A CALL for a latest independent inquiry into abuse within the Soul Survivor network was lost on the General Synod in York on Sunday, despite support from Charismatic Evangelical members.
A non-public member’s motion, moved by the Revd Robert Thompson (London), argued that neither the investigation by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) (News, 8 September 2023) nor the inquiry currently being undertaken by Fiona Scolding KC (News, 9 February) were “sufficient or right in principle”, and called upon the Archbishops’ Council to commission its own review.
The remit of the 2 reviews did not cope with “the broader cultural and systemic contexts that allowed this abuse to occur, to proceed, and to go unchecked for nearly 40 years”, an accompanying paper argued.
The motion was challenged by the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, the lead Bishop for safeguarding, who argued that the NST’s investigation had been “handled well”.
“I don’t see enough profit in a costly re-investigation . . . with no guarantee that victims, survivors, and people involved in a wide range of other ways can be willing to place themselves through potentially traumatising further interviews,” she told members.
Her long amendment removed almost the whole lot of Mr Thompson’s motion, calling as an alternative for the Archbishops’ Council to “make sure that learning from the review into allegations of abuse inside the Soul Survivor network currently being undertaken by independent King’s Counsel Fiona Scolding is taken into account in any recommendations referring to the long run of church safeguarding.”
Her amendment was carried overwhelmingly within the House of Bishops, by 20 to 2, with eight abstentions. The vote was much closer in the opposite two Houses: 84 to 75 within the House of Clergy (seven abstentions), and 80 to 78 within the House of Laity (six abstentions).
When moving her amendment, Dr Grenfell had argued that it was not a challenge to “much of the spirit” of Mr Thompson’s motion. The substantiated allegations against Mike Pilavachi, the founding father of Soul Survivor, were “appalling”; his actions had “ruined people’s lives”. Among the teachings to be learned were those concerning “the leadership and theology that allowed such behaviour to go unchecked”, and “the disciplinary and other processes that weren’t adequate enough to carry this abuser fully to account”.
“We need the culture across the Church of England to alter,” she said. But the motion was not the “most constructive” way of promoting this.
Last week, Matt Redman, a former Soul Survivor worship leader, and his wife Beth, published a press release in support of a latest independent review (News, 5 July). Dr Grenfell said that Mr Redman had spoken of “good interactions” with the NST and had emphasised: “Our words were definitely not meant as a criticism of them.”
Sam Atkins/Church TimesThe Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, the lead Bishop for safeguarding challenges the motion
She went on to boost concerns about Mr Thompson’s accompanying paper, which listed, among the many areas that a latest inquiry should explore “semi-detached organisations”, including Bishop’s Mission Orders and the Myriad church-planting programme (News, 2 July 2021). There were “complex governance issues” here, she agreed. “But I might feel that such an approach, which looks to me to be a little bit of a side-swipe at church-planting and missional communities, doesn’t help, and should even be counter-productive.
”Abuse can happen in any a part of the Church. The remainder of us don’t get let off the hook that easily.”
Mr Thompson firmly denied that his paper had a sectarian edge, attesting that he had personally benefitted from eight years of worshipping in a Charismatic Evangelical setting. Survivors — who had assisted within the drafting of his paper — wanted the “structural elements, the systemic elements, the theological elements to be checked out”. He urged the Synod to place them on the centre of the controversy.
Dr Grenfell’s amendment “shifts the balance of power”, he warned. Trust within the Archbishops’ Council was “pretty low at present”.
It was a degree picked up by other speakers. The Revd Professor Judith Maltby (Universities and TEIs) professed herself “slightly flabbergasted” that the Archbishops’ Council had been nominated because the group to take the work forward, given its failures within the handling of safeguarding, recently set out within the “forensic evaluation” of the Wilkinson report (News, 11 December 2023). “Trust in safeguarding on the centre is broken,” she warned. “An absence of self-awareness here is the kindest way that I can put that.”
