My Adventures with God 58: The Archbishop Must Save Face

Chapter 58 ... “The Archbishop Must Save Face

What did the Archbishop do? He had a plan. He executed it meticulously. He succeeded.

The plan had in part been brewing for a while. Recall I said earlier how we were taught in college that one protection of evangelical ministers in non-evangelical dioceses had been that the bishop was restrained by church law from booting them out unless they did something sinful or heretical. The archbishop was going to remove that safeguard.

To cut a long story short, he was manoeuvring through the diocesan synod an alteration to church law that would allow him to dismiss a minister without any charge of wrongdoing.

Of course it had to be dressed up a bit to make it look proper. A certain number of people in the parish had to “petition” him to get rid of their minister. The archbishop's assistant bishop for that area had to agree. A specially convened board had to find that there was “an irretrievable breakdown” between the minister and some people in the parish. But one does not have to be very worldly wise to know that this was only a bit of window dressing. If the archbishop and the required number of parishioners wanted a minister out – he or she was as good as gone!

Since nick and Shirley had persuaded about one third of the parishioners to join them, readers will not be surprised that the final church law stipulated “at least one third” as the required number. I always have to suppress a chuckle when I recall that this is precisely the proportion of angels that we are told in Revelation 12 rebelled against God! I just find it quirky that a church should think that an irretrievable breakdown of exactly the same magnitude as God had with Satan and his angels is reason enough to kick an honest priest out. So … would they want to kick God out and hand heaven over to Satan?

In the meantime, while he waited another 18 months for this legislation to get through synod, the archbishop needed to keep Nick and Shirley's people “parishioners”; maintain their rage and stop St. Luke's getting on with the work of the Gospel and looking successful.

At first Nick and Shirley's group moved en-mass to worship at a nearby evangelical church.

I am describing the archbishop's plan of attack with the benefit of hindsight – we were pretty naive and didn't see it all at the time. We were just praying through each step and doing what we thought was right and godly.

Try 1: – the archbishop asked us to allow Nick and Shirley's people to use our hall for a bible study and worship with another minister. I took it to vestry, we all prayed and decided “No”. We answered that as Vicar I should run it if it were held at our church. We got a very angry response from the archbishop! Now I see that he wanted to be able to say Nick and Shirley's people were still “parishioners”.

Try 2: - the archbishop set them up as their own church, by renting the use of another Anglican church just down the road from us – but not counting them as members of that parish. The diocese had to tear up the rule book to do this.

The Anglican church is very territorial. Sydney diocese cannot set up a church in Melbourne for instance and every part of Melbourne is allocated to some parish or another. Of course it can be re-carved to make more or less parishes, but there is a process to go through to do this. The archbishop did not bother with lawful procedure he just acted on his own. He gave Nick and Shirley's group use of a church building, allowed to have their church committee and treasurer like a normal parish, gave them a diocesan bank account to use, gave them their own minister. Then allowed them to try to recruit from the real St. Luke’s by firstly calling themselves “St. Luke’s” then saying that the real St. Luke’s was in rebellion against the archbishop, so true Anglicans should go with them to the new building!

The two things I find amazing are firstly that no one in the diocese saw this as wrong, and secondly that for all those advantages, only less than one third of the congregation left or were lured away to form this “parish-in-exile”

Pincer movement: - The archbishop tries to stop St. Luke's being successful.

Then some of our wardens and vestry were prevented from contributing to the growth of the parish as they would have liked by constant demands from that diocese that they “do” something about reconciliation with the group who had left, despite their protests that the other group were merely toying with them. The other group were not interested in reconciliation! They wanted revenge! They wanted domination, and they well knew that they only had to wait and the diocese would hand it all to them on a platter.

The following are extracts from a contemporary Statutory Declaration by one of the Church Wardens describing their frustrations during this time:

“On 4^th January 1995 I and my fellow Wardens met with the Archbishop to discuss our concerns at the implications of the Archbishop’s actions in purporting to set up a “branch” of St. Luke’s in another parish. … I did not find the Archbishop’s response to our concerns at all helpful.”

“On 14 January I and my fellow wardens wrote to the South Vermont Group (as we now called the dissident group) … We had been told by the Archbishop that we were the Wardens of the South Vermont Group as well as St. Luke’s. We pointed out the difficulty involved and we were told to arrange meetings with the Committee of the South Vermont Group.

I was invited by Nick xxx to a meeting of the South Vermont Group on 22 January 1995; however before the meeting Nick xxx telephoned to cancel the invitation to that meeting.

On 20 January I and my fellow wardens wrote to the South Vermont Group and asked them what their intentions were at th election they had indicated they were holding on 22 January.

Over the following 4 months I and my fellow wardens had difficulties in getting the leadership of the South Vermont Group to arrange meetings with us. Appointments were made verbally by the South Vermont people but when I spoke to Peter xxx the day before the meeting he said words to the effect: “Nothing’s been arranged because we were expecting something in writing.” Then he said “All communication must be in writing”.

I and my fellow wardens met with the Archbishop on 23 May 1995. A report for the Archbishop for that meeting was prepared by my fellow wardens and myself. Our frustration with the prevarications of the South Vermont group was expressed.

At that meeting the Archbishop directed bishop xxx (regional bishop of the time) to arrange a meeting between three members of the South Vermont Group and us Wardens.

We then had some meetings with the three members of the South Vermont Group at the bishop’s home. These were “ice-breaking” and amiable but not productive of anything of real value, particularly in the way of finding ways forward to a reconciliation of the South Vermont Group and the body of St. Luke’s Vermont. The bishop took a role of absorbing information but was not pro-active in any way.

In respect to the Archbishop’s charge that we should seek reconciliation between the South Vermont Group and the body of St. Luke’s I have to say nothing of value was achieved in my time as warden. There was much talk on the part of the South Vermont Group, but no real proposals.

