Mark Clavier Well-Tempered Formed for Faithfulness (7): Learning to Worship Again
Sally Hope Church Times Online misogyny has no place in the Church
Michelle Burns Guarding the Flock One of the Lads: Auditing the Boys in Church of England Safeguarding
With reference to Michelle’s article, I would contrast the tone she reports at that meeting, with the challenge and unwillingness to just accept orders from above, demonstrated by Jasvinder (OBE) and Steve of the ISB, when the Archbishops’ Council sought to impose and foist a new Chair upon them, without shortlist, and contrary to the confidence of many of the survivors already vulnerably involved with the professional and independent ISB team. The ISB team was awkward and not easily compliant, summarily disbanded with real harm to the survivors involved. So though we have many people doing faithful work at parish… Read more »
I submitted a response to the INEQE survey for the diocese where I lived, and was surprised that they only seemed to be interested in hearing about experience of safeguarding interactions with the diocese during the preceding year. This struck me as being a very limited time period, and immediately had me wondering about how thorough the exercise would be.
The article by Michelle Burns strikes me as timely given that my diocese is currently preparing for an Ineqe audit. Part of process involves a survey to be completed by as many different people as possible. However, alarm bells began to ring for me when it became clear that all surveys have to be completed online, which will guarantee that many voices won’t be heard. Perhaps pretending that digital exclusion doesn’t exist is a quick and easy way to make sure the voices of the vulnerable aren’t heard.
It’s a well honed operation requiring lots of paperwork to be prepared so the diocese feels suitably under the cosh . Surveys as you say have to be completed online via links sent out by the Cathedral/ diocese and returned by clicking the button…. So maybe not just digital exclusion, but would a traumatised survivor risk doing that – how do you know the survey can’t be traced back to you ? Then the focus groups are just that , again online though there was apparently a link in case any participant wanted to say anything private …. It is… Read more »
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by what Michelle Burns has written. This is precisely why professionally organised regulation includes lay panel members (and is very particular about what ‘lay’ means – basically no connection at all with the profession or organisation being regulated) and particular about declaring conflicts of interest for every case being handled, with consequences for not doing so. Of course, that kind of regulation is openly grounded in the Nolan Principles of Public Life, something actively resisted by the powers that be in the C of E, as they describe a way of being in which the… Read more »
“…we begin to inhabit God’s strange new world where… resurrection isn’t metaphor but reality…” I very much like most of what Mr Well Tempered writes but i think these words are unnecessarily restrictive. The possibility that resurrection is metaphor should be allowed. Being metaphorically true (e.g. we live on in what we leave behind) is still reality. We just cannot know whether resurrection is literal, metaphorical or something inbetween. Where I’ve landed on this most central of questions is that we do not AND CANNOT know how literally we can take this. It is a mystery (unknown, unknowable, hidden) but… Read more »
I often wonder whether there are truths–reality–we are meant to accept and pray to understand. The other, voluntarist, option is to decide that our own minds are the measure of truth. We then reflexively react and say, ‘where I’ve landed’ etc. The resurrection accounts speak of a real Jesus who interprets scripture, eats, forgives, directs, and reassures. All of these verbs, to mean something, need an agent, a reality, a person. That is what the NT is happy to give us. “Truly our hearts burned within us” they say after they meet a real man with real things to say… Read more »
If the risen Christ ate, did he also go to the toilet?
Did the Risen Christ not eat — I think that is the point of your comment. Is what the NT tells us to be rejected, and why? On what grounds?
And if yes, on what basis do we have any access to Jesus Christ other than our own assumptions and wishes.
Gnostic ‘believers’ referred to their special insights and spiritual knowledge, and they largely rejected a bodily Jesus and the bulk of the NT canon as such.
They did not believe “Jesus went to the toilet” and a lot of other things reported in the NT.
Nigel, may I commend to you Paul’s words on the reality of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where he lists the witnesses to the risen Christ in verses 5-8 (no metaphor there) before stating, in verse 14, “And if Christ has not been raised our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” Also, do read Frank Morison’s Who Moved the Stone?—first published in 1930 and reprinted many times since—by a writer who was convinced that the resurrection story wasn’t true when he first set out to write about Jesus’s last days but, after a detailed study of… Read more »
Like all such apologetic literature, ‘Who moved the stone?” is utterly convincing to already believing Christians, and utterly unconvincing to non believers.
Can I assume such a sweeping statement is based on detailed research?
I can point to the fact that far fewer people in the UK believe in the resurrection now than did in 1930 when when the book was published.
But unless all the people who don’t now believe in the resurrection have read Who Moved the Stone, that’s no reflection on the book, or apologetics in general.
In a way that is QED. Apologetics are only of interest to people who already believe.
And? A cause for proclamation. Who would ever hold that belief in the resurrection is like buying a candy bar. It was hard for the first apostles as well.
“And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.” Acts 17:32
I think this says the same thing, but of course the reference is not to the resurrection of Christ specifically, but to the final resurrection of the dead — a belief held by the Judaism of the day (famously not the Sadducees). Instead of an end time event, the resurrection of Jesus came in the middle of time. First-fruits. Making it no less easy to understand, as the Gospels indicate.
I did write that, even if understood metaphorically, resurrection is “very real”.
My point is that some people take it literally and some metaphorically and that it seems unhelpful to say that only the former are truly Christian.
For example, if someone is inspired by the teaching and example of Jesus to act at great personal cost, even risk their life, in order to do what is right, despite their belief in life after death being rather vague or uncertain, I would hope that ‘thinking Anglicans’ would accept the legitimacy of that kind of Christian faith.
