ViaMedia

Category: Sexual Abuse

  • 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.

  • Secrecy and an Unaccountable Church of England

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

    Honestly, it drives me mad!

    When I first became a member of General Synod over ten years ago I was very taken with the idea that anyone could ask a question and the person responsible for that area of church life would be required to reply both to the question and the supplementary. It looked to me like a way of ensuring accountability. 

    What I quickly discovered is that it’s actually a game of manners in which carefully briefed bishops very effectively shut down any probing or awkward questions. There are basically variants of three answers: ‘This is work in progress’; ‘We don’t collect that data’; ‘It’s confidential.’

    It mirrors the whole world of General Synod which, apart from the odd little rush of blood to the head, is very carefully managed to create the illusion of accountability without the reality.

    So yes!  It makes me mad. So much so that I’m not going to stand again. It has, however, got me thinking about accountability as a Christian concept.

    In February 2020 I asked the following question: “In the light of a figure of £200 million mentioned by Bishop Peter Hancock to survivors, how much money has actually been allocated in the AC or CC budget this year and next, specifically for the care and restorative justice of survivors of clergy abuse?” 

    The reply was that they were working on it and waiting for the IICSA report to tell them what to do! Not even a hint of any figures and zero accountability.

    However…..

    John Spence, the chair of the finance committee was clearly deeply moved and memorably spoke from the floor promising that funds would be found for compensation payments, saying: “This is not about affordability, it is about justice. Justice cannot have a different value depending on the finances of this or that diocese. Whatever we are told is required … for redress, then those funds will be found,”

    So, is this actually happening? Can we hold even the revered John Spence to account?

    In the absence of any figures whatsoever Dr Josephine Stein used her research skills to put together an educated estimate. The opening sentence of the Church Times article about her work says it all: ‘Survivors of abuse in a church context receive about £55,000 in redress in from the Church of England out of an estimated £20 million spent on safeguarding annually.’ (CT 19.08.2020)

    It would seem that John Spence’s pockets were not that deep after all. Survivors are still on the bread line. They are unable to work, have exhausted their life savings and are still given a poxy £500 upper limit for counselling after life changing trauma.

    There are no other ways we lesser mortals can ask the Church of England to follow through with its promises – that’s why it drives me mad.

    The really interesting thing, once you start thinking about it, is that accountability should be an attitude of life – a cast of the heart. There are all sorts of legal backstops to ensure financial accountability. People make it their life’s work and call themselves “accountants” after all! Genuine accountability is far more to do with the nature of the relationship you think you have with others. I hold myself accountable to my husband, to my family, because I love them. We consider one another equal and would not abuse power or money. If one of us messed up we’d try and fix it and be genuinely sorry. This requires truth telling and openness and transparency not secrecy and silence.

    Whilst writing this blog a rather excellent MA thesis landed on my desk. It’s about the use of Non Disclosure Agreements in Religious Institutions. Ben Nicholson successfully demonstrates that: ‘NDAs actively prevent transparency, truthfulness, accountability, reconciliation and restored relationships through a combination of intimidation and enforced silence.’ They also, he continues: ‘discriminate in favour of the powerful, enabling them to avoid being held accountable for wrongdoing and require the complicity of other powerful people.’

    I recognise that. When I asked about the Church of England’s use of NDAs the reply was: “We can’t tell you that – it’s secret!”

    So yes!  It drives me mad!

    It doesn’t need to be like that! As Bishop’s chaplain I have been to more licensing services than I care to remember, when a new person is legally made the vicar of a parish. To this day I am struck afresh by a particular moment, after the bishop has read out the terms of the license, when the piece of paper is handed over from the bishop to the priest with the words ‘receive the cure of souls which is both yours and mine….’ And Bishop Alan always says: ‘I hold myself as accountable to you as you are to me. The scripture teaches mutual accountability…….’ 

    Experience tell me that is not a common attitude.

    What’s more Scripture  teaches us that we are accountable to God through one another. The way we treat one another is the litmus test of the authenticity of our faith.

    As we hold our breath for the “Living in Love and Faith” document whose genesis has also been shrouded in secrecy, can we expect something different? Will the authors hold themselves as accountable to the LGBTI+ members of our Church as they do the powerful conservative lobby!?

    Unaccountable power is dangerous. To sustain it there needs to be secrecy. However, it won’t last forever for: ‘Things hidden will become clear and every secret thing will be made known.’ (Luke 8.17)  

    Secrecy and accountability can’t co-exist.