An indication of how the South Vermont Group approached the matter is given in an open letter fro Nick xxx, undated, copies of which were circulated to myself, the other wardens, and to all members of vestry and to David Greentree in about January and February 1995. (I will intrude here to quote from this letter by Nick xxx: “ … I have heard many of you talk about the need to put the past behind us and get on with focussing on Jesus and His mission at St. Luke’s. Some have also said we should forgive and seek reconciliation so that St. Luke’s can again be one body … I note from scripture that every Christian is to forgive unconditionally with no exceptions … on the other hand reconciliation requires a commitment of any persons involved and can only happen if there is repentance as well as forgiveness” Nick then goes on to liken his being dismissed by me to the relationship of a young girl abused by her father “the only way forward together in such a situation would be for the father to openly repent of his abuse. I feel that our situation is not unlike that currently” )

In the report of the Wardens to the AGM my fellow Wardens and I stated our collective view that the then impending legislation to amend the Appointments Act to permit the Archbishop to remove a vicar from his parish and even remove his licence was a major stumbling block to reconciliation. Subsequent events have proved this to be true. …”

So the Archbishop was on one hand charging the Wardens to seek reconciliation between the one third he had set up as a “parish-in-exile” and the two-thirds who had remained at St. Luke’s. But on the other hand he was encouraging the one third to resist any reconciliation with the prospect of this impending legislation. All they had to do was resist the efforts of the Wardens and they would be rewarded by seeing me removed from the ministry, which was what they desired above all else.

Back to the change in church law the Archbishop was bringing in:

Any justification behind this change came from the “no fault” divorce laws. It was totally contrary to 2,000 years of experience of Christian ministry - starting I suppose with St. Paul’s unpopularity with the congregation at Corinth. It was totally contrary to the principles of Anglicanism laid down in our Constitution. It was totally contrary to common sense: any vicar will always be at the mercy of a large interest group. I know a true story of a vicar who sacked a paedophile choirmaster – the choirmaster later went to jail for the terrible things he did to a generation of choir-boys. The vicar had no concrete evidence at that stage - but he had good reason to believe the man was a paedophile, and he was right - but boys were to ashamed to give evidence even though they were innocent victims - paedophiles are diabolically clever that way. But the choir master had a popular following and it was very difficult to get rid of him. Under these new rules the vicar would be the one who got sacked and the paedophile would have been able carry on with impunity until one of the boys grew old enough to realise they had to go to the police. An extreme case but it illustrates a point:

The bible and history are full of cases of godly ministers having to confront vested interests. Vicars need to be protected, not made more vulnerable to them!

Now we came to the nitty-gritty. I hope the condensed version still makes sense.

Under the new law it mattered who was on the parish electoral roll. The ones who left us 18 months previously were still on the roll but no longer entitled to be. What should we do. The wardens asked the diocese to provide a legal opinion on who was entitled to be on the roll. We could read the regulations ourselves, but we needed the application made clear. The opinion which came back was that a person had to “habitually” attend for the three months before the roll was revised. Further they had to attend the actual piece of real estate that was the church in question. This mattered because the diocese had been allowing the group who had left and gone down the road to call themselves “St. Luke’s”. The point was according to the diocese's own experts in church law that legally they were not entitled to be on our church roll.

My next question was how to determine this, since some were still coming occasionally to continue harassing our congregation as explained earlier. Also a number of people who supported me had been so hurt by all the sit in demonstrations that they stopped coming, and even now were pretty sporadic. So, could I just take off the members of the other group and leave supporters on? I would have loved to have done that - just out of kindness to the supporters who had already been hurt so badly.

Vestry and I decided we couldn’t just take off the names of Nick and Shirley's people who had not been attending St. Luke's. We were fighting dishonest practices: we had to be scrupulously honest ourselves. Otherwise we would be no better than they were!

We marked an attendance roll every Sunday for three months. Then we revised the electoral roll and took off every name “friend or foe” without fear or favour who did not attend.

The Archbishop was furious. The ones from the dissident group whose names we had removed were primed to appeal to Archbishop-in-council. We heard that the diocese’s law committee had ruled that they were not eligible to have their names on our electoral roll - because they did not attend our church. In fact their own church was not only geographically separated from us, but had its own minister, its own finances (using a diocesan bank account) and its own governing committee - and its own Sunday school and youth groups. In short it was in every conceivable way “a different church”.

I believe that the Archbishop told his council that it was a “pastoral matter” and that they must just accept his “pastoral judgement”. Except for two brave souls who questioned the archbishop's actions, the council did.

Archbishop-in-Council did what the archbishop demanded and put back the names of all the dissidents (but none of my supporters) on the excuse that Vestry had not passed a motion defining what standard was to be applied for “habitual” attendance.

The two brave members of that council who spoke against it had signed their own career death warrants – they were later quietly put out of their diocesan positions.

Vestry promptly passed the required motion based on what the diocese's own legal experts had decreed

and instructed the electoral roll committee to revise the roll forthwith, which they have the legal right to do and which they did, removing again the names which had no right to be there!

It did not do any good of course. But it showed up that the diocese was acting outside even the law it had just passed and was relying on to get rid of me!

The Archbishop invoked the provisions of the law, maintaining against all the facts that these people constituted “one third of the electors of the parish”.

A “Board of Reference” was now called into being. Under the act, all they had to determine was the question “Does there exist an irretrievable breakdown in pastoral relationships between the vicar and some parishioners” So if a few persons say “We will never reconcile to the vicar” that is it. The vicar must go! As I said it is a very bad law.

Since this Board said that the question of these people not being “parishioners” was outside its frame of reference, and since said people had for eighteen months spurned every attempt by our Wardens to talk reconciliation the result was a foregone conclusion.

Nick and Shirley's people had already been assured of this by the diocese. Here is what one of their leaders said to one of our parishioners (I am quoting her statutory declaration made 1996)

“One day at about the time that the board of reference was appointed Andy xxx (a mechanic who was one of the leaders of the South Vermont Group) was at my house to work on my car. As soon as I opened the front door to him he said to me words to the effect: “The Board of Reference is purely and simply called as a formality to satisfy David that the Archbishop was taking appropriate action - to shut David up. xxx (naming the Chairman of the Board) is a good friend of the Archbishop’s. The outcome is already decided. This is just for appearance sake. The decision will be made quickly because xxx is going on holidays overseas and wants to get the whole thing over and done with. …”

So the whole thing was just a show for propaganda purposes. Yes I know, I am sounding sour, but I really disapprove of churches acting like this.

