The Kirkby Memorial Address 1996

"Balanced Evangelical Anglicanism:
The Key to Effective Mission 

By Rev Kevin Giles MA MTH ThD

It seems to me that this is a very relevant matter to explore at this time in the Australian context for two reasons. Firstly, because we live in one of the momentous periods of social change and, secondly, because there is a widespread view abroad that somehow balanced evangelical Anglicanism, as exemplified in the great leaders of the past such as Bishop S J Kirkby, Bishop J C Ryle, or more recently by Archbishop Marcus Loane and John Stott is under threat in Australia. It is in danger of being lost. This thesis is eloquently put by Dr Stuart Piggin in his recently released and important book, Evangelical Christianity in Australia (Oxford, 1996). He argues that evangelicalism is only balanced and healthy when the work of the Holy Spirit, the authority of the Bible and involvement in the problems of this world are all given due weight - which he thinks is not the case at present. Under the pressure of modernism, secularism and pluralism, one response of great appeal to evangelicals is to harden their stance and opt for simple, clear-cut answers on this or that matter, thereby hoping to thwart the impact of these changes on Christians. In doing this, balanced evangelicalism goes out the door: we major on the minor; exert most of our energy fighting the perceived enemies within; and increasingly become marginalised as we lose the ability to relate appropriately to the society around us. I will argue that if BCA wants to continue to find support throughout Australia and to effectively communicate the Gospel, in a contemporary and appealing ways to Australians, then it will need to be aware of the dangers of unbalanced Christianity - a Christianity which polarises every issue, draws apart from the culture in which it finds itself, and misses the wonderful balance of the biblical faith. Or to put this positively, I wish to argue that BCA needs to represent mainstream evangelical Anglicanism, not as it was expressed in 1850, 1920, 1960 or 1980, all of which differed in some ways, but for today and the immediate future. In his own day Bishop Kirkby exemplified balanced evangelical Anglicanism, but he was a man of his age. We cannot therefore simply make him a model to be replicated. Things have changed and changed profoundly. Nevertheless, we can see in him pointers to what a balanced evangelical ministry might look like today. To gain a feel for the thinking and priorities of this man I carefully studied his book, These Ten Years, read his editorials in the Real Australian in the years 1920 to 1930, struggled to decipher the wording in twenty-five of his sermons, considered his two Sydney Synod charges and read everything I could track down about him.

Enough for introductory comments. Let us now listen to Bishop Kirkby, but never forgetting for a moment that we live in a very different age. I take up five areas where BCA needs to strive for balanced Christianity if it is to be effective in its Gospel ministry. Some of the matters I take up may be controversial so you may not agree with all I say, but hopefully I will keep you awake and give you something to think about! Someone once said  "When everyone thinks alike, no one really thinks at all". None of us want that do we?

1) The Bible as the revelation of God given in the past which speaks afresh to the present.

Evangelicals may be divided on many matters but they are agreed that the Bible is the inspired word of God, the one clear and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ, who is the way the truth and the life. Because of its centrality to their understanding of the faith evangelicals want to base their 'Life and teaching on the Scriptures. Bishop Kirkby gave himself unreservedly to the establishment of BCA so as to see ministries grounded on the Bible flowering in the more difficult and remote parts of Australia. He wanted BCA workers to read the Bible for their own spiritual sustenance, and speak its message when they visited homes, met for worship in woolsheds and preached in country churches. For him the Bible was the living word of God. But the way he understood and used the Bible was very different to that of evangelicals today. When he turned to the Scriptures his concern was to hear a word from the Lord for the present. A good sermon for him was one which, "conveyed some pointed lesson from God's word" (The Real Australian, Sept. 12th, 1930, p 6). He believed that the central message of the Bible was -Christ crucified and risen, and he found this truth wherever he turned in the Old and New Testament. When he came to preach he invariably took a text and then looked for a spiritual meaning, which was applicable to the concerns of his hearers. This meaning was not necessarily connected to the historical and intended meaning of the biblical author. Let me give just one example. In a sermon on the text, Revelation 22:1, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. and the sea was no more", the symbolism of sea becomes the topic. The headings are: i) sea denotes changefulness, ii) sea denotes mystery, iii) sea denotes separation. This sermon, like his others, is related to everyday life, inspiring and specific in application, but it is not what we would call today an expository sermon based on the plain meaning of the text. Nevertheless, his sermons are good pastoral, Christ-centred addresses. We can imagine people invariably going away with something, which would keep them thinking all week.

