ViaMedia

Category: Spiritual Abuse

  • Why Don’t You Just Leave?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Independence & Safeguarding: Marking Our Own Homework?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • It’s Time to Talk About…Sex!

    by Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge and ordinand at St Augustine’s College of Theology

    One of the slightly tiresome things that British people seem to do is say one thing when they really mean another.  I find myself doing this all the time – it’s far easier to talk in riddles or to talk around the point rather than be direct and honest, even blunt. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of Living in Love and Faith. I’ve sat through a number of meetings, and read the book, and talked about it to a group of people from a variety of different viewpoints, and it’s all been described in rather beige terms. Words like ‘love’ and ‘relationship’ feature, as do discussions of ‘good disagreement’ or ‘bible based’ this or that (whatever that actually means?). Yet one word about which there has been far too little discussion has been the word sex.

    It’s all a bit icky, I suppose. Nobody really wants to talk about sex to a group of ‘church people’, and prejudices still remain when talking about gay sex between men. The old tropes are never far away from the surface – it’s disgusting, it involves body fluids, and it’s just not polite to talk about it. Sex might be all well and good and produce children, but please let’s not chat about it over coffee. However, the current position of the Church of England is all about sex – and ultimately boils down to who does what to whom, when and even,what goes where. Until we grasp that, we will get nowhere.

    The current position of the Church of England is clear – if you are not in an opposite sex marriage, then you  should not have sex, full stop. All such extramarital sex is sinful and must be repented of. And as the Church, in their wisdom, blocked gay people from getting married, then gay sex is entirely banned. That is really what the marriage debate is ultimately all about.

    Civil partnerships were originally vociferously opposed by bishops, seen as the root and source of all evil, but once it became clear the world was not ending, they warmed to them. Yet it is a lie that “the bishops support civil partnerships” – what most support is the legal protections that civil partnerships bring LGBTQ clergy, provided they promise they’re not having sex. That’s not support – that’s a redefinition of civil partnerships. It is ludicrous to suggest that most clergy in civil partnerships are refraining from sex (willing or otherwise), any more than those in opposite sex marriages are – yet this is the falsehood the Church of England holds onto. It is nonsense. Meanwhile, those that do remain celibate are doing so under duress from a church pursuing a policy that flies in the face of the vast swathes of psychological evidence on wellbeing. Talk about rock and a hard place. Anyone who defends the current position of the church shares culpability in this denigration of LGBTQ clergy.

    In my professional life, I have seen a number of different definitions of what sexual intercourse is. What has both bemused and appalled me in equal measure is that whenever this question is raised with those who so vociferously oppose same sex marriage, I am told that it’s a facetious question. It really isn’t – if you oppose something, you need to be able to define it. When does the sensual, for example, become the sexual? When does intimacy become ‘sexual’? Being blunt, does something need to penetrate something else for it to be classed as sex? One particularly useless definition I’ve heard is ‘something you wouldn’t do with a friend’ – is this really the best we can do (and is it even true)?

    And the interesting thing is that I, and many who support same sex marriage, have no truck with a ‘what goes where’ understanding of sex. For many of us, sex is fundamentally part of relationship forming – something that comes from within and builds up a relationship in love. Sex is not some strange “add-on” – it’s central to the development of relationship. By telling someone they can have a civil partnership but cannot have sex, you are fundamentally assigning their relationship as second best. In fact, you are actively doing violence to it. You are demanding that a key part of the human story is withheld – that something which dignifies the human person is forbidden. You are placing an erroneous separation around the sexual act. This is plain and simple for anyone with even an elementary grasp of human psychology.

    Yet that is what ordinands are asked to sign up  to when going forward for ordination – ‘do you agree to abide by Issues in Human Sexuality?’ means ‘will you promise to agree with this false divide, and make sure you don’t have sex and thus deepen your relationship with the person you love?’. The justification, of course, being that clergy are supposed to set an example to laity – so ultimately, the position of the Church of England is threefold: firstly there is a distinct dividing line between sex and relationship, secondly that all sex between people of the same sex is entirely unacceptable, and thirdly that their relationships are thus of a lower quality than opposite sex marriages. It’s ridiculous. And intolerable.

    The problem is that no-one in the hierarchy seems willing to admit this.

