Jon Kuhrt Psephizo The culture change we need in the light of abuse scandals
Helen King sharedconversations Counter-cultural Cranmer?
Martyn Percy Modern Church Churches and Cultural Climate-Change Denial (Part One): Learning from Canute
Churches and Cultural Climate-Change Denial (Part Two): Money, Sex and Power
Anne Foreman ViaMedia.News General Synod: Why I Can’t Support “Save the Parish” Campaign
Edmund Weiner Surviving Church Iwerne Camps and Conservative Evangelicalism. Memories and Reassessment
Angela Tilby Church Times Ministry that is lay-led is not Anglican
69 CommentsPress release from Number 10. There is more on the Portsmouth diocesan wesbite.
Appointment of Bishop of Portsmouth: 8 October 2021
The Queen has approved the nomination of The Right Reverend Dr Jonathan Frost for election as Bishop of Portsmouth.
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
Published 8 October 2021
The Queen has approved the nomination of The Right Reverend Dr Jonathan Frost, Dean of York, for election as Bishop of Portsmouth, in succession to The Right Reverend Christopher Foster, following his retirement on 31st May 2021.
He will lead the Church of England’s Diocese of Portsmouth, which covers 133 parishes across south-east Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Background
Jonathan was educated at the universities of Aberdeen and Nottingham; he prepared for ordination at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and served his curacy at St Giles’ West Bridgford, Nottingham. Jonathan was ordained priest in 1994 and, alongside parish duties, served as a Police Chaplain.
From 1997 to 2002, Jonathan was Rector of Ash in the Diocese of Guildford. In 2002 he took up a new joint post as Anglican Chaplain to the University of Surrey and Residentiary Canon at Guildford Cathedral. For 11 years, Jonathan taught Christian Doctrine on the Local Diocesan Ministry Course. He served as Bishop’s Advisor for Inter-Faith Relations and on General Synod. He was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the University of Surrey in 2012.
Jonathan served as Suffragan Bishop of Southampton from November 2010 to January 2019. In these years Jonathan chaired the Portsmouth and Winchester Joint Diocesan Board of Education and became Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Portsmouth.
He was installed as Dean of York at the Feast of the Presentation in February 2019. Among his priorities are prayer and Benedictine spirituality, evangelism, discipleship and working with others to tackle what he describes as ‘the scandal of poverty’.
He said: “I am learning to walk more gently on the earth and to partner with others in seeking climate justice. Inspiration to work for the integrity of creation, in my experience at least, has most often come through encounter with visionary young people.” He is a trustee of USPG, an Anglican mission agency.
35 CommentsThe October issue of The Critic has this article by Jonathan Aitken describing the events at Christ Church Oxford: Low panic at high table
Four years after a handful of disaffected dons began their abortive plotting to oust Dean Martyn Percy, the college’s charitable foundation has so far spent at least £3 million of its funds on legal, PR and other dispute-related costs. It has also thrown away another estimated £3 million of lost donations because a number of wealthy past and present philanthropists, including Christ Church’s greatest benefactor Michael Moritz, are withholding any future gifts until the toxic Tom Quad antics have ended.
No such end is in sight. The latest bulletin to alumni has coyly skated over the news that the Employment Tribunal, one of the half dozen courts, tribunals, or regulatory bodies currently engaged with investigating or judging aspects of the college’s legal quicksand, will not even begin hearing its Christ Church cause célèbre until 2023.
During these shenanigans the college’s academic results have nosedived. Christ Church, which used to be one of the regular leaders of the all-important Norrington Table, has this year come almost bottom in 34th place out of 37.
Far from any self-examination for the teaching and lecturing disappointments that must be partly responsible for this debacle, the self-congratulatory dons on the governing body have just proposed a handsome increase in their salaries and allowances. Only one member, a non-academic, dared to oppose this largesse and walked out of the meeting after strenuous opposition…
Do read the entire article.
