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Tag: abuse

  • Behold the Men: Identifying Risks, Reconsidering Relationships

    by Rachel Starr, Director of Studies at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham

    Since Behold the Men was published in January, a lot of people have commented on its relevance to the present moment. Conversations about how churches interpret, encourage, even prescribe, certain models of masculinities have long been needed, but often not given the necessary attention. Today’s global realities have brought into sharper focus the problematic intersections of white power, patriarchy, colonialism and certain forms of Christianity. Yet churches are still in denial about the necessary theological work they need to do in relation to abuse, inequality and injustice.

    In an article from 2019 addressing clerical abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, Susan A. Ross observes that ‘the insights that feminist theology offers to this crisis have not received the kind of attention they deserve’ and seeks to demonstrate both that ‘many (although not all) of the issues in clergy sexual abuse are theologically grounded’ and also that ‘feminist insights can contribute to a transformed church in which ?patriarchy and clericalism no longer dominate, where there is a healthy and holistic theology of sexuality, and ?where the voices of women and the laity are truly heard’ (Ross 2019, p. 633).?

    When viewed in relation to the ongoing safeguarding crisis within many churches, the risks inherent within dominant models of masculinity are clear to see.

    Within many such models, men are considered solitary, independent figures. They are expected to be both self-centred and self-reliant rather than understanding themselves in relation to a wider community. Men are encouraged to be the answer rather than to ask questions or listen to other people’s responses. They are called on to be strong, to ignore or decry their own and others’ vulnerabilities. Men are expected to lead rather than follow, receive instruction or advice. Men in leadership face pressure to be the charismatic leader, the hero, the saviour. As I have written elsewhere, the hero is best avoided.

    As part of their formation within such dominant models of masculinity, men are asked to deny or overcome emotions – framed as signs of weakness – and focus on the rational mind. They are kept at a distance from the realities of their own – and especially others’ – bodies. In different ways, and in a variety of settings, men are seen as creators and consumers, rather than those tasked with caring or cleaning up. This can result in a lack of attentiveness to the impact of actions or decisions.

    A model of masculinity found in some men’s spirituality movements is that of the ‘wild man’. While this model is less prevalent in British churches, it is present in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. This is a model focused on individual spiritual needs, sometimes to be pursued with aggression. It invites risk-taking rather than rule-following. Another model present in some Christian traditions is the successful man, whose presence is sought and whose failings are overlooked. A third model explored in Behold the Men is the family man, often found within a ‘culture of niceness’ which can mask power and stifle challenge. All three of these models – and others beside – need to be reconsidered if churches are to become places of wellbeing for all.

    Behold the Men offers some suggestions as to how churches might begin conversations around what it might mean to be a man of faith.

    1. Beginning with bodies

    ‘In our earliest conversations about the book, we talked about the importance of the body. While we cover shared ground with some systematic theology texts, we made a conscious decision to begin not with God but with human bodies, specifically, men’s bodies. Each chapter places bodies central to the discussion: naked, earthed, displaced, broken, of and in Christ, healing, resistant, receptive, created and connected’ (Beckford and Starr 2015, p. 4).

    We hope the book will help readers to listen to their own bodies and trust the insights offered: but not to be limited by their own embodied experiences. As Brazilian feminist theologian Ivone Gebara writes, ‘I have had … to listen with my whole body to what my particular body had not experienced concretely’ (Gebara 1995, p. 129).

    1. An ongoing conversation

    Behold the Men brings together more than a dozen contributors, who offer insights from a range of contexts, identities and theological traditions. The aim of the book is not to propel the reader towards a clear conclusion. Instead, it invites readers to listen carefully to different experiences, gain fresh insight and be encouraged to find new ways forward. It is not the first book exploring masculinities within Christianity, and we hope it will not be the last.

    1. ‘We Cannot Walk Alone’

    We chose to use Birmingham artist Eddy Aigbe’s painting, ‘We Cannot Walk Alone,’ for the book cover. Originally commissioned by Celebrating Sanctuary for Refugee Week in 2021, the image seeks to convey many different people coming together to shape more inclusive, just communities. In the work of justice, the wisdom, compassion and commitment of many is needed. We hope our book will be a resource for the journey. Certainly, there is much distance for our churches to travel if they are to be places where all bodies are welcomed, respected and honoured. Challenging violent and limiting models of masculinity within churches, exploring more inclusive and healthy ways of being men of faith, is long overdue.

  • Safeguarding and Patriarchy in the Church of England

    by Revd Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    The 253-page Makin report on the Church of England’s handling of the John Smyth abuse case – that has brought about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury – has been pored over by many people in recent days. But one part that has so far been overlooked is the section that links the abuse with patriarchy.

