A MAN who experienced what he considered to be an exorcism that sought to “rid him of his homosexual inclinations” has had every aspect of his grievance against a church in Sheffield upheld, 4 years after it was lodged.
An independent investigation of St Thomas’s, Philadelphia, in respect of a grievance by Matthew Drapper, was published by the diocese of Sheffield on Monday evening, after it was leaked to the BBC. It is dated 30 November 2023.
Mr Drapper, who was a volunteer on the church from 2013 to 2016, first complained each to the church and the diocese of Sheffield in 2019. He said that he had been forced to step down from volunteering for the scholar leadership team on the church, after stating that he was considering dating as a gay man, and that he had been subject to prayer ministry — which he considered to be an exorcism — that attempted to alter his sexual orientation from gay to straight.
He was told in a letter from a trustee of the church that his grievance had not been upheld, and that there was “no evidence to substantiate” his claims. But the independent investigation, commissioned by the diocese of Sheffield (News, 11 February 2022) and conducted by Linda Richardson and Jane Sarre, safeguarding consultants at Barnardo’s, has upheld every aspect of his grievance.
The report, from which names have been redacted, reveals the extent to which the church resisted participating within the investigation. In February 2022, a spokesperson for the church told BBC Yorkshire: “St Thomas’s, Philadelphia, is a caring and generous church community which doesn’t engage in conversion therapy. We welcome the independent investigation initiated by the diocese into these allegations of eight years ago, and can take part in it.”
But the report records that, three months later, the church referred to legal advice “that the problem was not a safeguarding matter, they usually were subsequently not obliged to comply with Core Group decisions or provide us with any documents or reports linked to MD’s grievance as there have been data sharing implications”.
Some individuals named within the grievance declined to be involved, talking of “concerns about mental health and private implications in the event that they were to contribute to the investigation”.
In a second report about existing safeguarding arrangements on the church, the investigators raise a lot of concerns. Four years after Mr Drapper’s grievance, there was “still no formalised recording system which captured what safeguarding concerns or complaints had been made, how these had been addressed and by whom”.
ST THOMAS’s, Philadelphia, was planted out of St Thomas’s, Crookes, an Anglican-Baptist local ecumenical partnership, in 1998. Since 2009, when it was joined by the King’s Centre, a Sheffield house-church, it has been referred to as Network Church Sheffield.
Officially registered with the Charity Commission because the Philadelphia Network Limited, it is a component of the Yorkshire Baptist Association and the diocese of Sheffield, although there isn’t a Local Ecumenical Partnership currently in place. Until 2019, the church offered young adults an intern opportunity, called FORM.
Mr Drapper joined FORM in 2013, and, having accomplished the primary yr, was expecting to return for the second yr. The investigators were satisfied that there was “a transparent expectation by each parties” that this could occur, and said that it was “common knowledge” that he described himself as a gay man during this primary yr.
In 2014, an invite to attend the second yr of FORM was not prolonged to Mr Drapper. He was informed, he told the investigation, that “having a frontrunner who believed in gay relationships could be a foul influence on first-year interns”. During this era, he wrote blogs “about his emerging views about gay theology”, the report says.
While he was not invited to participate on this second yr, Mr Drapper was invited to affix the scholar team as a volunteer, liaising with and meeting university students. He was later informed, he told the investigation, that if he selected to proceed “promoting” gay relationships online and in person, he wouldn’t be allowed to proceed as a volunteer.
The report upholds Mr Drapper’s grievance that, besides not being invited to finish FORM part two, in 2015, he was forced to step down from volunteering with the scholar leadership team on the church, after he stated that he was considering dating as a gay man.
A SIGNIFICANT aspect of the review concerns the church’s transparency about its views on sexuality and leadership. The consultants write that they “don’t disagree” with the argument that it was “considered appropriate that individuals were asked to uphold and abide by the Church’s teachings”. In their response to Mr Drapper’s grievance, the church argued that he was “aware of the Church’s theological position”.
Mr Drapper’s said that he was “never given any indication that his sexuality or views could be a barrier to him holding any leadership positions within the Church”, the report says. The church has acknowledged that there was no document in place on the time that clearly stated this. It was, the investigation was told, “unspoken but understood, that a gay one that could or wouldn’t commit to celibacy wouldn’t be offered a leadership role within the Church”.
While the investigators were told by one redacted contributor that “individuals who describe themselves as gay were and are welcome and accepted within the church”, it includes recollections that challenge this account. One person recalled “celebrations within the congregation because a parent stood up and spoke of an adult of their family, who had been ‘delivered from the sin of homosexuality’”.
At the time of Mr Drapper’s grievance, the church didn’t have a complaints policy, and the consultants write of “a way that the Church selected to quieten or discourage any open discussion across the impact of their doctrine on individuals who desired to openly describe themselves as gay”.
