As I work in the Australian Public Service Department that is administering the federal takeover of the Mersey Hospital, I cannot comment generally about the matter. However, I note that, in a media release today (31 Oct 07), the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group asks whether gay, lesbian and bisexual staff at the Mersey Hospital will continue to have the equal workplace entitlements they enjoy under Tasmanian law if and when the hospital comes under federal control. I would speculate that the answer us " Yes", but I don't actually know the answer.

Spokesperson Rodney Croome said that Tasmanian public sector employees who are in same-sex relationships have equal superannuation and leave entitlements, but this is not the case for their Commonwealth counterparts because of the Howard Government's refusal to recognise same-sex couples. "Either the Mersey Hospital's gay, lesbian and bisexual staff will be disadvantaged by the transfer, or they will be treated as a special case, begging the question why shouldn't all Commonwealth employees have equal rights", Mr Croome said. "I have been contacted by gay employees at the Mersey who are worried about their entitlements as potential Commonwealth employees and who deserve clarity."

Concerns about the rights of Mersey employees in same-sex relationships comes in the wake of a deal guaranteeing equal staff entitlements if and when the Hospital is transfered from state to federal control. Mr Croome said that Minister for Heath and Ageing Tony Abbott's traditional opposition to the recognition of same-sex relationships is irrelevant to the Mersey Hospital. "This is a matter of practical, everyday, workplace entitlements and has no impact or bearing on the definition of marriage."

Canada's National Post (21 Oct 07) quotes the Revd Alan Perry, a priest at St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Montreal, and acknowledged expert in canon law, concerning recent decisions by Canadian dioceses in favour of blessing of same-sex civil marriages (yes, marriages, they are possible in Canada).

Mr Perry said those who think the Anglican Church will crack under the pressure of this divisive debate need to look at history. "I think this is just another episode in an ongoing debate that has been going on since the 16th century as to what kind of Church we really are--and that has erupted in all sorts of different ways."

He said one of the worst battles of the Church took place during the 19th century over the contentious issue of candles on the altar. "That was a real knock-down, dragged-out fight. People were taken to court and thrown in jail." Those opposed thought it was too Catholic. The dean of the Victoria cathedral was disposed and he formed his own Anglican church as a result. Eventually, though, the pro-candle side won.

"We can laugh about it now because it's a hundred years ago. We think it's an item that seems silly now. It also took us 76 years of debate to decide whether to allow marriage after divorce. A generation from now, the same-sex issue won't be important."

Quite so.

Much of superb value happened at this week's General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia. This is just one small part of it.

In March 2006, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Church of Australia asked one of its members, Dr. Muriel Porter, in consultation with the Primate, to prepare a report on the question of a "listening process" with gay Anglican clergy and laity in Australia. The report was to canvass matters such as previous "listening" attempts in Australian dioceses and information from Canon Philip Groves [Facilitator for the Listening Process in the Anglican Communion] on process models. This related to the Australian response to clause (c) of Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998, which committed the Church "to listen to the experience of homosexual persons".

The report provided to Standing Committee and to last week's General Synod meeting shows few of Australia‘s 23 dioceses had made "a concerted , diocese-wide attempt at 'listening' ". Others have undertaken other less wide ranging activities. "However, very few dioceses report that the experiences of gay people were actually able to be heard, either because the processes involved did not enable this kind of listening, or because gay people felt too vulnerable to speak."

A positive aspect of the report is that "In most dioceses, the listening initiative has been almost entirely the bishop's. It is good to report that most diocesan bishops take seriously the need to listen carefully to gay people in the Church at least, and in the case of Tasmania in particular, in the wider community as well. Most diocesans seem keen to offer sensitive pastoral care wherever possible, and encourage their clergy to do likewise."

After making some recommendations, the report concluded that "The gay people Dr Porter spoke to stressed that they would like the opportunity to offer the Church in this way their experiences of caring, monogamous, long lasting some sex relationships and of their good experiences as Church members, as well as accounts of their struggles with their sexual identity and their hurtful experiences in the Church."

All this led me to ask this question notice at the Synod:

Appendix A (iv) to the Standing Committee's report to this General Synod reports on a study into the implementation of the Listening Process in the Australian church

1. Other than by requesting this report and by providing for the synod session on the listening process to be conducted on Tuesday, what action has been, is being and will be taken by Standing Committee to implement whole heartedly the listening process in the Australian Church?

2. In particular, how has the Standing Committee acted in response to paragraph 9 of the report, which tells us that gay and lesbian people are seeking the opportunity to offer the church their experiences of caring, monogamous, long-lasting same-sex relationships and of their good experiences as church members?

The answer given by the Primate, the Most Revd Dr Phillip Aspinall was:

(1) The Standing Committee has not undertaken any further initiatives, but it should be noted that compiling the report and preparing the Synod session are significant initiatives.

(2) The audio presentation offers some experiences referred to in part 2 of the question.

In the evening, we heard a sound recording of four stories, read to us by volunteer actors, to protect the identities of the story tellers. Yes, the audio presentation was significant. I'll write more about that later. Barney Zwart of The Age picked up on my question and I find myself pictured in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald today and wondering whether that's a good thing.

On the brink of schism


Passionate: lay preacher Brian McKinlay says he confronts the reality everyday that he is part of "the problem" dividing the church. Photo: Andrew Sheargold

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Barney Zwartz
27 October 2007

BRIAN McKinlay's plea is simple but heartfelt. "I'd like people to appreciate how hard it is, almost every day of one's life, to have crisis and division in a church I love because of something that is an intimate part of the way God created me."

McKinlay, a Canberra public servant and lay preacher, is a passionate Christian who lives in a monogamous, faithful, committed same-sex relationship with another Christian. "Do you wake up every morning as a married person and think you are part of the problem dividing the church? I live with this nearly every day. There's a huge cost," he says.

"I'm nearly 60, I'm OK. What about the 22-year-old who has just discovered he's a poofter, but he loves Jesus. How will he cope with that? Some kill themselves."

McKinlay was one of 250 delegates at the Anglican synod in Canberra this week who sat in silence, lights dimmed, to hear the anonymous testimony of four gay and lesbian Anglicans.

Homosexuality has been a strong theme at the three-yearly synod, both as the issue that has driven the worldwide Anglican Church to the brink of schism in the past five years, and in discussions of whether anti-gay attitudes have hardened in the Australian church. A number of gay Anglicans were in no doubt about that, while Synod deputy chairman Justice Peter Young predicted the next big conflict in the Australian church would be between the hierarchy and gay and lesbian Christians.

"This is the issue of the day," says a senior Melbourne priest who is gay. "For the younger generation, 'don't ask, don't tell' isn't acceptable. For some people, honesty and integrity is much more important than discretion. We just want the sympathetic understanding that, as part of God's good creation, this is how it is."

The Anglican Church has always formally forbidden homosexual activity. Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen says the church standards are drawn straight from the Bible, they are perfectly clear, and are adhered to by all churches. "The stand of the worldwide church for 2000 years is that God approves sexual relations in marriage and disapproves of sexual relations, heterosexual or homosexual, outside marriage. This view is not against homosexuals but for marriage," Dr Jensen says.

The synod "listening process" on Tuesday night represented a significant step, according to leading laywoman Dr Muriel Porter, who organised the presentation. "It says a lot about the church that these people have to tell their stories anonymously -- that's the saddest thing," she says.

The room was still, and people filed out quietly and reflectively. Earlier attempts in a couple of Australian dioceses resulted in the listening process turning into a shouting process, which deterred other dioceses from even trying, according to Porter.

"I detect a willingness to listen now," she says, "but if anything attitudes are hardening in response to what is happening internationally."

Porter says there are fewer gay people in the church than 20 years ago, both clergy and in congregations. "The rules are getting tougher on who gets through. There wasn't as much 'putting a window into men's souls', to quote Elizabeth I, as now, and we lose some of the most promising people because they aren't willing to subject themselves to an inhuman level of scrutiny."

The four stories that were read to the synod reflected different experiences of homosexuality. One is a former priest who left the church because of its attitude to gays, another man stayed but is celibate because he believes that to be the biblical requirement, another is a woman who was a lesbian but through Christian experience has become heterosexual, and the fourth is a still-serving priest who keeps his homosexuality secret.

The former priest says he could not cope with celibacy, and not just because of sex. "I feared becoming a lonely single priest, emotionally empty, who could end up hitting the bottle." He fell in love with a man (they have been together 35 years) and knew they could not live together openly, nor was he prepared to pretend. He left the priesthood and, eight years later, the church. "I did not want to be part of an institution that would not accept me as a whole person. If I had followed the church's line and rejected this relationship and all it has given me, I would now effectively be dead."

The second story is that of a layman, 53, who accepted he had always been gay but believed it was against Scripture to have sex. As a young man, he sought counselling from a youth leader who asked him for sex. He refused. Later, as a highly respected youth leader himself, he invited a young Christian to sleep with him and was rebuffed. "I felt such a level of shame and disgust at how things had come full circle that even now, more than two decades later, the emotional memory is still painful." But his walk with Christ deepened, and he feels secure.

"I have sought to make my life's focus not my sexuality but rather God's grace in calling me to be one of his people … These things matter far more to me than issues to do with my sexual orientation and how I respond to them," he says.

The third testimony is from a woman, sexually abused as a child, who was so certain she was a lesbian that she took male hormones, grew a beard and had her breasts removed. Becoming suicidal, she called out to God that she could not live like this any more. "It was like a decade of psychotherapy in an hour. I understood who I was. I was not a man, just a very injured woman."

Now she is married, with three children. She says: "It is a lot easier to be heterosexual; who would ever choose to be homosexual? I know that God has never rejected me and accepts me as I am. The God I worship would never reject gay people; he is a God of healing and restoration."

The last testimony is a priest who lived almost 40 years in a monogamous relationship with another man, sometimes in the same house, sometimes not. This enriched his life and ministry enormously.

He says the climate in the church has become more fearful and mean-spirited, leading many gays to give up on it. "I do wish the church might let the question of homosexuality take the small place it needs in the tradition."

Melbourne priest Nigel Wright, who "came out" 15 years ago, thinks anti-gay attitudes in the church have hardened. "What I call the horizons of imagination have narrowed. Systems have been set up that bid us identify with those who are in, and therefore not with those who are outside. It's cruel as well as heretical."

Father Wright lives with his partner in a legal British civil partnership, and says he has not found any objection from church authorities. He's grateful for that, but he rejects the conservative line on homosexuality -- that the orientation itself is not a moral failure but sexual activity is.

"That silly thing about love the sinner, not the sin, and it's OK if you're not practising -- like I haven't been practising for years! I've been up to concert standard for a long time," he says. The senior Melbourne priest who did not want to be named feels the same way. "Never say it's not personal, because people are affected," he says.

Gays used to call themselves "friends of Dorothy", a reference to The Wizard of Oz, and at St Agnes, Glenhuntly, the congregation has celebrated St Dorothy's Day for years. Actually, there is a St Dorothy, who refused to get married and died a virgin martyr in the third century. Vicar David Still says the St Dorothy service gives the wider gay community a chance to experience faith together in a welcoming environment. "Half a dozen parishes at the Catholic end of Anglicanism are quite accommodating of gay people," he says. "We would have four or five openly gay, including couples, and the parish is extremely welcoming."

It was a warm welcome that led Brian McKinlay to reveal his homosexuality. At a Canberra synod a few years ago Bishop George Browning said he knew there were gay and lesbian members and he hoped they would feel welcome. "I stood up and said, if he had the courage to say that, the least I could do was have the courage to say thank you. They clapped and cheered, and that was entirely enough."

