Anglicans Together? 8 October 2003

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Challenges for the impending Melbourne and Sydney Anglican synods

Program Transcript

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.

The worldwide Anglican communion is approaching a showdown between conservatives and progressives at a special meeting of the Anglican Primates from around the world, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth Palace next week. On the agenda, the issue of homosexuality.

Meanwhile for Australian Anglicans it's Synod Season. The Melbourne Synod gets under way today, and the Sydney Synod begins meeting next week. On the agenda in Sydney, there are sure to be motions of support for the tough leadership role on homosexuality that Archbishop Peter Jensen has been taking all around the world.

And, right on cue, the retired Episcopalian Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong, is back on tour in Australia as a kind of personal thorn in the side of Peter Jensen.

John Shelby Spong: Peter speaks to a world that as far as I can see doesn't exist any more, except maybe in Sydney. In terms of the great debate on the great issues, I have no desire to be in a debate with people who are defending yesterday's truth. The people I'm interested in speaking to are those who have given up on the church, and taken up a stand in the secular city, because the God they meet in church is simply too small to be God for their lives. And that's the audience that I seek to address.

Stephen Crittenden: Bishop John Shelby Spong, letting loose on the 'AM' program earlier this week.

Also on the agenda at the Sydney Synod will be the long anticipated first moves to introduce lay presidency at Holy Communion, something that's sure in its own way, to be just as divisive as the issue of sexuality.

Well this week, we thought it might be interesting to hear from one of the leading opponents of the evangelical faction which runs the Sydney diocese. In fact he's sometimes described as the unofficial leader of the opposition in Sydney: Dr Michael Horsburgh is a member of the Sydney Synod and also one of the founders of a forum for moderate Anglicans in Sydney, called Anglicans <http://www.anglicanstogether.org/> Together.

I began by asking him to explain the meaning of lay presidency.

Michael Horsburgh: Anglican practice is that at the Holy Communion the priests praise the prayer of consecration over the bread and wine, and that is the central act of the Communion, and only priests are allowed to do that. The proposals that Sydney's been debating for many years would allow lay persons to do that, and also Deacons, who are a lower order of the clergy.

Stephen Crittenden: And am I right in thinking that the Jensens' interest in this, their opposition to priests presiding at Holy Communion really has a long history that goes back to the early days of Anglicanism, to opposition to the mass?

Michael Horsburgh: Yes. The idea of the priest as the presider was inherited into the Anglican church before the Reformation and so in some people's minds, and certainly in the minds of some reformers, it was associated with what they rejected concerning the mass, and it's certainly the case that the prevailing opinion in the Diocese of Sydney is against a high sacramental view of what the Holy Communion is, whereas other parts of the Anglican church have a much stronger view about what actually happens in the Holy Communion.

Stephen Crittenden: And of course, once you instituted a change like this, any chance of ecumenical work with Catholicism for example, on that flank of the Anglican church, that becomes all that much more difficult, doesn't it?

Michael Horsburgh: Yes, it would become difficult with Catholicism, it would become difficult with the Orthodox, it would certainly become difficult with the Lutherans, even to a certain extent with the Uniting Church.

Stephen Crittenden: So what do you expect to happen about lay presidency then at this Synod?

Michael Horsburgh: Well we have to understand that the prevailing opinion in the diocese of Sydney is that lay presidency is OK, they've convinced themselves that there's no reason why they shouldn't do it, no theological reason. What's stopping them is the perception that in church law, it might be illegal, and if they act illegally, then they are threatening their very position as members of the Anglican church. So they need to take whatever steps they can to make the action legal. Now this gets us into what will to many listeners, appear to be a very arcane piece of history. In 1662, after the English Civil War, there was enacted a piece of legislation called the Act of Uniformity. And Section 10 of the Act of Uniformity says 'Only episcopally ordained priests may consecrate the Holy Communion'. And there is an argument that this piece of legislation is still in force in the Anglican church in Australia, and at the Synod there will be a proposal to repeal it insofar as it affects the Diocese of Sydney.

