Distance Learning

One of the few boons of the pandemic period was that we all became accustomed to online meetings. Although they are, in form, horrible, they can sometimes be a great mercy: you don't have to drag yourself to a distant venue with all the palaver that entails, especially when rail strikes mean the alternative is driving to Woking, dumping the car somewhere, and sitting in a bleak independent church for an hour listening to the speakers at the Bishop's Study Morning. Had I been at home on my own with all the proceedings beamed in on my laptop I would have got on with some sewing, but, as it turned out, going to the neighbouring parish of Tunfield and sitting in Fr Jonathan's ancient church with him and retired SSM Jean in front of his laptop wasn't all that bad. 

The theme was 'Leadership and the Abuse of Power'. The first speaker, Debbie Sellin, used to be an incumbent in Guildford Diocese, but is now Bishop of Southampton and in fact Acting Diocesan Bishop for Winchester after the forced resignation of Bishop Tim Dakin. Frustratingly, if understandably, she wouldn't say anything about that. Nor would the next speaker up, Marion Peters, talk in any detail about her experience of 'spiritual abuse', just her reaction to it and what it felt like to be a victim. Finally our own Bishop Andrew came on to talk about Christian leadership styles with the aid of pictures of gardens. It was all completely irrelevant until the very last couple of minutes, when he mentioned accountability mechanisms, before running off the platform so that, we all agreed, the Director of Mission couldn't pray for him as he had for the other speakers before and after they spoke. Can't we give the Lord an occasional rest from our jabbering? 

I, Jonathan and Jean agreed three things. Firstly, and positively, it was remarkable that the Church was even dealing with this subject in such explicit terms: we couldn't imagine it being done even ten years ago. Secondly (and less positively), we noted the the focus on experience rather than theology which does seem to epitomise the approach of the Church to a whole variety of issues currently. Thirdly (and linked to the second point), there was very little analysis, and therefore very little advice. We thought it would have been good to have a psychologist, or a management consultant, to talk about exactly why and how abuses of power happen in church contexts, and what might be done about them. Instead - as the Church seems reluctant to draw on the insights of anything outside itself - the only advice we got was 'be more like Jesus', which is pretty useless as advice goes: we know that, thank you.

Unbeknownst to him, Bishop Andrew had already provided us with the high point of the event before he even began his talk by saying, invisibly and therefore completely out of context, 'I can never remember which way up these things go'.