But he wants gay and heterosexual Christians to remember what Christian priorities are. "For me, the work of the church and the gospel of Christ is supremely more important than anything I might construe as my rights. The Great Commission (Jesus' instruction to make disciples) is best fulfilled if we open our doors to anybody and everybody. I pray that every person who comes seeking God will find a welcome. I don't want myself to be an obstacle to achieving that."

Barney Zwartz is religion editor

The Sydney Morning Herald ran the same story, with the headline A daily crisis of love and faith and this picture.



Earlier Zwart wrote this in The Age (24 Oct 07)

Australian Anglicans had become fearful and mean-spirited about homosexuals in the church, a gay priest told the church's national synod last night, while a top Anglican suggested homosexuality would be the next battleground.

Justice Peter Young, the synod's deputy chairman, told The Age that homosexuality would be the next problem for the Australian church now the debate over women bishops had been resolved. "We can see from England and New Zealand what the problems are. We can see that the next problem is between the (Anglican) hierarchy and gay and lesbian Christians," he said.

The gay priest, 60, who has lived almost 40 years in a monogamous relationship, was one of four homosexuals whose testimony was read by volunteers to preserve their anonymity in a special session of synod. The priest said there was a much more generous attitude to gays in the 1970s and '80s, and he knew many clergy living in faithful relationships. "In recent years the climate has changed. It is fearful and very often mean-spirited," he said.

"Today there are few priests living in a same-sex relationship. My suspicion is that there are many fewer gay people in the church--they seem to have given up on institutional religion and certainly the Christian church."

Dr Muriel Porter, who acquired the four accounts, said attitudes had hardened in response to international Anglican turmoil over sexuality. Dr Porter said there were fewer gay people in the church than 20 years ago, and it would be rare to find openly gay people, but if all gay clergy left they would leave a huge gap. "We lose some of the most promising people because they simply aren't prepared to subject themselves to an inhuman level of scrutiny."

The four stories told of different experiences. One was of a priest who left the church because of its attitude to gays, another man stayed but was celibate, another was a woman who had been a lesbian but through Christian experience became heterosexual, and the fourth was the priest who kept his homosexuality semi-secret for decades.
Australia's Anglican leader, Brisbane Archbishop Philip Aspinall, said it was hard to get cool, rational debate on homosexuality.

The church needed space so people could engage with confronting ideas in a non-threatening way, he said. "We should listen compassionately, whether we agree with them (gays) or not."

I'm not usually a busy political actvist -- I simply don't have the time and strength. In the ACT, federal election results are usually a foregone conclusion in any case. However, this time, there's a good reason to put in a bit of effort.

Preferences may give Greens the rails run

Patricia Karvelas, The Australian (26 Oct 07)

A new Morgan poll reveals the Liberal Party is well short of a quota to win a Senate spot in the ACT, which could deliver Gary Humphries's seat to Greens candidate Kerrie Tucker.

According to the latest Morgan Poll, the Coalition is polling at 24.35 per cent in the ACT--well short of the quota of 33 per cent it needs to win the seat. The Greens are getting their strongest poll results in the country in the ACT, with 17.09 per cent of people saying they would like to vote for them. With ALP preferences, the Greens would easily win the seat. This would mean Ms Tucker would take office straight after the election, robbing the Coalition of its Senate majority. It would also mean the Liberal Party had no federal politicians in the ACT.

In a half Senate election, each state elects six senators (who take office for six years from July 1, 2008) while the territories elect two senators at each election, but the term of the territory senators is the same as a member of the House of Representatives. That means that if Senator Humphries loses his seat, the Coalition will immediately lose their absolute majority in the Senate. The Coalition holds 39 of the 76 Senate seats.

Several national organisations have targeted their campaigning on the ACT, with the Senate seat in mind, including internet-based activist organisation GetUp.

The poll also reveals that the Greens are polling well in Tasmania, on 15.33 per cent, and 11.49per cent in Victoria, where they also hope to win a seat. The poll shows the ALP is still not seen as having strong global warming and climate change credentials, despite its focus on these issues. Only 24.8per cent of those surveyed considered Labor best on the issue. The Coalition did worse with only 16.8 per cent rating them as best. The Greens polled at 41.6 per cent.

Ms Tucker, who spent nine years in the ACT Legislative Assembly, said: "While recognising the challenge, I believe I can win one of the two ACT Senate seats."

Apparently Kevin Rudd's campaign plan was derailed when he was asked on commercial radio in Sydney about his beliefs on gay marriage, according to the ABC.

A radio shock jock interfered with Kevin Rudd's carefully manicured campaign yesterday by asking the Opposition Leader to lay out his views on gay marriage. . . . Mr Rudd's plan to spend the day talking about childcare policies was derailed by his appearance on FM radio host Kyle Sandilands' show. "On the institution of marriage itself, our view is that it's between a man and a woman and that's just been our traditional continuing view," Mr Rudd told Sandilands and his listeners.

"But ages ago, if you were black, you weren't allowed to travel on the same bus as a white person. And then we all realised, oh, actually that's wrong of us to think that because that was stupid. And that was wrong," Mr Sandilands said. "Do you think in the future sometimes we will look back and think we were wrong in what we believed. Like we can't really put our own beliefs on everyone, can we?"

Mr Rudd replied: "No. I accept that. But at the same time, you asked me a direct question, 'What do I believe in? What do I stand for? What is my party's policy?' I have just got to be up front with you and say that's it.

Gay and lesbian groupsare reported as greeting the Opposition Leader's views with shock and surprise. There's no reason to be surprised by Rudd's comments, he is merely stating the Labor Party's offical position, as reinfirced at its most recent National Cobference and enshrined in its platform.

Greens leader Bob Brown is quotedaccusing Mr Rudd of "sustaining discrimination" by not support gay marriage.

"Kevin, you're wrong," Senator Brown said. "Gay and lesbian people should be treated the same as heterosexual people under the law. When people form a relationship, they love each other, they get together, they share their lives, then the law should not be an impediment and they shouldn't discriminate. That means removing the discrimination that Labor and the Coalition have on marriage laws against this section of the community who happen to have same-sex relationships."

All in all, I don't care one way or the other about 'gay marriage'. But I do want the political parties to act Quickly to remove discrimination against gay and lesbian couple that exists because they are not 'married'.

Bishop George Browning of Canberra and Goulburn is convenor of the worldwide Anglican Communion Environment Network. Yesterday he told us in the General Synod that the theological response to global warming is settled. "It has been since the Bible was written." "It is wrong for the Christian community to see our faith as just being about human beings, because the sinfulness of humanity affects the whole created order."

Bishop Browning also insisted that the science on climate change was settled, with no serious science doubting the reality of global warming and the human contribution to it.

The morality was also settled, he said. Christians needed to ensure that those who were most vulnerable to the effects of global warming were protected, whether they be farmers in the Riverina or people in Ethiopia or the Pacific Islands. Climate change impacted more on the poor than on the prosperous who had more choices, he said.

"But it is not inevitable that we will face an apocalyptic world", he said. "We can do something about it, but we do not have much time.

"This is our core business; it is not just for ‘greenie’ Christians, but is the business of all the disciples of Jesus."

A member of the Australian Anglican Environment Network, Mrs Rosie Catt of Grafton, told Synod it was not all "doom and gloom". Something could be done about it, and now most synods and dioceses were taking the issue seriously. She presented impressive and encouraging examples of climate and environmental action in a number of dioceses.

Work is also done by the Environment Working Group of the General Synod.

Among the related motions passed was one calling on the Federal Government to receive climate change refugees from the Pacific Islands, and others calling for theological and liturgical resources from the Doctrine and Liturgy Commissions. Amid all this, the press largely picked up on a sideshow to the main issue, but at least it did get noticed that the church is responding to climate change imperatives.

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Anglican leader and Pell in bitter row over climate, by Barney Zwart, The Age (25 Oct 07)

A bitter rift over climate change has developed between a senior member of the Anglican Church and Sydney Catholic Archbishop George Pell.

Canberra Bishop George Browning, the Anglican Church's global environmental chief said Cardinal Pell was out of step with his own church and made no sense on global warming. Bishop Browning also criticised the Federal Government for its "utter obsession" with growth and warned that climate change refugees would be a bigger problem than terrorists in a century of desperate struggle.

At the national Anglican synod in Canberra yesterday, Bishop Browning attacked the cardinal for saying Jesus said nothing about climate change. "It's almost unbelievable," said Bishop Browning, who is the chairman of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network. "I wrote him a letter saying Jesus had an awful lot to say about the rich taking what belonged to the poor and about the heritage of the children, and as he spoke about both of these things he spoke about climate change."

Later, he told The Age that Cardinal Pell was an exception even in his own church. "I frankly don't know where he's coming from or why he says what he does. It doesn't make any sense to me. The contribution he should make as leader of the Catholic Church is muted because of his stance." Cardinal Pell replied scathingly that church leaders should be allergic to nonsense. "My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes," he said. "Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness," he said. Cardinal Pell said he was sceptical of extravagant claims of impending man-made catastrophes. However, the Vatican accepts that climate change is a serious threat to the world.

Bishop Browning said Australian politicians "were driven by their obsession with growth. The future is about sustainability, not prosperity on its own. Prosperity without sustainability is economic death." On climate refugees, Bishop Browning said that over millenniums people moved when their environment changed. "The 21st century will be a desperate struggle, especially for water," he said. He said the science of global warming was settled and accepted even by US President George Bush.

"It is also settled morally. Jesus made it absolutely clear that the poor are not here to pay the bills of the rich, but that's exactly what's happening."

He told the synod: "It's not inevitable that humanity will face an apocalyptic world. To do something about it will cost us, but we will still have three meals a day and live in a comfortable house. We need to do it today. I want all of you to leave the synod today believing this is our core business, it's not (just) something greenie Christians do."

Meanwhile, Rosie Catt, of the Australian Anglican Environmental Network, said inaction on climate change amounted to genocide according to the United Nations definition. "If we know climate change is having that effect on the most vulnerable people and we can do something about it, are we not guilty of the destruction of a way of life, in whole or part?" she said.

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Pell out of touch on climate--bishop,
Linda Morris, SMH 25 Oct 07

Australia's most prominent religious sceptic of climate change, the Catholic Archbishop George Pell, was out of step within his church and the global Christian community on global warming, a leading Anglican environmentalist says.

The head of the Anglican Church's international body on the environment, George Browning, said Dr Pell's position on global warming defied scientific consensus and theological imperatives to protect the Earth and its future generations. It also made no sense and would be proven a mistake. Bishop Browning's stance came as the Australian Anglican church prepared to adopt its strongest position yet on climate change, committing 23 dioceses to initiatives reducing their carbon footprint.

But Dr Pell said last night he had every right to be sceptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. "There are many measures which are good for the environment, which we should pursue," he said. "We need to be able talk freely about this and about the uncertainties around climate change. Invoking the authority of some scientific experts to shut down debate is not good for science, the environment, for people here and in the developing world or for the people of tomorrow. My task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or no clothes. Radical environmentalists are more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness. Church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense."

Bishop Browning supported warnings that climate change refugees would, in the future, pose a bigger threat to world security than terrorism by triggering massive population shifts. He also warned Australia had to dump the "language of drought" because it offered false hope to farmers by implying that after drought would come flood and a return to normal farming life. The warming of the planet had triggered irreversible climate changes that warranted fundamental changes in farming and investment practices.

Bishop Browning took issue with Dr Pell's Easter message this year at which the cardinal said Jesus had nothing to say on global warming. He told the Anglican synod meeting in Canberra yesterday he had written to Dr Pell after the Easter message because he found his statement "almost unbelievable".

