Moral New-speak - they've stolen our words

New-speak : They've stolen our words

I posted an article last week entitled “Absolute Rule or Blanket Rule”. I've had to withdraw it because of a language problem!

In my defence let me say this post was an update of material I had developed during my research in about 1989.

At that time I was introduced to the difference between a “blanket rule” - meaning one to which applied in every circumstance - and an “absolute rule” meaning one which did NOT apply in every circumstance but was absolutely binding where it did apply. This idea straightened out my own thinking considerably. Once this difference was pointed out to me I found that there were moral philosophers around who used this concept in the same way.

However last night a friend who had read my post pointed out that language had changed during the intervening decades. “Absolute rule” now meant “Blanket rule”! So my post was incomprehensible.

Checking online this morning I see his point. There is now, at least in accessible philosophic discussion, no word for what I had been used to calling an “absolute rule” !!!!

I am not a conspiracy theorist but this does smack of “Big Brother” in 1984 where new-speak was introduced precisely so that there were no words in which ideas counter the Big Brother's could be formulated. What has been achieved over the past couple of decades is a change in the language of ethics with the same effect as 1984's new-speak.

* I want to say that there is an absolute standard of morals – namely God's moral character.

* I want to say that if and when we can establish a certain course of action as conforming to this absolute standard and the opposite action as opposing the absolute standard then this course of action is morally non-negotiable! (absolutely binding I want to say)

* I also want to say (see my early posts) that “rules” make human life liveable – we just can't work out what to do in life on a situation-by-situation basis. So we need general rules to cover general situations. But we just don't live in a “one rule fits all” universe! There will always be exceptions to the general rule.

The exceptions to the rule may be so frequent that we can develop another general rule such as: “In XYZ situation this is the rule that applies.

A classic example of this is where King David cursed Joab for murdering Abner in peacetime on the grounds that Abner had killed Joab's younger brother Asahel in battle when they were on opposing sides. David later orders Joab's execution with the words: “He Killed them (Abner and later Amasa), shedding their blood in peacetime as if in battle ...” (1 Kings 2:5ff) So wartime rules are different from peacetime rules!

Some situations are so new or rare that all we can say is “This situation is outside the purview of the general rule” We will need other resources to work out what is the right course of action.

Some may fall so far outside the circumstances envisioned when the general rule was formulated that we may even be unable to say what the “right” course of action was. We may have to uphold the law but withhold censure for what seems a breach of it.

We might declare: “we must maintain the law – and by that law what you did was murder, but the circumstances were so unusual and extreme that we cannot blame you for what you did. (This notably happened in England in the case in the 1800's where shipwrecked sailors attacked, killed and ate the ships cabin boy: They were subsequently tried for murder. The jury refused to bring in a verdict; the Privy Counsel (the highest court in the land) found them guilty of murder, expressing that the law must be maintained and what they did was murder, but that what person could in their heart blame these sailors for what they did under such duress. They were promptly given a royal pardon and set free.

So my point is that humans have long recognised that even the strongest taboos – even ones so strong that society has said “Anyone who does such a thing must be put to death!” - have exceptions. And human societies have managed to deal with that!

The fact that over the past few decades popular moral philosophers have so bent the meaning of ethical labels so that there is no longer a term which means what I have been describing merely demonstrates their own moral bankruptcy!

Absolute Rule or Blanket Rule

Absolute Rule or Blanket Rule

PLEASE NOTE:

I have deleted this post due to a semantics problem! 

For an explanation and discussion please see the next post :

"Moral new-speak: they've stolen our words"  

Abortion : Facts and Fallacies

Abortion – Facts and Fallacies

“In most cases abortion is...” This must be the first question.

Until we answer this we cannot sensibly have any moral discussion.

How can we go to the Bible – or any other source of moral wisdom for answers until we know the question. Until we know what current social conditions, motives and supposed outcomes are involved in abortion we don't know the question. We must identify the most common situation. This is the one we need to take for our general rule. We must exclude at this stage the rare, the sensational and the extreme cases. Once we have a general rule for the general case these come into perspective as special cases which may warrant special treatment or even be exceptions to the rule

I hope this seems obvious, because it was thoroughly overlooked in the campaigns to legitimise “abortion on demand” in the 1960's. Perhaps “overlooked” is too kind, this question was more of an inconvenient truth as far as the pro-abortion campaigners were concerned. Fallacies suited their campaign the facts did not. So fallacies was what they peddled.