    In 9.1.9-10 the report describes the patriarchal culture of the camps at which the abuse took place and how this was conducive to that abuse. Makin says that the camps were entirely run by men and a victim states: ‘…it was an incredibly sexist set up, a group of people called lady helpers, many of whom were either wives of the leaders or female undergraduates. These lady helpers were kept out of sight, out of mind, they’d be doing the cooking in the kitchen…’

    The report goes on to say that clinical psychologist, Dr Elly Hanson, also explores how this patriarchal approach… ‘was a conducive cultural and organisational factor,’ describing the impact in relation to this case as follows:

    “Misogyny and patriarchy: men are seen as in authority over women… men are granted more power than women and treated as having more wisdom and insight. As a result, John’s behaviour and justifications may have been given more legitimacy; his focus on young men was not questioned; and potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent.”

    The Church of England still uses its exemptions under The Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against women on the grounds of their sex. For example, it is still permissible for churches to ask only male candidates to apply for a post as a vicar. It is permissible for such churches to limit women’s ministry and prohibit them from preaching to, or teaching, men. It is permissible for such churches to say that they cannot accept oversight of a female Bishop but need to be overseen by a male Bishop such as a ‘flying bishop’ like the Bishop of Ebbsfleet. There are many such churches in London and big university cities and they include All Souls Langham Place, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, St Andrew the Great in Cambridge and St Ebbe’s in Oxford.

    The flip side of this permission is alarming: no one can be considered for training as a priest in the Church if they want women and men to be treated equally and do not accept the institutional discrimination that has been in place for thirty years, ever since women were first ‘permitted’ to be priests. And those who critique this discrimination find it very hard, if not impossible, to progress to senior posts in the Church. Ironically, the arrangements are referred to as ‘mutual flourishing’ which is shorthand for the expectation that both women and those who don’t fully accept women’s ministry can flourish.

    This ongoing discrimination is an injustice to women who, both ordained and lay, work hard throughout the country serving their churches and communities and who deserve to be treated equally with their male colleagues.

    And it is also unsafe.

    A culture which is essentially an old boys’ club is a fertile environment not only for abuse but also for its cover up, as we have seen in the Church regarding the Smyth case. Furthermore, it is an environment in which one entitled group is facilitated in exerting coercive control over another group.

    The Bishop of Newcastle has shown great integrity and courage in upholding safeguarding standards in the Church, not only by calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign but also by publishing a letter she received from him and the Archbishop of York recently, which was patronising and coercive in trying to get her to adopt a certain position on another safeguarding issue relating to John Sentamu.

    Women are called to show ‘gracious restraint’ in the Church and to accept that some of their colleagues have the right to limit their ministry. This practice is essentially coercive, requiring women to accept a diminished status without complaint and gaslighting them, if they resist, by calling them unkind and saying that they are marginalising others.

    Although, as a result of the Makin report, there is an immediate need to arrange for independent safeguarding in the Church, safety will not be fully addressed without changing the culture that has been an old boys’ club for far too long. One helpful step would be to put an end to institutional discrimination by sex. If the Church won’t do this itself then maybe Parliament should consider removing its exemptions under The Equality Act – so that it would be illegal for the Church to continue discriminating.

    And, hopefully, it could then authentically become the spiritual voice for the nation – both safeguarding the vulnerable and treating all people equally.

     

     

  • Makin – 1600 Days Late: Will it be Worth the Wait?

    by ‘Graham’

    I have asked if a letter I wrote in 2019 might be reproduced in full, and here it is, below. Victims and General Synod have been told time and time again that the Makin Review has had a lot of work to do, that new information keeps coming to light. However, it was clear to victims from the beginning that this would be a long and complex task, requiring far more than two part-time Reviewers. There were over 100 victims, over four decades, in three countries. Was it not obvious that this was a serious piece of work?

    And the letter shows that simple building blocks for a good Review were just not in place (leaving aside that the Review started two months late). There was no GDPR provision (that was not put in place until Autumn 2020); no ability to record or scan; no encryption; no reference group; no oversight; no timetable; no urgency. It is interesting rereading it today: there never was a Reference or Oversight Group despite my demands: no one to ensure the Review was delivered competently, and on time.

    Otherwise, the letter stands on its own. The Makin Review is now 1600 days overdue. It has been promised on multiple occasions, since 2021, in statements from Keith Makin or the National Safeguarding Team that proved to be complete fiction. Numerous promises have been made to General Synod, and every one of those remains undelivered. In fact, I gather the Makin Review is still mired in the representations process (usually referred to as “Maxwellisation”) and the stated end date for Maxwellisation of 6 June 2024, was, like everything else, just made up.

     

    This is what I wrote in 2019:

    Dear Keith and Sarah

    As most are aware, for family reasons I am pulling back from the Review until the New Year. I have made every attempt to accelerate the process. I had asked for a full day to brief you, but was told you did not have a single free day together until December 11th. I have tried, but I am now pulling back from the Review.