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Heat on Pell for cool air on climate change by Jill Rowbotham, The Australian, (25 Oct 07)

Cardinal George Pell yesterday came under fire for his sceptical view of climate change and for being out of touch with his community. Responding to the criticism from Anglican Bishop George Browning, Cardinal Pell said that church leaders "should be allergic to nonsense" and that his role was to "engage with reality".

Bishop Browning told the Australian Anglican Church's general synod in Canberra yesterday that the cardinal was out of touch with the Catholic Church as well as with the general community. "He is an exception even within his own church," Bishop Browning said. "I frankly do not understand where he is coming from. The contribution he should make as leader of the Catholic Church in Australia is muted by these statements."

Cardinal Pell replied that "radical environmentalists" were "more than up to the task of moralising their own agenda and imposing it on people through fear. They don't need church leaders to help them with this, although it is a very effective way of further muting Christian witness," he said.

He added that "church leaders in particular should be allergic to nonsense. I am certainly sceptical about extravagant claims of impending man-made climatic catastrophes. Uncertainties on climate change abound . . . my task as a Christian leader is to engage with reality, to contribute to debate on important issues, to open people's minds, and to point out when the emperor is wearing few or noclothes."

Bishop Browning, the chair of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, said he had written to the cardinal after his remark at Easter that "neither did Jesus say anything about global warming". "I told him: 'I can't believe you said that,"' Bishop Browning said. He said he had received a "gracious" reply from the cardinal, "but he did not say he had made a mistake".

Bishop Browning, whose Canberra-Goulburn diocese stretches from Batemans Bay on the NSW coast as far as Wagga Wagga and Young in the drought-declared inland and includes many areas where people are under financial stress, argued that there was an inextricable link between climate change and human activities. He said the church should be leading efforts to ameliorate the consequences.

"Jesus had an awful lot to say about the rich taking what belonged to the poor and the heritage of children, and as he spoke about both these things, he spoke about climate change," the bishop said. "People of belief should be in the vanguard of this movement."

Bishop Browning made his remarks after introducing legislation that commits the church to reducing its carbon footprint.

Peace initiatives and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula will be the subject of a worldwide Anglican peace conference 14-20 November when more than 150 Anglican leaders, ecumenical guests and other participants will meet in Korea for TOPIK (Towards Peace in Korea).

The conference will begin with a three-day peace trip to Geumgangsan in North Korea, where delegates will meet employees of the Hyundai Asan Company and hear about its programs of development and economic support for projects in North Korea, including flood-relief aid. The visit to North Korea will be followed by a four-day forum in Paju, near Seoul, South Korea. The forum will introduce and summarize Korean experiences of war and forgiveness, conflict and reconciliation, and explore ways to contribute to establishing a permanent peace in Northeast Asia.

Yesterday, 23 October 2007, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, meeting in Canberra, passed the following resolution sending greetings to the Conference

Whereas -- on the initiative of the Anglican Consultative Council, and with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury -- the Anglican Church of Korea will host a world-wide Anglican Peace Conference in Seoul in November 2007 concerning peace initiatives and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula,

this General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia:

(a) sends greetings of peace in Christ to the Anglican Church of Korea and the Towards Peace in Korea Conference;

(b) supports the creation of a worldwide Anglican network for peace in North East Asia;

(c) invites all Christians to pray for the peace of the Korean peninsula and the freedom to worship of its people; and

(d) requests the Archbishop of Perth, the Most Reverend Roger Herft, who is attending the conference, to transmit this message of goodwill to the Primate Bishop of the Anglican Church of Korea.

Before traveling to Goulburn for worship in the Cathedral on Sunday, Australia's General Synod joined in the 21 October National Day of Prayer for Burma. The General Synod resolved to urge the government of Australia to continue to express its concern for the peace and security of the Burmese people to the military leadership of that nation.

This Synod,
mindful of the recent unrest in the nation of Myanmar (Burma), and the continuing oppression and difficulties faced by Burmese Christians, and noting lack of basic freedoms, including the right to protest peacefully, and the many injustices suffered by the people of this nation,

1. calls on the members of the Anglican Church of Australia to pray consistently for the peace and security of the people of Burma,
2. for Burmese Christians and especially the members of the Anglican Church under the leadership of Archbishop Samuel San Si Htay; and
3. calls on the political leadership of this nation to continue to express Australia’s concern for the peace and security of the Burmese people to the military leadership of that nation, and to engage through the international community in efforts to progress principles of freedom and democracy for the Burmese people.

Proposer of the motion, Deaconess Margaret Rodgers of Sydney writes

Burma's invisble victims

Ever since I was a member of the General Committee of the Christian Conference of Asia, and then one of the presidents of that regional ecumenical organisation, I have had a profound interest in the nation of Burma, its people, and especially Burmese Christians.

I recall being deeply moved one morning when we were meeting in Osaka, Japan. I breakfasted with the representative from Burma in a busy local café. We appeared to be the only non-Japanese in the place and the only English speakers. With my normal Aussie blunt talking, and in my ignorance, I asked, "Why don’t you share with us more openly about the situation for your people and the Christians in your nation?". The quiet reply was, "Because if I did, when I go home, I might disappear".

Burma is a nation in South-East Asia with a population of about 50 million. Since 1962 it has been under military rule, following the coup staged by General Ne Win, when the civilian government was toppled. In 1988 the current junta was formed, and in 1990, the junta suspended the results of a democratic parliamentary election, and the successful leader in that election, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house arrest ever since.

There are nearly four million Christians in Burma, and they are regarded as part of the worldwide persecuted church. Minority ethnic groups in Burma, including the Karen, the Karenni, Chin and Kachin, all include quite large Christian populations. Christianity Today reports that the US State Department ranks Burma as one of the six worst violators of religious freedom. Informed observers now believe that the military junta plans to eradicate Christians from Burma so that it will become a wholly Buddhist nation.

Stories from Christian pastors and refugees in the camps on the Thai/Burmese border, where they have been ministered to by many Christian missionaries and church representatives, and NGOs, give a clear picture of what is happening to the oppressed people. They report that Christian churches, villages and homes are destroyed and burnt to the ground. The majority of Burma’s Christian population are Baptists, but there are other Christian groupings, including the Anglican Church.

The Anglican Primate is Archbishop Samuel San Si Htay. He is an inspiring man, slim and wiry like the majority of his people, and full of Christian courage in his witness and leadership. Like most Burmese he has to be careful about his comments on the situation in his country while outside Burma.

There are many human rights abuses. People are compelled to become human minesweepers, men are taken from their homes to be forced labourers, children are seized and turned into soldiers, and the use of rape as a weapon of war and control of the people is well documented. In August this year, the regime dramatically increased the cost of petrol. As a result, there were uprisings which grew into the marches that we saw reported in our media, with many Buddhist monks joining in the protests. There was an immediate crackdown from the military forces, many people were seized and taken away, beaten and tortured. One Japanese journalist died while filming events. He was not holding a weapon and he was shot in the back.

A Bangkok Post journalist wrote that Rudyard Kipling described Burma as a land full of "sunshine, palm trees and tinkly temple bells", but now he said, "its people are at risk of being felled like trees in a far-off forest, invisible and all but unheard". But hear the words of a pastor to a Christianity Today journalist who had found his way into remote parts of Burma. "We have to leave village after village, house after house. But it increases our faith. We are Christians; we know that God will help us. But please remember us in your prayers. Please do not forget."

Bishop Roger Herft who seconded the motion was brought up in the Church of Ceylon in the Province of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. "The people of Burma continue to live a costly act of discipleship," he said.

"I’ve been to many third world and developing countries amongst the Christian community," Bishop Browning of Canberra and Goulburn said, "but never have I been to a community like the Karen, the Christians of Burma. They suffer so terribly, and are in danger of their lives every day. Yet they are so generous, faithful and committed. We must not forget them, and need to be in prayer with them."

Hidden away in this piece by Jill Rowbotham in The Australian 19 Oct 07 is the statement that one of the tasks of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, meeting tomorrow, "is to work out a collective response to the Episcopalians' latest undertaking" -- their Bishops' answer to the Dar es Salaam demands.

Sarah Macneil could be Australia's first female bishop as the next vacancy is looming in her home diocese of Canberra-Goulburn where Bishop George Browning is planning to retire early next year.

Certainly the Canberra-based archdeacon is among the experienced, senior women who are eligible now that the Anglican Church has ruled there is no barrier on the grounds of sex. With the ink barely dry on the judgment that announced the long-fought and historic shift to female bishops, Macneil, 52, has not had time to stop and consider the personal implications. "Looking at bishop is a whole different kind of dynamic," she says.

Her days are already full and satisfying. In addition to her administrative role, Macneil is the priest for the parish of All Saints in Ainslie, she's married to another priest, Ian Chaplin, and she has a teenage son.

"There was no point in considering something that was not possible," Macneil says. "Since it has become a possibility, one of the responses that unfolded for me was a wonderful sense of joy and completion for the church that women can now be considered.

"Might God actually be calling me to have my name considered in this kind of situation? That's the kind of question you need to spend a lot of time and thought and prayer on over days. I have not had time to do it and, if I had, the thinking and praying would have been affected by the emotional response to the decision. I imagine lots of other women are in the same position that I am."

If Macneil were to replace Browning, Sydney's Archbishop Peter Jensen, as the head of the metropolitan diocese in the region, should preside over the historic consecration. But it's not that simple. Australia's 23 dioceses have a large degree of autonomy and it is up to each to choose whether to implement the ruling on female bishops. Jensen's conservative diocese will not, just as it does not ordain female priests. So no one seriously expects Jensen to preside over the consecration of a female bishop.

Macneil has no comment on this scenario. But Anglican insiders are well aware it is one of the difficulties arising from a decision about one-third of the church does not support. The delicate management of this issue is the job of the leader of Australia's 3.7million Anglicans, Brisbane's Archbishop Phillip Aspinall. It is also part of the load the primate carries into the church's three-yearly parliament, or synod, which starts tomorrow.

An acknowledged supporter of women in leadership, Aspinall was also a member of the church's high court, the Appellate Tribunal, which ruled 4:3 that there was no constitutional impediment to change. It took more than two years for the tribunal to deliver a legal resolution to a theological problem. The first step forward, ordaining women as deacons, the first level of ministry, came in the mid-1980s. "In the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the theological grounds were thoroughly rehearsed internationally as well as in Australia, and by the time we got to 'deaconing' women in 1985 in Australia the feeling was the theological arguments against ordaining women as deacons and priests were not sufficient," Aspinall says.

Opposition to female priests and bishops rests on several grounds. One is the concept that seems quaint to the secular mind--headship--which belongs to men. Exponents claim the biblical authority, for example, of St Paul for the idea that women do not have any authority over men. Other arguments include not wanting to depart from 2000 years of Christian tradition of male leadership and that Jesus did not have female apostles.

Aspinall says New Testament documents show Jesus regarded women as key to his mission. "It was to women he first appeared following the resurrection and sent them to convey the news to the male apostles. So they can be seen as the first apostles, as it were." He points out God is neither male nor female and Jesus is a representative of all people, not just men.

Those who agree with Aspinall have won this round, but he is concerned to ensure those who disagree do not end up feeling spiritually disenfranchised. For him it is a matter of urgency and it will be discussed at the synod in Canberra. And although the bishops agreed when they met earlier this year that there should be no consecration of women until after they next meet in April, Aspinall points out this is not binding and not all bishops were present when it was made.

This has been a big deal in Australia, but it pales in comparison to the gigantic stoush in the 76 million-strong worldwide church over the status of people in same-sex relationships and whether they can become priests and bishops. Aspinall is immersed in this debate too, courtesy of his election in February to the primates' standing committee. It works closely with the church's advisory body, the Anglican Consultative Council, and it also advises the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, who has to navigate the church through these troubled waters.

