Learning from the Streets

A few months ago I attended a conference in Newcastle on ‘Moral Injury and the Church’, it was, I think the first of its kind, and run in partnership between the Newcastle Anglican Diocese and Durham University’s Moral Injury Research department.

Broadly, Moral Injury is a term used for when an institution (or persons within it) cause damage to an individual, often in the name of doing ‘the right thing’, or when maybe just doing the plain incorrect thing. It becomes a moral injury when the organisation is deemed to have some kind of benevolent moral purpose. So for example, the treatment of post war veterans after a war – expecting to be treated well because they served their country, and yet this doesn’t happen. Some definitions are below: 

All damage in organisations is still damage, yet maybe there is the sense of moral injury, when the organisation is deemed to be caring and then there are expectations. 

There is the added complication in that for many people in the church, or school, or hospital – these types of organisations are ones where people ‘devote’ their lives to, with ‘callings’ ‘vocations’ and have a sense of identity around that role or profession, that might not be the case, for example, like when I worked in a call centre….it wasnt a vocation.. just a job, and where bullying was rife, but there was no expectation that a call centre would be anything other. 

Yet, the church hurts… because when its representatives excludes, decides, belittles, bullies, demeans and abuses…. the damage is then so much worse. 

In their research ini 2004, Bottoms et al, in their research described how the equivalent abuse that occurred in a religious setting caused significantly more damage that in a ‘non religious setting’ – because the damage was both in a place , that was deemed to be safe and moral, and also because the place of church also carried with it a sense of psychological and spiritual influence, and so, the persons sense of self , and then aspects such as shame and silence occurred. Because, often when a victim shares, it was met with ‘ that couldnt happen in a church’ and thus prolonging the shame and damage further. 

The ruptures go deeper, because it affects people in deep ways, so when it damages, the damage cuts deep. 

Infallible God, Infallible Church

Once the Gods were diminished, Organisations became Gods. (find the reference) 

And yet, the very Gods of the organisation are crumbling around. 

And in the crumble, in the actualities of organisational insecurity, anxiety and depression., just like in individual insecurity, anxiety and depression, damage is more likely. A future freaked out church is an anxious depressed one, and in that space urgency and speed…. as well as the Gods of organisation efficiency, control and effectiveness can often prevail. As Aaron Fuller said in his presentation: ‘Struggling with the end of Christendom and its status within society, the Church has enacted several ways to address these declines. However, these efforts assume that external forces are the causes, and rarely does the church critique its own institutional culture as reason for the decline. Specifically, there are longstanding problems with how the Church deals with issues of misconduct and religious trauma, leading to what Janoff-Bulman identified as people’s ‘shattered assumption’. ‘ 

When the performativity of the church ‘look at us doing a good thing’ doesn’t meet the reality of those who have been hurt by it, the wound continues to be poked. Cognitive disconnects bewilder and silence, and the credibility and coherency gap widens. 

It can become no different to the corporate Bank that has a community day picking up litter in the local river. 

In a way I’m just scratching the surface of what the conference was about, and my notes are extensive on this. In a packed Newcastle cathedral it wasn’t difficult to find examples of where people had been hurt by the church (or its ambassadors) whether this was by congregations , by gatekeepers, by leaders, by HR, because of NDA’s, because of employment endings, because of systems that protected abusers, and where silence and shame pervade. And thats not including ‘parachurch’ organisations that similarly create a sense of moral prerogative, adherence and when things hurt in those spaces. 

And the stories in one day in May, were just the touch of the iceberg. 

People hurt people dont they, and the people groups who meet, and organise themselves in the name of ‘the church’ are no different… yet when the church deems itself as a place of safety and refuge for the vulnerable, or a place where it encourages a vocation and calling, maybe it has an equally moral obligation to promote a culture of care as its practice, and whilst it may try to, in so so many occasions it falls desperately short and damages. 

Yet, its not enough, as The Spotlight movie (2000) said that get rid of one or two bad apples and what’s left is a shiny, perfect organisation, its so often the systems that are created and formed, that are hidden behind or deemed infallible that cause damage. Yet, systematic change often is given the task of proof of requirement, and proof of requirement requires work when those who benefit from the status quo, make decisions on it. When those who represent the church, and represent the God of the church, want this deference in their symbolic and ceremonial practices on a Sunday, they can’t defer this in a business meeting on a Tuesday, or when bullying someone on a Thursday, or when abusing their partner on a Friday night. One reflection during the conference, was that when one part of the church is harmful, all are harmed, as all are one body, and the eucharist/communion, is the unifying moment of whole church. 

When the church hurts. This was meant to be a review of the conference, with a few comments and reflections. Maybe its turned into a conversation starter for those of you reading this unfamiliar with the term, or not realising why when the church did something to you, it hurt that bit more. I’ll probably write a few more pieces on this in due course, on specific themes. 

Thank you to the folks in Newcastle, the diocese safeguarding team, and the researchers at Durham University for their work on this. There is much work to do, but beginning to hold up a mirror in the church, to acknowledge the harmful practices of the church is brave and also welcome. 

More details of the conference are here : Moral injury conference

References: 

(2004) Religion-Related Child Physical Abuse, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment 

Durham University Centre for Moral Injury is here