ViaMedia

Category: Sexual Abuse

  • Church on the Ropes…

    by the Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge

    IICSA

    We are just a couple of weeks into what will be many months of painful interrogation of the Church of England’s safeguarding record by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and already some outlines of what we must come to expect are becoming clear.  The press commentary is likely to focus – rightly – on issues of personal responsibility: who knew what, what action did they take, what were their priorities, where did they place child safety in relation to institutional reputation, and so on.  But a vital subsidiary theme will be information – what kind of records were kept, how was information handled, what should be done with confidential information, and so on.

    Anyone who has troubled to look at the IICSA website will be astonished not only at the rapidity with which testimony is being transcribed and indexed (presumably audio transcription software is being used, but it must be of a very high quality), but at its sheer volume.  When the hearings on the Church of England are finished, what will be in the public domain will provide a remarkable, completely unprecedented insight into the intimate workings of parts of the Church.  Usually the records of near-contemporary developments and situations are on restricted access, under a thirty-year rule – a bane for historians like me, but obviously necessary to protect individuals in contexts in which the implications of complex decision-making processes may still be unfolding.  Here it is all going to be on view, with facts, allegations, personal views or prejudices, insights into how decisions were actually taken, supposition, all mixed up together.  It is already, I would argue, a formidable archive of events and opinions in the public domain, so far bearing specifically on the recent history of the diocese of Chichester.

    It is much too early to draw any firm conclusions from what has been revealed, but when you read about the uncertainty with which church people faced allegations of abuse against colleagues, and made catastrophic decisions based on their assumption of essential goodness, it is hard – at least to me – to avoid thinking that too much discretion has been given to church leaders in the past, and that mandatory reporting of allegations of abuse is the way forward.  I can see that there are all sorts of drawbacks to going down that road, not least that some people might be put off registering suspicions by the thought that the implications of doing so will be so serious for the people concerned.  But there is a remorseless logic about the evidence being presented to IICSA: if there is a possibility that abuse is taking place, or a risk that it may do so in the future, then we cannot afford to balance probabilities when a child’s welfare might be at stake.

    But there are two particularly tricky questions to which we’re going to have to give some thought.  One concerns data retention.  Here two contradictory pressures are bearing in on the Church.  One is the development of personal data regulation, soon to hit us in accelerated form through the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation coming into force shortly.  According to that, essentially organizations are going to have work on the assumption that individuals have a ‘right to be forgotten’ – they can demand the erasure of personal data.  Organizations will have to justify data retention, at risk of heavy fines.  The other is the need to keep full, accurate records of allegations made against individuals, with their correlative circumstances.  Anyone who has been involved in pursuing disciplinary matters within an organization will probably know the immense frustration of being told ‘such and such a meeting took place’, only to find no permanent record of it.  The right to be forgotten, but the need to record accurately and permanently.  How will these things be reconciled, especially by small, poorly-funded organizations, by local churches and charities, for example?

    And the second question concerns the long-term effect of having a vast archive of material in the public domain that essentially presents the bleakest possible account of the internal workings of the Church over the last three or four decades.  It will not be possible to ignore all this material.  Nor should it be.  But there will be little else available of such granularity and scale to balance out the account.  So how will we assess the modern Church of England in the future?  From the point of view of safeguarding and child protection, of course, it is absolutely vital that the woeful failures of process and intention should be exposed, and practical solutions adopted to prevent such things happening again.  But are the failures all there is to say about the Church?  Is the modern history of the Church simply a catalogue of catastrophe?

    I don’t believe so.  But it is going to be an uphill struggle to make that case.  It was a brave and, I think, laudable decision to volunteer the Church of England as a first substantial test-case for IICSA – better to make a clean breast of things, and face the storm early.  But that doesn’t in any way ease the challenge of acknowledging the extraordinary efforts church people do make to live out their faith and to help others.  Churches somehow have to hold in view a double truth, with equal vehemence on both sides – they fail frequently and have to face bravely and openly the possibility that even the most seemingly ‘nice’ people are capable of great harm, and that nonetheless most people in the Church live out their lives with conviction and integrity as they try to follow the gospel.  That’s a very difficult balancing act.  And for a long time the news will all seem to run one way.

    We are on the ropes!

     

  • Is Organised Religion Inherently Abusive?