But if Aspinall is an unequivocal supporter of women in the church, he is emphatically silent on the same-sex issues, so as not to further inflame debate. "For the time being, at least, my agenda is to contribute what I can to create an environment in which, in a careful and balanced way, the issues can be addressed," he says.

It was made harder in 2003 when part of the church's American arm, the Episcopalians, consecrated a gay bishop from New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, who was in a same-sex relationship. Undertakings have since been sought by the rest of the church that the Episcopalians not do it again or bless any same-sex unions, as they had done at about the same time. Homosexuality was only one of the relevant issues. The other was authority: the rest of the church was angered and saddened (depending on the faction) by the Episcopalians flouting its wish that the issue be given more thought and discussion before anyone took action.

Aspinall was among those who addressed last month's meeting of the Episcopalians on the subject in New Orleans in the US. He is positive about the outcome: to hold off on consecrating any more people "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on the communion", including "non-celibate gay and lesbian persons". They also pledged no bishops would authorise public rites of blessing for same-sexcouples. "In my view they put the brakes on pretty hard in order to create space for discussion in the wider community," Aspinall says.

The fate of the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference held by the Archbishop of Canterbury is up in the air while the world's primates try to work out if the Episcopalians have been sufficiently contrite. All bishops are invited, including Robinson. Sydney's bishops wrote to Williams saying they wouldn't accept until the lie of the land became clearer. Jensen has claimed he will not attend if Robinson does. Aspinall says the church needs to stick together to sort out its problems and it can't do that if members boycott important meetings such as Lambeth.

One of the tasks of this general synod is to work out a collective response to the Episcopalians' latest undertaking, which Aspinall will pass on to Williams. Aspinall also has a challenge of his own for the communion. "For the (past) four or five years discussion has been about process, about how we live together despite our differences," he says. "I think the time is coming when we have got to have a significant international analysis of the substance of the issues. We have not had, to my knowledge, an international Anglican theological commission to look at the theological issues involved.

"I believe the Anglican communion as a whole has to work on these issues with a commission that represents the different views within the communion. Because the temperature rises when these issues are raised, it will be hard."

Intractable arguments arise over the place of women and attitudes to homosexuality "because of deep-seated differences in approaches to scripture"," Aspinall says. The group would need to "look at how Bible use in the life of the Anglican communion might allow some more rational understandings to develop (that) could provide a context in which same-sex issues could be considered".

"How can we agree on what principles of interpretation can be applied?" he says. "The only way to deal with this stuff is to sit down with the scholars and try to hammer our way through it. But if we are coming to the text with different assumptions and rules, we are bound to get different answers." Then the challenge would be to educate the rest of the church.

"We are not talking about a quick fix," Aspinall says. "What's at stake in the final analysis is the degree to which the church can live out in its own life the unity (that) it says God intends for the world." He is unperturbed by criticism, most recently from bishop and scholar Tom Frame, who argues in his new book Anglicans in Australia that the church's disunity is at dangerous levels. "It is fragmented and factionalised," Aspinall confirms. Structurally those things are built in. It took us 40 years to put in place the 1962 constitution. That's because of the history: as colonies were established and dioceses were established from England, they developed their own life and character, and none of the dioceses want to relinquish their power."

While he thinks the Australian church should pull together more, he notes with satisfaction that its struggles could help show the world church how to resist yielding to bitter division.

But is the Australian church successful? Yes and no, he says. "We are still in one church. It has not split. Relationships are changing, though, and the advent of women bishops will change them further."

If that day comes for Macneil, she will bring to the role of bishop not only pastoral experience and leadership but vital expertise: her doctoral thesis was on Anglican identity and governance.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has said that "due process was followed" by the diocese of Ottawa when a majority of its synod members approved on 13 Oct. a motion asking its bishop to allow blessing of civil marriages between same-sex couples. "I believe due process was followed with respect to the handling of this resolution. The outcome of the resolution is a reflection of the mind of the church local in this matter," he said. The Archbishop also described diocesan bishop John Chapman's intention to conduct wide-ranging consultations before arriving at a decision as "entirely appropriate."

The synod of the diocese of Ottawa, by 177 to 97, has approved a motion requesting its bishop to allow clergy "whose conscience permits, to bless duly solemnized and registered civil marriages between same-sex couples, where at least one party is baptized" and to authorize rites for such blessings. However, Bishop Chapman said that despite a "strong majority" and "a clear directive," the approved motion was but "a recommendation and is not binding on the diocese or the bishop." The resolution does not mean that clergy may now bless same-sex couples. "I would expect the clergy to honour the decision-making processes in the diocese and that continues until a decision is made," he said. "I expect them to toe the line." Nonetheless, he said, it gave him an indication of the feeling of the diocese on the issue. Bishop Chapman said that while there was a sense that "it's not helpful for us to walk alone," the vote also indicated that, "we're not afraid to walk alone."

Such a question could not arise in Australia, as it has no "duly solemnized and registered civil marriages" between same-sex couples.

Bishop Chapman could not say when he would announce his decision on the motion, adding that he would take the matter to the House of Bishops. He added that there would be more consultations with the diocese, and other Anglicans both at the national and international level. "I really don't know when I'll make a decision. I just want to see the ground settle," he said, adding that his immediate concern was "for those who voted in opposition to the motion; I want to make sure that they're okay." The motion does not set a deadline for his decision. "It could be one day to 10 years," he said.

With its vote, Ottawa became the first Canadian diocese to consider the matter since the triennial meeting in June of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, which agreed that same-sex blessings are "not in conflict" with core church doctrine, but declined by a slim margin to "affirm" the authority of dioceses to offer them. The diocese of Montreal is scheduled to vote on a similarly-worded motion at its synod 19-20 October. The issue is also likely to be revisited by the diocese of Niagara, which in 2004 voted to allow same-sex blessings; Bishop Ralph Spence, who was the diocesan bishop then, had withheld his consent until General Synod. The diocese of New Westminster, which allowed blessings since 2002, had, in response to a house of bishops agreement in 2005, limited the number of churches that may offer them pending a decision by General Synod in June. Diocesan bishop Michael Ingham is holding consultations about the next steps for New Westminster.

The House of Bishops, which meets 25-30 October, is expected to discuss not just the implications of the Ottawa vote (and, if it similarly passes, the Montreal vote) but also conflicting interpretations of the ramifications of General Synod's decision around same-sex blessings. Some bishops have stated that Gneral Synod decision bars dioceses from going forward on the matter. Others consider that ther remains nothing to prevent a diocese from acting on the matter now that General Synod has said that the blessing of same-sex unions are "not in conflict" with core church doctrine.

Robin MacKay, chancellor of the diocese of Ottawa, said the motion approved by diocesan synod was legal. He said that although General Synod did not approve the motion affirming the authority of dioceses to offer same-sex blessings, "it doesn't affirm the opposite." The motion, he added, "doesn't deny the jurisdiction of bishops to (allow) same-sex blessings; it's just that General Synod failed to act in that area."

Other than the fast waning Democrats, the Australian Greens are the only party in play that has a decent policy on gay and lesbian people.

Thus, Harley Dennett reports in Sydney Star Observer, Issue 889, 18 Oct 07:

The Greens launched the re-election campaign of NSW senator Kerry Nettle on Friday, pledging to use its numbers to push for a referendum on a Bill of Rights. The party also promised to use a balance of power leverage to double the budget of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to $30 million.

"We need a Bill of Rights to ensure no longer will future prime ministers be able to cut down basic rights," Greens leader Bob Brown said. With both major parties indicating a referendum in the next term, Brown wanted a Bill of Rights included and welcomed further socially progressive moves from the Government.

But Prime Minister John Howard has ruled out a last-minute announcement on same-sex discrimination or de facto recognition. "Well that is wrong, I’m not about to introduce any legislation on that," Howard said last Friday. "Does the Government endorse all the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission on this? No it doesn’t."

At a Greens forum last week Nettle said the party was committed to full de facto and marriage equality for all people regardless of sexuality or gender as well as federal anti-discrimination protections and parenting rights. Those policies --and the offer to support any federal civil union legislation--were given "full ticks" by Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby spokesman Ghassan Kassisieh. "What the Greens could do is negotiate on key points. Really, we just need to know that law reform for us is a top priority for them as well. And our issues would be put on their leverage agenda," Kassisieh said.

The forum also introduced local Greens candidates Susan Jarnason in Wentworth, Jenny Leong in Sydney and Saeed Khan in Grayndler, as well as openly gay Ray Goodlass in Riverina.

"The old parties joining to ban gay marriage exemplified attacks against minorities," Leong said. "We want to get rid of the Howard Government and send a message to a future Rudd government that you can't talk about equality with conditions or compromise."

---

Greens policy : sexuality and gender identity
Principles
The Australian Greens believe that:

1. freedom of sexuality and gender identity are fundamental human rights.
2. acceptance and celebration of diversity are essential for genuine social justice and equality.
3. people have the right to assume their self-identified sex.
4. discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity is a significant cause of psychological distress, mental illness and suicide.
5. the health needs of all Australians should be provided for without discrimination and with respect and equity.

Goals
The Australian Greens want:

6. legal and social environments free from harassment, abuse, vilification, stigmatisation, discrimination, disadvantage or exploitation on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.
7. the legalisation of marriage between two consenting adults regardless of sexuality or gender identity.
8. de facto relationships to have equal status in law and government policy regardless of sexuality and gender identity.
9. access, regardless of sexuality and gender identity, to adoption, fostering, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation procedures.
10. the education system to provide age-appropriate information about the diversity of sexuality.
11. access to the full range of medical and health services required by people with needs related to their sexuality and gender identity.

Measures
The Australian Greens will:

12. legislate to remove discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Intersex (LGBTI) people in federal legislation.
13. require governments and their agencies to consult with LGBTI communities and representative groups on the development of policies and programs that affect LGBTI people.
14. initiate national anti-discrimination public education campaigns.
15. legislate to allow marriage regardless of sexuality or gender identity.
16. introduce legislation to ensure fair and equal treatment under Commonwealth law of all relationships regardless of sexuality and gender identity.
17. support nationally consistent age of consent laws.
18. remove convictions for consensual homosexual acts from legal records.
19. end the inappropriate application of offensive behaviour, indecent behaviour, 'promotion' and incitement laws to non-heterosexual acts.
20. fund services to support and protect LGBTI youth, in particular suicide prevention, peer support, coming out, counselling, and housing services and programs.
21. establish intersex as a gender recognised by the legal system.
22. support the provision of accurate information, counselling and referral for individuals with, and parents and carers of, infants with intersex conditions.
23. support gender assignment for people born with an intersex condition being made only when they are able to express personal sexual identity.
24. support the granting of political asylum on humanitarian grounds to people persecuted in their own countries on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity.

The recent acknowledgment of Grace Abrams and Fiona Power as Australia's first legally recognised same-sex married couple highlights the untenable position of both the Coalition and the ALP on same sex marriage. Grace Abrams married her female partner using her male birth certificate. She later underwent surgery to change sex. She was then subsequently denied a passport as a female. That decision was overturned by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. She can now have her new gender recorded on her passport as well as continuing to have her marriage legally recognised.

Governments continue to use the institution of marriage as a means of reserving and creating entitlements and as an instrument of social engineering. They vary benefits based on marriage status and pry into our sex lives for taxation reasons.

It seems to me that this debate has little or nothing to do with social engineering, family values or any such thing. It’s simply about money.

Marriage is not sacred unless deliberately made so by the couple concerned as part of their own spiritual or religious commitment. My relationship to James has a sacredness, but we're not allowed to marry, or even to register our relationship.