At the beginning of October 1996 I was summoned to see the Archbishop where he handed me a letter revoking my licence, and forbidding me from entering the church at Vermont. It was payday, and another letter was send to the treasurer commanding him not to give the monthly pay.

I was out.

My Adventures with God 57: Set Free to Worship

Chapter 57 ... Set Free To Worship

At the November 1994 AGM the Nick and Shirley's group were voted out. There could be no disputing that. They had stacked the AGM with their people, They had run their own “ticket” for vestry and wardens. They had run a vigorous political campaign for votes. They had the PR advantage of the backing of the diocese. And they still lost.

For the parish it was wonderful. You could almost feel the sense of freedom in the air.

The first big change I noticed was financial. Shirley's husband Peter xxx had continued to be treasurer of the parish while Nick and Shirley’s followers had the numbers in vestry. Under his treasurership I had not been paid for over three months.

The new treasurer had my pay quickly restored, and everything including the parish assessment paid off in short order.

Peter xxx had been saying at monthly vestry meetings that there not enough money to pay me. Examination of the accounts showed that there had been ruses like drawing a large cheque just before the date the bank issued its monthly statement and then re-depositing it just afterwards to make it look as though there was no money to pay me when there actually was.

The diocese had also assisted in hiding away nearly $50,000 - mainly in the fear that if Nick and Shirley's people lost the elections the new vestry might use it to run the parish. We didn't need the money! There had apparently always been plenty of money. Once Peter was removed from being treasurer, they were not only to pay me, but to quickly make up my back pay and also to make up within a few months the back “taxes” owing to the diocese – which had been another of Peter's ruses to make the diocese think the parish was about to collapse financially!.

From then on we had no more money worries.

The next thing I noticed was the Archbishops anger. He was angry that the side he had backed had been voted out by the people. He was angry that as time went by the parish not only survived the departure of Nick and Shirley's group but bounded into life: flourishing now that their fifth column activities were inhibited.

The archbishop told me very angrily that they had assured him that they represented the most active and committed Christians in the parish, and that without them it would “fall apart within a few months”

The unspoken but obvious problem was that the archbishop had staked his reputation to some degree on this outcome. By flourishing when it was meant to fall apart the parish was making him appear to have misjudged the situation!

So what was happening in the parish?

The sort answer is that many more of the talented and deeply spiritual people who had been kept out of ministry by the Nick and Shirley now started developing all sorts of ministries.

Also, or perhaps primarily, the blessing and joy of God descended on the parish.

I said earlier that the 10 am service in particular needed a large team of people - 18 or 20 to fill all the rostered duties. Much earlier Nick and Shirley's followers had resigned from most of these over a very short space of time. They expected - I think they really believed their own propaganda here - that everything would collapse without them. It didn’t. There were plenty of people ready and waiting, and I suspect just itching to jump in and help. So all our services were singing along as they always had.

Readers who were in Melbourne diocese at the time may be saying “but didn’t we hear ...” Yes, you quite likely did hear all sorts of misinformation!! Nick and Shirley's people were mounting the most energetic propaganda campaign throughout the diocese. And the vestry under their control did pass a motion that “church services have been in disarray for over twelve months” but there was not a shred of truth in it.

The parish was also growing again healthily, new people were coming, people were being converted, people were being helped. In any other circumstances we should have been held up as the model of an effective, growing parish.

Importantly the dramatic decline which had begun several years before I went to the parish, had run its course. Interestingly when I charted the church attendances over the years I found that they peaked at a yearly average of about 250 per Sunday for the year 1985. Then they had been in decline from about the time Nick xxx joined the parish staff!

Certainly the decline was continuing after I came,but there were extenuating circumstances! I had had a group actively trying to destroy the parish, and for good measure I had had the diocese throw every obstacle they could in my way. Lastly when those efforts failed these people actively fomented a schism and actively recruited among the congregation - all with the public support of diocesan officials. The parish should have been just smoldering ruins! Instead I had about 110 people worshiping every Sunday. I think I did pretty well! (for US readers used to big churches, at that time in Melbourne I think the average Sunday attendance for an Anglican parish was about 40!)

We were getting unchurched people converted and growing into strong Christians. Just one story: One young man came to our Good Friday service because he got a flyer I had been putting in letterboxes. The young people all welcomed him and included him, and after the service - since numbers of them generally came over to the vicarage he was brought along with them. He became a regular part of things, he became a committed Christian and one day he came up to me and said “I need your advice” there was a pause, then he said “you know what my problem is don’t you” Well I had assumed he was from a homosexual culture, but that had not affected how any of us treated him. He was just who he was. I was a bit apprehensive because I wasn’t going to say either “Thou shalt not ...” or “its Ok to be ...” .

I feel we are all “damaged goods” in God’s repair shop. And I’ve found that the Holy Spirit has his own agenda for which dents he wants to knock out first. God, in my experience, likes to work it out personally with the person concerned without us either dumping on them our own little prejudices or pet ideas on one hand or undermining his laws with our personal or cultural blind spots on the other!

But I was not expecting what came next. He was actually in a gender reassignment program and had come to our area to cut all his ties and change identities. And here he had just joined a church and formed a whole lot of new relationships which were important to him.

In addition his experience of “maleness” to date had been of one stereotype: beer swilling, football playing, and boorish. He knew he was not that! After sampling our family life and seeing a different model of “being a male” he was thinking he could be that sort!

He was tremendous with the young people. He was a hairdresser. They used to descend on the vicarage after the evening service. Treat of the night was one of them having something special done to their hair in front of a rapt audience.

One anecdote I hope he won’t mind me telling was one time he came up to my then 17 year old son, put his arm round his shoulder and confided, “Oh Dave, I messed up over the weekend: I had sex.” then he brightened up and said “But it was with a girl!”

