Anglican Communion
I love Tasmania too much to leave it the way I found it
- Written by: John Harrower
I love Tasmania too much to leave it the way I found it
John Harrower reflects on ten years as Bishop of Tasmania.
It is a decade since I became the eleventh Bishop of Tasmania.
It is wonderful, yet challenging to reflect on what God has done in my life: where He has taken us and where we are going.
From my background in engineering, economics and political science and involvement as a Director researching the impact of technological and demographic change on Australia’s industrial structure, God took me, my wife and our two sons to Argentina as missionaries with the Church Missionary Society (CMS).
In Argentina during the years 1979–88 we worked with university students, helped grow a church, and published and distributed Christian literature. I was ordained deacon in 1984 and priest in 1986 in the Diocese of Argentina. God brought us back to Australia and in 1989 I became the Vicar of St Paul’s Glen Waverly and later of St Barnabas’ Glen Waverly (GWAC). We focused on community building, discipleship, evangelism, youth, ministry formation and relating the Gospel of Jesus Christ to different cultures.
Read more: I love Tasmania too much to leave it the way I found it
The inheritance of faith
- Written by: Roger Herft
Roger Herft introduces the Diocese of Perth.
The vibrant faith in God’s steadfast love, grace and goodness forms the essential DNA of the people called to be part of the body of Christ in Perth. The inheritance of faith that refuses to cloister itself in a fortress-like defence system was forged by the pioneer missionary, John Ramsden Wollaston.
This faith, believing that God is sovereign and present before us is evident in the history of the church in this place. There is a sense of awe and gratitude which acknowledges that we in our generation stand on the shoulders of giants.
Wollaston faced utter indifference to the Gospel on his first Good Friday and Easter. But, undaunted he continued to faithfully minister; loving the people God had entrusted to him with Christlikeness.
The Anglican Diocese of Perth is a diocese within The Anglican Church of Australia. It is the Metropolitical See in the State of Western Australia. It holds strongly to the bonds of affection with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Instruments of Unity in our Communion.
The diocese seeks to hold together the Ministry of Word and Sacrament, evangelical zeal embedded in the beauty of liturgical prayer, profound scholarship, pastoral care and social justice.
Setting hearts free to love
- Written by: Peter Smith
Peter Smith shows how Cranmer marshalled the words of his opponents to speak the truth in love.
Since the decisive break with Rome in the sixteenth century, scholars have debated the doctrinal stance of the Church of England. Did the first Archbishop of the newly formed C of E, Thomas Cranmer promote a Roman Catholic theology or was he a reformer or something in between? For much of the twentieth century Anglican scholarship championed the idea that the English Reformation was worked out as a kind of via media—a middle way between the extremes of the Continental Reformation of Calvin and Zwingli and the Church of Rome. A classic approach to the via media promotes the idea that the Church of England was able to reject the distasteful doctrines of the European Reformation (Calvinism) and embrace the best of Roman Catholicism without compromising the newly formed Church of England. The result—a pleasant middle way for a church that is afraid of excess– not too hot, not too cold. Various wings of the worldwide Anglican church make the claim that the nature of our history licenses a particular style of churchmanship—albeit half way between Rome and Geneva however this is interpreted!
Lynda Johnson
- Written by: Wei-Han Kuan
The new EFAC Queensland Chair talks to Wei-Han Kuan.
Lynda Johnson is Assistant Minister at North Pine Anglican Church and the EFAC Queensland Chair.
Lynda, you and your husband Chris work together on the team at the North Pine Anglican Parish in Brisbane. Tell us what that’s like.
Chris and I met while we were both studying at Ridley in the 1980s. I guess you could say that our life together has always been about shared ministry. It seems to work well for us. We have complementary gifts, which means that as a clergy couple, we’re not duplicating each other. I have been ordained for eleven of our twenty-five years together. Apart from three years working in a different parish when I was first ordained, we have always shared in ministry. We bounce things off each other all the time, whether it’s about pastoral needs, or thinking strategically about a ministry issue. It’s hard to imagine life any other way. We feel very blessed.
Is North Pine typical of churches supporting EFAC in the Brisbane Diocese?
It is hard to describe a typical EFAC-supporting church. We are all different. However, here at North Pine we believe that under God our growth can be attributed to faithfully proclaiming the Bible and not watering down the message of salvation through repentance and grace. We are actively trying to empower every member of our church to grow in ministry and to know and exercise their spiritual gifts. And, we are committed to our vision—Bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ, and growing together in Him—and excited about our parish plan. We are so amazed at the people we’ve got in this church and feel privileged to be able to minister alongside them. They are very gifted and focussed and united about our goals. We are currently committed to adding to our staff team with the appointment of a youth minister, and are working to see that become a reality in the near future. It’s a very exciting time for North Pine.
What can you tell us about EFAC in Queensland?
The Jerusalem Declaration – why it matters
- Written by: Rt Rev Dr Peter Jensen
This is an edited version of an address at the FCA (Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) UK launch by Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney and President of EFAC Australia, 7 July 2009.
Ominous and foreboding words are being said about the FCA by those who wish it ill – they say it is schismatic, it will divide the church, it is a power play.
These changes are at best misunderstandings or at worst political posturing.
Let me say this as clearly as possible.
The FCA exists to keep Anglicanism united, to enable those whose spiritual existence as Anglicans is threatened to remain Anglicans with integrity.
It exists to keep orthodox, biblical Anglicanism inside the fold at the highest level possible; to gather up the fragments, to unite them. It exists so that evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics and mere Anglicans can continue to be Anglicans without compromising Biblical truth.
With persuasive power, the culture of the West has adopted and promulgated anti-Christian belief and practice. It confronts every Christian with the choice of submission or harassment. It pretends to be the true heir of the Christian faith, that it now possesses all that was worthwhile of Christianity, and that the entire structure of Christian thought can disappear into the receding past.