervous giggles spread across the Synod Chamber.  I stood, pan faced, at the speakers’ microphone and said: “I’m deadly serious, bishop.”

    The Church of England’s Synod Question Time is supposedly an opportunity for General Synod members to raise questions of the various Chairs of the Church of England’s Boards and Councils and is one of the few mechanisms available for us to try and hold these senior leaders to account.

    It was February 2017 and I had just asked the Chair of the House of Bishops, or more precisely the bishop tasked with overseeing the Church’s work on sexuality and gender identity matters, the following:

    “Bishop, given we understand that the Anglican Communion might break over “it”, that the Church of England faces a split over “it” and I cannot get ordained because of “it”, what actually is “it” for a lesbian like myself?”

    Of course, I didn’t get an answer.

    You see, we don’t tend to really think about lesbian sex within the Church of England, dare I say we don’t really tend to think about lesbians at all!  Most of the focus has, I’m sorry to say, been on the supposed sex acts between our gay brothers in Christ.  That is undoubtedly because both Old and New Testament have a few lines of text about certain sex acts, which sadly are normally taken completely out of context and are frequently mistranslated.  Sparing the fact that anal sex is far more prevalent amongst heterosexuals than homosexuals, what the Bible is clear about is that there is absolutely nothing that focuses specifically on the whether the love between two people of the same sex is right or wrong – that is, unless you think of that between David and Jonathan.

    Today is Lesbian Day of Visibility, and I believe it is right and indeed necessary to stop and think about the plight of lesbians within faith communities, and sadly what so many have had to endure through the ages.

    Lesbianism is not a new thing – it has just been far more covered up, due to cultural taboos and the dominance of patriarchal power structures that have subjugated women throughout the ages and kept them “in their place”, or worse, just out of sight.

    In some ways I think many have, like Queen Victoria, just not considered the fact that women might be attracted to each other.  Men may have been far more aware, not least I fear to say because of the prolific amount of online porn (evidently, many men find it more satisfying to see two women together than to watch another man having sex).

    Be that as it may, faith communities have not, it seems, really thought through their stance on lesbianism.  It is just “tucked on” to their position on all LGBT+ people, mostly informed by their position on gay men – the “L” is just another letter in the LGBTQI alphabet.

    So, what is “it”?

    In trying to force this question in Synod, I admit that I was trying to get the Church of England to see how utterly futile and meaningless their internal discussions actually are about sexuality.  Can we really boil down the whole of the future of the Anglican Communion to how two people choose to express their love for each other?  If that really is the case, then I would argue that what we should be focusing on is the actual love between two people – the fact that they have deep feelings for each other and have decided that they have found a life mate who they want to commit to, cherish and honour.

    For centuries, lesbians have had a stark choice.  For most, they could either stay as spinsters (the archetypal “maiden aunts”) tasked with either looking after aged parents or (if they were lucky) hiding behind the fact that they dared to have their own career; or they could enter into heterosexual marriages and just “put up” with it.  This happened and still happens at great cost. The “just putting up with it” has sadly led to years of marital rape, or worse, forced rape – and sadly has led to some taking the only way out they know, that of tragically taking their own lives.

    Many churches still teach that that is “the best way forward”, with many advocating that LGBT+ people should enter into mixed-marriages, little thinking of the significant harm this does – to both parties.  On the one side you have someone who is having to endure a sexual act that they do not desire, the other because they are not experiencing the sexual desire that they deserve.

    It is a pitiful state of affairs, but all too common – trapping both parties in a misery of hell.

    Moreover, worse stories are now coming to light – particularly, sadly, within the minority ethnic religions.  Here a lesbian’s plight is far more dangerous – with an untold number being subjected to “corrective rape”, often by family members, in order to try and “make” them straight.  Few, understandably, will ever speak out about this for fear or shame.  Even fewer will try to seek justice – they have been traumatised enough already, and they are all too aware of the state’s appalling record of getting any convictions.

    So, what should we do?

    Well one of the critical things, I believe, is for more lesbian women to become far more visible and to speak out about their experiences.  That is why I am so keen to support #LesbianVisibilityWeek.  We need to find new ways of profiling good role models, who can challenge stereotypes and show that we, women who are attracted to women, exist everywhere – in all cultures, age groups, social structures and backgrounds.  We are a force to be reckoned with and we will not be silenced.

