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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The article addresses a number of different themes related to Australian Anglicanism. Underlying this inquiry is a deeper concern to trace the contours of an ecclesiology that is both embedded in a particular context (Australia) and through that points to common ideals that inform the self-understanding of the wider Communion. After an introduction, the remainder of the article is divided into four sections. The first section involves a brief historical perspective to introduce Australian Anglicanism to a wider audience. A second section attends to matters of law and governance; familiar enough but often dry territory, though certainly revealing as to the present state of our Church. From history and law I offer in the third section a reflection of a geographical kind on the idea of place as a formative factor in ecclesiology. In this way I hope to be able to highlight some of the particular challenges for Australian Anglicans and hopefully the wider Communion.
1. See Kaye, Bruce, Reinventing Anglicanism (Adelaide: Open Book, 2003), pp. 19–21.Google Scholar
2. For example John Webster has registered a concern that talk of theology as contextual, ‘readily suggests that contexts are given, transparent and self-evident to those who operate in them, and that they require no theology for their elucidation; and it can also more alarmingly, make context into a fate before which theological reflection is passive, to which it must adapt or reconcile itself if it wants to survive. At its best, of course, attention to “context” can remind theology that there is no pure language of Zion, and that theology's conceptual equipment is borrowed from elsewhere. But at its worst it is a form of spiritual laziness, an unwillingness to admit that theology must go about its own business if it is to speak prophetically and compassionately about the gospel to its neighbours. Much better, therefore, simply to speak of the “occasions” towards which theology directs itself.’ See Word and Spirit: Essays in Christian Dogmatics(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar
3. See Hardy, Daniel, Christ and Context: The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture (ed. Regan, H.D. and Pfitzner, V.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1993), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar Even an ecclesial dogmatics requires a keen sense of the interlacing of texts and traditions in relation to a particular location. The church may indeed be the creatura verbi divini, but exactly what the visible and spiritual form that ecclesial existence may take requires careful probing and listening to the variety of ‘texts’ in the weave. This is implicit in the richly differentiated appeal to Word; eternal, incarnate, resurrected, living and proclaimed. This intertwined Word is necessarily enmeshed in the contingencies of time, space and place. Minimally, an appeal to contextual ecclesiology is a reminder that theology cannot ignore the particularities of the visible church. As Healy, Nicholas, Church, World and the Christian Life (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990)Google Scholar notes: ‘The ecclesiological context is a significant factor influencing the construction of ecclesiology, including the selection of a model’ (p. 39). Healy's reference to models draws attention to what he terms ‘blueprint ecclesiologies’, which focus on ‘what the church should ideally become’. This too is a necessary critical moment in ecclesial reflection but it is not the whole story and the theological task remains incomplete without what might be termed ‘intermediate categories’ that facilitate a critical and grounded ecclesiology. (See the discussion in Hardy, Daniel, ‘Created and Redeemed Sociality’, in Gunton, C. and Hardy, D., On Being the Church: Essays on the Christian Community (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989), pp. 21–47.Google Scholar This matter is the subject of the final section of this article through consideration of place as a formative factor in ecclesiology.
4. See The Australian Anglican Directory 2006 (Richmond, Victoria: Angela Grutzner Publications, 2006).Google Scholar
5. See Rayner, Keith, ‘Australian Anglicans and Global Anglicanism’, in Kaye, B.N., Thomson, H. and Macneil, S. (eds.), ‘Wonderful and Confessedly Strange’: Australian Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology (Anglican Studies Monograph Series, 1; Adelaide: ATF Publication, forthcoming).Google Scholar
6. Rayner, , ‘Australian Anglicans’.Google Scholar
7. Rayner, , ‘Australian Anglicans’.Google Scholar
8. Rayner, , ‘Australian Anglicans’Google Scholar. See further, Breward, Ian, A History of the Churches in Australasia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 2 and pp. 72–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar for discussion of the issues surrounding Anglicanism and the question of establishment.
9. There were precedents for disestablished Anglican churches functioning out side the royal supremacy in Scotland and the American Episcopal Church. But in the latter case the emergence of the Episcopal form of government had been secured through the Scottish Episcopal Church, not the English.
