Faith, Faultlines & Safeguarding

Honest reflections on Church life, faith, and the realities of safeguarding. This blog offers thoughtful commentary on the tensions and truths within Church culture — where faith inspires, and where systems fracture.

Through reflective essays and exclusive interviews with clergy, leaders, and those with lived experience, I explore how safeguarding shapes, and sometimes challenges the life of the Church.

Because safeguarding is not separate from faith. It reveals it.

LLF: Living in Limbo Forever

When I found myself in a management meeting as the newly arrived safeguarding adviser — a lay observer in a collar-heavy room — I was utterly fascinated. The dynamics. The factions. And what appeared to me to be an almost obsessive preoccupation with sex. Then someone said it: “Shall we talk about LLF?”

Dec 14, 2025

By Hook or by Crook: When Care Is Replaced by Control

In such environments, safeguarding ceases to be pastoral and becomes political. It shifts from preventing abuse to preserving power.

Dec 1, 2025

Institutional Gaslighting in the Church: Rewriting the Stories of Those They Harmed

Speaking truth into an institution skilled in narrative preservation feels like dropping a stone into deep water. The splash disappears instantly, and the silence that follows is suffocating.

Nov 20, 2025

Money, Power, and Trust: Exploring the Safeguarding Overlap in Church Giving

Money has been the golden thread running through the Church’s history — shaping ministry, mission, and survival alike. Yet in desperate times, the temptation to lean on emotional or spiritual pressure to keep the books balanced becomes all too real. Where there is trust, vulnerability, and unequal power, there is the potential for harm. That includes financial harm. This isn’t just a conversation for finance committees. It’s a safeguarding conversation.

Nov 7, 2025

The Privilege and the Burden

Safeguarding is not simply about stopping harm. It is about bearing witness. It is about making sure that what was once silenced is not ignored again. It is about ensuring that every voice is honoured, even when broken, trembling or unsure.

Sep 21, 2025

“Lessons Learnt” — The Church of England’s Favourite Refrain

“Lessons learnt” is an instituional shield. Harm gets reduced to an abstract idea. No names. No ownership. No human accountability.

Sep 15, 2025

When Safeguarding Meets Accent and Class

Credibility is the currency of safeguarding. Survivors who come forward with regional or working-class accents may face disbelief, quiet dismissal, or subtle mockery because of how they sound. How are they supposed to speak up if their voices are judged before their words are heard?

Sep 2, 2025

When “Agency” Becomes Abandonment: The Failure to Safeguard Harassed Clergy

“We don’t want to take a clergy person’s agency away.” That was the repeated justification given by safeguarding leadership when asked why clergy members facing stalking and harassment weren’t being safeguarded.

Aug 26, 2025