12 CommentsStephen Parsons Surviving Church The Leicester Challenge to the Parish System?
Jayne Ozanne ViaMedia.News General Synod: the Abomination of Desolation
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The inability to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy Christianity
11 CommentsUpdated 3 October, and again 11 October
The Church Times had this report yesterday: Bishop Mullally seeks to tackle ‘deficit of trust’ in Two Cities Area. Here’s an extract:
Unrest in London still keen after death of Fr Alan Griffin
…Minutes of a meeting of the Two Cities Greater Chapter earlier this month, seen by the Church Times, record that the response of the diocesan leadership to the death of Fr Griffin is considered “wanting in several significant respects”, with a feeling that Bishop Mullally had “demonstrated insufficient pastoral care for her clergy”, especially among those named in the brain-dump report, some of whom felt “a sense of rage, indignation, bewilderment, frustration and sorrow”.
In a letter to clergy in the Two Cities sent earlier this month, Bishop Mullally wrote: “I am resolved to continue the process of cultural change in the Two Cities Area which was already a pressing priority . . . There is currently a deficit of trust. This must be addressed by a continual striving for transparency, approachability, collegiality, sensitivity, respect and kindness as characteristics of our relationships with everyone.”
On Wednesday, she spoke first of her concern for the friends and family of Fr Griffin. Asked about culture change, she said that this process had been ongoing since her arrival in the diocese in 2018. Among her findings on arrival was that clergy spoke of “a sense of isolation. There is a competitiveness; people were anxious about needing to prove themselves. . . There are potential tribes here. . . And also I have to say the fact of being the first woman bishop also brought some of its own complexities within that.
There was a need to create a “more collaborative” environment. Other work had included increased support for mental well-being, including support for those going through the Clergy Discipline Measure process.
“Culture change isn’t just me: it’s about us,” she said. “Some of the reason why people feel isolated and anxious is about us and how we treat each other . . . The unfortunate death of Fr Alan made people articulate that we are still on a journey.”
Asked about the clergy named in the brain-dump report, she said: “We have to recognise that the coroner put that in the public domain, and I am sorry for the hurt that that has caused. . . There is no doubt in my mind that there are things that we will learn through it, not least that we are already beginning to bring in a triage system around those things that come forward to safeguarding…”
I recommend reading the news report in full.
There is also a report in this week’s issue of Private Eye which includes:
“…Private Eye learns that a majority of clergy in the Two Cities area of London Diocese… held a closed meeting on 14 September at which feelings ran high. Many were friends and former colleagues of Fr Griffin. Some spoke of “rage, indignation, bewilderment, frustration and sorrow” at the failure of the senior diocesan staff to care for them in the face of allegations made against them. One, driven to despair, said they had not received a kind communication from diocesan leaders in three years.
Some are quietly planning legal action against their own diocese. Others, encouraged by the threatened vote of no confidence that led to the defenestration of the Bishop of Wiinchester… are now proposing a similar vote against the Bishop of London.”
From the earlier diocesan report as mentioned in our article of 24 August:
“The full Terms of Reference (subject to consultation) will be published on the Diocese of London website when consultations are complete (anticipated early September 2021).”
As of 2 October, these have not yet appeared.
CORRECTION: These were published on 13 September, and are dated 3 September. Link to the ToR document below:
Terms of reference published 13 September 2021.
Chris Robson has been appointed as the independent reviewer. Chris worked for the Metropolitan Police Service for 30 years in a wide range of roles. Since 2017 he has been the independent chair of a number of safeguarding boards and he has undertaken various safeguarding reviews.
With regard to the review, the LDF’s privacy notice can be found here
Update 11 October:
The latest issue of the Church Times contains two letters to the editor which are both well worth reading: they can be found here.
There is also an update to their news reporting on the topic: Review of Fr Griffin case will not apportion blame.
68 CommentsApril Alexander ViaMedia.News General Synod: The Challenge of Voting in Women Bishops
Christopher Landau Church Times Is the BBC committed to religious news?
“The corporation’s slowness to appoint a new Religion Editor does not inspire confidence”
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Is the Iwerne Movement a Cult?
