… and other news from Australia and New Zealand
updated to add another press report
updated Thursday to add reaction from leaders of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand
During his presidential address to the Sydney diocesan synod a week ago, Archbishop Glenn Davies said:
My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our Church, they should start a new church or join a church more aligned to their views – but do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of Scripture. Please leave us. We have far too much work to do in evangelising Australia to be distracted by the constant pressure to change our doctrine in order to satisfy the lusts and pleasures of the world.
There is a report on the diocesan website here: Guarding the faith in a changing world. The full hour-long address is available as a pdf and a video.
Four days after his address The Sydney Morning Herald published this piece by the archbishop, My words were for the bishops and I stand by them, which included this:
When I said “Please, leave us”, my words were directed at bishops of the church, and those who wish to change our doctrine, and I stand by those words. The words were not directed at members of our congregations, especially those who identify as gay, whether single or married.
The archbishop’s remarks attracted a lot of attention – see the press reports below.
The Melbourne diocesan synod also met last week and voted to record its “sorrow” over the decision by the diocese of Wangaratta to bless same-sex marriages.
There are also reports that Archbishop Davies and other Australian bishops took part in the consecration of a GAFCON bishop in New Zealand at the weekend.
Archbishop Davies’s remarks gathered a lot of attention in the press, and there is also coverage of the other news from Australia and New Zealand.
update
Anglican Taonga Church denounces ‘crossing boundaries’
Leaders of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand have spoken out against boundary-crossing by Anglican bishops who supported the ordination of a bishop for a break-away church last Saturday.
Press reports and comments
The Sydney Morning Herald Archbishop accused of trying to ‘split’ Anglican church over same-sex marriage
The Guardian ‘Please leave’: why the Sydney archbishop’s same-sex marriage message has Anglicans rattled
“The blunt words of Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies come at a critical moment for Australian churches and demands for religious freedom”
The Guardian Anglican churches reject Sydney archbishop’s stance on same-sex marriage
“Churches in Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria say they welcome everyone and his comments cause ‘deep distress'”
Julia Baird The Age Even conservative rectors shuddered: why Sydney Archbishop’s words hurt
Eternity News I wanted bishops to leave, not LGBT people, says Sydney’s Glenn Davies
The Guardian Melbourne Anglicans vote to express ‘sorrow’ over blessing of same-sex marriages
The Sydney Morning Herald ‘Crisis point’: the Anglican church is riven by worse divisions than ever before
Craig D’Alton humane catholic Melbourne Synod 2019, and beyond
VirtueOnline Christchurch: GAFCON Consecrates New Evangelical Diocesan Bishop
Eternity News NZ gets two Anglican Churches. Maybe Australia will too
update
The Guardian British bishop rebukes Sydney Anglican leader’s call for gay marriage supporters to leave church
“Bishop of Liverpool says he regrets that Archbishop Glenn Davies ‘seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them'”
So will he be starting a new church so that he can have lay presidency? Surely Anglicanism accepts change over time and doesn’t open windows into men’s souls?
Sadly, the general Anglicanism of today’s modernity & postmodernity is in a certain apostacy… “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied it power.” (2 Tim. 3: 5)
I should have hit the “s” key… *apostasy, an abandoning of what one has believed. From the Greek, desertion.
Btw, in a historical reality the Visible Church has been in a free-fall since the so-called Enlightenment of the 18th century intellectually, with overt philosophical rationalism, and the spirit of skepticism and empiricism in social and political thought. Note Thomas Jefferson here, and deism. True learning is always biblically based in and with biblical revelation, with the great Doctrine of God, the Almighty. Here is the great essence of the Judeo-Christian reality! To GOD be the Glory!
Wasn’t the enlightenment accompanied by the rise of Methodism, and followed by the Oxford Movement and evangelical revivals? I would in fact suggest that the enlightenment came towards the end of a period of indifference to religion in the UK (an understandable reaction to the horrors of the 17th century) and was followed by a revival of the Christian faith in the 19th century, if church attendance, church building, vocations to religious orders, missionary work and so on are anything to go by. If you really want to pinpoint the fall of the visible church I suggest you look at… Read more »
Someone please offer them lay presidency (an issue I couldn’t care less about if I tried) in return for butting out of other people’s relationships. Throw in a complementary line of natty Geneva gowns and a chasuble moratorium and you may have a deal.