10. See Davis, J., Australian Anglicans and their Constitution (Canberra: Acorn Press, 1993), p. 13.Google Scholar
11. See the excellent discussion in Macneil, Sarah, ‘Anglican Identity and Institutional Form: An Historical and Theological Inquiry with Special Reference to the Anglican Church in Australia’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Charles Sturt University, 2002), ch. 5, pp. 74–117.Google Scholar
12. Davis, , Australian AnglicansGoogle Scholar, has a tendency to mistake regionalism for party spirit. For a recent discussion see Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, ch. 4.Google Scholar
13. Davis, , Australian Anglicans, p. 16.Google Scholar
14. See the helpful discussion of the various factors at work in Macneil, , ‘Anglican Identity and Institutional Form’, pp. 109–17.Google Scholar
15. Macneil, , ‘Anglican Identity and Institutional Form’, pp. 12–14.Google Scholar
16. Comment by Australian sociologist, Gary Bouma, cited by Macneil, , ‘Anglican Identity and Institutional Form’, p. 130.Google Scholar
17. The Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church of Australia 1998 (Sydney: Standing Committee of General Synod, 5th edn, 1998).Google Scholar
18. Davis, , Australian AnglicansGoogle Scholar, highlights the tension between continuity with the Church of England and the demands and difficulties of effecting change. See chs. 1 and 2 and, e.g., pp. 53–54.
19. Article 20: ‘The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written…’.
20. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 96.Google Scholar
21. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 166.Google Scholar
22. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 168.Google Scholar
23. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 253.Google Scholar
24. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 122.Google Scholar
25. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 122.Google Scholar
26. See Davis, , Australian Anglicans, pp. 15, 73.Google Scholar
27. See Harvey, Vern and Kaye, Bruce, Exercising Responsibility: A Governance Report on the Anglican Church of Australia, 03 2004 draft report, p. 33; online version available at http://www.anglican.org.au/docs/B3A7iiiAppGovernance.pdf.Google Scholar
28. As quoted in Davis, , Australian Anglicans, p. 167.Google Scholar The rest of Burgmann's overview is worth including: 'Different stages of development take us from the primitive outback to modern sophisticated cities. … It can no longer look to England confidently for anything except literature, and it fears an Americanization which it has not the power to resist. Australian Anglicanism is at the cross roads. It is fighting for possession of its own soul. The modern world is clamping down upon it while it is still immature. It has remained too long with the colonial mentality and now the inadequacy of that mentality leaves it enfeebled when the struggle is most intense—laymen [sic] are ready for action but they don't know what to do. Few parish priests have any clue and Bishops are too busy to think.' As in so many things Burgmann saw ahead of his time.
29. Judd, as quoted in Davis, , Australian Anglicans, p. 18.Google Scholar
30. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, pp. 174–75.Google Scholar
31. Comparisons will inevitably be made with the Anglican Church of Canada, a country which is also a large territory but which nevertheless quite quickly settled upon a unified federal structure. Yet the colonial heritage was quite different; in Canada, compared to Australia, the Church of England did not enjoy unrestrained dominance from the earliest days and thus the impetus for a strong national body was important. By contrast a dispersed colonial settlement pattern in Australia with a de facto established Church of England gave far greater freedom for regional diversity and autonomy. Place and history are always woven together in the shaping of a local church.
32. Webb, L., The Conciliar Element in the Anglican Tradition (St Mark's Library Publications, 2; Canberra: St Mark's Library, 1957), p. 20.Google Scholar
33. The ‘Nexus Opinions’ of 1911 and 1912, the product of both English and Australian legal experts, declared that ‘the legal state of the Church in the dioceses in Australia was not autonomous’. See Davis, , Australian Anglicans, p. 45.Google Scholar When the nexus opinions were subsequently tested in the famous Bathurst ‘Red book case’ of 1944–48 the Equity Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales decided that it was not permissible for an Anglican bishop in Australia to authorize a liturgy in a form or order other than the Book of Common Prayer. To do so would constitute ‘the use of a church otherwise than for the use, benefit, or purpose of the Church of England in New South Wales, and necessarily a breach of trust’ (Davis, , Australian Anglicans, p. 119Google Scholar, excerpt from High Court judgment). In other words, the Church in Australia was legally bound by the 1662 Act of Uniformity, and attendant case law and statutes. To depart from this was to risk loss of property. The nexus opinions offered 36 years earlier had now been tested and upheld. The appeal to the High Court resulted in an even decision of the Court and thus the decision of the lower court was upheld. Needless to say such a judgment only intensified efforts to win autonomy for the Church of England in Australia. For a recent assessment see Withycombe, Robert, ‘Imperial Nexus and National Anglican Identity: The Australian 1911–12 Legal Nexus Opinions Revisited’, Journal of Anglican Studies 1.2 (2003), pp. 62–80.Google Scholar
34. See n. 3 above.
35. See Treloar, G. (ed.), The Furtherance of Religious Beliefs: Essays on the History of Theological Education in Australia (Sydney: The Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, 1997), pp. 24–43.Google Scholar
36. See the discussion in Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, pp. 17–21Google Scholar, wherein he discusses developments in the seventh and eleventh century, Gallicanism in the fourteenth century and patterns of decentralizing in the Councils of Constance (1414–18, 1431–49).