Kirkby was a very well informed and intelligent evangelical, but he lived before the renaissance of evangelical biblical scholarship, which has flowed since the sixties. From that point on, evangelicals embraced a critical methodology in their study of Scripture, albeit without giving up their high view of inspiration. With this approach, the key issue became the historical meaning of each text: what it meant to the original readers. But this methodology raised a great problem for evangelicals who had until this time, like Bishop Kirkby, stressed that Scripture is God's word to the present. It created a gulf between the past meaning and the present application of Scripture. If the chief duty of preachers was to explain what the original readers would have understood the passage to have meant they could no longer make texts say what they wanted- them to say.

The past historical and the present meaning of timeless truths such as, "God is love", "all have sinned", or "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" are one and the same, but when Biblical teaching is firmly set in a now lost historical setting, as is the case with most of the Old Testament and some of the New Testament, how to correctly apply what is given in Scripture to our world became problematic. In our age, how do we apply Jesus' word, "Take no concern for tomorrow", or "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth"? Should we say that they mean we are not to take out life assurance, or accumulate savings? If not why? When we do not wear sandals and walk on dirty roads, are we correct in saying our that Lord's clear and explicit command should not be taken literally any more? And when the law courts are not hostile to Christians, is it permissible for Christians to resort to litigation to settle disputes with other Christians when Paul expressly forbade this? These are but a few examples of the challenges we now face as evangelicals as we honestly struggle with how to make Scripture given in one historical and cultural context speak afresh in a profoundly different historical and cultural context. This challenge encounters the person in the pew most forcibly in the sermon. If the preacher is only to say what is in the Bible other Christians when Paul specific application, the present meaning of the Biblical teaching, no longer is a concern. Many evangelical sermons these days follow this logic. They are lectures on the historical meaning of Bible passages with no relevance to life. If Bishop Kirkby heard some of these so called "expository" sermons he would look in 'vain for a "pointed lesson from God's word" in them.

From the 1970’s, onwards-evangelical leaders came to recognise with growing concern that this new emphasis on the historical meaning of the Bible raised issues demanding an urgent answer. John Stott, James Packer, Carl Henry, 3ust to mention three leading evangelicals of this period, all argued that evangelicals needed a clearly enunciated and well thought out approach to interpreting and applying the Bible. Thus, evangelicals began to give themselves to the study of hermeneutics. Most of us today have heard this term, but what it means and the relevance of what it involves is not always understood. One clergyman on first hearing the word thought the speaker was referring to a German theologian called "Hermaneutics". Hermeneutics is a transliteration of the Greek verb, which means "to explain" or "to interpret". In Greek mythology, the messenger of the gods was called Hermes (the noun form of the word). When Zeus or one of the other gods wanted to communicate with humans Hermes was sent. He made the mind of'-the gods clear to mortal beings. He was the go-between. This suggests that, for Christians, hermeneutics is about hearing aright what God said in the past in the present.

Bishop Kirkby stressed the present meaning of every-.text, in recent times many evangelicals have stressed the past meaning. What we need is an approach, which uncovers the original and intended meaning and yet shows how the text can speak anew in the present. Recent discussions of hermeneutics in which evangelicals - on the world scene, but not in Australia - have made some of the most important contributions, have shown how this can honestly be done. It is now generally agreed that to hear the Bible aright one must clearly differentiate historical meaning from present meaning. In the study of the Bible, we must always ask first, "What did these words mean to the original readers? Then secondly, "What do they mean to us?" "What is their present application?" On timeless precepts such as "God is Love", as we noted, the application is one for one; on things like foot washing we only endorse today the principle that discipleship demands humble service for others; and on matters like the remarriage of divorcees, the use of the law courts, the taking of oaths, we agree that when the context is totally different to that when given, the teaching no longer applies like law.