I can’t get worked up about it (LP) either. In the eyes of the Vatican we’re all LPs – well-meaning laymen. And some of them might be in the not too distant future if the Amazon proposals gather support. I used to wonder if as a result of consecration prayers in one of my churches, the bread in the shop next door was changed. We could have slot machines for the consecrated host in Lidl, like electric candles that light up when you put a euro in the slot (I saw them in Ireland). I muse on this when I’ve… Read more »
Why not just go be Baptists? That’s what they are and that is fine. But why be Anglican if you in reality are Baptists? I wish they’d leave.
We’re not all called to agree with each other. We’re called to love each other. People may have different conscientious views, each held in sincerity and faith. What I must not do is impose my conscience on your conscience. There is no uniformity. That’s not the end of the world. But our union is in Christ. Forever. That’s where our unity is found. And expressions of that unity can be found when we open to God’s love in the service of others. Pray for the flourishing of those you disagree with. Rise to the challenge to love one another, even… Read more »
So, my dear moderates of a delicate disposition, do please tell me how we’re suppose to “compromise” with this?
Yet again, bishops, whose job in large part consists of clearly communicating ideas, prove unable to clearly communicate ideas. As happened with the English bishops on Brexit, the supposedly carefully considered ideas of Bishops are indistinguishable from the off the cuff remarks of people in the pub. As a statement of fact, if in 2019 a church says “shut up about same sex marriage or leave”, a large number of people will leave, and a larger number yet will close their ears to any possibility of entering. It isn’t _quite_ the settled position of the Anglican communion that same sex… Read more »
Indeed. Change will come: the only question is when, and at what cost? I part company with many progressives in arguing for conscience protections for conservatives, however strongly I disagree with their opinions (and my disagreement here couldn’t be stronger). The flip-side is that I expect conservatives to respect the consciences of progressives, and stop trying to impose their vision on the entire church. Leading conservatives have repeatedly and contemptuously refused to do this. If they keep it up, the people who finally push through equality won’t be liberals like me, and won’t be in any mood to offer safeguards… Read more »
Indeed indeed, James. As of a few years ago, justice for the LGBTQ+ community was a minority interest, and the conservative status quo held the most of the cards. Same sex marriage was a social novelty in the gift of the conservatives, and they could drive a very hard bargain to permit it even in restricted forms (for example, the “triple lock”). But today, society has changed. Same sex marriage is, in any demographic in which the CofE holds the slightest sway, completely accepted. Whether or not, say, conservative Islam or traditional Catholicism or ultra-orthodox Judaism accepts it is irrelevant,… Read more »
I respect that another Christian may with sincere conscience hold different views to my own on human sexuality. If it is compromise to say that I still believe we are one in Christ, and in communion, and that we should love one another, co-existing within the church, and expressing our faith in diverse lives of service… then I personally favour that approach. I don’t think LGBT+ people should leave the Church. I don’t wish other people to leave the Church either. Collectively we belong to the household of God. Where I won’t compromise, and I don’t think other LGBT+ Christians… Read more »
Indeed. Canadian conservatives rejected a compromise that gave conservative bishops an absolute veto in their dioceses. The result, coupled with an opinion by the Chancellor of General Synod that the current canon on marriage does not prohibit the marriage of two persons of the same gender, leaves a very broad local option. I am not aware of any clergy having put that to the test, but there have been threats to do so. In my own diocese, we had a very healthy discussion among the clergy, in which those on the conservative side expressed support for those parishes who are… Read more »
May be Glenn Davies needs to get back to Scripture and discover that no reading of the Pauline and Pseudo-Pauline corpus supports churches breaking away from one other; and nowhere in the NT do we find examples of the apostles excluding entire congregations. If he had a stronger grasp on the Anglican tradition he claims to be defending, Davies would know that consensus is a defining mark of our ecclesial identity. As David Ford has often said, this is about the need for the Church to always consult with itself about its life and mission. It is a process of… Read more »
One also needs to understand, Simon, that there is a very strong motivation towards the exclusion of women from ordained ministry in the Sydney diocese – not to mention the un-Anglican notion of lay-celebration of the Eucharist. These are just two more extremist philosophies that mark Sydney, generally, as not typically Anglican. No wonder Davis and the Jensens no longer feel comfortable with Anglican Inclusivity. All very GAFCON!
Even if lay presidency is “un-Anglican” (and given the austere Protestantism throbbing through the CoE’s founding documents, I doubt it is), let ’em have it already. What difference does it make to anyone if some guy in Sydney gets up and goes through the motions?