We had a flow of people staying at the vicarage. Many were young men who came from dysfunctional families before they were converted, and for them it was a chance to see how a “normal” family worked so that they would have something to model their family life on. I remember once feeling a bit sad watching my then 10 year old daughter leading a 38 year old morphine addict around the house explaining the “house rules”. Years later our older daughter was on a tram in Melbourne when a strange man came up to her and said “You are Elizabeth Greentree aren’t you?” with some trepidation she said “Yes” then he went on “My name is xxxxxx and I stayed with you years ago, Just tell your parents they saved my life. I’m even holding down a steady job.” So we also had unknown successes.

There is another person I really should mention (well there are many I really should mention, but this one is an absolute “must”). Brian xxx who took over as vicar’s warden after Roger and Helen xxx left. Brian was absolutely fabulous. He was a phenomenally mature Christian, and a man of sound judgment and absolute integrity. It was not easy for him – he was friends with many of the Nick and Shirley's group: he used to play golf with Nick; he was a keen member of the 4WD club. They were not kind to him when he appeared to back me (in reality Brian was always, I am proud to say, God’s man, never mine!), but he did what he believed was right and godly regardless of the personal cost. He used to drop around one day each week after work and we would talk over things and pray together. He was a very diligent prayer partner born in part from his involvement in the prayer counselling ministry. Brian was never slow to interrupt and correct me if he thought my prayers were off the point, or I was not taking proper responsibility – like praying “forgive me if I have...” instead of “… for what I have ...”They were really great times being co-workers with such godly people!

Church services.

8 am was a more traditional service. The old music group had ignored it. Now Midge the music director came and played so that we had hymns. Right through Ray xxx had been helping each week as lay reader. He was a tremendous person and absolutely solid. Between us we ran a pretty good traditional service, and he was an amazing support to us in the trials that were about to come.

10 am was the big service. There was a different “service leader” each week who led the congregation through the liturgy in a modern informal way. we had a number of very good service leaders who now all shared this attitude that had come in first through the re-formed music group that we were there to serve the congregation and assist them in their worship. Other members of the congregation did bible readings, led the prayers of intercession, children’s talk, helped with communion. The prayer ministry team offered individual prayer after each service. Finally there was tea and coffee to promote a time of fellowship.

The new music group grew quickly, and under Midge’s leadership very soon surpassed in every aspect the old music group. With our new ethos of serving God, each other and the congregation, there was a real bond and also an inclusiveness - which had been so lacking in the old group.

Particularly once the Nick and Shirley’s followers at last gave up trying to continually disrupt the service it was something that would be the envy of just about any parish.

5.30 pm was our youth service. The old one had been nominally “youth” but was continually in danger of being hijacked by “oldies” who wanted to re-create the 70’s charismatic music of their own younger days. I remember overhearing a man ask his then 14 year old daughter what she thought of it. Screwing up her nose she replied: “It’s dork music!”

So we wanted something better. The young people themselves formed the welcoming teams. They formed the singing group, and particularly the older ones in their 20’s the musicians. They got a great deal more participation in the service wherever possible such as leading informal prayers and the readings. We also had a “soup and bread” meal with the service so that it became a great social event - and as I have said large numbers trooped over to the vicarage afterwards.

Music was interesting. Midge of course liked traditional. But in keeping with the “servant-hood” ideal, she organized, encouraged, and often played keyboard with the young musicians and singers. They absolutely loved her ... there was a popular TV ad about this time which led to her being affectionately known as “Big M”.

As it developed we gained diverse, talented musicians. Ones like Kylie and Ben (who married and were missionaries in Russia) and Greg (now with his wife missionaries in Japan) who were studying at Bible College of Victoria, and really good classical musicians. Some of the newly converted men had been performing musicians in the “grunge” music scene.

These all worked harmoniously together to give fantastic music. Some songs were to paraphrase Star Trek: “Its Hillsong Jim, but not as we know it”!

“Hillsong” songs, popular in modern church services all over Australia can be a little too saccharin-sweet! A rock band approach can tighten them up nicely. My favorite was one called “Shelter” - I don’t know if I can do justice to it in writing. Imagine energetic drum roll with electric guitar descending riff as the intro, then rock band style the lead guitarist sort of sing-shouting “You give me shelter, you give me peace, you give me healing and ...” with second guitar, bass guitar, and the younger singers all joining in their part

Or I can still see Ben, brilliant on piano playing while Kylie led “His love keeps following me” with actions. Or Greg, a young successful lawyer who had been converted in his native Western Australia, convicted by God of a calling to preach in Japan and was now in training. He was the best and most passionate evangelistic preacher I have heard. He still had the lawyer’s precision but with the evangelists fire he was something! Japan’s gain was definitely Australia’s loss! Greg had a really good voice and loved the old hymns, and loved them sung at a good tempo. He could make a congregation feel these old hymns were new and alive.

What we had was all so amazing that later when our kids were looking for a church they tried St. Hillary’s - the Melbourne Anglican charismatic mega church, and said “not as good as St. Luke’s. They tried St. Jude’s - the crispy evangelical Anglican mega church and said again: “Not as good as St. Luke’s.

But but our success highlighted the archbishop's poor judgment in backing Nick and Shirley. Could he say “I was wrong” and change tack? Could he swallow his pride? What would he do?

My Adventures with God 56: Foul Play

Chapter 56: Foul Play

I was trying to act honourably towards everyone. Those campaigning against me showed no such scruples.

The diocese had a common goal with Nick and Shirley's people. (They also seemed to resonate with each other, which I think came from a common “progressive” world view.) So they played a sort of game of tag, each helping the other to stir up strife in the parish. Let me give you just a few examples.

There was an election of synod representatives from every parish. I announced it as required and asked people to nominate. By the due date there were only the same number of nominations as places, so next Sunday I announced these “elected unopposed”.

Next vestry meeting I was accused of not announcing the election properly. The vestry sent off a letter to the diocese complaining about my actions and asking the diocese to investigate.

At the following month's vestry meeting transcripts of my announcements (sermons were recorded, but I did not know till then that everything I said was being recorded!) were produced (by one of Shirley's associates who ran the PA group! - there were many in her camp who were themselves honest and honourable but had been swayed by her propaganda)) which showed I had indeed made all the announcements to the letter of the rules.