    As for defining what is “it”…

    …well, I shall await an answer from the House of Bishops on that.  For, as I said, so much seemingly seems to rest upon it – even the future of the Church of England!

  • Is God Inhuman?

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


    I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s book The Body. It’s a fascinating read about the wonders of the human body and how much of it – of us – is incredibly complex and still little understood. But in Chapter 11 he refers to things medical science learnt about the body through experiments carried out during the second world war by Nazis in concentration camps and by occupying Japanese forces in a huge experimental facility in China. He doesn’t dwell on them, but they were horrifying in their cruelty. Some experiments were supposedly to help soldiers wounded in battle, but others were to satisfy doctors’ curiosity by doing things unspeakably unethical just because they could. And although many Nazis were brought to justice for their cruelty, the director of the research centre in China was debriefed by the Americans to get his medical knowledge and then allowed to return to normal life, while the existence of the Japanese facility was hidden for forty years.

    The Uighurs and Rohingya. Political and religious terrorism. Black Lives Matter. Child poverty and homelessness. Violence and discrimination against women, LGBTI and disabled people. Cruelty continues, and those with power who do it will find ways to justify the unjustifiable. We even do it in the Church – not only with repeated safeguarding failures, but by being complicit with society at large in structural discrimination against black people and poor people and women and LGBTI people. The Church goes further now than society does in maintaining exemptions from discrimination against women and gay people, and we justify it in the name of what is acceptable to God – which makes the Church and its God appear inhuman to many.

    What is ‘humane’? What is ‘inhuman’? After all, it’s human beings who act ‘inhumanly’ some of the time. Being cruel and discriminatory is something which every single human being is capable of. That’s you and me both. Which of us is without sin and can say that we have never acted in a way intended to be hurtful? Who has never done something which another person experienced as cruel and unkind?

    A healthy human body is a dynamic balance of many different systems and needs, where too much or not enough salt or other nutrients can be fatal. Like our body, our humanity is a balancing act, full of difficult compromises to enable life to happen at all, more or less good or evil. Being human means we are capable of being, not either good or bad, but both good and bad, both humane and inhuman. And yet we define acting ‘with humanity’ as being solely good: as the Oxford Dictionary puts it, being human or humane is having ‘attributes or behaviour proper or befitting to a man.’

    Why do we do think that being good and kind is ‘proper’ and ‘befitting’ human behaviour, when experience is that human behaviour includes so much that we want to reject as ‘inhuman’? Discrimination, violence, misogyny, racism and slavery come from dehumanising those who are ‘different’, excluding them from being our fully human neighbour, treating them as ‘other’ or as evil or to be eradicated like germs from the social body, acting as we do so out of the evil that has not been eradicated in us. (See the useful reflections by John Root around racism and binary thinking).

    The view that ‘acting with humanity’ or being ‘humane’ describes only the morally good aspects of human behaviour is not derived from the reality of the world around us. It is in the person of Jesus Christ that Christians believe humanity in its fulness is fully realised: the human being without sin, the Son of God who shows us what is ‘proper’ and ‘befitting’ to a human being, without hatred or cruelty or exclusion, bringing us together into the love of God in our redeemed humanity.

    It is no coincidence that the goodness of humanity is defined by the one who takes on himself our sin for our salvation. Repenting of our sins, cruelties and lack of love, and inviting Christ to dwell in our hearts in love to transform us, frees us to acknowledge both past and present evil in us; it enables us to become more humane, by letting go of the inhumanity of believing that we are good and others are bad.

    The case of Jonathan Fletcher is yet a further example of how avowedly orthodox faith can inculcate an atmosphere of fear and repression in which our humanity in Christ is denied and abused, and God is modelled in ways which are more inhuman than humane.

    It’s crucial to Christian faith that God is the God we see in Jesus: that God is humane, human, abounding in steadfast love. God is not the inhuman deity who many have experienced through the Church, and of which we must repent. Any Church or Christian disciple making either God or other people become less rather than more human and humane needs to repent and change.

