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This story is absolutely true in every detail (to the limits of my perception). It fascinates me the extent to which members of a nominally Christian Church will deny the truth of their own faith.
In retrospect I made two serious errors:
Excommunication doesn't mean much to most readers I daresay – and in fact it didn't actually happen, not in a formal sense anyway. Just the same the experience was amazing. I make no apology for using real names – if those named have as much trouble with the truth now as they did then, let them sue and I will get to tell it all again.
Excommunication is the process by which episcopal churches (including the Anglican Church in Australia) expel a member who is deemed to be so evil that their continued presence in the fellowship of the church cannot be tolerated. I am not aware that it has actually been done to anyone in the last 100 years or so, but it used to be an important sanction. This century the churches were too concerned with falling membership to actually expel anyone and preaching a message of toleration does not sit comfortably with the practice of excommunication so it has fallen from favour as a sentence. I could also suggest that the institutional church of the late 20th Century has become so corrupt that it is no longer capable of recognising what is truly evil.
In late 1975 we (Peter and Margaret Hoban) moved to Bega on the south coast of NSW as a newly wed couple. Through a series of coincidences we became very friendly with the Anglican rector Steve Osborne and joined the congregation of St John the Evangelist. In 1979 Steve retired and was replaced by a locum tenens Rev. Dalba Primmer. Dalba was later appointed permanently to the parish and remained many years.
At about this time the Parish Council learned that the centenary of the church – a beautiful Blackett structure – had passed uncelebrated. In addition to the historic church building there was a remarkable bell tower – a free standing structure with a huge bell originally intended for Goulburn cathedral but left in Bega when the great difficulty of moving it from Tathra (where it had been shipped) to Goulburn in those early days of the settlement was appreciated. Perhaps motivated by the missed centenary, there was a sudden flurry of effort to restore the bell tower to make it safe and usable again.
Margaret and I used to read aloud to each other (we still do). For no particular reason than that neither of us was familiar with them we decided to read all of the Minor Prophets (the Old Testament books from Hosea to Malachi – all small books). We noticed that they had a clear common theme – that the call of God was not to ceremonies or churches but simply to live a faithful life honouring God and serving our neighbours in all the little things we do each day. I became concerned that the parish was absorbed with the reconstruction of the bell tower and was disregarding the larger issues which surrounded us in the community.
I wrote a paper with a rather prophetic tone – largely stimulated by what we were reading no doubt. The text is reproduced below. I will agree that today I might have written something a little less aggressive but that is what I thought was appropriate at the time. I distributed it to the members of the Parish Council along with the notice of motion printed on the reverse of the sheet.
A meeting of the Parish Council was scheduled for the following Sunday (August 19th, 1979). Dalba came to me and invited me to sign the notice of motion. I had left it unsigned as I did not wish for the source of the proposal to be an impediment to its consideration, but obviously it could not be addressed by the Council without a nominator and seconder. I signed as requested. Dalba did not say anything about the notice or his feelings.
On the afternoon of Sunday 19th I was approached by the curate of the parish Glen Bevern – he was a deacon just ordained and was appointed as an assistant to the rector. Glen warned me that there was great hostility in the rectory and seemed to be concerned for our physical safety. I was really touched. In the whole episode he was the only person from the parish to express any concern for us at all and he did this in spite of the risk that he may be tarred with the same brush and jeopardise his career in the church. What he did not understand however is the inspiration which derives from conviction.
The Council meeting that evening opened as usual with a reading and prayers and then the chairman Mr John Leach proceeded immediately, before dealing with the minutes or apologies or anything, to invite me to withdraw my notice of motion. As it had not been put it could hardly be withdrawn at that stage and in any event I had no reason to resile from any of the terms (that is still the case now 20 years later).
The chairman then proceeded to read from a prepared statement for about 10 minutes – declaring among other things that this was a "family matter" and then proceeding to attack my disposition, manner of speech and my personality generally. His specific remarks on the subject matter of the notice of motion were confined to a statement that the quotations were taken out of context (although I quoted only a single verse and that not in any context at all) and that the terms of the resolution were impossible to observe. At the end of this denunciation he invited any other speakers although there was no motion of any sort yet moved to discuss.
I spoke briefly detailing my intentions in bringing the motion – to stimulate critical consideration of our mission as a church – however in view of the foregoing it was necessarily brief and in no sense a thorough argument as it was already clear that the substance of the motion was not about to be discussed.