    Likewise, far too many clergy are forced to be complicit: ‘yes, we have a civil partnership, and strictly speaking that means we are celibate, but…’ Some bishops even seem to encourage their archdeacons to do the dirty work for them, going in after an interview to make sure the new vicar understands the ‘policy’. Civil partnerships only – no marriages. And “you need to sign up to Issues…if you know what I mean”.

    It’s time this nonsense was blown out of the water!

    Clergy in civil partnerships are having sex, and the church rules mean that they are forced to lie about it. This is not healthy sexual politics. Meanwhile, clergy still cannot enter a civil marriage with someone of the same sex, based on the House of Bishops’ ‘pastoral’ letter issued seven years ago on Valentine’s Day, ostensibly because of sex. Yet even the application of this rule is subject to a postcode lottery, with different bishops interpreting it differently.

    This damaging farce needs to end. Clergy need to be encouraged to be honest, not duplicitous. Bishops need to openly refuse to abide by the 2014 statement and turn the conversation out into the open.

    And we need to start talking about sex.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • LLF – Has There Been a Murder?

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

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

    Has Covid -19 killed Living in Love and Faith?

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

    Big stuff is going on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Bury it.

    ← Back

    Thank you for your response. ✨

     

  • Who Are The Prophets in Charismatic Churches?

    by the Revd Canon Simon Butler, Prolocutor of the Province of Canterbury and Vicar of St Mary’s, Battersea

    Years ago I was invited by my then bishop to attend a day conference on Deliverance Ministry, about which he was a prominent advocate. At his invitation, a woman he said was an ‘anointed prophet’ was asked to prophesy to the group. What followed disturbed me deeply: intimate things were said as if by God to those present which seemed to be accepted as entirely authentic, without being weighed, and in a way that seemed closer to the fortune-teller’s booth than any biblical understanding of prophecy. There was a culture of ‘group-think’ present that assumed that the title of ‘prophet’, the track-record from her parish and the bishop’s imprimatur confirmed the truth of her words. It made me very angry.

    When we reviewed the session I raised my concerns with the bishop about what had just happened. The bishop listened politely and, for the rest of the conference, I was firmly and clearly side-lined: I had a problem with my anger that “the Lord wanted to deal with.” From that moment on the bishop never invited me to join any future training: critical voices were not encouraged.

    At the time of the incident above I was serving in a church associated with Charismatic Renewal, although our congregation was predominantly working-class. The typical church member had a life which was complex, messy and far from straight-forward. My boss and I often contrasted the life-situations and preoccupations of middle-class Charismatics with the needs and priorities of our own folk. Pentecostal form of Christianity are often found most powerfully in communities of the marginalised. I still like to think of myself as a sort of charismatic, open to the inspiration of the Spirit and ministering alert to when the Spirit speaks: at our own church we offer a sensitive ministry of healing and wholeness.

    But among some Charismatics at the moment there is a concern that safeguarding is being used as a Trojan Horse to attack their freedom to believe and practise their form of Christian faith, including the use of charismatic gifts. This is because a number of people have started to speak about their own experience of poor treatment, bullying and coercion associated with churches where the added dimension is the unchallenged way in which the Holy Spirit is presumed to speak through certain ‘anointed’ leaders, lay and ordained. As I experienced in a modest way those years ago, when someone asks questions or critiques bad practice or simply doesn’t go along with ‘the leadership’, subtle or overt changes in relationship dynamics can occur. This sort of spiritual abuse isn’t inherent in Charismatic forms of Christianity, and it certainly isn’t restricted to it.

    But, where the problem lies for Charismatics is the appeal to the Holy Spirit – if you don’t go along with what the Spirit is saying, you are quenching the Spirit, or (in a tradition with an occasionally baroque demonology) even possessed by a ‘spirit of rebellion’ which needs exorcising. Such appeals can amount to little more than a power grab by insecure or inexperienced leaders who, when faced with criticism, cannot face it or adapt. At a time when the Archbishops’ Council is funding significant work aimed at planting congregations with younger leaders, many of them emerging from the larger Charismatic churches, attracting younger disciples, it is important that firm, mature oversight is given, perhaps at a much closer level than the typical laissez-faire style of episcopal leadership.