    It is almost fifteen weeks since the Review was announced:

    • There is still nothing on the CofE website about contact details, methodology or process
    • There are still no public contact details for Keith or Sarah
    • GDPR issues remain
    • There is no agreed timetable for contacting victims
    • No counselling resources are available yet, that I am aware
    • The proposed Reference Group is not yet in place

    Then, the Terms of Reference have been changed, and the revised version “implanted” in the original 13 August statement. There is no indication there that the ToR has been revised and it is unclear whether this has been drawn to the attention of interested parties (two victims I have spoken to did not know). How can that possibly be best practice?

    I note also that the revised ToR states that “work commenced in October 2019”. This has been sneaked into the new ToR. Again, how can this possibly be best practice? I also ask why when I had meetings with Melissa on 19 September, Keith on 4 October and +Peter on 18 October no one had the honesty or integrity to drop the pretence that work had been underway for weeks, and admit the process was two months late in starting.

    I have now spent almost twelve hours with you. And the time has been discursive rather than investigative. Keith, you took less than one page of A4 notes in an entire four hour meeting this Tuesday. Sarah hammers away at her laptop. This produced a summary of just over five pages, but it read like bullet points: points jotted down on the laptop, then regurgitated a few days later.

    So, I asked (again) whether the meeting would be voice recorded. I have previously given my consent to this. I was again told that GDPR and data collection issues had not been agreed and that the meeting could not be recorded on Sarah’s laptop (and there was an aside that she should not actually be taking notes on that laptop: I assume all matters to do with security, confidentiality and encryption). I was told you are waiting for the CofE to provide some kind of box to sit on the table (I believe they are known as tape recorders).

    So, twelve hours of testimony has not actually been comprehensively recorded? I wonder what other, more extensive write up has been done of each meeting as an awful lot more than that was discussed over twelve hours?

    I have bundles and bundles of documents. Many of them are contemporaneous. After the first two meetings with you it was agreed that we would then have a very substantive session, going through my four box files (so probably over 1000 pieces of paper) relevant to the Review. I asked for a photocopier or scanner to be provided. It was not in either meeting. And it appeared you had little interest in looking at, or capturing a record of really important documents. At one stage Sarah did use her phone to photo one document, but I said that was absurd and copied a few on my iPad instead, and subsequently emailed them to you. However, key documents (a 1982 letter detailing who was told, when and by whom) were discussed, but no record taken. This is important evidence surely?

    And I hoped we would go through the raft of correspondence (particularly pertinent to how the CofE has responded in the last eight years) with Lambeth, with Canterbury, with Titus Trust, with Ely, with David Porter, with NST. I had brought all of this to the meeting to pass on but, while discussed, there was no capacity to take copies of any of them. And actually, not much interest shown in seeing them.

    I repeat my earlier comment, the meeting felt like another “scoping” exercise, still, fifteen weeks later, trying to get a grip on the most basic outline chronology and story. In the first meeting I handed over a document I had prepared at the suggestion of Emily Denne. It was called Scope of the Review and comprised approximately 150 questions that the Review might consider. We have not been through that list: it remains substantially untouched. After twelve hours, we have hardly started on what I feel the Review should cover.

    I acknowledge that this is a vast, nine month long exercise. I am being told again and again that this is a complex review, possibly one of the widest and most difficult the CofE has attempted. Then where are the resources? I have not been told that you are getting extra help, or are working more than a few hours each week? I see no urgency, no expertise, no investigation. The output is a few pages of notes after each meeting. It deserves a care, a professionalism, a respect that is not being shown.

    I have waited eight years to tell my story, and over a tortuous last three years my life is shattered, my marriage is effectively ended, I am more stressed than I have been for months. I would like access immediately to counselling services for my wife, marriage counselling for us both, and individual support for myself. Why am I the one lying awake all night?

    I am withdrawing from the Review until the New Year. I have also advised the victims with whom I am in touch, not to participate. They will not contact you.

    I hope that, by the New Year, great strides will have been made. Come back to me when you can tell me that:

    • the Review is properly resourced
    • That interviews can be appropriately recorded
    • That documents can be properly collected
    • That all GDPR issues have been addressed
    • That Counselling services are in place
    • That the Reference Group is in place

    In the New Year, if you can reassure me of these then I may reengage. And I will make a judgement call as to whether to contact other victims.

    Please do not contact me. I need to take some time off, immediately to support my family, but primarily for my well being. I will take emails, but not calls, from Emily. Any contact with me should be through Emily. However, I am going to try to put this aside completely for a few weeks. Damn the lot of you.

    Graham 22/11/19

    Cc Bishop Peter Hancock, Emily Denne, Melissa Carslake

    Richard Scorer, Slater & Gordon

     

  • Lovingly Hated

    By Anon., on behalf of the Oxford Safe Churches team

     

    The summer after my first year at university I listened to hours of sermons telling me I was going to hell.

    I was already painfully familiar with these words and hearing them from an Oxford church was by no means surprising. As is often the case, these accusations of ‘sexual immorality’ and ‘going against God’s will’ came from a church with a greeting sign at its doors: ‘All are welcome’.

