The New Sydney Anglicans

A review of "A Fresh Look at Mission"

Now, I imagine no-one will like the title of this review. Those who organised this conference have been at pains to express their continuity and solidarity with those who have gone before. And there's also a danger that whenever you are seen as the "New" anything, all sorts of disaffected cranks will jump on board and try and hi-jack what you are do.

And yet as I listened to the speakers (via the website), it was increasingly apparent that they are proposing something substantially different to the status quo, and so the "new" label seems appropriate, even if these men themselves don't appreciate it. And after all, the word "new" is not so dissimilar to their own label, "fresh". But I doubt they'd like to be known as the "Fresh Sydney Anglicans"!

Generation X is inexorably taking over the world, and this is as true of the diocese as elsewhere. Among this group are some of the leaders of this generation, in our little Anglican world, at least. A leader is someone who paints a vision of the future, and inspires others to pursue that vision. This is what these fellows are doing. Part of their influence is due to the mastery of technology, which often happens in Christian history. The retiring generation of leadership came to prominence, at least partly, through their mastery of the then new technology of desktop publishing. The new leadership have obtained influence (at least partly) through the mastery of digital technology.

Anyway, here are some dot points I took from the prepared talks (I wont go into the interview, Q&A or panel session). I will speak frankly about what I liked and didn't, and also point out a few of the elephants in the room. One disclosure up front is that a number of these men are friends or warm aquaintances, so keep that in mind as you read.

Welcome (Moffatt)

Justin Moffatt was the host for the day. His church, St Phillips York St, is uniquely placed to host events like this - essentially all of Sydney's rail and road networks converge at his door. You couldn't run something like this from St Blogs Woop Woop. In his brief welcoming address he said that he assumed people were at the conference because they were passionate about reaching the city with the gospel, and believed ("or were willing to believe") that that being an Anglican was a great way to do this.

Thank God I'm an Anglican (Jensen)

In a provocative and entertaining talk, Michael Jensen passionately defended Anglicanism. He went so far as to state that Anglicanism was the very best way to be an Evangelical, and the best way to reach the city. The old phrase "just a good boat to fish from" is not good enough anymore, as people are opting for indie church plants at a greater rate. We need to convince people that the Anglican heritage is, actually, something valuable and worth embracing. This does not mean a return to robes and 1662, but it does mean Bible, creeds, sacraments, liturgy, parishes, the episcopal system, being rational, and being missional. Michael is criticical of the "Anglican lite" that is so prevalent in our churches.

Mission to Gen Y: A Case Study (Moffatt)

Justin gave a 15 minute talk describing his efforts at reaching urban Gen Y with a new evening service in the city. He believes he has picked the vibe of his mission field correctly, and results seem to back that up, as he has gone from nothing to about 100 people in a bit over a year. He modestly admitted that he had seen very little numerical growth in his morning church. He went through some characteristics of his new service - gospel centric, thoughtful contextualisation (who lives here? pound the streets!), traditional ("light" liturgy, creed, calendar), generous, joyful, "influence not control, insights not information", community, "organised love" (food is important), a culture of creativity, affirm "work, rest and play" as part of their doctrine of creation. Challenges to current methods would be the use of liturgy, the focus on community and creativity, and the affirmation of secular work. It is a holistic vision.

Sydney is Your Friend (Clarke)

Greg Clarke gave an enlightening talk on the nature of our engagement in the world. He was gracious, but I imagine this talk will challenge (and possibly offend) some people as well. He suggests that Sydney Anglicans have become far too negative in their approach to the world, especially the media. He proposes a more irenic and constructive approach, citing his experiences at CPX as a good example. It was a very good talk - my summary does not do it justice!

Lessons from Connect 09 (Nixon)

Andrew Nixon gave a brief summary of some lessons from Connect 09. It was a more downbeat talk than I expected - he stated that growing the church at the same rate as the population is nothing to cheer about. Some good things were achieved in Connect 09 - lots of literature distributed, and many households contacted. On the other side, people were much less involved than everyone hoped, laity and clergy both. Some small steps were made in the right direction, but much more is needed.

