Ch 9: at Moore College Pt 2 : Bullies
I was about to get right up the noses
of some powerful people. Meanwhile God was a few steps ahead and was
turning up some very supportive friends.
I don't like bullies. I was bullied at
school. That may be behind it. I also think the strong should protect
the weak, not prey on them. I would like to think that is part of why
I stand up to bullies.
I mostly just suffered in silence when
I was bullied as a youngster. Twice the bully went over some line
invisible even to me and I found hidden strengths.
First occasion was in sixth grade. The
bully in question was going to beat me up in front of a crowd during
playtime. I only know this because I remember even after all these
years the sea of kids parting as I stood there and he advanced
towards me. I landed the first and only punch of the bout and he went
down howling and clutching his eye. That landed us both in the
headmaster's office.
The second was a couple of years later.
High school, but I don't remember which grade. The bully had me
backed against a brick wall that had just been built. There was a
stack of bricks beside it and he made the mistake of picking one up
and making as if to hit me with it. In those days we all wore
neck-ties. I reached up and tightened his – the results were really
dramatic, and landed me in another headmaster's office.
Moore College, and much of Sydney
Diocese was strongly Calvinist and Calvinism is one of the many
-ism's that provide a haven for bullies. Sydney diocese had its share
of 'hard-men' who found they liked feeling they were really doing God
a service while being mean to people.
Moore trained ordinands for a couple of
dioceses as well as the Presbyterian Church and some independent
students. The Sydney diocese candidates had no contact with the
diocese from one year's end to another. Candidates for Armidale
diocese were much better treated. Their bishop, although he lived
five hundred kilometres from Sydney – was a frequent visitor to
Moore. He visited his trainees in their campus homes, he was often
seen in the street talking to students who found him a source of
encouragement.
But, at each years end Sydney
candidates were summoned one-by-one to an inquisition. This was not a
friendly chat. This was a grilling before three assistant bishops and
two representatives of the evangelical party which controlled the
diocese. We had been warned by more senior students what it would be
like. We also knew that many would be rejected and told to remove
themselves from their college houses forthwith. The rejects would be
left feeling that as Christians they were scrap-heap material.
Fore-warned is not always fore-armed. I
saw the man who had been interviewed before me come out in tears. A
grown man! A man with a wife and children. A man who had sacrificed
his career to offer for the ordained ministry. A man I knew as a fine
human being and a devout Christian. A man in tears because he had
been worked over by bullies.
I thought: “You bastards! I am going
to give you as good as I get!” and I did.
I would have been out but for Bishop
Kerle. He had allowed to return to Sydney from being bishop of
Armidale on the condition that he would stay out of diocesan
politics. He was our minister at St Swithun's Pymble. But he was also
known throughout the diocese as a powerful man of God. He stepped up
and interceded with the archbishop on my behalf. So a stay of
execution was granted.
There were conditions. We had been
living in my old family home in leafy Pymble, we had to move onto
campus and rent one of the college houses in grimy Newtown. I had
been attending St Swithun's as a parishioner. Now I had to find a new
church that would take me on as a 'catechist' – a theological
student who worked in the parish on Sundays, and generally one
session during the week.
God was to use this to bring us new
friends and allies. I was going to need them.
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