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!