Make Bishops pay chancel liability tax on their mansions, in proportion to the size of their homes!
It may help to open their eyes to what they are inflicting on others.
Category Archives: church hierachy
You have a lot to learn!
Don’t you find that when you challenge the Church of England, you get Bible quoted at you, usually incorrectly?
That isn’t really an answer, it is usually desperation. Self-righteous blaring, as I have previously described it.
I remember an activity day at a Church of England Church, I was on door duty and I remember this lad with learning disabilities kept getting in my way and he was a very noisy lad so it was hard for me to explain to incomers what the schedule for the day was.
So I said to him ‘could you let me have some space to explain to people what is going on?’
This really annoyed him, and he said to me ‘You have a lot to learn!’
He said it a number of times, and I actually agreed with him!
I still do!
And maybe I should have been more tolerant, but my own disability meant that sensory overload occurred when he was being noisy and I was trying to interact with incomers, which is hard for me anyway.
He often told people off, because of his disability, he had a good heart but could get very frustrated and angry with life and people, which is something I can empathise with, very much so, and in dealing with people I do indeed have a lot to learn!
Anyway, back to the activity day, we had a Bible study group where we were meant to find certain topics, and as is typical of the CofE, my group were mainly middle aged to elderly, and to my surprise, they started asking if I had been to Bible college and how did I know the Bible so well etc!
Now I replied that it was simply from reading the Bible from when I was young.
These people go to Church every week, some have done all their lives, so imagine one of these is 78 years old, she has heard the Bible in Church every single week, picked up on various popular proverbs and quotes and stories, but not thought them through, nor does the Church encourage her to do so, it is THEIR Bible, THINKERS are DANGEROUS to the Church (heehee!).
So this 78 year old who has been a churchgoer all their life, if they hear anything against the Church, they will blare and quote text from the Bible, often in the wrong context, but many people who speak against the Church don’t know the text any better thanĀ the Church do, so the ridiculousness of the situation is often sadly lots.
So anyway, there is me, in this group of lifelong Anglicans, finding and explaining the Bible passages and them asking me if I went to Bible college.
Oh, shame on the Church of England! Those old dears pay to keep the church alive and you aren’t giving them value for money!
That said, everyone has the ability to pick up, read and question the Bible, and I, myself, need to do so a lot more!
I have Bibles, I do not read daily as I would like to.
But, there are those in the Church and who have been involved in harming me, who do read daily, make a big show of it, and yet still behave as if they have no understanding at all.
The other thing is, when you go to church, the person preaching, who can be excellent to poor in their teaching, because the CofE do not appear to have any supervision or standard of teaching, is usually going to give their own take on the Bible.
And as mentioned previously and also in the light of the recent attempts by the Church of England to force bystanders to pay repair bills, the Church try to use the Bible and sermons to force more money out of people for repairs and to keep the Church running, I have heard this done over and over again and it sickens me every time, because that is the Pharisees, not Jesus speaking.
So, we have a problem, the CofE are under-educating, and although I have a lot to learn, I learn more by questioning than by blaring indignantly and quoting Bible text to defend an organization like the CofE who are simply doing wrong.
An honourable mention, Planet Jersey being agreeably noisy again :)
http://planetjersey.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,55.msg59022.html#msg59022
I said I would write some more on the ‘lets be honest about Jersey’ post, but I am tired and busy, so I may not get much done.
The CofE belong in the dark ages when discrimination which they still practice today was more normal, when slavery that they supported, was legal, and when they could turn away deceased illegitimate children from burial in churchyards.
The CofE still want to behave as if these are the bad old days, when they could abuse their power.
And here is some rubbish about the latest Archbishop to fail abuse survivors while making a show of helping them.
The smooth rubbish and his show of being ‘down with the people’ makes me sick.
The CofE are not ‘down with the people’ it is all just show.
Answering a question -in brief
I was asked a question about the blog on Saturday.
The Question was – what do I hope to achieve through the blog.
This is a brief answer as I am only on the computer briefly this morning.
- I am telling my story through the blog, even though I remain too traumatized by Jersey to talk about it.
- I am sharing so that other survivors can be encouraged, and I am happy to say that quite a number of survivors have made contact and talked and shared links to websites and support groups, as well as sharing their experiences.
