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This page last updated 2 July 2018  

Letters to AO

EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

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Letters from the week of 25 June - 1 July 2018

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Dodgem Cars and Equality

From my childhood I remember the experience of dodgem cars at a show. A whole lot of sparky bouncy vehicles in a small contested space. It was fun, but you wouldn’t want be living that way all the time. 

This week the small contested space of the Anglican Church of Australia was surprised to find a new car in play. The synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta passed a motion, the first of its kind in the country, giving their bishop a strong mandate to explore possibilities and to consider options for the authorisation of a form of blessing for civil marriages, now including same sex couples. The Bishop had indicated in his Presidential Address that he was considering his options. 'Synod's call is a blessing' declared the local newspaper editorial.

There was to be no negative response for six days, probably because the fiercest opponents of any such move in Australian Anglicanism were still on their way back from the GAFCON 2018 meeting in Jerusalem, which had been running at the same time as this small regional synod in country Victoria. It was of course to come. Parables of elephants and mice come to mind.

Being aware of the intensity of a more often than not ugly polarity in both Church and State is not all that difficult in these times. Two themes in the news and social media this week can illustrate the point before we get back to Wangaratta.

The first was from overseas. In the US there was a surge of complaint regarding the refusal of service at a restaurant for the White House Press Secretary. This was in response to her strong public support for the forced separation and locking up of border-crossing infants and children. Including the quoting of Scripture. Civility was the higher duty that had been affronted. A requirement of 'Formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech' would have left all the Old Testament prophets and indeed the Lord and John the Baptist out of the equation. Many in the US have come to the conclusion that the time for civility has passed and that determined resolve and resistance is to be the new order.

The second was much closer to home. The indefinite offshore detention of refugees and asylum seekers who arrived by boat in the last five years is another issue of border protection that deeply divides. After another suicide last week, the Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton declared 'The hard-won success of the last few years could be undone overnight by a single act of compassion....' Compassion might be defined as sympathetic feeling or concern for the suffering or misfortune of others. Perhaps this again the time to bring in the above mentioned prophets, teachers and Lord. Maybe it was the pejorative use of such a heavily loaded religious word as compassion that was so jarring.

So according to the powerful, civility and an absolute lack of compassion are to be the order of the day.

That is I think what might be read from the initial semi offical response from the Diocese of Sydney to the awful goings on at the Wangaratta Synod. We have totally overstepped the mark by presuming to offer a way of responding to the recent widely supported changes to Australian law on marriage other than complete denial and rejection. This is poor form.

That one small regional part of the Church sees value in even exploring the possibility of pastorally reaching out to a wider community by offering a civil marriage blessing is declared to be 'in clear contradiction' and 'a direct challenge' and putting pressure 'upon the leadership of the Australian Primate'. Big stuff. So that elephant is moving closer to this mouse.

The 22nd June 'Letter to the churches - Gafcon Assembly 2018' concludes 'To proclaim the gospel, we must first defend the gospel against threats from without and within'’ That is I am afraid where the Diocese of Wangaratta comes in. Any weakness or breaching of the hard line on this absolutely central current issue in the contested space of Australian Anglicanism is to be fiercely rebuffed. The principles and the issues are after all very great. So great that those on either side of this deepening polarisation do indeed see the gospel, the good news of God in Jesus Christ, to be at the heart. 

So yes, a new little car has come into this contested space. Resolve, resistance and compassion are some of the driving skills we are bringing.

(Ven Dr) John Davis
Archdeacon Emeritus and former Vicar General
Diocese of Wangaratta

 

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