This didn't happen to you/you are a bad person/no-one wants to know

Almost as bad as being abused is being told it didn't happen, being shunned, maligned and people turning away, afraid you might 'talk about things'.

I have experienced half of my life being shunned and talked about negatively and told what happened didn't, that I was to blame or an equal participant in sexual abuse.
It harms your soul when you are treated like that.
It makes you angry, which makes the critics and deniers all the more vociferous in denying you and the abuse.
Which makes the anger worse.

And Jane Fisher's denial and refusal to accept a complaint about the way I was treated in Jersey for reporting the churchwarden, is the same sort of thing.
Psychologically wounding, and compounding the situation.

Most victims face this, being made out to be mad and bad, for psychological reactions to abuse and cover up, especially as these reactions can be extreme and can be misunderstood.

In Jersey in 2009, when Phil Warren attacked me for 'what he had heard' about me and St. Andrews, and implied banning me, he didn't expect me to report the matter to Jane Fisher, and he had to rapidly cover his wrongdoing, so he sent an 'apology' in reply to my complaint about his actions, which I sent to him cc Jane Fisher, his apology did not explain why he had behaved as he did, and Jane Fisher claimed the apology was enough and did not investigate why I was being maligned and had been trapped in the prayer room and shouted at and threatened with banning as a result, Phil Warren's 'apology' said 'I never said I would ban you', no but he did imply it, and he was aggressive, did pick a fight when I peacefully went for prayers, did trap me, and was caught out when I let Jane Fisher know, but Jane Fisher, just as she did all along refused to deal with the maligning behind the attack, and instead rubbished me for my concerns and claimed a few lines in and email from Phil Warren was an acceptable apology, although it explained nothing about why he had felt he had the right to attack me on what he had heard, and was not a proper apology, just a cover up, Jane Fisher should have then investigated what Phil Warren had heard and why he had behaved as he did, unprovoked, instead she started slating me for 'bringing up the past' and did not explain herself at all, just as she usually didn't.
The way she treated me enforced the wrongdoing, futher damned and distressed me when I was already very distressed, and didn't deal with the matter, just as she has never dealt with any of the abuse and mistreatment I have suffered and has damned and criminalized me and violated my life over and over and got me a record for my reactions.

safeguarding?

It is usually the victims who suffer, not the perpetrators.

Jersey

• I went to Jersey to live, with great anxiety as it was a completely new start and I had no money to start with, no money to even return to the UK if it went wrong early on, which could happen to anyone.
• One of the reasons I went, interestingly enough, was to get some space from the Lihous, and people in their church who wanted to send me to a community and things because of my 'disability', now, having already been sent to a community aged 20, by JM and having benefitted nothing from it and seen it could not help me because I was autistic, I did not want to be sent to a community or to continue to have the Lihous closely involved.
• However, Jill Lihou wanted to still be involved and tried, without my permission to get me to have my post forwarded to her daughter and son in law's church, she said her daughter had agreed, but she failed to note that I hadn't and that I actually had a home to have post sent to. She also for some reason, wanted me to 'go and see her family' at their church, as she said that both the Warrens, her daughter and son in law who run St. Matthews and St. Lawrence, and the Honours, her daughter and son in law who run a church in Guernsey, would be at St. Matthews. Jill failed to understand when I said her family didn't want to know me, and continued to tell me I could see them. Jill and George's family had not wanted Jill to claim I was 'part of the family' and had never agreed with it, and I had responded to that and their advice about me to the Lihous behind my back by agreeing that I was not family and wanted space from the Lihous and their family, which Jill never accepted.

• So, I arrived in Jersey wounded, needing space. And at first there was space, glorious space, space to go down to the beaches, to explore, to look at the views, to dance to music alone in the house, to stand outside in the dark lane and marvel at the dark.
• But many many times, just as I had had premonition before moving to Jersey, I had premonition that things were going to be serious, and because I am autistic and a bit wierd, I did wonder if it was to do with the scaremongering that Jill and George Lihou had brought from Jersey to our church in Hampshire. 
• Jill and George used to come back from Jersey telling the church meetings that 'There were Satanists in Jersey, praying for the breakup of clergy marriages'. 
• Now this, at the time when I was still indoctrinated and a sheeple, to a certain extent, seemed really serious, really horrifying and dramatic. And other people in the prayer meetings used to pray and pray and do all sorts of commanding and speaking in tongues.
• But, because I was never a complete sheeple, I spoke to my dad about it, and he explained to me that real Satanists would not be praying for the breakup of clergy marriages.
• While in Jersey and at St. Matthews church, I found a book, these words were in the book 'There are Satanists in the USA, praying for the breakup of clergy marriages'. So at last I knew where the propaganda came from, but horrifyingly, this was a 'Christian' book, and the words had been transferred and used in Jersey and beyond, to scare and stir emotion, horrifying what the church can do and get away with. 
• And this is what can happen and harm vulnerable people. There undoubtedly are Satanists in Jersey, there is a nasty nasty undercurrent there, there is a Statue of the Devil preserved there and you will NEVER hear a member of clergy of church laity condemn the fact that that Statue is preserved and is a Jersey landmark, but there are no Satanists wasting their time and energy on breaking up clergy marriages, that is just a nasty, manipulative scare tactic, which can affect and frighten vulnerable people. And that is one thing that is prevelant in Church of England churches, and very prevelant in the Jersey CofE charismatic churches.
• Other books in that church included a 'Christian' book teaching a lesson about how a church woman was raped by a church man, and how it was all alright in the end because she forgave him, she didn't report him but 'because she forgave him' it was alright when she saw him chatting and laughing with people in church. It is absolutely horrifying to think that so many people do not question, as I have learned to, but follow blindly what they are told. 

• So, my coming to Jersey was already overshadowed by the Lihou-Warren-Honour charismatic-culty-church issues, and so the Lihous and Warrens are not separate from the Jersey matter nor in the past of it, they are part of it and they are part of the damage to me, and continued to be.
• I had a lovely first summer in Jersey, I had a lovely job, with employers who put up with errors by me and were kind. Unfortunately they were directly connected to the church where I was abused, but that will be explained another time. It is a small island, and if you make one powerful enemy, you may as well flee or die, for all your life can be worth if you make the wrong enemies, you can lose everyone and everything through interconnection, the same can be said to a certain extent of the Church of England, if you report one, you could end up blacklisted by all, as I have. But...I would rather be blacklisted by the Church of England than included, because they have lost sight of God, and that is apparent in the way I am being mercilessly destroyed.

some points

• Remember, neither the Diocese of Winchester nor macsas had my consent to intervene or refer me anywhere or to work together, as I had a complaint against both.
• Apparently Teri Bond wrote a libellous and defamatory letter to the JEP, the same JEP who are overseen by my abuser's brother, and claimed I had been sending death threats and threatening letters etc? Is that correct? This letter was part of the hate campaign against me by the clergy, of all people. Teri omitted a number of things - that neither she nor her husband nor her church had ever received any death threats or any other threats, other than to ask them to stop interfering once I left Jersey, having not been prepared to help me in prison, which was not a threat, she also omitted that I had made no death threats to clergy in Jersey, especially not 'for years', and my correspondence with clergy was in response to what I was suffering, especially their protection of my abuser. She also omitted that she and her husband were close friends of the Dean and his wife and often had them round for supper, Mark Bond once commented that the Dean was always round at their house when his wife was away, and that the Dean's wife was the real Dean of Jersey. Teri Bond also omitted that at the time she was writing this public hate letter about me, her husband was in a spot of bother for kicking a vulnerable homeless man from the church-run hostel with a day's notice, a matter which was referred to Jane Fisher, and which she again refused to deal with.