As I said in my previous blog-post, I once put a motion regarding “abortion on demand” to our church synod (Gippsland diocese, Anglican Church of Australia) that caused so much commotion that discussion was gagged. This was done as a motion that the matter being referred to the “Social Responsibilities Committee” of the diocese for the production of a report to synod in due course. I was at the same time invited to take a place on this committee.

At the first meeting of this committee it seemed obvious to me that the chairman was an accomplished manipulator of committees who had every intention of ensuring that the eventual report was strictly pro-abortion.

By about the third meeting I had also read some of the material from other dioceses in Australia and the U.K. That the chairman had circularised to members. They were an absolute disgrace! Even had I agreed with their jaundiced views I would have expected a better standard of thinking in a high school essay. So I started to spend my days off at the nearest university library reading up on what more intelligent people on either side of the debate had written.

Sure enough, there were secular moralists putting serious arguments for both sides of the debate. They were interesting, and made it all the more embarrassing that the churches – who should have had some ideas on moral issues sprouted such ill-informed ill thought-out nonsense that then betrayed their traditional beliefs!

There were also secular researchers interested purely in discovering sociological or epidemiological facts pertinent to the issue. Mostly they were not concerned with making moral observations let alone judgements. They were just interested in real scientific facts Their findings were fascinating, and I will introduce one set of results in this post.

Thirdly there were pro-abortion campaigners. Interestingly, did not bother with the moral arguments developed by the philosophers who agreed with their views. They just went for the emotive propaganda.

So here I am going to set against their main emotive issues the facts from genuine unbiased research. Once we clear away their propaganda lies we will be able to define what the morally relevant attributes of current abortion practice are.

PS the statistics I will quote are from reports of the health department of South Australia covering periods from 1970 to 1984. This was a time when abortion was legal in that state, but certain statistics had to be given by doctors to the health department. As the researchers pointed out, even though abortion was by this time legal, the natural tendency was for doctors to provide a stronger reason for the request for an abortion, so these figures will tend to be conservative.

What were some of the emotive issues raised by the pro-abortion lobby?

1. The pregnant schoolgirl. Images of 13 year old girls in late pregnancy tugged at the heart strings, but was this a typical issue? No! Less that 7 abortions in a thousand were for girls under 15 years of age.

2. The harassed mother of multitudes. At the other end of the spectrum were the images of women ground down by poverty and seriously large numbers of children. As an argument for social services maybe it had merit. As a pro-abortion pitch it was misleading: less that 4 abortions in a thousand were for with women with seven or more children.

3. Saving the mother's life: Here was an argument pushed relentlessly in movies: The young mother tragically dying because she was refused an abortion. Now this is a situation we will examine later because it really is a special case and one where abortion can be clearly justified. However it is precisely that: a special case. It is also a rare case: less than 8 abortions in a thousand made any claim to be in response to a serious medical condition affecting the mother.

4. Foetal euthanasia. Yes this was pushed as an argument. But ask someone whose mother was advised to abort them because they had at foetal stage evidence of some disability how they feel about that one! In any case it was a factor only in a small number – 14 in a thousand – of actual abortions (and included in this number will be foetuses diagnosed with a medical condition which indicated they actually had zero chance of survival, which is a morally different situation).

5. The woman who had been raped. True this is a really heart rending situation and one most of us would quail at advising on. But don't you think it is odd that the same social progressive doctrines that support killing the innocent life brought into being by a rape at the same time vociferously condemn killing the rapist!
But however one deals with this extreme situation it is mercifully so rare – only accounting for one abortion in a thousand – that it has no bearing on considering the morality of current abortion practice.

So all those emotive arguments which were used so effectively to engineer public opinion and make abortion seem like an attractive option for a whole generation were fallacies.

Over 96% of abortions are because for some reason it is inconvenient for the mother to carry her child to birth. That is current practice and that is the situation we will turn to the Bible for guidance on.

Moore College Pt. 1 (My Adventures with God Ch.7)

Ch.8: Moore College Pt. 1

It is February 1976. My career in engineering has ended. I have been studying Biblical Greek for the past few months on my own and just finished a two week intensive at the college. Crunch time has come and I start lectures at Moore College in Sydney.

