Is This The Church of England's 'Last Chance Saloon'?

After a very critical report into safeguarding in the Church of England, but will things start to change?

ESV Bible Study Bible - I have used this for years, it is excellent.

Articles:

[robertmiller]

Surely the last thing the CoE needs is more bureaucracy! The CoE seems more concerned with examining itself and focus on seeking to stop the horrifying decline in its numbers

[chrismaguire]

Rev Dan, your last comment concerns me - 'paedo predators' can wear dog collars as well, and the DBT checks are only as good as those who haven't been caught - education, health, corporate world, politics, religion are rife with them. And safeguarding is as only as good as those who report safeguarding concerns, if they do, in the Church.

Remember, it was the *victims* that finally publicised their plight, not those around them who saw or listened to them but didn't act, and it was *the Bishops* involved in taking the reports who sat on the issue for 5 YEARS, until the MSM was given the news. The RCC did the same, but that was worse because they sat on the complaints for even longer, especially in the US (New York State, I believe)! The HoB is rotten, even if there are those within who are not, and the Bible (in prophecy) says it will worsen because of *growing apostacy!*

The C of E has refused to consider the schizm it caused over LLF, and I don't believe that this report is anything but a band-aid over the safeguarding issue, or lack of same. If it wants to get right, the AoC, HoB and the General Synod need to get down to some serious and public repenting, and *clean house!* Or G-d the Father will do it, and I think He's already begun, and it won't be pretty!

Choose this day whom you will serve, Elijah told the servants of Ba'al, and I say the same because Ba'al is sitting in Lambeth Palace and Canterbury...

[steynglass]

"Quis custodiet ipsos will guard the guardians?"

[richardredmond]

The CoE is pretty much finished as a major denomination. The only hope is in the form of the charismatic evangelical parishes barely tolerated by CoE leadership, but even now, I doubt if they realise that.

[bunkerhill]

Many years ago I was baptized into the Church of England. I am sure that learned people are working diligently on getting the governance all sorted and appropriate “governors” in place. Will there be anybody left to govern? It is a well understood (but usually forgotten) truism that all bureaucracies devolve into an organization that lives for the organization itself, not those it was formed to serve. The C of E is a classic example. Lots of luck.

[johnhudghton]

Totally independent structures are necessary. While safeguarding is controlled by Bishops - which in Dioceses it certainly is, not only do they operate to defend Bishops and their reputation, but they are also weaponised by Bishops to persecute those whp do not agree with woke dogma. Oh and they do flip all to assist clergy who need safeguarding against abusive Bishops. I know. From experience.

[Mark_Dyer]

The whole bureaucratic concept of "safeguarding" needs to be re-examined, in my opinion. We have all been children: and - now aged almost seventy-two - I remember the sense of national horror, when the 'Moors Murders' of children took place. Today, a three-year-old child called 'Bronson' can starve to death, alongside the corpse of his dead father; and the story lasts - at most - a week. Whilst children are stabbed on a regular basis in our cities. Meanwhile, the rape of under-age girls in our cities was/is commonplace: and the police and Social Services do nothing about it, owijhg to the 'demographic' doing the raping. 'Safeguarding', when I was a child, was provided by parents who advised their five children to "never get in a car with a stranger", and to scream the place down if we were grabbed. The irony was that this advice was given by a violent father, who would hit us all quite regularly. 'Safeguarding' is one of those American Marxist bureaucracies, designed to do nothing, except paralyse adults from having interaction with children. I was a Registered Nurse, and so, subject to 'DBS Checking'. But what was to stop me from 'losing it' and being abusive AFTER the bureaucratic checks had been carried out? All 'Safeguarding' does is to provide parasitic 'Experts' who usually require huge salaries; depriving more worthy recipients of those funds. We were once a 'high trust' society: and the Moors Murders were an exception. Today we are a 'low trust' society. The reasons for that change are many: and the name Cyril Smith springs to mind as just one factor. Perhaps enforced 'celibacy' among the clergy might be another. I only learned late in life that two of my brothers were regularly 'sexually assaulted' by a local Probation Officer who had befriended them. Twenty years older than them, what were my parents thinking? What teenagers regularly go out cycling with a man in his thirties? Of course, my brothers enjoyed the 'assaults'; and we all knew who, of the many adults we encountered, could be 'trusted' to give us pleasure. Children need protection: but it needs to be on an individual level. Forewarned is forearmed. But there is always the ironic danger with 'Safeguarding' that we 'sexualise' children too early. Jesus of Nazareth used sins against children as an example of the worst type of 'misleading', of which an adult is capable. That needs to be our starting-point. But - above all - we need to enforce that 'moveable feast' known as the 'age-of-consent'.

