General
Editorial Winter 2019
- Written by Ben Underwood
Gender
There has been plenty of attention given to current issues in gender and sexuality in the pages of Essentials in recent years. However, discussion has generally been about developments in the wider culture to which evangelicals have a
more or less united attitude. But in this issue we look at issues involving gender where unanimity does not exist amongst evangelical Anglicans, and so there will surely be things you disagree with in the pages that follow. On the whole, I aim for Essentials to be irenic and to stay close to the things which unite us (not always successfully) but this quarter, I’m relaxing that approach, and I think it is good from time to time to be able to include a set of articles that may not have everyone
nodding in agreement together. Before we get to that, however, Chase Kuhn gives us a lovely and pithy opening piece on the late Donald Robinson’s enduring influence. Once you go on, you will find a fine pair of articles on the evolution of the egalitariancomplementarian debate. First, Tim Foster gives an account of the development of these disagreements from an egalitarian perspective, and then Kara Hartley does the same from a complementarian perspective. Some of the frenzy may have gone out of the discussion, but, as Tim demonstrates, that does not mean new proposals are not being brought forth, tested and adopted or discarded, and, as Kara points out, the social context of the debate colours the issues in new and different ways.
Trump Makes Us Ask Again
- Written by Rhys Bezzant
If evangelical votes have been credited as part of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the last US presidential election, does this damage the evangelical brand? If so, is it time to drop the moniker? Rhys Bezzant asks us to treasure the name ‘evangelical’ and its story.
Rhys Bezzant is Dean of Missional Leadership and Lecturer in Christian Thought at Ridley College, Melbourne
No doubt you are hearing this question too: why is it that so many evangelicals voted for Trump? Many used this term to describe their voting choices in the US, even if amongst the unsophisticated media pundits it meant simply ‘white, non-Hispanic Protestants’. Of course, if your politics don’t align with Trump, you might be asking the question to distance yourself from those Christians who take on this label. There are however many who vote Republican, but have serious questions anyway about whether the evangelical brand is damaged. The populism of American presidential elections is often a bellwether for other countries too. Many nations around the world are experiencing either discomfort with, or disdain for, the international order, and are making their opinions known through the ballot box. Here is not the place to canvass the economic drivers which lead to different kinds of extreme politics, or to analyse the strategy of fear-mongering adopted by world leaders. But here is the place to ask the question whether the word ‘evangelical’ is past its use-by date. I say it is not.
Editorial Autumn 2019
- Written by Ben Underwood
Fresh Legs
This year will bring some fresh legs onto the Essentials editorial team. You may have noticed that a disproportionate number of the contributions to Essentials come from Western Australia (which is the price you pay when the editor lives in Perth!) In order better to tap into the EFAC networks in other states, we are glad to be welcoming two new editors: Gavin Perkins, Rector of St Judes, Bowral, NSW, and Mark Juers, Assistant Minister at St Hilary’s Network, Kew, Victoria. I hope and expect that these two will help us hear from new contributors and bring more national breadth to the journal. I am very much looking forward to what they will bring to this journal in 2019 and beyond.
Of course, as I always do, I encourage readers to contact me about making contributions to Essentials, wherever you live. It gives me great pleasure to have articles, book reviews, Bible Studies and Cabooses from city and bush, east and west, north and south, and off the mainland too.
Editorial Summer 2018
- Written by Ben Underwood
Our friends across the Pacific
Australia has an important relationship to the USA, and Australian Christianity has an important relationship with US Christianity. Sometimes we have been on the whole very positive about things American that wash across to our shores, sometimes we are rather more negative. Almost always reaction is mixed: as a body we might simultaneously wonder at the mysteries of the American Way, or resist what we feel is an alien and unhelpful influence, or rejoice at a great help from a good-hearted ally with much to offer, or deplore the baggage we feel they sometimes encumber us with. Our two feature articles touch on ways that US Christianity impinges upon Australian Christianity. The first is Tony Nichols’ personal account of the visit of Billy Graham in 1959 (the 60th anniversary of which approaches). As Tony testifies, plenty in the churches, including influential local leaders, doubted and resisted the Graham Crusade then, but what a moment that visit proved to be, with so many hearing him speak, either live at the venue, or by some kind of relay, and with so many later testifying what an impact it had on their spiritual lives. Tony takes us back to the ferment and excitement of the Crusade and its lasting aftermath.
Our second feature article by Rhys Bezzant begins in the present with the dismay in some quarters over Evangelical support of Donald Trump at the US presidential election. He asks whether this should make us consider shedding the label ‘evangelical’, and answers with a resounding ‘no’, seeking instead to outline briefly the long and distinguished history and associations of the term, which transcend the political turmoil and polarisation of the moment.
Tribute: Servant of the Church of God
- Written by Rory SHiner
Servant of the Church of God:
Donald William Bradley Robinson, 1922–2018
A series of highlights from the full tribute by Rory Shiner which you can read online at au.thegospelcoalition.org
Early on Friday 7 September one of Australia’s most brilliant biblical scholars and influential church leaders went to be with the Lord whom he loved and so faithfully served. If you are an Australian evangelical, you owe him a great debt, even if you’ve never heard of him. His name was Donald William Bradley Robinson. He was 95 years old.
Editorial Spring 2018
- Written by Ben Underwood
Although the life of parishes and congregations is the fundamental expression and experience of church and the coalface of ministry, there are other levels of fellowship and ministry that arise amongst Christians. They arise, for example, from the relationships between the churches that make a diocese, and the dioceses and provinces that make a communion, these relationships being focussed and conducted through the unity and collegiality of the clergy and bishops who teach and lead these churches, dioceses and provinces.
In this issue of Essentials we hear from bishops labouring to give leadership to dioceses. I’m not sure the last time Bishop Kay Goldsworthy paid her EFAC subs (or if she ever has), but given that she is the new incumbent in the metropolitical Diocese of Perth, where I and many other evangelical Anglicans find our church home, I thought it would be good to hear from her about how she is thinking and feeling about the task of shepherding the churches and people of the Diocese of Perth. Across the continent, Bishop Richard Condie has had more time to find his feet, set a direction and seek to lead the Diocese of Tasmania on in difficult circumstances. He contributes two articles, one on the state of the Diocese, and another on the specific, current, fraught and consequential issue of making redress in the wake of the scandal of child abusers finding opportunity in churches to assault the innocent and to escape unprosecuted.
Another level of fellowship and ministry is the whole Anglican communion, which, as you will know, is being strained to breaking point by the very different theological directions in which various individuals, parishes, dioceses and provinces wish to go. GAFCON was held again in 2018, gathering together those who wish to remain where the church has historically been on issues of biblical interpretation and authority, tested at present in particular by debates over the bounds of permissibly orthodox understandings of homosexual desire and behaviour. Of course GAFCON is not about sexuality, it is about establishing and affirming the unity and collegiality of Anglicans from around the world as we seek to do what we can to keep our communion faithful, united and vital. In this issue we include three reports from Australian participants in the conference.
The training of clergy is a key factor in the character and health of the churches, and many Australians are following with interest the establishment of ETC Asia, and so ETC Asia principal Andrew Reid has given us a report on this new venture in this issue. Bishop Peter Brain brings us resources to reflect on Jesus’ rebuke to the Ephesians, ‘you have forsaken your first love’, and there are a clutch of book reviews to round out the issue.
I have had positive comments about the biographical piece on Peter Soedojo by Tony Nichols in the winter 2018 issue, and I would like to be able to include such biographical sketches from time to time. If you think you could write an interesting and encouraging appreciation of the life of faith of an admirable Christian you have known, do be in touch with me.
Ben Underwood
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