The vestry could not do anything more to me in the face of this – but they didn't need to – the allegations had been made publicly and to the diocese and were never retracted!

One time I was called in to see the archbishop he told me that Shirley had threatened to sue over the letter I had sent her removing her from the music group. Next vestry meeting I reported this conversation. Peter (Shirley’s husband) jumped to his feet and called me a liar (again!) and assured the vestry that Shirley had never threatened to sue. So vestry wrote to the archbishop relaying all this and asking him to confirm or deny it.

The archbishop wrote back fanning the flames by saying he could not recall saying that and he could not think of any occasion when he could have said it to me. Seriously? He only had to check his diary to know that he had recently called me in to see him!

Interestingly he did put in his reply that he had checked his file and found a memorandum from the bishop which said: “Mr xxx (Shirley's husband Peter) has sought legal advice and has been told the letter is certainly a basis for legal action and that he should advise the archbishop that he intends to proceed.” (as I told the archbishop at the meeting, there was - as any lawyer would know - absolutely no basis for legal action! So I assume was a ruse to put pressure on the archbishop.)

This did not stop Peter getting up at the church AGM and accusing me of lying, because I had said that the archbishop told me that Shirley threatened to sue. “Shirley has never threatened to sue anyone!” purred Peter in to the microphone.

Each year we had to update the electoral roll. This is a roll of people who can vote at church meetings. Eligibility is pretty open. You just have to be over 18, attend the parish church services regularly, say “I am an Anglican” and declare you are not a member of any other church.

A number of people applied but said that they were still members of other denominations. As I was trying to “dot my i's and cross my t's” I asked the bishop what to do. He said they must be welcomed into the Anglican Church at a simple ceremony he would perform at the church. I had never bothered with this sort of formality before, but I obediently informed all those concerned.

The bishop came and all but one agreed to be welcomed into the church at this ceremony. One woman – one of Nick and Shirley's group - refused but still demanded to be put on the roll even though she had declared that she was a member of the Baptist church. I refused. Vestry took up her cause and wrote to the archdeacon.

The archdeacon (next rank down from a bishop) wrote back saying that of course she should be put on the roll, and obviously the vicar (me) was being totally insensitive! I obeyed his order and put her on the roll. Vestry members of Nick and Shirley's group had a field day abusing me and then wrote a letter – read out in church - apologising profusely to the woman for the vicar's “pastoral abuse” of her!

Besides this game of tag between the diocese and Nick & Shirley's group, there were some nasty things being done to fabricate false accusations which were then trumpeted far and wide. Here are just two:

For the first I am quoting, as before, from a contemporary “statutory declaration” made by the witness, The “meeting” she refers to was the one I had with the music group where Jane, the music leader had not told them what I intended as I had asked her to, but rather used the meeting to read out my private letter to Shirley removing her from the group and then to create mayhem.

“ It was a terrible meeting. Shortly after it I suffered a major panic attack and I had a minor breakdown. My treating doctor said that the meeting was the ‘icing on the cake’ which, on top of the family problems I was having at the time tipped me into that condition. I had never had an attack before.

As soon as David Greentree heard about it he contacted my home and spoke to my husband. At that time I was not able to speak on the telephone. My husband told David this, so ho didn’t ring me after that until I was much better and able to cope with phone calls.

However while I was sick I suffered a barrage of telephone calls mainly from Shirley xxx and some from (one of Shirley’s friends) even though they were told I found it difficult to speak on the telephone and needed rest and peace and quiet.

In these telephone calls Shirley said to me words to the effect “David doesn’t care about you” and “How many times has David been over to see you?”

I kept telling Shirley that David had rung up as soon as he heard and that I had asked people not to disturb me until I was feeling better, but it did not stop her constant calls and disparaging comments about David.

Whenever Shirley or (Shirley’s friend) rang me, the conversation would start with “How are you?” and then the rest of the conversation would be taken up with Shirley or (the friend) saying poisonous things about David.

Shirley often just referred to David as “Greentree” and kept saying such things as “This (meaning my breakdown) is all Greentree’s fault” and “Greentree’s going to pay for it” and “Look what Greentree’s done to you.”

The telephone calls became so frequent and so bad that I had to ask David to announce in church that no-one should phone me for the time being.

When I was feeling a little better one Sunday I came to church. Almost as soon as I set foot in the door, Andy xxx [an associate of Nick's] came up to me and said “Are you aware that your name has been left off the prayer sheet? Did you request that?” I was bewildered and said that I didn’t know anything about it.

When I went up to take Communion Shirley xxx and Judy xxx both came up beside me as I stood in the line, saying such things as “How do you feel about taking Communion from a man who cares so little about you that he takes your name off the prayer list without consulting you?”

I was so upset by their comments that I ran out of the church in tears.

I was followed out into the car park by Shirley xxx Judy xxx (and two of their supporters) to “comfort” me, saying such things as “David Greentree will get his just desserts” and “The man is evil” and “He will pay a price for what he has done to people like yourself.”

After all this I found out that David had not removed my name from the prayer list, but that Judy xxx (vicar’s secretary) had made an error and left it off the list when she was typing it. Yet she was one of the ones suggesting that David had done this to me.

David and Sue Greentree played a very great part in my recovery.”

(I have as usual put “xxx” in place of surnames, and I added the information that Andy was one of Nick's associates. Judy was indeed vicar's secretary – her employment was in the hands of vestry not the vicar! She was a close friend of Shirley's)

There was an elderly shut in lady who lived with her slightly retarded daughter. They were not able any more to sit through a church service, so I took communion to them once a month.

While I was on holidays the old lady died, (though only just before I returned). I came back to find that the funeral was to take place in the next door Anglican church. I rang the minister and he told me that the daughter had come to him as she had been told that I would not allow her mother’s funeral to take place in St. Luke’s. He graciously let me be part of the service at his church, which was attended by a large number from both St. Luke’s and the dissident’s church (this happened after Nick and Shirley's group had been given their own church just down the road from St. Luke's).