The Government and the Labor party are loathe to open up the very considerable financial benefits of marriage to couples who can't make babies. (Never mind that some opposite-sex couples are too old to do this.) It's as crude as that. And they are trying hard to ignore the illogicalities and injustices that their position entails.

My church home group has agreed that we each share a piece of music that "has touched us in our soul." For soul music, I nominate Richard Strauss's songs for soprano and orchestra -- almost all of them. I've chosen Morgen! (Op. 27, no. 4) and Befriet (Op. 39 no. 4).

Morgen!is a setting of a poem by Strauss's contemporary John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), a Scots-born German poet, and is one of a set of four songs composed in 1894 as a wedding for Strauss's wife.

Ravishing is a word that I can use for Strauss's vocal music. Soul food indeed.

There are many recordings. I think the best is that made in 1990 by Gundula Janowitz with Richard Stamp and the Academy of London (Virgin Classics).



There are many translations of the text. I prefer the one by Arlette de Grouchy, used in Janowitz recording

Morgen!

Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen,
und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde,
wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen,
immitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde…

Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen,
werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen.
Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen,
und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen.

-- John Henry Mackay

Tomorrow again will shine the sun And on my sunlit path of earth Unite us again, as it has done, And give our bliss another birth. The spacious beach under wave-blue skies We’ll reach by descending soft and slow, And mutely gaze in each other’s eyes, As over us rapture’s great hush will flow. -- tr. Hubert Kennedy	And tomorrow the sun will shine again, and on the path I will take, it will unite us again, we happy ones, upon this sun-breathing earth . . . And to the shore, the wide shore with blue waves, we will descend quietly and slowly; we will look mutely into each other's eyes and the silence of happiness will settle upon us. -- tr. Emily Ezust
And tomorrow the sun will shine again and on the path we walk in our happiness it will again unite us in the midst of this sun breathing earth . . . And to the wide shore with its blue waves we shall again descend, slow and still, mutely we shall look into each other's eyes and the silence of happiness will again sink upon us . . . -- tr. S.S. Prawer	And tomorrow the sun will shine again, and on the path that I shall tread it will again unite us in our happiness in the midst of this sun breathing earth. And to the shore, broad and blue with waves, we shall climb down, softly, slowly. Silently we shall gaze into each other's eyes, and upon us will fall the wordless silence of happiness. -- tr. Arlette de Grouchy

Browsing around I came across this piece by John Elder in The Age of 27 Mar 05, about a Good Friday service at City Life Church in Wantirna South in Melbourne. Under its former names, Waverley Christian Fellowship and Waverley Mission, it was my home church for 21 years before I came to Canberra in 1986. It's changed, of course.

When I joined in the 1960s, there were only about 50-60 people, led by Revd Richard Holland. When I lefr in 1986, there were 600-700 members of all ages, including many university students whom I helped pastor.

A young crowd sings their praise of God at the City Life church in Wantirna South. There is no sedating hum of an organ as the congregation files in, no candle flames or sad-eyed statues to reflect upon. Instead, a wooden cross has been draped with a white cloth and set on stage amid the musical instruments--abandoned for the moment--while hard-driving mood music plays in the background, one of those mindlessly pleasant tunes with widdly guitars and synthesisers, as found in skiing documentaries and cinema advertising.

Everything is pleasant and upbeat at City Life church in Wantirna South. There's a buzz. When Senior Pastor Mark Conner takes to the stage to welcome the 2500 people--in the main hall, the balcony and in the overflow rooms--he uses words like "tremendous" and "excellent" when the crowd show their enthusiasm. When the band starts up, the songs have a very happy feel to them--even as they celebrate and give thanks for Christ's ordeal.

"I'm so glad you came to save us," goes one line. "You took the fall . . . and thought of me above all," goes another. This is a Good Friday, when everything is good indeed. Jesus died, but he died for us. Jesus suffered, but he thought of us at the time.

A small sampling of the faithful--many having converted from traditional churches and other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism--suggests that a sense of "relevance" is behind the growing popularity of Pentecostal style of worship in Australia.

"It feels more relevant," says Kevin Russell who, with his wife, Jenny, converted from the Anglican Church nine years ago. "We feel we have the opportunity to know God more closely," he says. Says Leigh, a former Vietnamese refugee: "I get more out of it than I did from Buddhism . . . which is more a philosophical thing, about ideas . . . this is very real." And Carl is a long-time Catholic who came to crave more than "symbols . . . and rituals".

The Good Friday service doesn't feature such Pentecostal practices as talking in tongues--although they are a feature at smaller, home-based meetings--but follows a simple formula of songs and "a message", rather than a sermon.

The message, too--delivered by Conner's wife, Nicole--serves to make the Easter story personally relevant to the gathering. Her approach is fresh and interesting, her delivery vigorous without being overly showy--the theme being Christ's last words. She suggests that "My father, why have you forsaken me?" represents the moment that Jesus was separated from the undiluted goodness and purity of God to suffer as a human. In the desperate agony of "It is finished", Nicole suggests that Christ is declaring the bitter part of salvation is now done--in tandem with his last mortal breath. She makes the comparison to four unfinished statues by Michelangelo--where human forms are in seeming torment as they remain half-emerged from the stone. And just as the statues need their maker to complete the job, man requires his maker to free him from the bondage of sin through the agency of forgiveness.

Another song or two, a synchronised communion--crackers and juice--and it's all over, with much laughter and chatter at the exits. "We believe it's a sin for church to be boring," says Mark Conner.

Amen to that. It's just that, now, I find differing things to be boring or interesting than I did 21 years ago.

In Christianity Today online (12 Oct 07), Collin Hansen casts an eye over the Human Rights Campaign's website Out In Scripture. He notes the HRC's explanation that "This Human Rights Campaign resource places comments about the Bible alongside the real life experiences and concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith and our allies." Out in Scripture, Hansen says, "purports to take Scripture seriously, if checked by an individual's experience."

Hansen then looks at one study from the website, on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, and quoting this explanation of the passage by the HRC contributors:

[I]n the course of our conversation together we realized that, in fact, Scripture is our Scripture. LGBT people are not excluded from affirming this Scripture's teaching that "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness" (verse 16). We are not excluded because this affirmation does not mean that we believe we should robotically "do" everything we might read about in Scripture.

Hansen comments:

The study's authors suppose that Christians who disapprove of homosexuality could be akin to the mythmakers Paul warns Timothy to "correct, rebuke, and encourage." HRC turns the tables on Christians who have used this same passage to defend orthodox teaching. The tactic may not be compelling to Christians familiar with the Bible's many plain teachings against homosexual behavior. But the approach has a certain appeal to those who respect Scripture but don't understand it. These people would not be so persuaded if HRC simply denounced Scripture as a relic of ancient culture. Misguided theologians of earlier eras sank venerable denominations with that strategy.

Still, the campaign looks like another example of Paul's prophetic warning: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

Hansen is right that we ought not accept a particular reading of Scripture merely because it makes us comfortable or satisfies the "itching ear".

Yet Hansen's warning is one to be heeded by both sides of the sexuality debate. For Hansen fails when he writes glibly of the "Bible's many plain teachings against homosexual behavior". Here he makes the assumption that many of those who "defend orthodox teaching" make over and over again. He assumes that interpretation of the Bible on homosexuality is plain and simple. It is not.

Careful scholarship can result in a case being made for either side of the debate. That's why there is a debate. That's why the whole matter is so vexatious. And that's why we must look to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us chart a pathway to the truth, a truth that will be found in Gospel principles of love, joy and peace.

An Open Letter to the LGBT Community
from Bishop Gene Robinson

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/dojustice/j517.html
9 October 2007

Now that the Church has had some time to absorb and consider the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans and its response to the Anglican Communion, I'd like to share with you what I experienced at the recent House of Bishops meeting, and where I think we are as a result.

There is NO "mind of the House" nor a "mind of the Episcopal Church." In fact, we are a House and a Church of many different minds. We are in transition from the Church we have been called to be in the past, to the Church we are called to be now and in the future. We are not there yet.

I value highly the thoughts and needs of my brother and sister conservative bishops, who have no intention of leading their flocks out of the Episcopal Church, but come out of dioceses which, for the most part, find the Episcopal Church's actions of the last four years troublesome and alarming. I listened to them when they voiced the fears of their people that changing our views on homosexuality is a precursor to moving on to denying important tenets of our orthodox faith, from the Trinity to the Resurrection. We worked for a statement which would reflect the diversity we recognize and value as a strength of our Episcopal communion. It was our goal to describe the Church as it currently is: NOT of one mind, but struggling to be of one heart.

My own goal -- and that of many bishops -- was to do NOTHING at this meeting. That is, our goal, in response to the Primates, was simply to state where we are as an Episcopal Church, not to move us forward or backward. Sometimes, "progress" is to be found in holding the ground we've already achieved, when "moving forward" is either untimely or not politically possible. And, doing nothing substantive respects the rightful reminder to us from many in the Senior House that the House of Bishops cannot speak for the whole Church, but rather must wait until all orders of ministry are gathered for its joint deliberations at General Convention.

While many of us worked hard to block B033 and voted against it at General Convention, it IS the most recent declaration of all orders of ministry gathered as a Church. The Bishops merely restated what is, as of the last General Convention.

Yes, we did identify gay and lesbian people as among the group included in those who 'present a challenge" to the Communion. That comes as a surprise to no one. It is a statement of who we are at the moment. Sad, but true.

Many bishops spoke on behalf of their lgbt members and worked hard to prevent our movement backwards. We fought hard over certain words, certain language. We sidelined some things that truly would have represented a movement backwards.

I want to tell you what I said to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the course of his comments, it seemed to me that the Archbishop was drawing a line between fidelity to our gay and lesbian members, and fidelity to the "process of common discernment," which he had offered as a prime function of a bishop. I heard him saying that gay and lesbian members of our Church would simply have to wait until there was a consensus in the Communion. When we were invited to respond, I said something like, "Your Grace, I have always respected you as a person and your office, and I always will. But I want you to know and hear, that to me, a gay man and faithful member of this Church, this is one of the most dehumanizing things I've heard in a long time, and I will not be party to it. It reminds me of Jesus question 'Is the Sabbath made for man, or man for the Sabbath?' Choosing a process over the lives of human beings and faithful members of this Church is simply unacceptable and unscriptural." The next morning, the Archbishop tried to assure us that he meant both/and rather than either/or. I tried to speak my truth to him.

On the issue of same sex unions, I argued that our statement be reflective of what is true right now in the Episcopal Church: that while same sex blessings are not officially permitted in most dioceses, they are going on and will continue to go on as an appropriate pastoral response to our gay and lesbian members and their relationships. Earlier versions of our response contained both sides of this truth. I argued to keep both sides of that truth in the final version, providing the clarity asked for by the Primates.

Others made the argument that to state that "a majority of Bishops do not sanction such blessings" implied that a minority do in fact sanction such blessings, and many more take no actions to prevent them. All this without coming right out and saying so. That argument won the day. I think it was a mistake.

Another issue to which I spoke was this notion of "public" versus "private" rites. I pointed out on the floor that our very theology of marriage is based on the communal nature of such a rite. Presumably, the couple has already made commitments to one another privately, or else they would not be seeking Holy Matrimony. What happens in a wedding is that the COMMUNITY is drawn into the relationship -- the vows are taken in the presence of that community and the community pledges itself to support the couple in the keeping of their vows. It is, by its very nature, a "public" event -- no matter how many or how few people are in attendance. The same goes for our solemn commitments to one another as lgbt couples.

I suspect that these efforts to keep such rites "private" is just another version of "don't ask, don't tell." If avoidance of further conflict is the goal, then I can understand it. But if speaking the truth in love is the standard by which we engage in our relationships with the Communion, then no.