Sauce for the chasuble is sauce for the Geneva gown. If we expect them to tolerate equal marriage, then we must be willing to tolerate the equality of Word and Sacrament. This charge of hypocrisy should never have become a live issue, and can be swiftly ended.
I agree, James.
Perhaps, James, but “the austere Protestantism throbbing through the CoE’s founding documents”, including the most Puritan aspects, were thoroughly rejected by 1662, and the excommunication (“ejection”) of the most uncompromising Calvinist clergy.
Correct. In 1662 the Act of Uniformity of Charles II imposed a penalty on persons administering the Sacrament before ordination of £100 and disability from being ordained priest for one year. My inflation calculator was defeated by 1662, but £100 was clearly a vast sum then.
Davies would probably be quite happy to have the Diocese of Sydney leave the Anglican Church of Australia were it not for the financial implications that would raise. If others leave, or all of them leave, then Sydney IS the ACA.
A regular contributor, I can’t remember who, remarked on TA a while ago that the church’s message was “insufficiently compelling” to attract newcomers. It’s a phrase to which can now be added the words “indeed repellent”. Why should people bother? Everything that the church used to provide—beauty, ritual, companionship, solidarity, friendships, a sense of self-worth, comfort, a listening ear, delight—are now to be had elsewhere: hobby groups, sport, counselling, self-help groups, and so on, without having to grovel for being miserable sinners—which is what the church has you do as soon as you’ve sat down from a good sing. People… Read more »
“Everything that the church used to provide … are now to be had elsewhere …” Just so. As I’ve said before, the church’s greatest rival isn’t passionate atheism (always a minority pursuit), but material comfort. The more people enjoy this life, the less they look to the hereafter. I frequently suspect that the church’s fetishization of poverty — her disturbing enthusiasm for food banks alongside her stoney silence about the welfare cuts making them necessary; her trumpeting of charity alongside her utter refusal to properly address structural causes of poverty — are driven by ulterior motives. I hope they’re unconscious,… Read more »
And Stanley, to compound that, conservatives will say things like “I, too, am a sinner, like you” and the man in the street’s response is “yeah, but you still believe you are better than me”. The argument that it’s OK to condemn others so long as you affect to condemn yourself might have been effective a generation ago, but relies on the bona fides of the condemners being taken for granted. Today many will believe that Justin Welby no more thinks of himself as a sinner than does Boris Johnson, and therefore he sounds at best disingenuous and at worst… Read more »
Interesting observations, as usual. Sin is communal. Our economic systems, for example, frequently exploit the vulnerable and contribute to climate change, a situation that will impact poor people the hardest. That is sin. However, there’s an alternative theology that is all about personal sin. I won’t deny that we are all flawed in some way or another, however, for me religion slips into superstition when salvation requires ticking the right boxes. And it falls into sin when it presumes to judge other people as sinful, or more sinful, or an abomination. I also agree that Jesus was teaching us to… Read more »
He is not the only voice in the debate telling the other side to leave of course.
That sounds like an excuse for Davies’ horrible, hate-filled diatribe. I cannot understand why anyone living in Sydney would want to have anything to do with this dreadful sect.
Which may be why, in the USA, alone, there are hundreds of Christian denominations: Every time some group had a doctrinal dispute, one side got miffed and left or found itself unwelcome among their former brothers and sisters in faith. So, the Glenn (or Gwynneth) Davies of the world tell groups to leave and they do so. It’s true of other religions as well — there seem to be several different types of Buddhism, for example, and Judaism somewhat officially has four to six branches, though there are doctrinal disputes within the branches — but the history of Christianity certainly… Read more »
I think for Christians the fundamental truth is simple and challenging: you open your heart and soul to the flow of God’s love, and you let that love flow – in your life – to others. All the political and theological debates, all the schisms, all the judgments… they seem almost like distractions from getting on with the invitation and imperative: to love, and love, and love. It’s not about demanding uniformity, or policing other people. It’s about how you yourself open your heart to the impulse of God’s love, and how you give yourself in compassion to others. And… Read more »
You’ll get people on all sides running their mouths with all kinds of foolish talk, but so what?
Has any affirming bishop (let alone archbishop) even gotten up and told conservatives to get out the church? If so, do they have backing from mainstream progressive organisations? ‘Cause that’s what’d make the situations equivalent. If they’re not, what point’s made by raising it?