This two-step method of appropriating the teaching of Scripture has wide application, but it is nowhere so important as in preaching. Good evangelical preaching should be biblical and practical; it should arise out of Scripture but apply to contemporary life. In the bush, as well as in Australian cities, Christian people are crying out for preaching with this twofold focus. Preaching which is truly biblical and relevant. Bishop Kirkby's practical and inspiring sermons may have had their limitations but they always, to use his words, brought "some pointed lesson from God's word" to his hearers. Only an appreciation of the modern insights gained from the study of hermeneutics will allow evangelicals in this age to give sermons of similar relevance and spiritual power.

2) An ecclesiology which values both the congregation and wider church.

Every Christian should affirm the importance of the local congregation - that community of believers who meet together to hear the word of God, celebrate the sacraments, to pray and to praise God in song, and to encourage and support one another. In the purposes of God, the local church is where the fundamental communal nature of Christian faith is most powerfully expressed. This community is grounded in a common faith in Christ, but as the God of the Bible is both the God of creation and redemption, it always assumes some institutional forms. It has appointed leaders, times when it meets, agreed beliefs, rules of membership, a budget and commonly it owns property. These institutional forms give order and stability to the spiritual life of the local Christian community

But evangelical Anglicans historically have also been strong in affirming the importance of membership, and participation in the wider Christian church, the community of faith, which transcends the congregation. This wider Christian community invariably has regional, national and transnational expressions. In the Anglican Church there is firstly the diocese - presided over by the bishop, secondly, the national church presided over by the primate, both of these bodies expressing the communal nature of the church by meeting in synod, and thirdly, the Anglican communion which is a more diffuse reality expressing itself accordingly in diffuse ways.

In my 1995 book, What on Earth is the Church? I show that an exclusively congregational understanding of the church is not taught in the Bible: indeed it is rejected by the apostolic writers. When Jesus said, "I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18), he was not saying I will build many local assemblies, as some seem to think, but rather, I will build a community' which may be called the new Israel, a transcultural, universal community of faith on earth, membership of which not even death can annul. Here as in many other places in the New Testament the Greek word ekklesia has moved beyond its classical meaning of assembly to mean "community", and in this instance this community is a universal reality - the people of God in the world.

On the basis of such an understanding of the church, spiritual and institutional forms of the one Christian community - local, regional, national and transnational - are not merely human structures, or simply allowable, but theologically demanded. Historic evangelical Anglicanism has been correct in honouring all these expressions of the one church. In our secular and "Christian unfriendly" world we have a heightened appreciation of the importance of the local church as a counter community, but when contemporary evangelicals go to the extreme making this the only true expression of church they are completely out of step with historic evangelicalism.

Bishop Kirkby, like most evangelicals of his age, if anything gave a certain priority to the universal church and to diocesan structures. He would have had no truck with those who argue that the local church is the only reality on earth which should be called church, and diocese and bishops are merely human structures to be tolerated or ignored as far as possible. He worked within the denominational order, respected the jurisdiction of diocesan bishops and frequently spoke of the church as the people of God in the world. I find no evidence at all in his writings of a congregational understanding of church and much to the contrary. The church for him was seen expressed in diocesan and national synods, local parishes, possibly with several centres, and isolated believers living in little country towns, farms, mining leases and timber and fettler's camps.

In today's world, I dare to suggest that a balanced evangelical Christianity, firmly rooted in Scripture, should affirm the theological and practical importance of both the local church and the wider church. An almost exclusive preoccupation with the church seen as the bishop's diocese - an error of far too many Anglo and liberal Catholic bishops - or an almost exclusive preoccupation with the local church - an error of "radical-conservative" evangelicals, are both to be rejected as unbalanced. To be an effective in the Australian Anglican Church BCA needs to affirm unambiguously a commitment to and respect of both the local church and the wider church in its spiritual and institutional expressions. If BCA is to grow and prosper in its congregationalism as unbiblical and unAnglican.

3) A balanced approach to ministry: pastors and teachers.