Let me also state strongly that I believe that the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates MISunderstood us when they stated that they understood that the HOB in fact "declared a 'moratorium on all such public Rites.'" Neither in our discussions nor in our statement did we agree to or declare such a moratorium on permitting such rites to take place. That may be true in many or most dioceses, but that is certainly not the case in my own diocese and many others. The General Convention has stated that such rites are indeed to be considered within the bounds of the pastoral ministry of this Church to its gay and lesbian members, and that remains the policy of The Episcopal Church.

Lastly, let me respond to the very real pain in the knowledge that the change we long for takes time. This movement forward is going to take a long time. That doesn't make it right. It certainly does not make it easy. Dr. King rightly said that "justice delayed is justice denied," but that didn't stop him from accepting and applauding incremental advances along the way.

We have every right to be impatient. We MUST keep pushing the Church to do the right thing. We must never let anyone believe that we will be satisfied with anything less than the full affirmation of us and our relationships as children of God.

BUT, I will continue to try to remain realistic in my approach. I work hard, and pray hard, to find the patience to stay at the table as long as it takes. And I hope we can refrain from attacking our ALLIES for not doing enough, soon enough. The bridges we are burning today may turn out to be the bridges we want to cross in the future. Let's not destroy them.

We need to be in this for the long haul. For us to get overly discouraged when we don't get all that we want, as fast as we want, seems counterproductive to me. We should never capitulate to less than all God wants for us, but to lose heart when we don't move fast enough, and to attack the Church we are trying to help redeem, seems counterproductive.

The two days of listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury and some members of the ACC were the two hardest days I've had since my consecration. (It was a constant and holy reminder to me of the pain all of YOU continue to experience every day at the hands of a Church which is not yet what it is called to be. Ours is a difficult and transforming task: to continue serving a church that seems to love us less than we love it!) I was comforted by the support I DID receive from those straight bishops who spoke up for us, and especially by many of the Bishops of color, who implicitly "got" what I was trying to say and defied the majority with their support of me and of us. I was even encouraged by many conservative bishops' willingness to work together to craft a statement we, liberal and conservative alike, could all live with.

I believe with my whole heart that the Spirit is alive and well and living in our Church -- even in the House of Bishops. I believe Jesus when he told his disciples, on the night before he died for us, that they were not ready to hear and understand all that he had to teach them -- and that he would send the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth. I believe that now is such a moment, when the Church, in its plodding and all-too-slow a way, is being guided into truth about its gay and lesbian members. It took ME 39 years to acknowledge who I was as a gay man and to affirm that I too am considered precious by God. Of course, the very next day after telling my parents, I expected them immediately to catch up to what had taken me 39 years to come to. Mercifully, it has not taken them the same 39 years to do so. The Church family is no different. It is going to take TIME.

I voted "yes" to the HoB statement. I believe it was the best we could do at this time. I am far less committed to being ideologically and unrelentingly pure, and far more interested in the "art of the possible." Am I totally pleased with our statement? Of course not. Do I wish we could have done more? Absolutely. Can I live with it? Yes, I can. For right now. Until General Convention, which is the appropriate time for us to take up these issues again as a Church, with all orders of ministry present. I am taking to heart the old 60's slogan, "Don't whine, organize!"

I am always caught between the vision I believe God has for God's Church, and the call to stay at the table, in communion with those who disagree with me about that vision -- or, as is the case for most bishops, who disagree about the appropriate "timing" for reaching that vision of full inclusion. In this painful meantime, please pray for me as I seek to serve the people of my diocese and you, the community of which I am so honored to be a part.

Your brother in Christ,

+Gene

The Most Revd Dr Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney, has published a response to the United States House of Bishops' New Orleans statement that replied to the Primates concerning its stance on consecration of gay bishops, etc.

Dr Jensen identifies correctly that the question turns not merely on sexuality, but on hermeneutics -- the interpretation and application of the Scriptures. What he of course does not do is allow any possibility that homosexual relationships are acceptable to one to believes the bible. His response repeatedly assumes that the interpretation of that he prefers is the only one that is 'biblical' and that any other approach identifies its proponent as unfaithful and 'non-biblical'. I remain unconvinced that the 'conservatives' have made out their case on this. If they had a convincing case, this dispute would never have begun.

Here is most of Dr Jensen's text, with some commentary.

Uncertainty is now over. The decisive moments have passed. Irreversible actions have occurred. The time has come for sustained thought about a different future. The Anglican Communion will never be the same again. The Windsor process has failed, largely because it refused to grapple with the key issue of the truth.

The Lambeth Commission, which wrote the report, was specifically not commissioned to consider the biblical morality of homosexuality.

A new and more biblical vision is required to help biblically faithful Anglican churches survive and grow in the contemporary world.

Fair enough. But I would argue that a church that allows partnered gay and lesbian Christians a place of ministry is a 'biblically faithful' church and that a church that denies this is correspondingly unfaithful and non-Biblical.

Some have still set their hopes on the Lambeth Conference. But that is to misunderstand the significance of our time. It can no longer either unify Anglicanism or speak with authority.

I agree, though for different reasons to Dr Jensen's.

[A]ny authority which we may have ascribed to the deliberations of the Bishops has been lost permanently.

The Lambeth Conference never had authority, nor should necessarily should it have any. It is a place of consultation and fellowship between bishops, not a legislative body.

Not surprisingly, Lambeth 2008 is not going to attempt a similar exercise in conciliar pronouncements.

I hope not.

. . . The American House of Bishops has now responded to the Primates. Many have seen in their pronouncements sufficient conformity to the request of the Primates to enable the Communion to continue on its way. I do not read their statement like that. I think that they have failed to meet the hopes of the Primates. But the significance of the document at this level hardly matters. The document taken as a whole makes the real issue abundantly clear. Sexual rights are gospel.

No, it's a matter of what is The Gospel, the message of Christ seen in the Scriptures.

The Americans are firmly committed to the view that the practice of homosexual sex in a long term relationship is morally acceptable.

That is not quite what they say, but near enough.

Not only is it acceptable, it is demanded by the gospel itself that we endorse this lifestyle as Christian.

Nonsense. That is an emotive exaggeration and a mis-reading. The Americans do not say that a 'homosexual lifestyle' (What is that, by the way?) is Christian; rather, they say that it is possible to be a faithful Christian and a partner in a monogamous same-sex relationship at the same time.

. . . [T]hey do not intend to reverse their decisions about this and they do intend to proclaim this message wherever possible. They want to persuade us that they are right, and that the rest of us should embrace this development. Here is a missionary faith.

If so, the mission bespeaks truth and justice, rather than error and injustice.

The biblical conservatives and their allies in Africa and Asia knew this. . . . They took irreversible steps to secure the future of some of the biblical Anglicans in North America.

What, pray tell would a non-biblical Anglican be? An oxymoron surely. To be Anglican necessitates being biblical. The question then, is What does being 'biblical' require one to be?

. . . The response of the Primates has involved the provision of episcopal oversight. This, too, has changed the nature of the Anglican Communion. From now on there will inevitably be boundary crossing and the days of sacrosanct diocesan boundaries are over. . . . This is the new fact of Anglican polity.

The fact of its existence does not make it acceptable or correct.

How are these developments going to be incorporated into world-Anglicanism? What future should we be thinking of? Where is our vision for them? Hand-wringing is not the answer.

True.

The aim of the Archbishop of Canterbury was to retain the highest level of fellowship in the Communion. He believed that truth will be found in communion, in inclusion rather than exclusion.

And, in this, Archbishop Rowan may be right.

From his point of view, an extended passage of time is vital. What matters for the Archbishop is not this Lambeth, but the next one and the one after that. . . . The Archbishop has revealed his hopes through a lecture on biblical interpretation, "The Bible Today: Reading and Hearing", delivered in Canada in April 2007. In this lecture he addresses the very heart of the controversy, by challenging conservative interpretations of Romans 1 and John 14, and thus raising the issues of interpretation, human sexuality and the uniqueness of Christ as Mediator. He has signalled the importance of hermeneutics for our future. His lecture shows that there is an unavoidable contest about the meaning of the Bible in these crucial areas ahead of us. It is a challenge which must be met at a theological level. We may think that this whole business is about politics and border-crossing and ultimatums and conferences, but in fact it is about theology and especially the authority and interpretation of Scripture.

Exactly so.

That leads to this fundamental conclusion. Those who believe that the American development is wrong must also plan for the next decades, not the next few months. There is every reason to think that the Western view of sexuality will eventually permeate other parts of the world.

Let's not muddle opposition to the spread of Western cultural values with the discernment of biblical truth.

. . . Thus the question before the biblically orthodox is this . . .

This assumes, yet again, that acceptance of faithful same-sex relationship is unorthodox. I dispute that. We should not assume that the Bible is wholly on the side of those who would exclude people in same sex-relationships from full participation in church life.

what new vision of the Anglican Communion should we embrace? Where should it be in the next twenty years? How can we ensure that the word of God rules our lives? How are we going to guard ourselves effectively against the sexual agenda of the West

What agenda?

and begin to turn back the tide of Western liberalism?

Why is liberalism to be condemned?

What theological education must we have? How can we now best network with each other? Who is going to care for Episcopalians in other western provinces who are going to be objecting to the official acceptance of non-biblical practices?

What non-biblical practices? There's that assumption again.

The need for high level discussion of these issues is urgent.

. . . In any case, the basic issue is no longer how can the communion be kept together. It is, within the Communion as it has now become, how can biblical Anglicans help each other survive and mission effectively in the contemporary world?

By remaining in fellowship with each other and with those with who they disagree. Dr Jensen is no more and no less a 'biblical' Anglican than the American Bishops with whom he disagrees.

The Africans have shown a commendable concern for this very issue and taken steps to assist the western church.

Some of them have also shown bigotry, hatred and ignorance.

They have recognised that the gospel sometimes divides and sometimes requires new and startling initiatives. We must now all take the actions and do the thinking required to safeguard biblical truth, not merely in the West but throughout the Anglican world.

True. But to safeguard 'biblical truth' may in fact require acceptance that people in committed same-sex relationship may indeed be ministers in God's church and that their relationships may indeed be acknowledge as blessed by God.

To fail here, will be to waste the time and effort which has brought us to this fateful hour.

But what would be failure, and what would be success?

To its shame, the Australian government has announced a freeze on the settlement of refugees from Africa--including hose from Sudan's Darfur region. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said the refugees had trouble integrating, and that other parts of the world, closer to home, are a greater priority for Australia. He said refugees from Sudan and conflict-torn Darfur were having problems integrating into Australian communities. Africans are being replaced in the humanitarian refugee programme by people fleeing Iraq and Burma. The freeze will last until mid-2008 at least. Australia has accepted or is processing about 3,900 Africans this year--30% of its total refugee intake. Two years ago they made up 70% of the total.

Critics say it is a pre-election pitch to xenophobic and immigration-wary voters, and that it is wrong to argue that Africans are failing to integrate. In previous campaigns the Prime Minister John Howard's government has benefited from concerns over immigration--especially in regional seats.

The Howard government is adopting the classic stance of the prejudiced in declaring that, because some (even many) Africans have had trouble joining Australian society, then all should be excluded. Such typecasting is one of the foundations of racism and is to be condemned in the strongest terms. God save us, please, from this morally corrupt government.

Opponents of Gunns' pulp mill in northern Tasmania will campaign strongly but we will get no joy, as both the Labor party and the government support the mill.

The federal environment minister, Mr Turnbull, has approved the mill but acted on the advice of the Chief Scientist to double the number of conditions. He could not overrule it merely simply because it is a bad idea. That was the job of the Tasmanian Government, which seems to be in Gunns' pocket. Gunns does not have a good record as a corporate citizen.

