ESSENTIALS
Promoting Christ-centred Biblical Ministry

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Wisdom from the Chair - an Interview with EFAC Australia Chair Bp Glenn Davies
reprinted from the Autumn 2004 edition of Essentials

 

   RB: You've been a bishop for how long? Glenn Davies, Bishop of North Sydney and EFAC Australia Chair, was interviewed by the Editor of Essentials
   GD: Two years in January this year.
   RB: And what is most enjoyable about it?
   I think I'd have to say I really enjoy teaching the bible. That's the thing I do a lot; I preach on average four times a week. I have mid-week confirmations too, as there aren't enough Sundays to go around all parishes!
   RB: Do you choose what you teach when you visit parishes or do they more or less say, "We want you to preach on ..."?
  GD: No, I write to my clergy and ask them to tell me what their preaching programme is and I'll put into it. First of all, I want to encourage them to keep a preaching programme going, and secondly, I want to keep my sermons fresh!  
   RB: Was it a difficult decision to decide to become a bishop?   
   GD: Yes it was. What really sealed it was the call of the Archbishop and the invitation of the Archbishop to support him in leading the diocese, which fewer people can do than be rector at Miranda. In the end it becomes a strategic decision and it was not a decision I made lightly. There was a great deal of grief and concern with my family and my church family. It's been painful, it's been difficult, it's been a steep learning curve, but I have no doubt it was the right decision, so I haven't resiled from the decision. I want to pay tribute to my wife, as she's been outstanding, as I know she would have preferred to be back in Miranda, and I guess I would too. But you see ministry is not all about your comfort zone. Not about what suits you.   
   RB: So you think the Anglican Church is still worth investing in?   
   GD: Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. When I got ordained in 1981 I gave myself 10 years. I thought I can always go back to being a school teacher. 10 years after my ordination I was at Moore College lecturing, having a wonderful time and teaching young men and women and doing some research and I was also registrar. 10 years later I though yep, I'm still doing good work, so I'll keep going.   
   RB: So you didn't' end up thinking the structures were too stifling?   
   GD: I think in Sydney we are now in a much stronger position to see that the gospel must reform our structures, rather than fitting into forms for the sake of it. Even the use of the Prayer Book, which is a wonderful format and framework for services, has changed, no longer having to keep the letter of the law, which was the injunction given to us in the 70's, because there is a General Synod canon concerning services which allows ministers to make certain deviations from the Prayer Book. So I regularly teach clergy to use that, wisely of course. You've got to trust your clergy, you trust them to preach sermons week by week, surely you can trust them to handle the liturgy.   
   RB: And beyond Sydney you think it's worth investing in the Anglican Church?   
   GD: If you find yourself in a position where you can serve the people of God week by week then that is worth pursuing. Every institution of man will have its downsides, whether it's denominational or ecclesiastical, and so we need to seek to serve God wherever we are. I was invited to speak with the Roman Catholic bishops at a symposium not long ago, and it was a great opportunity to preach the gospel, so you take those. The topic was 'Why on Earth would you be a Christian today?' and what a great topic for an evangelical bishop to speak on.   
   RB: So structures give gospel opportunities?   
   GD: Yes. The structures must always be critiqued by the gospel, so the gospel has always got to keep critiquing those structures, but yes they still give good opportunities. We've inherited a lot of good structures from our forefathers, and just because structures are there, it doesn't mean it's disadvantageous to the gospel. So bishops, priests and deacons can be advantageous to the gospel, it seems to me. While you can't draw it out as discretely from scripture as some people might think, it's certainly not inconsistent with scripture and certainly the episcopate, presbyterate and diaconate are there, even if we don't know exactly what they looked like in the first century. With apostolic delegates like Timothy and Titus, pursing more than parochial ministry, an inter-parochial ministry as it were, those apostolic delegates provide some kind of basis for what a bishop might have looked like in the first century.   
   RB: What role do you see for EFAC in sustaining, supporting or critiquing our structures?   
   GD: John Stott who established EFAC saw that evangelicals were isolated around the world and that we needed some common fellowship together. It is a tight network within a communion, although I think evangelicalism is arguably historic and essential Anglicanism. EFAC is actually about supporting evangelical work that exists, it's not a church-planting organisation, it's a communion organisation. Evangelicalism is essential Anglicanism, because it's founded upon the Scriptures, the 39 Articles and the principles of the Book of Common Prayer.   