Effective Leadership (Katay)

A very engaging talk on leadership from Andrew Katay. Leadership is not hard to understand - it involves a clear vision of both the present and a desirable future reality, and the ability to motivate people toward the vision (his own description was much richer than that - listen to the talk). Giving a vision without a clear path to get to that vision is a "joke" or a "con" (possibiliy a criticism of the diocesan mission). We have done a poor job at teaching leadership in the diocese. Theological college should teach theology - leadership needs to be learnt elsewhere. Lots more that was thought provoking in this talk, and I need to give it another listen.

The Way Forward (Dickson)

Another provocative talk, and one that will offend some people. At the same time, John Dickson spoke in an engaging and winsome manner. Six years ago, did not believe the Anglican church in Sydney had the ethos or flexibility to reach the city, but has "repented", and since become an Anglican rector, and "loving it". Wants to go "backward" - back to Anglican heritage, back to evangelical roots, back to the New Testament. Five reflections on the "ideal" church - devoted to Scriptural teaching (must scrutinise leaders, generous toward other denominations), pious abandonment to God (awe, need permission to "experience" piety, "reformed evangelical passion", "abandonment to God", "worshipping God only to the borders of respectability?"), recovery of the communcal aspects of the gospel life (fellowship, breaking bread, all social interactions, doing good to community, not just a mental faith, "goal of biblical knowledge is the biblical life", Dickson decries the change in Deacon vows), longing for evangelical increase (the Lord loves growth, Dickson thinks we need more "mid-sized" churches perhaps through mergers), enjoy the favour of the community (hints we have a persecution complex, need to adopt a more generous stance toward the outside world, better media interactions, smart alec letters to editor no good, handled SRE debate "terribly").

My Thoughts

This has been a bit of a rambling, stream-of-consciousness review. Partly because I'm pressed for time and wanted to get something up quickly, and partly because I want to put my effort into a proper feature for another medium.

But what is my reaction to all this? Well, these men are my generation, speaking my language, and some of them are my friends - it should come as no surprise when I say that much of what they are saying resonates with me. I like the rediscovery of tradition, the emphasis on community and joyful experience, and the respect given to work and the secular world. These all seem right corrections to me.

What am I worried about? Well, the current leadership may not have converted 10% of the city, but they have managed to keep the diocese faithful and (somewhat) fruitful over a long period. Any change from the status quo is going to make us all feel a bit nervous.

But my overall feelings are positive, and I look forward to debating these ideas further in the future.

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A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England

I've posted up a few more chapters from this classic work

A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England

Just added Chapter 4 - The Early Evangelicals

Forgotten Evangelicals #4: Henry Venn

From 1754 to 1759 Henry Venn was curate of the village of Clapham, and four times a week he rode into London to lecture at St. Antholin's, St. Alban's, Wood Street, and St. Swithin's, London Stone. On going to Clapham he had written to Wesley for advice, and two years later he had been present at the Methodist Conference at Bristol, but up to this time his views were not quite settled. In the autumn of 1757 Lady Huntington invited him to undertake a preaching tour with Whitefield in the western counties, but at the end she was not satisfied with the doctrine that he taught. "O friend," she wrote, "we can make no atonement to a violated law; we have no inward holiness of our own: the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord our Righteousness. Cling not to such beggarly elements, mere cobwebs of Pharisaic pride, but look to Him who hath wrought out a perfect righteousness for His people." This letter seems to have made him seriously think out his position, and, after further intercourse with Whitefield, he obtained a firm grasp of the doctrines of Redemption. When Walker of Truro visited him a few months later, he described him as "a London clergyman, till of late a sort of dependent on John Wesley, but now brought to believe for himself. He is a man very desirable in his temper, humble and teachable." But his chief work was not done in London. In 1759 he was called to Huddersfield...

