In a speech to the William Temple Association in Bournemouth on Monday, Jayne Ozanne, a member of the General Synod and campaigner for LGBTI equality, talked about “the deep levels of hypocrisy that exist among certain church leaders”. She said: “The Church of England has “leaders who preach one thing and practise something completely different” when it comes to sex. She said the church has leaders who are married and have affairs, leaders who make unwanted passes and comments to those they work with and whom they pastor, leaders who have gay sex but won’t admit it – and then chastise those who work for them, who are in openly gay relationships, for doing the same. She said sexual abuse of children and adults was rife in the church and that the church “sought to control people through fear,” concluding “many of us in the church know about it and feel powerless to stop it.”
Jayne spoke from painful personal experience. She had been raped by a priest many years and sexually attacked by a married conservative evangelical.
She named the most recent examples of abuse by the institutional church, of the recent publication of the pastoral guidance by the House of Bishops about heterosexual civil partnerships not being acceptable because God only approved of sex between married heterosexuals and no one else. This abusive statement was followed by an abusive apology by the Archbishops that apologised for the timing but not the substance of the guidance.
Jayne said she believed it’s time to end this hypocritical charade, time for honesty and plain straight speaking, fuelled by her anger at the duplicity and hypocrisy of those who talk about the sanctity of marriage while they themselves live such very different lives.
Facing up to the truth
How do you force the Church of England to face the truth? Archbishops and bishops and the people who control the levers of power in the institution are skilled at deflecting criticism and avoiding truth. They have to be confronted with the truth directly from the inside.
Every member of the General Synod who agrees with Jayne’s diagnosis and critique needs to make sure that Synod hears and feels the criticism when it meets next week. How, given that Synod is a carefully controlled, well-behaved body of people?
1. If a relevant question is asked and an inadequate answer given to a supplementary, Synod needs to make enough noise in the chamber and refuse to allow the session to continue until someone in the hierarchy admits that the statement and apology were a disgrace, apologises for their attitude to sexual intimacy between loving couples, and recognises that the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process is doomed unless it is preparing a more radical and unconditionally loving teaching. Synod may not find the mutual courage to take such a bold step.
2. Participants in the LLF process need to let everyone involved in the process know that the process itself is contributing to abuse and dishonesty in the church. Giles Goddard revealed how far off course LLF has drifted from the promises made when the bishops’ original plan was voted down. Radical inclusion is what the Archbishops promised and this is not where LLF is headed. This may be too bold a step for participants in LLF to take.
3. Members of staff in Church House and Lambeth Palace need to tell church leaders and senior staff that the Church of England is abusive in practice, prejudiced in teaching and utterly failing in its claim to bring people to know Jesus in love.
I don’t expect anyone to take the initiative to organise any of these courses of action.
I observe the church at the local level failing utterly to have in place the level of energy, training, wisdom and insight needed to prevent its continued decline in numbers and integrity. Until radical action is taken, any change will only be for the worse. Christianity in the West is in terminal decline. Elsewhere it is in the hands of prejudiced leaders claiming God’s support for their abusive teachings.