This is my first post on the SydAng forum, but I have been meaning to post for quite some time.

I am close follower of Sydney Anglican life, and wish we had such a united Anglican diocese in the UK that is so strongly united round the gospel and not ‘wishy washy’.  I am regularly nourished by the Briefing and enriched by the close links SydAng people (like Phil Jensen and Tony Payne etc) have with the UK in speaking here etc.

The main reason for posting was that I have just re read Joshua Bovis’s article in the Briefing from December 2005 entitled ‘Scotland the Brave’.  In the article he emphasises how spritually barren Scotland is compared to Sydney.  I choked at that, I have not lived or ministred in Scotland, but I can say that there are faithful evangelical churches in most (if not all) the big towns of Scotland, some very famous gospel centred churches like St Georges Tron and Sandyford Henderson in Glasgow, Charlotte Chapel, Carubbers and Holyrood in Edinburgh and a whole reformed presbyterian (fully evangelical) denomination called the Free Church of Scotland.  Scotland is not so dark as he paints. 

It’s been interesting to follow SydAng events, from a UK perspective, especially the Mark Driscoll visit.  Mark Driscoll visited the UK in July, and shortly afterwards visited Australia.  From a UK perspective it was interesting to note that he gently criticised SydAngs for emphasising the ‘Father, Son and Holy Bible’, now rightly or wrongly he may have caused offence, but from the UK scene, it was revealing. 

The UK charismatic movement seems quite different to the Australian scene, judging from the Briefing articles that cover the issue in the November 2004 and the Hillsong Briefing of January 2007.  We do have prosperity churches in the UK, but mercifully thay have not fully influenced mainstream penticostalism to the extent it seems to in Australia.  Therefore, there seems to be a much more healthy mixing in UK evangelicalism between charismatic and non-charismatic evangelicals.  This is most evident in the great work of Newfrontiers the reformed charismatic church planting movement, that Terry Virgo leads and Stuart Townend is part of.  Newfrontiers works in patnership with UCCF (the British IFES movement) and Keswick Convention to organise New Word Alive (like the KCC) easter conference in north Wales.  Indeed, Martyn Lloyd Jones was a charismatic, and had a huge influence in forming, shaping and helping to grow the British evangelical scene since WW2.

I rejoice in the Lord at new parterships in the gospel being forged in Britain today between charismatic and non-charismatic evangelicals.

I would be sceptical whether this would be the case to such an extent in Sydney or Australia??  But it’s just an obsrvation from afar.

I would think your observations are apt and to the point, and accurate. 
Gill.

What “saved “ Sydney Anglicanism was TC Hammond and Broughton Knox. If Stott had accepted Sydney, you would be as lost as Melbourne is now , and packed out with lady Rectors. However I really think, Donald Robinson made a false move when he ordained women deacons.

English evangelicalsim is divided between the women friendly moderates ( FULCRUM) and the anti- women conservatives ( REFORM) ....it would seem the latter will never be diocesan bishops...and they will never be able to reverse the ordiantion of women. Currently 50 per cent of ordinations are women.

Does any one agree with my analysis?

William Philip from St George’s-Tron Church of Scotland is coming to Sydney in January 2009 to speak at CMS Summer School at Katoomba.

Robert ian Williams - 11 October 2008 11:50 PM

What “saved “ Sydney Anglicanism was TC Hammond and Broughton Knox. If Stott had accepted Sydney, you would be as lost as Melbourne is now , and packed out with lady Rectors. However I really think, Donald Robinson made a false move when he ordained women deacons.

English evangelicalsim is divided between the women friendly moderates ( FULCRUM) and the anti- women conservatives ( REFORM) ....it would seem the latter will never be diocesan bishops...and they will never be able to reverse the ordiantion of women. Currently 50 per cent of ordinations are women.

Does any one agree with my analysis?

I disagree simply because your use of ‘anti- women conservatives’ type of language. I don’t know any of the REFORM people personally, but from what I’ve read, they are not anti-women! I’ll leave any further analysis for later, if at all.

cheers,
Andrew

PS, RIW, a few weeks ago, you sent me a PM to which I have replied, asking you to clarify what you meant. I haven’t heard back from you.
Andrew

Andrew the fact is Reform can’t agree on divorce and re-marriage..... they deliberately and deceptively air brushed this out of the moral clause in their Covenant. ..see their web site.