Modern writers have rather misunderstood his position: he certainly was not "the first evangelist of the modern slum," nor was Huddersfield then "a huge, dark, manufacturing town." The Gazetteer still ranked it with the villages: though the parish included a large country district and several outlying hamlets, the population was only four thousand. Venn's work resembled Grimshaw's in many ways. Much of his time was spent on horseback, hunting out obscure parishioners in lonely farms and cottages. He drew the same enormous congregations, so that often the church could not hold the people, and the sermon had to be preached in the open air. He took the same care to make the services real. He would begin with a short exhortation reminding the careless that they were standing in the presence of God: a few words of explanation accompanied the Psalms and Lessons: and when the time for the sermon came, he had the same gift of moving thousands to repentance and tears. But his best work was done outside his pulpit. "He was one of the most eminent examples," wrote Sir James Stephen, "of one of the most uncommon of human excellencies, the possession of perfect and uninterrupted mental health." His common sense was sensible and sanctified in the highest degree, and shepherds and weavers, saints and sinners flocked to his study for advice. But behind all the good advice that he gave about farms or quarrels or marriages, there was always the deep desire to win the soul for God. "I wish you had known your grandfather," wrote Simeon long afterwards - to one of Venn's grandsons; "the only end for which he lived was to make all men see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." But after eleven years the work broke him down. A hacking cough and spitting of blood made it impossible to preach, and his friends procured for him (1771) the little agricultural parish of Yelling, where the lighter work enabled him to recover his strength, and to labour on for twenty-six years more.

Meanwhile he had made his influence felt in every part of England by his pen, for his Complete Duty of Man became one of the most popular devotional books of the day. More than a century before, on the eve of the Restoration, there had appeared a treatise on The Whole Duty of Man. Its author's name was never known, but it sprang at once into a semi-official position. It was chained in churches for the people to read. It was made the basis of instruction in the charity schools. It was accepted as the recognized statement of sound and sober Church teaching. If we want to grasp the type of Churchmanship which prevailed in the eighteenth century, we can see it in all its strength and weakness in this rather unattractive little volume. It was written at the height of the reaction against the Puritan theology, and its author tries to reduce religion to its most prosaic elements. Everything emotional, everything speculative, all passionate yearnings after holiness and communion with the Unseen are relentlessly excluded as delusions. Every sensible person, we are told, ought to take care of his soul, for it is the most durable part of him, but to do so he must "act by the same rules of common reason, whereby he proceeds in his worldly business." He must go to church, pay his tithes, keep the fasts, avoid drunkenness, and seek to do his duty as a neighbour, a master, and a son. Whitefield may be pardoned his exaggeration when he said that its author knew no more about Christianity than Mohammed. The Evangelicals were always pointing out the deficiencies of this book. Venn did something better; he provided a substitute. The Complete Duty of Man is just as practical as The Whole Duty. In his parish work he had learnt most of the average Churchman's difficulties. He deals with the duties of husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants, neighbours and friends, the use of money, the sins of the flesh, the details of everyday life, but he deals with them in a very different spirit. "Christ the Law-Giver will always speak in vain, without Christ the Saviour is first known. All treatises to promote holiness must be deplorably defective, unless the Cross of Christ be laid as the foundation, constantly kept in view, and every duty enforced as having relation to the Redeemer." - "Duty first" is the message of the earlier book; "Christ the beginning and the end of all" is the message of the later; and by their fruits the two systems must be judged. No one would deny that the older school trained many upright men, the school in which Nelson learnt his great Trafalgar signal, but morally, spiritually England was perishing, and no man could find the remedy, until the Evangelical teaching swept through the land, revealing how sin could be conquered and duty consistently done.

Extract from "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England" (G.R.Balleine)

Forgotten Evangelicals #3: John Thornton

Another generous friend of the movement was John Thornton, a director of the Russia Company, who was said to be the wealthiest merchant but one in Europe. Cowper has sung of his "industry in doing good," "restless as his who toils and sweats for food." "Few," said Venn, "have ever done more to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help all that suffer adversity;" and this was no exaggeration, for he spent at least £10,000 on works of charity. Nor did he limit his care to the bodies of men. "He purchased," said Richard Cecil, "advowsons and presentations with a view to place in parishes the most enlightened, active, and useful ministers. He employed the extensive commerce in which he was engaged as a powerful instrument for conveying immense quantities of Bibles, Prayer Books, and the most useful publications to every place visited by our trade. He printed at his sole expense large editions of the latter for that purpose, and it may be safely affirmed that there is scarcely a part of the known world, where such books could be introduced, which did not feel the salutary influence of this single individual." The best known of these books was his English edition of Bogatzky's Golden Treasury, from which he removed all extracts which seemed to verge on Moravianism, and substituted short meditations written by himself and his friends. This rapidly became one of the most popular Evangelical books of devotion.