    My former colleague Canon Mark Oakley often asks: ‘What do people become in my presence?’ More human, or less? And we might add, ‘What do people become in the presence of the God I worship?’

    Through your church and through encounter with you, do people and their God become more or less human?

  • Why Don’t You Just Leave?!

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of Via Media, Member of Synod and Director of the Ozanne Foundation

    “Why don’ you just leave the Church of England?”

    It’s the question I’m repeatedly asked by my non-church LGBT friends and allies after the repeated mistakes, misappointments, misguided decisions and misunderstandings in relation to sexuality and gender identity matters.

    To be honest, it’s the question I ask myself constantly too – as I’m sure do so many others.

    But of course, that is precisely what the “conservative fundamentalists” want.  They’d love to purify the Church of those who they think defile it, and I’m sure there are many who will have muttered under their breath “who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” (or in my case, “woman”).

    The question has come into sharper focus following my recent resignation from the government’s LGBT Advisory Board, where I’ve been asked publicly by the media “Why on earth do you stay in such a homophobic institution like the Church of England?  Surely you should resign from there too – for exactly the same reason that they too have created a “hostile environment”?”

    My impromptu answer surprised even me. I said it was because I knew there were those who were changing their minds within the Church, that this movement was only ever in one direction and that research shows that there is a younger generation, even within the Church of England, who think very differently to those in power at the moment and that “one day things will change”.  But, and it’s a big but, I have always then stressed that the key question is how many lives get damaged and ruined in the process, and whether people can cope with being the victims of injustice and abuse whilst this change occurs.

    That “but” has come into sharp focus with the launch of the Living in Love and Faith materials, and the realisation (finally) that there are major safeguarding issues for LGBT people as they are “encouraged to take part”.  Added to that there is the totally misguided notion from the Church hierarchy that there are “two equal and valid sides” in this “debate”, and that all we need to do is reconcile and everything will be all right.

    Even the archbishops in their Synod address talked about the need to “just love each other”, which shows a complete lack of understanding about the abuse being metered out by one side on the other and the obvious power differentials at play.  As many have themselves reflected, it feels like we are tragically in a situation akin to domestic abuse, where one side is constantly being assaulted and yet those with the power to do something about it are advising both parties to “just love each other” and get over it.

    No, the abuse needs to stop first.  There can be no peace without justice, and no reconciliation until those who have the power to wound are dealt with appropriately.

    Interestingly, what domestic abuse victims are encouraged to do is to leave and find somewhere safe.

    If I can be honest, it is what I’d recommend all LGBT people do who are finding the journey just too hard and too painful – there is no shame in going somewhere where you will be loved, honoured and cared for properly.  Where your wounds will be dressed, your heart healed and where you will be honoured with dignity and your love celebrated.

    In truth, it is already happening.  Indeed, it has been happening quietly for years, as thousands have left without threats or sabre-rattling, and certainly with no media attention.  Unlike a certain wing of the Church who keep holding their bishops to ransom, saying they will leave, but who rarely seem to actually follow through and go.

    However, there is another reason – if I’m honest with myself – why I stay.

    And that is because this is my home.  It is where my friends and family are, it is where I have have roots and memories.  It is my familiar place that I love.  I do not want to leave for a foreign land, I want to stay where I belong – I just want to be safe in doing so.

    Sadly, there comes a time in any abusive relationship where the realisation dawns that the only way out is to leave, with the vain hope that in doing so the offending party will then reflect on their offensive behaviour.  The trouble with that strategy though is that they are inevitably then left to retraumatise other victims and so the cycle continues.  Which is why so many of us stay and try and change things.

    So, if you’re wondering what to do, I would suggest that you must put your own wellbeing and safety first.  If you are finding things too painful, please do leave and find a refuge – even if it is for a short while, in order to find rest and recuperate.  Easter Saturdays are an inevitable part of the Easter story.

    However, for those who know their calling is to stay and soldier on, please do take care of yourselves and know where your “red lines” lie.  That is, where are the lines that if crossed you will say “enough is enough”, and that you then feel empowered to act on principle – not beaten down into submission, as so often occurs in situations of domestic abuse.

