What the book is about…
This is the story of a church that has fallen away so far from Jesus teachings that it systematically psychologically and emotionally tormented four young girls to punish their father for being a whistle-blower. This is the story of a diocesan hierarchy, right up to the Archbishop, which not only refused to stop the child abuse, but actually aided the perpetrators and even rewarded some of them with promotion. This is the story of a family of devout church-goers who have suffered terribly at the hands of that same church. It is a story that should never have had to be told. It is a story that is being told because there is no other way left to hold the church officials who did these things accountable. It is being told now in the hope that public outcry will force the church to become a safer place for both children and adults.
The story begins with a family, a devout Christian family. The Parents Scott and Machelle have attended Figtree Anglican Church for about 12 years. Their six children ranging, when this all starts from 21years down to 10 years of age are all deeply involved in the church’s activities. As the 10 year old later said “It was our whole life”
One Saturday night two of the teenage girls going as usual to their young leaders training group are expelled from the class in front of all the others without any explanation. The following day at church people turn their backs on them. The awful punishment of “shunning” has begun. When the 10 year old tries to talk to her best friend, who is the daughter of a minister, the minister’s wife rushes over and separates them in front of the congregation saying to her own daughter “You are never to speak to that girl again!” At the beach the children see one of their school teachers and go to say hello. He holds up his hands to stop them and shouts out “I’m not allowed to talk to you anymore” When the young girls, now officially banned from contact with church people by a letter from the minister try to join the youth group of another church the children’s minister at Figtree goes and asks the other church to exclude them. Their religion, their social life, their standing as people have all been taken from them by a “Christian” church. What could they have done to deserve this terrible punishment?
The answer is that they had not done anything; they were being tormented to punish their father. So what had their father done? The answer is that he had offended against two of the “sacred cows” of the parish. This was a church that had come to almost worship itself; to do anything that threatened the prosperity of Figtree Anglican Church was worse than blasphemy. Secondly this was a church that almost worshipped the “leadership” of the parish. Parishioners were taught to believe that the leadership were appointed by God and the members’ duty was to submit to the leadership in everything.
Scott had, unwittingly broken both these taboos. He is an honest man. When he discovered a “marks for money scam” running in the university department where both he and the rector’s wife worked, he reported it and there was a danger it might leak to the press. A scandal before had reduced overseas student enrolments. The prospect of this happening again was a threat not just to the prosperity of the university but also to the great number of leading people in Figtree whose livelihood depended on university enrolments, and through them it threatened the prosperity of Figtree Church. The University failed to confirm Scott’s tenure as a lecturer. The rector’s wife started a smear campaign accusing him of being a ‘serial sexual predator’. Not surprisingly her story turned out to be pure fiction.
Later he broke the other taboo too. He criticised one of the ministers. It happened like this. There was a church function at which a man invited by the church tried to rape a fourteen year old girl at the church, and when thwarted he chased the girl’s boyfriend yelling that he would kill him. The attacker did succeed in punching the girl’s mother to the ground in front of a large number of people. The church officials did nothing to stop this. The church leaders assured the distraught mother and daughter that they would inform the police. The church leaders did not inform the police, and did not do anything to comfort the victims. Scott heard about this. He was angry that his church had acted like this. He went privately to the church’s “executive minister” and told him off.
This time church reaction was swift. Within days false charges under church law of “sexual abuse” were made against him. The actual things alleged, when details were finally wrung from the church were so improbable that no one should have believed them and so trivial “e.g.: he touched the back of a woman’s hand while teaching her to use an espresso machine” that even if true they would warrant no condemnation let alone punishment.
Indeed if Scott had done as advised, and possibly as expected: made a false confession and submitted to the leadership, it might have stopped there. But he is an honest man; he was innocent and said so. So his children were tormented to punish him into submission. When he still did not submit he was subjected to two and a half years of official Diocesan investigation and preparation for being put on trial before a church Diocesan Disciplinary Tribunal, even though he was just an ordinary church attender. This only stopped when at a procedural hearing before this Tribunal the diocese had to admit that there was actually no case against Scott and on the Tribunal’s insistence asked Scott for permission to drop the charges and walk away from the affair. In return the Diocese signed an undertaking that they would make announcement of Scott’s innocence in church services at Figtree and have the whole family welcomed back into the church. They have since refused to honour this undertaking.
I have stood alongside Scott and Machelle in their suffering, and as an “intelligent observer” tried to make sense of what the church has been saying and doing. Over this two and a half year period, I have put up articles on my web page as I have been able to gain insights into what was being done. Now in this “online book” these have been revised and brought together to tell the story of the abuse of power by the ministers and church officials.
Louise Greentree
Sydney, October 2009
PS In November 2009 the new director PSU, appointed in August 2009, agreed to attend a meeting with Machelle Dobbs and me to discuss the complaints that the previous director had failed to deal with. Finally in February 2010 he appointed a counsellor as a ‘first contact’ person to take statements about the complaint, even though there is an enormous amount of information already available in these articles. This tortuous diocesan process is now creaking into some form of life. I will be reporting on this process from time to time as it proceeds. (March 2010)
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A Synergy of Malice