[MrJohnL]

'Safeguarding' was never a such a specific issue in the UK society of the past before UK society started losing its moral compass largely because its 'Spiritual Guardian', the C of E (aka Henry VIIII's nationalised Department of God) failed in its presumed 'Christian' duty to its worshippers by dutifully following instructions from its increasingly morally bankrupt Boardroom in Whitehall rather than someone called Jesus Christ, under whose brand name it has been trading illegally after the takeover from Rome about 400 years ago. The only reasonable option is to close it down now before the current 'democratic elite' (sic) in Westminster sanctions this 'church's' next major takeover, which will almost certainly feature the replacement of crosses with 'crescent' signage and church bells with megawatt PA systems for the broadcasting of the Call to Prayer - after which any 'safeguarding' initiatives would be totally redundant particularly in respect of underage daughters of 'unbelievers'.

[jonlannister]

What on earth do the priests do?

I was on an internship at an HTB network church for a while and it seemed like the clergy just spend all day every day in totally pointless zoom meetings and never have any time to actually behave as pastors. When you can get hold of them they're still in the corporate mask they use on zoom. There's Baptisms like 4 times a year and Communion once a month, I don't know what they are doing other than that.

[andybray]

We need more Voddie bauchman not follow late Desmond tutus slightly twisting from truth

[estebanmoeller]

Why would you live hoping for anything from a structure?

[johnhudghton]

Wait until the Makin report comes out. It will have a bearing on this issue. Roll on April...

[johnw]

Surely we need a body to oversee the body overseeing the body overseeing the Church? Where is the accountabiity?

[sylvianazareth]

Hello Revd Dan What had to Archbishop called Justin Welby? From Jesus and Sylvia Nazareth.

[marksingleton]

If the church has to rely on outside physcological help for damaged parishioners it means that God is not in the church.
The healing is done by doctors rather than spiritual leaders.
The church is to lead life and give it answers in a loving and open way.
More money and paid positions is not God.
The teaching of Jesus said that the church is not a business.
Perhaps its time for God to choose. The people do not see God in the church so have looked for love in everything else.
I ask this honestly Dan. Why should a person join the church rather than study with God and the Bible through knowledge of its original content and context.
I look forward to hearing from you. Perhaps a good ideas for post.
May we open ourselves to what God desires rather than what we desire so that we reflect Gods image here rather than Eves through Adam.
Peace and joy theough truth.

[djpodesta]

Unfortunately, safe guarding should already be a thing in the church. How long has the church been talking, while not acting?

How can a church be of God if it is always looking to enact safe guards, but never actually implementing them? I do not see God as a complacent deity.

[adampowell]

It seems that the Anglican Church has an impossible task. It seems to me that they want to keep ALL minor attracted persons out of the church which means they would first have to identify them.

[davepugh]

It would seem that god either doesn't care or doesn't exist

[stuartwilliams]

Throw out all but one of the books that they read! Then pick up the BIBLE start by reading Romans. 1!!!.
As Jesius said (go and make disciples)remember it ia the church of Jesus Christ.
Preach the gospel .God should be number1 in a list of

[GariSullivan]

Of course this is not the Church of England's last chance saloon. The all-powerful god will do oh wait! God doesn't exist. Sorry, I forgot.