    I am honestly weighing up how near the Church hierarchy’s decisions are getting to my own red lines.  The constant undermining of LGBT people and the lack of progress to create safe environments where we can flourish is astounding.  Maybe soon it will be time for me to act again on my principles – and leave.  We will have to see – God only knows.

  • Independence & Safeguarding: Marking Our Own Homework?

    by Prof Helen King, Professor Emerita in Classical Studies at The Open University and member of Living in Love and Faith project

    The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) issued its final report on the Church of England last autumn. Now, the heat is on, because the deadline for the church’s response to the various recommendations is 22 March.

    That explains a lot. It explains why the document on Independent Safeguarding Structures for the Church of England presented to General Synod last Saturday was only sent out two days before the meeting. It also explains why it has so many typos: I’m all in favour of getting on with sorting out the safeguarding mess, but typos don’t give me much confidence. This document was clearly completed in a rush. The House of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council each had just one week in which to suggest changes. One revealing typo features in a section about how ‘club mentality’ is “exacerbated in an institution where ordination conveys authority which can leads to a culture of clericalism in which challenging the authority of the ordained becomes a kind of spiritual offence”. “Can leads to”? I’m guessing that this started out as “leads to” but someone didn’t like the suggestion that clericalism is an inevitable part of ordination and wanted to add that “can”.

    It’s a good point about how we weaponize the spiritual, but was it right to make that change? Fiona Gardner’s Sex, Power, Control: Responding to Abuse in the Institutional Church (2021) notes how difficult it is to challenge the authority of the ordained. In 2005, while Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser for Bath and Wells, she was shut out by the diocesan hierarchy as it closed ranks to protect itself when the abuse carried out by Rev. David Smith became known. In her words, she was “seen as peripheral (not ordained and female and not, as it turned out, ‘in the know’ about what had been going on)”. Smith’s crimes finally came to public attention in 2007.

    That point about how the hierarchy failed to see someone who was “not ordained” as a peer and a professional is revealing; even more, the combination of being “not ordained” and female. Independent Safeguarding Structures includes a point made by the survivors who worked on the current proposals; namely, that clergy training needs more on “the causes and nature of abuse”. For more on that, again, see Gardner, who uses her psychoanalytical experience to think about how the culture of deference – clericalism – protects abusers. She quotes David Runcorn on the role of boarding school values in shaping abusers: “devotion to the team” but also “distrust of women, suppression of emotion, assumptions of patriarchal and hierarchical social ordering, mocking of any feminine trait in men and minimal empathy for the weak and ordinary”. Can the Church of England name and reject these values?

    I was reminded of boarding school culture again when listening to the presentation on Independent Safeguarding Structures made to General Synod. We were told several times that the aim of a new Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) is to avoid the church “marking its own homework”. The phrase was used by Richard Scorer, representing 21 people abused within the Anglican Church, at the end of his submission on the first day of the public hearings at IICSA, 5 March 2018. It has since featured in media headlines about the Peter Ball abuse case, and after the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral had failed to report a disclosure made to her. It has also appeared in headlines around the inquiry into historic child sex abuse in Scottish football.

    But marking your own homework – self-assessment – is a recognised part of teaching at all levels: here is a 2017 document from Trinity College Dublin. And it can be a very good idea. Assessment has traditionally been something from which students are excluded, so that self-assessment changes the dynamics of power as the teacher becomes a facilitator rather than the mysterious source of grades which determine your future. When I’ve used self-assessment as an educator, I’ve found that students are often harsher when marking themselves; they are more aware of the shortcomings of their own work. Self-assessment helps students to understand how they learn. But – and it’s an important ‘but’ – it requires humility and honesty, and those have been qualities in short supply as the Church of England has covered up abuse.

    Independent Safeguarding Structures is certainly an improvement on the usual unconvincing claims that ‘The church has come a long way…’ or ‘That was the past and it’s all fine now’. In Bishop Jonathan Gibbs’ presentation to Saturday’s Synod, he talked about “things we are not doing well now”. Wording like “Given the church’s past failings and present weaknesses in safeguarding…” is far more realistic. Other good things include the acknowledgement of inconsistency between dioceses on safeguarding arrangements; that it is the “internal cultures of the Church of England which too often have resulted in preventing best practice”; the involvement of survivors and the intention to involve them even more as Phase 2 develops; the realisation that it is at the very least problematic to expect someone to trust the institution through which their abuse took place to provide a fair investigation into what happened to them.