   RB: And becoming Chairman of EFAC, what does that role mean and why did you decide to take it on?   
   GD: I think I decided to take it on because I thought I was well placed to provide leadership to evangelicals around Australia. Because of my time at Moore College I have a lot of personal connections with a lot of graduates, many of whom are serving in other dioceses. So I know a handful in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, not so many in Tasmania. I also believe there's a sense of confidence in my understanding of scripture and teaching scripture, which I trust will inspire other people and encourage other people to follow the lead I'm giving to EFAC nationally. I think it's important for Sydney evangelicals to support evangelicals outside of Sydney just because in many ways we are self-sufficient, and there can be an arrogance about our self-sufficiency that we ought to disown and therefore extend our hand of fellowship to like-minded brothers and sisters in Australia who in many ways are struggling in more difficult atmospheres to bring forth the truth of the gospel in their teaching.   
   RB: What are some of the issues currently facing EFAC Australia, or indeed evangelicals internationally, that you have played a part in?   
   GD: I suppose the most recent, and the most critical, has been the issue of homosexuality and I've been on the doctrine commission of the General Synod for the last 10 years or so and that's been at the heart of our work, and although we have disparate viewpoints in that committee, my view point I believe has been well respected by those who believe differently. I was able to present in 2001 to the General Synod in Brisbane, which was well received by most people, yet I held unflinchingly to the view that homosexual practice is antithetic to the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments. Furthermore it's a gospel issue because Paul makes it clear that those who continue with such practices will be excluded from the kingdom of God. And so if people think they are going to heaven and are living in total opposition to what God says is the lifestyle of his disciples, then they're living a lie and they need to be told the truth, in gracious terms, in pleading terms, in generous spirited terms but in terms which come across with clarity of gospel truth and biblical teaching.   
   RB: How do you see the state of play amongst theologians with regard to the issue of hermeneutics?   
   GD: One of the great dangers with liberalism is the temptation to look at the text, but ignore the plain surface meeting, especially if they feel uncomfortable with that meaning, and then to seek for an alternative and to use all their exegetical skills to do so, sometimes to actually bring about the exact opposite of what the text means. One of the hermeneutical devices they use is the redemptive historical movement in scripture from the food laws, clean and unclean under the old covenant, the mosaic covenant, to the new covenant, and to say therefore that because the Bible sees development, that's our hermeneutic for seeing advance today. But of course that's a redemptive historical movement from old covenant to new covenant; it is not a paradigm for moving from new covenant to 21st century extrapolation of new covenant. Rather, it's recognising that God has changed his way in dealing with things, but we are now in the same era as the first century Christians, we are not at liberty to make the changes that liberals would want us to change, for example in terms of sexual morality, whether it be fidelity in marriage, right to marriage, or fidelity in terms of same gender relationships. So all of those issues, and many more, are under attack with what appears to be a cogent hermeneutical tool, which in actual fact is entirely mistaken and has no grasp of redemptive history at all.   
   RB: Are there any other ministry issues that the recent EFAC Australia AGM addressed?   
   GD: One of the concerns was struggling parishes who have an evangelical minister but which can't afford an assistant, looking for a way for the national EFAC body to give a seed grant to a congregation, just to get that extra person working. We also heard about the isolation that some people feel. Evangelicals suffer difficulties along those lines, just like anyone else. One man we heard of had to leave ministry because of the pressures on his family and he wisely choose to step down from ministry to protect his marriage. I applaud that. I'm sorry that it came to that, but we we've got to be good models of ministry, we can't just hold our doctrine high if our life is shouting out a different set of values.   
   RB: What do you think the value of a journal like Essentials is?   