    Lovingly hated. That’s how I like to refer to it. The way some of these “Christians” so completely oppose my queer identity and relationships. Yet, in the same breath, they will tell me I am loved and considered worthy by the same God they believe would send me to hell. Unless of course I renounce every aspect of this ‘deviant identity’ and mould my innermost being to fit into their idea of acceptable behaviour.

    Conversation therapy happens all the time in churches. It’s not always a dramatic exorcism, sometimes it’s disguised as ‘meeting for coffee’. And then the people you look up to and respect will reveal what they’ve believed from the very beginning: that there is no space for queer identity in their view of Christianity. That you need to renounce this  ‘same-sex attraction’ or, if you can’t, be forced to pursue a life of celibacy.

    The worst part about being judged and shamed by churches, is that it can happen when you least expect it. From the same people who drew you in with their free dinners and flashy events; in the same places you once felt safe and seen. You can be torn apart at a moment’s notice. This only happens because churches intentionally hide what they believe about LGBTQ+ identity and relationships in order to draw people in.

    “Okay, we get it, some churches don’t accept you… but why are you so focused on them? Can’t you just move on to other places?” I wish I could just move on, but no.  Firstly, their words and actions cut deep. Secondly, moving on leaves no trace of what these places actually believe and practice behind closed doors. Each year, freshers are sucked into churches that ‘welcome’ them and leave them vulnerable to spiritual abuse. Out of concern, because I would never want anyone to go through what I’ve seen happen to others, I felt an obligation to make everything public.

    Hence, I put in hours of work over my summer ‘break’ listening to those sermons over and over again. Each damnation was transcribed and carefully put together in a report to prove that certain Oxford churches are not in fact ‘loving and welcome to all’. But that this love has conditions. Even though it’s excruciatingly obvious to anyone who even remotely looks, or loves, like I do, I had to prove this was happening. I had to show freshers which churches could be seen as safe, and which have hidden beliefs to be wary of.

    Oxford Safe Churches. Pages and pages of testimonies, research, affiliations, references, sermons, and anything else that gives any indication of what an Oxford church believes about LGBTQ+ identity and relationships. There was a lot to put in that report. And it was awful.

    And what was the response from our Bishop of Oxford? The same Bishop so celebrated for his support of same-sex marriage in the Church of England in his 2022 booklet, Together in Love and Faith. Silence. Even the slightest acknowledgement of what we wrote would have been enough to know we have someone on our side. Yet, in the light of everything we reported, all the horrible testimonies, there was no response.

    In fact, in that booklet, the last we heard from Bishop Steven, he insists we don’t ‘assign blame to individual clergy or churches’ and should avoid the ‘emotive language of abuse’. But how can we possibly move past the shame and trauma that LGBTQ+ people have felt in the church without acknowledging it for what it is? The Oxford Safe Churches Project has now written to him. Clergy and churches who are responsible for spiritual abuse have the responsibility to repent of that. To take accountability and be transparent about what they believe. If not, it seems the Church of England cares more about protecting its image than protecting vulnerable people.

  • Mike Pilavachi: The Elephant in the Room

    by Augustine Tanner-Ihm and Jonny Masters. Augustine is Team Curate at St James & Emmanuel, Didsbury, Manchester and winner of the 2020 Theology Slam: Jonny works to ensure the voices of young people shape decision-making in the charity sector and is married to Alex, his husband.

    Jonny Masters begins with a personal reflection:

    I imagine Mike Pilavachi would make a self-deprecating joke about the title of this article, and then belittle someone else in an even more severe way, back when he was front and centre at Soul Survivor festivals. I’d probably have laughed.

    When I think back and remember laughing at Mike’s insults to other leaders on stage at Soul Survivor my soul curdles a little inside. Was I complicit in long-lasting abusive behaviour? 

    Lord, have mercy.

    The situation regarding Mike Pilavachi has been widely discussed in Christian media and by the evangelical Christian community on Twitter/ X. The impact of Mike’s actions, first reported by The Telegraph last year, has rippled deeply in the hearts of those who had previously felt positive about his ministry. Now, tainted by confirmed allegations of sustained abusive behaviour, many Christians have been questioning their experiences of the Holy Spirit at Soul Survivor Watford, and Soul Survivor festivals. Youthscape have written an excellent article for youth workers to process the situation. It is also full of wisdom for others indirectly impacted by Mike’s actions. Premier Christianity have released a great podcast investigating Mike’s actions. However, in all the discussion and conversation (though at the time of writing not all podcast episodes have yet been released), the condemnation and the concern, there has been a silent elephant in the room.

    Sexuality.