Nigel, in terms of acceptance, my own faith is very similar to yours. I cannot be certain about the historical truth of these stories, mainly because I am aware of the close similarity between the Bible stories about Jesus and many such stories about other gods. But I am drawn to the power of these stories and choose to live my life “as if” they were true. I expressed such a faith during my LLM training, but it did not stop my bishop giving me a licence. Interestingly, some of the best responses I got to my sermons was when… Read more »
“one that people keep to themselves”- I agree, but I think we need to proclaim it with confidence, loud and clear, so that Christianity may regain respect in our society.
Not to oversimplify things, but this sentence is one that I don’t understand. “so that Christianity may regain respect in our society” Is this the goal, respect in our society? I ask because it could be that Christianity regains what you call ‘respect’ for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with Christianity as such. Maybe it is just that having an established church creates this sort of expectation. But that in turn raises the question about an established church which is slowly but surely dying. There are more Roman Catholics at Sunday mass. They are not seeking… Read more »
I think that one of the main reasons why the majority of the population would not even consider Christianity is that it seems to be about fairy tales. However there are ways of interpreting it that are much more credible to those who are skeptical about the metaphysics, e.g. ‘what does the story of the Transfiguration mean?’ rather than ‘what could you have filmed if you’d been there?’
I fear the start of a very useful but extensive debate on why the majority of the population would not even consider Christianity. they are all perverts the services are boring the sermons are bland and patronising they just say ‘we should all love each other’ which is no different from any other religion or secularism they stand on high street corners handing out leaflets and preaching nonsense with a loud hailer, they are all bonkers they phone up LBC and start ‘As a Christian…’ and talk about sex endlessly. or else they start with ‘The bible tells us…..’ they… Read more »
Maybe he means ‘so that the Christian gospel is no longer considered with contempt’ or similar? I seem to remember something about how Christians should be a salt. I cannot imagine he meant the goal of the Christian church is to be respectable.
Quick fire comments can often be misinterpreted.
And just to add to my last post. One can be criticised for having too little faith in the truth of the Bible stories. But can one have too much faith? “US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force. One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer… Read more »
An excellent article by Michelle Burns which I strongly urge anyone and everyone to read; especially it should be read by anyone and everyone who has suffered injustice at the hands of a Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser (now known as Safeguarding Officer). I should like to mention that in comments on TA and other blogs I have spoken about the power DSA(O)’s seem to have in being totally unaccountable to anyone. This includes senior clergy and lawyers in the Diocese as well as people and organisations in the Church of England. They are a law unto themselves. This was apparent at… Read more »
I’m puzzled that it has taken 3 years to blow the whistle on what happened at the Oval cricket ground.
Michelle may not have felt able to comment until she had left the organisation. Wearing your union rep hat, I am sure you can relate to that.
Note that “The Boys” are still silent, and probably cannot understand what the fuss is about.
They have no need to say anything- it’s all working perfectly according to plan. But if you listen more carefully to the silence you may just pick up the sounds of their hands rubbing together in glee and the muffled weeping of the guardian angels of all the victims and survivors still being hung out to dry….
Our world is falling apart, thousands of innocents are being slaughtered in the name of God and religion, a lot of it in the name of Christ, and there is not a word about on this site! We seem consumed with arguing about different interpretations of Scripture or the teachings of Jesus about sexuality. How can we continue to let Trump and his cohorts continue to invoke the Christian message as justification of their blood thirst and greed. No wonder people are turning away from the faith, which seems to ignore the world we live in, and the suffering of… Read more »
i agree, but hesitate to hijack other threads. Maybe the administrators could put up a considered article on war and Christian justification for war? My dad edited a book on Christian perspectives on nuclear deterrence many years ago, with authoritative contributors,
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003082910/ethics-nuclear-deterrence-geoffrey-goodwin
if there was to be a separate thread, I would hope we would all struggle with the complexities. If a country embarks on a plan to murder 5 million of it’s citizens, would we act to prevent this? If they also invaded neighbouring countries, would this justify war? What if they murdered 20,000? What are the ethical considerations behind international law? What of unintended consequences?
Of course WWII did not start because of the holocaust, but looking back it was much easier to justify it.
as my dad wrote, in his article in the book:
To posit the ideal, to highlight the relevant principles is a worthy Christian calling. To help identify, as is attempted in this essay, the political realities which are crucial to the attainment of even an approximation to the ideal and also the political processes through which the realisation of the principles must be sought is, I would claim, no less a Christian responsibility.
I posted a reply, but it seems to have got lost in the ether! The world in which Jesus lived, and the early Christian martyrs also, was a cruel, savage world, as graphically demonstrated in the death of Jesus on the cross. But Jesus never encouraged us to respond to savagery with savagery, as Peter tried to do, or as Judas and Pilate expected Jesus to do. Jesus mixed with the so-called enemies, like the Samaritan woman, and His stories are full of outsiders, like the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan leper who returned to give thanks. The early Christian… Read more »
I can only go back to the Gospels. The world in Jesus’ time was a cruel one, too, as his horrible death and that of others, testifies.. But Jesus did not tell his followers to slaughter in return, but to be and, in their lives proclaim God’s love for all his children. That is why the Samaritan woman was surprised by Jesus’ approach, as was the Samaritan who returned to give thanks. When the church does otherwise we have the Crusades, the slaughter of the Albigensians, etc. We cannot become flag-waving Christians, complicit in the slaughter. Coming, as I do,… Read more »