The 'Jersey Church of England Laity' a sample

The Diocese of Winchester, in their foolhardy attack on me, got the response from these people of a smear campaign against me that the Diocese did nothing about, and had these people using their power to uphold the Dean and, with states and judiciary connections, have me damned in the press.

The Jersey Laity employed Dame Heather Steel for their complaint against Tim Dakin, making it clear thus that Dame Steel was conflicted and could not also act to investigate the Jersey Deanery, as she couldn't act both for them and for the Diocese in an investigation and dispute.

http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/jerseys-dean-laitys-jep-advert.html

http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/jerseys-dean-and-silly-season.html

I shall name a few of the laity, I am sure they wont mind, if they can speak up against me, I am sure they will want their names put to their attacks. That is right in God's eyes, I am sure.

This was my letter to these so-called Christians, as they continued to act in a dreadfully unchristian way in slandering me in the press and abusing their various powers, this letter comes c/o Bob Hill but can also be found on my blog

 http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/jerseys-dean-hgs-guest-posting-open.html

First a very important man. He was the subject of my 'on trial quiz' and few of quiz competitors could name him, it took a long time for him to be named. Have to give him the seat of honour.

http://www.kingschamberorchestra.co.uk/gerardbio.php

Gerard LeFeuvre:

 My abuser's nephew, also, co-incidentally, Freemason, member of the Kings Chamber orchestra, music CD's published worldwide, also a member of the Church of England in Jersey.
I am guessing the Diocese of Winchester had no idea of the connection when they accused me of 'involving innocent people.
But who would Gerard use his influence to support in the Diocese and Deanery charade?

I remember Gerard from church, the churchwarden's wife absolutely adored him and his wife, she fawned on them, it was a little bit stomach churning really, it was the usual 'family pride' and 'knowing someone famous' and also her obsession with Victoria college boys and old boys, of which Gerard is one. Which in Jersey, counts for something.

Gerard LeFeuvre is not only known as a famous person, as my abuser's nephew, as a member of church and a 'Christian', or as a freemason, he is also know to be a friend of Philip Bailhache, See the Judiciary post. Philip Bailhache has led the smear campaign against me and campaign to clear the Dean.

A few years ago, when I was still in Jersey, Gerard won the competition for Jersey's National Anthem, this caused quite some upset and it was said that the competition was unfair and biased.
One of the judges was Philip Bailhache.

I had the misfortune of accidentally having to deal with Gerard some time after I had left the churchwarden's family, he responded to my advert where I was looking for piano lessons, and sadly, blunt and autistic, I told him he couldn't help me as he was my abuser's nephew.

Philip Bailhache, Ian LeMarquand, Micheal Birt, all members of the church laity and involved in smearing me and absolving the Dean through their powers and legal expertise. See:

 http://whatreallyhappenedinthechurch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/whos-who-in-jersey-judiciary-etc.html#.U4JRy3JdXJk

Neville Brooks:

A vital key player in the defence of the churchwarden, Dean and Vicar. A church of England reader at the churchwarden and Vicar's church, also closest friend of the churchwarden and his wife, Neville Brooks and his wife were always close friends of the churchwarden and his wife, when their children were at school, and when he supported the churchwarden through his sacking from the other church where they both belonged and both left when the churchwarden was sacked.

Neville was very much into the cult, mind control and bad element of the church, praying that 'people would accept the new service pattern' ie no choice, and after I spoke about the abuse for the first time, he did a sermon about 'who's truth is the truth', ie how 'people' can 'misunderstand', appalling, he even made big hints about who it was aimed at.

There is no doubt of his continued involvement and maligning of me, which Jane Fisher strenuously denied as all in my mind, what, Jane Fisher doesn't think this man would support his best friends and thus I am insane?

This is despite the fact that Neville Brooks knew of the previous sacking and the chaperoning policy, which I didn't know about, and he did nothing, even when he saw the churchwarden touching me, even when he knew the churchwarden was taking me out alone and even when the churchwarden took me home to live.

Bruce Willing:


http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2013/05/28/%E2%80%98bishop-is-damaging-church-of-england%E2%80%99s-ministry-in-jersey%E2%80%99/

http://voiceforchildren.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/3rd-anniversary-of-abuse-victims.html

http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/jerseys-dean-bob-hill-matthew-price.html

A former British Army captain, CBE, former churchwarden who sat on the Deanery Synod with my abuser.
Now when the Bishop launched on me and the Dean publicly, how exactly did he expect me to survive media attacks by people with this man's influence, and when did the Bishop actually take time to learn and state such people's position in these matters?
The Bishop showed no interest in the relationship between these people and the churchwarden or Dean and certainly never made sure, for my sake that he responded to their media attacks by stating these things!
Instead, after launching his public suspension of the Dean he showed no interest whatsoever in the harm to me, nor even the situation in Jersey, preferring to let a PR company release irrelevant press statements.

http://therightofreply.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/jersey-blaming-everyone-but-bob-key-for.html


There are many more people involved, all well-heeled, with some influence and able to act against me for the Dean and churchwarden. Why did the Bishop launch on the Dean publicly and then not deal with the consequences, especially the consequences to me? Why has he left me suffering and ignored my concerns of a biased report and is going to basically kill me with it? Why has he done this after claiming this whole shambles to be because 'The Diocese are commited to safeguarding'?
Who have they safeguarded? Not me, they have destroyed me, and they have also ensured that no-one in their right mind or otherwise, with a legitimate complaint of abuse, will ever speak up, because in my case I am held up as 'Thus shall be done to the person who is guilty of the crime of being abused and the worse crime of speaking up'!

Nor have they actually done anything to improve safeguarding in Jersey or even investigate my complaint properly, nor did they deal with the other half of things, the way Jane Fisher dealt with me and my abusers in Jersey and Winchester. Nothing has changed in Jersey and Winchester, because neither lot of wrongdoers is going to accept responsibility, instead they are going to publicly damn me in a report I have had no say in but Jane Fisher and the wrongdoers in Jersey have! And no-one, not even the police, will stop them.

And as my abuser goes on to be re-elected, he has the encouragement that he can abuse if he wishes, the church are behind him and will destroy any victim who dares to speak up.

http://bobhilljersey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/jerseys-dean-true-christians-or-pontius.html

comments from Bob's blog: My advocate who didn't represent me properly was apparently the niece of a states member and staunch supporter of the Dean:

Bob Hill24 November 2013 17:00

It will be difficult for the Steel Report to record that Bob Key did "everything" right because on being reinstated at the end of April he apologised and he said "he regrets the mistakes he made in the safeguarding processes and upon reflection, it would have been more helpful if he had co-operated more fully with the Korris Review."

On 29th April I published a Blog on the Dean's reinstatement and apology which can be read by clicking onto the following site
click here

If the Steel Report is published it will be interesting to see how the point above is covered.

Anonymous24 November 2013 17:20

Oh 3 jeers for good old Tel Boy, the former fastest milk man in the East. He has not yet captured how his spell check works but at least he is still trying, yes very trying.

