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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2017
Archbishop Donald Robinson (b. 1922) had a distinguished career as a New Testament scholar and senior churchman. As a New Testament scholar, he emphasized the linguistic and cultural distance between what Barth called ‘the strange new world of the Bible’ and our own. However, as a senior churchman, Robinson was required to traverse the distance between the Bible and twentieth-century Australians. Through his episcopal leadership, and notably through his work in producing An Australian Prayer Book (1978), Robinson faced the challenge of speaking to Australians about God, and finding the words by which Australians might speak to God. This article will explore the ways in which a prominent scholar and churchman grappled with the linguistic and cultural challenges of speaking about God and to God in contemporary Australia, understood against the background of the crisis of (ir)relevance faced by Australian churches in the decline of the 1960s and 1970s.
1 Vice-principal of Moore College 1959–72, bishop of Parramatta 1973–81, archbishop of Sydney 1982–93.
2 Robinson, D. W. B., ‘Origins and Unresolved Tensions’, in Gibson, R. J., ed., Interpreting God's Plan: Biblical Theology and the Pastor (Adelaide, 1997), 1–17, at 6Google Scholar.
3 See Brown, Callum G., ‘What was the Religious Crisis of the 1960s?’, JRH 34 (2010), 468–479CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the specific impact in Australia, see Hilliard, David, ‘The Religious Crisis of the 1960s: The Experience of the Australian Churches’, JRH 21 (1997), 209–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hilliard dates the ‘1960s’ in Australia as beginning either with the visit of the Beatles in 1964 or the committing of troops to Vietnam in 1965; Tom Frame sees a period of ‘growing disinterest’ in religion from 1966; Chilton talks of the ‘long 1960s’ extending well into the 1970s: see, respectively, Hilliard, ‘Religious Crisis’, 210; Frame, Tom, Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia (Sydney, 2009) Kindle edn, ch. 4Google Scholar; Hugh Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia: Nation and Religion in the Public Square 1959–1979’ (PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2014), 84.
4 See Brewitt-Taylor, Sam, ‘The Invention of a “Secular Society?” Christianity and the Sudden Appearance of Secularization Discourses in the British National Media, 1961–4’, Twentieth-Century British History 24 (2013), 327–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Chilton applies this analysis to Australia, arguing that the public statements by Christian leaders about ‘secularization’ and ‘crisis’ in this era were ‘somewhat overstated’ and ‘became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy’: Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 34.
5 Ibid.
6 Hilliard, ‘Religious Crisis’, 211–12.
7 On Loane, see Blanch, Allan, From Strength to Strength: A Life of Marcus Loane (Melbourne, 2014)Google Scholar. On his response to the religious crisis, see Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 223–58.
8 Athol Gill, quoted in Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 272. See, for example, Smith, John, Advance Australia Where? (Melbourne, 1989)Google Scholar; Garvin, Mal, Us Aussies: The Fascinating History they didn't tell us at School (Melbourne, 1992)Google Scholar.
9 Prewer, Bruce, Australian Psalms (Adelaide, 1979)Google Scholar; idem, Australian Prayers (Adelaide, 1983), both cited in Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 291–2.
10 See Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 16.
11 ‘Knox’ is a reference to D. B. Knox, principal of Moore College 1959–86. See Knox, D. B., ‘De-mythologizing the Church’, in Birkett, Kirsten, ed., D. Broughton Knox: Selected Works, 2: Church and Ministry (Sydney, 2003), 23–34Google Scholar; Robinson, Donald, ‘The Church in the New Testament’, in Bolt, Peter and Thompson, Mark, eds, Donald Robinson: Selected Works, 1: Assembling God's People (Sydney, 2008), 212–21Google Scholar.
12 See D. B. Knox, ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, in Birkett, ed., Knox: Selected Works, 2: 57–84; idem, ‘Church, the Churches and the Denominations of the Churches’, ibid. 85–98.