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

    Time to think about General Synod. I always find it a very complex experience, and working through last week has been made even more challenging because of the Oxfam issue. The actress Minnie Driver resigned as an Oxfam Ambassador not because of the abuse that has been happening which she named as abhorrent, but because of the way the Oxfam failed to respond adequately. Their deputy chief executive Penny Laurence resigned saying that she was ashamed and took full responsibility.

    So I have to face the scary question: Is it right to stay within the  institution of a church which treats its weakest with such disdain?

    In his excellent booklet ‘We asked for Bread but you gave us Stones’  Andrew Graystone quotes our Archbishop: ‘The silencing of abuse victims is itself a form of abuse as bad if not worse than the first betrayal’. Yet, on Saturday morning we were given a presentation which began with edited quotes from survivors some of whom were sitting in the gallery and were more than capable of speaking for themselves and could quite easily have been invited to do so. We then heard how much more brown stuff was going to come our way in the next months, and how we now have upgraded process and resource to meet these challenges. It was admitted that the bit we hadn’t yet got right was the response to survivors. I sincerely believe Archbishop Justin when he says ‘The victims are the people we care about most. They really, really matter.’ The truth is that we are nowhere near making that the way we actually respond.

    What if it is impossible? More than that. What if the whole idea of The Church of England as a spiritual rather than a cultural institution is smoke and mirrors?

    When you walk round Church House during Synod its very quickly apparent that there is no such thing as ‘General Synod’. It’s a collection of different groups and individuals who form coalitions of convenience  on certain issues and will go back to their home churches and do pretty much what they want to do anyway. I sometimes sit next to people whose God is so radically different that I am not at all sure it’s the same God.

    As part of national identity the Church of England still resonates, and we have Royal weddings and babies on the way, but I wonder how things will change with the death of the Queen. Our historic buildings of course and the glory of a special but niche form of Church music are culturally deep, but can you organize what goes on in people’s hearts?

    The response from the Evangelical Alliance to the recent CDM judgement on Tim Davis which upheld allegations of spiritual abuse shines a light on this. There is a way of doing organized religion where the leaders feel entitled to tell people they don’t even know how God wants them to live their lives. Even if you thought God worked in that way, the potential for confusing your own opinions with those of God is vast and has often led to abuse.

    It’s been nagging at me over the past few months. Is there something inherently abusive about organized, institutional religion?

    Think of the philosophical illustration about the Prince and the peasant girl. He fell in love with her, but disguised himself as a peasant because he knew that the only love he wanted from her was that freely given. He could not and would not order her to love him. Once organized religion moves from the functional and cultural it steps into a space in  people’s life of faith where power and control have no right to be. Worse than that we start making judgments about the depth and validity of other people’s faith.

    Jesus related to people through acts of love and through open questions. His tough words are mostly reserved for the professional guardians of the faith.

    The antidote to General Synod  for me is to get back to the local. People pitch up for all sorts of reasons and I don’t judge any of them. People share their stories of faith if they choose to and help each other along the way. They are bound together by friendship and acts of kindness far more than by theology, and so they find God far more though love than through judgement.

    That is how I answer the question about staying. Sit light to the institutional stuff but try to help, and hold the local and personal as most precious.

  • Are You Suffering From Spiritual Abuse?

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

    Jayne Ozanne (3)

    Do you know what Spiritual Abuse is?  Can you define it?  Perhaps more importantly, would you recognise it if you saw it?  Would you be able to guard against it for those in your care?

    According to a recent research report commissioned by the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS), 74% of respondents to an online survey said they were confident they knew what “spiritual abuse” meant.  Indeed, the report states that the “key characteristics of spiritual abuse identified were coercion and control, manipulation and pressuring of individuals, control through the misuse of religious texts and scripture and providing a ‘divine’ rationale for behaviour.”

    The research was carried out by academics at Bournemouth University under Dr Lisa Oakley, who has been the Programme leader for the only undergraduate course in Abuse Studies in the UK based at Manchester Metropolitan University, and as such is the lead academic in this area.

    Interestingly, Dr Oakley and her co-author, Justin Humphreys (Executive Director of Safeguarding at CCPAS), are keen to flag at the start of their report that:

    “Existing work around this experience (which is characterised by a systematic pattern of controlling and coercive behaviour in a religious context), is still in its infancy, to the extent that there is not currently universal agreement about this as a term.”

    The alarming matter though is definition or no definition, nearly two-thirds (1002 out of 1591) of respondents said they had experienced spiritual abuse themselves and yet only a third said that their church or church organisation had a policy that included spiritual abuse.