11 CommentsThe Rt Revd Paul Slater, Bishop of Kirkstall, an area bishop in the diocese of Leeds, announced his retirement today. He will leave on 31 January 2022. The diocesan announcement is here.
17 CommentsElections to General Synod are currently taking place. I have posted links to the election addresses of candidates here. This includes all the dioceses and special constituencies except for some where candidates were unopposed. The only exception is the Armed Forces Synod whose members are to be “elected or chosen … in such manner as may be determined by the Armed Forces Synod”. I have been unable to find anything online about how this being done.
In addition to election addresses some dioceses have produced videos of the candidates and/or held hustings or question and answer sessions which are available online.
If anybody wants to download any of this material for future reference they are advised to do so in the next few days. If 2015 is any guide some dioceses will remove election addresses from their websites immediately after voting closes on 8 October.
I am also compiling a list of the members of the new synod here.
Additions and corrections to either list can be emailed to me here.
3 CommentsThe Scottish Episcopal Church has announced Mediation Steering Group established for Diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney.
The Episcopal Synod, comprising all seven diocesan bishops, met online as planned this morning to consider the setting up of an independent mediation process to help the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney move forward from its current difficulties.
The Synod voted to meet in private and then unanimously agreed to set up such a process and appointed a Mediation Steering Group to oversee the process. The remit for the Steering Group is set out below.
The Group will be chaired by David Strang CBE, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland and former Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and Lothian and Borders Police. The other members of the Group will be the Rev Liz Crumlish and Morag Hendry. Further information about each member is set out below.
The bishops are grateful that all three have accepted an invitation to serve and for their willingness to offer their skills and experience to the Church in this way.
The Group will now commence work, initially, on appointing an external mediation organisation to scope, and subsequently undertake, a confidential mediation process. In setting up such a process, it is expected that a range of individuals within the diocese will be consulted.
The Group is aware of the need to move forward swiftly, and further information will be issued on behalf of the Group as soon as it is in a position to provide more details.
The bishops acknowledge that this is a difficult period for the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, and recognises the level of hurt and upset experienced by a number of people. It has also been a challenge for the bishops themselves, and they have listened to a wide variety of differing opinions in recent weeks. They are in the process of considering what additional pastoral support can be made available.
Meanwhile, the bishops invite all members of the Scottish Episcopal Church to join with them in holding the Diocese, and the future mediation process, in their prayers and they encourage members of the Diocese to engage positively with that process, which they hope will help to bring healing.
The press release then lists out the Steering Group Remit and provides further details of the members of that group.
See here for our previous report on this.
6 CommentsThe Church of England has released statistics on remote worship during the March to July 2020 lockdown: Church at Home. There is an accompanying press release, copied below.
Thousands of churches offered remote worship during lockdown, new report finds
01/10/2021
Thousands of churches adapted ‘at a moment’s notice’ to providing worship at home from the start of the first lockdown, according to a new report published today.
More than 9,000 churches (78%) offered ‘Church at Home’ online, via email, post and telephone during the March to July 2020 lockdown when collective worship was suspended because of the coronavirus restrictions.
More than 8,000, or 69%, offered livestreamed or pre-recorded services, while more than 5,000, or 44%, offered services downloadable from a website or emailed. More than 4,000, or 33%, offered printed and posted services and more than 2,000, or 21%, provided telephone or dial-in services.
The majority were continuing to offer these services in October last year even though most were also open for in-person collective worship.
6 CommentsSee our previous report of 15 February:Proposals on NST independent oversight published.
Today’s press release:
Chair and survivor advocate appointed to Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have welcomed two key appointments to the new Independent Safeguarding Board that will provide oversight of the Church of England’s national safeguarding work
Dr Maggie Atkinson, a former Children’s Commissioner for England, has been appointed as Chair of the Board. She will lead the formation of the ISB and ensure there is an effective approach to the independent oversight of safeguarding in the longer term.
The Chair will provide expert recommendations to enable the Church of England to embed a proactive, preventative, safer culture, and ensure the Church is held publicly accountable for any failure to respond to the ISB’s recommendations.