I visited the daughter later and obliquely tried to find out what had happened. She was reticent in a way that made me think she had been frightened into not to telling me anything. However she said enough to convince me that a certain woman had gone to her (possibly just before her mother died) and convinced them of the lie that I would not allow the funeral at St. Luke’s. Though how this person persuaded them of this when I had been faithfully taking them Communion every month I don’t know.

What I do know is that the Archbishop personally reprimanded me for “refusing to take this funeral”. He was not interested in my explanation, but named the person who had complained to him. You guessed it, the woman who complained to the archbishop was the same one who had set up the whole situation by lying to the two ladies!

So in both these, and who knows how many other instances Nick and Shirley's people themselves did something to cause hurt to someone, then blamed it on me, and then used it to cause trouble for me or to try to make the person turn against me and join their camp!

My Adventures with God: 55: God's Grace is Sufficient

Chapter 55 “God's Grace is sufficient”

As I keep saying; God is wonderful. Of course we all know that from the really huge things he has done – creating & sustaining the universe – providing salvation in Christ our Lord – the gift and power of the Holy Spirit. But as if that were not enough to fill our praises we see his continual concern and kindness right down to the very ordinary level.

Paul wrote that “we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:8ff). We at Vermont felt the same – the remaining two thirds of the congregation; my little family and me personally.

As a congregation the grace of God was spectacular. Nick and Shirley's followers were so self-convinced of their spiritual superiority that they were sure that if they pulled out of the up-front leadership roles they had been in, the church would swiftly collapse. We know they had convinced the archbishop that this was so – he wrote to the parish saying as much.

They had not taken the grace of God into account.

As they pulled out other people in the congregation stepped up. Some had great natural talent but had been pushed into the background by Nick and Shirley's people. Others were more reticent but felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing them to come forward. These began to demonstrate real (as opposed to Nick and Shirley's people's contrived) gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Ros. And Rob. Took over the younger youth group. Their son was in that age group. They were a really solid Christian couple, and Ros. the more extrovert of the pair had a real talent for coming up with great activities for the kids. So that ministry began to flourish.

A lady who with her husband had just returned from time in New Guinea where they were part of a very strong Christian community joined the church and offered to take over the senior youth group.

We had an influx of young men with life controlling problems but who now gave their lives to Jesus. My wife Sue started a bible study group for them. Interestingly they found that church on Sunday night and bible study on Tuesday night were not enough to see them through so they also met to pray together and encourage each other later in the week.

The prayer ministry team flourished. It was under the discipline of a nation wide organisation, so some in that ministry who had left our church under Nick and Shirley heard and now returned, and they were all mature Christians who also contributed in other roles in the church.

This evidence of God's grace in the lives of ordinary people flowing over into not just the survival but the reinvigoration and growth of all the multitude of ministries in the parish as Nick and Shirley's people abandoned them. There are so many I should mention, but I will limit myself to one.

The music ministry was a shining example. The new operating principle was servanthood. We were not there to please, let alone exhibit ourselves. We were to serve the congregation, in particular in aiding them to praise and adore God in song.

Midge took over as leader after Nick's wife Jane and all their followers walked out of it. The new “atmosphere” was so different. The group was small at first but grew steadily. Midge exemplified the servant leader. To the 8 am service she provided the old hymns that congregation loved. For the 10am the mixture of old and new worship music and the modern style of piano, singing group and song leader. For the evening 'youth service' she was a mother figure.

The old music group had done the largely 70's Charismatic music they liked at the evening service. One 14 year old when asked by her father said it was “Dork music”.

Now we had teenagers as the singing group. Some of the young men I spoke about earlier came out of the “grunge music” scene. They brought electric and base guitar (we already had drums and piano. We used a lot of “Hillsong” music, but “grungified”. Midge, although this was not her style of music mothered them, encouraged them, and accompanied them on piano. We were later also blessed with the help of very talented and gifted people who were studying at a nearby Bible college. Among them were Kylie who helped in youth group and singing and Ben who was a brilliant trumpeter and pianist who later married and served as missionaries in Russia; and Greg who played hymns at a pace that would have delighted Wesley, and enthused young people to this treasure store of praise was also the finest evangelistic preacher I have heard. He went as a missionary to Japan.

This servant attitude flowed on. The old folk hankered for the old 1662 “evensong” service, so we had this once a quarter in the afternoon. They loved the really old hymns, but their frail voices could no longer manage them. So young people, who liked a very different style of music came and sang hymns with them.

Another facet to Midge was this: Jane had once lambasted me because I changed sermon topic when she had based music on the old topic. Midge worked out that I generally didn't know myself what I was going to preach on, so she prayed for God to direct her choice of music. I found this out when I became curious at the fact that the music always seemed to compliment my sermon and I asked her how she picked it.

In our family everyone felt the pressure, but everyone received God's grace to survive. We were bound together by our love for Christ and our common commitment to his service. The kids, as their age allowed, played their part fantastically. Sue, as well as working part time the other side of town and driving the kids to and from school, was involved in a number of ministries such as her young adults bible study, and guidance. These young people coined a phrase, which was to called in for “an Aunty Sue talk”. We prayed and talked together as a couple and as a family. All the family were really supportive, without their support and “go-ahead” I could and would not have kept going.

Personally, it was all God! Everything I thought I had as a human strength was stripped away. I don't think the book “The Five love Languages” had even been written then, but I now know I am a “words of affirmation” person. To be under constant harping criticism of everything I did should have destroyed me. Indeed one of Shirley's emissaries had promised that they would either drive me out of the parish or to a breakdown within six months. The public humiliations I had endured at the hands of both Nick and Shirley and their supporters and the archbishop, bishop, and archdeacon I suspect were on a par with the Communist Chinese practices designed to break dissidents. The monthly church council meetings were a trial I could not have survived had not Christ given me a cocoon of his powerful protection.

Nick and Shirley's people worked out that I was surviving their onslaughts by outside spiritual power. But they told everyone far and wide that I was only surviving “by the power of Satan”. Really! Didn't they know that Christ defeated him on the cross! Didn't they know that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow… Didn't they even know they were channeling the Pharisees who accused Jesus of driving out demons “by the prince of demons”! But this is what they said and even some clergy around the diocese believed them.

