Reflections on Crime and Punishment by the Hon Justice Adams, an address given on 26 February 2003 at St James King Street. For a copy, click here.

Drawing a Fine Line for Debate by Bill Lawton - click here. For a response to the column, click here.

A Report on Sydney Synod 2003 by Professor Michael Horsburgh - PDF Format

Professor Michael Horsburgh reports on an eventful (if dispiriting) Sydney Synod.  Issues covered include:

• Sydney's response to the Primates' meeting on the tensions within the Anglican Communion, and the debate on the motion for Sydney to "dissociate" itself from New Hampshire and New Westminster ("This motion is based on the false assertion that the current debate in the Anglican Communion is about the authority of scripture. It is not. It is fundamentally about the meaning and interpretation of scripture, not its authority. I have looked carefully for any indication that either the synod of the Diocese of New Westminster or the convention of the Diocese of New Hampshire has rejected the authority of scripture. I have found none in their public statements")
• Lay and Diaconal Presidency ("would you buy a used car from John Woodhouse [the promoter of the ordinance]?...He has been trying to sell this car to the synod for a number of years and has nearly succeeded...This ordinance comes with absolutely no guarantee that it will work. It purports to repeal part of the Act of Uniformity of 1662 in this diocese. There is no guarantee either that it will do so or that, if it does so, it will make lay and diaconal presidency legal.")
• Freemasonry, a disturbing theology of disability prevalent in Synod, the censure motion against the Dean of the Cathedral (Phillip Jensen), and...
• Finally, Phillip Jensen's assertion that he, along with the Bible supported slavery (although both were opposed to slave-trading).  ("[Phillip Jensen]..went on to assert that modern criminals undergoing imprisonment were slaves and that we, as well as the Bible, supported slavery on that basis...This amazing argument stretches the common meaning of both imprisonment and slavery to an absurd degree....it opened a more novel interpretation of the biblical text than even I had ever entertained")

The impossibility of the last word - the theology of Rowan Williams, by the Rev Humphrey Southern - PDF Format

This paper seeks to explore the theology of Archbishop Rowan Williams in the context of the apophatic (or reticent) tradition of Christian theology and spirituality. It hopes to demonstrate a degree of conservatism in Williams' doctrine and method, but also shows something of the difficulties that a theology committed to dialogue and exchange (such as his is) poses to those with a stronger idea of the category of revelation in the Christian tradition. For the full essay, click here.

The Missionary Value of Parables & Pastoral Care in a Post Christian Society by James McPherson - PDF Format

Mission is an ongoing imperative for the Christian church, whose vocation is to live a faithfulness expressed through worship and witness. But how is mission to be conducted, and how may witness be effective, in a post-Christian society? This paper is in three parts. The first explores the concept of a "post-Christian" society and distinguishes it from a "post-modern" society; this helps provide conceptual clarity and eliminates some confusion about the target area of our mission. I believe the biggest determinant of the strategy and conduct of our mission is not philosophical (the notional post-modernism currently in vogue), but cultural (the post-Christian nature of our society).  The second part outlines an important distinction between myth and parable, following work of John Dominic Crossan and applying it to mission in a post-Christian context.  The third and final part addresses the broader question: What aspects of our expression of Anglicanism provide potentially valuable resources for faithful and effective witness in a post-Christian context? For the full essay, click here.

Australian Anglicanism in the Global Business Context by Peter Heath - PDF Format

Any conversation the focus of which is Anglicanism in Australian society would omit an essential part of community life if it were to miss discussing the inter-connectedness of Anglicanism with the now globalising business world and its technological emphasis. For the full essay, click here.

Spiritual Life on the Anglican Veranda by Stephen Pickard - PDF Format

I have often thought of the church as a kind of verandah: on the one hand open and welcoming to the world and on the other attending to the deep needs of people in the inner life of individuals and communities. On the verandah both outer and inner world meet and the church of the gospel has the responsibility to occupy that in-between place critical for its own sense of purpose as witness to the coming Kingdom. For the full essay, click here.