    So twice as many people had experienced spiritual abuse than have a policy to recognise and address it!

    This should concern us greatly in an era when the Church is finally learning about the true scale of the damage it has done (and continues to do) through poor safeguarding practices.

    The Church it seems now has a choice.

    Either it hides behind the excuse that we have yet to properly define spiritual abuse and so we cannot effectively safeguard against it,

    or

    It works with those who believe they have been victims of spiritual abuse to understand more about what they have experienced, and therefore how it can make the Church safer for others.

    I for one would like to see the Church own and champion the issue of Spiritual Abuse, and be a role model to other denominations and religions about how seriously it should be taken.  Whilst the Church of England is indeed a few (small) steps ahead of other denominations, mentions of spiritual abuse are still confined to the appendices of reports, and not brought centre stage.

    I also believe that the government needs to recognise Spiritual Abuse as a formal category of harm – particularly with children –  and add it to their current four-fold definition of abuse – physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect.

    That way the likes of the Revd Tim Davis could face a proper court for the harm inflicted on vulnerable young teenagers. As the Church Times has reported, Mr Davis, of Christ Church Abingdon, was found guilty on December 28th 2017 under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) 2003 of “conduct unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of a clerk in holy orders through the abuse of spiritual power and authority.”

    What I found chilling about this particular case was the level of fear that was experienced not just by the victim, but by all those who involved with Mr Davis, which appeared to stop them from coming forward.

    His former Assistant curate, the Revd Jitesh Patel gave evidence of Mr Davis’s “anger and the fear that his curate felt as a result”. The victim himself gave evidence that he “found it impossible” to tell Mr Davis that he wanted less contact, and that Mr Davis “became angry” if he did not ring him or respond to his texts.  The mother also gave evidence that “he would be angry if (her son) did not come to an evening service” and the judgement sets out that “she told us that (Mr Davis) would say that he was God’s anointed and a person had died because he did not do something that (Mr Davis) wanted.”

    It strikes me that there is one very good indicator that can show us what Spiritual Abuse is – it is where there is paralysing fear, that keeps things hidden and in the dark, and stops people coming forward.

    This fear is manipulative, dehumanising and totally overpowering – and more often than not the perpetrator is can be completely unaware of the fact that he is creating such a climate, given that he or she may have little self-awareness and/or emotional intelligence.

    Anyone within the church who seeks to engender fear by coercive control, bullying or overpowering behaviour runs a significant risk of being guilty of Spiritual Abuse, whether they are ordained or not.

    The challenge to us is that people are often so under the perpetrator’s “spell” and so bound by such fear, that they will rarely come forward of their own accord.  It takes a third party to step in.

    That is, unless we get better at naming those we fear, and looking at why we fear them.

    So, are there those you know in the church who you fear?  I wonder what might lie behind that?  If it is because you fear their wrath or their anger, then can I suggest that you consider talking to someone in authority about it – your archdeacon or your bishop perhaps?  Particularly as you may not be the only on, but you may be the only one brave enough to do something about it!

    The Church should be a place of love – when it becomes a place of fear something has gone terribly wrong, and we need to find the courage and strength to name it for what it is:

    Spiritual Abuse.

  • Power, Abuse and the Sense of Entitlement

    by the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

    david-walker

    Ten years or so ago we learned that significant numbers of UK politicians were taking an extremely generous view as to what constituted legitimate expenses. In the last few weeks we’ve discovered that many even more well known figures, here and across the globe, have abused their position by demanding sex, or at least acquiescence to woefully improper remarks, from those more junior to themselves. Between these two lies, I believe, a clear connecting thread, it is their sense of entitlement

    Many MPs had felt their salaries were artificially depressed by the likely public backlash to any government awarding them a large increase. Surrounded by lobbyists and senior figures whose pay packets suffered no such restrictions, they felt entitled to more than they were receiving. They saw the expenses system as a way of getting their due. The more recent revelations, beginning with the exposure of an American film producer, have a similar foundation. Powerful men, used to getting what they want, felt entitled to receive, or at least ask for, sexual favours from those who needed their backing or support.

    The language of entitlement is, first and foremost, the language of the rich and powerful. They have succeeded, and promote their entitlement to the full spoils of their triumph. One of the most powerful symbols of success is the ability to control and determine the language in which conversation can take place. Other groups in society, including the marginal and victimised, are then forced to adopt the same terms, to stake their own entitlement, in competition. They may have occasional victories, but the underlying power dynamic is at best only lightly challenged.