Mr Thompson also heard support for his advice that a review consider semi-detached organisations. Taking a distinct tack to her colleague, the deputy lead bishop for safeguarding, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty, told members: “Pioneering, church-planting, and creativity can’t be on the expense of fine safeguarding governance and practice.”
The chair of the House of Laity, Dr Jamie Harrison, confessed to being “deeply anxious” about “para-church networks”, referring to the Nine O’Clock Service in Sheffield, Peter Ball’s community, and the networks around John Smyth and Jonathan Fletcher. “We are still seeing the impact of an absence of governance, an absence of control, of understanding of those other networks, which type of sit halfway out of the Church,” he said.
His assertion that “on the bottom, safeguarding is far stronger that it has been” found some support. The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, was praised by the lay chair of the St Albans diocesan synod, Peter Adams, who said that much of what was called for in the unique motion had already taken place in his diocese.
In his own speech, Dr Smith warned that, in calling for one more review before Ms Scolding’s was complete, there was a danger “that we’d jump to conclusions and even criticise a report which now we have not yet seen”.
Mr Thompson heard expressions of support from speakers within the Charismatic Evangelical tradition.
Canon Kate Massey (Coventry) told the Synod the views of a friend, also a survivor, who “loves and ministers inside the Charismatic Evangelical tradition within the Church of England”. Their “deepest desire” was “for his or her tradition to learn the teachings needed to be a protected and healthy place for all who grow in faith there.”
“All traditions have their vulnerabilities,” Canon Massey observed. “This motion just isn’t and must not grow to be a witch-hunt against a branch of the Church of England or individuals inside it. But fairly, like all other traditions, there are cultural and theological elements of the Charismatic Evangelical tradition — which can be my very own — which might allow unhealthy or damaging leadership practices to develop.”
The Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, the Revd Dr Sean Doherty (Universities and TEIs), described how the Soul Survivor festivals had been “instrumental” in his own journey of religion, since first attending in 1996 and serving as a volunteer again and again. He had “lost count” of the variety of ordinands who had come forward due to their experiences at Soul Survivor.
“I proceed to be so grateful to God for the various positive ways in which Soul Survivor has impacted my life and the Church,” he told members. He had “no anti-Soul Survivor axe to grind”, but sought to support the motion as a “card-carrying Charismatic. This is a chance for us to exercise some self-reflection, and learn what lesson we possibly can about how our theology and practice may be misused and abused. It’s not about undermining our movement, but strengthening it by ensuring now we have as protected and healthy a culture as we possibly can.”
The Revd Dr Ben Sargent (Winchester) also spoke in support of the motion, describing how one other review — into the abuse perpetrated by Jonathan Fletcher (News, 26 March 2021) — had prompted deep reflection inside the Evangelical constituency of which he was an element. He was working hard to ask challenge and scrutiny and to eliminate competitiveness in his leadership team.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who last week announced that he had withdrawn the Lambeth Award he gave to Mr Pilavachi in 2020, said that the controversy had raised questions on ”the slight gap in the best way we take a look at things, as to how we cope with very powerful leaders, of which thank God now we have some. You don’t need to quench them, but you do need to be certain that they don’t go bonkers . . . and are usually not irresponsible of their actions.”
Before the vote on the amended motion was taken, Mr Thompson’s expression of regret was echoed by Simon Friend, a layman from Exeter who had worshipped in Charismatic churches for the past 40 years and had sent his own children to Soul Survivor.
To have the Archbishops’ Council look into the matter, given recent history, was “shocking”, he said. “I don’t think that is going to be received well outside of this chamber. . .
“We need to take a look at how power operates in large, successful churches, where it is amazingly difficult to call that power out,” he said. “It’s so difficult to call out something that’s going unsuitable without it being extremely costly personally, because you find yourself being excluded from the group and by some means being marginalised.”
The amended motion passed by 303 to twenty with 38 abstentions.
