Let’s Walk Into the Light
A story that’s often told in our churches comes from the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel. It tells of Jesus, in the blinding heat of midday meeting a Samaritan woman at the well in a town called Sychar. The woman is hoisting up heavy buckets of water in the hot sun. She’s there because she’s a woman with ‘a reputation’ and it’s the only time of day she can avoid the muttering of her neighbours who meet at the well at cooler hours.
In an extraordinary encounter, Jesus sees deep into the woman’s heart. Through their conversation Jesus brings about her healing and restoration into the community from which she is estranged. It’s a story of life, possibility, new beginnings and forgiveness.
The woman at the well is not the only Biblical story set in Sychar. There’s another, contained in the 34th chapter of the Book of Genesis. This is a tale of terror that’s never heard in our churches; the rape of a girl called Dinah. It’s a dark, nasty tale of violence that wrecks the life of individuals, families and the entire community. So we don’t speak about it. We keep it hidden.
Sometimes people say to me of safeguarding ‘It’s just a tick box exercise’, an onerous compliance requirement. Rather I would say that our work in safeguarding asks fundamental questions about the kind of places we want our churches to be. Just like the Bible passages I’ve mentioned, we can be places of hiddenness, silence, and hurt. Or places of life, new beginnings and restoration.
Accounts like the Makin review have shone light on our story. We’ve also been working hard to bring about change. While we cannot be complacent, I am intensely proud of all that was revealed about safeguarding in Bath and Wells by our independent audit that happened earlier this year. This told us that we are moving towards a much better story. So let’s build on the momentum we have created. Let’s walk into the light.
Michael Beasley
Bishop of Bath and Wells