Yes it’s good to remind us how the Dean and his wife work behind public scrutiny, has he not read the Korris Report and how they dealt with HG’s complaint behind closed doors. Yes they have changed some people’s lives but I don’t suppose HG will thank them for changing hers.

How Christian was the levelling of charges against HG and how unfortunate it was for HG to have Terry’s niece representing her in Court and plead that she be Bound Over.

Great work Terry, Jersey still needs you to score a few own goals.

Anonymous24 November 2013 18:45

Terry's niece (mis) represented HG in court? it gets better by the day and not a wander the conflicted Dame Heather didn't want to look at the court case.

When did the Diocese actually work out the connections in this matter? Before, after or never?

There were quite a number of other biases that affected me while in Jersey, this included a number of doctors and charity representatives being in the church and thus I was not able to access help and was humiliated by doctors, as they knew my abuser and his wife, who were also involved in at least one charity I was driven away from.

On an island like Jersey, if you make enemies in high places, your life is ruined.

Does the Bishop know or care, from Winchester, who is related to who, who has been asked to write to him without stating their real connections with the matter? Does the Bishop care? Does he question the false witness being borne to him? Does he even bother to read any of it?
One thing he doesn't do is take responsibility for the fact that he launched this attack, and although the reaction was not Christian or right, he is responsible for the reaction and the harm being caused, and he is also responsible for allowing Steel to defame me and make my life unlivable and he is responsible for stopping that harm to me and letting me live, as there is no excuse for a 'safeguarding' investigation that destroys a survivor for no adequate or acceptable reason and does not actually investigate or achieve anything.

The Sabbath - Narrow legalism

I have a feeling that the legalistic idiots in the CofE would be screaming about me doing my housework on Sunday, er, yes, I went through all this with Jill Lihou, who was an expert at narrow legalism.

Apparently because the 10 commandments say 'Keep the Sabbath day Holy', I am not supposed to do anything on Sunday.

Yeah, I remember Jill Lihou criticizing me for working on a Sunday, I asked her how I was supposed to earn my living if that was when my employers had shifts for me? And what about emergency services, and why was the Vicar breaking the Sabbath by working?

The answer was 'Oh well, if people have to!'.
So some people have to break the Sabbath?
It needled me, back when I was young and dependent and immature and since, I was indeed, despite being a questioner, a sheeple, who let these old and narrow people control me. And sadly, many vulnerable people are both led astray and away from God by the CofE's legalistic teachings and become part of this legalism that is set against Jesus' teaching.

But here we go.

The Pharisees inflicted this same legalism on Jesus and His Disciples 2000 years ago and still the old legalistic control freaks in the Church of England prefer to abuse the 10 Commandments to suit themselves and control others.
The Church of England appear not to know or understand Matthew Chapter 12. Verses 1 to 8. And onwards. The rest of the chapter.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2012&version=NIV

So, I know, better than poor Jill, who needed to be in control because she was ill and because she was assaulted in her past,(she told me), that I am not committing wrong by doing my housework today and I needn't feel guilty and expect to go to hell or have displeased my Lord, He is not that fussy!

Because where does 'Keep the Sabbath Day Holy' Translate to don't work?
Jesus said 'needs must', there are more important things in life than legalism.
And old narrow church people 'keeping the Sabbath' blindly, while slating others, are committing that Sin of Judgement, legalism, controlling.

And finally, every member of the CofE would be breaking 'Keep the Sabbath Holy' if it was really about not working, because the Sabbath, in My Father's land and tongue, is not Sunday, but Saturday.
Shabbat.

God rested on the 7th Day, Shabbat, not Yom Rishon.
And He does approve of us resting.

Keep reading the Book of Matthew, it is indeed about the same dreadful Pharisees who, 2000 years later are trying to destroy another person who spoke out against them, the Church of England.

That Christmas 2009

It was heading towards Christmas 2009.
I was suffering and traumatized by the police and the way I was treated in Jersey as a result of the way I had  reported the churchwarden and also Jane Fisher's nasty and senseless communications which left me in more despair than anything else.

I had made up my mind to commit suicide at Christmas and leave a letter explaining to the haters how badly being regressed to young childhood and abused and then vilified for reporting the abuse had affected me (as if they would care!).

I was very unhappy, the world was dark with no light and no-one to turn to.

But I remember being able to do something that brought light to my world as well as to others, and it is something that I just really wanted to do.

I asked my friend who went into the nursing home several times a week, presumably to teach something?
If she would get me the names of all the residents and if they preferred to be known by first names or more formally - as some older people do.
When she got me the list of names, I did a Christmas card for all 64 or so residents, because I knew that some of them wouldn't get any other cards.
I am very shy of people, afraid of people, but I know that each human being is valuable and matters, no matter what their age or state of health.

But the response to my cards surprised me, not only the residents greeting me by name and smiling and waving when I walked past, but also their families and visitors, and I received a number of cards in reply, everyone was so nice! And from that, I ended up in regular conversation with a number of people, and this led to my confidence and conversation building remarkably.

That Christmas, within the weeks up to Christmas, as I searched the internet looking at the most effective methods of suicide, I came across Maytree Sanctuary for the suicidal, and applied to go there, within the week before Christmas, I completed my self-referral to Maytree and went there for Christmas.

My journey to Maytree was disasterous, this is when the heavy snow was falling, and it looked like the plane wouldn't even leave Jersey, but it did, and when we landed at Gatwick, our plane had a good old scary skid along the runway!
Arriving at Gatwick in the heavy snow, trying to get the coach looked impossible as snow was affecting the coaches and there were no announcements and no-one could adequately explain what was going on, but thankfully I eventually got a coach, my phone was on a Jersey sim and hardly worked in the UK so I could not let Maytree know what was going on as it took hours and hours to get to London and to Maytree, I ended up in tears in a phone box trying to explain to Maytree and then eventually got to them, very upset.

I think I was tired and it was late when I got there and they made sure I had a hot drink and food before bed.

The stay there was generally pleasant, and I had my own room with ensuite, and no-one was supposed to come into my room unless they were concerned for my safety but one volunteer barged in anyway.

One of the ways Maytree helps people is through talking, and we talked a lot, there were a number of volunteers at Maytree and so I met a lot of people, but the one I found easiest to talk to was retired tube driver called R.

I came downstairs and the kitchen smelled of frying breakfast and Richard was there with the garden doors open, frying breakfast, he was great to talk to and we talked a lot, he told me about his late wife who was a beautiful Indian lady, he fell in love with her the minute he saw her, but she never wanted flowers, because she was a mechanic, she always wanted new spanners and tools :)

Maytree was great, we went looking for a turkey on Christmas eve, but they were sold out so we got a duckling, not a duck but a duckling! :) I feel bad about having eaten one of those little fluffy yellow beeping things. But I have a feeling it was a rather grown up duckling. Them beeping yellow things are too small to have the meat on them that the 'duckling' we cooked did.

It was good to have Christmas, if I had stayed in Jersey I would have had no Christmas and I would have been dead.
And, looking at what happened in the following year, maybe death would have been better, although I would have missed out on my awesome experience of sleeping rough if I had died.
(and I still believe this church matter may kill me yet).

