Are Sydney Anglicans Fundamentalists? Muriel Porter thinks so

The critics of Sydney of course continue to use the term 'fundamentalist' as a pejorative against them. One such very recent example is Muriel Porter’s book The New Puritans – The Rise of Fundamentalism in the Anglican Church. Make no mistake: Porter loathes Sydney Anglicanism and is not afraid to say so. Though it is published by a University Press (Melbourne), this book is a piece of unmitigated polemic rather than having any pretence to some kind of scholarly objectivity (as the author herself admits). The title of her project is an indication of the purpose of her tract. If she can prove that Sydney Anglicans are rightly labelled ‘fundamentalists’ then that is, in a sense, enough. In the minds of the audience to which Porter imagines she is writing, fundamentalism is per definition a very bad thing. Her thesis is that ‘Sydney Diocese is now in several key respects fundamentalist although it detests this badge’; therefore, she denies the right of Sydney Anglicans to self-describe. In fact, protesting against being called ‘fundamentalists’ (as Robinson has done) is exactly what fundamentalists do.

So, she is right about that Sydney Anglicans do not wish to be called fundamentalists. Archbishop Peter Jensen sought to distinguish fundamentalism from his kind of evangelicalism in his first major address following his election in 2001. In that speech he outline fundamentalism as implying ‘an anti-intellectual, backward-looking and ugly zeal in the cause of religion’. He agrees that both the fundamentalist and the evangelical hold to the supreme authority of Scripture. The difference is that, while the evangelical interprets the Bible ‘literally’, the fundamentalist interprets it ‘literalistically’. A literal, or plain reading of Scripture might still make use of traditional interpretation, the genuine advances of modern biblical scholarship and was open to learning from contemporary thought.

Porter is less than impressed by this speech, mostly because she can’t grasp the really not very subtle difference between ‘literal’ and ‘literalistic’. There is more to fundamentalism than that, she says, and points to Barr’s notion of the particular ‘fundamentalist mentality’. Never mind that Peter Jensen has actually acknowledged a similar kind of definition in his speech. What is that mentality? Porter wheels on the definitions provided by Oxford academic Harriet Harris: a rationalist mindset, a ‘Calvinistic zeal to root out error and preserve doctrinal purity’, charismatic and authoritarian leadership, behavioural requirements, and a tendency to separatism. To this Porter adds ‘a commitment to male headship’. This list is of course not arbitrary. Porter’s determination is to define ‘fundamentalism’ in such a way that her description of Sydney Anglicanism fits the definition. But the definition is already decided by her perceptions of Sydney Anglicans. While she acknowledges that there is a vast literature in the study of religion about fundamentalism (she doesn’t mention the ground-breaking work of George Marsden and Mark Noll, for example), she overlooks that and chooses the one that suits her polemical purposes best. Sydney Anglicanism is fundamentalist because fundamentalism is whatever Sydney Anglicans are. And Porter doesn’t like it. It is, in short, a cheap shot.
But even with the dice loaded, it still fails miserably. Firstly, she claims that Sydney is ‘rationalistic’. It is interesting, by the way, that ‘rationalism’ is felt by Porter to be an obviously bad thing, without explanation as to why this is so. Porter claims that the Sydney commitment to ‘propositional revelation’ is evidence of this self-evidently egregious rationalism – which is of course evidence of fundamentalism, on the terms she has decided beforehand:
The theory [i.e. propositional revelation] refers to revelation imparted through rational thought processes alone, without any subsidiary, complementary or external revelatory processes, such as through sensuous experiences mediated through liturgy, music, nature or Eucharistic participation.
Certainly, the emphasis on the Word of God as the revelation is the Sydney emphasis, and she is right to say that Sydney church services emphasis the reading, hearing and preaching of the Word of God over against other aspects. It is not accurate to describe this in terms of ‘rational thought processes’. It is the hearing of the Word, which has personal and existential and emotional and experiential impact – as Luther said, ‘the ears are the organ of the Christian’. Faith comes from hearing, after all. It seems uncontroversial to uphold, in a Protestant denomination, the verbal nature of the Word of God (for that is all that is meant by ‘propositional’ revelation).