It is a bit of a jolt to the system. Psychologists might nod their heads and say something like: “That is all to be expected, leaving one's career and going back to being a student after being in a work environment is bound to be stressful.” They would be correct. However all the incoming students had similar experiences. One already had a PhD in science, and a wife and three children, and found being being treated like a teenage undergraduate rather trying. Others had been engaged in various careers, from teachers to businessmen and nearly all were married, many with children. So we were all encountering these stress factors, and there was a camaraderie among us that made it all easier to bear.

There was also a spiritual conflict that we all suffered the effects of although I didn't understand any of this until many years later.

Let me try to explain this spiritual conflict by a human analogy. Imagine a scene in France in the latter part of World War II. Perhaps at a time when Germany had for all intents and purposes been defeated, but the Allied armies had not actually arrived at some particular French village.

Although the Nazi's are defeated, the Gestapo are still active. Suppose for our illustration that the local Gestapo learn about a French Resistance training camp. What will the Gestapo do? Obviously they will try to destroy it! If they cannot reach it by ground they will probably order the Luftwaffe to divert aircraft to bomb and strafe it.

Given human behaviour towards an 'enemy' training camp, we should allow the likelihood that spiritual forces of evil would be at least as clever. My point is that the spiritual forces of evil would likely single out for attack any institution which was being used by God to further his work of saving the world. At times this would be accomplished by humans acting under the compulsion of evil spiritual forces – as the many persecutions of Christians over the millennia demonstrates. When there is not visible persecution we should expect that evil spiritual forces will still use whatever other powers may be at their disposal to harry and spiritually and psychologically harass important institutions – in this case the staff and students at a sound Theological college.

The moment I stepped inside the gates of the college I felt this almost overwhelming oppressive feeling. I also think – admittedly looking back nearly forty years later – that many of the staff were also suffering under this spiritual attack. Because neither we nor they understood what it was, instead of it uniting us – as for instance people say happened during the “blitz” in England - staff reacted to their own hurt by being less than supportive to the students.

I also had an additional personal problem : depression. Even now men tend not to talk about their depression, and that is after decades of medical public information programmes. In those days it was little understood and never talked about. I will come back to this in later chapters, for now suffice it to say that I went from an emotional 'high' state throughout secondary school to depression at university. There were, (as is generally the case with depression) good years and bad years, but it would not be shaken off decisively until 2003 (that too is a story for a later chapter). 1976 was going to be one of the bad years.

Moore College was different at many levels to most other theological colleges. Much of what Moore was like belongs to another story not this one about my adventures with God. But I should at least illustrate the sheer magnitude of difference for the benefit of those who may find it hard to imagine. Wile I was a curate a retired Archdeacon filled in one time for the vicar while he was on holidays. This archdeacon had spent his whole ministry in the Australian Anglican church. He was a tremendously devout Anglo-catholic with a huge amount of wisdom in pastoral matters. But I still remember this dear man chiding me gently when in all innocence I had set up for the weekday Eucharist in the liturgical colour of the season - failing to notice that it was in fact a minor saint's day which required a different colour. He said simply: “I cannot believe that they did not teach you in college to be careful about changing to the correct colour for saints days.” No! Moore College never used ANY liturgical colour and certainly would never acknowledge a saint's day!

I thank God with all my heart that he sent me to Moore. He used it to great effect to 'de-tox.' me from the Liberal garbage I had fed on. It was also Biblically rigorous in a way very few theological colleges were. Finally there was a tremendous mutual spiritual support among the students and lived out examples of people living for God and by the unfailing provision of God. However as a theological college it was not without serious failings of its own!

Moore College was Calvinist. I didn't know what that meant then. I read Calvin's Institutes over the vacation as all students had to do. We had to sign a declaration that we had carefully read them before admission to second year. Even then I still didn't really understand what it meant. Now that I do understand what Calvinism is, I can thankfully say (for their sakes and the sakes of their congregations) that I think most ministers trained by Moore don't really understand Calvinism either. Moore College graduates may think they are Calvinist but in reality they are not really “True Believers” at heart. However the powers that ruled Moore then did and were!

Calvinism is many things. The two effects of it that hit me in that first year were its distaste for beauty and its exultation of brutality.

