Can the Church Heal? A talk featuring activist Andrew Graystone

Can the Church Heal? A talk featuring activist Andrew Graystone Sunday 23rd January at 3pm. In-person tickets are £10. Online tickets are £8.

Recent years have seen a succession of revelations about abuse in church contexts. When he found himself unwittingly pitched into the world of church abuse, Andrew Graystone was disturbed to find that almost all victims said that their original abuse was less damaging than the subsequent trauma inflicted by the church. What has gone so badly wrong in a church that hopes to offer a route to restoration? Can the church heal? Or is coercive control hard-wired into its nature?

Speaker Andrew Graystone is perhaps best known as being ‘the man outside the mosque’; after the Christchurch terrorist attacks, Andrew stood outside his local mosque in Manchester with a handwritten sign bearing the simple message: ‘You are my friends. I will keep watch while you pray’. Having spent time working in religious broadcasting, including for the BBC, Andrew remains a radio commentator while working in the church and voluntary sector. His books, including Bleeding for Jesus, which acts as a starting-point for this conversation, offer thought-provoking contexts for contemporary faith.