ACR Journal

Australian Church Record – Issue September 2005

The Australian Church Record, number 1914, October 2014, has been released.

As his first response to being elected Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia on 9 July 2005, Phillip Aspinall prayed. Initially daunted and increasingly aware of ‘the great trust and responsibility committed’ to him, prayer remains his constant ally.

Phillip Aspinall’s primacy was unique before he began in it. The 2004 General Synod fixed the term of this current Primacy to 2007, since the shape of the Primate’s role will then be under discussion. But the man elected to the position told the Record that far from being in a ‘holding pattern’, there was a strong sense of getting on ‘with the mission we have been called to’.

‘In fact, a number of church leaders have said to me that we can’t afford to be in a holding pattern, the mission before us is too urgent and we need to get on with it.’ Mission and church unity are twin themes to which the new Primate often turns.‘It is only realistic to expect disagreements and differences in a family the size and complexity of the Anglican Church of Australia.’

‘The Primate has a role in the face of those dynamics to help the church remain respectful; to help the different parts of the Church listen to each other and work together through the struggles and kind of keep the family together.

‘So I think the Primate needs to have a real love for the Anglican Church, an eye for all the different members of the Church, and perhaps especially for those who are least like the primate himself, I suppose, to make sure everybody is included and makes their contribution.’ The Record asked how the Primate can best serve the local congregations that make up the ACA.

Archbishop Aspinall unquestionably acknowledges the efficiencies and benefits when the church acts at a local diocesan and regional level. Equally, he highlighted tasks which can be done nationally, including ‘creating and sustaining a vision’, keeping national church priorities ‘before us’ and assisting non-metropolitan dioceses with resources.

Archbishop Aspinall said no one assumes all Anglicans think and feel the same way. He said, like any group of human beings, the challenge was not in always agreeing,‘but to find ways of dealing with each other constructively and positively when we disagree.

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