Stephen Crittenden: But not to act on it.

Michael Horsburgh: No, the next step would be then to authorise the lay and diaconal presidency that followed from that.

Stephen Crittenden: But you're saying they'll stop short of that.

Michael Horsburgh: They are going to stop short of that, and they're going to stop short of that not because they want to stop short, but because of some very important political reasons.

Stephen Crittenden: Well we'll come to those political reasons in a moment, but I just want to talk about process for a moment. Let's assume that they do as you suggest, they do repeal the 1662 Act of Uniformity as it applies to the Sydney Diocese. What are we likely to see then? Are we likely to see then a year or even two years of legal challenges?

Michael Horsburgh: Well that's very difficult to tell. There are I think two different kinds of legal challenges that could come up. One is that somebody would take them to the Civil courts.

Stephen Crittenden: The Supreme Court.

Michael Horsburgh: The Supreme Court of New South Wales, yes, because they've breached the legal trusts on which the properties are held. I suppose, not being a lawyer, I can't comment on that with any expertise but I expect that -

Stephen Crittenden: Can I just interrupt and ask you: in other words, are you suggesting that the argument might be put that these people who are currently occupying St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney are not real Anglicans and they should be ejected ?

Michael Horsburgh: That would be, in short, the argument.

Stephen Crittenden: Right. What's the other kind of legal challenge?

Michael Horsburgh: Well the other kind of legal challenge would be that if the Archbishop proceeded, somebody could take action against him in the church courts.

Stephen Crittenden: Him personally?

Michael Horsburgh: Him personally, for agreeing to this if it was illegal.

Stephen Crittenden: And what would be the legal remedy in the church court?

Michael Horsburgh: If it were taken against him personally, it would be something against him.

Stephen Crittenden: In other words I'm asking would it be an injunction to stop him behaving in such a way, or would it be to remove him from office?

Michael Horsburgh: Well potentially, the extreme remedy would be to remove him from office.

Stephen Crittenden: I think one of the most interesting things about the Jensens is that they are inviting a debate about the true nature of Anglicanism. In other words, there are plenty of people within the Anglican fold who would say they are not true Anglicans, but they on the other hand, are trying to direct everyone's attention back to a style of Anglicanism which did exist, didn't it?

Michael Horsburgh: Yes up to a point it did exist in the more Puritan periods of -

Stephen Crittenden: And possibly in the mind of Thomas Cramner, you know.

Michael Horsburgh: Possibly in the mind of Thomas Cranmer, certainly in the minds of many people during the Commonwealth period of English history, when the church was more Presbyterian, and Congregationalist in its approach. You need to understand about the Diocese of Sydney, is that in common with many other evangelicals, they say evangelical or Christian first, Anglican second. Many other members of the Anglican church don't make the distinction in that way, they bring together their Christianity and their Anglicanism in a much closer way than that. So I think to give them their due, the people in the Diocese of Sydney would want to say quite clearly, 'We are Christian first and Anglican second and if we think there's anything in Anglicanism that is not Christian, then we are prepared either to fight it or to move away from it.'

Stephen Crittenden: Now let's get back to this issue of the politics of a decision about lay presidency. Archbishop Peter Jensen has given an undertaking to consult. Hasn't he been in fact travelling all around the world doing just that, and hasn't he been getting an answer that he perhaps doesn't want?

Michael Horsburgh: Well anybody who knew about the Anglican communion would know that the Diocese of Sydney would in this respect, always get from the majority of people the answers that they don't want. The problem for Archbishop Jensen is that he's getting the No answer on lay presidency from the very same people from whom he's getting the Yes answer on the sexual morality question.