    But what if there were a different language to speak?

    To my way of thinking, Christian theology provides us with just such a vocabulary. It gives us words such as grace and justice, liberation and self-emptying, and it populates their meaning through a rich range of stories.

    The call to self-emptying, kenosis as the Greek word puts it, is a call to those with power to model themselves on the Christ who “did not cling to equality with God”, but became like us so that we might become like him. This early hymn on the incarnation, which reverberates with particular strength in Advent, is a call to place ourselves on a level footing with those whom secular opinion would set us above. Self-emptying makes room for grace, the recognition that our hope lies not in what we deserve but in what is given us undeserving. Liberation then underpins our understanding of a justice that is not simply a restoration of what has been lost but a journey into a new freedom and empowerment.

    Lest this all sound rather abstract, or relevant only to the most churchy issues, let me offer an example from well beyond the altar rail. As chair of the Manchester Homelessness Partnership Board, I encourage the exercise of kenosis by insisting that no meeting takes place unless there are enough people with personal experience of life on the streets for them to have power and voice among us. Whether around a table or working by less conventional methods, everyone has equal status and is part of the answer. Grace keeps us from stigmatising or blaming those whose life events, and sometimes their choices, have led them to fetch up sleeping rough. Justice holds before us an image of a society where the basic necessities of a safe and secure home, shared with ones chosen household, are there for all, a vision to which all our efforts must strive. Liberation reminds us that we will only achieve this vision when we set people free from the chains that bind them, be they mental health concerns, addiction or the loneliness of lost relationship.

    Our meetings and events have an energy and sense of purpose well beyond many others I attend. And whilst the challenges are huge, and the ever increasing numbers of homeless daunting, I do believe we are ditching the tired battle between entitlement claims and creating a new culture, one with the possibility for real change.

    My Advent prayer is that the powerful and public figures of our society, including faith leaders like myself, can consistently speak this better language.

     

  • “Cassock Chasers” and Compromised Clergy

    by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, Dean of St Paul’s

    David ison 2

    Some recent blogging about sexual abuse and harassment in the Church of England has referred to ‘cassock chasers’. When I read it, it was a phrase new to me; but finding out what it meant was a revelation, in two ways. It’s not only that women are afraid to complain about male clergy harassment because they’ll be dismissed as ‘cassock chasers’, women who pursue priests and look for revenge when their feelings aren’t reciprocated. But it’s also that some male clergy actually do stereotype women in this way, similar to how many men inside as well as outside the Church may see women, not as people, but as sexual stereotypes – ‘gels’, ‘slags’, ‘slappers’ or worse, to be defined by men’s desires and fears, not understood for who they really are.

    Some will say, ‘It’s just a joke’, the dishonest defence of bullies everywhere But it isn’t, is it? That the phrase even exists, that any cleric could think of a woman as a ‘cassock-chaser’, that any woman could fear being treated as one, is a symptom of how deep-rooted the problem of patriarchal control is in the Church of England. To call someone a ‘cassock chaser’ is no joke, but a shallow, stereotyped and sexualised male-centred response to a person’s pastoral need.

    There are many people we encounter in pastoral work who long for love, affection and intimacy. Some may respond to the loving pastoral care of a priest or other caring person by transferring their feelings to them, perhaps projecting onto them their image of an idealised partner.

    A professional and caring pastor will handle those feelings carefully, and find ways to help the person concerned, even if because of the person’s mental illness, or because of the transference taking place, they aren’t able to help the person directly.

    An inadequate pastor will be flattered or frightened, or assume that it’s all about me the pastor rather than all about them the person in need. If the pastor is also emotionally vulnerable, they can exploit the vulnerability of the person in need who is drawn to them – hence so much emotional and sexual abuse in the church and in other caring organisations. And so the need for robust pastoral structures and practice, proper supervision and the confessional, and for pastors – and men in particular – to know themselves well and be getting help for their own emotional issues. If you don’t understand what transference and projection is, you shouldn’t be in pastoral ministry – you and others will be at risk.

    Part of the same picture of the need for robust structures and practices is the growing call from survivors of abuse like Gilo and others including some bishops* for the Church to set up independent structures for safeguarding and discipline. This should cover the compromised ministry of bishops, who have to administer both pastoral care and discipline; the close relationship between the Church’s main insurer and the Church itself; and the difficulty of trusting bishops and clergy to discipline themselves, set as they are within a network of personal and professional relationships and a complex and difficult legal framework.