  • We Can’t Go Back….to Power Games & Inequality

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

    Rosie Haarper

    In France, apparently, one of the biggest worries about lockdown was how single Parisienne women would cope: all alone in a small flat and no partner. No dates, no secret affairs, no sex. All the assumptions were that these women would go into melt down. The framework of their lives and their relationships had been undone – it would not end well.

    Turns out many young single women in France have loved the shutdown. All the hectic man- (or woman-) pleasing internal drivers had been challenged. They enjoyed freedom from the pressure to have sex, they swapped sophistication for simplicity, they got in touch with how to be self contained and not dependent their partner. To everyone’s surprise it is OK – more than OK, it is very good.

    It is possible that as we emerge from isolation some of this self discovery will remain and the young single French woman will have a better life.

    This tale is an example of what Richard Rohr describes in The Wisdom Pattern as the process we are always experiencing in life, but which is technicolour at the moment: Order, Disorder, Reorder.

    Order is the pattern we thought we knew. The familiar. Some of us loved it, some of us found it had dark and controlling elements that needed change, but it was what we knew. It was life as we had learnt to live it.

    Then came the big Disorder. Present joys became past memories. Of course we fear it. Not just for the physical danger, but because it feels like anarchy. It teeters on the edge of chaos, of total melt down. We fear getting sucked into a vortex of unknowing.

    Let’s be honest here; both in society and within the Church at large we were already struggling. Struggling with the age of Quantum Physics where what we thought was linear and certain was, it transpires, nothing of the sort.

    Mystery, not knowing, holding multiple truths – all this was stretching our religious imagination. Around the edges interesting thinkers were rediscovering ineffable, unknowable layers of faith, whilst at the centre some pretty desperate measures were being taken to sure up the literal against the flow away from certainty .

    Now of course everything is virtual. Even the bread and wine. We shouldn’t be surprised. Pentecost tells us the virtual world is vibrant and powerful. Jesus is very much with us but we can’t see or touch him.

    This period of Disorder might be all sorts of things. It’s too soon to tell. What we can see is that the biggest mistake the church made in its response to Covid-19 was rooted in fear of chaos.

    As a society we have a contract with one another. We elect leaders who make decisions which some like and some dislike, but mostly we obey even the rules we think are mistaken. So our Government tells us what to do, and although we are not all confident that the best decisions are being made we abide by the rules.

    In the Church of England it seems our leaders thought the church worked this way too.

    Mimicking the Government they issued rules and regulations, forgetting that their relationship with their flock is different. They do not rule over us, but rather are shepherds whose calling is to offer hope and inner depth and strength through our faith in God.

    A bewildered nation expected words of lament, of comfort, of inspiration. Alas, although they were there, they got drowned out by the micro-management of Church buildings. We actually only needed to be told to apply the same rules as everyone else!

    So it fell to the local to inhabit the Disorder and it has done so in many wonderful ways. The edges between church and community got lovely and smudgy and people lived their faith by loving and helping one another. Some may think virtual services are a bit naff and amateurish but they are rather gloriously filled with heart and courage.

    Well, one day we will realise that the era of Covid-19 has passed. A Reordering has happened. Most people will want to go back to how it was before but of course that cannot be.

    I can tell you how I would like the new order to look. How I would love the church to be where every human being is loved and valued equally. Where anyone who was in any way different from the majority need never fear rejection or judgement from other Christians. I would love to see the choking tendrils of power, politics, entitlement, the class system to be unwrapped from around the heart of the Church of England. Where those who had been abused received loving care and just restoration. I would love to see us less obsessed by ourselves and more obsessed by our neighbour. As you might imagine I could go on…….

    What I think will happen is that we will make every good effort to carry on as before – and slowly the truth will emerge. The financial model, already strained to breaking point will prove unsustainable. Quite possibly the church in every parish model is bust. The trust of the people in a National Church, already horribly compromised by its internal moral failure to treat LGBTI+ people, women or abuse survivors honourably is gone forever and its place on the national and political stage will be seriously challenged.

    There will need to be a journey, probably accelerated by this crisis, which will involve letting go of a model of the Church of England which was probably always a fantasy anyway.

    I would like to think that a leaner, healthier, more equal community will emerge – a church that is much closer to the poorest, most marginalised in our society. More present in housing estates across the country and less bound up in Bishop’s palaces and London clubs.

    I don’t think this is impossible, indeed God could well be in this new destination. I fear, however, that for many, it will hurt like hell to get there.

