Letters to the Editor

Strategic funding for Soul Survivor

From Canon Gareth Jones

Madam, — I read with deep concern recent reporting of a substantial investment in the redevelopment of Soul Survivor as a missionary community and leadership training body in the diocese of St Albans (News, 23 January).

This decision sits uneasily alongside the findings of the independent review of Soul Survivor, which identified not isolated failures, but systemic safeguarding weaknesses: abuses of power, unhealthy deference to charismatic leadership, poor challenge, and a culture in which concerns were minimised or addressed too late. These were precisely the patterns that the wider Church has repeatedly acknowledged as needing fundamental change.

Against that background, the speed and scale of this reinvestment look profoundly ill-judged. However carefully the funding is framed in terms of mission and leadership development, it risks conveying that institutional ambition and growth once again take precedence over restraint, accountability, and moral memory.

Safeguarding failures of this seriousness require time, humility, and visible cultural change before confidence and resources are restored. Pouring significant funds back into a project so closely associated with recent harm sends a deeply troubling message to survivors and to those within the Church who are weary of hearing that “lessons have been learned” while seeing familiar patterns re-emerge.

This is not an argument against mission, nor a denial of the possibility of repentance or renewal. It is a plea for credibility. Decisions about money are never neutral. They reveal what the Church truly prioritises, and whose voices it is most willing to heed.

At a moment when trust is fragile, and safeguarding failures remain painfully close, this investment risks appearing not hopeful, but tone-deaf.

GARETH JONES
Ilford

Safeguarding training and the retired clergy

From the Revd Jennifer Elliott de Riverol

Madam, — Much has already been written about safeguarding training and its complexities in the Church of England. I feel obliged, however, to express feelings of frustration on behalf of clergy who are going through the process of updating their permission to officiate (PTO).

Apparently, there are 18 full-time safeguarding staff and a director and 42 diocesan safeguarding officers. It would seem that a great deal of funding is being used on the subject.

The PTO safeguarding training is mainly online, and it is complex and arduous, with a dense workbook. I know of clergy with 50 and 60 years in ministry who are seeking help with such courses because their computing skills are limited, and the exercises are alien to their experience. Many do not go ahead to renew their PTO. We then have the situation of Services of the Word being led by licensed lay ministers while clergy (who could offer the sacraments) sit in the congregation.

I was recently on a PTO training course where one of the participants was 93. Should we not be encouraging retired clergy to remain active in their ministry by simplifying the training process, with shorter, practical courses that have an emphasis on appropriate methodology and straightforward language? In my opinion, the present system is untenable.

In the present situation of incumbents’ being responsible for the cure of souls in ten or more parishes, for example, retired clergy are not only desirable, but essential to hold the whole worshipping community together. They are greatly valued, and their continued ministry should be facilitated, not hindered.

JENNIFER ELLIOTT DE RIVEROL
Diocesan Spiritual Director; Representative for Retired Clergy and Spouses, deanery of Thetford and Rockland
Attleborough, Norfolk

From the Revd David Bell

Madam, — Having completed my first year as conduit between the Bishop and our active retired clergy, I am writing to praise their continual generosity in giving their time to support their incumbents.

At a time when interregnums seem to be increasingly extended, my volunteer colleagues often step in, week after week, to keep parish communities intact. This is, of course, not to detract from the vital contribution of churchwardens and others in these circumstances.

Many older clergy are full time carers and yet manage to be at the altar when they can.

DAVID BELL
Teddington, Middlesex

Response to Bishops’ announcement about LLF

From Dr Brendan Devitt

Madam, — Reading the letters (23 January) on the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) saga, I ask myself what exactly is meant to unite the Church of England?

Alas, we can follow only the via negativa: not Jesus, not the Bible, not the Commandments, not the Creeds, not the Thirty-Nine Articles, not the Book of Common Prayer, not Lambeth, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Bishops.

The only “unity” that I can think of is a tenuous administrative one, which allows every man and woman to do what is right in their own eyes.

BRENDAN DEVITT
Address supplied (Barnstaple, Devon)

From the Revd Claire Turner and others

Madam, — We are a group of clergy who minister within the diverse parishes that constitute the Hillside Oversight Area in the diocese of Birmingham. We hold different positions on a number of things, including the Living in Love and Faith process.

We would all either welcome or be prepared for a stand-alone service of blessing for same-sex couples in our parishes — not because we all feel able to lead such a service, but because those who don’t, would be willing to make their churches available to those who do.

For those who can’t, in all conscience, offer such prayers, the prayers currently on the table offer nowhere to go, and disregard the trust, respect, and love that we have worked hard to nurture locally.