    Mike’s actions, particularly massages, have a sexual edge to them. We need to acknowledge this as a Church. A well-respected Christian man spent time massaging young men, sometimes on his own bed. This caused immense harm to young Christians who had taken time and space to serve God. Could our overwhelming silence of decades regarding sexuality be bearing rotten fruit? Could the way we treat LGBTQ+ people be causing harm? Could our interpretation of Scripture be harmful? We would suggest yes, yes, and yes. The silence surrounding homosexuality and the wider LGBTQ+ community that has lasted decades in most evangelical churches has echoed profoundly in the conversations surrounding Mike’s actions. Yes, Mike’s controlling behaviour has been roundly condemned, celebrity culture in the church has been critiqued, but we have seen very few people raising their hands (or should that be heads above the parapet?) to ask how silence around sexuality could lead to such actions.

    It seems like Mike found a line that he would not cross and went as close to it as he could. Mike’s moral compass, informed by the evangelical charismatic Church, allowed his actions to go as far as they did, but no further. Mike’s understanding of morality in relation to sexuality consisted of clear, boundaried, actions. The boundary was sex. As far as we know, Mike committed no overtly sexual acts with another person. However, the pattern of intimate physical contact with young males raises the question of whether the acts he did commit may have offered some form of sexual gratification.

    Mike’s behaviour is considered abusive and has led to disciplinary measures. How can a well-respected, celebrated, man of faith go so far wrong?

    Silence. That would be the short answer. Let’s explore what we mean by that.

    The evangelical wing of the Church has not wrestled adequately with the question of human sexuality. It has placed it in a box. Mike, trapped in the box, banged loudly on the sides of the box and caused himself and those he loves considerable harm. Perhaps we need to think about human sexuality differently. Excuse the pun, but we need to think outside the box.

    When we look at the broader implications of conservative culture and its handling of sexuality, it’s essential to consider the wider context in which figures like Huw Edwards, Phillip Schofield, Mike Bickle, Mark Bailey, and Revd Mike Breen operate or have operated. It’s critical to clarify that the specific “downfall” or scandalous behaviour attributed to these individuals varies greatly, and in some cases, public allegations or confirmations of misconduct might not exist. Therefore, discussing their personal faith, alleged scandals, or impacts without verified evidence could be misleading and potentially harmful. Instead, the discussion will pivot towards the systemic issues within certain evangelical communities that have broader implications.

    The conservative purity and evangelical culture, noted for its often-stringent views on sexuality, has had profound effects on individuals within these communities. These views are often implicit and rarely spoken about or open to challenge. This culture, which sometimes harbours dangerous homophobic theology, can create environments where individuals feel compelled to suppress their true selves. This suppression can lead to significant psychological distress, strained relationships, and in some tragic cases, self-harm or suicide.

    This culture of silence seems to have spread because the church is not talking about a very important thing; the behaviour of Church leaders whose sexuality is not admitted because it does not conform to the ideal they are promoting. Mike Pilavachi is a man who has attempted to follow Christ and listen to His Spirit for many years. Thousands of young people have come to know Jesus Christ because of his ministry. But sadly, many people were harmed during his ministry too. His controlling and coercive behaviour played a large part in this. However, the reluctance of the wider church to challenge the potentially toxic theology he believed and preached regarding sexuality also needs to be considered. Many of our charismatic evangelical churches, organizations and groups, have ignored the elephant in the room. A wise question to ask would be, “Did we as a community enable Mike to do this to young men because of the potentially toxic theology we have preached or sometimes chose not to engage with?”

    The theology often preached within some conservative evangelical circles advocates for a strict adherence to traditional gender roles and sexual abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage. This approach can lead to harmful practices such as conversion therapy, which has been widely discredited and condemned by medical and psychological associations worldwide for causing significant harm to LGBTQ+ individuals. The Church of England has also condemned the practice of conversion therapy.

    Conservative evangelical environments can also be fertile ground for abusive behaviours to be masked or excused under the guise of spiritual authority or correction. When leaders or influential figures within these communities fall from grace, it often prompts a period of reflection and questioning among their followers. However, the systemic issues that enabled such falls remain entrenched and difficult to address without a fundamental shift in theology and practice.

    Quotes from individuals who have experienced harm from these cultures often speak to the profound sense of betrayal and loss. They may have felt a deep connection to their faith and community, only to find themselves ostracized or harmed when their true selves were revealed or when they questioned the status quo.

    The path forward requires a re-evaluation of the teachings and practices that have led to such harm. It calls for a theology that embraces love and acceptance over judgment and exclusion. It is a theology which allows Christians to be open and honest with one another. There is no shame in mistakes – that is the joy of the gospel because of Jesus Christ. This shift is not just about preventing the “downfall” of prominent figures but about creating a faith community that uplifts and supports all its members, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.

    In conclusion, while individual scandals may capture public attention, the deeper issue lies in the theological and cultural practices that contribute to systemic harm. Addressing these issues requires courageous conversations, openness to theological thinking, and a commitment to love and respect as core principles of faith.

    It’s time to address the elephant in the room.