They express disappointment that “some key church leaders named in MD’s grievance refused or didn’t feel in a position to meet with us to share their views and observations about MD’s grievance, regardless that many proceed to actively work in nearby churches or projects.”
They uphold Mr Drapper’s grievance that he was not welcomed on the church after his removal from the scholar leadership team.
THE investigation concludes: “It is evident from information provided to us that deliverance ministries in relation to homosexuality was endorsed and supported by the Church.”
It provides an account of a weekend away for FORM interns (“Encounter with God”), during which interns were asked to finish a questionnaire and supply “highly personal details about their past life and childhood; they were asked to detail any experience of abuse and describe their struggles and traumas and any challenges they were trying to handle of their adult lives”.
The consultants observe that such disclosure “to individuals who don’t have any training in understanding or assessing the impact of vicarious traumas and disclosures carries a major risk of not only triggering and retraumatising the person but in addition rendering some individuals much more vulnerable”.
The completion of this questionnaire was followed by an individualised prayer-ministry session, documented in notes taken by each Mr Drapper and an intern. It entailed “Sozo” prayers: a model of deliverance prayer created by Bethel Church, a megachurch in Redding, California.
Mr Drapper recorded in his notes that he was told that he was “not taking responsibility for his own decisions, and this was resulting from the incontrovertible fact that he had inherited from his family a ‘Hereditary Demon’.”
He was told that “he needed to resign his homosexual lifestyle and needed to talk to the demons inside him as in the event that they ‘were a dog’.”
The intern’s notes seek advice from prayer calling out demons, and Mr Drapper recorded being told that demons might be seen “leaving hand in hand, marching through the window”. He was asked to repeat a prayer “which might indicate he had broken off ‘his agreement with Satan’ and which might free him of his homosexuality”.
The session had a “lasting impact on his welfare and mental health”, the report concludes. It was “consistent with what many individuals would describe as a type of exorcism which could fall under the definition of spiritual abuse”.
While specializing in Mr Drapper’s experience, the report raises concerns in regards to the wider fall-out of this ministry. It refers to a scarcity of support in place within the aftermath of those “highly charged and emotionally intense” sessions. Some contributors to the investigation described “having a visceral/physical response to the experience, which was then regarded by the prayer team as proof of spirit possession”.
The consultants write of their contact with others involved within the church: “We were struck by how lots of those that spoke with us referred to their very own vulnerabilities on the time, either because they’d family issues, were lonely or simply in search of ‘a house’ . . . it might be suggested they were all vulnerable in a roundabout way.”
A desire “to be accepted and to slot in” was an element, they suggest, “which influenced why some individuals looked to suppress their identity and ‘consent’ to practices or prayers which sought to remove the sins they were told they carried.”
A belief that demons cause homosexuality, and that rituals can allow gay individuals to be “healed”, is “commonplace or confined to this church”, the report observes.
“There are many other churches who imagine in demonic possession, but most have strict criteria that have to be followed when such spirits are discerned and/or when an ecclesiastical exorcism is taken into account crucial.”
They say that, within the Church of England, exorcisms could also be carried out only by those authorised by the Bishop. There is, their report says, “no evidence that the church has ever sought permission from the Bishop on this respect or has ever needed to achieve this”.
IT WAS not until December 2020, a yr after the initial grievance was made, that the diocese of Sheffield, according to C of E guidance, decided to convene a core group to handle the safeguarding concerns raised by Mr Drapper’s grievance. Both staffing changes and the impact of the pandemic are known as possible causes of the delay.
Besides taking a look at Mr Drapper’s grievance, Barnardo’s was commissioned to “review and assess current safeguarding arrangements within the Church to be sure that all areas of student and prayer ministry are conducted safely and without causing harm to any individual whatever their sexuality or theological position”.
This second report is dated 26 February 2024. In contrast to the response to the primary a part of their investigation, the consultants speak of a “constructive approach and a willingness to work with us to look at safeguarding arrangements within the Church and highlight where policies, procedures, and practice, going forward needed to alter or be strengthened.”
The report identifies a lot of changes which have taken place in recent times. Prayer ministry on the church ceased throughout the pandemic in 2020, and was only resumed in September 2023. It now takes place only on the front of the church after services. A prayer ministry protocol has been co-produced by church leaders and volunteers.
An executive summary records that the church “now makes clear that it neither permits nor endorses prayers which seek to alter an individual’s sexual orientation and prayer ministry teams will not be permitted to seek advice from or discuss an individual’s sexual identity”.
FORM not exists, Encounter with God weekends not happen, and the review was told that “interns will not be required, and wouldn’t in future be required, to share deeply personal details about their past experiences and vulnerabilities.”
The consultants write of being told “on several occasions by different those who what happened ten years ago [in relation to MD’s complaint] was ‘then’, however the Church now has a unique [and better] ‘feel’ under the present church leader.” While they were “unable to watch how prayer ministry is delivered”, they were “assured that practice has modified significantly in recent times”.
