MAGAZINE NO. 161 [Dec 2024]

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

EDITORIAL 3
FAITH AND SHAME by Derek Strange 5
COMING HOME by Victor Branson 10
INVITATION by Frank Ross 13
AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER MARTIN
by John Foulcher 14
A LONELY BEGAN: A HOMAGE TO
'THE WINDHOVER' BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
by Nikolai Blaskow 20
TREE SONG 1 by John R Walker 23
THE ROLE OF ETHICS AND SPIRITUALITY IN ISLAM
by Mohamad Abdalla 24
WATSON'S BAY by Frank Ross 31
EREMOS INFORMATION AND MEMBERSHIP 32

EDITORIAL

Welcome to the first ever all male issue of EREMOS – at least it’s the first under my editorship.

Every contributor to this issue is male. This hasn’t happened by design, but I think it’s something to celebrate. I don’t have statistics to back me up, but I suspect more recent incarnations of contemplative spirituality and the desert tradition have been dominated by women, and that’s been a very good thing. For over forty years, Eremos has been a source of a nuanced, generous approach to spiritual life, particularly in the Christian tradition, and that, I think, has been in no small measure due to the input of women. Such input, sadly, has not been reflected elsewhere in the church – but more of that later.

For now, let’s celebrate the burgeoning presence of men in our spiritual tradition, breaking down tired old stereotypes which persist elsewhere in society about men being more stolid, ‘rational’ types. In this issue, Nikolai Blasko explores the role Gerard Manly Hopkins’ masterly poem, ‘The Windhover’, has had on his life; Victor Branson reflects on his journey towards a more heart-centred theology; Dr Mohamad Abdalla forensically explores the relationship between ethics and spirituality in Islam; Derek Strange lays bare the connection between faith and shame in a visceral account of a friend’s suicide; Frank Ross offers a couple of outstanding poems and we’re also fortunate to have two stunning new images from landscape painter, John R Walker. As well, there’s an entertaining and insightful interview with one of Australia’s foremost economic journalists, Peter Martin.

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I joined the Anglican church as an adult. I always had a deep Christian faith but couldn’t quite find a spiritual home. In my experience, most of the protestant traditions were too sentimental and ungrounded, and the Catholic church was too rigid and authoritarian. Anglicanism, for me, offered the best(ish) of both worlds: it was rooted in centuries-old liturgical practice but it wasn’t afraid of change and growth. Particularly, along with the Uniting Church, Anglicanism promoted genuine equality between men and women; after the struggles of the late 20th century, gender was no obstacle to the priesthood. While some dioceses, such as the Diocese of Sydney here in Australia, have held out against this development, most of the worldwide Anglican communion has embraced women’s priesthood, and has been all the richer for it.

I was disappointed, therefore, to read a recent report entitled ‘Addressing Disparity: listening to the leadership experience of ordained women in Canberra and Goulburn diocese’, prepared for the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn in 2024. This report explores the deteriorating role of women in my own Diocese of Canberra
and Goulburn. This diocese began ordaining women over thirty years ago; indeed, it was among the first Anglican dioceses in Australia to do so. This report, however, details the extent to which women’s participation in church leadership has gone backwards in the past two decades, and is a warning that reactionary forces are still active within my own church, that battles apparently won are still up for grabs. In Canberra, there are fewer women working in church leadership now than there were ten years ago, and those who are given leadership roles are often asked to do so under inferior working conditions to men, many asked to work in honorary capacities. The sense of disillusionment from the women interviewed for this report is palpable.

The reasons suggested for this disturbing development are various: an assumption that men are still primary breadwinners and therefore should be given employment priority;  ineffective episcopal leadership; the import of male clergy trained in conservative evangelical colleges, who do not feel compelled to honour a system-wide ethos.

My mother-in-law recently decided to leave her church in Canberra after a newly appointed Sydney-trained rector announced from the pulpit that women would no longer preach in the church while he was in residence there. Pronouncing that God had given the job of ‘teaching the Gospel’ exclusively to men, the rector even suggested that women should not speak in sessions of Biblical instruction. Bizarrely interpreting Paul’s directive that ‘I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent’ as applying only to ‘capital T teaching of scripture’ (it’s fine for a woman to be Prime Minister, it seems), his leadership effectively disempowers women in services at this church and undermines their role in the diocese at large. No amount of patronising babble about ‘complementary ministries’ will camouflage this. Under the guise of ‘taking the Bible seriously’, this approach diminishes Holy Scripture, stripping it of its literary complexities and its context, reducing it to a kind of school textbook, a bland  instruction manual. That a bishop should allow this practice to continue in a system publicly committed to affirming women in leadership is degrading to every woman in the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

Those of us who believe that ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ must not give up the struggle against forces that would undermine the essence of the Gospel narratives. One of the unequivocal advances of our society has been the liberation of women from the oppression of men in a patriarchal system, but the fight is far from over. It’s our firm belief at Eremos that the promotion of gender equality is a social and spiritual imperative.

And let’s hope 2025 sees the first ever all female issue of EREMOS as well.

JOHN FOULCHER
Editor