  • Vile Bodies?

    by Adrian Thatcher, Honorary Professor in the Department of Religion and Theology, University of Exeter and a Trustee of Modern Church

    So now we know! While the authorization of same-sex marriages within the Church of England remains a distant dream, ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ for same-sex couples are to be commended by the bishops next month for experimental use in stand-alone services. The Church of England Evangelical Council immediately announced that the proposals ‘depart from a biblical understanding of sex and marriage’.

    One of the main sticking points among conservatives throughout the churches is that ‘biblical understanding’ is unchanging. Was the CofE wrong, then, when in 2004 it changed its doctrine of marriage to permit, albeit ‘in exceptional cases’, divorce and what it called ‘further marriage’? Was it wrong to allow a widower to marry his late wife’s sister; or wrong in 1835 to prevent it; or in 1907 to allow it again, having faced down trenchant opposition from conservatives over several decades similar to the outbursts that have been heard in Synod this week?

    If biblical understanding is unchanging then employing and trading in slaves, killing Jews and crusading against Muslims is fine too. Ephesians is pretty explicit: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ’ (Eph. 6.5). Were Augustine and Aquinas right to deduce from scripture that slavery was instituted by God so that by it certain people could be blessed by learning the virtues of obedience and humility? Were white mainline Protestants biblically sound to invoke the curse of Canaan (Gen. 9.18-27) in summoning biblical support for the convenient prejudice that all black people were cursed?

    Who dares to recall that a favourite proof text of Christian slave owners was the parable of Jesus which illustrates the need for disciples to be watchful for the coming of the Son of Man by means of a slave owner meting out punishment to inattentive slaves, actually cutting one of them to pieces for misconduct (Luke 12.46)? The cutting open of the bodies of slaves by lashing and lynching was a common punishment during the Jim Crow years in the Protestant USA, and the next verse – ‘‘The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows’ (Luke 12.47) – offered a persuasive reason for doing exactly what the saying recommended. Being Christian and cruel is fine, authorized by Christ himself.

    This exegetical cruelty – the shameful shadow side of Christianity almost never acknowledged – persists in the present wranglings where scripture is utilized to reinforce cruel prejudice. It is nothing new. ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (Matt. 27.25), cited Christians, as they hacked innocent Jewish people to death in the name of Christ. Martin Luther’s wicked text, On the Jews and Their Lies, is packed with biblical quotations. Yes, on the basis of scores of proof texts he advised that synagogues be burned, their books confiscated, their worship forbidden, and that they driven from Luther’s country. Yes, if this great Protestant Reformer could advocate these things on the basis of scripture, what confidence can we have in the siren cry, ‘sola scriptura’ heard all around the Anglican communion?

    The time has now come for an investigation into the prior historical and theological causes leading to this Anglican tolerance of prejudice and pastoral cruelty. Such an investigation will uncover that disturbing strand of the tradition that regards particular human bodies as inferior, disgusting, vile, ‘other’. This tradition would explain more than the disdain shown to LGBT people and their arrangements for living in love and faith. It would help to explain the terrible and world-wide abuse of children and vulnerable people by Christian leaders; why the churches covered it up; why racism is still endemic; why women still can’t be ministers or priests in most of the world’s churches; why spiritual abuse operates unchecked; why churches uphold marriage while ignoring the poor quality of life within many of them.

    My new book, just published, has begun this wider, deeper, and necessary investigation. Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice uncovers an antipathy toward particular human bodies in much Christian theology. It vilifies them, whether the bodies of women, slaves, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, heretics, gays, heathens, people of lower classes. This tradition of thinking about and mistreating bodies is stubbornly entrenched in theology. It manifests itself whenever the church manages to get itself talking about bodies.

    Bridging the distance between biblical times and our own, Vile Bodies examines the psychological abuse of women compelled to see themselves as the downfall of the world; the futile attempts of holy men to deny their sexuality; the elaborate (and entirely biblical) justifications for owning slaves and enslaving whole peoples. It shows how mystical theology plundered the body’s senses in its forlorn attempts to soar above them in the soul’s search for God. It describes the elaborate manipulation of biblical texts to justify the persecution and killing of Jews, soon extended to justifying the crusades, enslaving millions, and colonizing whole peoples.

    Racism, sexism, colonialism, and homophobia follow from the theology that regards some bodies as superior, others as inferior or disgusting. A particular feature of such theology is that it requires self-delusion, constant repetition, the refusal of complexity, and the pretence that cruel and exploitative beliefs and practices are consistent with God’s will. At other times spiritual malpractice appears to be acknowledged (“We sincerely repent”) while the bad theology continues unabated. Alleged fidelity to scripture is substituted for real fidelity to Christ.

    An ‘unknowing’ of this tradition is an urgent task. The inoculation from self-criticism; the priority of apparent unity over the pursuit of truth; the abuse scandals and their concealment to protect the church’s ‘good name’; the hypocrisy that spins pastoral principles while at the same time undermining them; these are the demons awaiting exorcism from the body of the church.

    Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice, is published by SCM Press on November 30th. Copies at a 20% discount can be ordered here.

  • Learning Lessons? Leading a Church Where Abuse Has Happened

    by Revd Canon Mark Bennet, Team Rector in the Thatcham Team and member of General Synod

    I reviewed a book a while back for the journal Practical Theology. Written by Gail Cafferata, and based on research mainly in the US, it was called The Last Pastor: Faithfully Steering a Closing Church. It was about how to close a church well, and what happens to people and buildings and resources and memories afterwards. Published in 2020, strangely it appears not yet to have appeared on the reading list of any course I am aware of in Church leadership – in spite of the fact that there are in fact many people who do close churches, and closing them well is very much better than closing them badly. If it is a common task – and Cafferata contacted over 130 pastors in five different denominations – then why are we not intentionally learning lessons from those who wear the T-shirt? It is an example of the learning we don’t want to do – we’d rather be (against the trend) growing churches and doing exciting things rather than attending to what is actually in front of many of us.

    None of us want to face a major safeguarding issue in our context – my own context is a parish. But if we do face such an issue, it would be good to have some deep research which goes beyond crisis and reputation management. Within six months of taking on my role of Team Rector I had to deal with two situations involving two different youth leaders in the parish, one of whom ended up spending time in prison. I mentioned an outline of my issues in a speech at the July 2023 General Synod in the debate on safeguarding reviews. ‘Lessons learnt’ is a term used all the time in these reviews, but I mentioned in passing the learning we apparently don’t want to do, about treating victims and survivors well over the long term. But my main focus (which the Church Times missed in its Synod report) was on the learning we haven’t even thought of doing: about the impact on, and care of, communities in which abuse has happened. When it happened to me, I had no body of learning to which I could refer to guide me in my unexpected and unwelcome new context.

    I hope that such experiences have a low incidence, but over time even a low incidence of scarring and damage unhealed can start to have a substantial impact, as cases mount up. Do you know what it feels like to face the prospect of doing youth work in the face of the “younger and more diverse” agenda when there has been a double betrayal in the parish? That has been one of my questions, but if the damage is low incidence, we must note also that our contexts of ministry are very diverse. Not many will have a single church building serving a parish of over 25,000 people. So I was arguing at Synod that we need, as a church, to capture, consolidate and reflect on the learning from the contexts where abuse has happened, so that people like me have resources which have a chance of mapping onto something like their own situation if the worst happens to them. It may be that reviews are the wrong tool for this work and that ongoing intentional research would capture the learning and the stories more effectively.

    What I do know is that if no-one is learning, then mistakes will be made – and no-one has yet put themselves out to learn from me and my experience. It is hard work to be the pastor of a congregation in which abuse has happened. In many cases it seems to divide the community between those who believe the stories are true, and those who would defend a “good person” or the reputation of the church. My journey covered five years, conflict, unexplained decisions and judgments and a serious case review encompassing the church and two schools (I was chair of governors of one – not, as it happens, a church school). The impact lasted for longer than that. Just to illustrate some of the questions which arose for me over this extended period:

    How do you preach over time: are there problematic Bible passages?

    How do you negotiate your relationship with local schools where you are a governor and parents are getting their best information from the local newspaper?

    How do you deal with newspaper stories in those community contexts?

    How do you manage a PCC which knows little of the story? And Churchwardens likewise?

    How do you manage a team when some can know things that others do not?

    What are the considerations about continuing the youth work in the parish (other partners may be involved)?

    How do you survive the incorrect comments and factually inaccurate narratives which emerge in your community when you can say nothing to challenge them?

    How do you cope with being called “paedo” in the street or in a public place?

    The demands and pressures of being embedded in a community where abuse has happened over a considerable period are not comms issues, or problem solving, or even sometimes actually safeguarding issues – they are issues of relationship and trust, and at heart are pastoral issues. As I mentioned in my speech, a community can be strongly divided, with emotion running high – as a work context, it can be demanding and at times relentless.

    I hope I never face the same issues again – my learning is of little use to me. But it could be of huge value to an unknown colleague facing some of the same challenges in a different context. What do we lose by putting ourselves out to learn the lessons?

     

  • Two Things Which Really Matter

    by the Very Revd Dr David Ison, former member of General Synod, who next month retires as Dean of St Paul’s 

    This is my last blog as Dean of St Paul’s. After 43 years of stipendiary ordained ministry, it’s time to let go of doing in order to do more being. I’m glad to make space for a younger generation of Christians to have the opportunity and responsibility to lead Christ’s church into the future. And I’m hopeful for them, and even for the Church of England, because there are many wonderful lay and ordained Christians committed to following Jesus, and that’s what Christian churches need in order to face the many challenges and crises coming to a head for this country and for humanity across the globe as capitalism and imperialism reap what they’ve sown.

    Over the last four decades there are two key things which I’ve learned which I think are at the heart of what Christian faith, mission and ministry are about.