  • Trauma & Tragedy in Congregations & Communities

    by the Revd Hilary Ison, Project Team Member for Trauma and Tragedy in Congregations

    Hilary Ison

    The local church often finds itself at the centre of response in situations of tragedy and trauma, ‘opening the doors’ of the church for refuge for frontline responders, providing sacred space for gathering and vigil, or providing practical support and supplies for the local community.

    In order to help understand how best to equip churches to deal with this the Templeton World Charities Foundation agreed to fund a three year project led by Professor Christopher Southgate, to research how best to prepare and train ministers to lead congregations in times of tragedy and trauma.  The small project team, of which I am pleased to be a part, brought together various specialisms: the Bible and Trauma, Christian theodicy, practical and pastoral theology, and embodied and systemic approaches to ministry.  As such we have been able to offer various training days and have published a book (for more info www.tragedyandcongregations.org.uk).

    It seems now more than ever it is important to understand how we respond in situations of trauma so we can help each other navigate our way through these uncharted waters.

    At the start of the lock-down stage in Britain our project team therefore gathered virtually (!) with other specialists in trauma studies to think about how the learning from our project applied to the Covid-19 crisis.  This resulted in a short document (see below), which was produced with ministers in mind, but can be used by anyone in leadership.

    Before reading it, it is important to remember that we are in it for the long haul with this present Covid-19 crisis.  We will need to build new things, new ways of being and of doing, new understandings and connections as we emerge from trauma.

    The thoughts that follow are offered to help navigate this process:

    Thoughts for Ministers during the First Phase of the Coronavirus Crisis

    We are offering these out of the work of a three-year project on trauma and tragedy in Christian congregations.

    First thought: context is everything.
    You will know better than anyone else how your particular community is likely to react.

    Second: this is a trauma to communities, the nation, the world.
    It’s not a shock-event like a fire or a terrorist attack, but slowly there has built, and is still worsening, a crisis that shatters people’s assumptions that the world is generally safe and reliable, and that all that we have worked for in businesses, churches and communities will be fruitful.  The loss of those assumptions, the breaking of connections between people, and the overwhelming of people’s ordinary resources – all of these are characteristic of trauma.

    Some of the wisdom that has been gained about trauma recently can help us:

    1. People’s whole selves are affected – they may feel all sorts of strange symptoms because the body is reacting to the fact that they are not safe. Emotions will be all over the place in surprising ways. Concentration may be difficult. Sharing this information – that it is normal to be up, down, energetic, exhausted, afraid – will help people to cope with it.
    2. People react very differently depending on different backgrounds and experiences, including past traumas.
    3. People respond best when they have clear, reliable information; when they have something to do – ‘agency’ of some sort; and when they are cared for in warm and authentic ways. Even phone calls can be reassuring.
    4. We make sense of things by being able to integrate the experience into an overarching story. But it is much too soon to assemble a coherent narrative out of all this. Even the process of meaningfully gathering together to lament what has been lost is very hard. The trauma is unfolding and there are many losses yet unrevealed

    Community responses to disaster typically show a ‘heroic phase’, full of energy and self-sacrifice, which burns itself out and is followed by a ‘disillusionment phase’, which may contain much mutual blame and suspicion. Only as the disillusionment phase loses its force can realistic, hopeful re-making take place.

    Many of the responses in communities can be celebrated and affirmed. It is worth ministers thinking about what, over and above the generous and heroic actions of many in the secular world, Christian story and practice can contribute. That is particularly true in this time approaching Holy Week and Easter. Public worship may be suspended, but these great transformative moments in the whole human story need some sort of marking.

    Lastly and in a way most importantly, this is a very confusing and draining time, a time when ordinary healthy rhythms are lost.  Trauma professionals are disoriented!

    You may be feeling in yourself and your body the impact of trauma – feeling low and anxious one day and hard to get your brain in gear, energetic the next, and all at a time when clergy are needing to be creative and adaptive in their approach. So self-care, attending to your own well-being, is vital. That includes the basics of good rest, eating, and exercise. It also includes having people you trust whom you can share with, and making sure you are in touch with them.

    With warmest wishes for every blessing in this strange time,

    Christopher Southgate, Carla Grosch-Miller and Hilary Ison, Tragedies and Christian Congregations Project 

    Download this Summary Sheet

    Tragedies and Christian Congregations ed. Megan Warner et al is published by Routledge
    and is available from c.c.b.southgate@ex.ac.uk for £20 plus postage.

     

     

     

     

  • The Whitewashing of Spiritual Leaders – Is Vanier Like Weinstein?