New Testament scholars today, of both Roman Catholic and Protestant persuasion, are generally agreed that Jesus did not prescribe a once-given pattern of church leadership with set names for various office bearers. Instead it seems that Christian leadership emerged to meet the need at given times and places. Different patterns of leadership and different titles were known, and only in the second century, AD did the threefold order of bishops, presbyters and deacons come to prominence - and then in a form not known today. The most common and important ministers of the word in the early period were the prophets, although a separate group of teachers seems to have arisen quite early (1 Cor 12:28), but very little is said about them. A prophet, by definition, is a man or a woman who regularly proclaims a word labours in Christ's name, it must reject radical from the Lord given by personal revelation, but in the apostolic age the prophets were also active in teaching. They are often depicted as expounding and applying Scripture. Thus Luke designates the leaders of the church at Antioch as "prophetic-teachers" (Acts 13:1). In describing the leadership of the church in Ephesus, Paul just once mentions a group whom he calls "pastors and teachers". These people labour for the Gospel alongside apostles, prophets and evangelists in a leadership team (Eph 4:11). The pastor-teachers, it is generally thought, were the leaders of the house church congregations. It would seem that these house church leaders are called bishops or overseers in Phil 1:1 and 1 Tim 3:lff. In the house churches these leaders would have given oversight and provided much of the teaching, but as in home groups today this teaching would have been given with lots of interaction and others would have taught as well. If you want to pursue these matters I recommend you read my book. Patterns of Ministry in the Early Church (Collins-Dove, 1989), or some other modern study of leadership in the New Testament age.

Now to the point I want to make. Nowhere in the New Testament  is it suggested that the leader of a local church is to be understood exclusively as a teacher/preacher. This is an idea that has developed in the Reformed tradition but has no clear biblical warrant. I do not want to minimise the importance of good teaching in the life of the church but to argue that a one sided emphasis on this is unbalanced Christianity. It reflects an inherent weakness in one strand of evangelicalism which over concentrates on the mind. When this emphasis is to the fore, ministers claim that -their main role is that of teacher; they see the congregation as passive learners; and they forget the prophetic dimension. Somehow this does not seem to capture the drift of the New Testament, and for most lay people this becomes a very sterile and abstract kind of Christianity. It is very appealing to the small minority of Australians who are predominantly cognitively orientated, but not to most of us who are far more than embodied minds. If this is what is pushed in the average Anglican parish, believers soon become disgruntled, the communal quality of congregational life is lost and slowly people drift off - some to join more balanced evangelical congregations, others to join catholic parishes while large numbers become charismatic or Pentecostals.

Bishop Kirkby, clearly reflected another understanding of ministerial leadership. He liked St Paul's description of the minister as a pastor-teacher, with the emphasis falling where the apostle placed it with pastor being the primary category. The word translated as pastor is the Greek, word "poimen", which literally means shepherd - one who cares for a flock. What a rich image, Jesus himself described his ministry in the terms and the Anglican ordinal gives priority to this imagery. Bishop Kirkby repeatedly spoke of the BCA missionaries as representing "the good shepherd whose heart was full of compassion for people who were as "sheep having no shepherd" (These Ten Years. p 29 etc). He believed that the proclaiming of the word of God was a very important part of being a pastor but not the main task, let alone the only thing of real importance. In his life and ministry, the pastoral dimension was always to the fore. In his own parish ministry and then in his tours as the organising missioner of BCA he majored on pastoral work. He visited homes, talked with men and women wherever he found them, prayed with the sick and baptised the children.

I suggest therefore that an effective evangelical (ordained) ministry, informed by the pattern given in the New Testament and the Prayer Book, will follow the lead given by Bishop Kirkby. It will be primarily a pastoral or shepherding/caring ministry, in which teaching the Bible is but one facet among several, albeit a very important one.

4) A balanced approach to mission: Evangelism and social action.