13 On the conflicts and reforming programme in the diocese of Sydney in the 1960 through to 2013, see Bruce Albert Ballantine Jones, ‘Changes in Policy and Practices in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney 1966–2013: The Political Factor’ (PhD thesis, Macquarie University, 2013).
14 Ibid. 34, 45.
15 ‘It was said by some that by accepting consecration that B[isho]p Robinson had, in practice, abandoned his purer teaching’: Raymond E. Heslehurst, ‘The Doctrine of the Church and the Diocesan Mission: A Preliminary Examination of the Doctrine of the Church as expressed in the Synod Addresses of Bishop D. W. B. Robinson 1982–1992’ (unpublished paper presented to the Senior Common Room of the Richard Johnson College, 2004), 1; available on request from the author at: [email protected].
16 Ballantine-Jones, ‘Changes’, 45.
17 For examples of recent work stressing the continuities in Robinson's approach, see Judd, Andrew, ‘When Pa Met the Queen’, Anglican Historical Society Journal 58 (2013), 32–49Google Scholar; idem, ‘Donald Robinson and the Imperfect Unity of An Australian Prayer Book (1978)’, Lucas: An Evangelical History Review 2nd ser. 6 (2013), 113–44; Heslehurst, , ‘Doctrine of the Church’; Rory Shiner, ‘An Appreciation of D. W. B. Robinson's New Testament Theology’, in Bolt, Peter and Thompson, Mark, eds, Donald Robinson: Selected Works, Appreciation (Sydney, 2008), 9–62Google Scholar; idem, ‘D. B. Knox’, in Jensen, Michael, ed., The Church of the Triune God: Understanding God's Work in his People Today (Sydney, 2013)Google Scholar; Jensen, Michael, Sydney Anglicans: An Apology (Sydney, 2012)Google Scholar, Kindle edn, ch. 6.
18 Robinson, D. W. B., ‘The Date and Significance of the Last Supper’, Evangelical Quarterly 23 (1951), 126–33Google Scholar, idem, ‘Apostleship and Apostolic Succession’, Reformed Theological Review 13/2 (1954), 33–42Google Scholar, idem, ‘The Meaning of Baptism’, in Bolt, Peter G. and Thompson, Mark D., eds, Donald Robinson, Selected Works, 2: Preaching God's Word (Sydney, 2007), 227–51Google Scholar, idem, ‘The Church in the New Testament’, St Mark's Review 17 (1959), 4–14Google Scholar; idem, ‘A New Baptismal Service: A Criticism’, in Bolt and Thompson, eds, Robinson, Selected Works, 2: 334–50.
19 Judd, ‘Robinson’, 118.
20 ‘Leave the Lord's Prayer Alone: Man in the Street Doesn't Want Change’, The Sun, 14 September 1966; ‘Sticks Out Like Granny's Teeth: Why I Rewrote Lord's Prayer’, The Sun, 15 September 1966; ‘Anglican Lord's Prayer: Protests on New Version’, Daily Telegraph, 15 September 1966; ‘Lord's Prayer’, Daily Telegraph, 16 September 1966; ‘Lively Prayer Debate Expected’, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 1966; ‘Cartoon’, The Australian, 16 September 1966; ‘Why the Canon Rewrote Prayer’, The Australian, 15 September 1966; all citations from Judd, ‘Robinson’, 121 n. 39.
21 Ibid. 125; see also Robinson, Donald, ‘The Church of England in Australia’, in Buchanan, Colin, ed., Modern Anglican Liturgies 1958–1968 (Oxford, 1968), 297–320Google Scholar.
22 Judd, ‘Robinson’, 127.
23 Donald Robinson, ‘Liturgical Patterns of Worship’, in Bolt and Thompson, eds, Robinson: Selected Works, 1: 318–36, at 318.