    With the publication of Living in Love and Faith, it is often LGBTI+ voices that are articulating these concerns, and especially the misuse of charismatic gifts. This naturally presents particular challenges to those leading churches where the theological wind blows conservative on matters of sexuality. I offer this to my Charismatic friends: please listen to these voices. If you hear such stories from LGBTI+ church members, please don’t write them off as revisionism. Hearing such stories is a pathway to growth: they allow a mirror to be held up to a less-appealing part of your culture. This could be an opportunity: although it is painful to live through, the stories of poor treatment, marginalisation and occasionally abuse are important for you to hear.

    Perhaps it is the LGBTI+ voices that are the prophets among you?

  • LLF: The Cost of Careless Talk and Needless Silence

    by Savitri Hensman, community worker, author of “Sexuality, Struggle and Saintliness” and LGBTI+ equality activist

    The damage often done to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI+) people in the Church of England has been much discussed lately. At the same time there has been serious concern about failings in safeguarding as well as ongoing racism, despite numerous promises from senior church leaders to do better. Some people have been trying to understand what keeps going wrong across a range of issues where power and status are involved.

    There is much that is good, especially at local level. Congregations and clergy are often caring, worship can be profound and moving, thinking and witness impressive, including service to some of the poorest amidst the pressures of the pandemic. But there is a strong element of chance about whether someone who is part of this church will be nurtured or harmed.  It is a little like wandering through an often beautiful landscape with crumbling tunnels underneath which cause the occasional cave-in. It is only by recognising the underlying weaknesses that the structures can be made safer.

    Recent media coverage has largely focused on controversy over certain study materials that were launched in November 2020 to encourage conversation on sexuality and gender identity, entitled Living in Love and Faith (LLF). This was followed by a pushback by those most opposed to greater equality, including several bishops, which made dialogue that much more difficult. The weak response of the vast majority of all other bishops deepened the sense of alienation felt amongst many affirming Christians.

    Yet for me, the most disturbing recent reminder of the grave cost of the official line on sexuality and gender identity came in answers to questions at General Synod, on a preventable tragedy in Maids Moreton. What happened there was indeed exceptional, but the response is revealing about harm routinely done to LGBTI+ people. This has been made worse by the depth of denial among leaders, which also undermines the Church’s mission in various ways. But to make sense of what happened in that Buckinghamshire village, the broad context is perhaps needed first.

    Making choices and passing on the costs

    Numerous theologians have been making the case for affirmation for many years. In fact, it is now over half a century since the Church of England began its formal study of LGBTI issues. Today, whilst only a small minority of Anglicans in the UK now believe that same-sex sexual intimacy is always wrong, the institutional Church seems largely focused on not displeasing this faction too much. Indeed, it often refused to accept inclusive recommendations by its own working parties and downplayed the strength of the case for change. This made it easier for anti-affirmation campaigners to promote the hollow claim that ‘Bible-believing’ Christians necessarily agree with them and so fend off greater equality.

    This was the backdrop to the grim events in Maids Moreton and nearby Stowe, described in an independent safeguarding review by Adi Cooper for Oxford diocese. Peter Farquhar was an active member of a theologically conservative parish church, sharing those beliefs. “He was a homosexual and celibacy was his way of reconciling his beliefs and sexuality”, but when he retired, despite a network of friends and family, he was deeply lonely. Sensing his need for emotional intimacy, a ruthless young man, Ben Field, pretended to love him.  He wrote that this had “given me happiness that I have long since never expected to enjoy”. But Field defrauded and poisoned him, then moved on to his next victim, Anne Moore-Martin, before being arrested.

    In one of the questions at Synod, Canon Rosie Harper quoted the review: “’The policies of the Church of England regarding homosexual practice and the approach to sexuality and relationships continues to put people at risk because it forces people to hide, lie and become vulnerable to exploitation, as was PF’ and asked what steps will the LLF implementation group take to ensure that Dr Cooper’s concerns about both praxis and theology are comprehensively addressed?”

    The Bishop of London replied on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops, stating that LLF resources “emphasise unequivocally that every person is equally loved by God and made in the image of God”, leading to “welcome, love and care” and an unprecedented openness “which will help to break the perceived need to hide, lie and so become vulnerable to exploitation.”

    Prejudiced insensitivity and unkindness should indeed be discouraged. But the reply sidestepped the main issue: a theology which ruled out love like that which Peter Farquhar’s heterosexual neighbours might enjoy. The review indicated that he was respected and welcomed by his fellow-worshippers, who tacitly also knew him to be gay. Would he really have wished to open himself up to their disapproval and guilt, however caringly expressed?

