Another attack upon Sydney Anglicanism
Another attack upon Sydney Anglicanism
By Mark Thompson
August 22, 2011
Muriel Porter has been attacking Sydney Anglicans for years. In synods and committees and in print, she has vociferously opposed the position of the Diocese of Sydney on a whole range of issues. Never very far from the surface, though, is her anger at the diocese's attitude towards women priests and bishops. She has campaigned on the other side of this debate with vigour for more than twenty-five years. She takes no prisoners and has been willing to use whatever means might be at her disposal to further her cause and, as even those who agree with her in principle have often recognised, to vilify those who, for whatever reason, disagree with her.
In 2006 she produced a rather more extended attack on Sydney theology and practice entitled The New Puritans: The Rise of Fundamentalism in the Anglican Church (Melbourne University Press). The review of that book in Melbourne's The Age (18/03/06) described it as 'a little breathless and over the top'. Though it presented itself as a serious piece of scholarship (published by a university press, no less) it was really just the latest salvo in a propaganda war. She presented the theological commitments of the diocese as eccentric and extreme, and sought an analogy in the popular parody of Puritanism as joyless, legalistic and a threat to Anglican 'moderation'. Here was a phenomenon that any thinking person would want to resist and denounce in the strongest possible terms.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
By Mark Thompson
August 22, 2011
Muriel Porter has been attacking Sydney Anglicans for years. In synods and committees and in print, she has vociferously opposed the position of the Diocese of Sydney on a whole range of issues. Never very far from the surface, though, is her anger at the diocese's attitude towards women priests and bishops. She has campaigned on the other side of this debate with vigour for more than twenty-five years. She takes no prisoners and has been willing to use whatever means might be at her disposal to further her cause and, as even those who agree with her in principle have often recognised, to vilify those who, for whatever reason, disagree with her.
In 2006 she produced a rather more extended attack on Sydney theology and practice entitled The New Puritans: The Rise of Fundamentalism in the Anglican Church (Melbourne University Press). The review of that book in Melbourne's The Age (18/03/06) described it as 'a little breathless and over the top'. Though it presented itself as a serious piece of scholarship (published by a university press, no less) it was really just the latest salvo in a propaganda war. She presented the theological commitments of the diocese as eccentric and extreme, and sought an analogy in the popular parody of Puritanism as joyless, legalistic and a threat to Anglican 'moderation'. Here was a phenomenon that any thinking person would want to resist and denounce in the strongest possible terms.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
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