Bullying in the Church of Ireland
The front cover of the Church of Ireland Gazette (12/3/2010) carries an insightful article on the reality of bullying in the church. It’s a brave article, very courageous in that it’s bringing out into the open for the first time, a nasty side of denominational life that most people really want to sweep under the carpet. Particularly it cites the case of an English rector bullied by his congregation and the failure of the hierarchy to support the rector. It also relates that the largest UK Union, Unite, has received numerous calls from churches of instances of bullying of clergy from those in power and authority over them.
That some clergy have been at the receiving end of bullying from some bishops is certainly true within the Church of Ireland. How widespread and how frequently it happens, probably no-one will ever know, but that it does happen, is something we do know. Ordinands and junior clergy have been known from time to time to have been the subject of some episcopal bullying, whether it’s to do with organizations they might belong to, such as Reform Ireland, or they’ve been harangued by bishops because they won’t conform to the way the bishop wants things done.
But not just ordinands or junior clergy, senior clergy in the Church of Ireland have also been summoned to the episcopal office for reprimanding and bullying pressure applied to make sure the offender falls into episcopal line. Even worse than that, episcopal threats about their future have been known to be made. Of course, not every bishop is like that, but that doesn’t take away from the reality that episcopal bullying of clergy does happen.
Especially we see this in the theologically liberal episcopal church in the United States. There’s no -one quite as intolerant or bullying as a liberal. The Episcopal Church (TEC) along with their Canadian counterparts have a long history of bullying faithful, biblically-orthodox churches, clergy and bishops, who have disagreed with their policies over homosexuality. Whole churches and even dioceses have been virulently pursued and sued by TEC because of their failure to conform to TEC’s gay agenda.
So, well done to the Church of Ireland Gazette for headlining and bringing out into the open something that we all know does happen but prefer not to speak about. The church belongs to our Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and those who are given positions of power and authority in his church, need to follow his example always. No Christian should be a bully, whether parishoner, clergy, bishop, Evangelical or liberal, and where we have fallen short, we must have the humility to accept we’ve been wrong and seek forgiveness. That’s the only way to deal with bullying in the church.