    Perhaps, as someone who grew up in a deeply hostile era when sex between men was criminalisedand who had internalised the message that acting on his sexuality was sinful, nothing done in the present would have prevented his victimisation by Ben Field. Moreover freedom of speech and belief mean that views that are potentially harmful cannot always be prevented without an overreach of state power which could be even more damaging. Anyway, penalising non-affirming opinions might have marginalised him yet more, since he was ‘conservative’ himself. But if the institutional Church had stopped pretending that suffering caused by inequality can be solved with “niceness” and instead embraced an affirmative stance (while allowing space for theological diversity), maybe he would have survived. So might many others whose mental or physical health  has been eroded by ongoing discrimination.

    Of course, some LGBTI+ Church members are in affirming congregations. Others feel called to celibacy or have adapted to the constraints of a non-affirming stance. But not all can do so without considerable damage, just as some over-75s can safely run marathons but not all can! Yes, following Christ does mean taking up the Cross, even if this ends in pain or death. But this is not about heaping more burdens on the oppressed, rather the opposite: Jesus becomes a target because he champions those marginalised by the powerful and pious (Mark 3.1-6).

    Undermining witness

    While LGBTI+ people continue to pay a high price for Church leaders’ choices, the failure on this issue points to wider institutional weaknesses which leave others damaged or disadvantaged.  It also harms our mission.

    In particular, official statements often reflect a theological perspective in which justice is not recognised as a practical expression of love, though this is a key biblical theme (taken up also by the early Church).

    Showing love is not just about being kind and supportive but also taking action where some have been deprived of or refused, without adequate cause, what others can rightly take for granted (James 2.14-16, 5.1-4)  This Church failure to recognise the need to challenge misuse of power and privilege helps to explain why survivors of abuse and those facing racism, sexism, disability and class oppression have been repeatedly failed. This unwillingness to confront injustice also gets in the way of sharing the good news (Luke 4.16-19).

    Change is needed, now.

  • LLF: Please Break the Silence, Bishops

    by Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge and ordinand at St Augustine’s College of Theology 

    How long must I bear pain in my soul,
        and have sorrow in my heart all day long? (Psalm 13)

    Since LLF was published just a few weeks ago, the calls for a safe space for discussion has become louder and louder, not least given a number of videos, and associated justificatory articles, which many have seen as representative of the erasure, belittling and downright abuse that LGBTQI people have become accustomed to as members of the Church of England. Despite the promises made about ensuring the pastoral principles are adhered to, it appears that bishops are determined not to even mention ‘LGBTQI’ in their statements, aiming instead to talk in vague generalities about ‘different lived experiences and theological understandings’. Beneath this, it has become abundantly clear that, not only are our senior leaders  still missing the point when it comes to power dynamics and structural oppression, but that this is a fundamentally unsafe enterprise even for those in power.

    LLF has asked LGBTQI people to make ourselves vulnerable, so we can listen to those of other ‘theological understandings’, and thus find a way forward as a church. Putting aside the simple fact that a threat of schism (as made in the CEEC video) is hardly ‘listening’, many LGBTQI people are willing to do just as the bishops ask, despite the personal cost. Yet what has become absolutely clear in recent weeks is that the LGBTQI members of the House of Bishops who are not out are themselves terrified to speak out – and that their straight colleagues are giving them no public cover. If they are not feeling safe, then how on earth are the rest of us supposed to? If the pastoral principles are the key to this, then why do they only apply to the clergy and laity – and not the bishops? Is this really what a safe space looks like? And if not, then are we really happy to live in a church driven by fear?

    Silence is not always a bad thing – sometimes it signals serious intent to listen, to engage, to leave room for differing views that don’t need a referee. Christ’s own silence before his accusers was an act of resistance in itself. But silence is not always a virtue. In the past few weeks, the silence from the House of Bishops has been deafening. Very few LGBTQI people are calling for bishops to present combative opposition to those amongst their number who are threatening schism, or those who suggest ‘same-sex attracted’ Christians are trying to divide the church. But for so many bishops, including LGBTQI bishops and those known to be supporters, to say nothing when there is so much hurt amongst some of the most vulnerable in our communities, is extraordinary.