So time at Maytree was spend relaxing, talking, enjoying good food and drink and lots of Christmas cake, it was all good.
I went for walks, and was surprised that there in the dirty, dog-messy streets, everyone said 'good morning' and 'Happy Christmas', I went into a Catholic church one day and lit candles, asked Philip LeClaire what the difference between the red and blue candles was and got no response.
But there was a notice in church that eternally amused me.
It read:

'Please note, the heating is off due to a leek in the pipes'

I couldn't help wondering how the leek got there and why they couldn't fish it out :)

Anyway, on Christmas Day, I went to the morning service at a local Church of England/Charismatic church, a pretty young lady from Maytree came with me, it was incredibly funny how, after the service, all the Charismatic men came up to us and started chatting with her and ignoring me, she was not a Christian but had offered to accompany me for support and safety. The men really liked chatting to her, they hardly said hello to me! :)
I wrote an amused letter to the church and told them I had enjoyed the service and been amused by the men's keenness on my companion, they wrote a friendly letter in reply, saying I was always welcome to drop in.
One of the lovely parts of the service was when they let a net of balloons down from the roof, the children ran riot!

Anyway, before I left Maytree, the person in charge met with me and talked with me about my strengths and plans for the future, I found that empowering, but lost the letter when I had to leave Jersey, and Maytree wouldn't let me have another copy.

The problem with Maytree, excellent as they were, the communication wasn't good, and before I went, a woman tried to get me to fill in a questionaire that even she didn't understand, and it included asking me if I was an abuser, apparently, but she didn't know or wasn't clear what the questions meant and I was left very upset. She then said that it didn't matter anyway and I didn't need to fill it in. That was awful, it was intrusive and distressing and undid some of the good by stressing me.

I left Maytree and sadly, walked into terrible football crowds on the underground and was trapped and panicked.
Thankfully a member of tube staff rescued me and got me back to Central London, and I headed for Hampshire to my friends (who the diocese have since taken from me).

I arrived back in Jersey feeling refreshed and determined to move forward positively, Jane Fisher had temporarily shut up, or so it seemed, as I had written to Scott-Joynt just before Christmas, as I expected to be dead in the new year and wanted him to know that Fisher had been bullying me and making life hell.
The Korris report claims Scott-Joynt wrote to me, he did not, he didn't have my address, of course at that stage I wasn't going to tell anyone in the Church where I lived, life was hell enough in the community because I was shunned.

So I resumed life and was surprised by the curate who had been so rude and snappy before Christmas -when her cousin comitted suicide.
She really wanted to be in contact and see me, I was surprised, so I took her a load of firewood logs.

I had no idea that we were at the start of Jane Fisher using her further to harm me.
One of Fisher's greatest triumphs against me was the way she wrecked a safe and healing relationship and used that curate against me in the most terrible and damaging way and also brought the dean into it, again, as she continued to do, leaving me with no safe and private church relationships and help, it is a deep wound.

So this was 2010 now, the beginning of the end as I continued to be damaged by the church of england.

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 than  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.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/not-very-christian-rural-communities-in-uproar-as-250-anglican-churches-use-ancient-rules-that-could-leave-them-facing-bills-for-thousands-in-repairs-9289590.html

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.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10775220/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-Sometimes-I-think-This-is-impossible.html

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.

one-sided

Jane Fisher and the Bishop did not take my complaint and preferred to spread a one-sided story to places like Romsey Abbey and the Catholic church in Winchester.

So I was shouted at and maligned but the fact that I was abused and autistic was not shared.

And the facts of my side were not shared.

For example I was shouted at for 'all the trouble I caused at...'
 Because  JANE FISHER maligned me and did not give my side of things to the people she maligned me to.

The abuse was not mentioned.

Things never noted by Fisher who used my difficult relationships against me, include JM slapping me because I was angry about the way her Mother and sister treated me over the abuse.

And. Another person used against me taking my toy off me and putting it in the microwave and burning and breaking it, as you may have realised, I always have a toy/s and have mentioned the toys in context of attachment disorder and autism, the toys usually mean a lot to me, and so, to see my toy put in the microwave and burned and broken was deeply deeply distressing, but Jane Fisher has never recorded my side of things and has villified me.

This is a small example.

an addition to the 'lets go back' posts/anything and everything

When I arrived in Jersey, I was exhausted by Jill and George and college and life.
The Day before I set off for Jersey, Jill and George were away, but I had returned to Hampshire to see my friends and say goodbye, as I didn't know when I was going to be back.

I did some gardening for Jill and George's neighbours, Elizabeth and Richard, who I occasionally gardened for. They were trying, as people repeatedly do, even recently, to get me to live in a 'communiuty' in Dorset. And sadly claiming that 'God had brought the Idea to them'.
These evangelical uses of God injure vulnerable people, because you are trapped by the claim that God endorses something or disapproves, even when He doesn't, and Elizabeth and Richard were lovely people.

Basically, I hated Dorset, and after my experience of Pilsdon, and my upbringing, and now my experience of the Church of England! Putting me in a community, where I would feel Godded and crowded, would be a terrible experience for me and for other community members.
Now in my life, I am aware that the only thing that keeps me steady is long hours of solitude, which is a life sentence, because humans who are not psychopathic, and I am not, naturally desire company, even on the Autistic Spectrum and with attachment disorder. I am a paradox, because I actually am very happy alone, but also have the need for other people around me at least sometimes.

I am currently restructuring my life because I do not benefit from the Tuesday socials that I have gone to for years, and I also sadly decided that my attachment disorder was hurting some of my closest friends and I did not want another George and Jill situation, so I told those friends as best I could, that I needed space.

Socialization is healthy and necessary, but my situation is far from normal, because in my friendships I carry the extra burden of fear of the diocese and the wait for the day they next intervene or shame me in the press, and it means I do nor feel I can be me in a friendship but will eventaully be represented to those friends by the Diocese, as happened in Winchester and also with the release of the Korris report.
This magnifies the attachment disorder greatly and has meant I have left or ended friendships, which leaves me more wounded and unsure of myself. My self-esteem and confidence in my friendship ability is nil.
This is not to say I have kicked all my friends out.

Anyway, back to the move to Jersey.
I moved to Jersey and requested space, from everyone, for the first time in my life, I did not know or understand the 'space boundary' although now I live behind the 'space boundary' and no-one can find me, get near me or be with me.

A few weeks after moving to Jersey, after thirstily drinking the space and solitude, I made contact with my friends, those in L, first, letting SL know I was ok and giving her my phone number, then JM, and we exchanged some banter, and Anne, of course.
I didn't really feel close to people in George and Jill's village, although I wrote to Elizabeth and my friend J.

My friends in Winchester said that they would see me when they came over to Jersey, as they had family there, who I knew vaguely. But I didn't make contact with George and Jill for some time after I moved to Jersey, and once I was feeling happier and loving being in Jersey, I made contact with them.
George said they had sent me emails and I said I hadn't got anything from them. I unblocked their email but even when they said they had sent things, I never got anything from them by email, some error there.

I never really recovered from George and Jill, and it continued to be rocky, with me asking about why George had chased me and shouted at me, and getting a reply lecturing me for lack of forgiveness, apparently he though the correct reply was that when he had muttered sorry when Jill had confronted him, he was forgiven by God and thus my hurt did not matter, it is funny how the evangelicals work, because I am apparently not forgiven for my side of things and instead have been villified, stoned by the Jersey Deanery who have used the Lihous against me! My apologies and confessions are indeed useless and an insencere apology from George when confronted by Jill after he hid what he did, means he is forgiven and thus I have no right to be hurt?!

