John Richardson critiques Muriel Porter's book Sydney Anglicans and the Threat to World Anglicanism by saying that Muriel has had a life long dislike for Sydney Anglicans and people by the name of Jensen. What John fails to realise, or chooses to turn a blind eye to, is that Muriel is providing a universal voice for all those who dislike the total lack of respect, heavy handed tactics and toxic bigotry, that is home grown in Sydney and exported further afield. I mean where in the world would you find a family able to hi-jack a people's church? Where in the world would you find a church being forced to buy resources from the family's own publishing company?
I don't know... it sounds like keeping it all in the family is a good plan to me! The Ugley Vicar doesn't like women clergy so bonds with like minded misogynists .Good business strategy. But I must admit John's thinking is seriously flawed when he critiques Muriel ...
‘An Australian church without Sydney, I believe, would have released enormous energy for growth and renewal in the rest of the dioceses ...’ (p48). In the final chapter she hopes that the ‘End’ of the Sydney ‘Experiment’ will bring ‘... a more reasonable, generous, kindly form of Anglicanism’. Yet by her own admission, in the midst of a deeply secular and irreligious culture, Sydney Anglicanism succeeds where other Australian dioceses fail.
John you know as well as I do, that any family who inherits vast wealth is advantaged. What other diocese had enough money to invest $260 million on the stock exchange... so you would expect the diocese to be in a position to develop resources and recruitment programs far in excess of the average diocese with very little money! I'm glad they didn't waste the funds on the poor! But John...I'm sure a woman archbishop would have been far more financially competent!
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