    This silence leaves open the marketplace for insidious voices to continue to work a dynamic of oppression against LGBTQI people. We are told that we should be more ‘gracious’, as though attacks on our very personhood, identity, and, indeed, on the ones we love, are something we should discuss politely over a cup of tea. We are told that our ‘issue’ is being debated and that we shouldn’t ask for too much. We are told that there might be a few changes around the edges but we shouldn’t ask for marriage – often by straight, white men who are able to return, without any knowing looks of disapproval, to their own wives and children. It is very easy to throw stones when one faces no risk, in a system where one’s own privilege is deeply entrenched.

    We are told that we shouldn’t be asking for ‘special treatment’, when such ‘special treatment’ is simply to be able to enjoy the very things that straight people take for granted. It appears to me that an overwhelming majority of straight people do not want to understand what being LGBTQI is like in the church. Very few of us want anything other than what straight people already have – I would have rather more time for the argument that we should wait for marriage if heterosexuals also declared a moratorium on their own marriages to ‘give the church time to make up its mind on this issue’.

    LGBTQI people, like any oppressed group, find ourselves in a deeply pernicious environment, where false equivalences are made between genuine oppression and theological disagreement, where we are expected to model perfect behaviour in the face of abuse, where our identity is fair game for ‘discussion’, where our commitment to scripture is consistently questioned, where our integrity is dismissed, where our arguments are wilfully misrepresented, where our experiences are discounted or trivialised, where we are described as an ‘ideology’, where we are continually spoken about not with, where the bishops who are supposed to be upholding this ‘safe space’ feel neither safe enough to speak out, nor brave enough to even mention us by name – and, indeed, sack clergy for entering into same-sex civil marriages.

    It is in this kind of environment that LGBTQI people are successfully gas-lighted, belittled, delegitimised, scapegoated. This is what structural violence looks like, however ‘gently’ or ‘generously’ it is expressed. Silence in this kind of environment is not neutral – it is participation in sin.

    Life outside the Church would be so much easier, particularly for those of us who have grown up in a world where being LGBTQI is no more interesting than being tall or short.  The miracle is that LGBTQI people are still coming to church, still offering themselves for ordination, still loving the church.

    We’ve had report after report; we’ve had the facilitated conversations; now we have LLF. We’ve been told time and time again that it’s worth it.

    If we are to put an end to this cycle of violence, then our chief pastors need to look in the mirror and ask – what am I doing?

  • LLF – That Video, Those Principles & a Call for a Public Inquiry

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

    I made myself sit down and watch the Church of England’s Evangelical Council’s “Beautiful Story” video yesterday, which, like reading the massive tome Living in Love and Faith, I have been steeling myself to do as I knew it would need both a high level of resilience and courage.

    The opening notes of synthesised music immediately acted as a trigger – taking me back to those large packed worship spaces, where we are all carried along on a wave of professional modern music that lulls us into believing that we are safe, we are loved and that we are in God’s presence.  

    It was a world I was so utterly familiar with – a world where I had, to use Rosie Harper’s term from her recent Via Media blog, been “groomed” as a young impressionable Christian.

    It was a world where I believed without question that those “up front” are always right, for they are our ordained leaders “appointed by God” (oh yes, and bishops) to lead us into all truth and righteousness.

    Their teachings – like the interviews in The Video – sound so reasonable, so plausible.  Indeed, to think otherwise would be to question Truth itself. 

    I couldn’t help thinking of the parallels with the many Trump supporters who are currently living under what the rest of the world believes to be a false sense of reality, fervently believing that the election has been rigged and that Trump is indeed the True President.  What’s more, no matter how much you try and tell them otherwise, they are so “sure of their truth” that anyone challenging them “must be working for the other side” – that is, for the devil himself!

    Many friends have asked me: “Why don’t you just switch the film off, walk away from this mess, stop putting yourself in a place that hurts and wounds you so much?”  The answer is because I am committed, I’d even say called, to work for a world where not one more young LGBT+ person will go through what I had to suffer.  I do not want another LGBT+ Christian to have to sit under this “oh so reasonable sounding teaching” and contemplate killing themself, because they can see no other way out.