Extract from "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England" (G.R.Balleine)

Shine Music Conference

Should be a good time

Forgotten Evangelicals #2 - Lady Huntingdon

Extract from "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England" (G.R.Balleine)

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon... was an earnest, strong-minded, imperious lady, daughter of one earl and widow of another, who devoted her whole life and fortune to the spread of the new teaching. The London churches might be closed to Evangelical clergy, but her house was always open, and a countess might have as many private chaplains as she pleased, and, if she cared to build a chapel in her grounds, no one could say her nay. Romaine became her senior chaplain, and the Evangelical clergy in the country were always sure of a welcome, whenever they came to London. "Good Lady Huntingdon,” wrote Whitefield, “goes on acting the part of a mother in Israel. Her house is indeed a Bethel. We have the Sacrament every morning, heavenly conversation all day, and preach at night. For a day or two she has had five clergymen under her root." Her chief aim was to evangelize her own class in society, and her "spiritual routs,'' as the wits called them, soon became a recognized function in the fashionable world. No Hostess in London was able to gather a more brilliant company of guests: the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cumberland, Lord North and the Earl of Chatham, Horace Walpole and Bubb Doddington, Lord Chesterfield and Lord Bolingbroke, the Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Suffolk, and indeed all the most illustrious men and women of the time, used to meet in her drawing-room to listen to her preachers; and, though much of the seed fell in very thorny places, some did bring forth fruit. The most important of her converts was the Earl of Dartmouth, the President of the Board of Trade and later Colonial Secretary. He was one of the most enlightened and cultured men of the day, patron of Watt's inventions and President of the Royal Society, and, after his conversion in 1756, he made it his special work to help forward the movement by securing livings for Evangelical clergy: he it was who sent Venn to Huddersfield, Robinson to Leicester, Stillingfleet to Hotham, Powley to Dewsbury, and Newton to Olney.

Meanwhile Lady Huntingdon was extending her work to other fashionable centres. By the sale of her jewels she was able to add a chapel to her house at Brighton. Later she bought a house at Bath, so that she might be able to build a chapel there— that chapel with the famous "Nicodemus corner" heavily curtained off, where bishops and other retiring persons might hear without being seen. Then her house at Tunbridge Wells was supplied with a chapel also, and all these were served by her chaplains in rotation. Her plan was to invite the Evangelical clergy to minister for a month at a time, while she supplied a substitute for their own parishes. But, as the number of chapels increased, the time came when this was no longer possible, and she, like Wesley, had to fall back upon lay preachers. To train these she established a theological college at Trevecca, but this never became a help to the Church: for in her old age Lady Huntingdon passed over into the ranks of dissent. The trouble arose over the Conventicle Act, which was always a thorn in the side of the Evangelicals — fifty years later it prevented Simeon from opening his Cambridge Bible-class with prayer. A large theatre surrounded by pleasure gardens had been opened in Clerkenwell for Sunday entertainments, and to stop this Lord Dartmouth and others bought the whole building, and determined to use it for mission services. They presented it to Lady Huntingdon in order that her chaplains might officiate; but this was on quite a different footing from a chapel in a private house, and the law at once interfered. The only way to make the services legal was to license the building as a dissenting chapel, and Lady Huntingdon, whose weakest point was inability to brook the smallest interference with her plans, rather than stop the services, chose this alternative (1782). All the Evangelical clergy resigned their chaplains' scarves, and she and her lay preachers became a separate body, which still survives as Lady Huntingdon's Connexion: but for thirty critical years her help and influence had been invaluable to the Evangelicals.