Together, as a group of diverse churches, we take seriously our call to care well for all who live in our parishes. We want to support one another to make pastoral provision. Please will the Bishops help us to fulfil this calling.

CLAIRE TURNER, COLIN CORKE, CHRIS CHALMERS, STEVE JONES, SHERI GIDNEY, LOUISE BEASLEY, ANDY HOBBS
Birmingham

Views on Project Spire and funds for parishes

From Gill Ball

Madam, — The results of a survey asking churchgoers’ views on Project Spire, which reports that two-thirds of the respondents said that they would withhold donations to their church, should the Church Commissioners press ahead with the project (News, 16 January), invite a more detailed appraisal.

Even to a layperson, the data are more complex than initial reporting suggests. A couple of minor points: 20 per cent of the correspondents attend church once every couple of months, and 21 per cent only once or twice a year; so their views may not be representative of those regularly attending C of E worship.

When asked for recent voting habits, there is one Plaid Cymru voter and about a dozen SNP voters, indicating that, while these respondents are Anglican, they are unlikely to attend C of E churches, and so might have less interest in the actions of the Church Commissioners. It is also not clear how survey respondents were recruited.

When respondents were asked “If the Church Commissioners were to allocate money to reparation, which would then be unavailable for the support of parishes, would this increase or decrease the amount you would normally contribute to your parish?”, 27 per cent (not two-thirds) said that their giving would decrease, but 26 per cent said that it would increase, and 41 per cent reported that it would make no difference. Fears of a significant downturn in giving as work on Spire continues may be overstated.

Other questions in the survey pose binary or simplified questions to complex issues and decisions, as if respondents would choose only to support Spire or to have funding for local parish ministries, and it were not possible to consider both important.

GILL BALL
Address supplied (Chelmsford)

From Canon Malcolm France

Madam, — The writers of “Churches can prevent loneliness” (Analysis, 16 January) ask whether the C of E will be recognised “as essential social infra­structure or merely heritage architecture.”

At parish level, the answer is becoming clearer: the reducing number of parish priests, the increasing expenditure by the Church Commissioners on non-core vanity projects, the lack of funding for the upkeep of clergy housing, the continual increase in annual demand for parish share, and the reducing number of people willing to serve on PCCs or as churchwardens all speak of the general trajectory towards heritage architecture.

It is to be hoped that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the House of Bishops, and General Synod members soon wake up to the dire state of social infrastructure in many parishes and direct the Commissioners to devote more of their funds towards their primary purpose.

Without a radical rethink of what is needed to support parish mission, the C of E will not prevent the loneliness of parishioners who feel abandoned by the very institution they look to for support.

MALCOLM FRANCE
Cromer, Norfolk

Doctors, take care what you say in a consultation

From Dr John Glasspool

Madam, — There will be no progress on the “missing link in GP consultations” (Comment, 9 January) until the General Medical Council (GMC) is radically reformed. Even if one is totally innocent, a GMC investigation can take years and be enormously stressful, with its quasi-judicial processes.

And the GMC just loathes to see Christianity coming into a consultation. Twice, Dr Richard Scott, a GP from a practice in Margate, known for its Christian ethos, was censured by the GMC over allegations that he had “overstepped boundaries” by discussing his Christian faith and, in one case, praying with a patient.

There are certainly bad apples in any profession, but, until the GMC is stopped from acting as a Witchfinder General, doctors would be well advised to keep any sort of “spirituality” a long way from any consultation.

JOHN GLASSPOOL (retired GP)
Timsbury, Hampshire

Not ‘doom and gloom’ but a message to listen to

From Fr George Guiver CR

Madam, — The Revd Professor Paul Avis’s powerful article about the state of the Church (Comment, 2 January) received a pasting in the following week’s letters.

They come over as defensive. Have the authors not heard the frequent laments about “managerialism”? Have they never encountered concerns that younger clergy have not been equipped properly by ordination training that is failing in key areas? In opposing what they see as spreading doom and gloom, have they never read the prophets, or the letters to the churches in Revelation, or Paul, or Jesus himself? Every message has its place.

There is a profound need in the Church for serious listening, and a preparedness for attentive dialogue among divergent voices. This would include a response to the perception that a small number of people are pushing the Church in a particular direction without showing a great capacity for listening.

GEORGE GUIVER
Community of the Resurrection
Mirfield, West Yorkshire

Life without Google

From the Revd Nigel Warner
Madam, — Unusually, Andrew Brown (Viewpoint, 23 January) overstates his case: “A life without Google is very hard to imagine.” Not so, Mr Brown. I find it easy to imagine, and the vision is not unpleasant.
NIGEL WARNER
Hexham, Northumberland