   GD: It's great to have a forum which is going to encourage people in parish issues, in ministry issues, in preaching issues. A stimulus to think. There's no Anglican evangelical journal like it in Australia. There are other evangelical publications of course, other denominational publications. Essentials strikes a particular cord, saying "Look, we are Anglican, we are not ashamed of being Anglican, we are glad of our heritage, people died for our heritage." We don't want to throw that away lightly, but we want to build upon that foundation and to bring changes to our structures which are good for the gospel but which are not going to contradict the foundations upon which we've been built. I'm glad that Essentials exists and I hope more people read it.   
   RB: What have been some ways of spiritual refreshment that you've found recently? Books, or films, or sermons, or conversations?   
   GD: I try to keep reading widely and to read biographies were possible as well as commentaries. I still like to read through commentaries, I use commentaries to aid my quiet times, as well as just reading the text of scripture. My wife and I are reading through the John Piper book Desiring God at the moment.   
   RB: Have you read any biographies lately?   
   GD: Forgiving Hitler, by Kel Richards about a Jewish lady who got converted and grew up in Austria during the war. It talks about her Christian conversion and how she looks back on her relationships to people who hated her and how the love of God freed her from hatred of others. That was a compelling book, all the more so for me because I know Kath and she was a member of my congregation when I was at Miranda. So it was a very special thing to read that. Another book is Rescued by Angels, which Alan Nichols has written with Bishop Alexis, is a fascinating insight into God's providential care over him in very dark days of genocidal activity and tribal warfare in Rwanda. That's a compelling story too. So it's good for us to read outside our own culture, we can be very Anglo-Saxon in our culture.   
   RB: I've been reading Yancey's book Soul Survivor about the mentors he's had, both alive and dead, who've helped him survive the church. Have you had significant mentors? People whom either you've met with regularly, or people historically, whom you may not have met, who've formed or shaped your Christian ministry? And how do you see mentoring in the church?   
   GD: I think for me, my earliest mentor would have been my parish rector in my late teens early twenties, whose name is Ron, he's now eighty years of age and I'm still in contact with him. I think he was extraordinarily formative for me, in his pastoral style, in his robust preaching, and I think in his identification of me, and his encouragement of me to go into full time ministry. We would occasionally go away and spend time together, reflecting and praying, and this was back in the 70's! And he would take groups of young people away as well and it was just a rich and rewarding time. I remember I got in trouble, well actually he got in trouble, from the older people in the congregation, because he invited the young people to call him by his first name, which was fairly unheard of then, when most people of course would call their minister Rector. Until some very wise old man said, "It's rather interesting that Almighty God allows us to call his Son by his first name, so I don't see why the minister should be anymore high and mighty."   
   RB: How are parishes doing in your experience, not just in Sydney but around Australia, in encouraging vocations?   
   GD: The impediments for vocation I think are increasingly the attractiveness of the world and salary and placement, the comfort of where you can live, what city you live in, where you work. That I think is the impediment. More positively, I'd like to see every Christian recognise the importance of having at least one year of full time theological study, or a part time equivalent. We all train to be doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, we all spend time getting training for our job, but we are Christians. Our job is just part-time in the sphere of life on earth and very much part-time in terms of eternity beyond. Jesus says we should be training like scribes training for the kingdom of heaven. We are in a training ground here. I reckon if we did that, we would find an avenue for discovering people whose vocation is full time Christian ministry. If everyone were doing that, then people would get the passion and add to the gifts God has given them more skills for Christian ministry, and I think we might be able to discover a greater army of Christian workers to go forth into full time vocation.   
   RB: Are there other things we haven't touched on that you'd like the EFAC constituency to know about? Do you have a particular hobby horse at the moment?   
   GD: Well I've got so many hobby horses. You wouldn't believe how many. I might just come back to one of the things we mentioned before: a lot of people are members of EFAC, but are not paid up members of EFAC. We need to say that.   
   [Both laugh]   
        


       
 

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