Anway, the Lihous had that opinion, and wrote to me saying so, and also sending me a boast, some chocolate from Switzerland, which melted in the post and cost me a pound that I could not afford, because Jill had not put enough postage on it.
So, in Jersey, this 'friendship' struggled on.

The Churchwarden wanted to meet the Lihous while I was 'in his care', the Lihous had come over to see the Warrens and had arranged to see me, funnily enough, the same week as my friends from Winchester were over to see their Jersey family, so it was a lovely busy week, seeing all my friends from the past.


So the churchwarden met the Lihous, and he was holding me posessively all the time we talked.
And then I went off to spend time with the Lihous, and the usual spiel of boasting started, I actually said it out loud 'Do we have to play one-upmanship?' when it came to talking about boats because we were down at the harbour, and they were going on about the churchwarden's boat and wanted to go on about Phil Warren's boat.
For goodness sake! It's a boat! It does not make a person a better person, and no, we do not sail to France!
I do not understand people who need everything to be about posessions and acheivement, one of my greatest joys was being homeless and only owning what was in my backpack and lying on the ground looking at the stars.
You can't be closer to God than relying on him for supper when you have nothing.

Anyway, so this was in Jersey, in the autumn of 2007, and I was already suffering the churchwarden's attentions, but Jill and George heard that I was coming to the mainland and wanted me to stay with them, when I had been due to stay with JM.
Note, both the Lihous and JM were still my friends and asking me to stay in the autumn of 2007.
Funny how it is turned around to me supposedly abusing them, by the Dean and his supporters, isn't it?
JM ceased to be my friend when she started actively supporting the Dean and the churchwarden couple when her husband's abuse of me was brought up and they collectively labelled me a lying troublemaker, and the Lihous friendship ended after I had yet another miserable stay with them and asked them to meet me with someone else for a conclusion, which they didn't.

And I remain publicly stoned and unforgiven, no matter how much I cry that I am sorry for my side of things, and yet, no-one else is sorry, they hide their wrongs in my reactions and are absolved.

lets go back 27

The handyman at work turned increasingly nasty and I am sorry to say that helping Ted and Joan and worrying for them as well as dealing with the lady of the big house and the neighbours all got too much for me, my energy failed and I had a stomach problem, Ted took me to the doctor and he said that the bag of medicine that they gave me was bigger than his bag of medicine! Ted had been put on enzymes and was able to take food with fat and sugar in for the first time in many years. He thought this was quite funny.

My cottage was one of two farm cottages that stood alone away from the other houses and just outside the village, the problem was that it wasn’t peace and quiet there, the people in the other cottage were the local farm mechanic and his wife, and they alone made that place as noisy as a council estate, constant noisy drunken parties, revving motorbike engines at 4am in the morning, screaming children and dogs, the children and dogs weren’t even theirs, they were their families, but the noise was constant, there was no peace, the dogs barked and yapped and chased my cats, the nocturnal motorbike revving and other noise was a nightmare. And ironically this being one of the reasons I chose to leave, the couple next door also left not long after me, they had been there for a number of years.

The stress of everything got on top of me, I was unable to cope with the noise, the demands of work, the money situation, JM, the hypochondriacs and the illness games that were making me ill, Ted’s illness,  everything got too much for me, I tried unsuccessfully to overdose, and then to hang myself, I injured my neck, but ended up still alive, and realised I was no good at suicide.

 The hypochondriacs knew I was suicidal, got overly involved, spoke to JM at length about me, which was extremely unhelpful because her opinion of me and most people, is crass and incorrect, they also spoke to LD, I had given them permission to phone her but they went to see her, she explained boundaries to them, quite rightly, but they didn’t discuss boundaries with me before changing them, and then they were getting stressed about an important figure in L. church who was their friend, who was arrested for child molestation and child pornography.
This was being kept a secret by the church, and this was one of my first realisations how underhand and dishonest the Church and Diocese of Winchester are in order to protect their own interests.

The Church worker who was arrested, was part of the Prayer and Praise and All Age Worship team which was my favourite area of church and which I was involved in in minor participatory ways, he was a devoted member of the mission support team and was very active indeed in working with the Romanian orphanage that the church supported, he spent a lot of his spare time over there in the orphanage, and I remember before it was found out that he was an abuser, he was giving a talk on Romania and I remember him talking about bathing one of the little girls, and I remember thinking sharply that something was not quite right, and wondering if anyone else read into what he was saying as I did.
My friend, S. mentioned a number of times after the news came 'out' to a select few, that she knew I knew something was wrong with the man.

I gather from a conversation I was not meant to hear that it is possible he did misbehave there at the orphanage, but the true and hugely terrible thing about his conviction is that he was a special school teacher, and it was the children there he abused, as well as downloading tremendous amounts of child porn, all I knew of this man and his wife before that was that they were friends with the hypochondriacs and were involved in youth and mission, he was an avid mission support person as were the Hypochondriacs, and when I put forward a suggestion to the group about helping the orphanage,he  was not very encouraging, later though, after he was gone, I was more involved and given an opportunity to help.

But Worse things came out of the trial for me, I was horrified about hearing of the conviction,  I gather I was not meant to know, and the church and diocese were trying to keep it quiet- as I now know they do with all abuse, at the cost of a human life and reputation and health- but anyway, I went to JM about it, and she was very harsh and unkind, told me that everyone forgave the man and why couldn’t I if he had done me no harm.

 I replied that he had and that this was not about not forgiving, this was about shock and devastation, JM said that we would all be judged the same by God, and that he with his paedophilia and I with my autism would both be judged the same, this was utterly devastating for me, she was putting me in the same category as this man.

I have never recovered, judged for my disability in the same category as a sex offender! and knowing that people from the church wrote letters to support the man, saying he was a good man really, these same people who cross the street when they see me, and I have been called wicked, I have been condemned by the same church who supported this paedophile, and the same Diocese who hushed the matter up, what hope have I, if my autism is the same as what this man has done and I have been condemned as wicked when people say he is not, then what can I do? LD told me that what JM said was wrong, but it doesn’t take the pain away, not at all, I remain condemned.

Anyway even at the time I said something along these lines to SL because my friendship with the Hypochondriacs was breaking up, and they had written to support this man and were going mad with the stress of that and helping his wife and also their son and not coping with me.

What they were not coping with me was their over involvement as they, the same as Jill and George and others thought they could make everything ok and ended up making all of us ill, as well as this making me react and play up (nothing to be proud of and I am not), all in all they were in a mess and so was I, they helped the paedophile's wife and so did my other friends, I cannot begin to imagine what she was going through, I did not get involved,she was as friendly to me as ever and so I spoke to her as we always had spoken, with no change, and I never spoke of her husband or the situation, and neither did she.
I did go to the court and listen to the trial, and ended up out of my mind and somewhere in the West Country because I couldn’t cope with it. I was too shocked.