Beauty in worship, beauty in surroundings – all these things which were perhaps a trifle overemphasised by “Catholics” were expunged with a vengeance. For me this almost adoration of the ugly and the harsh was a source of unhappiness – almost to a pain of deprivation. I appreciate beauty – from the wonders of nature to the divine-human collaboration of the rose-garden and the heights of architecture to the beautiful music produced over the centuries by composers out of their adoration of God.

When one of my classmates was refused admission to third year on the very eve of the commencement of term because he had failed Greek (and it was unthinkable that anyone lacking accomplishment in Greek should become a minister!) he was taken in by our more benign sister college in Melbourne (and ironically after a highly successful parish ministry became not only an Archdeacon but the one in charge of theological studies). Later that year he told me: “Melbourne has discovered the 11^th Commandment: Love!”

For the true Calvinist since “hardship produces character” inflicting hardship on people must be a good thing! This attitude cultivates everything from simple lack of kindness (as depicted below) to actual physical or mental brutality (as I will depict in another chapter).

Moore lectured to its own syllabus, and I think did award a Diploma in Arts or some such (I didn't get one), but to be ordained one had to sit and pass external exams. For instance I gained a Licentiate of Theology (Th.L.) awarded by the examining body of the Anglican Church of Australia which has as examiners and board members lecturers and officials from all the theological colleges of Anglican persuasion in Australia.

Students at Moore in my day were in addition strongly encouraged to sit the exams for what was called “the London B.D.” which was a degree conferred by a college whose name I can't recall in London, and gained by sitting (in Australia) exams set and marked by that college. The reason was I suspect to have clergy trained by Moore but able to boast a “real” degree in theology.

However Moore taught what it taught and it was up to students to find out what the syllabus covered by these external examining bodies was and then find out for themselves anything not covered in the Moore course. The thing that struck me in first year was perhaps trivial but indicative of their attitude towards their students: that for the London B.D. (which I did attempt for one year) Moore expected students to attempt it but did not tell them how to go about enrolling in it! It was only by a student network that one found out a) what the name of the “London B. D.” college was, b) the enrolment procedure, c) what the syllabus was and d) that the trick was to buy and regurgitate “model answers” to the most likely exam questions!

In recent years one of my daughters managed to organise herself into a course at Oxford University without any guidance so I now realise that there are areas where students are expected to manage all this (and even NOT resort to using model answers!) However for me and as I recall the other students it felt like the bit in Exodus where Pharaoh orders the Israelites to keep making the same quota of bricks but now have to go and find their own straw!

To cut a long story short, psychologically things went downhill. Hebrew started off a snack. (and really fun – I still remember the thrill of translating the story of Joseph and finding little gems such as that that his Egyptian master – the head of Pharaohs bodyguard - was in Hebrew called Pharaoh's “chief butcher”. It has a certain ring to it!) By the end of the year I had collapsed in a heap and failed the London B. D. exam in Hebrew. I didn't try it in second year.

The effects depression became worse even though I was still living at home – which had very beautiful surroundings, rather than on campus (which was ugly) and still worshipping at St. Swithun's, which was very supportive and involved no duties. The college day involved chapel, then two 50minute lectures, then communal coffee and biscuits standing around on the porch, two more lectures them communal lunch in the dining hall. Then free study, with occasional activities like Prayer Group (which I will explain next). I just couldn't face the human interaction required to stand round with my classmates at morning coffee! I ended up with a prescription for Vallium which got me through. If I took one between the two lectures I could just force myself to appear suitably convivial at morning tea!

Prayer Group was another shock. I was absolutely not familiar with the concept of a “prayer group” This is a little embarrassing for someone training to be a minister! But it was true. I initially rebelled at the idea of having to go to one, but luckily there was no choice in this at Moore. The half dozen first, second, third and fourth year students rostered into a group met at the house on campus of the designated leader. We talked about things we wanted to share for a half hour and then prayed, going one after the other around the circle. I have never forgotten the sheer terror as my turn to pray approached, particularly if I was near the end and someone else had already prayed for the 'prayer point' I had myself been mentally trying to formulate a prayer for.

Laugh as you may, that was how I felt – but despite my awkwardness and embarrassment it was a fabulous group! Prayer works! (well no, that is not theologically correct: It is God who works, but he likes his children to ask, and then delights to do more than they even dared to ask!) It was truly wonderful!