If anything, the problem’s the reverse: liberals and moderates tend to be way, way too accomodating of those who demand respect while offering nothing in return.
Some have gone further than that and told the other side that they never really belonged in the first place.
Are you talking about the Church of England at its inception? It is certainly rich to hear everyone talking about the dangers of separation. At least Luther said the Catholic Church in Rome was “in Exile,” and that if it ceased being so, there would be a single Catholic Church again, consistent with the charge of Christ. Many Lutherans of course judge those conditions to have been met. But to go on about sad divisions here at TA is a horse gone from a barn, and parochial to boot. The AC is unraveling. Just read the recent Global South document,… Read more »
About a year ago, in comments about a previous intervention by the Archbishop of Sydney into the affairs of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, I ended my comments with “Sir, please go away”. That induced a number of TA contributors to feel that I had been far too polite. Perhaps they were right. Eternity News is wrong in one crucial word of its headline. It doesn’t matter how many ecclesiastical wallies turn up dressed in their red rochets; they have NOT created a second Anglican Church in these islands. As our General Synod Standing Committee made… Read more »
Were ++Sydney, ++Rwanda, +Tasmania, +NW Australia, +Armidale and a host others to rock up in a diocese in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales and consecrate a bishop for “orthodox” Anglicans, one suspects all hell would break loose. Such arrogance and lack of any common courtesy to colleagues +Richard Wallace, Bishop of Te Waipounamu (the hui amorangi for the South Island) and the evangelical Bishop of Christchurch, +Peter Carrell, neither of whom it is understood were contacted by any of these ‘visitors’. Edward Prebble has covered it above, but ++Sydney was sent packing last year after he arrived in our province,… Read more »
Not those particular ++s and +s but GAFCON’s fellow travellers did arrange for the consecration of a schismatic Bishop with the aid of a South African pro-apartheid sect to interfere in England. GAFCON have also got Andy Lines trying to interfere in England, Scotland, and anywhere else they think he can stir up schismatics.
Andy Lines spoke and acted at this Christchuch kerfuffle – together with Foley Beach, who appeared to run the show.
Well he was invited in by NZ clergy.
Yes, indeed he was, Jam. In fact last year he was invited by the ACANZP bishops. They said, “Please don’t pontificate about us from across the Tasman – come and talk to us.” After a full discussion, trying to help him to understand our situation, he launched into his prepared comments that showed he had no real interest in what our bishops had to say. So we told him, to borrow a literary allusion from Harold Pinter, to p*** off. This time he, Foley Beach and the others have been invited by a group of clergy who have absented themselves… Read more »
I like Peter Carrell. He’s up front evangelical, but a reflective guy who thinks independently for himself. He typifies the point that ‘evangelical’ is a label but not all evangelical Christians hold identical views. He’s an intelligent, pastorally-minded individual and when he makes comments (elsewhere) I always read with interest.
Yes, in my experience Bishop Carrell is a decent fellow, and Christchurch is lucky to have him.
Yes, disagree as I do with their theology, I’ve a lotta time for many evangelicals (and their relentless optimism can prove a welcome break from liberals and moderates who’ve not only run up the flag to managed decline, but seem to delight in its company ;-).
Thank you for the comment. But I think you mean hopefulness, rather than optimism? This is much more than positive thinking. Hope is a key Christian virtue in the New Testament. It is not dependent on statistics or any visible measures of success. It sustains faith where none should found by any other measure. Practising it, not least in difficult times, is a discipleship discipline. It is the fruit of life in Christ.
“Hopefulness” may be a better term, although one can certainly give birth to another!
However it’s best described, many liberals and moderates could learn much from evangelicals’ joyful assurance that, however bad things get, God has, through Christ, won the ultimate victory. We may all say it, but they display it, and it’s heartening to see. (Anglo-Catholics — not to mention Catholic-Catholics and Orthodox! — give off the same vibe, albeit in a different way.)
I’ve been chatting with Peter by means of his blog for years now, and we follow each other on Twitter. So yes, Edward, I’m very comfortable with him! Mind you, the former bishop of Christchurch, Victoria Matthews, was my diocesan here in Edmonton for the first 7 years of my ministry in this diocese, and I was very comfortable with her too, so i get on with Anglo-Catholics as well!!!
