Tuesday 6 March 2007

I demand a pay rise

There's an article in the March 2007 edition Quadrant magazine entitled "The Anglican Puritans of Sydney". In it I'm named as a "prominent diocesan ideologue". This is alarming. I am going to phone Archbishop Peter Jensen and demand a pay rise.

It is not a great article. There are errors of fact, assertions without substantiation, and the usual self-contradictory stereotypes. I really think the only way to imagine Sydney Anglicans being "pigeonholed as irrelevant sectarians" (p. 53) is if you insist on comparing them to the inbred world of Western liberal Anglicanism. We certainly are irrelevant to them, and that's the way I hope it stays.

Outside the narrow confines of the olde-worlde C of E, a statement like "I support the Archbishop of Canterbury and everything he stands for" is likely to be met with the question "Who is he again?"

Inside the narrow confines of the olde-worlde C of E, the question is more likely to be "What does he stand for again?"

8 comments:

michael jensen said...

who wrote the article?

Gordon Cheng said...

John Russell. I don't know him, but he's written for Quadrant previously.

michael jensen said...

You should ring him up and invite him for coffee. I did that with the last guy who slagged us off in Quadrant. Made a friend. He retracted nothing, but it was kind of fun.

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

The fact that Quadrant seeks to critique and/or demean Sydney Anglicanism is actually very important. It is evidence, for those who are ignorant of the facts, that Sydney Anglicanism is in no way loved by right wing thinkers, and is not connected (in any formal or sizeable way) to conservative politics.

People might like to link Evangelicals with conservative politics since the link is so powerful in the U.S.. Australia, and Sydney Anglicanism, is different.

I remember Spong a few years ago making this mistake.

Anonymous said...

Gordon & Michael

I drink flat white!

John

Gordon Cheng said...

John, I would be delighted to catch up for coffee.

The phone number at work is (02) 9663 1697. I am often elsewhere, but they can pass on a message.

If nothing else we could have a fascinating conversation about Cranmer!

Regards

Gordon

michael jensen said...

Bummer. I am in Oxford John, and can't access a copy of your article. Any chance of sending me a copy via email?

michael at theology dot ox dot ac dot uk

michael jensen said...

ooops...

it's michael dot jensen at... etc.