Again, Porter rightly observes that what is at stake is a different view of how Scripture is meant to work. This is a crucial and revealing moment, for Porter at this point puts forward her version of the Christian doctrine of revelation. What Porter wants is for the Holy Spirit to speak outside of Scripture so that her particular causes, especially the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopacy, may be endorsed. She appeals to some vague sense of an extra-scriptural guidance which is not at the same time subject to the authority of Scripture. And she makes an attack on the classic Protestant doctrine of the clarity of Scripture – which now becomes another feature of fundamentalism (not before listed): ‘This support for a ‘plain’ meaning is a hallmark of the fundamentalist approach to Scripture’. (p. 26) This is because Porter doesn’t like the insistence in Sydney that Scripture might mean what it actually says. As a matter of fact, fundamentalist approaches to Scripture more often result in literalistic and not plain readings of Scripture.

Then follows a bizarre paragraph:
Many commentators have demonstrated that no ‘plain’ reading is possible, given the nature of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, which are thousands of years old. They reflect entirely different thought-worlds from that of the twenty-first century, and are inevitably imbued with the ancient cultural patterns, norms and expectations from which they were written. More than a hundred years of scholarly criticism has revealed the complexity of interpreting the meaning of the Bible for contemporary Christians. Similarly, many scholars have pointed out clear examples of the Christian Church changing its mind as over the centuries it has read the Scriptures with fresh insight.
Porter of course names no such commentators or scholars or critics, despite citing them as indisputable authorities. Despite Peter Jensen’s protestation that Sydney Anglicans were in fact open to the genuine findings of contemporary biblical scholarship, Porter is insistent that this is not the case. Never mind the academic qualifications and publications – from secular universities and in leading research journals - of the biblical scholars from Moore.

What’s more, she misunderstands the notion of the ‘plain’ reading entirely. Protestant interpreters have always acknowledged that the interpretation of Scripture is complex, and that new light may be shed on the meaning of the text (as in fact 2 Peter 3 tells us!). The notion of the plain reading of Scripture is in the first instance a commitment to read Scripture as a properly literary document and not to bring fanciful spiritual allegories to bear upon it. Porter herself is confused - on the one hand she wants to be able to say that the Holy Spirit can overrule the teachings of Scripture; but on the other she wants to say that reading the Scriptures with fresh insight matters. Why would fresh insight into Scripture matter if you weren’t actually committed to the authority of Scripture? The example of slavery is brought out, as it always is, of a case in which people changed their minds about Scripture. This is of course not news. It was people who held to a doctrine of revelation like that of Sydney, such as the great reformer William Wilberforce, who decided that obedience to Scripture necessitated an end to slavery. He won not because his reading of Scripture was in the end more convincing than those who argue for slavery from Scripture. The danger with Porter’s model of divine revelation, which seems to invite consideration of which social trends are the work of the Holy Spirit and which aren’t, is that this logic could be used to support almost any cause you could name. How could Porter speak against an aberrant but widely-held development in society? This is where Porter’s own extremism slips into view: she represents the extreme liberal wing of the Anglican Communion as represented by the Episcopal Church in the USA, in which the only authority to which anyone is subject is gut feeling. Is ‘emotionalism’ preferable to ‘rationalism’? Whatever the case, even if ‘rationalism’ is a hallmark of fundamentalism, and even if the kind of rationalism that is meant by that term is found in Sydney, Porter has wandered far from this point and strayed into a discussion of the role and practise of the authority of Scripture – in which she proves less than widely read and not particularly acute. It is hard to see how it supports the point she is making.
As for the ‘zeal to root out error and doctrinal impurity’, again Porter resorts to the unscholarly sweeping gesture - ‘too many to discuss in detail here’. The frankly trivial example that she does cite is the ban on the Anglo-Catholic use of the chasuble, which has been in force since 1910. Remembering that Porter is trying to show that Sydney is only since 2001 ‘fundamentalist’, this example is particularly insipid. Other Anglican dioceses make requirements of their clergy vis a vis liturgical garments. Her second example is a piece of unsubstantiated hearsay: ‘refusal by many Sydney clergy to allow lay women to play any significant part in the main Sunday services – even reading lessons from the Bible – as a means of keeping faith with their claim that women must not exercise any leadership in mixed … congregations’ (p. 29). Not one concrete instance is cited. I personally travel to many different parishes in Sydney and I can say categorically that Porter is plainly wrong at this point. Lay and clergy women lead services, read lessons, lead in prayers, lead singing and in some parishes preach. In my own parish, there are a number of women who serve in this way. Once again: the experience of evangelical clergy and candidates who hold a complementarian view in other dioceses is that the authorities will insist on their view with zeal and enforce it if necessary. Is this not ‘zeal to root out error and doctrinal impurity’? It just aligns with Porter’s prejudices.