They would ceratinly not agree with women bishops..but they are divided on the role of women as deacons and presbyters as long as they are not in pastoral charge. I know of no women priests in Reform.There are impossibilists and those who accept women deacons like the old deaconesses.

Robert ian Williams - 12 October 2008 07:57 PM

Andrew the fact is Reform can’t agree on divorce and re-marriage

RIW, but that isn’t what you said, is it?

Cheers,
Andrew

Andrew stop trying to side tarck..just praise my perceptive and brilliant analysis.

Where?

Robert ian Williams - 11 October 2008 11:50 PM

English evangelicalsim is divided between the women friendly moderates ( FULCRUM) and the anti- women conservatives ( REFORM)

Robert, I am with Andrew here. You may be talking about attitudes to women’s ordination, but simply to describe the UK conservative evangelicals as “anti-women” is a slur.

It is either a very careless and misleading abbreviation. Or worse still - if it represents your true view of these evangelicals - it wrongly paints them as anti-women because - on conscientious Scriptural grounds - they are against the ordination of women to the Anglican presbyterate/priesthood.

To hold such a conservative view on this matter certainly does not mean that you have to be negative to woman. Conservatives make their mistakes. However they often treat women with great respect, including the many ministries they rightly undertake in the churches and the world.

I think the ‘anti-woman’ description you used is out of place on this forum and it certainly undermines your self-adjudicated claim to ‘perceptive and brilliant analysis’.

The Lord Jesus will call us to account for every careless word.

Duncan, thanks for your original post. I reckon there may be something in what you say. I don’t really know of any charismatic or pentecostal churches in Australia (or my part of it) with otherwise reformed theology, and committed to expository preaching, focussed on the gospel of Jesus - especially his atoning death - and genuinely valuing biblical doctrine (e.g. justification by faith alone, penal substitution) as well as experience, and possibly even complementarian in views on gender. I guess I am thinking about the Sovereign Grace ministries in the USA of CJ Mahaney and others.

Don’t know exactly where the UK groups you mention fit into this.

I may well still have some disagreements with such people, but personally I could imagine working much more closely and happily with such charismatics than those we often come across in Australia where really solid BIble teaching and doctrine seems somewhat thin on the ground (many of whom of course nevertheless still do their best to love the Lord Jesus Christ).

Robert ian Williams - 12 October 2008 08:56 PM

Andrew stop trying to side tarck..just praise my perceptive and brilliant analysis.

In fact Robert it was you who introduced the sidetrack of divorce.  However, with the above-mentioned caveats about the “anti-women” language, I do basically agree with your earlier post, except that I can’t from a distance comment on what Donald Robinson intended to achieve by permitting women deacons...?

Sorry I did not mean anti- women per se.. I meant as regards ordination.  I am also accused about being anti- women, because I accept the teaching of the Catholic Church.

I couldn’t resist mentioning the divorce issue as I feel this illustrates my point that evangelicals who claim the authority of Scripture cannot agree as to what is says on a key moral issue. Scripture has no perpsicuity without an infallible interpretation given by an Infallible teaching Church..

I see the following within Evangelical Anglicanism.

A small group who are rabid Protestants and totally opposed to women priests who have formed a schismatic group called the Church of England continuing.

Reform… a church within a Church, where women are under male headship. One Bishop in the shape of Wallace Benn an assistant in Chichester...who is the only bishop left who refuses not to wear a mitre. He’s actually a Protestant Irishman.

Fulcrum… open to women, even as bishops...from this group bishops are selected..they are generally sound on homosexuality.

Charismatic Anglicans...believe in the gifts of the spirit..generally pro women ordintaion.

progressive evangelicals ..who accept women and gays. Tiny numbers.
I woild say the mainstream of Sydney Anglicans are Reform and Melbourne would be Fulcrum.

Robert, could you possibly please edit the first two paras of post #12 above.  There are some words that are obviously typos, and I can’t understnad what you are saying, cause I can’t guess what the typo is supposed to be.  eg “biifig” in first para, then next para “claithe”, .  I also don’t understand what “Scripture has no perpsicuity (did you mean perpiscuity....and I still don’t understand) without an infallible interpretor” means in the context of what the thread is about.

thanks heaps
Gill.

Hi Gill,

Let’s see how competent at reading typonese … ;)

My guess is that biinfg - being

claithe = claim the

What do you reckon?

Cheers,
Andrew

fits perfectly Andrew., I am usually OK at reading typos, as I make enough myself, but I couldn’t get those two, - tho there were plenty more for me to practice on! (smiley face).

G