Just before I close this section, let me end on a less embarrassing note: That was first year. Second year brought another tremendous prayer group, and by then I was getting a bit more relaxed about praying. In third year I was put into the group of an overseas priest who was doing further study at Moore that year. However Frances, the priest in question, with typical reticence (He and his wife Gerda both had that devastating humility of really outstanding Christians – Frances soon after became a bishop in his native Tanzania) declined and asked me to lead it – which I did. So I went from not even believing in prayer groups to leading one in just two years!

Abortion - Why I dare talk about it

Abortion – Why I Dare to Talk About it

Yes, I'm going to talk about abortion next!

Some three decades ago I stood up in the Synod of the small country diocese I was serving in, and introduced a motion which boiled down to 'abortion on demand is murder'. The reaction of the hundred or so church delegates was about nearly what I imagine would happen if one stood on the main street of Mecca and denounced Mohammed. The rage and fury was such that the chairman would not even allow discussion to proceed! So let me take this a step at a time. Before I even start looking at what the Bible says relevant to modern abortion practice let me explain WHY it is that I even dare to say what I am going to say.

Come in your imagination to a children's party. The kids are all playing about happily and delightedly stuffing every sort of sugary confection in their mouths. The parents have retreated to a place relative quiet and are enjoying a cup of tea (or maybe a beer or a glass of wine) and some savouries.

To this relative quiet haven bursts in Little Johnny. Johnny is dancing about, not making a sound but pulling funny faces and waving his arms about madly. Some parent says “Johnny go outside and play with the others, there's a good boy.” Another parent is more doubtful: “Are you sure there's nothing the matter with him?” She is hushed by a chorus of: “Don't talk like that ! You will just alarm everyone and spoil the party!” Then someone jumps up sending their chair flying: “Shit! He's choking!” runs to the child picks him up throws him upside down whacks him on the back and a large round lolly shoots out of johnny's mouth and bounces across the floor.

Need I say more? Seeing the truth can save!

Take another scenario. Some years ago in Australia there was a very sensible public health awareness program on prompt treatment of strokes. One TV advertisement showed an office scene where a middle aged man started to 'act funny' and everyone – thinking he was putting on an act – stood around laughing until someone rushed in and said “Don't laugh: Call an ambulance! He's having a stroke!” The reason for this public awareness program was that prompt medical treatment vastly improved the future outcome for a person having a stroke.

Take a story of denial. There is an old Monty Python skit which has become a classic about a man who buys a pet parrot only to find when he gets home that the parrot is dead. The pet shop owner staunchly (and hilariously) denies that truth. Why should the pet shop owner go to such silly lengths to deny the truth that the parrot is dead? Because there is no redemption. Dead is dead.

So I say that the progressive dogma that has pushed abortion on demand from the campaigns back in the 1960's is also a dogma that has no redemption and this is one reason people infected by it cannot bear to hear any one say “abortion is murder”. In fact in their minds or emotions or something the slightest hint of abortion being morally wrong seems to burn into their souls with unbearable pain. Without redemption being accused of complicity in murder is indeed unbearable. (the other reason is that that Progressivism is a totalitarian ideology that brooks no dissent)

But we have redemption!

We can say “abortion is murder” BUT God is in the business of redeeming murderers who repent! As scripture says “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, but if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness.” And again “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” and “... to all who received him, who believed in his Name he (Jesus) gave the right to become children of God” and we have a God who said “I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you but to give you a future and a hope.”

The Christian “Good News” is radically different from the (Nietzschian) Progressive dogma that has pervaded Western thinking. There IS redemption!

So when I say “in most cases abortion is murder” (which just to let you know in advance will be my conclusion) I am not upsetting the party, or being alarmist, or making people feel guilty: I am urging people to see the truth as the first step to fixing their situation up: to starting on the path to redemption!

So …

For women who have had abortions: the guilt you feel is real not imaginary: you have killed your unborn child; but God will heal you if you let him. God is in the business to saving sinners!

For men who have pressured the woman they got pregnant to have an abortion. You need to see that you are a real scumbag! You you had a duty to protect that woman – instead you forced her to kill her child. That is about as low as a man can sink! But, once you acknowledge to God the enormity of your crime He will deal with your guilt. You too can be healed, restored forgiven and become a beloved child of God with a future and a hope.