    Whether it’s about pastoral care or safeguarding, abuse or harassment, or issues around clergy discipline, the lack of trust generated by many years of poor practice in the Church needs a more urgent and radical response than has happened so far. That response needs to help victims and survivors find help and justice. It should also help bishops and clergy themselves to be secure in their work and ministry, and so reduce the stress on clergy which leads to greater vulnerability to pastoral and personal breakdown – and so the cycle continues. And it needs to stop.

    Let’s pray for the House of Bishops in their reflections on all this when they meet soon. It’s a hard call to agree a vision for the future, and then to change how things are done, when it means admitting the implicit or explicit criticism of how things have been. But it also offers hope, not only for silent victims and struggling survivors, but also for all who work in ministry, that together we can find a way forward that sets one another free.

  • My Confusion Regarding Claims of Sexual Harassment

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

    presentation1

    Part of my partner’s job is to deal with disciplinary complaints in his workplace. Among the matters he has to investigate are allegations of sexual harassment and other forms of inappropriate behaviour. As an outsider to his working environment I can easily see how people get themselves into trouble on this matter. Close working relationships blur professional boundaries, signals are misinterpreted, social media compound the problems, and sometimes personal slight, hurt, mental health issues or even a desire for revenge become the pretext for launching formal complaints. In the complexity of human relationships, genuinely bad, dangerous and harmful behaviour clearly occurs. Scripture reminds us that “all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God”. We do well to remember that all of us leave behind us a trail of damaged human relationships of some sort or another.

    In my naivete I like to think that such matters are black and white, and that anyone who has been harassed or assaulted will want to come forward and make their allegations known to be dealt with by due process. But it doesn’t seem to be as straightforward as that. I recognise that there is a power dynamic that exists between (mainly but not exclusively) powerful men and less-powerful women, often compounded by seniority in the workplace/parish, that makes coming forward or challenging bad behaviour hugely risky. I also see that there needs to be robust enough processes to ensure that there is confidence to know that allegations, when made, will be dealt with appropriately. When matters are not addressed formally, for often understandable reasons, we find ourselves in a very unsatisfactory situation, where claims of harassment are shared between friends and supportive colleagues outside of due process, in a way that make them entirely unsubstantiated rumour. In such cases one is naturally forced to assume that the person who claims harassment is telling the truth, or has understood what can often be a complex situation accurately. Hence the large amount of rumour swirling around, with very little firm allegation. This is deeply confusing to me and I fear it easily poisons the wells of reliability when it comes to formal processes.

    ViaMedia has recently published anonymous testimony of two clergy people who told stories of harassment in church contexts. None of us are in a position to judge the claims made because they are by their nature anonymous and as such there is only one side of the story known. This is made more complicated by inadequate institutional responses which diminish the seriousness of the accusations, or the bad advice of sympathetic friends, who advise a complicit silence.

    Having been the victim of serious false allegations of an entirely different sort myself – whether malicious or foolish I don’t think I’ll ever know – I have a degree of human sympathy for those who are accused without proper process. But I am acutely aware that I have, culturally and by dint of my personality, a lot of power, which can prevent me being as aware as I perhaps need to be about the problem. Therefore, I feel genuinely confused about the current swirl of concern about sexual harassment in the church and in wider society. I need some help.

    If I’m brutally honest what won’t help is inverse mansplaining about how I don’t understand the problem because I’m a man. But if I and others who are as confused as me can show our willingness to understand better, then we should take a stand by providing safety and support to those who need to come forward and turn their silent suffering and often their sense of shame and humiliation into empowered formal complaint. Without that, I fear I’ll just remain confused!

  • Let’s Talk About….(oh no…Let’s Not!)

    by the Revd Canon Rosie Harper, Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham

    Rosie Haarper

    There has been an apparent shift. People have begun to talk about their experiences of being harassed, abused or criminally attacked, with an openness that wasn’t acceptable even a few months ago. The primary focus has been Government and Media, but doubtless other areas of life will come under scrutiny. Nothing remotely surprising has emerged. What is surprising is that it is being spoken about. In a rather random way some people are being held to account and others not. Trump and Boris have both said and done things that are off the scale but different rules seem to apply to them.

    The reason that the current phase of talking about abusive behavior is such a change is that we live in a blame and shame culture in which the victim is often seen as just as culpable as the perpetrator. Whistle blowers still lose their jobs, women are mercilessly interrogated in court to search out a way of framing their assault as: ‘they were asking for it.’