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

    Rosie Haarper

    It is old news now. As it broke there was a surprising amount of interest in the media about the finding that Jean Vanier was a serial abuser. Multiple articles in secular and religious press, Thought for the Day on R4, thousands of words were written as people processed the information. Vanier was the founder of L’Arche an international federation of communities for people with disabilities and those whom work with them. He was, for many, a spiritual giant.

    We heard about Jean Vanier on February 22nd and two days later Harvey Weinstein was convicted of two counts of sexual assault.

    Vanier abused at least 6 women over a period of 35 years. Weinstein also abused women, eighty women lodged complaints, over a period of at least 30 years. Vanier abused through spiritual and emotional power, gaining control over women via their faith. Weinstein abused his power as the most influential producer in Hollywood, controlling women’s career and reputation.

    On the surface these are not dramatically different cases. Surely both men were abusive b**tards?

    However the stories didn’t unfold that way.

    There was zero compassion or understanding for Weinstein. Identified in the red-hot period of the ‘#MeToo’ movement he has come to represent the archetypal abusive male. The women who had been abused took centre stage and were praised for their courage in disclosing what happened and pursuing it to the end. He is now in jail with a 29 year sentence which may well be extended after the California case is concluded.

    The response to Vanier was different. Firstly, he is dead. Such was his power that those he abused didn’t succeed, if indeed they tried, to get a criminal case underway. Secondly the response, at least in the religious press has been very much about the pain of the people who were not the primary victims. The headline in The Tablet ‘The truth that breaks your heart.’

    Giles Fraser: ‘A few days ago, the l’Arche community published a report, the result of an internal inquiry, in which Jean Vanier was exposed as a sexual predator. And I have been reeling from it ever since. The sense of disappointment is crushing. I don’t want to write about it. I’m not sure how to write about it. I feel I have to write about it.’

    Revd Dr Sam Wells: “I don’t have a lot of heroes, but Jean Vanier was one of them. Near the top of the list. It turns out that while he was doing so many beautiful and true things, he was also doing many deeply ugly and profoundly shameful things.” Sam goes on to be very realistic about the abuse and doesn’t do a white wash job at all – his is an excellent article, but even he manages to put his own personal hero worship into the mix.

    The survivor’s voices are not heard.

    There may be many quite understandable reasons for this, but it immediately reminded me of the many, many years when survivors were talked about but never heard in the CofE.

    The other strand of reaction is about L’Arche. There is rightly a separation between Vanier and the work of the communities, but there is also a primary concern for its reputation and indeed its very survival. This again is highly reminiscent of the CofE’s response to abuse cases within its own institution.

    For me the image that encapsulates this is the weeping apology. The survivor has every right to weep, but when the apology comes with tears it deflects attention and even sympathy from the truly needy person onto the apologist and the institution.

    How about we don’t mess around with all this subtle spiritual stuff at all? All the waffle about how we are all fallen, and about how much good even a sinner can do when blessed by God. How about it we have the courage to treat Weinstein and Vanier the same?

    They are both creepy abusive b**tards who have done grave personal damage to people who trusted them. We may even at some level be able to forgive them although that surely is the business of their victims, but lets not pretend that a holy abuser is any less gross than an unholy one.

    I’m not convinced that after all this time we ‘get’ safeguarding.

    We still resist truly independent scrutiny. L’Arche, to their credit, did not mark their own homework . We still talk about survivors far more than we talk with them. We still make them feel as if they are the enemy when they turn to the Church for help. We still moan and groan about the training we have to do.

    Instead of calling safeguarding ‘the bane of my life’ as one bishop reportedly did, lets strain every nerve and sinew to ensure that we never again have to talk about the scale of abuse that either Weinstein or Vanier were able to perpetrate.

    WATCH HERE – Canon Rosie Harper gave a memorable speech on Safeguarding at General Synod in February 2020, which received sustained applause.

  • The Darkness Within…

    by the Revd Canon Simon Butler, Prolocutor for the Province of Canterbury

    Simon Butler

    Some years ago I had the unenviable task of preaching a sermon to a congregation shortly after a member of the church had been arrested for alleged offences against a teenager in that congregation. The sermon would have been tough enough to preach had it not been for the fact that, after being released from prison where he had been remanded, the alleged abuser took his own life.

