A Critique of "The New Puritans"

After his exams, Jeff brought home a few books that he actually wanted to read, rather than being required to read as part of his course. One of these was The New Puritans, by Muriel Porter. This book is a critism of the Sydney Anglican diocese from the perspective of a liberal Anglican, whose husband is an Anglican priest in Victoria.

At times when I read this book, I wanted to laugh - not because what the author said was funny, per se, rather because the author seemed so blind to the contradictions in her own arguments. She complained that Sydney Anglicans seem reluctant to employ ministers trained in other Anglican Theological colleges around Australia (which are, in the main, liberal,) yet did not mention the complete barrier to employment that those trained at Moore Theological College, (bastion of Sydney Anglicanism,) face to employment in almost any Australian diocese other than that of Sydney. And she complained that Sydney Anglicans are providing support funding for ministers (often trained at Moore) in diocese which cannot fund these ministers themselves. On the other hand, she complained that Sydney Anglicans don't give vast swathes of money to the ecumenical, liberal groups that other Anglican churches support (because Sydney Anglicans do not agree with the motives or means of these groups), yet also complained that when Sydney Anglicans do get involved in Anglican organisational bodies they actually expect to have their collective voice heard (not unreasonable, given their status as Australia's largest and fastest growing diocese). The author criticised the membership of the Sydney diocese because it contains so many men and women of all ages, and, in comparison to liberal Anglican churches, so few elderly women. She does not understand that this is a sign that Sydney Anglicans are reaching out and evangelising all people, rather than being left only with the few of their membership who are too stubborn and set in their ways to give up on the church of their youth (and who patiently await the day when they might again be fed in their church from the Word of God, His Bible.)

On another level, I was deeply disturbed by the beliefs that Porter has, which have ppresumably flourished within her own experiences as an active member of a liberal church. She complained that one of the heads of Sydney Anglicanism stated that people from faiths other than Christianity are not saved. She disputed this central tenet of evangelical Christian doctrine! Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [John 14:6] No modern day liberal doctrine of relativistic "tolerance" can get around the fact that Jesus claimed that knowing Him was the only way of knowing His Father, God. His last recorded words were: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." [Acts 1:8] Jesus himself commanded his apostles to evangelise and disciple people of other cultures and faiths into the Christian faith. The Christian church needs to remember this truth, and act in accordance with it, rather than seeking to bury it under politically correct "tolerance". All Christian churches need to get on with the job of evangelising unbelievers and discipling believers. And churches cannot do this if they persist in squabbling, like Muriel Porter, over which church diocese has the most "tolerant" plan for evenly apportioning what she seems to see as the spoils of some intra-denominational war: converts won into Christianity by the faithful portrayal of the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and in his atoning death on the cross for our sins. New Christians that Sydney Anglicans are seeing converted by the power of God's Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised all those centuries ago.