To you preachers who helped spread the lie that abortion is not a sin – do you even know the evil you have done! You are probably too far gone in the pay of the devil to even see or acknowledge your fault; but it was to YOU that Jesus said “If anyone causes one of these little ones of mine to stumble it would be better for them to have a millstone tied round their neck and be thrown into the sea”. Hell for you may well be an eternity of seeing with that particular clarity that hell affords just how you betrayed the women and men who looked to you for moral guidance. Yet even you “Christian” ministers can find redemption if you repent! There really is no limit to the merciful kindness of God towards those who leave their sin behind and come to him for forgiveness and new life!

So if what I say hurts you – don't squeal ; let God heal!

St Swithun's Anglican Church

My Adventures with God
CHAPTER 7: We go to an Anglican Church

Sue and I were married in the Turramurra Methodist church 30^th November 1973. But by that time we had actually been worshiping for some months at St. Swithun's Anglican Church just down the road from where I (and after marriage we) lived in Pymble.

The first difference I noticed was that Anglicans couldn't sing! Methodists sang with passion: by contrast the singing in the Anglican service – even though they had more quantity – canticles as well as hymns - was pretty half-hearted.

The second difference was in the sermons. A number of Methodist preachers tended to talk about their ideas (or I suspect the ideas from the latest book they had read. They seemed to be intellectually stimulating. By comparison Anglican sermons were simple – often they seemed to be merely paraphrasing one of the Bible readings. Yet it was these simple sermons that made us grow in our faith.

I am dwelling on this point because for me it was formative in more ways than one. Yes, I experienced growth in faith and understanding of God myself through these simple sermons. But I also saw the futility of tickling people's ears with sermons which pretended to be (or even were) erudite but only teaching human ideas rather than the Bible.

To use an analogy from physical food: Kids love junk food. But if junk food is all they consume they won't grow strong and healthy. Mum's “meat and three veg.” cooking may be boring by comparison but it is a balanced healthy diet. Growing Christians need “meat and three veg.” teaching even though they may find junk teaching is more enticing!

So I have been quite unashamedly a “meat and three veg.” preacher despite criticism from people accustomed to spiritual “junk food” who complained that I was not being intellectual enough for them!

During the first three years of our marriage while we were going to St Swithun's there were a number of people who were in very special ways God's agents in helping us along the road of faith and life.

Bishop Clive Kerle and his wife Helen came to St Swithuns towards the end of our first year there. Both are dead now, but they were the most outstanding ministry couple, and just spiritual giants.

Clive had had spent a decade as bishop of Armidale in central NSW. He felt he had finished his task there so came back to Sydney Diocese and parish ministry. To my shame I did not at first think Clive was an impressive a preacher. But whatever he did, it worked! So I had to revise my ideas about what constituted a “good” preacher and as I have said this profoundly influenced how I preached during my ministry! He was also a great man of prayer, he prayed and things happened. Helen was short stout energetic and had such astuteness to what was going on around her that we used to joke abut her walking up to a group with her “antennae” waving to pick up the vibe. After church she just circulated, if someone was standing on their own she would appear with someone else she had just taken in tow and say “I’d like you to meet so and so” and then once she had seen to it that a conversation had started up would excuse herself and go on to the next one.

Sue and I had many long talks to them. They were incredibly hospitable; both of them had a sheer gift for putting you at ease and making you feel – well like part of the family. Just being around them and talking to them (and them praying for us as they did for all their little sheep) had this amazing effect that we grew in our Christian faith and life.

Then God started on at me again about going into the ordained ministry. That was not in our plans!

To be fair, we had both decided that we would not pursue our careers to the exclusion of other things. We decided ‘us’ and eventual family mattered and we would have to put those ahead of career when necessary. Still I was an engineer, Sue was going to be a doctor, we wanted a very nice house in best suburb (well Upper North Shore Sydney was the only possibility) and private schools for kids and so forth.

God didn’t let up.

I told Sue I thought I should become a minister. I didn’t quite understand then how much my unconscious attitude hurt her, mercifully God sent another of his people. This time his provision was Rev. Owen Dykes, who was rector of St James’ Turramurra where Sue’s family now went.

Sue went to Owen in tears for help with our marriage problem. As she said to Owen, if she was loosing her husband to another woman she could fight it. But as it was she was loosing him to God. How could she fight God?

Owen was a great help to both of us. At one stage he even lent us his holiday house in the Blue Mountains so we could go away for a weekend together.