    A little seven year old who is sent into very expensive care gets his head shoved down the toilet. He would be committing a far greater crime were he to complain than the older boys who assaulted him.

    Today, in public, men are learning to say the right things, but the undercurrent in today’s society is far worse than we want to admit. Our teenagers are growing up with an online culture that is sexually exploitative and often violent, and young women often find themselves with considerably less freedom and self-respect than their parents had.

    Wandering hands in Parliament have made the news this week, but as Jayne Ozanne’s extraordinary and powerful interview on C4 made clear, the problems are just as bad within the Church.

    However, the Church’s problems have a whole further dynamic. It is utterly wrong to dominate and control a woman sexually, emotionally, financially in any circumstance, but to create a religious environment where this is normalized and supported by theology is especially cruel. I think this is because ‘God’ is where we put the really deep stuff in our lives. Stuff that language, art, even music, can’t easily articulate. If controlling, abusive and violent things are done in the name of God, because the bible tells these men that is how you treat women, then the very place that should be the safest becomes the most dangerous.

    When a child finds the world scary and other people hostile they run into the arms of their parents. The trauma of being abused by one of those parents is massive. When a child of God is in need they run to the arms of God. If God himself turns out to be abusive there is nowhere else to hide. This is why I find the revelations this year of John Smyth’s abuse of boys when he was chair of Iwerne Camps a particular and life-destroying crime.

    The Church’s response has to change. Survivors who have the courage to disclose their abuse routinely experience lack of compassion and culture of silence. We must never love the institution more than we love God or the children of God. It is possible that the way this is handled in Parliament, where women are now prepared to talk openly about their experiences and then action is taken, might just show the church the way forward. There are some simple and necessary steps we could take tomorrow. Set up an external safeguarding agency, make it mandatory to report disclosures, and put together a proper whistleblowers policy to protect those who speak out. There are plenty of very good ideas out there, but what is missing is the will. You might imagine that the Church would be the place where there would be a desire to do the right thing. The truth is that the desire seems to be to do the least embarrassing and least expensive thing. We even have the resources. Money tucked away for a rainy day. This is a rainy day.

    Here is how it could go: We are sorry, we will listen, we will help and support you. Publically this is indeed what the Church says. Alas, it is not yet what the church does. We all need to be calling for this change to happen and happen soon.

     

  • A Thought for Today – The Power of Words

    by Jayne Ozanne, Editor of ViaMedia.News following her C4 News interview

    Jayne Ozanne (3)

    I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was brought up being told:

    “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but calling names never hurt me”

    I never did believe this, and I still don’t.  Names do hurt!  Words do hurt!  In fact, they can do irreparable damage.

    At worst they can incite hatred, feed fear and lead to a hardening of prejudices that demonise “the other”.

    At best they can bless, and bring hope and understanding, which in turn can bring life.

    In my studies of International Diplomacy at Oxford University, I learnt about the relatively new theory of Constructivism within International Relations.  It is the study of how rhetoric can be used to create norms and practices in our society, for good and for ill, which in turn can affect power structures.

    Norms and practices – the building blocks that determine what type of society we live in.  It is this that unites us, and indeed what define us – and it is these norms and practices that are ever evolving and changing.

    What is “normal” for some can become a cloak for abuse by others.  Indeed, what may seem harmless playground banter to some will be seen as an aggressive attack on liberties by others.  Words count – the context in which they are spoken, count; and the person uttering them, counts.

    Hence the uproar when a serving Cabinet Minister makes a crass schoolboy joke live on air, without – dare I say – any reproach from his interviewers.  For some it was a poor attempt at humour.  For others it was yet again an example of words re-enforcing a “norm” that has been for too long accepted by society – that of undermining the seriousness of sexual harassment encountered by women.  This is no laughing matter – especially by privileged heterosexual men who should know better.  The norm must change – and to do that the rhetoric must change.

    The Apostle James had much to say about the power of the tongue, it “is a fire, a world of iniquity.”  He even went on to say that “no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” It is indeed the most powerful weapon we each have.

    Without thinking we can wreak havoc and devastation in someone’s life, especially if we are seen to reinforce a norm that has served to create a prison cell.  As Sigmund Freud said: “Words have a magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.”

    I am conscious that here, on radio, we have only our words – making it even more essential that every single one counts.