On the world scene, in the last thirty years, evangelicals have given a lot of thought and time to working out the relationship between evangelism and social involvement. In this debate, John Stott has given a statesman-like lead. As is so often the case, this debate was largely gone on without Australian involvement or interest. As we probably know historic, Anglican evangelicalism has an excellent track record on social involvement and action. John Wesley gave himself to work among the poor and laboured for the abolition of slavery, rejecting the idea that it was sanctioned by the Bible. The abolition of the slave trade and eventually of slavery in the British Empire was achieved by Sir William Wilberforce and "the Clapham Sect" who were evangelicals. In the 19th century evangelicals, continued their costly involvement in social reform and practical service for the poor. It was only towards the close of the 19th century and throughout most of this century that most evangelicals retreated from involvement in the pain and suffering of the world to concentrate on preaching the Gospel, claiming that this alone pleased God. This is called "the great reversal" within evangelicalism.

Since the sixties, evangelicals on the world scene have gradually begun to get back on the right track. The general consensus is now that there is but one mission - sending by God - into the world and this always involves two things, preaching the Gospel and practical service for those in need. There can be no separating of the great commission t o preach the Gospel and the great command to love our neighbour as ourself. The Gospel in fact is only proclaimed effectively when it is accompanied by costly service for those in need. When these two things are balanced then this is "holistic mission, Sometimes preaching may be what is emphasised, such as in an evangelistic mission or in work amongst affluent, healthy university students, and sometimes social action may be to -the fore such as when World Vision first moves into a disaster situation. We should not argue that evangelism always has a priority over expressions of practical service for those in need. As human beings, we have in fact a priority to be caring and loving of others, and as part of this do we share the Gospel. But the best way to see things is to consider living for Christ as something we do in word and deed. These things are the two sides of one coin.

This is now mainstream evangelical teaching, but sadly, it is often categorically rejected by some evangelical Anglicans in Australia. An evangelical theological student recently told me, "I think do-good organisations like World Vision take away Christian money which should go to evangelistic ministries. They are confused about their priorities and they, confuse others." This mistaken way of thinking is implied by all those who say, "But surely as an evangelical you believe evangelism must be seen as more important then helping people in need?" It is true the consequences are very different. If you assist another human being in need you help them in this life, whereas if you assist another human being to find Christ you help them eternally, but this is not all that needs to be said. In real life, these two sorts of assistance are not alternatives and the Bible does not allow us to separate these two things. We are to demonstrate our Christian faith by, our actions. Jesus commends the Good Samaritan for what he does. Whatever else this parable may teach, it underlines that helping those in need is pleasing to Christ. The suggestion that the only thing really important in life is evangelism, understood as saying certain things about human nature and Christ. I dare to suggest is unbalanced Christianity. (See also Jesus' own summary-of the good news in Luke 4:18-19).

Interestingly under the leadership of Bishop Kirkby and later Tom Jones BCA embraced holistic mission long before other evangelicals saw things so clearly, or used this term. The impetus to found BCA was the Gospel, but Sydney Kirkby was not unmoved by the physical problems o f people in the bush. One of the early ventures of BCA was the establishment of a hostel for children in Wilcannia. Other hostels followed in Mungindi, Bowral, Wentworth Falls, Port Lincoln, Moree and Broken Hill only the last still being in operation. (I am aware that this year BCA opened a new hostel in Forbes). These were provided so that children from outlying areas could go to school. This was a very practical ministry of service illustrating that Christian faith implies costly service for others. Then there was the pioneering BCA medical work. After travelling through the dense mountain forests of east Gippsland late in 1921, with his "swag and surplice", to use Kirkby's own words, visiting the isolated homes and townships Kirkby decided that what was needed was a pastoral-medical team. A ministry of word and healing. As a result in 1922 BCA appointed a nurse and deaconess, Sister Dorothy Almond, who worked with the diocesan deaconess, Winifred Shoobridge in the isolated settlement of Cann River. The two women set up their "nursing station in a tent. They were 86 miles from the nearest doctor. In 1925 BCA started a hospital in Ceduna and in 1927 another at Penong. The Ceduna hospital soon became the centre of the BCA flying medical service which eventually ran 6 bush hospitals, two ambulance aircraft, a radio base, a pharmacy and a dental service. This all began when Kirkby responded to the expressed needs of country people in a public meeting in Ceduna on one Sunday afternoon of 1925. He did not say, "This will not involve preaching the Gospel, it is not my concern". Instead, he said in effect, "I will see what we can do". And when Kirkby made such a promise action soon followed. Between 1919 and 1993, 321 people were involved in the BCA medical and hostel work and 257 in pastoral ministry (237 male clergy and 20 deaconesses). These figures speak for themselves. In these years, BCA in an exemplary way practised holistic mission, before the term was invented. It balanced word and deed, the great commission and the great command.