- I am sharing my day to day life on the other blog, which hopefully shows that I am not just the mad bad user etc that the church of england make me out to be.
- I am ensuring that a record of my experiences is made, even if I die as a result of the damage by the Church of England – those who don’t know, my health has suffered seriously as a result of this matter.
- It helps me to write and share my feelings and experiences, I am alone a lot, because I need to be because of my conditions, and I get very angry and distressed by what has happened.
- I would like to contribute towards educating people that the Great Grim Church is not all wonderful and Christian, because so many people do not really know or understand what the Church of England really is, or how they make the vulnerable and poor and disabled suffer. How they use them, even, and how the press releases, so carefully formulated, do not always reflect the true situation – even I was horrified by the dishonesty of Bishop Tim and Luther Pendragon, and the ‘lost last and least’ statement was horrifying.
tbc
Venting
You know what, sometimes I build up anxiety and frustration like a volcano.
And when I hear from Bob Hill or anything about the church, it gets too much for me.
I still have flashbacks and nightmares about the way I was treated by the police and social services as a result of the diocese abusing their power and authority and the police and social services and other services blindly believing them because of who they are/were and because I was obviously very distressed and damaged.
So police and others treated me as mad and bad, no understanding or care of my side of things.
It will wound me until the day I die.
And you know what Church of England sheeple, who have never been through any of this would say?
‘oh, you have to forgive, that will make it all alright, you are just being bitter’.
Oh if only life was as simple as their glib and comfortable words and world.
You could shout at the wealthy and comfortable old Church of England all day and still get blank looks. But you can be assured that these are the same people who Jesus raged at in Matthew 23, they are not the vulnerable people who gathered 5,000 shepherdless, to listen to Him, and who he had compassion on.
We, the poor and injured, are those who gathered to listen, and He warned us against the Church of England, the Church in Government, the Pharisees who lead people astray with their doctrine.
Bitterness? Reality. I bet even the Ould Bully and Dakin and Scott-Joynt wouldn’t be able to credibly say that the Church of England isn’t kept alive by wealthy older people who blindly believe in the CofE and blare at anyone who dares to challenge it.
And are the Bishops of the Church like Jesus, poor, homeless, despised by the pharisees? No, they all live in palaces, get a fat salary and do not deal with abuse and misconduct,and they mislead people, just like the pharisees.
Archbishop Welby, former banker, loves the finance industry and sees it as more important than justice for Chichester abuse victims.
‘Called to help the lost, the last and the least’???
I can’t find that in the Bible, whether it is there or not, but it was a statement of outright arrogance and judgement from a man who had overseen limitless harm to me.
However, Matthew 23 is in the Bible, and is directed at my destroyers, the modern day pharisees, the Church of England.
I hope Eli doesn’t mind
Eli sent me this link and I am just going to put the link here while I wait his permission to put the link here, because I don’t know when I am next online.
Ā http://www.itv.com/news/2013-05-10/former-choirboy-issues-cofe-abuse-cover-up-claims/
What I find tough about the headlines is the ‘press speak’ the ‘claims’ and ‘allegations’ press speak, that can leave people in doubt as to whether the survivor is a real survivor or not.
I am in no doubt as to whether Eli is a survivor or not, he is.Ā
Eli is very brave, the Church of England, powerful and cut-throat as they are, are still not used to being challenged, and Eli waived his right to remain anyonymous in order to speak up, this takes away the Church’s ability to run and hide, because this is an act of courage against an essentially cowardly organization.
Eli, myself, and others, have had to put up with abuse and then the Church of England’s ‘anything but responsibility’ cover up and inaction. And worse, the Church of England’s pretence of care, which is for the benefit of the press and the public, those who still believe a word ofĀ what the CofE says.
Well, the old people who put money in the coffers blindly believe it all, because that is part of their belief system.
The Church of England seem to spend years ‘dealing with complaints’, and when they have to use the press, these days they make grand claims of taking things seriously. This can injure survivors even more, because their personal dealings with the church, and the way the church treat them, is different from what is being paraded in the press.
This is certainly my experience!!!
Oh yes, they take their ‘reputation’ (whatever that may be) seriously, they do not take victims seriously, they do not take the fact that Eli and I and other victims are left harmed and struggling seriously.
Read the comments, I agree with ‘BlueRuth1’
The church of england treats allegations with the utmost… contempt, and destroys victims lives.