24 Ibid.
25 Robinson extends this to the sacraments, arguing that baptism, whilst obviously a ‘symbolic’ gesture, was in the New Testament a ‘personal act and not part of corporate Christian worship’. And the eucharist or Lord's Supper was not, as Dom Gregory Dix also acknowledged, a ‘new rite’ established by Jesus, but an existing meal to which Jesus and then the early Christians gave significance. For Robinson (again citing Dix), there was ‘no need to tell men to eat bread together, or to drink wine on their festive occasions. This was their normal way of life.’ Therefore the Lord's Supper was not ‘liturgical’ as such, but essentially a fellowship meal at which the Lord is present according to his promise: ibid. 320–1.
26 Ibid. 321.
27 Ibid.
28 Robinson, Donald, ‘Presidential Address 1985’, Yearbook of the Diocese of Sydney (Sydney, 1986), 211–30Google Scholar.
29 Note again here a contrast with Knox, who drew the conclusion that if the local gathering is ‘church’ then the denomination, which never gathers, is not ‘church’. Denominations in Knox's view have a fundamentally ‘secular’ character.
30 Robinson, ‘Liturgical Patterns’, 330.
31 Ibid. 332.
32 Donald Robinson, ‘Charismatic Christianity’, in Bolt and Thompson, eds, Robinson: Selected Works, 2: 191–201.
33 In the early 1950s, when students from the local girls’ school asked about exorcisms, Robinson responded by inviting a missionary who had herself performed exorcism to come and address the girls. Evidently, despite a scholarly disposition, he was an unselfconscious supernaturalist: Robinson, Donald, ‘Some Rectors and Recollections’, in Fletcher, Brian and Cable, Kenneth, eds, The Parish of St Philip, Church Hill, Sydney: Three Bicentennial Lectures (Sydney, 2003), 41–62, at 60Google Scholar.
34 On the warm personal relations between Robinson and Sinden, see Judd, ‘Robinson’, 134–6.
35 Spurr, Barry, ‘An Australian Prayer Book’, in Martin, David and Mullen, Peter, eds, No Alternative: The Prayer Book Controversy (London, 1981), 162–74, at 162Google Scholar.
36 Sherlock, Charles, ‘The Anglican Church of Australia’, in Hefling, Charles and Shattuck, Cynthia, eds, The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer (Oxford, 2006), 324–32Google Scholar.
37 Judd, ‘Robinson’, 137.
38 For discussion, see ibid. 132–4.
39 An Australian Prayer Book (Sydney, 1978), 141.
40 Judd, ‘Robinson’, 133.
41 On lacking post-British identity, see citations in Judd, ‘Robinson’, 140 n. 115. On An Australian Prayer Book as a ‘testament to disunity’, see Spurr, ‘Australian Prayer Book’, 163.
42 Barth, Karl, ‘The Strange New World within the Bible’, in idem, The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York, 1957), 28–50Google Scholar.
43 Donald Robinson, ‘Translation of the Bible for Public Worship’, in Bolt and Thompson, eds, Robinson: Selected Works, 2: 53–62.
44 It is interesting to relate this to his radical revision of the Lord's Prayer suggested in the 1960s. Perhaps his views altered in the two decades of liturgical revision that followed?
45 See Ballantine-Jones, ‘Changes’, 169–96.
46 ‘Dynamic’ or ‘functional’ equivalence translation is (very simply) the attempt to translate from one language to another in a ‘thought for thought’ rather than ‘word for word’ manner. For discussion, see Carson, D. A., ‘The Limits of Functional Equivalence in Bible Translation’, in Scorgie, Glen G., Strauss, Mark L. and Voth, Steven M., eds, The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God's Word to the World (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 65–113Google Scholar.
47 Robinson, ‘Translation’, 55.
48 Donald Robinson, ‘The Doctrine of the Church and its Implications for Evangelism’, in Bolt and Thompson, eds, Robinson: Selected Works, 2: 106–13, at 106.
49 Chilton, ‘Evangelicals and the End of Christian Australia’, 2.
50 For Banks on house churches, see Banks, Robert J. and Banks, Julia, The Church comes Home (Peabody, MA, 1998)Google Scholar.
51 Robinson was at Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1947–50.