We could see these ventures as but humanitarian adjuncts to the main work of BCA but Kirkby saw them as adjuncts of the basic Gospel ministry of BCA. He was a better theologian than many fellow evangelicals of his own day and ours. The Rev Dr Don Anderson in his 1984 Wollongong university master' s thesis argues that Kirkby gained this balanced vision of mission from his mentors at Durham University where the great, evangelical Gospel motivate social action tradition had been maintained in lean times. In justifying the pioneering medical services of BCA Kirkby wrote:

"In associating nursing sisters with its work for the church, the BCA was not embarking on a novel scheme, but rather following an example that ran back to the earliest centuries of Christian history: indeed, it was but translating afresh the Gospel of Him who cleansed the leper, healed the sick, made the blind to see and the lame to walk" (These Ten Years, p 33).

The breadth of his social concern is seen in his two Sydney synod charges of 1932 and 1933. Here he shows himself abreast and involved in all the great public issues of his day: militarism, the aborigines, the breakdown of family life, unemployment especially of young people, gambling and the lack of good political leadership.

5) A balanced ministry : the involvement of men and women

Now to my last and most dangerous topic to raise. For more than twenty years I have been the most outspoken of all graduates of Moore College to have opposed the prevailing Sydney view that women are permanently subordinated to men In this lecture and in this context I would not choose to speak on this matter. I have said and written enough to make plain what I believe is the teaching of Jesus on this matter. But I simply cannot avoid the topic if I am to reflect on the relevance of Bishop Kirkby's ministry for our own time. In his booklet, The First Ten Years, he does not have one chapter entitled "the Ministry of Women" but three chapters - that's how important he considered the women in BCA. He worked hard to recruit women, he esteemed their sacrificial efforts and he unequivocally endorsed their ministry in word and deed amongst men and women. In a theologically sound manner Kirkby saw, "the ministry of women ... as the complement of the ministry of men" (Ibid. p 22). When women are limited to secondary and subordinate ministries the church is impoverished by the loss of half its ministerial giftedness.

In underlining his inclusive understanding of public ministry Bishop Kirkby wrote, "The women of the BCA stand for the two-fold Gospel: that which tells of our Lord as the shepherd who gave his life for the scattered sheep, and that which shows him as the good Samaritan, whose healing touch still avails for the stricken and sick,' (Ibid. p 27). The first deaconess to be appointed exclusively to pastoral ministry was the indomitable "Miss Reece who went to Cann River in the Gippsland diocese in 1925. Bishop Kirkby wrote, "Her (church) services were held in school houses, kitchens, halls and road camps. Homes were visited, children taught, Sunday schools commenced and a solid church life built up. Such a ministry was fragrant with blessing: yet it called for endurance and suffering" (Ibid. p 27). On February 29th 1928, a church building was opened and consecrated at Cann River by the Bishop of Gippsland, Dr G H Cranswick. Bishop Kirkby says this event portrayed God's ' "seal upon (her) evangelical ministry" (Ibid. p28). The founding father of BCA had no doubts about the ministry of women in every sphere of church life. He reasoned that if God obviously 1 blessed the full-orbed ministry of women how could it not be pleasing to him?

One of the greatest ventures in promoting the ministry of women by Bishop Kirkby was, however, the commissioning of a mission van to be driven and staffed by two women. The van carried an organ, gramophone, records, Bibles and hymn books and tracts. The pioneer van ministers were Grade Tims and Miss M de Labilliere. In 1926, after an inspiring commissioning service at St Andrews cathedral, the two women set of in their van for the back-blocks of western New South Wales. They braved bush fires, crossed flooded creeks, and cut their way through bush all to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people of the outback. These two women were an inspiration to men and women in comfortable Australian suburbia. Other vans were purchased and other women as well as men continued this van ministry for many years. I strongly encourage you to read Bishop Kirkby's moving account of the ministry of these women so wonderfully used by God. He says, "BCA must send out more bush sisters" (Ibid. p 31). These women he adds, "must be able to conduct services and preach, to mend punctures and old clothes, to tend a mother with a new-born babe, to lend a hand in domestic work, to persuade men to come to worship, to travel through dust or cold rains and keep smiling all the way" (Ibid. p 30).

