Why the next big safeguarding scandal in the Church is likely to be the abuse of women

One thing we all agree on in the Church of England today is that, in the light of the Makin report and lamentable safeguarding failures, there needs to be a change in culture.  We need to become less elitist and less deferential.  Senior clergy need to stop being co-ercive and gaslighting those who have the courage to ask awkward questions.  Rather than silence the prophets in our midst, we need to give them a platform and listen to them.

Also, I would say we need to start treating all people equally, including addressing sexism and the ongoing institutional discrimination against women that exists – by design - in our Church.  And let me say now, loud and clear, that the next big safeguarding scandal to hit the Church of England is likely to be the abuse of women.

It might seem opportunistic to talk about discrimination against women in the Church but Dr Elly Hanson, the psychologist reporting in Makin, flags up the absence of women in leadership roles in the Iwerne camps and says ‘potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent.’  The report also identifies so-called ‘muscular Christianity’ and ‘misogyny and patriarchy’ as being contributing factors of Smyth’s abuse. 

There is much evidence to show that understandings of male privilege are drivers of violence against women and girls – even if that is not the intention of the so-called theologies, such as the ‘complementarianism’ or ‘headship theology’ of Conservative Evangelicals.  These are teachings that claim God made men to lead and women to submit to that leadership and are sometimes manipulated to justify coercive control and abuse of women.  The arrangements made in the Church of England when women were ‘allowed’ to become priests and bishops, that condone these theologies and thereby diminish and control the voices of women and facilitate abuse, are not only unjust and untrue to the Gospel but they also unsafe.

Back in August of this year Women and the Church (WATCH), a national campaign group for equality for women in the Church of England, took a stand at the Greenbelt Festival, an annual Christian festival.  At this, we invited people to stop by and help us make a Quilt of Stories by writing with fabric pens on squares of cloth, telling their experiences as women in the Church.  There was little take up, so we changed our sign to the Quilt of Rage and invited people to share experiences of when they had felt angry about injustice against women in the church.  Suddenly we had huge take up. Many people came and many sat and wept as they wrote painful stories on the squares to be included in the quilt.  One woman told of how she had been raped and then she quickly disappeared into the crowd before I had a chance to speak to her about her experience and encourage her to report it.  A male Archdeacon stopped by and said he would like to write a square.  I welcomed him to do this, but then he asked if he could dictate it to me – as he was afraid that someone might recognise his handwriting.  What does that say about the safety of our culture, if an archdeacon is afraid for his colleagues to know what he really thinks?

The Church of England is becoming increasingly Conservative in its theology.  We may now have a lot of female priests but extremely few of them are vicars of our biggest churches.  Women are often steered in the direction of multi parish benefices in rural areas, while the top jobs in the cities with the big staff teams seem reserved for men.  Many of our biggest churches such as All Souls Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate in London, St Andrew the Great in Cambridge and St Ebbe’s in Oxford teach complementarian or headship theology, although they are not transparent about this with their congregations.  Many members of these churches would not know, for example, that they have passed resolutions to say they will not allow women to apply to be their vicars and they need a special bishop to oversee them because they cannot recognise the oversight of a female bishop.  Furthermore, members of these congregations do not know that it is likely that their children will be being taught in youth groups that God made men to be in authority and women to submit to that authority. 

If we are unconvinced that this theology is dangerous for women – and some would argue that it is benevolent sexism and protecting of women – we only have to look at recent major abuse scandals in other Conservative Evangelical churches relating to domestic violence.  Should we not look at the Conservative Evangelical Southern Baptist Convention where hundreds of clergy have been charged with abuse in recent years? Or the hundreds of cases of domestic violence that have come to light in recent years in the Conservative Evangelical Anglican Diocese of Sydney?

It is time for the Church of England to have the courage of the Gospel to get rid of a ‘first and last’ culture and start treating all people equally.  It’s time to stop condoning harmful so-called theologies where certain entitled groups pick a few verses from the Bible to justify their privileges – such as male only vicars or the need for flying bishops.

A first step in changing our culture would be to insist that all bishops are in communion with each other.  The Bishop of Blackburn has recently given his advice to the Church of England on what next, in the light of Makin, but he did so without disclosing that he himself is out of communion with almost all his fellow bishops, either because they are women or because they are men who have ordained women.

If we truly want our church to be safe, we will not only ‘learn lessons’ but we will make radical change.  We will say no to theologies that are harmful and we will thereby not only avoid future safeguarding embarrassments but, more importantly, we will avoid further injury to women and other marginalised groups in our Church.