There followed an exchange in which Rev Primmer declared his unbelief in my stated intentions (although he suggested no others) and Mr Leach declared that the Christ he knew was not the same as the Christ I knew – a statement subsequently repeated by Rev. Primmer (I could but sadly agree with that).
There were three other speakers, one of whom (Mrs Plumb) considered that we were already observing the terms of the motion and all of whom expressed their inability to understand my intention. This last matter was not surprising as my concern in part was that the parish was not being made sufficiently aware of Christ's expectations of us and I had been denied the opportunity to present my thoughts in an orderly way.
In order to finalise discussion Mr Leach then presented an ultimatum that he would not chair the meeting as long as I remained. I advised my preparedness to retire if this was the will of the meeting whereupon the rector Rev Primmer moved that "we rid ourselves of this blackness." There was no discussion and I did not bother to vote against the motion but departed the meeting.
The minutes of the meeting as subsequently published show a somewhat different story. The relevant part of these is also copied below.
The Parochial Ordinance is the legal and constitutional framework under which the Parish Councils have their authority. The Parochial Ordinance provides that a Councillor who fails to attend three consecutive meetings without adequate excuse will be deemed to have resigned his seat on the Council.
About three weeks later (September 13th) I received a letter from the Rector countersigned by the Chairman with a somewhat different account of the meeting and ‘quoting’ words which I most certainly did not use. The letter demanded my written resignation. I did not respond (either in writing or orally) as to comply with the request would be implicit acceptance of the misrepresentations which the letter contained and any other response would merely aggravate the situation.
Another person was appointed to the Parish Council by the Rector immediately and took my seat before I had missed a single meeting.
I wrote to the Bishop to put my view of the events observing that:
1) That the parish council was being persuaded to breach the Parochial Ordinance with respect to the seat of an elected member.
2) While my notice of motion apparently caused great offence nobody except Glen had attempted to discuss it with me.
3) That the expression of Christian conviction was being suppressed at St John's Bega.
4) That while declaring his concern for our spiritual welfare the rector had not spoken personally to either of us about any matter at all.
5) That the Rector spent $1.70 on messenger delivery of his letter to me rather than deliver it personally (he had to walk as far to the Post Office as it was to my office where the PO delivered it).
6) That the Rector permitted the assertion to be made that I misquoted the Bible but had not sought to correct the claimed error.
7) That the actions of the Rector in the name of the church appeared to be devoid of either care or love and that perhaps the word prey in the penultimate paragraph of the minutes were a Freudian slip.
I asked for no action from the Bishop and I sent a copy of my letter to the Rector.
The Bishop wrote back to say he thought I was mistaken:
The Council is basing what it is doing on its reading of the Parochial Ordinance. You may complain, perhaps justly, that there are considerable areas for enhancement of the Council's work within those areas that the Ordinance authorises and encourages. Your attack upon the Council does not seem to be based upon the constitution of the Council, however, but upon your reading of Holy Scripture.
Well he was certainly right there. It is clear that from the Bishop's viewpoint the Parochial Ordinance was more important than the Bible in this matter. My intent was however not to attack, I had no desire to destroy or damage, but I was inspired. I believed then, and still believe, that at all times I had observed all requirements of both the letter and the spirit of the Parochial Ordinance, and that my actions were fully transparent to all. I had no desire other than to see a resurgence of the spirit of Christ in our parish. Clearly my vision was not shared.
We changed nothing and attended church each Sunday as previously. The situation was stalemated. The Rector evidently also wrote to the bishop at about this time and sought and obtained the signature of every member of the Parish Council to that letter. I do not know what it said but I suppose I can imagine.
Margaret felt that perhaps she should try to mediate the situation. She called Dalba. I did not hear Margaret make this call, I was outside when she made up her mind to call. Afterward she came out to me in a daze – stunned – and said "I have never been so hated in all my life."
In a few moments she was transformed, indeed elated, she added "now I understand how it was that Paul and Silas were able to rejoice in jail. Isn't it just so exhilarating." She expressed how we both felt. It is not nice to be hated – but awful that such strength of feeling is elicited by simply stating what is true, and truly inspirational that such strength was to be found in adversity.
A few weeks later I said to Dalba that we expected our daughter to be baptised. He arranged to come to our house to discuss it. He came on a Monday evening. In retrospect it was to be expected that he would only come because he expected something – his expectation was that we would ask him for forgiveness. Forgiveness was not something that either of us felt in need of. We could forgive Dalba easily enough – he is just a man after all and we all make mistakes. However he could not similarly forgive us, we would have to beg for it. Sorry, no need.