    Bishop Jonathan said that the aim of independent safeguarding is to rebuild trust. It’s clear from the document that they are expecting people to be suspicious; even needing to say how important it is to “demonstrate that the appointment process is not being manipulated in favour of ‘safe’ candidates” shows the basic lack of trust that has resulted from this long and sorry history of failing to deal with abuse, as does the wording that this is a search for “a structure which the church may put in place, but which it cannot frustrate”.

    Will this document be enough to satisfy IICSA? It isn’t clear to me whether the aim of Phase 1 of Independent Safeguarding Structures – an Independent Safeguarding Board – is quite what IICSA had in mind. IICSA specifically asked for Diocesan Safeguarding Officers to be able to make decisions independently of the bishop; the present document envisages them instead appealing to the ISB if “difficulties arise within the diocese which compromise their effectiveness”.

    Even if it is enough, we can’t abdicate all responsibility to an independent body. In some ways, we are still going to need to mark our own homework. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it requires not just honesty, but self-knowledge. Marking our own homework can be part of our reflection on how we are doing. Every one of us needs to be aware of our role in preventing abuse. Renaming safeguarding ‘training’ as safeguarding ‘learning’ – something else mentioned on Saturday – isn’t enough.

    As for those who have already suffered at the hands of church abusers, listening, repentance and redress must be prioritized.

  • When You are Not Invited to the Table

    by Augustine Tanner-Ihm is an African-American activist, writer, speaker who recently trained for the Anglican ministry at Cranmer Hall, St. John’s College, Durham, and now a Doctoral Student in Leadership, Culture, and Practical Theology at Bakke Graduate University.  

    In many American Christian homes, families throughout the 50 states and territories traditionally leave an extra chair and plate at the dinner table. Strangely these extra knife, fork and spoon were rarely, if ever, used as this extra place at the table was designed for Jesus, himself. This is culturally designed to show honour while also being human-led by the privilege of having daily bread.

    This extra place at the table is to show welcome and hospitality to Jesus but also to whoever may show up. At the table, everyone is disarmed and equalized. This is probably why Jesus and the Christian biblical authors use this metaphor many times in the Greek Scriptures.

    What happens when you are invited to the table but there is no place for you there? You arrive with your best clothes and a bottle of wine and there is no one greeting you at the door. No one offering you a fresh cuppa. Or even saying your name. Many people would argue that you should be grateful that you even received an invitation at all. You feel rejected, despised, or worst forsaken.

    As A Black Queer Christian, this has been my experience at many tables. It is also the experience of many marginalised people who do not fit into the majority narrative. “Sorry, we are Closed” signs from the Church have been unintended and (at times intendedly) communicated to me and people like me. Therefore, I have tried to use the right knife and fork, so to speak. I have tried to rid myself of any hint of blackness. Change the way I think, speak, walk, and dress to be accepted. I tried to date women with utter failure. I went through reparative therapy in a charismatic Anglican church to be right with the church and respectfully, accepted fully by God. I prayed and prayed, and nothing happened. I wanted to be loved and accepted by God and the Church, I was willing to give up everything. After all, isn’t that what the gospel is calling us to do? To be accepted at the table I must rid myself of my blackness and my queerness, right? But to what? To Whiteness and straightness? Aren’t these just as broken as anything other human identities construct?

    This month we celebrate the lives of black folk that has made a significant influence in the US and around the world we celebrate LGBTQIA+ History Month. Two communities I am apart of and only recently I have been happy to be a part of. These two communities have historically been asked to eat the crumbs under the table in the cold winter’s night, while others eat at the banquet table. We celebrate communities that could not celebrate themselves. And even today many people find the idea of celebrating these communities divisive. When centuries of generational trauma continue it becomes difficult to align yourself with something or someone that is instilled that is immoral, disgusting and just wrong.