Was Kirkby wrong in endorsing so fervently the ministry of women? Was he mistaken in thinking that God was pleased with the public ministry of these women? Was he wrong in wanting BCA to encourage the ministry of men and women in word and deed? Or are we wrong in the way we exclude women today from 'up front" public ministry? What has changed so that BCA has now no women in pastoral ministry The 20 deaconesses who have ministered under the name of BCA come mainly from the earliest period, the last being Peggy Spry who served at Wilcannia between 1949 to 1952. I personally, along with most evangelicals on the world scene today, think that Bishop Kirkby's approach is basically right, reflecting the mind of Christ himself, and those who continue to insist that the Bible permanently subordinates women to men and therefore cannot be Christian leaders have got it wrong - For this reason I again see Bishop Kirkby's approach representing balanced evangelical Anglicanism, honouring Christ, dignifying women furthering the work of the Gospel. If this is so, then the arguments I so often heard in Sydney diocese for the permanent subordination of and thus their exclusion from women

leading or preaching in church and from ordination needs to be re-examined. I do not want to digress into the debate about what the Bible actually teaches on the ministry of women as I have done that in my book, Created Woman (Collins-Dovet 1985) and in other public lectures, but rather underline the monumental practical problems that the exclusion of women from open, public ministry creates for the church. I listened recently to a tape of Don Carson’s 1995 St Barnabas lecture on the permanent subordination of women. Among the many contentious points he made he said, "the egalitarian position is on the ascendancy at the present times" implying this was temporary, soon the leadership of males would again be recognised. On this he is totally mistaken. The change in the status and opportunities for women in the Western world are here to stay and they will grow in significance. A Copernican-like revolution in human social life has taken place and there will be no turning back. Men can no longer dictate to women what they should do in the home or in the work place - they are out of the cage. This year in Australia 53 percent of university students are women. To be against women leading small home groups, taking part in services, speaking in church, and being ordained into the leadership structures of the church, is profoundly anti-cultural. It is like riding a horse to work in the age of the motor car, or opposing democracy in the modern world. It is even more difficult than maintaining that all created life came into existence in a six day period about 8, 000 years ago as creationists argue on biblical grounds. At a practical level subordinating women to men in the church today simply does not make sense; and what is more, it suggests that the church is anachronistic, unjust in its dealings with women and selective in its response to modern culture. How on earth can we evangelicals continue to endorse women as ministers of state, judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, managers, airline pilots ~ jobs with immense authority - and then when they come to church expect them to be silent and limit themselves to those mundane ministries we men do not want to do? To suggest that all that is at stake is different roles determined by gender is absurd. The minute you examine what roles are allocated to men and to women you see this argument is a subterfuge. It 'is not gender roles that are at issue but gender relations. Men are to lead in the church, women are to be subordinate and keep silent. This is not balanced evangelicalism.

Conclusion

I must conclude. I know I may have touched on some sore points I very much doubt that everyone would agree with all I have said and I do not ask this. It would, have been a very boring exercise if I had only said what you with one mind all endorse. Always in the church we move forward in debate with one another. We are the poorer in every way when we limit the exchange of ideas. It is my prayer that BCA will grow, prosper, and continue to send men and women to work in outback Australia. How this can be best done is to be discovered afresh in every age. Bishop Kirkby can teach us much, but the way forward in the present and in the future is ultimately in our hands. It is my contention that a balanced evangelical faith is of utmost importance in the furthering of God's mission in the Australian context at this time. I have suggested that a balanced evangelicalism will distinguish between the past and present meaning of the Word of God. The importance of both the local church and the wider church, the need of ordained clergy to be both pastors and teachers, give equal support to evangelism and social involvement and action, and endorse the full-orbed contribution of both men and women in the life of the church.

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