Essentials

Details

Written by: TIm Collison

Last year EFAC VIC held its first annual meeting since 2019. It elected a new chair, Tim Collison; a new treasurer, Pedram Shirmast; and a new secretary Xiaoxi Lou. EFAC VIC also held a spiritual retreat led by Peter Adam last year. This year it held a briefing meeting about the importance of the election in the Melbourne Diocese, and has facilitated a number of churches getting grants to send their teenagers to Leader's in Training Conference. We are pleased with the election of Bishop Ric Thorpe as the Archbishop of Melbourne.

Tim Collison is Assistant Minister at St. Mark's Anglican Church Chair of EFAC Victoria and Secretary of EFAC Aust.

Details

Written by: Leili Shirmast

I never imagined I would one day plant a new ministry in one of the most iconic places in Melbourne. But one afternoon, as my husband Pedram and I stood in St Paul’s Cathedral, we watched people stream in—tourists, students, and families, wandering the building, taking photos, admiring its beauty. Then we heard it: Farsi, Turkish, Arabic. Familiar languages that stirred something deep in us. When we later learned that over 1,500 people visit the Cathedral every day, it sparked something in our hearts. How, we wondered, could we share the Gospel with even a few of them?

We began praying, listening, and discerning with others. Some people encouraged us to start a new outreach. After seeking the Spirit’s guidance and receiving confirmation, we knew God was opening a door. That vision became reality on 16 March 2024, when we launched a new multicultural midday service at the Cathedral, beginning with a celebration of Nowruz (Persian New Year). I never expected to start this new ministry. But when I thought about the deep spiritual hunger among those who speak my own language, I realised God had been preparing me all along.

Read more: Church Planting Story

Details

Written by: Stephen Hale

The past few months have been especially important for  the future of the Anglican Church in Australia. On  Saturday 19th July Bishop Dr Mark Short was elected as  the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia. Mark  has been Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn since 2019.  Prior to that he was the National Director of BCA. Mark  is an EFAC Australia Vice President. The last evangelical  Primate was Sir Marcus Loane (Sydney). Prior to 1982 the  most senior Metropolitan became the Primate. After that  they have been elected. Do pray for Mark and Monica as  he assumes this weighty extra responsibility in November  and as he leads the Anglican Church in Australia and  represents the Anglican Church of Australia  internationally. Pray also for the Diocese of Canberra and  Goulburn as they seek to support Mark as he takes up  this new role.

The other exciting news in the past few months has been  the election of Bishop Ric Thorpe as the Archbishop of  Melbourne. Bishop Ric is the Bishop of Islington in the  Diocese of London and has a national role in church  planting and revitalisation in the Church of England.  Bishop Ric is a regular visitor to Australia and will be a  real gift to the Australian church when he starts in late  November. Peter Adam has written a great reflection  piece on this significance of his election.

This edition of Essentials is a bumper edition in  every sense of the word. I had an above average  number of responses to invitations to contribute to  the Winter edition, so we decided to put out an  expanded Winter/Spring edition! You’ll also notice  that we have included two copies in each sleeve.

The focus of this edition is Church Planting. Inside  is a very stimulating interview with Andrew Katay  one of the key Anglican leaders in this area. We  probably all know about Trinity Adelaide and City on  a Hill but most of us don’t know about the  remarkable way both have evolved and expanded in  the past decade or so. We have some lovely stories  from two church planters from Melbourne as well as  a range of other great articles.

BISHOP STEPHEN HALE

EDITOR

Details

Written by: Stephen Hale

Statement By The Evangelical Fellowship In The Anglican Communion In Response To The IASCUFO Nairobi Cairo Proposals

(“Renewing The Instruments Of The Anglican Communion”)^[i] EFAC welcomes the opportunity to offer an initial outline response to this important report, thanking its writers for their sincere and prolonged engagement with the broken nature of our Anglican Communion. What follows sets out what we understand to be its central themes, and aspects of it which we welcome and aspects where we have questions and concerns.

It is clear from the document that these proposals have been produced in response to two interconnected problems:

1. The anachronism of colonial era structures for the Anglican Communion when the vast majority of active members are now found in the Global South.

2. The broken and impaired relationships of communion which have arisen due to doctrinal differences, especially to do with biblical anthropology and marriage. These have been in contention for several decades and been the subject of previous reports offering different paths of renewal. They have become more acute since the Bishops and General Synod of the Church of England opened the way for the blessing of same sex relationships in 2023.

The proposals can be summarised as follows:

1. A number of amendments to the classic description of the Anglican Communion adopted by the Lambeth Conference including the deletion of ‘in communion with the See of Canterbury’ to be replaced by, inter alia, ‘historic connection with the See of Canterbury’ (76)^[ii].

2. A number of changes to the existing Instruments, notably a rotating presidency of the ACC.

We welcome a number of elements in the report including:

1. The removal of ‘in communion with the See of Canterbury’. This description has been used to try and delegitimise the new orthodox Provinces, recognised by both the GSFA and GAFCON, and to imply that any breaking of communion with Canterbury is tantamount to leaving the Communion. The recent decisions of the Church of England have meant that, irrespective of who the next Archbishop of Canterbury is, he or she will not be a person whose leadership can be acknowledged by many members of the Communion as primus inter pares.

