The Church of England's Bedroom Audit

I joined the Church of England to work in safeguarding. I expected conversations about abuse and risk,

accountability, leadership, and culture. I assumed my days would be spent discussing how

organisations respond when things go wrong, how power operates, how vulnerable people are

protected, and how institutions learn from failure.

Instead, I found an organisation that appeared to be conducting a continuous audit of everyone's

bedroom arrangements.

Who was married. Who was divorced. Who was living with whom. Who was sleeping with whom. Which

relationships were acceptable. Which relationships required discussion. Which relationships required

theological reflection or an emergency outbreak of Anglican anxiety.

Coming from a safeguarding background rather than a theological one, I found this all slightly nuts.

In any other organisation, an obsessive interest in other people's sex lives would result in being whisked

to HR and disappearing into the ether. The Church of England, however, appears to have built an entire

ecosystem around it.

People will tell you these debates are not really about sex. They are about doctrine. Perhaps. But

doctrine has a remarkable habit of focusing on other people's relationships.

What struck me most was not simply the interest itself, but the unevenness of it. A heterosexual

relationship may become a pastoral matter. An LGBT+ relationship may become an ecclesiastical event.

One attracts care. The other attracts committees.

Depending on what tickles your pickle, your private life may remain entirely your own business or

become the subject of reports, consultations, working groups, theological statements, listening

exercises, passive-aggressive area meetings, and debates about the future of Anglicanism itself.

The irony is that these debates are rarely about sex. More often, they are about authority, belonging,

identity, legitimacy, and power. Sex simply becomes the arena in which those wider conflicts are fought.

During my time working within a Church of England diocese, I encountered recurring challenges

around governance, accountability, leadership, and safeguarding culture. Responsibility could be

surprisingly difficult to locate, while accountability often appeared to be operating under a witness

protection programme.

This is not to suggest that the Church has made no progress. Important improvements have been made in safeguarding practice over recent years, and many clergy, safeguarding professionals, volunteers, and survivors have worked hard to drive that change. The concern is not that safeguarding receives no attention, but that questions of governance, accountability, culture, and institutional learning do not always appear to attract the same level of sustained organisational focus.

Questions about governance rarely generated the same urgency. Accountability failures seldom

inspired the same passion. Safeguarding concerns could struggle to secure a diary slot, while debates about sex seemed capable of summoning bishops, theologians, committees, and enough paperwork to

deforest a small country.

If only safeguarding failures attracted the same level of institutional attention as consenting adults, the Church might have solved some of its more serious problems by now.

The Church is not short of serious problems. Safeguarding failures continue to emerge. Survivors continue to fight to be heard. Trust continues to be damaged. Questions about governance and accountability remain unresolved. Concerns about financial stewardship periodically surface. Staff and clergy sometimes disappear from roles with little explanation, leaving others to piece together rumours in the absence of transparency.

Yet debates about the relationships of consenting adults routinely attract a level of institutional attention and organisational energy that safeguarding, governance, accountability, and financial oversight can only dream of.

That disparity tells its own story.

The Church is perfectly entitled to engage in theological debate. You would be slightly concerned if it didn't. But institutions reveal their priorities not through mission statements or strategic plans. They reveal them through what they repeatedly pay attention to.

From where I was sitting, the Church often seemed remarkably skilled at scrutinising private relationships whilst showing far less enthusiasm for scrutinising itself. It often felt easier to debate who was sleeping with whom than to answer questions about accountability, responsibility, and organisational failure.

Who is accountable when things go wrong? How are decisions made? Are concerns listened to? Are people safe? Do leaders have effective oversight? Do systems learn from failure?

These are the questions that determine whether abuse is prevented, whether survivors are heard, and whether trust can be rebuilt.

As a safeguarding professional, I expected endless conversations about safeguarding. Instead, I found an institution capable of generating extraordinary quantities of discussion about what consenting adults do in private whilst appearing to have no bloody clue who was responsible when things went wrong in public.

The contrast remains striking.

One attracts consultations, statements, working groups, theological reflection, and passionate debate.

The other can attract confusion, delay, buck-passing, and institutional amnesia.

The Church is clearly capable of sustained attention when it chooses to be. The question is why that attention is so often directed towards relationships rather than governance, safeguarding, accountability, and culture.

Perhaps bedrooms are easier to inspect than systems.

They are certainly safer than the mirror.

~ Michelle Burns

Guarding the Flock

Writing this blog takes time, care, and a lot of tea. If it’s been helpful to you, you’re very welcome to buy me a cuppa as a small way of supporting it. No pressure at all – I’m just glad you’re here - Michelle