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

My Adventures with God: 53: Public Humiliation

Chapter 53 ... Public Humiliation.

Later in 2003 Nick and Shirley's followers called a congregational meeting of St. Luke's parish. This was not legal under church law, but we were beginning to find out that they thought they were above the law. We were about to find out that diocesan officials also considered themselves above the law. If they wanted a thing, that was enough to make it right, and anything or any one who stood in the way of what they wanted could rightly be brushed aside.

I did not realise at that time that I was now entering a much wider ideological battle. In today's terms it is the battle between traditional conservative morals and progressive socialist morals. But if those terms were in use then I certainly did not know them. I was merely upholding a system of ethics I believed in against what I saw simply as individuals and groups behaving badly. I did not know that it was symptomatic of a widespread moral cancer.

I naively thought I was just up against Nick, Shirley and their followers. I was soon to find that this moral cancer infected people who held opposite views of doctrine and “churchmanship” and made them resonate with each other. I was soon to be fighting the whole diocesan hierarchy!

I hope to expand on this issue of conflict of ethical systems next post because it is the key to understanding not only some of the things about Nick and Shirley, but the looming conflict with the archbishop.

Back to the illegal congregational meeting: I found out about the meeting, and decided that trying to stop it would be as futile as King Canute trying to stop the tide, so I attended it and just asserted my right to be chairman. The meeting was stormy to say the least. The “superspirituals wanted firstly to put the boot into me as much as possible and secondly to get a motion of “no confidence” in me as vicar. I would not let them put the motion as that is just not how the Anglican Church works.

At one stage Jane xxx jumped up and demanded a vote to replace me as chairman. That is within the rules so I put her motion and it was resoundingly defeated. The message was clear: the “superspirituals” did not have the support of most of the congregation - even at a meeting they had called themselves and stacked with their supporters.

The next week I was summoned to see the Archbishop and chastised for not doing exactly what the “superspirituals” wanted. The fact that what they had done in calling the meeting and what they wanted to do with a motion of “no confidence” were unlawful were irrelevant to him. I was rapidly realising that the Archbishop had firmly taken sides!

There is one more interesting thing to relate about the congregational meeting.

Brian was one of the new leaders who had stepped up once Nick and Shirley's people walked oput of all their leadership roles. He had been a friend and golf partner of Nick. But he came to believe that Nick was wrong and supported me. To see him develop from a quiet but very devout person-in-the-pew to a spiritual force to be reckoned with was awsome. I'll tell you more about him later.

At the meeting he made two requests. First was to let the motion of no confidence to go ahead – in the confidence that it would be soundly defeated as indeed the motion to remove me as chairman had been. I refused this because even though it would work in my favour to have this vote – as it would have been - go my way, it was a bad precedent because it was not how the Anglican Church worked.

Brian's second was a strange request in some ways but quite logical - if politically suicidal - from the point of view of a devout Christian and one who was a trained “Prayer Counsellor”. He went to the microphone and said: “David, are you prepared, right now, in front of us all, to ask the forgiveness of everyone you have hurt?”

I was a little taken aback. Did he know what he was asking? It flashed through my mind first the political inexpediency of doing what he asked - I am no politician but even the proverbial babe-in-the-woods could see that pitfall! But I knew Brian was thinking as a Christian and a counsellor. then I also recalled how Jesus had taken a towel at the last supper and washed his disciples’ feet.” The example of Jesus won for me. I said: “Yes, I will.”

A number of Nick and Shirley’s supporters came up and I knelt in front of each one in turn, before the whole congregation and asked their forgiveness for anything I had done which had hurt them.

Shirley refused to take part. Nick came but drowned out my words shouting that it was all a facade and that I had not really repented.

He later put in writing what I think he was then shouting over my words. It was to the effect that he was like a girl who had been sexually abused by her father. The father might ask for her forgiveness, but she could not forgive him until he had repented.

I feel shocked even writing this now, that Nick could think for one instant that him being dismissed from a one-quarter-time post was in any way like a girl being raped by her father! But he did. This mind-boggling self-importance perhaps gives a true insight into his soul.

Yes this was indeed public humiliation, particularly when some merely used it as an occasion to mock me, but I rather think Jesus would have done it had he been in my shoes.

Now I come to a series of public humiliations brought about by the church hierarchy. These actually chronologically straddle the meeting described above, but it seemed efficient to lump them together.