The atmosphere was as hostile as any I can ever remember experiencing (and that includes a few pretty hot contract disputes in the course of my work as a professional engineer). After the skirmishing over forgiveness we were still wishing to arrange a baptism. When pressed again on the point he stood up and said with all the venom he could manage "Why don't you get some of your ‘Christian’ friends to baptise her."
With that he stalked out of our house to the end of the path and stopped at the gate. There he made a great show of ceremonially wiping the dust from his feet. We were stunned. Amazed, amused and stunned. This was the church.
This was not a great problem. Baptism is a ceremony which we wished to have in order to give thanks for the child and to publicly undertake to care for her spiritually as well as physically. If she was not baptised nobody would be in any way hampered or disadvantaged.
I decided to take the matter up with the Bishop. It seemed unsatisfactory that his clergyman was refusing to perform a required sacrament. He telephoned in response to my letter and made an appointment for us to meet him in Canberra. At this meeting Bishop Warren expressed his concern for our situation and went on to explain that he was caught in a cleft stick. He said "Dalba seems to be depending on the Parochial Ordinance while you have been depending on the Bible and the two cannot be simply reconciled" (or very similar words).
He informed us that Dalba had formally applied for our excommunication (was that the letter which had all the signatures?) but that he (Cecil Warren) would be taking no further action on that. He said Dalba had been a difficult priest to find a settlement for and he seemed to be happy in Bega, and for that reason he had no intention to intervene. He suggested that we should find another church or perhaps only attend occasionally – say once per month.
In the short term Alison was baptised in another town by the Rector of the neighbouring parish (who had been in contact and quite supportive throughout) and shortly after we shifted our worship to another congregation in the town.
The Bishop later appointed Glen Bevern to be priest-in-charge of a very difficult nearby rural parish. A few months later he absconded with the organist, I think a little disillusioned with the institutional church.
It has been interesting to me to read recently of the decision by a leading lesbian to marry a man ("Love that dares speak its name” – The Australian, September 4-5, 1999; Review page 30). The hostility aroused in the ‘gay’ community by her ‘coming out’ as a heterosexual illustates beautifully the regrettable truth that we do not know who really cares about us until that care is tested under pressure.
It is a routine experience that honest and earnest seekers of the truth find hostility and opposition of astonishing virulence and from the most surprising quarters (from anyone who simply prefers their own prejudices and feels them threatened), and we are most vulnerable to those to whom we are closest. That is why it is said that “a man's enemies are the members of his own household”. (Micah 7:6, Matthew 10:36, etc)
What did I learn from it all? Only that I was naïve to expect because it was a church that anyone would care. At the end of the day it does not matter to me how they live – what does matter, is how I live.
This document was untitled.
It was presented as a number of paragraphs and a notice of motion:
Christ is speaking to me – and to you .
There has been some rejoicing at St. John’s recently, in each case because an apparent inflow of cash has occurred. Is Christ’s will expressed in inflows of cash? Does God the Creator delight in ancient ceremonies and fine buildings? Will one citizen of Bega be persuaded of the saving grace of Christ by the erection and ringing of a large bell? More likely he will seek a court injunction to preserve his Sunday morning peace.
It is apparent that the intention exists to devote a major effort to the erection of a new bell tower, but two months have not yet elapsed since our own parish council grappled with the inadequacy of our mission in this parish, and about which we could make no decision.
The issue is the role of the Church within the community, and of the clergy within the Church, but we are busy pandering to our own self esteem and to the desires of the congregation – pleasing the parish council and reading popular and acceptable sermons.
It is not sufficient to preach that Christ saves us from our sins, when most of the population believe that they do not wish to be saved – they enjoy them too much. It is not sufficient to preach the New Testament alone – Christ assumed His hearers had understood and adopted the principles of the Old Testament.
It is no good to wrap up theological ideas in complex phrases and clichés – Christ addressed fishermen and children and so must we. It is wrong to dwell only on those ideas which make us feel good (salvation, etc.) much of Christ"s teaching concerned our relationship to secular values. Was Christ received with warm approbation ? (Matt, 10:21,22; Matt 10:52-39; Luke 12:51-53; etc.) No, then we must feel most uneasy to find the comfortable acceptance that the Church has in Bega today.
And what of the hard evidence – is there much conflict in our society because of the overpowering conviction of Christians against secular values? What about the eschewing of faith in money – the hard evidence there is in the collection plate! Average, weekly offering $1.42 at the last analysis.
