Hooray. Last day. My desire to be here has flat-lined over these last two days of Synod.

One last stuff-up

However I did have a good start to the day. A few days ago, I moved a motion with my jogging bishop that we should run around the eastern side of Lake Burley Griffin. We'd been running to the National Carillon and back, and I thought the Lake only went a bit further. The jogging bishop accepted the motion. He should have checked the map in the briefing papers supplied to Synod members!

We were feeling good as we went south across the bridge towards Capital Hill and turned left along the foreshore. Especially when we passed the plaques honouring previous Australians of the year and saw Robert De Castella's name listed. We could run for miles! However as we continued past the High Court and the National Gallery and Questacon, I realised that I'd sadly miscalculated! Lake Burley Griffin went much further than I realised. So I moved an amendment in committee that we return across the very next bridge and head for home. It passed unopposed, although some might argue there was no quorum present. Still, it was the longest run yet and I am thankful to God for the chance to get back into a habit of vigorous exercise, when in the last 12 months, walking was the only regular exercise I'd done. So thank you, too, jogging bishop for your fellowship!

Prayer book online?

Of interest to some might be the news that " because AAPB (An Australian Prayer Book) is now out of print " a motion was passed requesting that the General Synod's associate publishing company, Broughton Publishing, might make the text of AAPB by electronic means.

Difficult drought debate

A bigger debate occurred over a proposal "Drought/Climate Change Fund' to establish an appeal fund to resource Regional and Rural Ministries, which would have taken $1 million out of General Synod's reserves (which I think largely come from Prayer Book royalties and commissions from a national Anglican-Telstra contract program.)

There are real issues attached to drawing continually down on General Synod reserves. This may lead to higher compulsory assessments of local dioceses to fund the General Synod office and its commissions and taskforces. However the debate was terribly messy. Although this item had been printed on the business paper for numerous days, a point of order was only called against it today. Why? Because as a financial motion, it failed " as required " to attach a detailed statement of income and expenditure. Surely it would have been courteous for objectors to offer help to get the motion into better order as soon as the problem was noticed, so we could discuss the principle. As it was the motion was ruled out of order. There was a brief dissent from ruling debate which was lost. And it was then replaced with what I considered watered-down version, which set up an appeal without any contribution from General Synod.

NT intervention

The other motion of interest was a passionately expressed motion regarding indigenous identity in light of the Federal intervention in the Northern Territory. It was moved by Rev Rob Haynes, of CMS, representing the Diocese of NT. It was almost a page long and expressed a number of policy viewpoints on indigenous affairs. I believe the terms of the motion also ascribed certain improper motives to the Federal Government, although in his speech Rob himself expressed that he thought Mr Howard and Mr Brough were very sincere. A number of us felt the motion's length and the strong language made it hard to support unreservedly. However Rob is the man on the ground and the motion raised real concerns and made good points about preserving indigenous rights, cultures and languages, and it passed.

With a few other brief motions, including the motions of thanks to the organisers and hosts, Synod was over. I was thanking God especially, as we drove the trip home to Wollongong through heavy rain on a parched land most of the way.

Concluding reflections?

1. Peter Jensen always used to tell us at Moore College how important eschatology was (the doctrine of the "last things'). However in both the discussions over mission and climate change, there was a complete absence of thinking about the future aspect of the kingdom of God. It's as if the return of Christ, the coming judgment and the new heavens and earth were irrelevant as a factor in thinking through these matters.

For example, in the environment debate, the Romans 8 reference to the creation groaning was raised. But there was no attention to the fact that this groaning and suffering was the expected precursor to the revelation of glorious freedom of the children of God, namely the redemption of our bodies in the final resurrection.

2. I repeat my point of earlier blogs that the gospel was assumed rather than spelt out (presumably because to do so would have meant our divisions were exposed). In thinking about mission, the focus was all on method and content was largely absent. This was again obvious to me from the discussion guide circulated to members of Synod on the last day, for use in local parishes, entitled Time the Grow: doing church differently.

For a Christian discussion guide about new ways of mission and church, it lacked a single quotation or question from the Bible (beyond, "What gospel stories spring to mind when you think of loving service and forming community?). It gave no guidance about the definitive place of the Scriptures should have in the worship of "fresh expressions' of church, beyond this comment, "For Anglicans, the emphasis used to be on authorized texts. Now, there are agreed shapes to our services with optional texts to use at various points." I hope this comment referred to the way we use our prayer books, but the discussion guide leaves open the possibility that this philosophy might also apply to the Bible!

Nowhere did it remind the Christians who would be using this guide that it was the message of the gospel that is the power of God for salvation. Nowhere did it mention the reality of sin or judgment or his future kingdom (see point 1). The closest it came to that is to say that, "Sometimes God's love is affirming of human life and action, other times it will challenge what it meets. Creation is good but it also needs to be transformed by God."

It did say that, "We believe Jesus died on the cross for all men and women. We believe that Jesus rose again and offers new life to all." But nowhere did it explain the meaning of the cross, beyond possibly being an example of suffering in service.

In his endorsement on the back, Phillip Aspinall said, "This brochure is practical and helpful and will assist all churches in their ministry and mission". I cannot agree. I would not expect a long theological treatise, but I have the say that the Bible and the gospel specifics were completely marginalised in this brochure issued to the national Church.

3. Despite my last comment, I must say that Phillip Aspinall's chairmanship of General Synod has been superb. An extra motion of thanks to him for this was moved (beyond the general global motion of thanks) and rightly so. It correctly noted his firmness, fairness, alertness, good preparation and good humour. Certainly our theologies would diverge. But this was all true, and I think it was a significant contribution to the observation made by many old hands, that in the main, the spirit of this General Synod had been considerably better than previous ones (despite my grumpier tone these last two days).

Lastly, thank you for reading. I appreciate the kind comments made by people on the Your.sydneyanglican.net forums who have been reading this blog.

(So on that note one last reflection for Gordon Cheng: I reckon Bono from U2 would have spoken much more passionately than people did on the debate about the Millennium Goals earlier in the week. Synod always comes alive when people speak with passion and conviction.)