A Community Remembrance in Music and Words by Ann McElligott - PDF Format

...such is the jarring paradox that we face again and again in a world suffused with both discord and charity, both violence and compassion, both death and renewed life, both fear and faith. This frayed edge of certitude and trust draws us here on this Day of Remembrance to commemorate a day of terror that confronted us all both personally and communally. For the full essay, click here.

11 September Requiem Eucharist Sermon by Ivan Head - PDF Format

In preparing this address, I found myself re-thinking parts of the Bible to find for myself basis stories and themes that might register and resonate with the events of one year ago. This is similar to what the media and public discourse is doing in its own torrent of text, trying to find a story-shape that will tell us what to do, what comes next, and with what to inform the void ‘between action and re-action’. For the full essay, click here.

Speaking the Truth in Love Yet Again by Robert Forsyth - PDF Format

...I could not help but feel that there was a confusion [on Horsburgh's part] between the church as a community of members within the larger society and the church as somehow a part of the governing circle implementing social policy. I believe this inter relational model cuts through some of this confusion about the place of the ‘church’ - which is a voluntary body made up of individuals members - and the role of government in society. For the full essay, click here.

Speaking the Truth in Love? by Michael Horsburgh - PDF Format

In this paper I propose to discuss whether ‘speaking the truth in love’ is an adequate basis for a Christian social theology, in response to the 2002 Halifax Portal lecture of the same name, given by Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen...I must confess at the outset that I find the phrase ‘speaking the truth in love’ far from reassuring. On the contrary, it sends a chill down my spine. This is partly because of my experience in the Diocese of Sydney. It appears with some regularity as a prelude to a savage attack, usually on a person. It is such a powerful signal in the synod, for example, that everyone sits up when the phrase occurs, the better to hear what is to come. For the full essay click here.

Planting Churches on the Central Cost by Graeme Rutherford - PDF Format

I greatly admire the diocese of Sydney for the importance it has always placed on evangelism and I wish I could see the same enthusiasm in dioceses of a more ‘catholic’ tradition...Having said this however, let no one think that I support Anglicans "planting" new parishes in a diocese without the consent and blessing of the bishop as we have experienced in the diocese of Newcastle...by Sydney evangelicals with the imprimatur of the leaders of the diocese of Sydney. What are my reasons for rejecting this policy? Firstly, behind this whole approach lies a judgmental attitude to other Christians. For the full essay click here.

Building on a Rickety Foundation by James McPherson - PDF Format

In a recent "missionary" address to the Anglican Church League, which promoted and justified "church-planting", Mr Phillip Jensen argued that "the parish system" was working well, until damaged irreparably by the Tractarians, with the remedy to bypass those damaged parishes and restore authentic Anglicanism.

It is clear from his address that Mr Jensen is promoting competitive rather than collaborative church-planting. That is, this church-planting is not undertaken with the full knowledge and willing cooperation of an existing Anglican parish because the existing parish is judged to be defective and therefore should be challenged, exposed, and perhaps even extinguished, for the cause of the gospel.

I intend to show first that Mr Jensen’s proposal bristles with practical difficulties; and second, that it is based on a theologically prejudiced reading of history. In the final section I examine Mr Jensen’s address in the broader context of American fundamentalism, a milieu in which it sits comfortably for its defensiveness, its militancy, and its separatist tendency. For the full essay click here.

Inaugural Essay: In Praise of Debate by Michael Horsburgh. - PDF Format

The Synod of the Diocese of Sydney is often described as a forum in which there is lively debate...These debates are often against an absent opponent. They take the form of a call to endorse a theological principle or set of principles and are usually a response to alleged heresy somewhere else in the Australian Church or in the Anglican Communion. Favourites amongst the objects of these motions are the Episcopal Church of the United States, often embodied in the person of Bishop John Shelby Spong, and the Australian Primate, regardless of who he happens to be. These opponents are not present to defend themselves and it is important that they are not.

The reason for these debates is not to engage the supposed opponent. It is to reinforce within the diocese the feeling that, possessing the truth, it is under attack. Identifying an external opponent is a standard way of reinforcing domestic solidarity. These motions serve a tribal, not a debating, function. These debates, in which theological questions predominate, are not usually marked by vigorous difference but by statements of solidarity. For the full essay click here.