Flannel in the press is nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity.
Update – funny, they seem to have removed the comments! š
Ken Blue – Healing from Spiritual Abuse – Excellent Book
Good evening,
I am relaxing after a wonderful but exhausting party, I have been formulating many thoughts, especially since I have now decided to focus on healing from spiritual abuse.
One of the best known books on spiritual abuse is Ken Blue’s book, Healing from Spiritual Abuse/breaking free from a bad church.
Interestingly enough, I am not in a bad church now. I regularly attend two very different churches, and will be at both tomorrow, not simultaneously.
Neither are ‘bad’ nor do I need to break free from them.
Since I broke free from the Church of England as they destroyed me, I have learned about me, and about church, and about boundaries, and it has been amazing.
I do not stay with a church that takes me over or belittles me, because I know I don’t need to, and I remember the words that my kind Catholic friends taught me, which remain with me, and put me back directly in contact with God without the need for a Church mediating.
When I left the Church of England I left behind 30 years of sexual and emotional, physical and spiritual abuse, that came from 17 years with my parents and 13 years with the Church of England.
Now as you can imagine, that is 30 years of damage and only 3 years separated from the damage, and because the damage occured throughout my developing years as a child and young adult, it has ingrained and it has affected me as a person, how I relate to others, how I respond to pastoral care, how I respond to church and community, how I am in general.
3 years after escaping, I have a wake up call to how I am responding to others and church and what the root cause is, and at 33 years old, this wake up call is a bit late, and just with my other problems and conditions, such as autism and reactive attachment disorder, glimpses of this spiritual damage were always showing through, here and there I knew how some of the spiritual abuse caused some of my reaction to things, but because my problems have been overwhelming and survival has been the priority for so long, the problems had to stay locked in, not faced, nor did I know how to face them.
I gave you an example of very innocent spiritual abuse where my church leader friend talked about how people like me should be aborted before birth, to make less of a burden on society. Here is another example of how readers and preachers in the church can basically say what they like and not really understand how things are for people with disability.
And I will lead into a statement about me from this account:
It was a nice sunny day, 2003 or 2004, the service was read by our much loved reader, the same one who said that my 21st Birthday party was the best party he had been to all day, as he poured the alcohol and stayed close to the bar.
The reader talked about love, he said that the only thing that mattered in Jesus’view was that we loved one another (not true), and loved our neighbour as ourself.
He was very much putting over the same sort of view that JM used to, that ‘God is love’, JM used to admit to me that she had no faith in their being a real God and heaven, and even that she didn’t believe in the Virgin Birth, She told me that it brought people’s faith down when astronauts went up and found no God in space.
What puzzled me was, why would anyone think astronauts would find God? Heaven isn’t physical and finadable and why would a Vicar be secretly not believing in the Virgin Birth? JM’s comments rocked my faith, she claimed that God was love, which was why she used to half-kill herself trying to put people’s lives right.
Anyway, back to the reader, Church of England froth, decided to state to us, that ‘love was the most important thing’, and while love is, and Jesus did say ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, I have yet to meet any member of the church of england who even gets on with all their neighbours, or even their fellow church members.
I think Church of England are kind of focussed on the wrong things, especially people pleasing, and saying the right thing to soothe the ears of those who put the most money in the coffers.
I was and am a menace to the Church of England because I ask questions, this is the statement I meant.
I don’t sit in church and dopily believe everything I hear.
This is interesting because for the 17 cult years, I was taught to blindly accept everything I was told, and that was hellish damaging.
But once I challenged my parents about the continued scare tactics once I had left them, ie they were telling me that jihads and armageddons were on the way and we could all be killed and if we were lucky we would be picking up the bodies, once I actually made a choice between their world and the real world, which I did, aged 19, and further when I was about 22, I questioned everything, and have done ever since! I am the bane of the comfortable old church’s life, because I do not accept everything as it is said, if it sounds incorrect.
Now, with my current churches, I don’t need to question, because they are not able to indoctrinate me, I know what songs and words I do not believe and I choose not to join in those sings or words, and so far, these churches do not object, and thus they are not spiritually abusing me.
I am keen to learn God’s word and worship Him, but I feel I can do that without being forced on or misguided.