    So, at long last we have a 30-minute piece of evidence that clearly sets out the harmful teaching to which many evangelical churches are subjecting their congregations – including their LGBT+ congregants – to.  Please just stop and think for a minute what it must feel like to be a young LGBT+ teenager growing up in these churches, wondering who they can trust with the knowledge that they are “different”, that they are, heaven forbid, gay or bisexual or trans and being asked to watch this.  Here are leaders you have been brought up to revere, that everyone around you admires and respects, telling you that being in an intimate relationship with someone you love is wrong and sinful.  Here are “role models” clearly stating that it’s absolutely fine and normal to be single and celibate for your whole life, as that is what Jesus did and what he calls those of us who are not heterosexual to do. (Editor’s note – we are not Jesus!).

    The pressure this sort of teaching puts people under is enormous.  It comes from those in authority at the front, with no hint that there may be other senior Christian leaders – even evangelicals – who think differently. They just say “this is The Truth”.  End of. Full stop.

    Make no mistake about it, Church of England, this sort of teaching is wrong, harmful, dangerous and must be stopped.  What is it going to take?  Another young person deciding to take their life? Another set of statistics and reports that tell you what you already know but refuse to admit, that you cannot try and appease all sides in this debate?

    Seriously, I have absolutely no idea why church leaders, including bishops, do not see what their inability to act is doing to the vulnerable in their care.  This constitutes gross negligence, which future generations will look upon with disgust and ask how we let it all go on, on our watch, for so long without anyone blowing the whistle or anyone caring enough to intervene.

    That is why I believe the time has finally come to call for an independent inquiry into the harmful practices and rhetoric that LGBT+ people are being subjected to in our society, and by certain religious groups in particular.  It needs to be led by a QC who can hear the evidence of the trauma that people have gone through, and continue to go through, by those in positions of influence and authority over them.

    The Church of England seems to believe that it has dealt with this by creating a set of six Pastoral Principles.  My personal view is that that process, just like the Living in Love & Faith (LLF) process, was highly flawed in its conception, its objectives and in its membership.  Despite repeated interventions on the floor of Synod, calling out the fact that there were a lamentable number of LGBT+ people with the right experience engaged with the process, the Church of England proceeded – deaf to any of this input, and arrogant in its assumption that “it knew best”.  The project is now in the court of public opinion – and the verdict is deafening.  They should have listened!  But that is not, sadly, a skill that many in the central structures seem to have.  

    I mean, who would put a group together that was primarily tasked with providing safeguarding proposals, which had a membership weighted towards those perpetrating the very harm we were trying to protect people from?  No wonder they didn’t want to come up with anything other than “principles” or “guidelines”, to do otherwise would risk a whole plethora of Clergy Discipline Measurers against their friends and colleagues!  We needed something that had teeth, that would hold people to account, with clear consequences for when they crossed the line.  Instead we got “guidelines”, which can be interpreted in any number of ways and so does not set a clear safeguarding standard.

    However, the sad fact is that these principles are all that we now have for now.  So perhaps we should try and measure “The Beautiful Story” video against them?

    Prejudice – from its opening words to its close, the film shows a deep-seated prejudice towards LGBT+ people, particularly LGBT+ Christians, and indeed to anyone who holds a different view.

    Silence – the video says absolutely nothing about what other faithful Christians believe, particularly LGBT+ Christians, even though many fronting the film have been part of the LLF process and are more than aware of what other Christians believe and teach.

    Ignorance – it shows absolutely no understanding of the harm they are creating, nor of the mental health consequences of the teachings they are commending.

    Fear – the whole teaching is wrapped in a fear of admitting that they might be wrong

    Hypocrisy – goodness, there is so much I could write here, but perhaps the starting point is how can someone who has been an active member of the LLF co-ordinating group, and who is tasked with rolling it out in his diocese, be the front person of this film? How can bishops who are tasked with ensuring the roll-out across their dioceses of the LLF resource be seen to say “this is the only way of reading Scripture”?

    Power – I don’t think these church leaders have an inkling of the power they hold over younger people in their care.  There is sadly an air of “assumed privilege” from most of the speakers, which comes from a deep internal belief that they are the only ones to take Scripture and Christ seriously.

    So where do we go from here?

    Well the Church of England has proved itself completely incapable of protecting the most vulnerable – one just needs to look at the recent IICSA or Adi Cooper reports to recognise this.  That is why we must look to another more senior source of power – which is why an independent inquiry is needed.

    Meanwhile, like Trump supporters living in their alternative reality, many in churches that revere the “Beautiful Story” will continue to believe that the secular world is “the enemy”, that only they “have the truth” and that Jesus is coming soon.