I wish he’d post here, to be honest. We need some reasonable evangelical voices or else we just end up being ‘thinking liberal Anglicans’ if we’re not careful, and a kind of protest bubble of people talking to themselves. I like an agora where people of all views come to put their case, be challenged, and hopefully challenge others. I miss Christopher Seitz to be frank. His views frequently clashed with my own, but he made me think, and made me ask myself why I disagreed with him. The Church of England has historically been a broad church, not a… Read more »
Couldn’t agree more, which is why I regularly comment on evangelical sites, putting the liberal case politely but without compromise. To their credit, many are complementary at how nuanced it can be, and are pleasantly surprised that it’s not just a fig-leaf for Dawkins-esque new atheism.
I, too, miss Christopher Seitz. His faith is firm and considered, and rarely, if ever, had unkind words for those who disagreed with him.
That smell of smoke in my house must be because my ears are burning :). A few reflections: 1. The past ten days here Down Under (i.e. including the Sydney and Melbourne Synods) highlight a significant difference among Anglican evangelicals. That difference being whether we will or will not live in a broad Anglican tent. 2. When we narrow the Anglican tent, we seem to have a very different kind of tent, not just a narrower Anglican tent. 3. Is there something about the world generally in this part of the 21st century which cannot live with compromise? At least… Read more »
There were no invitations from ACANZP clergy – except those who were already alligned with GAFCON – who hae now left.
The saddest thing from my point of view – as an active but retired priest of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch in ACANZP – is the fact that the Australian dioceses of Sydney and Melbourne have now both publicly welcomed the raising up of a GAFCON/ACNA affiliated para-Church in Aotearoa; New Zealand. (The Archbishop of Tasmania was also present at this ceremony in N.Z.) It makes me even sadder to think that a former Bishop of ACANZP’s Nelson Diocese, Richard Ellena, welcomed the new church and its bishop in the name of CMS! (n.b. Two ex-bishops of ACANZP’s Nelson diocese… Read more »
I am neither a theologian or a scholar but find myself puzzled by a few things: 1 – I am a member of the parish of St Stephans, Jay Behan’s parish. 2 – I work for ACCD – part of the main Anglican church and attend a house group from the same Diocese As such I have a foot in both camps. There are a few things I dont hear being discussed: A) As Anglicans we believe the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. The LGBT* issues being faced are not touched by that creed. As… Read more »
Personally I believe we are in communion with one another, through our union in Jesus Christ. If we give our lives to Christ, in the best conscience of our (fallible) fidelity, I believe we are drawn into God’s eternal household. So to me, unity does not consist of uniformity of dogma, but of givenness in (fallible) faith to God, and belonging to God who understands and loves us, even if we have diverse (and partial) views on things. As such, I will always be open in communion towards Anglicans, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostalist… you name it… they may not… Read more »
Well, I certainly agree with Susannah about sharing the Blessed Sacrament with others outside of our Communion. In the American Episcopal Church all persons who have been baptized are therefore part of the extended family that is the Church. They are welcome to receive the Body and Blood of Christ at Episcopal altars, and to be in communion with God and each other. In fact, if it were up to me, I would invite the Continuing Anglican groups (such as ACNA and CCAANZ) to become Associate Members of the Anglican Communion with Voice and Consultative Vote if they were to… Read more »
Shane [to readers Up Yonder, we know each other], all good thoughts and directions. My two observations: 1. Desirable as it is to carefully distinguish one issue from another and to have considered and considerable conversation to mutually understand and (hopefully) respect one another, there is somewhat of a thicket of (mis)perceptions to peel back to find reality. 2. While you and I do not want to cultivate language which sees one group or another as “pariah”, there are some unfortunate facts on the ground: last week the same Sydney Synod which declared its support for CCAANZ also declared itself… Read more »
I have read through the draft minutes of the Sydney Synod to confirm my memory that the term “impaired fellowship” rather than “impaired communion”
was used in the motion Peter Carrell refers to. The mover, Bp Michael Stead explained to Synod that they head decided not to use “impaired Communion” In that motion preferring a term with less weight.
John, I stand corrected. The phrase “impaired fellowship” is used in the Diocese’s own report of its decisions on these matters. I agree “fellowship” can be understood as “a term with less weight” than “communion,” but I wonder whether it might be a distinction without a difference in this context of conflict, separation, boundary crossing, calls to “leave” etc.