Jasvinder Sanghera has been appointed as the Board’s Survivor Advocate. She will ensure that the experiences and views of victims and survivors are heard and embedded within the safeguarding policy and practice development frameworks.
Maggie Atkinson has completed more than 40 years’ dedicated work with children, their families and communities. Born and brought up in Yorkshire, after graduating from Cambridge she taught in comprehensive schools then worked in service and practice improvement in local authorities, including as Director of Children’s Services for Gateshead. She was Children’s Commissioner for England 2010-2015, and now leads independent challenge and scrutiny in several localities’ safeguarding partnerships. She serves on a number of charity Boards, including at UNICEF UK.
Jasvinder is the founder of the charity Karma Nirvana, and has extensive experience of working with victims and survivors of forced marriage and honour abuse. She is Chair of the Leeds Children Safeguarding Partnership.
The two appointments were made by an independent panel which will now work with the Chair to appoint a third member to the ISB whose skills and roles will complement the members already appointed.
The purpose of introducing an independent structure for the Church’s safeguarding work is twofold: to ensure good safeguarding and to challenge the internal cultures of the Church of England which too often have resulted in preventing best practice.
Conscious of the need to improve the culture of safeguarding across the church, the Archbishops’ Council and House of Bishops had already agreed to support the development of an independent structure to deliver professional supervision and quality assurance across its safeguarding activities. The IICSA Report gave new momentum to this decision.
Chair, Dr Maggie Atkinson said: “I am honoured and pleased to have been appointed to establish and chair the Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board. I look forward to starting our work, as a strong response to safeguarding concerns whether they are historical, or current. We will be a small but insightful group, from a range of backgrounds and experience. For all my adult life I have worked with and for children, young people, families and vulnerable adults. Such work holds ordinary people and their concerns at its centre.
“The Board will focus on how the Church either protects people who work for or come into it, or falls down in its duty to do so. All who engage with the Church must be confident they will be kept safe. It follows that safeguarding must be a primary concern in everything the Church does, every day. This work is not only about really learning lessons when things have gone badly wrong and people have been hurt as a result.
“It is about the culture, practice and steadfastness of safeguarding as an automatic, Church-wide state of mind. The Board’s role will be to question, reflect and report on how far this culture is manifested in what the Church does for the people it serves.”
The Survivor Advocate, Jasvinder Sanghera, said: “I feel immensely privileged to be appointed the Survivor Advocate for Church of England’s, Independent Safeguarding Board. It is vital that the Board, in overseeing and assuring the soundness of the work done by the National Safeguarding Team, has the voice of survivors and victims ever present in all it does and says.
“This role is significant to the journey of the church and I am delighted that I will be contributing to this vision, helping to make a difference to the lives of those affected by abuse, so that lessons are not only learned but embedded in practice.”
In a joint statement, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said: “These are vitally important appointments and we are pleased to welcome them.
“Numerous reports in recent years have made clear the Church of England’s safeguarding failures and provided clear and urgent recommendations for how these can be addressed – including greater transparency and accountability at every level.
“We are deeply grateful to Maggie and Jasvinder for offering their wisdom, skills and lived experience to move us forward and provide greater oversight of the Church’s safeguarding work.”
2 CommentsMartyn Percy Modern Church “Nuts and Bolts” (III): Reflecting on the Governance Review Group Report
[We linked to parts I and II here.]
Charlie Bell ViaMedia.News General Synod: Honest to God!
‘Angela’ Surviving Church Power abuse against Church Leaders. The Witness of a Parishioner
The Archbishop of York gave this lecture at St Martin in the Fields – The Dream for the Church
19 CommentsMartyn Percy Modern Church “Nuts and Bolts” (I): Reflecting on the Governance Review Group Report
“Nuts and Bolts” (II): Reflecting on the Governance Review Group Report
Church Times What the C of E can learn from the police
“Withdrawing resources from local communities results in loss of trust and confidence, argues Alan Billings”
Andrew Lightbown Theoro0 Speaking of character, culture, mixed economies / ecologies & parishes
written in response to the article by Alan Billings
Sam Norton Elizaphanian Synod: The dying of a church is not a management problem
Ian Paul Psephizo Why we should all be using printed Bibles
45 CommentsAndrew Lightbown Theore0 Speaking of character, speaking of culture
Kelvin Holdsworth Making the Real Presence, real.