    He was a lovely man and he lived in many ways an exemplary Christian life. He was kind, thoughtful and with real gifts. He was a natural evangelist. And yet, as I had to acknowledge in the sermon, that there was also a darkness that was part of his make-up, something that perhaps he didn’t or couldn’t acknowledge or face until matters we brought to a head by his arrest. You can imagine the complexity of the feelings of those gathered at his Requiem, myself included: horror at what it was alleged he had done, anger at what he had done by virtue of his suicide and the further abuse perpetrated on those he had already harmed once, deep sadness that a much-loved person had died in such a way, guilt that we had let him down and not been there. It was one of the hardest sermons I’ve ever preached, and I think, one of the most important.

    I recalled this as I listened to a tearful member of General Synod express her feelings about what Reverend Jonathan Fletcher is said to have done to those in his care in and around his congregation at Emmanuel, Wimbledon in my own diocese. The speaker is someone who I disagree with profoundly on many issues, including the place of LGBT+ members of the Church, but in this moment I felt a deep empathy, as she spoke so movingly about what she had learned from this dreadful experience. And I felt it again myself, as the news broke over the weekend about the report prepared about the abuse committed by the late Jean Vanier against women with whom he was in a pastoral relationship.

    These three men were very different, but it would appear that they shared a common fault, which could be characterised as a dark blind-spot in their psyches, which allowed them to act as they did, turning a blind eye to the imbalance of power in the relationships they had with their victims, which allowed them to justify – mostly to themselves – their abusive actions. When a person is a respected or even revered leader – whether in a local church, or across a tradition – it is vital to hold yourself accountable, never to be above challenge or contradiction, above all to be self-aware of the potential in yourself for your own blind spots to be the source of harm and hurt to others.

    About ten days ago, I received an email from someone who was very angry with me. He spoke of me (because I advocate a progressive view on human sexuality) as someone who was “prepared to see the Church split and destroyed” (his words, not mine) and of someone else “providing fuel for those who hate the Church and the Christian faith.” Reading these words in the cold light of an email made them seem particularly dark, harmful and revealing. They were the sort of words I don’t think I could ever speak to another Christian.

    But, I ask myself, what is the darkness in me that I cannot see that he can? Am I really that different to Jonathan Fletcher, Jean Vanier and my anonymous late friend?

    To be sure, I cannot imagine myself taking the sort of advantage of another in the way they reportedly did, but that is not the only potential to harm we possess. How do those of us who take strong positions on LGBT+ matters – and on other matters that divide opinion in the Church – how do we ensure that we hold our views with conviction, integrity and passion, without ever allowing the unacknowledged, unseen darkness in us to leach out into our conduct or behaviour towards others? Is it even possible? Or are we condemned to inflict this sort of harm on one another, whether for the sake of advocating for LGBT+ people, or for the sake of biblical truth? Does it have to be a zero sum game?

    On Wednesday morning I shall be in church with others receiving the sign of ashes. I shall – with abusers and victims, with angry correspondents, with those who long for a more truly biblical approach to human sexuality, and with those who fear that we are about to throw the bible out of the window – I shall stand before the judgement seat of God in prayer, and connect with a proper assessment of the darkness within, and with a merciful, long-suffering, forgiving God. I shall hear the words of forgiveness, and I shall resolve to try and live that forgiveness more fully. And so will many of you.

    We all carry unacknowledged darkness. We wound one another, usually ignorantly, sometimes deliberately, occasionally criminally.

    God give us strength and courage to see the darkness within, to face it in all its awful reality, to allow ourselves to be accountable and to do all that we can to avoid the harm that it can so easily cause.

     

  • General Synod: The Highs & Lows

    by the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

    david-walker

    The General Synod of the Church of England, which I’ve been attending most of this last week, is a body that attracts its fair share of criticism. Its internal debates can seem far away from the reality of normal church life, let alone the lives we live in our neighbourhoods and communities. And when it turns its hand to commenting on matters of public concern, the queue of members lining up to repeat exactly the same points that several previous speakers have made, but simply with their own personal anecdotes, soon becomes woefully tedious. However, it can also be a place where decisions are made that provide both a moral underpinning and a structured framework for the mission and ministry to which we believe God has called us.

     In those respects, this Synod was like most synods.

    The draft Cathedrals Measure may not sound the most exciting piece of business ever thought of, and the details of what we agreed at its Revision Stage need not detain us, rather it was an example of what a good legislative process looks like. A complex and interconnected series of recommendations, given a fair wind by Synod last year, had been subject to thorough scrutiny, involving all the major stakeholder groups, and only then brought back for us to revise. The care with which the work had been done outside the chamber, and not only in the formal meetings of the Revision Committee, made our task far more straightforward. Voices had clearly been heard, and there had been none of the preciousness that can lead to a proposed change being rejected simply because it stands at variance with the original proposals. Cathedrals are a vital part of our life, showcasing what the Church of England can do, and working closely with the cities in which they stand. A good legal framework will help then to flourish and serve us in the years ahead.