    This week I watched Russell T. Davies’ It is a Sin, which was a fictional drama about the Aids epidemic in the 1980s in London. This was eye-opening to many people especially younger queer people in the community. I watched as a character named Roscoe was rejected by the family he loved because of his sexuality and their faith tradition, who even wanted to send him away “back home” to Africa. I watched as Christians and the church used a virus that disproportionately affects gay men to preach hate and sometimes violence. It was difficult to watch how the church treated the same gender loving relationships, particularly as someone who desires to be ordained. I recently read an article from 1982 entitled: “I would shoot my mum if she had AIDS, says Vicar”. And another about “AIDS’s is the Wrath of God” from another Vicar. The last article I read was even worse: “GAS GAYS SAYS TORY: Answer to Aids”.

    I wasn’t born until 1990, therefore I have no lived experience from the 1980s of how the queer community was treated. However, I had two family members die of Aids and was scared to tell people because of the stigma of the virus. Therefore, I respect and honour so many older queer people who are still around and especially those who are still involved in the Church. This must have been extremely difficult to have as part of their lived experience, and indeed somewhat still part of their present, as it relates to their relationships and gender identity.

    Growing up in the American Midwest we played a game called, “Smear the Queer”.

    The game started when the object is thrown into the air. Players may either snatch the object out of the air or wait until it lands. If the object lands, the person closest to it MUST pick it up. Once a player is in possession of the object, they try not to get tackled. Once tackled, the object is thrown into the air (or at a particular person) and the game starts over again. Play usually ends when everyone is tired or when someone gets hurt. This game was played in my youth group and was a clear understanding that being queer was outside our welcome. The queer was a person that it was okay to hurt through voice or fist.

    While listening to stories of the Windrush people being rejected from church services and called savages by the very people that had the conviction of the imago dei . Many Black folks I know have nothing but disdain for the Church of England. Even some Black clergy believe it to be “Babylon” (the place where evil flourishes outside of God’s will) or worst believe its leadership are mere imperial masters dressed in cassocks with Union Flags underneath. This felt very true when my dear brother and partner in the Gospel of Jesus, Father Jarel Robinson -Brown was bullied by many people around the UK. There was a call for unity but as we know from the Hebrew scriptures there is not unity with injustice. The Anglican expression of Christianity, in which I love and devoted all of my 20’s to full-time unpaid work, let down many Black Anglicans that have entrusted them with their gifts, talents and lives. For, my White Anglicans and Episcopalians in our great Anglican Communion, you must remember Unity and reconciliation follow justice, not the other way around! And people of this Anglican Jesus movement, we must allow and accept the prophets of the church. Prophets are rarely ever loved and are often rejected. But we know through the Scriptures that prophets sent by God to speak to God’s people were there for righteousness not for their own glory. It is always a path of sacrifice over glory for any prophet: “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church”.

    The invitation to the table is a transformative one. Jesus invited you as you are but does not want you to stay that way. He desires you to become more holy through love and worship of him. That is what sanctification is all about. But that does not mean we ought to reject others. Rejection is receiving the crumbs under the table. Rejection is giving your son a rock instead of bread when he is hungry (Matt 7:9). Rejection is being invited to the table only to realise you are not invited but what the person wants you to be is invited. That is not what being a part of this Jesus Movement that Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church is speaking about. Being a part of the Jesus Movement is not staying silent because staying silence in oppression means you remain controlled, and not controlled by the spirit but the flesh. Dean Kelly Brown Douglas speaks of the church that is not yet there. This church that is aspirational.

    We are trying to be a church, but we are not there yet. This aspirational venture of trying to be church flows to its invitation of the other. The other is the one who is being crucified.  And we are a part of that daily crucifixion of the Queer and Black folk among us. Each day they come to serve but the church continues to crucify them asking “why you are not satisfied with the crumbs, you have been given?”

    The Church must be a people that walk with the crucified people of the earth- not act as the arbiters of injustices! The Church cannot be the one that crucifies the helpless but rather needs to be the one to wipe away the human tears of the world’s injustice, foreshadowing for humanity the eschaton. And as Christians, we should only be controlled by the Spirit of God, not man. This actively demonstrates that the invitation that God is asking for the Church to extend to all people is not based on their personhood but on them being sacred children of God.