There is nothing representative of God in the way the Church of England have been to me, and very little representation of Jesus in their worship and creed, it is, again, soothing words for the elderly and wealthy who keep the Church of England alive, and I was so indoctrinated in the Church of England, having gone from the cult to them for refuge, that I was blind to how damaging the Church of England were to me.
I feel sad for all those in the Church of England who are caught in that deception forever, and think it is Christianity.
And I can imagine any well-to-do old lady fuming and self righteously blaring if they ever read this, because I have experienced this self-righteous blaring. (I wonder if Ginger Nut will self righteously blare if he reads this).
All the self-righteousness in the world will not make the Church of England into a Christian Church who do not teach properly because they are too busy during sermon time talking about the priest’s personal life and other things that soothe the people who pay for the Church, although the Church is both a government department and a Charity, and should pay for itself.
And the sermons that the Church of England do far too frequently, about people paying more, and tying this increased payment in with the Bible, are abominable, and they sicken me, this is not Christianity, and these offensive sermons are questioned by me, the Great Questioner, but not by the wealthy old congregation who they are aimed at.
Anyway, lets return to the old reader and his froth about love.
Loving people is the most important Christian Value
He states.
He isn’t expecting the Great Questioner and has no reply when she asks
What about those of us with a limited capacity to love? How do you tell someone with liited capacity for love that they are substandard in your Christian Ethic.
The reader had no adequate reply, and the memory sticks with me, that man, with his nice home and money and comfortably preaching among similar people, met by my question and truly stumped, he indeed couldn’t answer and fluffed and frothed, repeating himself that to be Christians we have to love…
He couldn’t explain how he could judge me and others less able to love as I did as substandard Christians.
The Church of England’s splintered and variable teaching can be lethal, and I will provide other examples of this, as I have been doing.
As far as I know, preaching in the CofE is not audited or recorded or assessed, and basically they are free to do as they please, and with such a wide range of preachers, it is pot luck.
But anyway, in conclusion, I know I rock the boat in stuffy old clubs like that by questioning, and because I can question and have been questioning, I think there is hope for healing, for me to become independent of the brainwashing that has shaped me and the spiritual damage inflicted by the Church of England.
And I can also be assertive and leave a Church, leave an abusive situation.
Well it has only taken 33 years to get this far, to the beginning of healing.
Wish me luck.
Polo’s recent letter to the Bishop
Dear ye,
who do not have the courtesy to reply to serious emails.
I do not know the full reasons why the Steel Report has not been published. I do not know who that person is who appears to have successfully prevented publication through the threat of legal action. I do not know if the threat is a serious one, and is so taken by the Bishop, or if it has been seized upon as a useful excuse to bury a biased and deficient report, at least for the moment.
One aspect of this, which you may not have considered is this.
It is clear that the report will be biased and will not give HG her due, any more that did Korris. This report appears to be worse as Dame Steel did not interview HG or the Churchwarden concerned, any more than did Korris, but Steel is reliably reported to have very negative views about HG despite never having met her. Steel is also a known crony of the Jersey establishment and appears to have offered her services which were accepted by a gullible Bishop. It is no wonder the Jersey establishment are going apeshit at the lack of publication of their carefully orchestrated report.
Meanwhile, HG, the vulnerable lady at the centre of all of this is living in terror of the publication of the report. She was already on the autism spectrum and suffering from PTSD when the Jersey church shredded her confidence, robbed her of the life she had struggled to build, and, conveniently for them, dumped her on the streets of the mainland. A self satisfied, overfed, church dealing with a victim of its own shortcomings in this way is not a pretty sight. The publication of the report is likely to be a body blow to what remains of her shredded life.
If you do not intend publishing Steel, you should say so. This would, at least, alleviate some of the victim’s terror and stop the baying of the Jersey hounds. The current situation constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment of the victim. Has this ever occurred to you or are you too preoccupied with your own internal problems, cash flows, and the defence of the indefensible
If you do publish the report, be aware that Dame Steel’s credibility has already been conclusively undermined in the eyes of those who matter to the Lord and you will be making a further fool of yourself and your inadequate and unheeding church. You will also be showing your utter contempt for the victim of your corrupt actions.
Yours, not really expecting a reply, like the last two times,
PĆ³l Ć Duibhir
Dublin, Ireland
The Anything and Everything CofE blog 