Yes, we need paper; I use a lot. But paper must not be made from old-growth forests, and paper pulp need not be milled in a pristine location.

My approach is simple. If we need to cut down trees (which we do) we should first grow them, lots of them.

I'm glad the ACT Government has announced its intention to operate Canberra's venerable Albert Hall. It will discontinue private leasing which has seen the Hall become become more and more run down over 11 years. The Government will fund badly needed maintenance, to the joy of heritage groups, who hope the Hall will be restored to its former glory of the 1930s. Albert Hall, opened in 1928, was built in the Art Deco style as Canberra's town hall and used for dances and films. It could once again be a superb venue.

Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, declared the opening of the Hall on 10 March 1928 to be "a definite step towards making Canberra the centre . . . of everything that will uplift the Australian people--a centre from which will radiate all those aspirations that are truly national".

Well into the 1960s, the Hall was Canberra's only performing arts venue, and the locale for musical, operatic and dramatic societies and their work. It was Canberra's first concert hall and playhouse, and an exhibition space for painting and sculpture before Australia had a national gallery. The Hall was also a place of social, political and intellectual political activity, as the only venue suitable for large conferences, public meetings and the like. Albert Hall was the national election tally room for some years. The Hall was the site for celebrations of many kinds. In 1951 the nation’s jubilee was celebrated there.

Now the Hall and its gardens are sadly dilapidated. Although the Territory owns the Hall, the federal National Capital Authority has planning control over this location close to the national sites. The NCA had proposed extensive commercial development of the area, and the ACT Government had sought a private company to for a long-term lease. Now the Authority has backed down and the ACT has taken over the hall, acknowledging that at least $2million must to be spent on the hall and that its long-term survival of the hall and use is a challenge.

Neither Federal nor ACT government agencies anticipated the opposition to their plans for this heritage precinct. The ACT Government has thought of the Hall as a liability, not a legacy. Nor was the National Capital Authority aware of its importance. There has been substantial public protest and discussion in the Territory Assembly and in Senate Committee hearings. A petition of 3,300 signatures was tabled in the House of Representatives and hundreds of people attended a public meeting in the Hall to support its restoration and good use. Canberrans can support the Hall by joining Friends of the Albert Hall, Inc.

This is my friend the Revd Linda Anchell, who is a deacon our parish and, with her husband Fred, a strong advocate for justice, peace and environmentally sustainable living. (In the picture Linda is playing with some bubble mixture, to amuse the children and, no doubt, herself!) Yesterday I encountered Linda at lunchtime, standing in the open air plaza near the city shops with other women, as part of a weekly Women in Black vigil.

The Women in Black are a world-wide network of women committed to peace and non-violence. The movement started spontaneously in 1988 when seven Israeli women, soon joined by Palestinian women, stood in silent vigil at a prominent city site to oppose the occupation of Palestinian land and the accompanying violence against women and children. It spread to other countries and has now become a worldwide movement.

Linda looks after the Canberra Women in Black website. The website and the women's leaflet explain that, as they stand silently together in a public place, the Women in Black extend solidarity, support and strength to all who are suffering violence of any kind. "As individuals standing together we empower ourselves and others. We stand against war and violence. We stand for peace and justice."

Each woman may have her own reasons for standing with her sisters. Thus Linda writes, for example: "I stand because of the Black Sash women of South Africa and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. I stand because there is another way. War is a 'failure of international imagination'. (Anwar Ibrahim) Peace comes from Justice, not from victory in armed struggle. During a vigil there is time to think and reflect. Any violent death should be treated in international law as it is treated in national laws. Someone is answerable for every death in war. It may or may not be murder, but argue the case! Not with weapons, but in a court of law."

The Women in Black welcome others to stand with them, regularly or occasionally, for an hour or even 10 minutes, any Friday, 1-2pm in Petrie Plaza (near the Merry-Go-Round) in Canberra.

A few days ago was the 50th anniversary of the launch by the Soviet Union on 4 Oct 1957 of Sputnik 1, Earth's first orbiting artificial satellite. I was nine years old. We were living in Pomborneit North, a tiny rural hamlet in the Western District of Victoria, where my father was the school teacher. I remember standing with my parents on our front lawn there, watching a satellite pass across the night sky, but I can't recall whether it was actually Sputnik I or one of its successors. We all marveled at the satellite's great orbital speed of 18,000 mph (29,000 kph) and listened to its "beeep, beeep" radio signal. (The signals continued until the transmitter batteries died on 28 October. After 3 months Sputnik 1's orbit decayed and it burned on reentry to the atmosphere.)

I was an avid boy reader on space science and space travel, and a Dan Dare fan. The comic strip series "Dan Dare pilot of the future" began in 1950, with the first issue of the English boy's magazine Eagle--always on the front and second pages in color, drawn by Frank Hampson. Each edition took months to arrive from England by surface mail; we bought them through the newsagent in the nearest town, Camperdown.

I can't remember exactly when I began reading Eagle. It was some time in 1958, soon after Sputnik, but I know I read all these Dan Dare stories, in weekly episodes: Reign of the Robots, Feb 1957-Jan 1958; The Ship that Lived, Jan-Apr 1958; The Phantom Fleet, Apr-Dec 1958; Safari in Space, Jan-May 1959; Terra Nova May-Nov 1959; Trip to Trouble,Nov 1959-Mar 1960; Project Nimbus, Mar 1960-July 1960 and Mission of the Earthmen, Jul-Dec 1960. Then we moved to the city and I went to secondary school ... where there was a decent library to keep me amused.

In today's edition of Eureka Street (vol. 17, no.19, 4 Oct 07), Dr Charles Sherlock provides interesting and informative background and discussion of the recent decision that the constitution and canon law of the Anglican Church of Australia do not prevent the consecration of women as diocesan bishops in most dioceses--and have not done so since 1995. As Sherlock says, there is a "wider, richer, story".

Dr Sherlock's conclusion is welcome: "[T]he ruling may free the Anglican Church of Australia to place the evangelical mission of the church catholic as it core business, and to consider new questions on the basis of the wider church and wider world." I do hope so, but the Anglican church will not be free of inward-looking agonies until it resolves its present failure to fully include gay and lesbian people in the life of the church.

Ecumenical sensitivity meets church law on women bishops

. . .[U]nderneath this somewhat unexpected ruling from the church's highest legal body, the Appellate Tribunal, lies a wider, richer story. A decision made for ecumenical and post-colonial reasons turns out to have enabled the change.

Tribunal members must give written reasons for their decisions. The 79-page report setting these out requires close reading, and reveals that the conclusion is more strongly based than the 4/3 vote (2/2 from the lawyers, three of them being judges, and 2/1 from the bishops) might suggest. The judges' review of the legal and historical issues is fascinating; the bishops bring a wider theological perspective.

What lay behind the Tribunal's conclusion? The Anglican Church of Australia is governed by a constitution, as one would expect. Unlike most bodies, however, it took 36 years to be agreed upon, from 1926 to 1962. The struggle revolved around the balance between local and national powers. If European Australia has multiple beginnings and is shaped by the 'tyranny of distance' and state rivalries, the Anglican story is fiercer, because the beginnings of the major dioceses were largely aligned with the emerging 'parties' of the Church of England in the 1840s.

Melbourne's first bishop was Evangelical, and Sydney, steeped in the independent tradition of two generations of chaplains, was firmly Protestant. On the other hand, the first bishops of Adelaide (then including SA and WA) and Newcastle (then including Queensland) were of more Catholic sympathy. The dioceses also have different constitutional set-ups: Melbourne (and dioceses formed from it) are based on state law, while Newcastle and Adelaide (and dioceses formed from them) are based on 'compacts' made between bishop, clergy and laity.

Broadly speaking, Sydney held out for local autonomy in the constitution, while others wanted national decisions to apply across the nation. The deadlock was resolved in 1962 after the first visit by an Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher who -- so the story goes -- drafted the constitution on the voyage home. The outcome is a complex compromise: key issues need high majorities in General Synod, but the Synod's decisions only apply locally where a diocese accepts them.

When a question arises about a decision (local or national) being constitutional it can be referred to the Appellate Tribunal, which consists of three diocesan bishops and four judges elected by the General Synod. Previous Tribunal decisions cleared the way for women to be ordained deacon and priest, along with General Synod decisions that needed 2/3 majorities by the lay members, clergy and bishops separately. While strong majorities supported female bishops, the motion failed twice in General Synod (in 2001 and 2004) to get the necessary 2/3 majority in the clergy and laity (the bishops' vote stayed over 80 per cent). The matter is not on the agenda for the October 2007 meeting -- presumably it was deemed pointless and divisive to raise it again in that context.

Following the 2004 'non-passing' ('defeat' hardly applies when there is a solid majority in favour) some 25 members used their right to raise the deeper question with the Tribunal, 'would it be unconstitutional to ordain a woman who is a priest as a bishop?' And as we now know, the Tribunal answered 'no' for diocesans, though a 1966 Canon which presumes that clergy are male would prevent women being appointed as assistant bishops (which can be corrected locally).

Sherlock goes on to describe the long process of constitutional and canonical change between 1962 which

• allowed references to the maculine in the Constituion to be interpreted as including the feminine;
• allowed baptised people to become fully Anglicans by being 'received' rather than being confirmed; and
• and (from 1995) made a bishop-elect 'canonically fit' if 30 years of age and a priest -- neither confirmation (nor gender) being mentioned.

In 1990, the Tribunal ruled that the legal barriers to women being ordained as priests would be removed if General Synod passed a canon 'clarifying' this possibility, which happened in 1992. Women have become priests and are among those 'canonically fit' to be bishops. (Before June 1995 "canonical fitness" in the Constitution had meant: ". . . the qualifications required in the Church of England in England for the office of a bishop, at the date when this Constitution takes effect.", which had excluded women from being bishops. After June 1995 "canonical fitness" was redefined to mean a baptised priest (how could a priest not have been baptised!) at least 30 years of age. The motivation for this change was to allow people received into membership from another denomination to become bishops. But an effect, the Tribunal has now found, was also to remove the disqualification of women as bishops.)

Thus, as Sherlock says,

The Tribunal decision recognises that the change to 'priest' from 'confirmed' in the 'canonical fitness' of a bishop-elect -- largely made for ecumenical and post-colonial reasons -- also has the effect of allowing women who are priests to be ordained as bishops. Two separate concerns, one about seeing 'church' as bigger than 'Church of England', the other about seeing humankind as more than 'men', came together in this unexpected outcome.

Dr Sherlock's conclusion is welcome:

Coming as it does in the lead-up to the forthcoming General Synod, the ruling may free the Anglican Church of Australia to place the evangelical mission of the church catholic as it core business, and to consider new questions on the basis of the wider church and wider world.

I do hope so, but the Anglican church will not be free of inward-looking agonies until it resolves its present failure to fully include gay and lesbian people in the life of the church.

Quite why George Clooney (a very good actor, pictured in the weekend paper) is imitating my friend James (a so-so actor, here in the resort pool in Patong) we're not quite sure, but ...

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Senator Joe Ludwig yesterday accused the Howard Government of failing homosexuals by refusing to remove discrimination and allowing it to be passed on to their children. This follows from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's finding that 58 federal laws deny same-sex couples and families basic financial and work-related entitlements. Cabinet has discussed the issue but John Howard has postponed a decision more than once.

Senator Ludwig said Labor would push on with reform, despite opposition from Christian groups, whose views had already been taken on board and would not water down ALP policy.

Trouble is, Labor's policy already falls short of full equality--though it's way ahead of where Howard's mob are.