    We also had a good and important debate about Safeguarding. Not only were we able to show the progress being made against the five specific recommendations put to us so far by IICSA, we also got to see the incoming lead bishop in action, presenting an overwhelmingly supported amendment that commits us to a deeper engagement with survivors, and to backing up our words with action. As with cathedrals, the key to doing well will be working together, with all parties fully involved both within and beyond formal meetings. I look forward to taking part in something that won’t be without pain and struggle but which can get us all to a better place. We will do the work before deciding the results.

    And then the careful work, led and presented by the former Bishop of London, into where exactly the Channel Islands fitinto our structures, showed equal diligence in spending time and effort, over several years, in bringing all the interested parties to a common and agreed mind. What could have been a messy piece of legislation, with all its stages required over four consecutive days, passed smoothly on its way.

    My hopes for the Living in Love and Faith process, for which we received a short update on progress and a slightly oddly structured Q&A session, lie chiefly in that unlike previous expeditions into the territory of relationships, identity and sexuality, there has been a deep involvement, both formally and informally, with the rich diversity of scholarship, science and human experience contained within our Church. However, the nature of the exercise has meant that whilst consultation has ranged very widely, draft texts have not been circulated for comment beyond the group itself and the bishops. That inevitably means that there are levels of both fear and suspicion among Synod members, lest the published document be judged slanted in either a conservative or liberal direction. Hence, I believe that the big challenge, for both the team writing the LLF document and those of us in the House of Bishops who will see the next draft in March, is to affirm our diversity in words that will allow all us in the Church to see that we are being offered space to live and flourish, alongside those with whom we disagree deeply, in one body. The book won’t mandate a particular change programme, but it must resource and support us in forming the change proposals we will need, within a fixed time frame. And that process will need to be open and transparent.

    The less satisfactory aspects of Synod were where we departed from that methodology of doing careful and inclusive work beforehand, seeking to find and build the best consensus, before then presenting matters to Synod.

    I’d hoped theEnvironment debatewould be a highlight, and in some ways it was. We heard passionate pleas for the Church to work to eliminate its carbon footprint. My one speech in the chamber this time was to support an amendment from the chair of the Finance Committee to set up the structures we will need to produce robust intermediate targets, identify specific solutions and oversee the work well. The crucial issue of selecting the year by which all this will be achieved was moved from a perhaps under-ambitious 2045 to a date of 2030. Whatever ones views on the urgency of the climate crisis, it felt unsatisfactory that this was achieved through an amendment which was decided after less than ten minutes debate, by a majority of 15, with a turnout that meant fewer than a third of Synod members voted in favour of it. Many, I suspect, were caught in the tea room, not having expected a close vote. 2030 maybe the right year, but the process felt flawed. Something that is too often the case with matters we decide at a single sitting.

    Finally, to Question Time. At its best this is a highlight of Synod, and the move to having initial answers written has given space for more questions to be asked and more supplementaries to be put. It should be where chairs of committees and councils, who are often senior bishops, are held to account for the work the bodies they lead are doing. Sadly (indeed, I’d go further and say shamefully) it seems of late to be evolving into more of a blood sport. The aim of some questioners is at best to score partisan points and at worst to inflict maximum damage on the person put up to answer. We need accountability from our leaders, but we need to hold ourselves accountable for the way in which we exercise that accountability. Unless the minority who are presently abusing Question Time can curb their behaviour, it must be in doubt as to whether it can survive in its current form. That will be a pity, but better to have a pity than to let it degenerate into an unedifying and embarrassing circus.

    I fear I’ve laboured the theme, but it matters.

    What makes for a good Synod item is not simply the force of the arguments, the passion in the room, or the eloquence of the speakers on the day. It’s that whatever is brought to us has been properly discussed, and even better co-designed and co-produced, with all those who hold a significant stake in its outcome, so that everyone can fully own and exercise their part in the process.

