Chatfield 

Chronicles

2013

It doesn't seem long since we were celebrating Christmas 2012 and enjoying New Year celebrations with Michael and Helen and their families down at Helen’s family’s holiday ‘barn’ down in Devon. It made a lovely change not to be the one organising for the 10 of us!

Adrian’s sabbatical last year has ushered in a time of change for us both. I retired from Ridley in June and have no regrets at all. I love the greater elbow room and more measured pace while having enough to do to ensure I don’t completely vegetate!

In some senses I have the best of both worlds in that I still keep contact with Ridley through Adrian; I go to the Thursday evening College Eucharist and have catch up time with the students who are continuing into their second or third years. Having lost my ‘Permission to Officiate’, I now have a licence as a non-stipendiary Associate Minister in the Lordsbridge Team, which means I can continue to help at St. Mary’s and within the team of 12 churches. There is a firm boundary of two Sundays and up to two days in the week doing pastoral stuff and I don’t do Deanery or Diocesan meetings, joy of joys!

No obvious immediate changes for Adrian. He knows he will do 2½ years maximum more at Ridley, as he doesn't feel ready to stop yet. He continues to enjoy the teaching, the pastoring and spiritual direction, the supervision of dissertations and theses, and is hoping that the possibility of a teaching trip to Rangoon comes off in 2015.

One of his key colleagues, Jane Keiller, Ridley's chaplain, is also retiring in February. As they are responsible for chapel and head up the Simeon Centre for Prayer and the Spiritual Life together, there is much thought to be given to the longer term future, particularly of the Simeon Centre.

Having spent so much time abroad last year, we decided to stay on this island for this year’s holidays. At Easter we intended to walk around Snowdon but really heavy snowfall meant we stayed on the Welsh borders, where there was still an abundance of snow. On arrival we drove up to higher ground to explore and the road was blocked by ice. Adrian had fun reversing on a narrow country road for the best part of a mile and a half between hedges higher than the car and weighed down with snow. It was a good job snow is soft as he did manage to put us in the hedge more than once!

In summer we went to Scotland, enjoying a week in the holiday home of a former student and very good friend. The house is situated in Errogie just up and over the bank on the south bank of Loch Ness. A beautifully wooded, deliciously quiet spot that just breathes peace. We swam in Loch Ness (in wet suits!) once at 7.30 am with a brisk breeze blowing on a very cool day. It contains 80% of the fresh water in the United Kingdom and is as deep as it is wide. That was cold, really cold!

We then discovered a smaller loch nearer to home and went for a regular early morning dip before breakfast – stunning. We went on to caravan in Glencoe and on the Isle of Skye. As it was Scotland, we made serious preparations for rain and even bought a small porch awning for hanging up wet walking clothes. AND, believe it or not, it only rained once on our very last walk! Some mist during the first day or two and then beautiful blue skies and some excellent walking.

As we look back we are grateful to God for good health, for Ridley as it continues to be in good heart and to be filled with some really amazing students and for our family. Michael and Helen are now in RAF Honington, just the other side of Bury St Edmunds and we do get more opportunities for meeting up en passant.

We are also aware of some close friends who have had some difficult times during the course of this year. We pray that you may know God’s healing presence as we celebrate the coming of his Son, Immanuel, God with us.

Isaiah 35 is the Old Testament passage set for this Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent. As the people of Judah lived in fear of the fate that had already overtaken their Northern counterparts (and may already have overtaken them!!), we sympathise with those weak hands, feeble knees and fearful hearts. The huge gap between the world as it is and the world as God intended it to be is now, like then, is a difficult one to live with. But the message of Advent is to wait in hope and and the message of Christmas that God himself has taken flesh in order to put it to rights.

May God bless you and your families at this Christmas time and fill you with all joy and peace in believing as you look to the coming year.

Adrian and Jill

12 Barrons Way

Comberton CB23 7EQ

01223-263009

Sydney Anglicanism

It has been said that if the Reformation’s chief protagonists had been Cardinal Contarini and Philipp Melanchthon rather than Leo X and Martin Luther, the outcome would have been entirely different. Apart from stating the obvious, it is an interesting reflection on the way in which different personality types handle conflict.

Michael Jensen was a doctoral student at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, during my time there, and he helped me to see what I have always known instinctively, that deep theological disagreement takes on an entirely different character when those engaging in the debate have heart.