The third point on her checklist is ‘charismatic and authoritarian leadership’. In her sketch of the role of Sydney’s Archbishop, she provides a less than convincing case, noting that Sydney is historically committed to the priority of the parish. Parish clergy enjoy remarkable independence in Sydney, in fact, compared with other dioceses. While noting Peter Jensen’s high profile, she admits ‘whether this equates with authoritarianism I do not know, but I suspect that this archbishop does not need to be authoritarian’. Noting that there has been in Sydney a high degree of unity in the Synod and so on is not exactly tantamount to establishing an authoritarian pattern. Again, it is worth observing that there are charismatic and authoritarian leaders in non-evangelical dioceses – indeed far more authoritarian than in Sydney. Archbishop Peter Carnley of Perth, well known for his liberal Catholic or ‘progressive Orthodox’ views, was by all accounts just such a figure.

Thus far, Porter has failed to tick off any of the points on her checklist. We might concede something of her first point. However, despite the fact that she acknowledges the sophistication with which the Sydney view is argued, her own alternative model of guidance and revelation is theologically thin and certainly questionable.

What of the last two points? As to behavioural requirements, Porter argues that Sydney has a ‘harsher set of rules concerning personal morality’. As evidence, she cites Sydney’s policy on divorce and remarriage. Sydney’s policy is certainly less flexible than the free-for-all in place in some places in Australia. It remains however a good deal more liberal and accommodating than the practice of the Roman Catholic Church. Remarriage after divorce is not banned – it is, rather, than clergy are very reasonably required to be cautious. Since scripture has some specific things to say on this issue, it seems unremarkable to find this policy. Sydney Anglicans talk about sex far less than outsiders sometimes think. However, it is true that an orthodox position on marriage – held by the majority of Anglican Christians today, contrary to Porter’s claim – is held by the great majority in Sydney diocese. Porter then repeats a piece of ‘anecdotal evidence’ which is actually false: ‘it is now highly unlikely that a single man will be appointed rector of any Sydney parish, presumably for fear that his single state might mask an unacceptable sexual identity or that he might fall prey to sexual temptation’. There is no such policy. I cite as counter-evidence Rev Paul Dale, who is now married, but who was appointed rector of St John’s Kirribilli some years ago as a single man.

‘Separatism’ is Porter’s last check-box. She can only establish this by looking sideways at the evidence. She notes rightly that Sydney Anglicans are proudly counter-cultural which she says ‘indicates a predisposition towards separatism’. We thank her for her amateur psycho-analysis. However, it is scarcely a telling point. Christians have always seen themselves as counter-cultural in some way, since the earliest times. In any case, the label ‘separatism’ invites the question ‘what separatism and on what grounds?’ There have been many forms of separatism in Christian history justified for any number of reasons. The monastic movement is one such example. Porter quite overlooks the ongoing commitment of the Sydney diocese in any case to involvement in society – its commitment to justice and social welfare in which it continues to invest enormous resources. Sydney seeks the Christianisation of society by inviting people to become Christians, not by spreading Christian values (so-called) abroad. That much is a given. But it is not tantamount to ‘separatism’.

Porter’s attempt to classify Sydney Anglicans as fundamentalists was a put-up job in the first place. Even then, it fails spectacularly at every point – partly because she is simply hasn’t done her homework and relies on gossip and hearsay. She has an open goal, and still she misses the target. As she herself acknowledges she avoids scholarly complexity repeatedly and chooses instead the kind of journalistic shorthand that has corrupted public debate of politics in Australia.