"It is long overdue. The Howard Government should have done it ages ago, quite frankly. I don't know why they have stalled on it. It's not something that you capitalise on, it's just something we will do because we've had a longstanding commitment to it."

Labor would conduct an audit to find where discrimination lay in "legislation, guides, rule books". The second task would be identifying the 58 areas of discrimination and preparing legislation to remove them.

Why? HREOC did this in their report

"We will also set up a state-based relationship register so you could both amend federal legislation to accord with the HREOC model to ensure you could then recognise same-sex relationships through a state-based relationship register, which closes the circle," he said. "I've said we would do that as a priority, which means as soon as you could work it through the department. I can't imagine it would take that long."

I remain sceptical of Labor's bona fides on this, it has backed and filled too often. Leader Kevin Rudd has ducked questions, referring them to Senator Ludwig. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

This week, the Australian Capital Territory celebrates early Spring and the beginning of the official bushfire season with a day of 'total fire ban', which prohibits lighting of fires outdoors. The grass and forests are dry and there are strong breezes. Already there are some troublesome fires in New South Wales; a grim beginning to yet another too hot and too dry summer. A third of the state is still drought declared. Some previously moist localities have not had good rain for several years and more

Australia will get even hotter and drier due to climate change. Temperatures had already increased, sea levels had risen and the oceans surrounding the country had warmed, Scott Power, principal research scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology said yesterday. "Further warming and further sea level rise seems inevitable," he said, releasing a major new report, Climate Change in Australia by Bureau and the CSIRO.

Temperatures up
Temperatures were expected to rise by about 1°Celsius by 2030 and could rise more. Temperatures in Australia have already risen by 0.9°C since 1950, producing the hottest year on record in 2005 (1.09°C above the standard 1961-90 average). 2007 may prove to have been even hotter.

At low emissions of greenhouse gases, warming of between 1°C and 2.5°C was expected by 2070, with a best estimate of 1.8°C. At high emissions, the best estimate was warming of 3.4°C, in a range of 2.2°C to 5°C. The report predicts fewer frosts and substantially more days over 35°C.

Less water
Rainfall is forecast to decrease by up to 20% by 2070 in southern Australia if greenhouse gas emissions are low and by up to 30% if gas emissions are high. Rainfall during the last month in the Murray-Darling Basin was the lowest on record.

Australia was likely to be hit harder by climate change than other sub-tropical parts of the world. Frequently recurring drought will be more severe because of higher temperatures and periods of high fire danger will continue to increase, as well as coastal flooding from storms. Our inland agriculture, producing grain, wool and meat for export will suffer more than coastal areas. Our wheat crop has already been hit hard by drought in 2002, 2006 and 2007. There will be much less water for irrigated crops, which include grapes, cotton and rice.

City water supplies are vulnerable. Most of our cities have now had years of well below-average rainfall and water use restrictions are now permanently in force across most of southern Australia.

Hymns have a way of catching one unawares.

On my recent holiday, I slowly read through M. Basil Pennington's Engaging the World with Merton: on retreat in Tom's hermitage (Paraclete: 2005). It was much about the reality of God's presence in the immediate here and now. On our return to our home church of St. Philip's for last Sunday's Eucharist, the very first hymn we sang was "God himself is present" (Together in Song 121). Only a few lines has been sung before I was lost to tears.

God himself is present, let us now adore him as with awe we come before him God is in our midst, now in our hearts keep silence, worshipping in deepest reverence. Him we know, him we name, come and let us make him our renewed surrender.	Let your glorious light, Lord, permeating all things, reach my face and eyes to touch them; as the tender flowers open out their petals, to the sun their hearts unfolding, so may I, calm in joy, hold your rays from heaven, power within me working.
O majestic Being, I would praise you duly and my service render to you in the selfsame spirit as the holy angels, ever standing in your presence. Grant me now so to strive evermore to please you, dearest God, in all things.	Lord, make me your dwelling, let my heart and spirit be for you an earthly temple: come, Immediate Being, my whole life illumine, so I'll always praise and love you, so where'er I may be there I may perceive you, ever bow before you.

Tune: Wunderbarer König -- Joachim Neander 1650-80
Words: Gerhard Tersteegen 1697 1769, tr. Honor Mary Thwaites 1914-93

Virgin Blue has announced recommencement of Canberra-Sydney flights from Feb 08 using new 78 seat Embraer 170 jets, which are more suitable for the frequent short-haul shuttle service than the B737s that have thus far made up all of its fleet. Use of a single aircraft type has been successful for Virgin, but made it difficult to compete with Qantas's small Dash 8 on the short SYD-CBR sector. Virgin's 108 flights per week and fares from $99 will at last compete and keep CBR-SYD fares down. When James and I flew to Thailand via Melbourne recently and returned via Sydney, CBR-MEL on Virgin was cheaper and more convenient than SYD-CBR on Qantas. even though MEL is twice as far from us.

The Rt Revd Dr Tom Frame is Director of St Mark's National Theological Centre here in Canberra and an outstanding writer and scholar. In The Australian today (01 Oct 07), Tom sums up in his usual clear manner the background and consequences of the decision to allow women bishops in Australia's Anglican church.

The last vestiges of gender differentiation within the Anglican Church of Australia have been swept away with the release of the appellate tribunal's ruling that nothing in the church's constitution prevents a woman being consecrated as a diocesan bishop. There is some minor housekeeping yet to be done in relation to assistant bishops, but gender is no longer a defining issue.

Not surprisingly, there are those who feel aggrieved by the tribunal's ruling and the inevitability of women being elected as diocesan bishops in the medium term. But even those who oppose women as bishops on theological and ecclesiological grounds ought to take some comfort from the orderly manner in which this issue has been largely resolved.

During the decade that the ordination of women to the episcopate has been under consideration, there has been constant discussion and wide consultation. As someone who attended both the 2001 and 2004 general synods where the issue was thoroughly canvassed, I was pleased that all parties were allowed to express their point of view.

The church's formal processes were observed and respected. When proposals to amend canon law failed to gain the requisite majorities, the appellate tribunal was approached for a ruling on the intentions of the church's constitution. After due consideration and according to established procedures, the tribunal has given its answer. Although it was a split decision, all parties have acknowledged the authority of the tribunal and honoured its ruling.

The ability of the Anglican Church to deal with this controversial issue in such a reasoned and dignified manner has demonstrated its responsibility and maturity. There will, however, be some fallout. Interactions between dioceses and relationships between bishops will be affected. New theological networks and personal affiliations will emerge.

In the same way that the ordination of women as priests created new divides within the church, the consecration of women as bishops will further divide those holding conflicting opinions on women's ministry, as some Anglicans will feel conscience-bound to decline the episcopal oversight of a woman. And because the church has not, and will not, make provision for alternative episcopal oversight--so-called flying bishops with a roving brief--the church faces a difficult pastoral challenge in caring for those opposed to the innovation.

It will be easier for this to happen in Sydney, which is the largest Anglican diocese in the country and the most organised opponent of the ordination of women. While Anglicans in Sydney are not obliged to accept the ministry of women as bishops within their diocese, its leadership needs to temper its claims about what the Bible does and does not permit in relation to this matter.

The ordination of women to both the priesthood and the episcopate has been conscientiously and vigorously supported by committed evangelicals of learning and discernment outside the diocese of Sydney. Consequently, Sydney cannot reasonably claim that it opposes women as bishops on the grounds that it is the only position that can be held by those whose theology is Bible-based and evangelical.

Nor will Sydney's mission be impeded or hindered by there being women bishops operating elsewhere in the country. Because the Anglican Church of Australia is little more than a federation of dioceses whose outlook is much more tribal than national--a lamentable situation, in my view--the archbishop of Sydney retains the power to regulate every aspect of ministry conducted within his diocese. He decides who will be licensed and the functions they will be permitted to perform.

It is much to the credit of Anglicans elsewhere in the country that they have shown due regard for the ethos and integrity of the diocese of Sydney and avoided actions that would undermine or subvert its traditions. There is no reason to believe this attitude will be set aside in relation to women as bishops. For its part, Sydney must recognise the tribunal's ruling and not initiate any spoiling action.

While some Anglo-Catholic and evangelical Anglicans will talk of leaving the church and forming a breakaway Anglican body, they need to be conscious that the appellate tribunal's ruling is considered and nuanced and that proponents of women as bishops have not acted unilaterally or in defiance of the church's constitution or processes.

Throughout their long and sometimes bloody history, Anglicans have shown a capacity to accept diversity of conviction and custom and have realised the perils of attaching ultimate significance to non-core beliefs and practices.

In contrast to some parts of the worldwide Anglican communion, I believe that Australian Anglicans have demonstrated the importance and utility of working with a framework of mutual accountability. This does not mean that unity is elusive or diversity is limitless.

In his 1936 work The Gospel and the Catholic Church, the future archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, pointed to the need for an Anglican synthesis. He stressed that "the Anglican Church is committed not to a vague position wherein the evangelical and the catholic views are alternatives, but to the scriptural faith wherein both elements are of one. It is her duty to train all her clergy in both these elements. Her bishops are called to be not judicious holders of a balance between two or three schools but, without any consciousness of party, to be the servants of the gospel of God and of the universal church."

Notwithstanding the tribunal's ruling and fears of schism, there is still more to unite Anglicans than to divide them.

Meanwhile, with terrible puns about "cracks in the stained glass ceiling", the papers are trying to pick Australia's first woman bishop, for instance Graham Downie writing in the Canberra Times (29 Sep 07).

Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn archdeacon Sarah Macneil has been "very comfortable under the stained glass ceiling", but she may be about to make an historic breakthrough. The diocese could be the first in Australia to elect a woman as its bishop following a decision by the Anglican church's highest court yesterday clearing the way for women to be consecrated bishops in most Australian dioceses. In a majority decision, the church's appellate tribunal in Brisbane ruled there was nothing in the church's constitution to prevent the consecration of a female priest as a bishop in a diocese which has adopted a 1992 church canon.

Bishop George Browning retires early next year and yesterday he raised the prospect of a female replacing him. "This announcement makes it possible for a woman to be a candidate at the election synod in September 2008," he said. "If the diocese feels a woman is most appropriate, then that person should be elected."

As the Canberra and Goulburn diocese's most senior female member of the clergy, Archdeacon Macneil has a real chance of being Australia's first female bishop. But she stressed yesterday that she had no expectations she was about to make Australian religious history. To be elected as a bishop, candidates had to agree to their nomination. "I could not accept nomination without a lot of thought and prayer," Archdeacon Macneil said.

And until yesterday, there had been no possibility she could be considered as a bishop. "Without that possibility, I have been very comfortable under the stained glass ceiling," she said. But she welcomed the ruling clearing the path for women to become bishops. "I am absolutely delighted the decision has been made. It is an excellent decision."

Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn chancellor Richard Refshauge said yesterday there may still be legal issues to be addressed in some dioceses, but it seemed likely this diocese would be able to elect a woman to replace Bishop Browning. The tribunal found a 40-year-old church law still prevented women being assistant bishops. Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall said the appointment of assistant bishops was made under a 1966 canon. It had not been amended in 1995 when a requirement for a diocesan bishop to be male had been removed. Mr Refshauge said he believed this could be addressed by an amendment to legislation by diocesan synods.

Dr Aspinall said while he welcomed the decision, he recognised that the prospect of women bishops would be "difficult or distressing" for some. Bishop Browning said the vote had not set the scene for a church split. "I don't think it will cause a split or a difficulty in the province," he said, pointing to comments from evangelical Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, who opposes the decision but will not move to block it. "I believe that we will live side-by-side and in time the quality and the ability of the women will speak for itself," Bishop Browning said.