Michael has heart, and that is what makes the book a hopeful and helpful one. A Lecturer in Doctrine and Church History at Moore College, he comes from one of the great families of Sydney Anglicanism. He tells the story of Sydney Anglicanism from a privileged insider’s perspective, but with sensitivity towards those who disagree and with clear warnings for that conservative diocese, lest it become beleaguered, inward-looking or self-righteous.

The book is in both senses an apology. It regrets mistakes that Sydney Anglicans have made, but it is a convinced (and more me convincing) apologia for the inherently Anglican character of that diocese.

Written in a ten-week period, the book has the spark and energy of a journalistic enterprise, and a few of its weaknesses. For me, not knowing the detailed context, the historical background of the debates within the Australian church was very helpful. Of course, it covers the areas of primary media attention: lay presidency, the ministry of women, the accusation of fundamentalism, but the twin theses of the book are the doctrines of scripture and ecclesiology.

Inevitably, Michael has to deal with the most virulent attack on that diocese in recent years, in the shape of Muriel Porter’s 2011 Sydney Anglicans and the Threat to World Anglicanism: The Sydney Experiment. Her book is a cheap and easy swipe, against which Michael responds with dignity and clarity. I hadn’t realized quite how polarized Anglican Australia was between a liberal Catholic centre and a smaller evangelical constituency, and that was a special sadness. It reminded me of the 1920s vitriol of Anglo-Catholic/Evangelical demagogic debate and response in the UK, a scene that has long since passed.

This book does not stray into the global discussion about what Anglicanism is, where the centre lies, the role of GAFCON, and so forth, and is the stronger for its focused agenda. Michael answers the question about whether Sydney Anglicans really are Anglicans (yes) and he is right. The bigger questions remain: for Sydney Anglicans, does the Communion really matter (probably yes, but not at all costs), and is there hope for a more gracious and integrated Australian Anglican church in the future (not at the moment, I fear).

His last word is his best word: for the mission of the church, “Sydney Anglicans need to return, with due humility, to the sources of their faith. The only recipe for security is a prayerful commitment to meet Jesus Christ as he is revealed in Scripture.” [176]

Adrian Chatfield

Ridley Hall Cambridge

Sydney Anglicanism: An Apology
Michael P Jensen
Wipf & Stock, 2012, 185pp
£14.00
ISBN 9781610974653

Sabbatical 2012: To read more slowly, think more slowly, pray more slowly

We spent July in France. The task was to read no theology and to switch off the 'duty' mode of my study; the outcome was much richer and spontaneous theological reflection, though that's a pretentious phrase for what Christians do almost as naturally as breathing. During the month, we walked 120 miles in the Auvergne and the Alpes Vanoise, fell in love with Saint-Félicien cheese and photographed wildflowers that were so beautiful they often made our hearts ache.

In August we walked a 50 year old up Snowdon, just having returned from the Alps. Such a doddle :). Then I started to write an overview Certificate level distance-learning course on ‘Church History from the High Middle Ages to the present’ for our old College in Johannesburg. In the middle of the month, we spent a week on the Nile celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary, and would like to recommend Harry’s No Hassle ASDA Price shop in Luxor! One of the many surprising features of this holiday was seeing the many Coptic remains carved out of the old Middle Kingdom temples, including the picture here.

September saw me back in the saddle: I took part in Ridley Hall's staff residential and led the Fresh Expressions national team retreat and chaplained the national pioneer conference ‘Breakout’. During the month, I began my writing projects in earnest:

• An article on Conversations with Wilfred Owen: The Pity’s in the Poetry [now published in Anvil Volume 28.3] 
• A lecture to the research students and staff at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies on ‘Who am I?’ Some Missiological Implications of Theological Anthropology. This will be published in their journal sometime this year.
• A seminar on The Theology of Edward Elgar’s ‘The Kingdom’ for the Diocese of Norwich's lay training programme. 

In the first six weeks of ‘term’, I wrote and wrote, ran and ran [262 miles August – mid-November], got involved in the Durham-Lesotho link, led a men’s retreat in Brussels [and want to do more on men’s spirituality], spoke on ‘Believing in a God who heals’ for the Diocesan Healing Advisory Group, and then came South Africa. I visit every year to examine the degree that we set up as Mission Partners. This time, I did that, but we also spent an amazing five days in Kruger Park and two wonderful weeks camping in a very wet Drakensberg.

What did the sabbatical accomplish? Rest and refreshment; spiritual challenge and the opportunity to run and pray more often; but above all, the chance to study without a timetable, syllabus or agenda. For that, I am very grateful to Andrew Norman and the Ridley Hall community.