    Perhaps it is better to recall what Mother Theresa herself said:
    “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

  • It Can Happen to Guys Too!

    The following is written by a serving gay Church of England clergyman, who has asked for his identity to be kept anonymous.Presentation2

    I read the anonymous piece, titled, “A Zero Tolerance Approach to the Weinsteins in the Church?” sadly with very little surprise.  Any institution is going to have those who don’t respect the space, bodies, emotions or lives of others, who use or abuse others for their own pleasure, entertainment or career progression.  The Church won’t be immune to it, and the sooner it is acknowledged and dealt with, the sooner we can continue.

    I recognise that the #MeToo campaign is principally about giving women a voice to share their experiences of abuse, and I don’t want to take anything away from that.  This is their campaign, not mine, and it is an important one, if we’re to truly face up to the misogyny, inequality, physical-, emotional- and spiritual abuse that goes on in the Church today.

    However, I did want to mention some of my own experiences as a gay man in the Church of England. I recognise that these will pale in comparison … mine aren’t tales of physical or sexual abuse, but hopefully it helps shed more light on what occurs, and may encourage others to share their experiences.  When the power structures are patriarchal and geared towards preserving patriarchy, there is an imbalance of power against all those who don’t identify as heterosexual, cisgendered men.

    As a gay curate, I had experience of this imbalance of power on a number of occasions.  I had a straight male colleague constantly making inappropriate and overtly sexual comments and jokes in my presence.  At the time, I was still in the closet.  Whether the comments were to make me feel uncomfortable, or just exert his power over me as a straight, cisgendered man, I may never know, but I do remember thinking how inappropriate they were.  He used to tell explicit sexual jokes in the presence of confirmation candidates under the age of 18 as well, and I think he believed it made him look cool.

    In one parish I worked in, a gay male colleague decided it was entirely appropriate to make highly inappropriate and overtly sexual comments to me … sometimes these comments were even about sex with me.  These comments were on occasion even made in the vestry before or after a Sunday service, and went on for years.

    I have been winked at in the sanctuary, had other men comment on parts of my body, or how much they love that type of male body.  I have had lewd or crude comments on social media.

    On too many occasions when a male colleague finds out that you’re gay, it seems to give them permission to speak openly about gay sex, or to ask really explicit and invasive questions.  It may be that they feel empowered by the permission that they feel a document like “Issues in Human Sexuality” has given them to probe into one’s personal lives … a probing they would be appalled at if it were directed towards them.

    Some of the behaviour and comments would be considered sexual harassment at worst, highly inappropriate at best.  None of this behaviour should be permissible in any workplace, least of all the Church.

    I have only once felt able to challenge the clergy person who made such comments.  In many years of ministry, I’ve just found it really uncomfortable and found ways to not work with that colleague again or to work with them as little as possible.  I’m not sure what would happen – if anything – if these comments were brought to light.  Can an organisation without Equal Opportunities policies for it’s clergy ever effectively address matters such as these?

    It seems that the Church (capital “C”) is so obsessed with the sexual lives of LGBT people – to the point where it is incapable of acknowledging any other aspects of our lives, such as our hopes, dreams, loves, gifts or calling.  Sadly, it has successfully reduced us in the eyes of some people to sexual objects, with whom you can be explicit and inappropriate without any fear of consequences.

    It seems particularly that many cisgendered heterosexual men feel they have a freedom to discuss or rule over the bodies and private lives of anyone that doesn’t identify as they do, and that if you’re not a cisgendered heterosexual man, you’re expected to be pure and subservient and comfortable with your biology and sexuality being the object of scrutiny, fascination, humour, advances and inappropriate remarks and behaviour.

    It is this power imbalance, and the dishonesty behind it, that I believe fuels misogyny, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and creates an environment where people feel empowered to abuse that sense of power and privilege.

    Only by naming it and recognising it can we ever have any hope of addressing it, and that’s why I’m sharing my experiences now – in the hope that as a Church, we can change and become a place of true holiness and grace.

  • A Zero Tolerance Approach to the Weinsteins in the Church?

    The following is written by a serving Church of England clergywoman, who has asked for her identity to be kept anonymous.

    Presentation1

    What a den of iniquity Hollywood is! Harvey Weinstein accused of molesting all those women – even a man – and yet no one felt able to speak out till now!

    But what of the Church?  The place where we speak of the love of God, of His forgiveness, where Holy Communion is celebrated. Church, we preach, should be a safe haven for all – safe from the likes of Weinstein.  Shouldn’t it?