Shane, As Bishop Peter (+Christchurch) has pointed out; the separation of contiguity with one another – on both sides of the fence on the issue of SSB – was initiated from the GAFCON-oriented clergy, not from ACANZP. So I think that for ACANZP to be accused of any schismatic intention, or dissolution of mutual respect, has to be laid at the door of those people who have encouraged the actual schismatic breakaway. One cannot enforce a Eucharistic relationship upon the party who broke away. Nor, presumably, would they want that to be continued.
Thank you, Editors,for adding the link to the Anglican Taonga piece by two of our ACANZ Archbishops and +Peter Carrell. They have used more bishoply language to make the same point as I did.
One term used by ++Don may need some explanation. “Whanau” can be loosely translated as “family” “Takatapui” has been developed by speakers of te reo Maori to cover anyone included in the letters LGBTq and its variants. Historically it has the meaning “an intimate companion of the same gender”.
A fuller explanation available at https://takatapui.nz/definition-of-takatapui#takatapui-meaning
This from the diocese pioneering lay presidency…Ribena communion services and a blind eye to divorce and re-marriage. The latter years before the C of E changed its teaching.
What evidence can you supply to support Sydney’s blind eye to divorce and re-marriage? The 2018 Synod put forward a motion asking the bishops to “consider” granting permission for divorce to women who are victims (so decided in the civil courts) of spousal abuse. Many of these women are the wives of Anglican clergy who offer as a defense that a wife must submit to her husband. There is little support for such consideration. One bishop claimed to be a “slow learner” and would have to further study the Scriptures. This is a blind eye?
The comments to this excellent article are mostly made from the perspective of “inside the tent”. The people the diocese of Sydney wants to evangelise look at the cruelty manifest within the current debate and quite rightly take their spiritual yearnings elsewhere. I worked in chaplaincy for 10 years and left this ministry because I was exhausted from listening to the pain and bewilderment of people scandalised by the unrepentant failings of religion in Australia.
I’ve come to this late, having been away, so this comment is not part of a sequence. How breathtakingly arrogant of Archbishop Glenn Davies to even use the language of “our church”. A theologically impoverished view and proof that he has fallen into his own trap.
I would urge anyone who doubts the arrogance of Archbishop Glen Davies to look in on the video of his address to his synod (wearing collar and tie) where he blatantly admits his intention to lead a group of gafcon-friendly prelates into Aotearoa New Zealand territory, in order to ordain Gafcon’s own choice of a Bishop to lead a schismatic faux-Anglican Church – in conflict with the locsl ACANZP Anglican Church, which is part of the official Anglican Communion, whose polity Davies so obviously ignores!
He needs to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo to do some intentional ministry.
I chuckle when I see Abp Davies in jacket and tie, even at formal occasions. Peter Jensen wore a Geneva (academic) gown at his farewell service in the Sydney cathedral. On the other hand, the archbishop of ACNA wears his splendid tippet that proclaims him “primate of primates” and most of the ACNA bishops wear a zucchetto and/or biretta and other finery associated with the Anglo-Catholic (or RCC) tradition. Sydney/GAFCON/ACNA are strange bedfellows. What they seem to have in common is their view of gay people.
That’s my perception, too, Richard. I guess that Abp. Davies views himself as the theological successor of those “flogging parsons” that helped to make Anglican Evangelicalism in Sydney so unpopular that Sydneysiders burned down the first church (1793) there five years later. I guess for him gay people are the new equivalent of convict emancipists to be shunned. And Peter Jensen’s Geneva Gown? I guess he considers himself a wee bit of the “High Church Puritan.” Apparently most of the Church of England’s Calvinist clergy, both in early Virginia and in England, dispensed with wearing even the black gown and… Read more »
The chasuble is forbidden in the diocese of Sydney. The celebrants at churches where vestments are worn wear a cope. In some churches, casual attire is worn by the person “administering” the Lord’s Supper, if and when it is celebrated.
Years ago a book was published called ‘Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail’..the story of cons Evangelicals who were searching for a greater sacramental /liturgical emphasis. I imagine many ACNA people are that sort of ex-TEC. They took on the liturgy/sacraments…and the vestments (+Foley dressed down for the NZ occasion …no cope and mitre)…but perhaps they never quite integrated all this with the broader Anglican theological “method”as Abp McAdoo outlined it. Women and gays brought this into focus.
++Foley probably didn’t want to upstage Davies and Jensen who surely don’t own copes or mitres. I wonder if Foley was wearing red shoes. When Davies was installed as archbishop of Sydney, he was handed a crozier at one point; he held it only momentarily — at arm’s length — like it was a loaded gun likely to go off.