Stephen Crittenden: Specifically there are bishops all over Africa, there are bishops in Asia, in Singapore for example, who are strongly supportive of the lead that he's taking on homosexuality, but they're not at all wanting to bite the bait on lay presidency.

Michael Horsburgh: Exactly. And the interesting thing is that the process by which lay presidency came to the Diocese of Sydney is exactly the same process by which these other things happened in New Westminster and New Hampshire, that is, they were actions of the Diocesan Synod. So at that level Sydney is in exactly the same position as New Westminster and New Hampshire on a different subject.

Stephen Crittenden: Yes. In other words, as some senior Anglicans have said to me this week, this high profile stand that Peter Jensen's been taking on homosexuality all over the world is in many ways an easier fight than the fight about lay presidency, and in the end if he's got to choose between them, he's going to choose the fight on sexuality, partly because it's easier to explain, but also because on the sexuality issue he can claim the moral high ground, whereas on the issue of lay presidency, the Sydney Anglicans would be the renegades.

Michael Horsburgh: That's exactly right, and I think in his own perception, if I can say that, he would think that holding the ground on homosexuality is more important than lay presidency because it's not wrong that priests preside at the Eucharist, it's just not enough, but in his view it is wrong that homosexuals should have their unions blessed or become bishops or clergy.

Stephen Crittenden: Is it also true that this issue of lay presidency will be put off, partly because it always has the potential to sap the energy needed for some of these other debates, and also sap the energy needed for this all-important question of mission in Sydney. The Sydney Diocese has set itself this target of getting 10% of the people of Sydney into Protestant churches in the next ten years.

Michael Horsburgh: Well certainly if Sydney found itself embroiled in civil legal action or even in actions in the church courts, the amount of resources they'd have to put into it, to have their defence, the time, the diversion from what they think are more important things would certainly give them pause for thought.

Stephen Crittenden: My guest is the unofficial leader of the loyal opposition in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Dr Michael Horsburgh.

Michael, is it possible that the Jensen ascendancy in Sydney which had several decades of build-up before it reached fruition, is it possible that it may already have peaked? I'm thinking about the moment when Philip Jensen spoke about Jews <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s804949.htm> and Hindus being Satanists , but also about the 10% mission target; how are they travelling?

Michael Horsburgh: I think that the amount of energy and momentum that would be required to be even marginally successful in the task that they've set themselves, is very great indeed. And much of the energy from my perception has been taken up in establishing committees and other sorts of things internally in the church to try and direct the church in the way that they want it to go. Now this is as far as I can see, a centre out exercise. It's the Archbishop's initiative, it what he wanted to do when he came into power, and he set about doing it. He's tried to get the right people in the right places but this is not necessarily a ground up exercise, it's not as though everybody in the Diocese has risen up and demanded that this happen. So there is a very big task to persuade everybody to be in it.

Stephen Crittenden: You've also suggested haven't you, that this whole idea of 10% or 10% mission target, is actually so diffuse as to be undefinable.

Michael Horsburgh: Well I've said that in the Synod and I continue to say it, and indeed the -

Stephen Crittenden: What do you mean by saying that?

Michael Horsburgh: You would actually never know whether that target was achieved. It's not possible really to know. It's also not possible to assess progress over ten years as to whether it's going ahead. My personal view is that the outcome of the mission is increasing centralisation of power, and that a diffuse definition of it is extremely useful because it casts the power into the hands of the people who ultimately have the task of giving life to the definition.

Stephen Crittenden: The other issue that's of interest to me relating to this mission target is whether it's actually fundamentally misconceived in terms of the wider culture. You know, I often wonder whether what people are after who are interested, who are yearning for something religious these days, is precisely the kind of sacramental or liturgical aspect of religion that the Jensens are allergic to. Whereas they are trying to revive this Puritan emphasis on the 40 minute sermon, and that that leaves people cold.

