IT IS 18 months since it was announced that Mike Pilavachi was to step back from ministry at Soul Survivor while “non-recent safeguarding concerns” were investigated. It soon emerged that questions about his behaviour had, in fact, been raised as long ago as 2004, but with no success. Fiona Scolding KC’s Independent Review into Soul Survivor, published at the end of last week, sets out a sordid history of abuse, exploitation, and dysfunctional governance. There were the wrestling sessions, the massages, the overly close relationships followed by ghosting — and the utter failure of the organisation’s trustees to act to stop him.
The Pilavachi case is shocking for many reasons. First, his victims have been traumatised. Their scars will run deep. But the revelations will also have been profoundly distressing to thousands whose lives were touched for good by Mr Pilavachi’s ministry and who saw no evidence of his flaws. From the outside, it seems blindingly obvious that his conduct was inappropriate, weird, and just plain wrong. It is shocking that internal “groupthink” allowed him to exercise his ministry for 30 years. But he was “a character”. Harmful, exploitative behaviour was dismissed as “just Mike”. That is how abusers work.
Sadly, however, this story has a familiar ring to it. There are echoes of Chris Brain and the Nine O’Clock Service; John Smyth and the Iwerne Trust; Jonathan Fletcher and Emmanuel, Wimbledon; Gerald Coates and the Pioneer Trust. The details differ, but what these scandals have in common is the combination of a passionate and articulate faith, a strong personality, maverick behaviour, and the ability to attract a loyal and devoted following.
When a spiritual leader is charismatic (small “c”), good things can happen, but, just as easily, power can be abused. And the church hierarchy wants to hear good stories of thriving congregations: as the Scolding report says, Mr Pilavachi was “the goose that laid the golden eggs”. When an organisation is seen to be successful, there is a queasiness about looking too closely at how the success was achieved.
Survivors have expressed concern that Scolding’s focus on systemic failures has effectively taken some of the responsibility from Mr Pilavachi. There is little mention of grooming, for example. Some have suggested that the investigators were themselves groomed by the subject of the investigation, and that the report is too sympathetic: he is presented as naïve and bumbling rather than manipulative.
None the less, an institutional response is required. The response of the Church has been predictable and, no doubt, sincere. Recommendations will be implemented; lessons will be learned. Some of these — the more structural changes in relation to oversight and accountability — are relatively straightforward. The harder thing to change is the culture. It would be a great pity if the Pilavachi story brought about the end of innovative forms of ministry. But, as the Scolding report says, there was “a wholesale failure” to create an atmosphere in which concerns could be raised openly, with no fear of the consequences. That has to change.