I remember (another youth leader/churchwarden) coming to speak to me, I was curled up in the balcony of the church, feeling upset, he came and asked what was wrong and asked if I wanted to talk, and got me to come and stand with him and his family all squashed into one pew.
 I have no doubt that he was deeply shocked by what happened with the conviction of his colleague, he and his family left the church not so long after that, I don’t know if it was that or just the politics and cliques of the church that made him leave.
 I was pleased that he got the job of City Centre Chaplain, though JM said it was mad because he was too shy, but now he is one of the people who crosses the road to avoid me, which is sad because I respected him and I have certainly not done anything against him, but the church and diocese aren’t going to allow me to belong anywhere or receive anything but shunning for the rest of my life.

Another young family left the church and youth group at this time, they were my friends, I used to babysit for them and when I moved to house they inherited the rabbit, I kept in touch with them and remained friends with them for some time after they left, and we didn’t fall out, I have seen one of them today and had a chat, the church seemed empty with all the deaths, arrests and leavings, but new people soon came in and took it over.

Back to the work situation:
But I was no longer able to work with the stress and the noise and the aggressive handyman, I couldn’t stand up to him as the previous gardener had , and a row really blew up over his suggestive comments about me and Ted, so I resigned, the lady of the house kicked up a huge fuss and seemed to think I would leave and take all the fitments from the house with me, JM also got involved behind my back and ill-informed as usual and to my detriment, and the lady kept coming round to check up on me and I was either sleeping in the front room or cleaning the house and disposing of my furniture and effects to eager village residents as I could not take with me everything I had collected.

I certainly took none of her furniture or fittings! I left the place in good condition and went to live in my old house again, this time in the smaller cheaper room, I was really ill with exhaustion by then, I took my cats with me. The lady then continued to get through a number of gardeners in the next few years before putting the house on the market as it was too much to maintain and neither of her children wanted to inherit it.

She was one of the local 'oligarchy' who play such a part in running the Church of England churches because of their money.
Funny isn't it? A mirror of Christianity where they use the poor as doormats and malign them for the problems they face, as she did with me.
I never regretted leaving that job, after two years there, because the cottage and the demands on me were simply too much.

published on 09/07/2013 - Diocese and Deanery

I just thought I would share briefly with you about the theology and way of the Diocese of Winchester, where I suffered a number of hurts for ten years and had no idea that outside of the Diocese of Winchester, the Church of England might do things differently. Better.

I have since being driven from Winchester found that it is different in other dioceses, it is better.

I would just like to share some thoughts that cry out in my head and wont settle.

• The clergy in Jersey have not behaved in any sort of a Christian way in their slander and untruths about me that have been transported to the general public through the press and the meeting at Grouville.
• The Clergy in Jersey have done and are doing some damaging things that harm vulnerable people, and yet they are not being slandered and destroyed as they slandered and destroyed me.
• The Diocese of Winchester has been lacking in proper safeguarding or enforcement of safeguarding policy in all the time I have known them, if they had ever had a proper safeguarding process and policy then I would not be ruined and blamed by the safeguarding officer for my reaction to everything that has happened to me.
• The smear campaign against me tries to do two things, first claim that I have 'caused trouble' in two parishes in the Winchester Diocese previously, and then that I have 'made complaints' in two different places previously. I feel that it is my right to correct that - I didn't randomly 'cause trouble', I dealt with bad situations and abuse that occured when other people in the church with problems of their own tried to make 'curing' me into a panacea for their own problems, also when I was abused, and in both cases there was no sign of any effective safeguarding policy. I also never made any complaints before I was abused in Jersey, I made all complaints in Jersey when the Dean was able to involve people who had previously hurt me in the Diocese of Winchester and those people, the Dean and the abusers worked together to give me a bad name.
• Another rumour was that I was trying to get compensation from the Diocese. As yet, despite offers of help to get compensation, I have never tried. I love God more than money.
• The Catholic Church, despite it's historic abuse problems, has been much safer and kinder to me than the Church of England Diocese of Winchester.
• I suffer the after-effects of the Diocese of Winchester so badly that I still have deep trust and panic issues to do with church, but my church/es know and understand this.

I will continue writing tomorrow. Do look at Bob Hill's latest blog, which you can find a link to on the top right hand side of this blog.

Post continued on 10/07/2013

The clergy smear campaign against me in Jersey:

• The clergy in Jersey, in their desparate smear campaign against me make me out to have 'caused trouble' in two parishes in the Diocese of Winchester, they do not appear to want to know about the trouble caused to me by sexual abuse and being manipulated by people who had their own needs and mental health problems, notably including the mother-in-law of one of the clergy in Jersey. 
• They also omit the other parishes where I was able to be part of church without anyone taking me home and subjecting me to sexual or emotional abuse. They omit that I had no 'trouble' in these parishes.
• They omit the hundreds of hours of voluntary work I did for church and community despite being hurt by the snobbishness in the wealthy Diocesan churches who singularly had no understanding of autism or poverty, they also omit the friendships I had without any 'trouble' despite my autism meaning that I do struggle with relationships - unfortunately the unchristian clergy make no allowances for such things and would rather brand me trouble than be responsible for their own behaviour.
• Funny isn't it? how they have branded and slandered me, and yet these are neurotypical, well-off and well-fed people who singularly have not suffered hardship or disability. These are 'God's representatives' and they can lie and slander me and show the whole world an example of Christianity which should empty the churches.

Please don't tell anyone

'Please don't tell anyone' - the words remain with me, but I should think that as long as I don't name names, it isn't a problem, and it was quite some time ago now, an example of how even normal people can be hurt in the church by abuse of God's Name.

My friend was a wonderful person, I loved to see her and I loved to have a cup of tea with her or go dog walking with her, she was never emotionally harmful to me, she was never harmful to me, full stop, she was a friend in the Church of England who I was safe with, and no unhealthy relationship problems occurred, because she was safe, the Diocese would undoubtedly have divided me and her if they had been able to find her when I returned to Hampshire from Jersey.

My friend was a very healing and soothing person, her very presence could calm me, she most certainly had the gift of healing, and she often soothed me when the Lihous were hurting me.

She told me one day about something that had really upset her, and it upset me too, but she said 'Please don't tell anyone'.

She was from a Charismatic Church and had not always been a Christian, but her husband was, and she started going to Church for his sake, she became a Christian, in the Charismatic Church, and although she switched to the Church of England, she was always lively in worship, dancing, singing out, hands in the air, that Church of England Church was charismatic-ey, so that was all fine there.

But when my friend asked to join the healing team, she was not in favour, always lively and cheerful, they seemed to dislike this, and told her that 'They had prayed about it and she wasn't to join the healing team'.

I was outraged to hear this, because I also have experienced this horrible and blasphemous 'oh, I've prayed about it' rejection and cop-out, and although I dread to think what will happen to these God-abusers for what they do, it doesn't make it any less painful, and my friend was refused a place on the team, with prayer as a cop-out, because certain people were nervous of her enthusiasm, she did have a gift of healing and they should have utilized it.
I am thus privileged to have benefitted from her gift, but it is sad that because of rather bigoted men, others didn't.

This may well sound like a rant, well it is a rant, it remains with me, how wounded she was and how her gift was not utilized, because of bigots and excuses that abused God, and sadly this kind of abuse goes on in churches all the time.
I have seen tons of misuse of Church and God and prayer in the Church of England, and it has left me marked forever.

It's all Relatives

Sometimes I remember useless and annoying things.