  • Love, Sex, Hypocrisy & Power

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

    Jayne Ozanne new

    Abridged version of speech to William Temple Association, Bournemouth given on February 3rd 2020 and reported in The Guardian

    Most of you, I’m sure, will be more than aware of the events of the last few weeks when we have had pronouncements by men (and, of course, a few women) in power in the Church of England regarding the place of sex in a loving relationship for those with seemingly little or no power in the Church.  The House of Bishops’ rather ironically named “Pastoral Statement” coldly set out the supposedly immutable fact that “sexual relationships outside of marriage fall short of God’s purposes for human beings”, just don’t tell the Holy Spirit, Mary and of course, Joseph.  (Brackets, the Holy Spirit did tell Joseph, but that’s another story).  And so, in one spectacular move we managed virtually overnight to upset millions whose lives do not conform to the way that those in religious power in our Church believe that they should.

    Similarly, we have had a week where two seemingly all-powerful men – Prince Andrew and Harvey Weinstein – have been publicly questioned about what their victims claim were abusive sexual relationships, based on fear and power. Both of course, like Jack Profumo in his famous speech in the House of Commons, deny all such charges.  To which, I can’t help reminding myself of the infamous words of Mandy Rice Davies when informed in court about the denial of Lord Astor to her claims of an affair: “Well he would, wouldn’t he!”.

    Love, sex and power.

    You see, abuse is rife in our Church – and what makes me so angry is that it is so often perpetrated by the very people who pronounce from their pulpits the very same words stated in the House of Bishops’ “pastoral statement” – that sex is for marriage between a man and a woman.

    This, for me, goes to the heart of the issue.  The deep levels of hypocrisy that exist amongst certain church leaders – and I for one want to say, enough!

    I believe it’s time to end this hypocritical charade.  It’s time for some honesty and some plain straight speaking.  Quite frankly, it’s time now for some remorse and where necessary, apologies with real commitments to change.

    I am surely not alone in being angered at hearing people pronounce cold, legalistic statements regarding our sex lives rather than our love lives.  Do you know that the Bishops’ Pastoral Statement did not mention “love” once, save in mentioning the forthcoming Living in Love and Faith report? Such statements come without an ounce of pastoral sensitivity or understanding of the hurt that they cause millions – who understand far better than we, the Church, it seems, that it’s not who you love but how you love that matters.

    What’s more, I’m angered by the duplicity and hypocrisy of certain men – and yes, they normally are men – who talk about the sanctity of marriage, while they themselves live such very different lives.  Those who hide behind a smiling public face, but whose personal lives tell quite a different story.

    We saw it with Peter Ball.  However, as I’ve already touched on, it’s not just retired bishops who are guilty here.  It is people serving in our churches now.

    Confession time.

    Many years ago, quite separately to the rape incident I talked about earlier, I naively found myself in a married conservative evangelical’s bedroom whilst away on Church business.  I had foolishly accepted his invitation to continue our discussion from earlier that evening in his room over a drink.  I wasn’t at all prepared for his advances (as he now knows, given I’ve since come out!).  It ended with me having to push him off me as he lay on top of me tickling me, despite my protests.  I was sickened and ashamed.  I still am.  He has never apologised, but he does keep pronouncing about sex being only between a man and a woman in marriage.

    I’m not sure which is worse – the abuse I suffered that night or the hypocrisy of hearing him constantly pronounce his views on this subject, knowing what I do.

    This type of hypocrisy surely must end.

    There are so many of us who know full well that we have leaders who preach one thing and practice something completely different.  Especially when it comes to sex. We have leaders who are married and have affairs.  We have leaders who make unwanted passes and comments to those they work with and whom they pastor.  We have leaders who are gay but won’t admit it – who then have sex with someone of the same sex – and then chastise those who work for them, who are in openly gay relationships, for doing the same.

    It is a despicable abuse of power by those who believe that their only sin is getting caught. So, they get away with it because they can, because of the power they hold and exert over those in their charge. And many of us in the Church know about it and feel powerless to stop it.

    None of us, of course, are guiltless – indeed we all fall short of what God expects from us at times.  But that is why we need to be far more humble, pastoral and sensitive about how we, those of us in positions of power – whether actual power or perceived power, speak out about these things.

    Our nation is, I believe, totally bewildered by an institution that exists supposedly to promote the unconditional love of God, and yet is so judgemental and hypocritical in the way that some of its leaders speak out about it and model it in their own lives.

    It’s time for change.

    It’s time to challenge the hypocrisy and speak out about abuse of power.

    It’s time, I believe, that we developed a healthy positive Biblical understanding of the fact that God made us all sexual human beings.

    More importantly, we need to learn to speak about sex in the context, always, of love – of loving, faithful committed relationships – in all their diverse forms.

    Friends, the Church needs to recognise that sex is not the competition!