Michael Horsburgh: I think it's true to say that Christianity as a whole has problems with Australian culture, but in this present context the Diocese of Sydney I think is running in two different directions in relation to the culture. At one level they appear to be conforming to the culture, and that's in some of the music and presentation styles that they have.

Stephen Crittenden: Phillip Jensen's sermon at Slim Dusty's funeral singing from 'The Pub with No Beer' that kind of stuff.

Michael Horsburgh: That sort of thing. On the other hand, they see themselves as profoundly counter-cultural. And the debate about homosexuality is one such debate, because they see the culture as moving towards greater liberalism, and they want to be opposed to it.

Stephen Crittenden: This is what you mean when you talk about a "double view of culture"?

Michael Horsburgh: A double view of culture yes, and so I think they're moving in two different streams that don't easily fit together.

Stephen Crittenden: Are they mutually inconsistent though?

Michael Horsburgh: Well, in the long run I think they will be. Part of the problem of dealing with the culture is the form and content problem. You can pick up the cultural forms - that is the style of the music, and all that other sort of stuff. But what about the content that its conveying? It's easy intellectually to do that, but in practical terms its actually quite difficult. Because the way people go about their business in the culture embodies the ideas of the culture itself. It's not an easy question, I don't think, for people who on the one hand want to relate to the culture, and on the other hand want to reject some important things in its content. Now, I suspect Christianity's always had that problem, but it's appearing in Sydney in a particular guise.

Stephen Crittenden: It's a very interesting idea. Just going back to your earlier comment too: it's precisely the terrain on which Chrsitianity has a problem in Australia.

Michael Horsburgh: Exactly

Phillip Jensen: Friends, I'm no drinking man, and I'm not much of a singer either, but I don't think we can have Slim Dusty's funeral without singing just one verse of 'The Pub With No Beer'. It just wouldn't be a funeral of Slim Dusty, would it? They think so, and you guys have to cover my voice. Are we ready?

SINGS 'The Pub with No Beer'

APPLAUSE

Stephen Crittenden: Phillip Jensen, the Dean of St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral in Sydney at the State funeral for Slim Dusty. There was a time when the Sydney Anglicans were fierce campaigners for prohibition. I wonder what Canon Hammond, the legendary teetotaller of the '20s and '30s would have made at that attempt at relating to the culture.

Michael Horsburgh are we also talking about a group that doesn't really engage much beyond people like themselves?

Michael Horsburgh: Well if I were to be asked what I think is one of the most fundamental flaws in the approach of the Diocese of Sydney, I would say the Diocese of Sydney does not have a true theology of the laity. That is to say, it does not have a theology that places the ordinary person in their everyday life. The Diocese of Sydney thinks that once people are Christians their principal task is to make other people Christians. So if like me, you're academic, they don't in my view, have a perspective on the Christian practice of being a university teacher. But without a true theology of the laity, it's really very difficult to engage with other people, because you're only engaging with them in respect to whether they are or might become Christians. Even your own work is not valued in itself, it's merely a platform for doing something else, making other people Christians.

Stephen Crittenden: I just want to round up by asking you two more questions. One is, aren't the Jensens at least on about a church that's growing and vital and expanding, and isn't it the blunt truth that the rest of Anglicanism in Australia is greying and declining, and really doesn't have a vision for how to arrest that decline?

Michael Horsburgh: I your statement about the Jensens is true. They are interested in the church that is growing and vital, and it is true that all of the census data shows that the people who attend churches are greying, and that same problem attaches to every part of the church, and not just the Anglican church. Many parts of Christianity have lost a lot of their vitality and their approach to the community, and there can be no doubt about that. That conclusion doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that the approach taken in the Diocese of Sydney is the one that is going to turn it around.

Stephen Crittenden: Finally, is it true to say that the Jensen faction that controls the Sydney Diocese isn't simply in conflict with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican church, that there are other actually quite conservative evangelical groups within the Anglican church in Sydney who are alienated too.

