For the more astute of you, two things will have just become apparent to you. The first is that I have not engaged in the battle of words that is blogging over the last few weeks/months. To deal with this point first of all, my apologies to you all! It has been that time of year when assessments and the like have come pouring over those of us who are studying, and consequently, I have been a bit snowed under. On the plus side, it has given me plenty of time to think and write and to formulate some ideas, which hopefully can now be adequately and effectively communicated. To return to my initial statement, there was a second point that some of you might have picked up from the title of this blog. I don’t know if any of you out there are Monty Python fans, but I plucked that line from The Meaning of Life, where the since sadly passed Graham Chapman sits in his plush arm chair looking out the window at some poor children trudging past on their way to be used for medical experiments (just watch it. It makes sense...sort of). As they do so, he mutters to himself/his wife some things to the effect of “Bloody Catholics filling up the bloody world with their bloody children”, to which his wife asks “Well, what are we then?” and his (paraphrased above) response is “Protestant! And fiercely proud of it!”
The point of this half-mad reminiscing of days of brilliant, vodka-fuelled comedic shenanigans gets at a somewhat more meaningful area of discussion however. The particular bent of this blog is my increasing frustration at those brothers and sisters of mine who (it seems) feel that they have to qualify their attendance at brilliant, Bible-based churches with the comment “Yeah, I’m a...” *air quotation marks* “...Sydney Anglican” (since when has that been a bad thing?)...GASP! Shock horror! What is the world coming to when people want to go to churches that try to faithfully preach the word to as many people as possible, both here in Australia and abroad? I appreciate that there are certain stereotypes that come with being a ‘Sydney Anglican’ that not everyone feels comfortable with, or don’t think really fits their view on things, and I get that, but it seems to me, for all the potential negatives, there is a far greater range of good. I’m not arguing that everyone should just suck it up and agree with whatever the church happens to say or do, but I find it incredibly frustrating that people seem to feel that it’s embarrassing to be associated with the Sydney diocese despite regularly attending services at churches that fall under its heading. I was not raised in the Anglican church, and I have no pretentions to its perfection or otherwise, but what I am is fiercely proud to be a part of it and its mission to bring the word to people in Sydney, Australia and the world.
The gift that we have here in Sydney in the form of great teaching, training and preaching from a range of pastors and academics is – I am willing to go out on a limb and say – almost second to none across the world when it comes to evangelical, reformed, Protestant Christianity. The work of the church in passing on this training to future generations has been enabled through means such as Moore College, their involvement in university campus groups such as Sydney University’s EU and UNSWs CBS (even though both are technically non-denominational, the influence is undoubtedly strong), Anglican Youthworks and Matthias Media. Using that wonderful, totally non-academic tool that is Wikipedia, under the ‘Sydney Anglican Culture’ heading on the Anglican Diocese of Sydney page, in addition to those things that I’ve just listed, there was also Katoomba Christian Convention, the Ministry Training Strategy and the Church Ministry Society – all phenomenal ways in which the word of God has travelled across the world and been taught boldly and faithfully, and an indication of the direction that the Anglican church in Sydney looks towards.
This is the sort of organisation that I want to be a part of. A church that bases its doctrine off the Bible, off the word of God as is given to us and with an outward, evangelical focus that aims to bring more people to a knowledge and love of Jesus. If this means that I’m branded as a conservative because of the way I treat God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible and then how I choose to live my life, well I can take that. If someone was to say “you guys don’t preach the Spirit enough. You focus too much on an academic approach to God. It’s too dry”, I’d try and take that on board as I move forward, looking for personal and general shortcomings in the church’s ministry and seeing where we can all improve. There are certainly areas that are not taught on as often as others, as with any church anywhere across the globe, but I will not apologise for what I believe or for the church that I am a part of. It is truly humbling to be a part of a movement such as ours that can reach so many people in so many ways and so incredibly effectively. I don’t ask people to stop questioning the motives and direction of the church – please, keep it accountable so that we might all be lifted up – but brothers and sisters, do not be ashamed of what we belong to.
Finally, a warning. Let us not fall into arrogance, thinking that this is a case of “look at what we’ve done, aren’t we great?” but by all means be proud in what has been achieved, be filled with joy for the gift that we have been given is a great one that can reach out and touch people’s lives and impact them in ways we don’t understand. Look at what the church in our great city has done and be proud of that. Not that we have done it ourselves, but with God’s help. Be proud of what we can achieve when God is with us. The church is doing good work, so let us actively and prayerfully work together to make it better and to help it bring the message of God to many more people across Sydney and the world.