    It is part of who we are.  It is part of how God has made us.  It is a gift from God, which when enjoyed in a loving faithful relationship between two equals helps us understand the true nature of Christ’s union with His Church.

    For God lives in relationship, always. It’s so simple and yet so profound.

    Would that we, the Church, were able to teach, embrace and celebrate it!

    The full version of the speech can be read here.

     

  • Restoring Trust….In Church and State

    by the Ven Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight and Chair of One Body One Faith

    peter leonard

    “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
    ?     Friedrich Nietzsche

    I have been reflecting a lot on trust recently after being let down by someone rather badly. It hurts doesn’t it? It is not just the immediate betrayal which stings but the ongoing ripples and impact of what has been done to you.

    The fact that you don’t feel you can believe or trust this person again.

    The issue of trust was a big one in the recent General Election and despite the very clear result I don’t think that the issue has been addressed at all – by any of the political parties.  Neither has anyone addressed why it has been lost within Parliament and between the people and Parliament. A large majority win by one party may cover it up but it doesn’t deal with it and so it rumbles on just not as loudly as it did before the General Election, but it is still clearly there.

    As the recent revelations about sexual abuse in the Church and the Peter Ball case in particular remind us the Church is place where trust should exist in abundance but sadly many victims of abuse have found it to be lacking and indeed to be a place where no one can be trusted to keep them safe.

    Many LGBT+ people have lost trust in the Church having heard time and time again how sorry the Church is for the way they have been treated and yet then to be treated exactly the same again. Too many times they have been greeted by a smile and a warm welcome to a Church ‘which welcomes all’ only to be stung by finding themselves at worst the victims of damaging conversion therapy thinly disguised as ‘prayer ministry’ or at best tolerated but not being allowed to have any significant role in the Church community.

    When my appointment as Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight was announced a number of people who were unhappy about it sought to see what they could find out about me and use against me, others took pictures of my partner and I on the day of our Civil Partnership and used them in a negative way. It has made me jumpy and I am now much more conscious of anything I write or say or do or indeed anything I post on social media. That might not be a bad thing and I am sure there is plenty I could have expressed in a better way or not at all over the years but the negative effect of this is that when someone contacts me or sends me a friend request I am no longer happy to accept it but always assume the worst. What do they want? What are they trying to find out about me? I do not like the fact that my lack of trust has made me a suspicious person.

    So how do you restore trust?

    How do you once again achieve some sort of equilibrium in any institution, organisation or indeed between individuals when trust has been damaged or lost entirely. I wish I had the answer! It does strike me however that restoring trust requires the same steps as establishing it in the first place.

    Relationship. This is fundamental to trust. You have to know someone to trust them. There are of course some obvious exceptions. People tend to trust police officers or nurses or vicars (although this may well no longer be true) but this is because there is some innate relationship with the role formed over many years and indeed generations. When trust is gone so is the relationship and we saw that only too clearly towards the end of the last Parliament. Attention must be given to how those relationships can be restored. Shouting across a chamber, sending angry emails or ignoring someone will never do that. Only dialogue and understanding and hard work will do it.

    Risk. To know if you can trust someone you have to trust them. At some point there is the leap of faith that you have to take.

    Evidence. For trust to build that risk has to result in hard evidence that the person of organisation or institution can indeed be trusted.

    The one area which is perhaps different when rebuilding lost trust to establishing it in the first place is a genuine and authentic sense of remorse that an action has led to anyone being hurt or to trust being destroyed. Remorse which isn’t a series of ‘hand-wringing’ statements but a genuine wish it had not happened and a clear attempt to ensure it doesn’t happen again. So far I have not seen that from the person who let me down, from anyone in politics or indeed from the Church.

    So why do I still vote and engage in politics as an interested citizen? Why do I still not only worship within the Church of England but indeed work within it as an ordained minister?

    Because my faith has led me to a God who can be trusted. That doesn’t mean I always get what I want and it certainly doesn’t mean that life is all rainbows and butterflies. But having started with a somewhat negative quote perhaps I could finish with a more positive one:

    “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
    ? Corrie ten Boom

    I don’t know what the future of the UK is outside of the EU. I don’t know whether we will remain as the United Kingdom or break down into a series of smaller independent states. I don’t know whether my relationship with the person I alluded to earlier will be restored or not and I certainly don’t know if as a partnered gay man I will ever be truly accepted and affirmed by the Church.

    But I hope and that hope is based on my experience of a God who I firmly believe can be trusted.