I remember useless and annoying things about the Lihous and their religion and the things they used to say about their family.

I remember Jill Lihou during one of the daily boasts, telling me how her 'youngest grand daughter was starting boarding school', someone needs to tell her that Jersey College for Girls is not a boarding school, it is just one of the four places in Jersey that offers an adequate secondary education, at a cost. A private school but not a boarding school!

But funnily enough, even though both the Lihou's grand daughters, Phil and Heather Warren's daughters, went to Jersey College for Girls, the Lihous used to go on and on about how the Warrens complained about the cost of living in Jersey and how Chequers had a monopoly in Jersey so everything was expensive.
This was before I went to Jersey.
Chequers don't have a complete monopoly, and if the cost of living is too much and you have to grumble, you can either return to the UK or start shopping at Poundland and the CO-OP, reduced goods at the Channel Islands CO-OP in the evening are the same as reduced goods at UK CO-OP stores.
The other very funny thing about Jill and George Lihou's paradoxical boasting about the grandkids at JCG and the grumbles about cost of living in Jersey was that Heather Warren would come to stay with the Lihous in Hampshire (before they moved to Guernsey) and would go shopping at John Lewis, because apparently she liked John Lewis goods.
As far as I know, John Lewis is not in any way cheap.
So not sure why the grumbles about cost of living in Jersey used to be passed on to me, but the Lihous never had any tact, they used to share my personal life and their opinion with half the village and their families in Jersey and Woodley and take unhelpful advice from them and change the boundaries of the friendship without any discussion with me.

 (the Woodley family, the Honours, now hold positions in ministry in Guernsey and the whole family have been used against me in Philip Bailhache's hate campaign for what should have been forgiven differences, hence me feeling free to write this, the Church of England simply doesn't set an example of Christianity at all).

So, send your children to private school and shop at John Lewis and choose to live in Jersey and grumble about the cost of living. Example set.

Jill used to say that Heather Warren, her daughter, would complain about being isolated living on Jersey, er, isolated on a crowded 45 mile island that you choose to live on and are securely leading a large worship community? I think that is feeling isolated for the sake of it.
I didn't feel isolated in Jersey, I felt secure in a small place where I knew all the corners. Problem is, as a Jersey clergyman stated, you have to keep your enemies close, and making enemies in an insular community like Jersey leaves you trapped and disadvantaged, the horror of that will always be with me.

Oh the boasts! But the boasts didn't make these people better people, they just left me shamed and lost for words.
Jill Lihou was boasting about how her son in Guernsey had a moped because 'In Guernsey you are allowed a moped when you are 14, or was it 15?
Problem is, all the material things in the world don't make you a better person or without problems, and Jill would go on about her family problems, how Phil and Heather had marriage problems and how the granddaughters were being spoilt and badly behaved - 'but we love them anyway because they are family'. And how the grandsons were being badly influenced when they were in Woodley and how Jon Honour had a glass of drink thrown in his face by the female priest who was his boss during an argument at a party because they did not get on.

These are the people who have judged and condemned me, how come they do not get their faults published and damned for all to see as they have done to me? I suppose it is because they are well-to-do, didn't have autism or a horrific upbringing and most of all, they work for, and are protected by, the Diocese of Winchester.
Christianity in the Mirror, one rule for workers of the supposedly Christian organization, the Diocese of Winchester, and another for us plebs :)

Two sides of the Church of England, panic recruiting, lack of accountability

A deeply cynical post, written for the likes of Peter Ould who would attack an abuse victim because he is defensive of a warped church system (and he is a bit vouyeristic as well, by all accounts, hence being an ordained priest who writes on the internet about sex and interferes in abuse cases and slates the victim for what he has heard about them, without ever having met them, he represents the Church of England badly, or well, depending on how you look at it).

The Church of England divides into two, and both sides seem to be losing direction.

I know correct terminology but I can describe what I have seen of the two sides of the church.

The Church of England Side one:

Side one is undoubtedly the original Church of England. You see it in Cathedrals and old village and High Churches. If you watch the Vicar of Dibley, then David Houghton is a perfect example of this side of the Church of England. Holding positions in Church because he is wealthy and has status, rather than because he is ethical or a mature Christian. It is almost 'expected' for the local 'aristocracy' to hold positions in this side of the church, and I have witnessed that firsthand in my life, working for the big country house when I was younger, my employer wasn't ethical, she allowed drug use in her house and on her estate, and other things, but because she was the aristocrat with the range rover and labradors, she was the churchwarden for the local church congregation of 12 or so people.

I would say, that this side of the Church of England is still the prevailing side. But I remain without understanding as to why exactly these people are in the positions, isn't it at odds with their life and attitude?

So, in the structure of this side of Church, the leadership is a clique of rather well-to-do people and there is a Vicar or Rector wedged somewhat uncomfortably in the middle, and they can wedge in three or so ways, passive -they let the clique lead and they follow, dominant - they control the way the church is run and don't like being questioned -this doesn't work so well these days because everyone has a car and everyone can choose another church, and the third option is for the priest to be one of the clique, despite the Diocese of Winchester now desperately trying to recruit everything that looks vaguely human, a lot of priests are still from stable or well-to-do backgrounds and can be as removed from the normal world as the cliques who run the churches are.

So who goes to side one of the church of England? Mainly wealthy older people, disabled and disadvantaged people tend to stick out like a sore thumb, and their offers to help in church tend to be knocked on the head by the cliques and politics that run the church, and who are behaving at odds with Christianity despite holding their positions.

This side of the Church of England belongs in the dark ages, and such discrimination as you meet in these churches would not be allowed in any workplace or anywhere outside the church, and any other organization that was so exclusive would be slated to the world for it, but the Church of England is kind of separate from the real world, exclusive, and they daily glorify themselves on twitter despite the glaring mess they are in, and you have to wonder, how do they explain this self-glorification in the context of Christianity, it isn't Christianity, did Jesus advertise himself thus? A Christian Church should be modest, and while the Church of England refuse to be accountable for their faults and prejudice, they love to show off what they think is good about themselves.

Anyway, back to basics, the Old Church of England is exclusive, old, dry, about money in the coffers and their version of helping the poor is putting some of their wealth in envelops for appeals and patting themselves on the back.

This side of the Church of England is not a good place for vulnerable people, because these wealthy older people tend to not know or understand disability or vulnerability or the difference between different health conditions, especially not non-physical ones, and they tend to still use words like 'mental retardation', I have heard autism repeatedly described this way by these old people, and I have been described this way, in my hearing, because some of them think my condition means I cannot hear or understand them.

So with a total lack of understanding of disability on the part of the majority in these churches, and with vulnerable people being a distinct minority and misunderstood, and with the Church constantly recruiting and employing people from the older and wealthier majority, because there would be outcry and shunning otherwise, the vulnerable can be abused. 

And in a number of cases, including a mentions in Police Inspector Harry Keeble's books on child protection, abusers go into the church because church people are more trusting and abuse is easy.
I would like to add to that, in my experience, the Church of England refuse to, or cannot, remove abusers from church positions, even if those people are not cleared by the police, and in both abuse cases, my abusers have remained respected church figures while I have been destroyed, which glaringly pronounces the church as a safe haven for abusers.

