Image: Senthorun Raj, a University of Sydney academic and NSW Amnesty International representative.
BY ALEC SMART
The Anglican Church donated $1million to the Vote No campaign, to lobby against the legalisation of homosexual relationships in the national plebiscite on same-sex marriage. The decision provoked controversy and stirred dissent among its congregation and several Anglican ministers.
The donation was given to the Coalition for Marriage in September, but announced last week by Archbishop Glenn Davies in his address to the 51st Sydnod of the Diocese of Sydney.
Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, Davies used his Presidential Address to urge the Church’s dwindling congregation to adhere to Biblical covenents, whilst shunning progressive Christians’ call for tolerance of homosexuality.
The Anglican Diocese of Sydney is a founding partner of the Coalition for Marriage, along with the Australian Christian Lobby, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and Marriage Alliance and they funded the Vote No television adverts that recently drew criticism for their alleged inaccuracy and fear-mongering.
The money was drawn from the Diocesan Endowment Fund, run by the Anglican Church’s Glebe Administration Board, which, according to the annual report of the Sydney Diocesan Secretariat, grew by $13.7 million last year after successful investments in the stock exchange.
“The Standing Committee has enthusiastically backed our participation in the Coalition for Marriage,” said Archbishop Davies, “and has taken the bold step of drawing down one million dollars from the Diocesan Endowment to promote the ‘No’ case.
“Brothers and sisters, the stakes are high and the cost is high,” he continued. “Yet the cause is just and it is a consequence of our discipleship to uphold the gift of marriage as God has designed it – a creation ordinance for all people.”
Several Anglican ministers were outspoken in their criticism of the donation, including Reverend Keith Mascord, a founding member of Equal Voices, a Christian group promoting tolerance of homosexuality.
Reverend Mascord, whose licence to preach in Sydney was revoked by Archbishop Davies in 2016 over his stance on same-sex marriage, said, “It’s blindness. It’s like they’re living in a bubble. This is one of the most foolish things to have become so heavily involved in. It just seems so short-sighted and bordering on immoral because of the damage and harm it is doing.”
Other opponents include Reverend Dave Smith of the Holy Trinity Church in Dulwich Hill, and Father Andrew Sempell of St James’ Church in the city, the latter of whom wrote a paper condemning the donation.
Even supporters of the Vote No campaign were critical, including Reverend Michael Paget of St Barnabas on Broadway, who said in a post on Facebook that it was ‘poor financial stewardship’ and ‘out of proportion’.
However, after he was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald openly critical of the donation, he later moderated his stance, stating on his Facebook page, “The opinion piece in the Herald by Robyn Whitaker is, however, unconscionable last-gasp drivel from a dying and irrelevant liberalism.”
Further trying to distance himself from the controversy, he added, “Though I disagree with the donation, I know it was made out of a commitment to love – even if our broader society doesn’t see that – and a desire to be able to keep doing the greatest good out of love. I think it was clumsy, wrong-headed, poorly considered – all those things – but selfish? Patriarchal? Fascist? – Nope, none of those things. Our church fellowship isn’t like that (at least, not every day of the week).”
Dr Muriel Porter, an Australian journalist and prominent layperson on the national General Synod, is particularly critical of the Anglican Church. She blames a rise of fundamentalism in the church’s upper hierarchy for its crusade against homosexuality.
In her book Sydney Anglicans and the Threat to World Anglicanism: The Sydney Experiment, she states, “A radical congregationalism, coupled with a hardline conservative neo-Calvinist Evangelicalism more akin to North American Protestantism, has taken hold in most Sydney parishes.
“Sydney Diocese has become a force to be reckoned with in the Anglican Communion. As a leader of the alternative international Anglican movement.. [it] can only be described as a destabilizing influence.
“Perhaps even more troubling is the close Sydney link with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students.. AFES is also believed to be part of the spread of Sydney-style opposition to women in church leadership in Protestant churches.
“Churches not aligned with it, taking a different view principally on the issue of homosexuality but also on women in ordained ministry, are portrayed as deniers of the Gospel. These claims, from determined, persuasive, well-resourced church leaders bearing gifts of support for, and assistance to, emerging churches, are hard to resist.”
To give it credit, Sydney Anglican Diocese has also donated money to charities, including $750, 000 to refugee support. However, parishioners, not the executive, raised that money, and it didn’t come with the conservative political clout that the No Vote exercises.
The principle claim by Davies and the Anglican elite is that their rejecting same-sex marriage “upholds the gift of marriage as God has designed it.” However, the Bible isn’t clear in its position on marriage, and although Jesus is quoted in Matthew 19 as opposing divorce, he was unequivocal about people loving one another.
If two people of the same gender are in love and want to share their lives together in a legally-binding marriage, what right has the Church to oppose that love?