37. See Lilburne, Geoffrey, A Sense of Place: A Christian Theology of the Land (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and more recently, Habel, Norman, The Land Is Mine (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).Google Scholar
38. Inge, John, A Christian Theology of Place (London: Ashgate, 2003).Google Scholar
39. Inge, , A Christian Theology of Place, p. 11Google Scholar (citing David Casey).
40. Inge, , A Christian Theology of Place, ch. 1.Google Scholar
41. Inge, , A Christian Theology of Place, p. 52.Google Scholar
42. Drew, Philip, The Coastal Dwellers: Australians Living on the Edge (Melbourne: Penguin Books, 1994).Google Scholar
43. Drew, , The Coastal Dwellers, p. 11.Google Scholar
44. Drew, , The Coastal Dwellers, p. 13.Google Scholar
45. Drew, , The Coastal Dwellers, p. 11.Google Scholar
46. Pickard, Stephen, 'The View from the Verandah: Gospel and Spirituality in an Australian Setting, St Mark's Review, (Winter 1998), pp. 4–11.Google Scholar
47. For example, Lindsay, Elaine, ‘Divining’, Eremos 51 (05 1995), pp. 25–29.Google Scholar
48. The relationship between ‘home base’ and ‘reach’ is an important one in geography. Where ‘reach’ (distance from home base) extends to the point of rupture of the relation this can generate significant anxiety and alienation.
49. Climatic and landscape factors were not totally absent from church architecture. See the important discussion by Holden, Colin, ‘Anglicanism, the Visual Arts and Architecture’, in Kaye, B. (Gen. ed.), Anglicanism in Australia: A History (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), pp. 265–66.Google Scholar By comparison the design of the chapel for the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture is an interesting, if controversial attempt to develop a building for ecumenical worship that is in fundamental sympathy with the contours of the land.
50. The early colonial buildings in Australia followed the Georgian style, a simple geometric box with no projecting eves. The verandah was simply added on to this English architecture.
51. Kaye, , A Church without Walls: Being Anglican in Australia (Melbourne: Dove, 1995).Google Scholar
52. The word verandah seems to have a Spanish/Portuguese origin, a sixteenth century lexicon referring to ‘varanda’ as ‘rails to lean the breast on’.
53. John Vincent Taylor's spoke about the ‘go-between God’ and explored a theology of the Spirit in relation to the church's mission. See, The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1972)Google Scholar. On Holy Saturday see Von Balthasar, Hans Urs's reflections in Mysterium Paschal (trans. Nichols, A.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990)Google Scholar, ch. 4. More recently Alan Lewis's posthumously published magnum opus, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001)Google Scholar, is important. Lewis notes ‘For the Spirit is revealed between the cross and the grave to be the unifying go-between who holds the Father and Son together when in self-abandonment to sonlessness the Father gives up the Beloved One to death and hell’, p. 299.
54. I have begun to explore these issues in a preliminary way in the interests of an ecclesiology that may be of service to the Anglican Church in Australia and possibly wider afield. See Pickard, Stephen, Spiritual Life on the Anglican Verandah: An Australian Perspective (Canberra: St Mark's Publications, 2003).Google Scholar
55. Clearly in the above account ‘place’ is not to be equated with land as such. Minimally it includes the entirety of the physical environment. This is necessary but not sufficient, for the dynamic of place can only be uncovered theologically as it includes environment, human interaction and a construal of the presence of God. Place is thus a dynamic concept that grounds reflection in the local but is orientated towards more universal categories. The value of a focus on place is that it facilitates a critical deconstruction of inherited identities and opens up new possibilities for reconceiving the nature of ecclesial existence. The problem with the fluid category of space is its vacuity in respect to any particular place.
56. This is the intent behind the recently established Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra.
57. Holden, Colin, ‘Anglicanism’Google Scholar, refers to the Queensland Federation architect, Robin Dods, who designed ‘wide verandahs and hipped roofs, creating oases of shade from the bright northern sun, [that] anticipate a number of churches built in northern Australia since the 1950's’ (p. 265).
58. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 37.Google Scholar
59. In Bruce Kaye's discussion of regionalism in Australian Anglicanism he highlights the importance of the church as a ‘community of interdependent diversity’. See Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, pp. 256–57.Google Scholar
60. Kaye, , Reinventing Anglicanism, p. 263Google Scholar, wherein Kaye notes that ‘English colonialism is not the only colonialism that affects Anglicanism’. He is referring to the problem of authority and in particular the nature and functioning of ‘imperial authority’. At its best Anglicanism operates with a broader and more encompassing approach to the exercise of authority that does not admit of a final arbiter in decision making save the ‘mind’ of the koinonia itself.