God also provided us with people he called and equipped in what is often called “spiritual warfare”. These faithful people of prayer were an invaluable protection. But I was not of these special prayer warriors. Let me explain: we had two delightful Anglican nuns in our congregation. One time the head of their order visited our church from Sydney. After the service she asked to see me and gave me two words from the Lord. The first was “do not ever think of yourself as some great spiritual warrior, you are not, you are just my beloved little child.” the other was: “I will be with David wherever he goes”. They were both beautiful words of encouragement.

My Adventures with God 54: Why I defied the Archbishop

Chapter 54 … Why I defied the Archbishop

Checks and Balances

This is a feature of the free world that we often take for granted. We shouldn't!

Look at two leaders: Kim Jong-il in North Korea and any President of the United States.

Kim is an absolute ruler. North Korea may have some sort of parliament, it may have judges and law courts, but the hard reality is that anyone at all who does anything at all that Kim does not like ends up in front of a firing squad!

Then there is POTUS. He (or she) has some huge powers. They are Commander-in -Chief of the most powerful armed forces on earth and they can declare war by their own authority alone. But in other areas they do not have the power to act on their own. Healthcare changes for instance. Congress and the Senate have the power to block the President. Then again Congress can be blocked by the Senate, and even if both houses agree on some legislation the president can veto it. But then again the President has to deal with a (relatively) free press and TV, and public opinion. So there are all these checks and balances on power to try to limit misuse of it. And it mostly works:

Where would you prefer to live? The United States (or some other free world country) or North Korea?

Now Presidents might like to have all the power, but they don't. Past Presidents have tried to introduce measures only to have the Supreme Court rule them unconstitutional. Maybe for a fleeting moment these presidents envied their Communist counterparts … just maybe. Can you imagine any North Korean court telling Kim he couldn't do something he wanted? But it is precisely things like this splitting up of powers that makes the free world free!

It is called “checks and balances”: one person or body's set of powers balancing out possible abuses by another body's powers. And we all know the old saying: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And this does not just apply to government of states.

I recounted earlier my experiences in the Naval Reserve – of spending 36 hours adrift at sea on a disabled patrol boat because a young Petty Officer engineer would not bring himself to use the power that Naval regulations gave him to countermand the orders of the big brash barrister-cum-Lietenant Commander who wanted to go at full speed regardless of fuel consumption. Even in the navy, where in wartime a sailor can be hanged for disobeying the captain's orders there is some division of powers: the chief engineer can and must when necessary say: “Sorry Sir, we don't have enough fuel to do that.” and the captain must give in!

The Anglican Church – possibly particularly in Australia – has checks and balances built in everywhere.

I don't mean in Australia particularly because we were originally a convict settlement – although that has given a certain larrikin streak to our national character! I mean that when in the late 1800's and early 1900's our national constitution was being formulated, they made many improvements on the English model we were adapting. For instance in England the Anglican Church was the official national church. In Australia no denomination was favoured over any other. Likewise when church constitutions were being formulated they had to take this into account, which produced a host of differences (and I think generally improvements) to the English model.

Not that I am knocking the English model. In the 1662 “Articles of Religion” it reacted to absolute claims by Rome with the doctrine that we all make mistakes, and pointed out the historical fact that even general church councils had been wrong even on doctrinal points. (qf the Arian heresy). So “power sharing” was creeping in – at about the same that time that Kings and Queens were being introduced to the idea of power sharing with Parliament.

The Anglican Communion is a bit quirky that way – the Archbishop of Canterbury, unlike the “Bishop of Rome” in the Catholic Communion, is not the top dog of a single hierarchy. He is, as they put it, only “first among equals”. He can't give orders to the other Archbishops, and so on down the line.

For instance: Sydney is the capital of the Australian state of New South Wales. So the diocese that covers Sydney has an Anglican (and a Catholic) archbishop. There are other dioceses in New South Wales, they only have bishops leading them, the archbishop of Sydney is in protocol their superior. But in protocol only! The archbishop of Sydney cannot interfere in how these bishops do whatever bishops are legally allowed to do in their own diocese.

For readers who find this all a bit irrelevant and are starting to wonder if I have a point here: YES, I do – please bear with me.

So when I was at theological college there was this situation. Sydney was theologically conservative and “evangelical” the other dioceses in New South Wales were by and large theologically liberal and “Anglo-Catholic”. The Archbishop of Sydney, much as he might want to, could not influence these dioceses that were notionally under his care. Yes he even had to smile and consecrate whoever they chose under their own constitutions as their next bishop, no matter how much he disapproved of the man's theology!

But occasionally an evangelical minister trained by Sydney's theological college was appointed in one of these dioceses by some broader minded bishop. Later a more doctrinaire bishop might be appointed and naturally wanted to get rid of this evangelical minister. We were lectured in college about how this attempt was frustrated by the rules of the church. The same rules that stopped the archbishop from meddling in other dioceses in his state also forbade the bishop of a diocese from getting grid of a minister who had not done anything sinful or heretical. The rules also limited how much the bishop could interfere in a parish. This had allowed the gospel to be preached in many towns where otherwise it would not have been

So for all these reasons I valued the doctrine of checks and balances over the “absolute ruler” model. I was not “standing up for my rights” when I refused to resign when the Archbishop said he wanted me to. I was on one hand standing up principles that I believed were important. On the other hand I was refusing the archbishop's unlawful demands out of duty of care for my congregation.

No one should take on pastoring any church unless they truly believe God has truly called them. And that has to be accompanied by appointment according to the rules of their denomination. (PS remember how Saul was both anointed king by God through Samuel, then later also acclaimed king by the people.) While one needs both these things to pastor, you only need one in order to stop!

If you believe Christ has rescinded his call you should resign! If the denomination rescinds your appointment according to its rules, well you have to go! But you go with a clear conscience before God. If you have neither and you leave, you are just like the “hireling” shepherd who runs away when it all gets too hard … well we know how Jesus the only true Good Shepherd scorned that behaviour!