    The first is how to do church and mission in an increasingly pluralist and contested public space, where the narrative of ‘scientism’ (that the universe, however amazing, is meaningless) undermines spiritual as well as mental health and reasonable faith, leading to superstition and extremism. The Church has lost plausibility, made worse by its failures of safeguarding and its moral divergence from what many people regard as reasonable. The Church’s temptation is either to take refuge in dogma and draw hard boundaries around itself as ‘counter-cultural’, or to become just one interest group alongside others competing in the market-place for people and resources. The ‘Save the Parish’ movement is a belated response to a crisis which was known to be coming long before I trained for ministry in the 1970s, as the inability of many parishes to maintain numbers of laity and clergy and financial viability in the face of heritage building costs and other challenges has been predicted for over 50 years.

    My experience of what works in mission is fairly simple. It is to pray – to love God; to love our neighbours by serving them inside and especially outside the church; to love one another as a diverse group of disciples; and to do these things together, building a shared vision for a loving and serving church. Being people of spiritual integrity, living in the truth, welcoming other people without judgement (see Matthew chapter 7), meeting them in their personal and community needs – that’s what attracts people to the Christian gospel. In an incarnational faith, it’s Christian lives, not doctrines or techniques, that build the kingdom of God.

    I’ve never understood the emphasis in the Church of England’s ordination services on ‘proclaiming’ the gospel, as if it were passed on by megaphone. The third-century Christian writer Tertullian pointed out that the Christian community attracted people, even though it could mean persecution and death, because they could see the love which Christians had for one another and for others, and they wanted to be part of it. Proclaiming isn’t of value in itself: it’s drawing people into following Jesus (‘making disciples’) that matters, and love in action, not words, is at the heart of it. And thanks be to God that many churches and Christians do it!

    Jesus says to his would-be disciples, ‘you will know the truth and the truth will make you free’ (John 8.32). It’s that living in integrity that people respond to; and the heart of the Church’s problem is that it hasn’t been living in love and integrity. The inability of heterosexual men to cope with their own sexualities has led to the projection of those inner conflicts on to others including in the Church, impacting women and children in safeguarding cases, sexual and domestic violence, and ongoing legal and cultural discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people. The Church’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ culture of official disapproval but covert acceptance of sexuality has had a huge impact on the lives and mental health of LGBTQ ordained and lay ministers, and has perpetuated a culture of dishonesty and lack of accountability which has allowed other abuses to occur, as seen for example in the surfacing of safeguarding cases over the last decade and the recent news around fraud in the Diocese of London. Whatever the outcome of the Living in Love and Faith process and debates in General Synod, the Church must end up with real love, truth and honesty at its heart, lest it continue to be seen by the rest of the world as hypocritically less moral than the majority of our society.

    The second main thing I’ve learned in ministry is that it’s about following Jesus. That sounds obvious! But it relates to the question of integrity. Years ago I wrote an article entitled ‘The Pharisees will always get you in the end’, making the point that the Pharisees are there in the gospels to show us what we as religious people can be like when our religion becomes more important than God and people. In his encounters with the Pharisees, Jesus subverts the dogmas of his day: healing on the sabbath, being unconcerned with purity laws, forgiving sinners without due process – he is focused on the person and their motivation and relationship with God, rather than on the expectations of others. Jesus is still challenging, but he gets to the heart while the Pharisees look at the outside; Jesus is concerned with holiness rather than purity, while Pharisees then and now confuse the two.

    The Diocese of London has for a number of years had as a unifying statement the concept of ‘Generous Orthodoxy’. It’s akin to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ in that it allows Christians with very different views to agree on a slogan while not engaging with their real differences, with people putting differing emphases on the level of generosity and the content of what orthodoxy is. My experience of church politics in London and on General Synod has been of increasing power games over the last several years, based on churchmanship and dogma rather than on the reality of people’s lived Christian experience, with less powerful groups (including LGBTQ, Global Majority Heritage, disabled, women) being pushed to the margins, and a lack of integrity between what’s said and what is actually done in practice.
    There’s a tendency in the Church, following after the world’s culture, for extremism and division which does not reflect the love of God, and which is unbecoming to followers of Jesus and unattractive to Christians and non-Christians alike.

    My hope in Christ is that everyone matters equally in the Church, and that’s what the LLF process has been trying to pursue. I pray for the outcome to be love and to be really truthful, centred on people not dogma. The irony about so many of the arguments in church circles is that much of the language about judgement in the New Testament is about our actions and their outcomes, not concerned with our beliefs and doctrines: ‘by their fruits you shall know them’. I do wonder whether some who describe themselves as ‘biblical’ have really taken on board St Paul’s words on love in 1 Corinthians 13…

    When finally, in the words of a key fob my children gave me, I ‘get called to head office’, I don’t expect to be examined on my understanding of penal substitution, but on whether I truly loved God, and my neighbours as myself. That’s what really matters.