    It is clear that these people cannot and will not change their minds, so it is high time that the bishops stepped up to the plate and laid out clear safeguarding rules and regulations to protect those in their care.

    The key question, to which we need an answer, is why don’t they?

  • LLF – Power, Fear & Our Inability To Do The Right Thing

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

    Barak Obama has written the first volume of his memoirs.  In a fascinating interview about A Promised Land he speaks to David Olusoga about America and how change and progress happen. In many ways it is a very hopeful story. He identifies some central fault lines in the country’s history: slavery, treatment of Native Americans, internment of Japanese POW’s after W2 and he names them as their Original Sins. Then he tracks the progress and why he feels hope.

    There is a long list including the Abolitionists, Suffragettes, the Union Movement, LGBTQ activists. As each step forward is taken there remain people who sincerely believe in slavery, patriarchy etc……but……once the country had decided what is right they are disempowered. In other words it is not possible to change everyone’s mind, but it is possible to do what is right.

    Interestingly a change in America’s gun laws is not yet on that list. Why? Because of power. The gun lobby wields so much power that even the good guys like Obama were not able to do what is to clearly right.

    Reading Living in Love and Faith (LLF) made me realise that LGBTQ reform in the Church of England is our “Gun Law” point. Slowly, inch by inch we have progressed. There is still huge racism in the Church, but we name it and admit that it is wrong. Women are not remotely equal. There was for example not a single female clergy candidate for the election to Archbishops’ Council last week. The rules however have changed and the wrong has been named.

    What is stopping us from doing the right thing with regards to LGBTQ people?

    We don’t do it because – like with the gun lobby – we are afraid. Afraid of the power that some at the far right extreme purport to wield. But is it true?  Do they really have so much power that we continue to collude with institutional homophobia because we are afraid?

    Undoubtedly even before Covid-19 the Church of England was facing an existential challenge. Numbers were plummeting, both attendance and income. The scariest statistics were in the collapse of young people’s engagement with “church”.

    Somehow the story we told ourselves was that the only place where there was any hope for growth was in the “HTB model churches”. This was a far easier sell as we got a new Archbishop who had been groomed in that world. Sorry if you don’t like the word “groomed”, but in a way it is compassionate. The avowed intent of the hierarchy of the top private school ‘Bash Camp’ world was to equip these boys for high office in the church and in the country.

    I can see how good it must feel – as if they have all the power. That easy manner. That self-deprecating, but entitled way of occupying centre stage. It must be true. They are the only hope of the survival of the Church of England. Even to suggest otherwise is to betray the church I love.

    But we urgently need to challenge this myth of power. In the area where I live the most catastrophic collapse in numbers and giving have been in churches that have lurched to the right.

    As LLF has now landed I suppose we need to respond, although part of me just wants to yawn and reference ‘Groundhog Day’. Here is my reply anyway:

    This is a valiant effort to try and keep the Church of England together. It makes a very deep mistake in its conception. A pink and fluffy middle ground is neither moral nor achievable . Dr Adi Cooper a senior national social worker and academic, has just published her Oxford Diocese commissioned report on the murder of Peter Farquhar.

    She said: ‘The policies of the Church of England regarding homosexual practice and the approach to sexuality and relationships continues to put people at risk because it forces people to hide, lie and become vulnerable to exploitation.’

    LLF is simply not an adequate response to this ongoing fault line in the Church. As with slavery or apartheid, so long supported by warped readings of the bible, we will have to reach a point where we see that these sincerely held theologies are profoundly wrong.

    We cannot hope to change the hearts and minds of people who think that being homophobic is their God given right. What we can do is be bold in naming it as shamefully wrong.

    In other words the time has come to do what is right.

    If we wait till we all agree that time will never come and meanwhile on a daily basis God’s children are being hurt, shamed, driven to the point of suicide and beyond. It is not sustainable to preach a God of love and allow this state of affairs to continue.

  • LLF – Patience & Pain

    by the Venerable Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight and Chair of OneBodyOneFaith

    How long are LGBT+ Christians expected to carry the painful emotional cost of being part of an unsafe church?