I said that there had been a bishops agent doing what he called “taking the temperature” of the parish. I thought he said at one particular meeting that he was finishing up and sending a report to the bishop. I wrote asking the bishop for a copy of this report. He never answered my letter. I was later asked by the “superspirituals” in vestry what was in the report and I answered truthfully that I did not know because I had not been shown this report. They wrote to the archdeacon. Next I find a letter from the archdeacon being read out condemning me for not being honest and telling vestry what was in the report! Interestingly enough some years later, when we were at suit in the Supreme Court, the Archbishop declared under oath that the diocese had no such report. Yet they had said publicly back then that I was less than honest for not divulging what was in this non existent report!

I also said that I had asked the bishop to tell me if he thought I should not sack Nick, and the only answer I got was through his investigator who said “You’re the vicar, its up to you.” However now the bishop conveniently forgot that minor piece of truth and said how wrong it was for me to have sacked Nick. The Bishop now wrote to me and suggested I resign from the ministry. I wrote back and said “Under the laws and customs of the Anglican Church no bishop can lawfully ask a vicar to resign unless the vicar has been tried and found guilty of misdoing, therefore I decline to resign, and ask for your support as my bishop”.

The bishop in my view should have acted in accordance with the laws and customs of the Church and given me public support. He did the very opposite. He wrote to vestry and had read out in church letters in which he said he had asked me to resign and that I had refused. The letters were clearly couched to insinuate that he had the right to do this and I was “disobeying” a lawful order, which was not true. As you may imagine this gave a great deal of ammunition to the “superspirituals” who were then running an incredibly energetic and thorough campaign to destabilise the parish and foster disaffection.

When it came time for the AGM in November 2003 the Archbishop sent the archdeacon “as an observer” on the pretext that, as he said “I have had complaints about your conduct of Vestry meetings and concern has been expressed to me about what may happen at the annual general meeting…”

The archdeacon came not as an observer but as an agitator. He seized every opportunity to interrupt the flow of the meeting to rabble-rouse. Strong words - but that is what he did!.

At the start of the meeting he gave a speech. In it he said “David Greentree has been asked by the Archbishop to resign. He has refused. He says the archbishop cannot under church law tell him to resign.” Then he raised his voice and hands to the crowd and said “We are not under law but under grace!” Cheers, whistles and applause from the supporters of Nick and Shirley who were out in force. The archdeacon turned to me smiling at his own success.

Can I just stop for a moment? I would like to assume that all my readers would recognise that his “we are not under law but under grace” mis-quote from the bible is so bad that it would make the worst sort of American travelling snake-oil preacher-man blush! But since many of the hierarchy didn’t see it that way, please bear with me while I explain the obvious.

At the place in the letter to the Romans where Paul put these words, he had already pointed out that under the Law (of Moses) “Whoever fails to keep all of this law in under God’s curse. He had also pointed out very forcefully that every human being (save Jesus) had failed to keep this Law and so were rightly under God’s curse. But wonder of wonders, God had acted in the person of his Son to take our place so that we were now brought into the sphere of God’s grace - his unearned benevolence and good favour, and not only forgiven but adopted as God’s sons and daughters with the promise of an eternity with him in heaven. Then what he actually wrote was: “Do not let sin rule over you because we are not under law but under grace”

Would this archdeacon or any of those who cheered him say to the police officer who pulled them over for running a red light; “Its all right officer, I’m and Anglican, I’m not under law but under grace!” I’d like to see them try!

A Christian is not free from obeying the laws of the land. An Anglican minister is not free from obeying the laws of the church, which firstly they have sworn before God to obey, and secondly have been made by Anglicans over the years for the good government of the church.

The archdeacon’s attempts to de-rail the annual meeting - and it ran for a very turbulent three hours - had the intended effect.

In the elections - and I point out here that Nick and Shirley had all their supporters enrolled to vote, and had them at the meeting primed how to vote (I know that because several “swinging voters” told me they had been rung up by Shirley & Nick supporters and told who to vote for) and with the archdeacon blatantly advocating for them - Nick and Shirley’s supporters ended up with two thirds of the places on vestry. Needless to say they used their majority in Vestry during 1994 to try to make my life hell and to disrupt as much as possible the normal functioning of the parish.

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