Why do people support the Church at all? A survey of parishioners will not reveal that Christian conviction is raging, more commonly it is a sense of guilt or obligation or that it is a proper thing or "it makes me feel good" or just habit. That some people can come more or less regularly and not be inflamed by a Christian conviction is a scathing indictment of our whole Church.
Why do we not see a vigorous rejection of contemporary secular values among churchgoers? Because they are not being called to it – many clergy find colour television more compelling than Christ! The issues that clergy are concerned with are illustrated not only by their sermons but by the items in which they express concern to parish councils. They are concerned with the condition of buildings and the frequency of services, the Curate's garage or his car, Sunday school attendance, communicant numbers and so on.
So, what is the position? We have in organisation habitually living beyond it's means, so we turn to special fund raising efforts and a couple of sermons on ‘stewardship’ to save the, day. Let us consider the issue as a theological one. Special efforts – we need brass – help us to raise some money in order to further the work of (our) god in this community. But the work being furthered is the promotion of the Anglican Church – not of Christ! We are promoting beautiful buildings, ornate fabric and ritualistic ceremonies – there's precious little of Christian compulsion and the rejection of secular values in that!
The Christian Church needs funds for the promotion of Christ's Gospel – which is not just a couple of sermons on stewardship. A committed Christian tithes not just to support the Church, but as testimony to himself of his rejection of secular values and in particular the value of money. His tithe is to be applied to the spreading of the Gospel and to the relief of the needy.
The fundamental issue of commitment and it's consequences for the individual in his daily life are profound – Christianity changes people profoundly, and those who are not profoundly changed have not discovered the Gospel. They may attend the Anglican Church, but they are not Christians. Our mission is first to become Christlike in our own behaviour, to spend the best of our time and effort seeking God's will and discerning Christ's example; and second to spread the truth of the Gospel to all who will hear. When we have finished these tasks is time enough to direct our efforts to the construction of ceremonial ornaments.
AMEN
Notice is hereby given of the intention to move the following resolution at the next meeting of’ St. John's parish council:
"If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross, and come with me." Luke 9:23 NEB.
St. John's Parish Council Meeting, held on
19th August, 1979, in the Parish Hall
PRESENT: Rev. Glen Bevern, Rev. Dalba Primmer, Mrs. B. Irving, Mrs. R. Plumb, Mrs. D. Ubrihien. Messrs. John Leach. L. Twyford, E. Reeve, R. Flood, R. Souter-Robertson, H. Sawtell, G. Maddern, P. Hoban.
APOLOGIES; Messrs. N. Twyfords R. Irving, I. Hayward, G. Greig
The meeting was opened at 8.15 with prayer by Rev. D. Primmer.
The chairman referred to a letter that had been circulated to Council members and clergy under the signature of Mr. Peter Hoban. The Chairman asked Mr. Hoban if he wanted the letter to stand or if he wished to withdraw. it. Mr. Hoban replied that he wanted the letter to stand. The chairman then made a lengthy comment concerning Mr.Hobans’ letter, followed by discussion by Mr. Hoban and council members. As a result of this discussion a resolution was passed:
It was moved by Rev. D. Primmer, seconded by R. Stewart that this Council has no confidence in Mr. Peter Hoban as a councillor, and request that he resign from the Parish Council forthwith. Mr. Hoban left the meeting with the words that he was withdrawing from the Council, and would not return until he was invited to do so. The Chairman put the motion to the meeting and the motion was carried unanimously.
After a brief recess the meeting resumed.
PREVIOUS MEETING MINUTES: The previous meeting minutes had been circulated and it was moved by Ron Souter-Robertson / Hilton Sawtells that the minutes be read & accepted ...
etc. etc. etc.
Most of the balance of the minutes has no relationship or reference to this review (if you would like a full copy just ask me); however the final paragraphs state:
Before conclusion of the meeting, John Leach hoped that we might prey (sic) for Peter Hoban in view of his misunderstanding at this present time.
Prayer was lead by Rev. Primmer in closure of the meeting at 10:30pm.
These minutes are not accurate as I withdrew from the meeting but not from the Council (I was an elected representative and except as provided in the Parochial Ordinance, which requirements had not been met, only the electorate could replace me – the confidence of the council was irrelevant). The resolution was certainly not worded this way before I departed, but may have been reworded later.
Original: July ‘99
This page is part of “Living in the Light”
found at: http://www.tassie.net.au/~phoban/
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