    After a break of some 12 years I returned to the Greenbelt Festival in the early 2000s as a newly out gay Christian. I attend a session by a then well-known progressive Church of England Bishop who was talking about human sexuality. In the session he said that LGBT+ Christians should have patience with the church. I said that whilst I understood this, he needed to recognise that it was those of us who identified as LGBT+ that had to bear the painful cost of this patience. He responded by saying that I knew the situation and if I didn’t like it, I could always leave.

    November 2020 and after years of reports, General Synod debates and shared conversations, Living in Love and Faith is published and yet another two-year process begins. The heavy and painful cost of this still rests with LGBT+ Christians. As Chair of OneBodyOneFaith, we have taken the line all through the LLF project of recognising some people will want to engage with this and others will not. That some will see it as a way to move forward and others will see it as another tactic to marginalise and exclude. As an organisation we seek to support those who fall into either category.

    Having supported the project, I now find the thick book sat on my desk staring at me and I am unable to pick it up and read it. This is not a critique of the material itself but rather a snapshot of what I am feeling and why.

    There is a huge issue for me about just how safe this process will be for those of us who are LGBT+. I attended a session with other guests and some of the team who put the LLF material together this last week to introduce it. It was of course online but as I ‘entered’ the online room and looked around I found my anxiety levels increasing. I was in a space with those who have been architects of reports, statements and social media posts that have sought to exclude me and criticise me and my faith as a result of my being an openly gay partnered man. I do not doubt the sincerity of The Bishop of Coventry or his team in trying to create a safe space, but it was simply not safe, and I question whether it can ever be. In these groups I bring more than a theology or an idea or issue, I bring myself. I bring myself, my faith and my loved ones into a space where they can be dissected, examined, and condemned. I am a confident, out gay man with a senior position in the church and despite this here I was in an online room with significant anxiety.

    My inability to see how this can be a safe process was underlined a couple of days later when the Church of England Evangelical Council released a 30 minute video called ‘The Beautiful Story’ in which they use very thin theology and some unhealthy arguments to condemn and judge LGBT+ Christians in an inappropriate and condemnatory way. This included members of the group who have worked on the LLF material clearly indicating that they have no intention of listening or engaging at all and thus undermining the whole process. The negative and abusive impact this video has had on a large number of LGBT+ Christians has been significant.

    In addition to feeling unsafe I feel patronised.

    Throughout the LLF process and in the meeting this week I have heard members of the LLF describe many times the incredible journey they have been on (although clearly not those in the aforementioned video!). I am delighted that they feel this way. For those of us outside it has been and remains deeply costly and painful. Additionally, many, many of us, both LGBT+ Christians and others, made this journey years ago. I have done it; I have worked through what my faith and sexuality mean. I recognise myself as created and beloved by God. I see my sexuality as a gift from God, I am glad I am gay and wouldn’t want it any other way! Yet I am expected to enter into that costly and painful process yet again just because the church has kept kicking the can down the road. I am glad some people feel able to do that – I am not sure that I do.

    The world currently faces the worst health crisis in a generation. We are having to deal with a situation none of us could have imagined. The Church is having to adapt in ways we never imagined. My inbox has never had so much in it and my diary has never been so full. I am dealing with levels of unprecedented anxiety in people. Right now, the world needs the church to be offering a better narrative, to be offering hope. That is a challenge, but it needs to be our priority and I see very many Christians, including LGBT+ Christians offering that hope. What the world does not need is for the Church to be making judgemental statements about sex or to be seen to be entering yet another long and protracted conversation about it – it looks very much like ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burns’.

    So that is where I am with it. That may change but I can’t see it happening anytime soon. I have tried my best to be hopeful and engaged but I also need to take care of myself, my loved ones and the people I seek to serve as a priest.

    So that comment I made to the Bishop at Greenbelt some 20 years ago still stands. The painful and personal cost of this process is still being born by LGBT+ Christians.

    And yes, we still have the option to leave but for some bizarre reason God seems to want me to remain. God seems to want me and my wonderful partner of nearly 14 years to be here as part of a loving and affirming parish and diocese. God seems to want me to worship with a diverse bunch of people on an island off the South coast of England. God seems to want me to serve with the fantastic, diverse trustees and members of OneBodyOneFaith in empowering LGBT+ Christians and advocating for change. God seems to want me to see the change which is happening at parishes across the country where people are affirmed and loved whoever they are, a change which the House of Bishops seems unable to see or to acknowledge.

    God seems to want me to be part of a community of Hope. That really is a beautiful story.