What’s the worst thing that could happen to the OMS? It’s not a question that I enjoy thinking about, but it feels like we shouldn’t ignore it because as our 18th century forebears put it “[we have] an old enemy in satan, who rests neither by day nor by night”… and because human sin and foolishness can do plenty of damage even without enemy assistance.
As far as we know the original Order died out after about 50 years. One of the reasons was a period in the 1740s which Moravians call the ‘sifting time’ (after Jesus’ warning to Simon that ‘satan has asked to sift you as wheat’, Luke 22:31). Its characteristics were all too familiar: heretical theology, unaccountable leadership, unhealthy power dynamics, and probably sexual sin too. OMS members weren’t directly involved but they were slow to act, and it took nearly a decade for the church to walk the painful path of repentance and restoration.
It’s easy to look at those events and think ‘that would never happen to us’, but the evidence of church history right up to the present day is that it can and it does. Often it comes down to abuses in the areas of money, sex, and power. I sometimes wonder whether that’s why traditional monastic vows were to poverty, chastity, and obedience, although monastic orders have not been immune either.
Particularly sobering to me is that cases of abuse often involve leaders, because they are in positions of power and trust which mean their behaviours can go unchallenged. Any by ‘they’, I also mean ‘me’.
So here is my request: if you see actions, attitudes, or warning signs in my leadership and how I relate to members of our Order, don’t stay silent. We have a clear safeguarding policy, and you can contact our safeguarding team via safeguarding@orderofthemustardseed.com. Anything you raise will be handled as confidential, including from me. And the same applies to anyone else in our Order, whatever their role or perceived status.