    We must welcome people to the table and do as Jesus tells us in the gospel according to Luke – when welcoming people into the banquet, welcome everyone. Not just the people like you, but the marginalised people in society. Remember Jesus welcomed Judas to the table with open arms. He did not confront him with differences, but rather showed compassion and loved him. Just as we should.

    Welcome to the crucified amongst us!

  • LLF – Has There Been a Murder?

    by the Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham, Member of General Synod and Trustee of the Ozanne Foundation 

    Has there been a murder or at least death by misadventure?

    Has Covid -19 killed Living in Love and Faith?

    We are in the middle of a global plague. People we love are dying. We have no idea how resilient churches will be in terms of attendance or finance. Where have our children gone?

    Big stuff is going on.

    Living in Love and Faith always was ill-conceived. It was attempting to speak into a dilemma that no longer existed even before Covid.

    In the reality of today’s world a vanishingly small number of people want pick this scab. It’s over. Living in Love and Faith has died a death and we ‘d best give it a quiet burial.

    Last week Bishop Paul Bayes wrote a really moving tribute to Bill Kirkpatrick. Fr Bill actually died three years ago but the deep thoughts and feelings that Bishop Paul expressed were stirred by the TV series ‘It’s a Sin’ which traced the story of AIDS. The cruelty and judgement thoughtlessly inflicted on gay men as AIDS claimed so many lives is agony to watch. Fr Bill walked alongside those who were ill and dying and he listened and reached out, and he prayed.

    It leaves you wondering if things have changed.  Thankfully that answer is mostly yes. Society is far from perfect but for the vast majority of people being gay is just one of a variety of ways in which human beings are made and even folk who can’t quite get their heads around it because of the era in which they grew up want to treat it as private and personal. They’d rather not talk about it; live and let live.

    If you are in sport it can be tougher, but nowhere other than the church is your sexuality open game for public discussion.

    Of course there are Christians who genuinely feel this is the issue to go to the wall for, but there is an important piece of learning I’ve acquired as I’ve explored how the church can move into an era of full acceptance. One remarkable bishop that +Alan and I spoke to once he was retired talked about the cost of bringing about change. It had indeed cost him dear in many ways and we asked him what he’d do differently. He reflected that the greatest mistake he made was spending too much time and effort of the extreme conservative lobby. This sounds harsh, but as you unpack it there is sense in this. There are a group of people who live their faith believing they and others are teetering on the cliff edge of hell, and no one can sadly alter the fact that daring to change their attitude to being gay risks tipping them over the edge into eternal fire.

    Unlimited discussions around Living in Love and Faith cannot possibly change this conviction -and such Christians will only engage on the basis of proving they are right.

    We need to let go. To say ‘so be it.’ It must be pretty grim to frame your faith in a loving God that way.

    The time for continuing with conversations which almost no-one wants, as a way of stopping doing what is right, is over.

    I’ll name it:  Well-intentioned though it might have been (and I’m not even convinced about that) – it’s over! Living in Love and Faith landed in the midst of a global pandemic and turned out to be – let’s put it kindly – a chocolate teapot!

    We have always had a way forward. It’s as if Paul saw this coming. Romans 14 is crystal clear. It was the usual bust up about what was morally right to eat. Paul tells them it’s not really the food or the possible idolatry that matters, it’s the judging one another.

    As people of faith we are called respect the integrity of other people’s conscience. The key is in not judging -and therefore not controlling. We got there in the end with the re-marriage of divorcees. Finding a place where there is mutual respect of conscience on this matter could be the key.

    I hear that it is proving very difficult to find LLF champions for the proposed discussions around the country. Maybe this speaks for itself. I have yet to meet anyone who would turn up to such a group. Gay people themselves have had years and years of generous and self-revelatory discussions. Often they have suffered abuse in that context and it is completely unreasonable to expect yet another round of such nonsense. Most people in our churches have friends or family members who are gay and they simply love them. It’s no longer a big deal, but they really, really don’t want to discuss it in public.

    A lot of resource, financial and personal has gone into the construction of LLF. Senior people are heavily invested in it. I get that.

    So I am asking for a grown up act of courage. Stop pretending. LLF has died.

    Bury it.

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    Thank you for your response. ✨