Bishop Justin Holcomb of Central Florida was a leading voice April 17 in the Anglican Communion’s first web-based meetings on Safe Church. These meetings continue the work of the Lambeth Conference in 2022, in what communion leaders call its third phase.
“I can still remember the feelings of shame, confusion, and embarrassment 40 years later,” said the bishop, who as a child was assaulted by a family member. “Being raised in a Christian home, I remember then and now 1 Peter 5:7 being very important: ‘Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.’ God has been faithful to me in fulfilling that promise. Safe Church initiatives matter to me and my wife deeply personally, professionally, and pastorally. Sexual abuse is a worldwide epidemic, and I do not use language of epidemic lightly.”
The bishop added: “The prevalence of abuse around the world is heartbreaking. The numbers do not reveal the darkness and the grief that victims feel. Many survivors of abuse are terrified. They feel afraid. They feel hopeless. They feel humiliated and confused. The effects of abuse bring emotional pain, physical pain; they bring social pain, spiritual pain. The effects of this abuse highlight the great need for the gospel and the grace of God in the incarnation of Jesus: the one thing the Church has to offer a broken and weary world that no other organization or government can offer. The people in our churches need to hear how hope and healing is offered to them in the Scriptures and the liturgy with hope and healing.”
Bishop Holcomb spoke of his work for 20 years with his wife, Lindsey, in addressing the needs of survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and crisis interventions to support both abuse prevention and trauma-informed church responses. Their books include Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault (2011, small group discussion guide 2015), Is It My Fault? Hope and Healing for Those Suffering Domestic Violence (2014), and Children and Trauma: Equipping Parents and Caregivers (2021). With Basyle Tchividjian, the bishop wrote Caring For Survivors of Sexual Abuse (2021).
“In the diocese where I serve — I have been a bishop for only ten months — in the Episcopal Church we have had policies for over 20 years on Safe Church. But in my own diocese I have identified places where we are missing policies on known sex offenders and registered sex offenders. We are currently reviewing practices and have hired consultants to help us renew policies that will prevent abuse, recognize abuse, and respond to abuse.”
A clear aspect of the communion’s Safe Church work is its universality for Anglican life in diverse cultural contexts with different doctrinal emphases. In addition to Bishop Holcomb’s personal testimony, lay and ordained church leaders who spoke in the webinars were from Australia, Jamaica, Jerusalem and the Middle East, Panama, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
Safe Church webinars are accompanied by informational materials in eight widespread languages of the Anglican Communion: two downloadable Bible studies, a facilitator’s guide, and the longer Lambeth Call Paper on Safe Church. Bishop Jo Bailey Wells invites participants to describe what a Safe Church looks like for them in their contexts. She is Bishop for Episcopal Ministry in the Anglican Communion.
The work of the Anglican Communion Safe Church Commission was one of four safeguarding requests in resolutions approved by the Anglican Consultative Council in 2016. Implementing the council’s Protocol for the Disclosure of Ministry Suitability Information Between the Churches of the Anglican Communion is also part of the commission’s purpose. This protocol establishes a communion-wide standard under which church workers “are unable to move from one province to another to avoid investigation of [safeguarding] complaints or concerns.”
The protocol currently addresses only internal Anglican life and suggests no responsibility to ecumenical partners related to concerns around ministry suitability or historical abuse in cases of church worker movement. It does not yet recommend requests for information from non-Anglican churches in which lay employees or clergy seeking Anglican affiliation or ordination may have committed any prior offense against vulnerable persons.
The Lambeth Conference’s third phase will continue in 2025 with work on Christian Unity, Mission, and Evangelism, Interfaith Engagement, and Reconciliation in webinars, in-person meetings, and staggered release of studies, guides, and discussion resources for formation. Two of the Lambeth Calls were in 2023: Discipleship (May-September), and Environment and Sustainable Development (September-December).Another call, on Anglican Identity, was discussed early this year (January-March).
All persons who register in advance are welcome to participate in their preferred languages, frequency, and engagement levels. More information is available on the Lambeth Conference website.