    I am now middle aged and have been intimately involved in the Church all my life.  For most of that time, I have felt loved and nurtured in the faith community. However, sadly I know from personal experience and observation that we, the Church, have people like Weinstein in our midst…even amongst the clergy.  I speak of clergy who flirt and make inappropriate remarks to women, making it impossible for that woman to feel that they can safely access pastoral care from that priest.  Clergy who touch women without their consent – no matter how “innocently”, who make sexual advances, who sexually assault and even rape.  We have clergy in our midst who prey upon women at vulnerable times in their life, luring them with their “best pastoral skills” and then using the opportunity to emotionally and sexually abuse.

    Surprised?  Like any other walk of life, it happens!  But why do women not report these clergy?  Why do they not speak out?

    Let me explain – based on my own experience.

    Many of these clergy are married and so the victim often knows the perpetrator’s wife and family.  They are aware that if they report the matter, in reality the abuser will receive minimal justice and if he is found guilty, then it is his wife and family who will pay the highest price.  You may say that that I’m being melodramatic, but what do you think happens to the perpetrators’ families in these circumstances?  It is they who lose their home and as many do not have any other housing provision, they are left with nowhere to go.  The victim knows this will be the price, so they choose to stay silent.

    Sadly, many of us women are very used to being assaulted or molested – you only have to look at the significant number of people responding to the #metoo campaign to see this.  However, arguably one of the saddest findings from these public revelations is that so many thought it was not bad enough to report.

    I have often heard male clergy talk of ‘Cassock Chasers’; that is, women who “fancy clergy and chase after them”.  In the same way that woman are terrified of being labelled ‘bunny boilers’, church women are afraid of being called ‘cassock chasers’. So, they say nothing.  This is also tied in with a fear of not being believed.  “Remember that Father So and So? He does such a lovely funeral.  He has wonderful pastoral gifts and does fantastic work in the community”.  Who is going to believe that he is capable of such a terrible sexual assault?  No, it is the woman who must be deluded – she must be making it all up.

    Many women think they are the only ones that this has happened to and in a culture where ‘victim blaming’ is so prevalent, women often blame themselves, wondering if they somehow provoked the assault.

    It is not until accusations are finally made that others then come forward.  This in turn can lead to accusations that people are just ‘jumping on the bandwagon’. Not at all!  It is a realisation from victims that they are not alone and that finally, collectively they will be believed. It can take a long time for victims to come forward, sometimes not until after the death of the perpetrator, because only then does the victim feel safe enough to do so.

    Most will agree that talking about even a positive sexual encounter with someone who is unknown to you, such as your doctor, is difficult.  However, talking about a sexual encounter that violated you, made you feel dirty, ashamed and frightened with unknown “officials” is almost impossible.

    As a newly ordained person, I am even more acutely aware of the power of the clerical collar.  I have felt incredibly privileged to hear the personal stories of strangers, who felt trust in what I stand for when wearing my collar.  It breaks my heart thinking of people – often the most vulnerable in our midst – who have put their trust in their clergy, the very same who go on to misuse that trust for their own ends.

    It seems to me that we need to develop Zero Tolerance attitude in our churches for inappropriate sexualised behaviour of any kind, however “low level” it may seem.  If people are to encounter God, they need to be an environment that feels safe.  Clergy promise to fashion their lives in the way of Christ and this should be apparent in their conduct and engagement with others, especially those who are vulnerable. Victims must be heard and believed. Even if their case doesn’t end up in court, knowing that the Church listened lovingly and carefully, and then disciplined clergy appropriately, will go a long way to making our church a safer place to be.  It will send a very powerful message that the church is not a soft target for those who choose to do evil.

    At our Baptism, we promise to resist evil.  That promise is revisited in the ordination vows.  Clergy and lay people alike must be committed to that promise, even when it means resisting the evil in our midst.

    In writing this article, I have focused on the experience of women only because I feel that it is not my place to speak for men.  I would like to acknowledge however that there are many men out there who have experienced similar situations to the ones I have highlighted, and it would be good to hear their voices too.

    I have not felt able to put my name to this article because I have seen at very close quarters, how victims are treated and made to feel that they are the ones who have issues and need to ‘get over it’.  We never ‘get over it’, but we learn to live with it and those of us who go on to be ordained do so, in part, because we believe it must be better to do pastoral ministry better and because we believe strongly in those ordination vows.