So I stayed on pastoring at St Luke's Vermont because it was my duty before God to remain pastoring the flock that had been entrusted to my care until either he released me or the church lawfully removed me.

This principle of checks and balances gave me both rights and obligations. For my part I never shirked the obligations. Wherever the rules of the church said the vicat had to defer to another body on any question I gladly did – be it to the Archbishop, Synod, the parish's church council, the Church Warden's, or a vote at a (lawfully convened!) congregational meeting.

I respected the limits placed on my authority by the very church rules that conferred on me whatever authority I had as vicar. I expected the Archbishop to likewise respect the limits placed on his authority by the very rules of the church which gave him whatever authority he had as archbishop.

He didn't.

Philosophical discussion on Power & authority

BONUS BLOG … Who Rules?

Which is the winning hand ?

Well, that depends! In the “Wild West” or even now in some of the less desirable places on earth to live, “a Smith & Wesson beats four aces”. In the times and places most of us would prefer to inhabit, four aces wins because those are the rules of the game!

Now please don't go all mushy on me and say something silly like “Oh yes! Violence never achieves anything. It is not true; it is not Biblical!

The “Peacemaker” that transformed the lawless wild west into a place where decent folk could live in safety was of course the newly invented rapid fire “Colt Peacemaker” in the hands of brave lawmen. Even now no country has peace unless criminals at home know the Police can out-violence them and potential enemies abroad decide that invading them would be a painful mistake.

Not surprisingly the Bible, being true, says the same. “rulers do not bear the sword for nothing, they are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4) and of course finally heaven is ushered in by God's violence prevailing over the forces of evil (Christ has of course on the cross won the moral victory! When God acts in judgement and also when he welcomes pardoned sinners into heaven both acts will be totally righteous!) “There before me was a white horse, whose rider was called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. … the armies of heaven are following him … He treads the wine-press of the wrath of God Almighty … I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war on the rider on the horse and his army. But the Beast was captured, and with it the false prophet … the two of them were thrown alive into the lake of burning fire … the rest were killed ...” (Revelation 19)

Having very briefly, but I hope sufficiently busted that modern myth, let me go on to the main myth of interest here – which strangely comes out of the same ideological base. This is that Power (the Smith and Wesson) is the same as Authority (four aces win).

Now I am in a slight quandary as to how to put my argument succinctly. A lot has gone into making me think this way. When I was at Lang Lang and found that I could bring people of all sorts to Christ but I could not bring them into church, I studied up on sociology – because it seemed that the problem was “social” rather than “spiritual”. One of the acknowledged “fathers of modern sociology” I studied was Max Weber. His great contribution was in the field of what at the good end we could call “human leadership patterns” and at the bad end “human domination and subjugation”.

Just before I went to Vermont I was given and studied a fascinating book “The loss of the Good Authority” I could not begin to distil these down to a short blog post. But let me try to float a couple of ideas:

My wife's grandfather believed every word he read in the newspaper. “They wouldn't let them print it if it wasn't true!” he would say. I hope not many would be so gullible today! One-time authority figures have fallen off their pedestals all around us. And in most cases our growing distrust of people and institutions we once trusted implicitly is, sad to say, well grounded. That is one side of the story.

The other side is this: Repugnance of bad authorities has led us to reject the very idea of authority or authorities. This has made us throw out the baby with the bath water: we have dismissed the notion of there being a “good authority” at the same time! Big mistake! A mistake that has left a vacuum which has been filled-in by the ideology that “Power” is as good as (or better than) “Authority”

One big thing that makes authority safer than power is that it is controlled. Sure the authority of the rules sometimes lets you claim “I won!” but at other times it makes you admit: “You won.” The Smith & Wesson always lets you say “I win!”

Look at a Biblical example:

Take the story of the Centurion who particularly impressed Jesus with his faith (Matthew 8). When Jesus quizzed him did he say something like “I'm a Centurion, I got power! So I understand you having power!” NO! Nothing of the sort! He said: “I am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I say to this one 'go' and he goes...”

“A man under authority” This Centurion knew the difference between power and authority: Power you can use how you like (like a Smith & Wesson); authority comes from above, so you are first of all under the authority of whoever or whatever can give authority, so you can only exert the authority delegated to you as this higher authority dictates. Within those bounds certainly you have power to command, but only within those bounds!

The Centurion was under the discipline of the Roman Imperial Army. When he said to a soldier 'go' the soldier went!

Now the Roman army punished going to sleep in duty by death. So let us ask the question: Could a Roman Centurion order his guards: “Its a quiet night men, you just get a bit of shut-eye!” Could he if he discovered a guard asleep on watch say: “I'm the senior officer here, I'll let you off this time with 50 push-ups!” NEVER! And NEVER! As illustrated by the story of the Centurion who found his own son asleep on duty. The centurion drew his sword and beheaded his son on the spot. True authority is not the same as power!

On a different genre of authority, take the scientist. People were prepared to accept that the grey haired scientist knew things which he or she could never explain to the person in the street. So they were accepted as an authority, and their pronouncements accepted as authoritative on that subject. But his was predicated on the knowledge that all scientists submitted to the rules and ideals of scientific integrity and procedure. At that time, a scientist who faked his results or who hid the one result that showed his famous theory was wrong was forever banished as a pariah. Sadly scientists who sold their names to propaganda that products like asbestos were safe without due regard for the evidence led to doubts that they were truly under the authority of science. This led to doubts that they could be trusted as authorities.

The modern ideology espoused by more and more people is: “We want what we want, and if the “rules” are standing in our way, then lets get rid of the rules!” It sounds attractive. Just as it sounded attractive to the scientists at Chernobyl who wanted to run an experiment. The safety devices would get in the way of running their little experiment, so what did they do? They simply disconnected those troublesome safety devices. We know how that ended!

So, by all means be angry at “authorities” when they act badly – they are indeed causing harm far beyond the instance in question. But never, never throw out the baby with the bath water! There is a good authority which is in turn under the authority of some higher authority be it an acknowledged form of good practice, a set of rules, or a constitution. We need that kind of authority