In their report, nonetheless, they raise several ongoing concerns. It stays unclear, for instance, “how the Church will, going forward, be sure that prayer sessions are delivered according to the prayer ministry protocol and that individuals, whatever their personal beliefs, comply with the Church’s policy and procedures on this issue”.
Among the 22 recommendations is that those delivering prayer ministry “should give you the option to reveal, through training, a trauma informed approach which understands that, nonetheless fastidiously managed, prayer sessions can re-trigger past traumas, and this may leave an individual vulnerable”.
The reviewers also uncovered “a scarcity of accountability and managerial scrutiny at Board level in how safeguarding concerns are identified, addressed, and managed”. It would seem, they write, that there are “no records (aside from some email trails) of discussions and decisions taken. We found Board minutes to be so minimal that we were unable to find out, from a safeguarding perspective, what information was shared with the Board and what discussions took place.”
Four years after Mr Drapper’s grievance, there was “still no formalised recording system which captured what safeguarding concerns or complaints had been made, how these had been addressed and by whom”.
The consultants write: “We were unable to view any case records and were informed that there had been relatively few safeguarding concerns or complaints reported in recent times. This is most unusual in an organisation of this size and particularly one positioned in a comparatively disadvantaged area.
“The lack of reported safeguarding concerns or complaints could suggest any of the next: the reporting process shouldn’t be well-known or staff and volunteers fear using it, that there are complaints or concerns, but they will not be reported to leaders or managers or there are reported concerns, but they will not be recognised as being related to safeguarding.”
It diagnoses “a somewhat restrictive approach to safeguarding, tightly applying legal definitions of vulnerability and wish and using thresholds regarding those in danger versus the more nuanced and contextual application omen utilized in social care and never including the all-encompassing safeguarding requirements of the Charity Commission”.
The consultants warn: “The way by which the grievance made by Matthew Drapper was handled, for instance, over a four-year period has brought into sharp focus that safeguarding procedures within the Church weren’t according to the Charity Commission regulation . . .
“We were unable to discover any clear system or process by which the Board can reveal robust managerial oversight or scrutiny of its safeguarding arrangements.”
They were, nonetheless, “encouraged by the church’s readiness to support the event of a more robust approach to safeguarding”.
On the church’s current position on sexuality, the consultants were told that the congregation included individuals who were “openly gay and a few who lived in same-sex relationships”. But there was agreement that, “if individuals didn’t imagine and will not endorse the Church’s values and beliefs, they shouldn’t hold or be invited to carry leadership positions within the Church”.
It is, the report says, “still not clear how recent members of the congregation could be made aware of this”.
ON MONDAY, the BBC reported that Miriam Cates, the Conservative candidate for Penistone and Stocksbridge and a former biology teacher in Sheffield, was a member of St Thomas’s, Philadelphia, between 2003 and 2018, and a trustee from 2016 to 2018.
The BBC article referred to social-media posts from Mrs Cates made in November 2012, “which suggest she attended a conference hosted by a 3rd party on the church which Mr Drapper has described as an ‘exorcism training weekend’.”
Audio from the conference, which the BBC has not verified, suggests that it involved practising a prayer of repentance “for giving place to any demons . . . including demons of . . . homosexuality . . . lesbianism”.
Mrs Cates told the BBC that she “did attend a conference on the Church in 2012, although I don’t have any diary records of the time, and, to the very best of my recollection, this was a regular church conference with a series of seminars, Bible teachings and worship.
“I don’t have any recollection of the content or title of any of the seminars that took place on the conference since it took place well over a decade ago.”
She said: “I don’t and have never advocated for what’s known as ‘gay conversion therapy’. I even have never participated in such activities, and I used to be not aware — nor was there any way that I might have been aware — of Mr Drapper’s allegations.”
ON MONDAY, a press release from the diocese of Sheffield said: “We have been working urgently for the past month towards the publication of a frivolously redacted version of each stages of the report, and have been in a position to publish it on our website today.
“The trustees of Network Church Sheffield have accepted each parts of the report in full, and have developed and enforce a comprehensive motion plan to implement the report’s recommendations. . .
“We deeply regret that the method has taken so long and understand the frustrations of those that have been affected. We apologise unreservedly to the survivor for the distress this has caused and to anyone else similarly affected by such practices previously. The Diocese of Sheffield believes, together with the broader Church of England, that conversion therapy is unethical, potentially harmful and has no place in the fashionable world.”
Network Church Sheffield (NCS) told the BBC: “We have accepted the outcomes of the primary investigation and are saddened that eight years ago certainly one of our community was not cared for in the way in which we might have liked. We sincerely apologised to them for this.
“Whilst the leadership of the church has modified, we recognise there are significant lessons to be learned and we’re determined to learn them.”