Church Times Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘Daily fed and guided’ in sacrament
Archbishop Welby talks to Madeleine Davies about reform and the pandemic
Jenny Humphreys ViaMedia.News General Synod: Permitting Discrimination is Very Dangerous!
75 CommentsGiles Fraser UnHerd Only chaos can redeem the Church
“God save our parishes from people with MBAs”
Church Times The love affair with the parish — has it ended?
Madeleine Davies, in part two of her study, looks at the forces for its retention and abandonment
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Purposeful Sexuality – naive, dangerous ideas about LGBTIQ+ and straight identities
48 CommentsWe linked on 7 August to a critique of the April 2021 amendments to the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 Code of Practice written by Gavin Drake.
More recently, Rosie Dawson wrote about this for The Living Church: Church of England Code Silences Victims, Critics Say (some additional links added).
13 Comments…”These were significant amendments ,” retired barrister and Synod member David Lamming told TLC. “It’s unfortunate that they were overlooked at Synod because they seem to me to go beyond what the measure authorises, which is that the guidance applies only to those who exercise functions within the CDM process.”
The timing of the amendments has led several commentators to conclude that they were drafted in direct response to concerns about the publicity surrounding a CDM complaint brought against the dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the Rev. Martyn Percy, in November last year. In May 2021 the President of Tribunals, Dame Sarah Asplin, effectively dismissed the case, ruling that it would be disproportionate to refer the matter to a tribunal.
The complaint against the dean came within the context of a long-running, very public and very acrimonious dispute between him and the college and cathedral chapter. Supporters on both sides have engaged in briefing a voracious media. A dedicated website keeps Dean Percy’s supporters abreast of every twist and turn in the saga.
“It is rarely a good idea to legislate from the circumstances of a single case as, appears to have been done here,” says Martin Sewell, a retired Child Protection lawyer and General Synod Candidate. While he believes the motivation behind the changes to the code of practice may have been well-intentioned, he says the effects run contrary to free speech and natural justice. “Much speculative gossip about the circumstances ensued about the nature of the case against Dean Percy. I don’t think it was wrong to have refuted such gossip in careful terms.”
The Church of England would not be drawn on the Percy affair in relation to the changes to the Code of Practice, but said that there had been number of recent cases in which details of complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure had been made public, causing significant distress and upset for those concerned.
One priest who has fallen afoul of the new rules is the Rev. Robert Thompson, vicar of St. Mary and St James in West Hampstead, London, who announced on Twitter in April that he was subject to a CDM for online bullying. In the adjudication he later received, he was reprimanded for “weaponizing” social media and forbidden from disclosing any further details of the case, including the outcome.
“Robert got the result of his CDM and was told there was no case to answer,” says his friend and fellow priest, the Rev. Andrew Foreshew-Cain, “but he was also told that he couldn’t share that news with anyone. And the instruction was couched in terms of a threat. It should really be up to Robert what he wants to share. He didn’t tweet anything that identified the complainant. The whole thing just smacks of an attempt to silence people within a system which everyone admits is broken.”
In a statement the Church of England said the update to the code was “simply to underline the expectation of confidentiality in clergy discipline cases, while they are ongoing. It said the Clergy Discipline Commission would respond to Drake’s concerns in due course…
The speeches concerning the Safeguarding (Code of Practice) Measure from the Bishop of Blackburn, Lord Cormack, and Lord Lexden are all worth reading. However, I draw you attention to this exchange between Lord Lexden and the Bishop:
Lord Lexden Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Cormack referred at the start of his powerful remarks to the passion and anger that he felt because of some recent events. I feel very deep passion and anger, as I shall explain.