Michael Horsburgh: I certainly hear rumblings of that kind of dissatisfaction.

Stephen Crittenden: Why are they dissatisfied?

Michael Horsburgh: They are dissatisfied because they think that what they are seeing is not them. When they experience the new culture, they don't feel at home in it any more. They don't think that they've left home, in a sense they think that home's left them. This is a cultural question, but it certainly has to do with the maintenance of traditional Anglican methods of worship and things of that kind.

Stephen Crittenden: Is this where one of the weaknesses of Anglicanism is that it's such a broad church, that it's always going to be difficult to present a kind of credible opposition to a tightly run faction like the Jensens, if you can't say who you are, and if you don't all believe the same thing?

Michael Horsburgh: Well the political push behind the Jensens is very strong and very well organised. I think it's actually false to suggest that there is such a thing as a kind of disembodied Christianity. The prevailing ethos in the Diocese of Sydney harks back to Puritanism, so in a sense, it also has a tradition that it is living up to. Other people have other traditions, and to a certain extent the diversity of Anglicanism has been its strength, not its weakness. It's the pretence that you are, as it were, a pure Christian and not one trammelled up by some kind of culture that is wrong, because there is no expression of religious faith of any kind that hasn't got a culture with it. And so it's not that people have a culturalist Christianity, it's just that they have one expressed in a different culture.

Stephen Crittenden: Dr Michael Horsburgh, who's one of the spokespeople for the moderate group, Anglicans Together, based in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican church. Details for how to get in touch with them on our website.

Well if Michael Horsburgh is a moderate in Sydney, who belongs to a minority party there, the Reverend Peter Corney is a leading evangelical in Melbourne. He's past Rector of Melbourne's biggest Anglican parish, St Hilary's, Kew, and he's recently published a most interesting paper on the future of Anglicanism in <http://www.acl.asn.au/> Australia. It's a superbly written piece, but it makes for dismal reading. The numbers for Anglicanism in Australia are all trending down. And Peter Corney offers an interesting explanation for the decline. The 19th century Anglo-Catholic revival, once so influential in most parts of Australia, has lost its way and become a hostage to liberalism.

Peter Corney: Well I think what I said in my paper was that it came to its greatest influence in the Australian Anglican church by the '60s. That was when it was most dominant, really assuming its style and emphasis as the Anglican norm, in most Diocese, with exception probably of Sydney and parts of Melbourne and one or two other places. But in most of the country Dioceses and right across the country really, it was very, very influential at that stage. Now it so happens that's the point at which the church in general was coming under the hammer, you know, socially and in other ways, when it reached its peak of influence in the Anglican church, but that at the same point, it began to decline itself, and my argument is that because it was so influential its decline then took a great swathe of the Anglican church down with it, slowly as it collapsed as a movement.

Stephen Crittenden: Are you saying that the problem for the Anglican church is that it became too Catholic? Or are you acknowledging that when that Anglo-Catholic revival began, it was actually doctrinally fairly strong and fairly orthodox but somehow for whatever reason that movement lost its way?

Peter Corney: Well certainly your last point I'd agree with. I think that originally the Anglo-Catholic movement was very orthodox doctrinally, but gradually it kind of, and certainly by the '60s, large elements of it had embraced a kind of liberal theology, and I think that ate the heart out of its sort of passion really. Now it should be said that we can't put the whole decline of the Anglican church down to the Anglo-Catholic movement, but I'm just saying that because it was so influential by the '60s, as it declined, it of course had a very, very significant influence on the decline of the Anglican church.

Stephen Crittenden: We've just been speaking to Michael Horsburgh, from Anglicans Together in Sydney, and I guess the gist of the point that he was making about the Jensen faction in Sydney is that one of the essential characteristics of any evangelical congregation worldwide, is that they operate in small groups, small groups that are self-reinforcing and don't really speak very much to the outside world, that they attract tough-minded people at the outset, that becomes reinforcing, but that tough-mindedness is precisely not shared by the wider community.

