Thinking Anglicans

Opinion – 7 April 2018

Jeremy Morris Viamedia.News IICSA – Is Clericalism to Blame?

Stephen Parsons Surviving Church A response to Martin Warner on Safeguarding
[We linked to Martin Warner’s article yesterday.]

Wealands Bell Preaching in red ink

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Safeguarding needs a major overhaul

Today the Church Times has a two page spread of articles following up on the IICSA hearings.

Leader comment: Safeguarding: the next steps

…These pages contain a range of different perspectives on how to tackle sexual abuse; and yet there is a common desire to make safeguarding comprehensive and effective. This sounds like stating the obvious. There is a danger, however, pointed out most clearly by Josephine Anne Stein, that the type of safeguarding being promoted throughout the Church is modelled on a pattern designed to protect institutions from prosecution. A Christian organisation must do better than this…

Martin Warner Safeguarding: what we got wrong, and the steps we are taking to put it right

Linda Woodhead Forget culture. It’s a new theology we need

Anonymous: Sex-offender asks: are only the righteous called to repentance?

Josephine Anne Stein: The safeguarding overhaul that’s needed

…Safeguarding in the Church of England has burgeoned into a procedural, bureaucratic, and bloated industry that does not appear to be effective either in responding to abuse or in preventing further abuse. When checked earlier this year, the C of E’s safeguarding policy posted on the National Safeguarding Team’s website consisted of 364 separate pages…

…THERE are alternative approaches to safeguarding within the healthcare sector, grounded in the development of professional ethics, the regular assessment of fitness to practise, and professional discipline.

There are also alternatives to formal safeguarding complaints procedures that combine knowledge and experience from occupational psychology, specialist social work, and restorative justice, much of which is unfamiliar within the Church.

Furthermore, there are inexpensive and empowering ways to improve knowledge and understanding of both the causes of and responses to abuse in different constituencies within the Church — a bottom-up approach in contrast to current centralised, top-down training. If everyone in the Church is responsible for safeguarding, everyone is also responsible for ownership of safeguarding…

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Opinion – 4 April 2018

Archdruid Eileen The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley Simon Jenkins Writes Drivel
Jules Middleton apples of gold In Defence of the Church – a response to Simon Jenkins…

David Ison ViaMedia.News The Challenge of Harmonious Difference

Two more primatial Easter messages
Primus Mark Strange
Moderator Thomas K Oommen
[These have all been taken from the list compiled by the Anglican Communion News Service]

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