An Obadiah Slope Column
News from the North: Obadiah frankly admires the Church of England, General Synod. Why/ because of its openness. It is live-streamed. When they take a vote, they use an electronic voting system that even elderly Bishops appear to be able to use. There was a famous instance once when a Bishop hit the wrong button. But that was found out for a very simple reason – the electronic votes are made public.
As far as Obadiah is aware, not one of Australia’s synods/assemblies/conventions goes that far.
And Obadiah remembers trying to work out which bishop voted which way in the controveraial same sex marriage vote at the last Anglican General Synod. He came up two Bishops short. He’ll be back there guessing in two weeks.
And then there was the 15th Uniting Church Assembly vote in 2018 to allow same sex marriage, where the media was totally banned from the meeting. Obadiah managed to report the vote in (close to) real time, which caused a great deal of outrage and anger to be directed at him.
Obadiah still leans towards the Church of England practice. Livestreams can be interrupted when very personal and sensitive material is being discussed, but why not broadcast the vote result? Still puzzles this correspondent.
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News: Releasing the electronic vote details risks making news. The vote record released after a complicated debate over a motion that asked the CofE General Synod to declare there were “no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship,” was news. Big news.
Evangelical Andrew Goddard described the reason the final much-amended version was opposed by conservatives.
” • It failed to name conservative views and added to the original motion’s ambiguity by not clarifying what range of views was being deemed “legitimate.:
” • It failed to address conservatives’ concerns by replacing “no fundamental objection” with a claim as to the “legitimate range” of views,
” • It seems not to understand the reasons why, based on Scripture and Tradition, most conservatives cannot accept the legitimacy of the view [mover Prof Helen] King advocates, [in the original motion}”
But it was the bishops, rather than evangelicals, that defeated this amended motion. And Archbishop Sarah Mullally was one of the bishops voting against the motion. For whatever reason, a bloc of bishops who normally would be regarded as pro-LGBTQIA voted against a progressive motion.
If the reason was keeping the church together, Mullally has discovered the real job of the Archbishop of Canterbury – to disappoint their friends. Just as predecessor Justin Welby was welcomed as an evangelical from the Holy Trinity Brompton network, but who ended up supporting same sex blessing. And just as predecessor plus one, Rowan Williams played a delaying role, upsetting his Liberal supporters.
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God gives the increase: A very happy birthday was celebrated at St Obadiah’s church this week (aka St James Croydon). It was the first birthday of the 10:30 am congregation at St Lukes Concord and Burwood North, to which 45 or so of the best and brightest from St James were sent. The plant has grown to 80 or so, meeting alongside St Luke’s traditional service. The even better news is that this is not news in the sense that church planting and church “re-potting” is happening across our nation.
In fact, at the other end of Concord – the bit near the harbour – Village Church in Anandale is re-invigorating another church. And there are plenty of people to reach.
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Census censor?: Obadiah never knows what to make of the severe punishments the Israelites in the Old Testament received for conducting censuses. So this month’s task of filling out a census form fills a bit naughty and nice at the same time. For Obadiah, it will mark the first time he, Mrs Obadiah, and the two no-longer-little Obadiahs will be filling out four separate forms. I will be away on the crucial night, and the offspring have (finally) flown the nest. It is somewhat discombobulating for your prophet.
One factor raised by several writers is that Judaism has disappeared from the clickable list of options in the religion question in the census.
The explicit options include
• No religion,
• Catholic,
• Anglican,
• Islam,
• Hinduism,
• Uniting Church,
• Buddhism,
• Presbyterian,
• Greek Orthodox,
• Baptist.
But not Judaism, apparently, because the options reflect the top ten religions. “Since the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) introduced a tick-a-box option with seven religious choices in the 1991 census, there has never actually been a box for Judaism,” The Jerusalem Post reports. “This is said to be because Judaism is a smaller statistical demographic in Australia (representing roughly 0.4% of the population).”
Jews have the option of clicking “other” and writing in Judaism as they have done up till now. And Christians can do the same. Some will write “Christian”, and some will want to reflect a certain group. It least some FIEC churches ask people to write “Evangelical Christian.” Besides Judaism, “Pentecostal” is a curious omission.