We both eventually came to terms with my call from God. As we were Anglicans now I would offer for Anglican ministry. Both our families were disappointed. One elderly lady who Sue’s younger brother did gardening for summed it up succinctly. She said: “Well I suppose you have to have clergy, but it is terrible when it breaks out in your own family!”

But we eventually gave in to God – with just a few of our own conditions! It was September or October. The next year Sue would be in final year Medicine but the year after she would be an intern and earning money, so we planned that I would stop work and go into college then.

We expected God to fall in with our plans. Guess what, he didn’t.

We had saved up a bit of money and we were planning a trip to England over Christmas. One morning as I was driving to work I was arguing with God because the feeling that I had to go into college the following year – using the money we had saved up for our trip to England - not the year after as we had planned. This feeling just would not go away.

In exasperation I said to God: “Well I’m not going to go and tell Suzie that the trip to England is off because I’m going into college a year before we planned! If you want me to go into college next year, you get me fired today!”

Feeling better for my outburst at God, I parked the car and went in to the office. A few minutes later the boss called me into his office. “Business is bad” he started, “you are one of our more highly qualified engineers. We are not going to have work for you after Christmas; I suggest you look for another job.”

Well, that convinced me. Even Suzie accepted it after telling God what she thought of Beings who took away trips to England and expected people to survive a year without either of them working. Our families took it less well. I could always look for another job they urged. But I didn’t, I was sure.

One more miracle was required. God needed to virtually smuggle me into ordination training.

Now in most dioceses applicants for the ministry would contact the Archbishop. In Sydney they go to the principal of Moore College. He decides who is or is not to be ordained. I found this much out, so I went to see Dr. Broughton Knox who had been principal for the past twenty years. I had an interesting interview with him. He told me at the outset that I was too late: the screening process, which involved numerous interviews with various people to probe the applicant's suitability, was already over for that year.

Given this fact, it looked at first as though either I or God had made a big mistake. But no, it was not an oversight on God's part. Rather God had NOT overlooked problems that I didn't even know existed and he had a cunning plan to get around these problems.

Although we were now attending an Anglican church I was still pretty ignorant of Sydney Anglican polity. It never crossed my mind that there would be any difficulty being accepted for training for the ministry. They should … they would ... be glad to have me - or so I thought. Big mistake! Sydney Anglican Diocese is exceedingly fussy about who they train and who they ordain. The screening process is theologically rigorous and the proportion of rejects at every stage of selection and training is very high. Just as well God had not overlooked this difficulty.

Sydney Diocese is almost obsessively theologically conservative. One passion is to protect the diocese from “theologically unsuitable” clergy. Even in training for the ministry, skills such as preaching are relegated to the sidelines in favour of theology. As one Moore College lecturer who later became an Archbishop of Sydney commented “We teach theology rather than preaching skills because it is much better if we produce ministers who preach the truth badly than ones who preach false doctrine effectively”

Liberal Theology, (Roman) Catholicism, and Charismatic or Pentecostal beliefs were an anathema to them.

I had trained for the Methodist local preachers exams. That training had been total ratbag liberal theology. It had also nearly destroyed my faith. In hindsight God getting us away from the Methodist (or Uniting as it had just become) Church and into biblically sound Anglican fellowship was an incredible kindness!

We had been going to an Anglican church for over two years and we had grown spiritually a great deal with the help of much more mature Christians. But my theological knowledge still left a huge amount to be desired. I can even (embarrassingly) remember Sue and I discussing whether or not Jesus was really God! If I had gone through the normal process they would have very early on asked me questions such as: “is the bible the word of God?” and I would have innocently said “well not strictly”. That would have marked me as “unsuitable” in large red flashing capital letters!

However Dr Knox rated academic qualifications highly, so was partial to the fact that I had a Bachelor of Engineering degree and whilst working had started studying part time and almost completed a Masters degree. He also seemed amused when I said that I wanted to be an Anglican minister, but wanted to study theology at Sydney University. (Yes Sydney University did have a Theology department – but as with most universities in Australia and England at least, “Theology” was a misnomer: it had been taken over by a culture whose devotion was to dabbling in speculative philosophy rather than knowing God!) As I recall he chuckled amiably at my naivety and said: “Well of course you can study Theology at the (Sydney) University, some of our own staff even give lectures there; but if you want to be ordained in Sydney Diocese you will have to study at our college!”

Finally Dr Knox made an executive decision, he accepted me as a student for the following year without any of the screening process.

Round one to God!