Australia: The big shift at the Anglican General Synod as conservatives advance
by John Sandeman, Eternity News:
“The results of the elections to the standing committee of the General Synod (GS), held yesterday, reveal the conservatives are now in almost complete control of the national church,” longtime Anglican commenter Muriel Porter writes in The Guardian and The Conversation.
“Progressive Anglican clergy and laity from around the country who had long been members of the committee have been cast aside. From here on, the national church’s central structures will prosecute a virtual carbon copy of Sydney’s conservative position on same-sex marriage and other issues as well.”
But a slow ‘conservatising’ of the church is proceeding. The House of Bishops is likely to have a conservative majority when the GS meets in four years. The Tribunal membership will also change.
This does not amount to a complete takeover because neither the Left nor the Right can do this. Unusually for Anglicanism, dioceses in Australia have a high degree of autonomy – which in the past has meant that the Diocese of Sydney maintained its evangelical character despite there being a massive Anglo-Catholic and progressive majority in most other dioceses.
Those numbers are shifting. It will soon be the Bishops in progressive dioceses who will seek to defend their boundaries against the national church’s conservative majority.
Read also: Be clear on Christ’s teaching by Russell Powell, Sydney Anglicans
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