2. The recognition of the sad reality that as currently constituted the churches of the Anglican Communion have fallen even further short of the Church’s call to be “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”: no longer having in common that they “uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order” but simply seeking to do so; and no longer bound to each other “by mutual loyalty” due to recent actions by various provinces, most recently the Church of England. As a result, it is accepted that the churches of the Communion are no longer in full communion with each other but only seeking “the highest degree of communion possible”.

3. The statement that “Solemn calls to unity may sometimes function as an abuse of power, as they seek to enforce a closeness of relationship that would suppress or deny important differences”(45) and the call to those “who call themselves progressive or liberal...to grant graciously the degree of seriousness with which their fellow Anglicans take the matters at hand and concede the consequences of some degree of diminished communion” (48).

4. The acknowledgment that “The Covenantal Structure of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches ... may be viewed ... as a helpful contribution to the discernment of doctrinal and ethical truth within the Communion ... in hopeful service of the unity and faithfulness of the Anglican Communion” (56).

All this makes clear that earlier attempts to reform the Instruments by seeking moratoria, repentance, and renewed covenantal affirmations and commitments have not succeeded. We continue to hope and pray that those whose actions have led to this tragic failure will repent in order that fellowship may be restored and we welcome the work of GSFA and GAFCON to reset the Communion and create structures which can enable full communion to continue between churches and faithful Anglicans based on Catholic and Apostolic faith and order.

Questions and concerns:

In forthcoming months as the report and its proposals are digested, discussed and developed in preparation for the ACC meeting in 2026 we hope attention will be given to various questions and concerns, including for us:

1. An explanation for the absence of any engagement with GAFCON. Engagement with GAFCON will be essential if IASCUFO is fully to engage with the deep differences and divisions within the Anglican Communion.

2. Whether the bold redefinition of the Communion is sufficiently reflected in the practical proposals which are seemingly minimalist and risk being largely symbolic but leaving the underlying power structures of the Communion intact (for example, in the continued parity between all 5 historic regions despite the very different number of worshipping Anglicans in them). We are concerned that more needs to be done, given the unprecedented levels of mistrust and non-participation in the legacy instruments, if the “ecclesial deficit” we face is to be addressed.

3. It would appear that the underlying assumption implied in the theological methodology of IASCUFO’s approach is that, contrary to the Communion’s clear past statements, the teaching of Scripture on matters of human sexuality is unclear and so the areas of disagreement are to be treated as adiaphora and the subject of unending dialogue until the Lord returns (43, 57). Is this what is being claimed?

4. Does the revised definition of the Anglican Communion not significantly water down the historic identity of global Anglicanism and (in contrast to the GSFA Cairo Covenant and GAFCON’s Jerusalem Declaration) fail to offer an ecclesiology clearly under the authority of the Word of God?

5. In particular, in contrast to the Cairo Covenant and earlier attempts to address the Communion’s travails such as The Windsor Report and the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant, there appears to be no place for exercising discipline against teaching judged to be contrary to Scripture. While the recognition of the need for distance or differentiation is welcome, how does a “commitment to making room for each other” not amount to acceptance of “serious doctrinal error and moral jeopardy” (48) within the Anglican Communion?

Conclusion

EFAC Global therefore welcomes the full acknowledgment by IASCUFO of the wounds of division in the Communion and the proposal that the Communion is no longer to be defined by relationship to Canterbury. It is vital, however, that in ongoing reflection on our calling as the Church, the state of the Communion, and the report’s proposals to find a new way forward, that we are not found to come under the Lord’s judgment through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘they have healed the wound of my people lightly’ (8:11).

^[i] https://www.anglicancommunion.org/ecumenism/iascufo/the-nairobi-cairo-proposals.aspx

^[ii] Numbers in parenthesis refer to paragraph numbers in the IASCUFO paper

Details

Written by: David Mitchell

Modern Genre Theory: An Introduction for Biblical Studies
Andrew Judd
Zondervan Academic 2024
Reviewed By David Mitchell

Judges 19 is one of the most confronting stories in the Old Testament. How are we supposed to read it? Is it something of a cautionary tale about the likely outcome for those who commit adultery? Perhaps, like a modern horror film, its designed specifically to make us squirm and shrink away from it. Or, perhaps, it’s better understood as being a piece of wisdom literature with complex truths about life under the sun being conveyed through the narrative. Or, would we be better understanding it as simply another dot point in the decline of the Jewish nation during the period of the judges as they await a king? Or is it some mix of all of things?

How we read a given passage of scripture depends significantly on what genre we assign it. Hence the battle, say, between the literal six-day creationist and the theistic evolutionist, or between the reader who takes Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) as speaking about the actual intermediate state and the person who thinks it does not. On all sides of such debates, people can agree on the authority of the Scriptures and yet be at odds as to what the scripture in question is authoritatively teaching.

Read more: Book Review: Modern Genre Theory

Details

Written by: Stephen Hale

How to not be anxious, in an anxious age?

STEPHEN HALE

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

We’re all familiar with St Paul’s wonderful words in Philippians 4. Yet we all know the challenge of them becoming a reality for us. There is so much to be anxious about. In fact, the statistics on the rise of mental health challenges in a place like Australia are striking. As I understand it these are consistent with the numbers in other western nations.

The Australian Bureau Statistics reports that in 2024 • 1 in 5 adults will experience mental health problems throughout a year

• 1 in 4 adolescents have a mental health illness
• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys suffer from an anxiety or disorder
• 1 in 7 primary school kids have a mental health illness

  Read more: How to not be anxious, in an anxious age?