William Romaine - a forgotten Evangelical hero

Extract from "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England" (G.R.Balleine)

In London the Evangelicals at first were very weak. The Methodists were well provided with buildings. Whitefield had his tabernacle at Moorfields and his chapel in Tottenham Court Road. Wesley had the Foundry and many chapels in other quarters of the city. But for long the Evangelicals had not a single church. Their leader was William Romaine, a grave, scholarly man, who, while in his first curacy, had brought out a revised edition of Calasio's Hebrew Lexicon, a work of enormous labour, which was subscribed for by all the crowned heads of Europe. On the strength of this he had come to London looking for honours and promotion, "a very, very vain young man" — so he described his condition — "who knew almost everything but himself, and met with many disappointments to his pride, till the Lord was pleased to let him see the plague of his own heart." Here in some way that is not recorded the Revival touched him, and he gave the best possible proof of his conversion by taking his stand openly with the despised Evangelicals, though he knew that this meant the renunciation of all his hopes of preferment. His only regular appointment at this time (1749) was an afternoon Lectureship at St. Dunstan's, the famous old church in Fleet Street, where Tyndale had proclaimed the doctrines of the Reformation. Here for nine years he preached without interruption; but in 1758 the vicar died, and Alexander Jacob, his successor, strongly disapproved of the lecturers doctrine. The churchwardens also had a grievance. "Great crowds of people," they declared, "not parishioners, have been accustomed to assemble about the church every Sunday afternoon more than an hour before the opening of the doors, when Mr. Romaine was expected to preach, and to fill the aisles and pews as soon as the doors were opened, preventing the parishioners getting to their seats, and this crowd for two years past has been continually increasing." So the vicar and wardens determined to make an attempt to silence him. On consulting the founder's will they discovered that the money had been left for Lectures to be given while the courts were sitting; so on the first Sunday of the Long Vacation they met Romaine at the door, and informed him that he could not preach. On the first Sunday in the Michaelmas term a fresh surprise awaited him: he found the pulpit door locked, the vicar sitting in the pulpit, and the beadle sitting on the stairs, and he was told that the time of his Lecture had been changed to seven in the evening. His friends then took the case before the King's Bench, asking for a mandamus to restore the Lecture to its usual hour, and to allow it to continue all the year round, but the court decided that the vicar had acted within his legal rights. The churchwardens then declined to light or warm the church, or to open the doors a minute before the hour of the service, and preacher and congregation had to wait in the street, till the wooden giants on the tower had beaten out the hour of seven, and then grope their way cautiously to their seats. This was the only Evangelical service in any of the city churches, and very solemn and impressive it must have been, the crowded congregation sitting or standing in perfect darkness, while Romaine preached by the light of a taper, which he held in his hand. This continued for several years, till at last the Bishop interfered, and compelled the churchwardens to make proper arrangements. For forty-six years Romaine held this lectureship, and St. Dunstan's became "the rallying-point for Evangelicalism in London; but though he was now acknowledged to be the leading preacher in the city — people came from the country "to see Garrick act and hear Romaine preach" — though his manner was very grave and decorous, and his character above reproach, yet for seventeen years he failed to obtain any other permanent appointment. For a short time he was morning preacher at St. George's, Hanover Square, then at St. Olave's, Southwark, then at St. Bartholomew-the-Great, but in each case the prejudice against his teaching and against the "ragged, unsavoury multitude" who flocked to hear him was so strong that he could not stay. To attract the poor to church was an unpardonable offence. Friends urged him to give up the struggle; he was offered important churches in America, but he would not go. "Here my Master fixed me," he said, "and here I must stay. I am alone in London, and, while He keeps me there, I dare not move." At last, when he was fifty-two (1764), his patience was rewarded. The parishioners of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe with St. Anne, Blackfriars, had the right of electing their rector, and, though he declined to canvass, the choice fell upon him. Here he worked for the last thirty years of his life, holding his own Sunday services in the morning and afternoon, and still walking to St. Dunstan's for the evening lecture. Meanwhile his three best-known books — The Life of Faith (1763), The Walk of Faith (1771), and The Triumph of Faith (1795) — were influencing thoughtful men in all parts of the country; and this influence was due quite as much to his life as his words. "He lived," wrote his first biographer, "more with God than with men, and to know his real history, or the best part of it, it would be requisite to know what passed between God and his soul." He died in 1795, and was succeeded by his curate, William Goode, who held the living till his death in 1816.

A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England

Slowly reformatting this old classic for HTML... Hopefully I'll see it through to the finish!