I have had the honour of serving on the Ecclesiastical Committee for a few years, but I am afraid I cannot continue my membership of it. I can no longer support the Clergy Discipline Measure, in view of the harm it is capable of inflicting on innocent clergy caught up in sex abuse allegations. Doubts about the Church’s capacity to devise a fair and just system for dealing with accusations of sex abuse laid against its clergy have long been simmering in my mind, not least because of the terrible way in which the reputation of the great George Bell, to whom my noble friend referred, was damaged–and damaged so unfairly. But worry and concern have now given place to total despair; my faith in the Church’s institutional integrity has been completely broken.
Long ago I was briefly close, perhaps for no longer than a single summer, to a witty and clever Cambridge contemporary. He was a classicist who became a lecturer at Exeter University and later took holy orders. His name was Alan Griffin. In November last year, the Reverend Dr Alan Griffin committed suicide. After the end of the inquest into his death in early July this year, the coroner wrote a detailed report on the way that the Church had investigated his suspected sexual misconduct. She revealed that when he died, the Church’s investigation had been going on for over a year. The coroner stated that
“he could not cope with an investigation into his conduct, the detail of and the source for which he had never been told”–
I repeat, the detail and source for which he had never been told.
Worse, when the coroner probed the evidence against him, she found it was non-existent. There was, she said,
“no complainant, no witness and no accuser”.
The Church had acted on the basis of mere gossip and innuendo. Could there be a clearer example of the denial of natural justice?
And how did the Church carry out its investigation during the year in which Alan Griffin was kept in ignorance of the so-called accusations against him? The coroner states:
“nobody took responsibility for steering the direction of the process from start to finish and for making coherent, reasoned, evidence based decisions”.
And so the scene was set for a terrible tragedy.
The last element of the Church’s behaviour in this case which I want the House to note is very serious indeed. The coroner records that submissions
“on behalf of the Church of England … urged me not to include any concerns that may be taken as a criticism of clerics or staff for not filtering or verifying allegations.”
This is not from some shady organisation or business with suspect moral standards, but from our country’s established Church. These are the circumstances that led to the death of a friend of mine from long ago, and that is why my faith in the Church’s institutional integrity has been broken.
Lord Lexden Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords)
Could the right reverend Prelate comment on the quotation from the coroner’s report that I read out at the end? The Church of England seeking to interfere with the content of a coroner’s report in order to diminish the extent of the criticism it would sustain: is that not utterly reprehensible?
It is reprehensible and unacceptable. One of the big issues has been the whole matter of cover-up and trying to silence voices. That is a very clear example and should never, ever be repeated. I will report that back to the national safeguarding team and others. We are in the business not of covering up but of being transparent and open, so that these things can be brought to light and people can learn from them. It is reprehensible and completely unacceptable.
The Economist The Church of England needs new members. How to get them?
A new scheme hopes to create a million new converts in a decade
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Hierarchy, Bishops and Leadership in the Church
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Radical New Christian Inclusion – Changing Attitude England writes to the Bishop of London
Archbishop Cranmer Anglican Conclave to ‘sift’ all candidates for vacancies to see if they are ‘appropriate’
23 CommentsUpdated Thursday
The report of the Governance Review working group (49 pages) has been published here. There is a press release about this, copied below the fold.
The Church Times has extensive coverage:
The Telegraph had this report by Gabriella Swerling on Tuesday evening (which has still not appeared in the CofE daily media digest): Church of England reveals huge overhaul of governance, as parishioners warn of ‘coup’
38 CommentsThe nomination period for this year’s elections to General Synod has closed. Dioceses are now required to post candidates’ election addresses on their websites before sending out voting papers. Some of these have already appeared, and the remainder should be available by the end of the week. I am compiling a list of links to all the addresses, which you can find here. I will update this during the coming week. So far as I am aware there is no similar requirement for the special constituencies.
I am also compiling a list of the members of the new synod here.
Additions and corrections to either list can be emailed to me here.
8 Comments