Safeguarding in crisis in the Church of England
The work of keeping children and vulnerable adults safe from harm and abuse in church has never been a more central part of the Church of England’s remit. Yet in its efforts to do right by victims and build ever more robust policies to root out abusers, the church has managed to get itself in a terrible mess. Survivors and campaigners are up in arms at bishops and the hierarchy, accusing them of stifling dissent after two independent consultants were fired last month. It all culminated in a stormy, tumultuous meeting of the church’s national assembly, the General Synod. This week we take a deep dive into the chaos and strife of Anglican safeguarding, to find out how it all fell apart and whether anyone can put it back together again.
Guests include:
- Andrew Graystone, survivor advocate and campaigner
- Gavin Drake, Synod member and anti-abuse activist
- Jasvinder Sanghera, survivor of forced marriage and former Independent Safeguarding Board member
- Jamie Hamilton, lay member of the Synod and Archbishops’ Council
- Rev Ian Paul, Anglican vicar, and member of the Synod and Archbishops’ Council
Released on 17 Jul 2023
Coming up next
Unbanked: Are conservative Christians getting locked out of our financial system?
Financial institutions are guilty of discriminating against Christians. That’s the claim of Anglican vicar Richard Fothergill and charity exec Mike Davidson, both of whom are prominent Christians who have recently had their bank accounts closed. They...
ChatGPT: Coming to a church near you?
At a recent Protestant convention in Germany an entire church service – liturgy, prayers, psalms, and sermon – was written and delivered by AI software. Around the world ministers and Christian techies are experimenting with tools such as ChatGPT to...
Ethnic diversity in church
It’s pretty well known that most churches in Britain are largely filled with white faces. Clearly there are hundreds of thousands of believers from other ethnic backgrounds, but on the whole they tend to worship in separate churches. In an era when w...