Finally, on the subject of Side one, the Old Church of England, as I have explained before, the churches are run by these wealthy older people, mainly old ladies who have always been provided for, and aristocratic gentlemen, and not only do they not understand the vulnerable, but they have blind faith in the Church of England Hierachy, the Bishops in their palaces and those high up, who also live very comfortable lives.

So when I told an old wealthy Church lady that the former Archbishop had repeatedly turned a blind eye on me and other abuse victims, and had left me to be destroyed, she was outraged, for the Archbishop, she kept repeating to me, trying to force me to accept it 'Archbishop Rowan Williams is a Very Godly Man', and she kept repeating this mantra at me, over and over, trying to drown me out, but had no answer to the simple question 'why did this supposedly Godly man fail so many vulnerable people who appealed to him? why did he ignore them?' This was beyond her scope, because she was old, well off, and knew nothing of abuse and didn't want to, therefore me and what had happened to me was an affront to her 'Very Godly Man' image of the former archbishop.
That is Side One, the Old Church of England.

Side Two of the Church of England:

This is not a more caring or inclusive side, it can certainly give that image, as well as an image of being 'modern' and 'not like the old people' but is it better?

The 'New Version' of the Church of England, 'Side Two', is the extreme Evangelical side, it is usually characterized by young male preachers, who are all charismatic and wear tight teeshirts and play guitars, well that is a stereotype but it is a good one. The congregation is quite happy to have plastic chairs and stand up a lot, it is all noise and light and sound, it is a bit like a rock concert on a Sunday, and everyone has to join in, and smile. They usually have to have a big 18-30s group and everything has to be 'young' and 'trendy' and the young people are all professionals with all the latest stuff and gossip.
A different type of club than side 1. and they want to take over from side one and banish it as being in the dark ages. But this side is more of a club than a church, a fun young people's rock club, socials and things are very important, it all fits round work and they are all professionals, it is a desparate attempt by the Church of England to stay alive as their side one congregations are dying out.
But you don't see the side one and side two congregations together, so who is right and who is  wrong?

Ethics and knowledge in the Church of England:

Basically none are necessary.
The problem with both sides in the Church of England is that neither seem to have much by way of ethics, and neither are really inclusive of the minorities.

My initiation into the Church of England did not involve teaching me the ethics or structure of the Church of England, in fact nothing was taught to the group of us that were confirmed, and I learned nothing new about Christianity before I was confirmed, I was rushed through Baptism a week before being confirmed, with no preparation or teaching about what baptism involved, it was a last minute idea to get me confirmed, my concerns about Baptism were not allayed and I was under pressure to be Baptised, I was Baptised alone in a church with my abuser and two other rich old people who damaged me present. A week later, none the wiser, I was confirmed.

After Baptism and confirmation I attended Bible study and house group and was surprised and frustrated to find that neither of these things were named correctly, in both cases, it was a social group where people gossiped, whined, ranted and gave their opinion of the world, very little of the Bible was taken in, and basically Church of England people do not appear to learn the Bible, I have found over the years and even in the last few years, in a discussion, if we have to look up Bible passages, I find them or explain them and all these old Church people from Side 1 ask me if I went to Bible College or something! No, I was simply taught to read and understand the Bible properly, what on earth are you lot doing each week?!
I have to be cynical and consider that side 1's way of life doesn't represent the Bible too well, so they don't want to get too close to the Bible. But then, who am I to judge them? :)

The Diocese of Winchester.

The Diocese of Winchester is an interesting mess of side one and two. According to a Vicar, Bishop Scott-Joynt wanted to wipe side one out and have only side two, and that appears to be correct, having read his not-so circulated instructions about shaming people who didn't want to see the pews in church ripped out, they were to be 'instructed to move on' I gather.
I think he was defeating himself, it is the wealthy side one who are blindly paying to keep the corporation alive.

Jane Fisher is also a side two, a slapdash evilangelical, who preferred smartass textbook answers about abusers just being Christians who got things wrong, and making everything into incorrect theology rather than actually engaging with the abuse and my situation, a way of describing her and other side two's way of answering things is 'misplaced-wisdom-because-it-is-not-wisdom-but-that-person-is-wise-and-Christian-in-their-own-eyes-so-they-want-to-misquote-the-Bible-and-theology' and that description is very much the atmosphere and ethic of the Church of England Side Two.

In the Villages of the Diocese, Side One thrives, or doesn't, as the old wealthy villagers die off, and parishes and benefices merge, so that one priest has many many miles to cover in order to look after his parishes or benefice, and although this is not always sustainable or fair, it does happen, and it means that parishioners miss out. I have seen this firsthand, with one village complaining they never saw their rector, but their rector had five villages and every inch of land between those villages, miles apart, to cover, and yes, people missed out, it is not sustainable but it happens.

So what is the solution, move in 'Team rectors' and rip out pews, make the 'Side two' way prevail so that all the wealthy young commuters in the villages can fit church round their other commitments? Maybe, but where is God in all this? When pews are ripped out and older people start to feel unwelcome and are displaced after years, is that any better than the old and wealthy leading the Church?

This debate could go on forever and go off at many tangents but in half and hour I am back on the streets with no food or hot drinks, so it can't.

So, the Diocese of Winchester, side one dying, side two wrecking, no safeguarding officer preventing abuse, no inclusion of vulnerable people in either side, because we are simply not of use to either side.
What did the safeguarding officer do about me being abused? Make sure I was included and safe anywhere? make sure my abusers were supervised? No, because my abusers were older, influential, well-off, had positions and connections, so I was banished, maligned by the safeguarding queen and the abuse was covered up, while my abusers were protected.

Anyone can join the Church of England, there is no need for proper teaching and preparation to join, there is no explanation, you do not learn anything unless you as an individual decide to study the Bible or theology, there is no clear guidance or ethics, ie, you are not taught about what might be right and wrong sexually or integrity-wise, you are just kind of left to do your own thing, there is no collective ethic and no accountability to God or to others is taught, it is a church for the self-indulgent and it is a Church for froth and excuses and it is ideal for the well to do, because they can profess Christianity without any accountability.

And one of the reasons I was delighted to join the Catholic Church is that there is an intensive teaching period for those who wish to join, you do have to understand what you are joining and why, you do have to commit to a relationship with God, you do learn accountability and integrity, and as I have said in my open letter to the Jersey Deanery, that first lesson of accountability helped me profoundly, because it released me from the condemnation of the Diocese of Winchester.
The Catholic Church does teach ethics, it does teach that sex outside of marriage is wrong, in contrast to the Church of England  being fearful of upsetting anyone or losing any side twos, so they daren't have ethic like that, so they 'let it all hang out' really, while the Catholics are bold, the Catholics are also still one universal church rather than having the division of sides one and two, and mass is always well attended.
The Catholic Church have many ethics, including 'do not gossip, it is a sin', while the Church of England thrives on gossip, and when confronted they attack the confronter, as I know from experience.

Priests. A ploy of the CofE is to go on about Catholics only having male priests, but the Church of England are so desparate that they are pretty much recruiting anyone, many unsuitable and not commited or ethical, notably young women fresh out of college, too young to have the wisdom that Pastoring requires, but the Church/Diocese of Winchester dress this up as 'being modern' and 'look at us! Aren't we inclusive!' No, a lot of makeup and high heels is not a great way of representing God, because we have to decrease in order to increase.

So where is God in all this? This is the Church of England, God doesn't have to be in it.