Peter Corney: I think that's a rather superficial understanding of the situation. I mean if you think about the history of the church, the times when the church has been really effective and strong has always been when it's discipled people in small group. I mean think about the Wesleyan revival, and the whole sort of class meeting movement that really was the heart of Methodism. I mean all of that was based around discipling and encouraging people in strong groups of fellowship. I think the Christian church has always done that. That's a kind of attempt to psychologise a way something much deeper I think.

Stephen Crittenden: Is tough-mindedness one of the benchmarks of a church with a future, that maybe Anglicanism lacks at present?

Peter Corney: Well it depends what you mean by tough-mindedness. If you mean people who are very clear about what they believe, and are prepared to stick by it, and challenge the prevailing intellectual fashions of the day, then yes, I think it is, but tough-mindedness can be interpreted in another way as being sort of unfeeling and insensitive and unaware of kind of other people's points of view. Now there'll always be people like that, and there are people within the evangelical camp like that, but by and large I don't think that's a fair description.

Stephen Crittenden: Well speaking of different points of view, I understand there's to be a conference of Melbourne Anglo-Catholics shortly and that they've asked you whether they can use your very interesting paper as a talking point. Now that's very interesting, I wonder would that ever happen in Sydney?

Peter Corney: Well I don't know, probably not. Sydney and Melbourne are different really in a whole range of ways. They've got different personalities of cities. What interests me is that some of my friends in business and the professions say the same kinds of differences occur in business as well. There is a kind of brashness and toughness and centricness about Sydney which I think Melbourne doesn't have, and that personality finds itself in the church as well.

Stephen Crittenden: What do you think about the performance of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who's been so blooded with this huge and intractable issue of homosexuality? He's been very much criticised in recent weeks; how do you think he's handled the situation?

Peter Corney: Well it's an enormously difficult situation to someone to walk into. But my own personal view is that I don't think he's been clear enough. He's been ambiguous from the start. And the Anglican conference, it happens that Lambeth was the last one, made its position very, very clear on that. I would have thought if he wanted to retain the unity to communion he would have to say 'Look, let's all stand behind our last agreement on this matter', which was passed overwhelmingly, but he hasn't done that. Many of us feel that he's been ambiguous on the issue.

Stephen Crittenden: What do you expect to happen at this meeting at Lambeth?

Peter Corney: I think probably the numbers lie with the conservative Primates, and I think they will say 'Look, we need to stand behind the Lambeth resolution'. Now whether or not they'll call for some discipline of the US and Canadian people, I don't know, they may. Some will, I think.

Stephen Crittenden: And do you think that group at Lambeth will seriously put the unity of the Anglican communion worldwide under that kind of pressure? Or indeed put the Archbishop of Canterbury under that kind of pressure?

Peter Corney: Indeed I think they'll put the Archbishop of Canterbury under a lot of pressure, but let's remember, the people who are putting the communion under pressure are not those upholding the traditional and orthodox view, it's those who are breaking 2,000 years of tradition and practice. That's the point that needs to be understood. I don't think the Americans will back down, because I think they are blind on this issue.

Stephen Crittenden: The Reverend Peter Corney and his paper on the future of Anglicanism is on our website.

Thanks to Noel Debien and John Diamond.

Guests on this program:

Associate Professor Dr Michael Horsburgh Member, Standing Committee of the Anglican diocese of Sydney

Further information:

Anglicans Together "...an organisation of Anglicans in the diocese of Sydney which values an inclusive and diverse expression of Anglicanism" http://www.anglicanstogether.org/

The Anglican Church League website Download the Rev'd Peter Corney's paper " The Future of Anglicanism in Australia" http://www.acl.asn.au/

Rev'd Peter Corney Retired Rector of St Hilary's, Kew

Presenter: Stephen Crittenden Producer: Noel Debien, John Diamond