I believe in having an ACL. As they say, some of my best friends are ACL members! I am (or was – I can’t remember if I paid my annual subscription this year).
The Diocese rightly allows office bearers to all sorts of positions – hundreds by the time you add them all up, from School Councils to central committees – to be elected by the Synod. That’s the right place for this power to reside, and that means elections. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Synod reps simply won’t know the overwhelming majority of nominees.
And so to have a body that takes responsibility for both nominating and then informing Synod reps about those nominees is a good thing. It fulfils a vital mission – to preserve the evangelical character of the Diocese. Importantly, a body like the ACL depends on trust – the trust of the Synod reps that the mission of preserving the evangelical character of the Diocese really is the mission of the ACL.
But …
That mission can degenerate into a terrible shadow mission. A shadow mission is a corrupted version of mission, the hidden agenda behind the stated agenda. And the temptation for the ACL is to speak of the evangelical character of the Diocese, but pursue something far less noble – preserve power amongst mates.
The Sydney Synod starts next Monday, and it is the once-every-3-years test of which mission the ACL is pursuing. Why? Because every 3 years there are a bunch of elections. Rightly, the ACL nominate all sorts of people for the different positions, and then will distribute a recommendation on who to vote for. And right there is the perfect test.
Because, other people apart from the ACL will have made nominations of evangelical candidates as well. And so it becomes very clear.
If the ACL is resisting the temptation to become just a power-clique, and instead fulfil its mission of the much more noble and broad goal of preserving the evangelical character of the Diocese, it will recommend anyone who is an evangelical, not just those whom it has nominated, even if that means that more people are recommended than the number of positions available. It will continue to deserve our trust.
On the other hand, if it recommends only those whom it nominates, and declines to recommend other evangelical candidates, then it will have broken trust with us. It will be saying one thing, and doing another. It will be pursuing a shadow mission.
Sometimes, this is justified on the grounds that unless the vote is ‘tight’ – only recommend for the number of positions – it might be possible for an anglo-catholic to ‘get through the middle’. This sounds good, but is mathematically almost impossible. (I can show this if anyone’s interested).
So, if you’re a Synod rep, stay tuned for your ACL letter – and see whether the ACL deserves your trust.
Hi Andrew, what is the usual practice? I was under the impression that it was only the ACL nominations that got recommended.
Is there a different way of informing synod reps about the nominees?
Is there an underlying problem with the way ‘evangelical character’ is defined? That is ‘agrees with X’
Hi Mike,
not sure about the usual practice.
But I think the mission should define the practice, and especially when the recommendations carry so much weight. It would be a different story if there were 5 different groups taking up this responsibility.
I guess what I’m saying is that when there is only 1, and the stated mission is that broad, then with that comes the responsibility.
And I’m sure there can be a problem with defining ‘evangelical’ – books have been written etc. But I think that’s manageable.
“It would be a different story if there were five different groups taking up this responsibility”
Any idea how we could do this?
The ‘only recommend one’ policy is part of the reason I haven’t joined the ACL. It seems to slur the other candidates (even if it doesn’t mean to) and could pretty easily create a culture where people are afraid of disagreement. I like the idea of being informed about nominees, but hate the idea that some competent evangelical person may be sidelined because they aren’t one of the ‘mates’.
Could you explain how having multiple groups wouldn’t split the vote? I trust you, but I’d love to see it explained.
I hear you on the ‘afraid of disagreement’ issue.
In my experience, the only way to change that culture is to not be afraid!
One of the concerns here is that membership / belief system seems to be more of a requirement than the actual skill’s set needed to do the job. I’m sure there are highly skilled and valuable people who are more suited to filling various positions, who may lean more towards charismatic, anglo catholic or other calathumpian systems of belief.
Perhaps the diocese wouldn’t be in the financial crisis its in if less politicalising went on.
Hi Craig,
I get what you mean – but the issue is effective skills to what end? I have no problem with the sharpness and clarity of the end being evangelical – and there are plenty of highly qualified people.
To be fair – and speaking as a council member of the ACL –
non-evangelical or less-party-line-style-evangelicals ARE recommended and endorsed by the ACL when it can be shown that they are good workers in their positions and when they don’t seek to oppose the ACL line on major issues.
Furthermore, it is ACL policy not to disendorse a sitting candidate, unless there is good reason to do so.
So, Andrew: you yourself are endorsed by the ACL. Are you declining that endorsement?
Also Craig: I don’t hear Andrew saying that there should be an inclusive policy at the ACL level.
Hi Mike, so which issues is it ok to be “less-than-party-line”, and which ones are the major issues that opposition would disqualify?
And do those major issues fit into the ‘maintaining the evangelical character’ mission, or are they something narrower?
I guess a strategy for keeping the diocese evangelical could be restricting positions to a certain kind of evangelical, but it would be honest to be upfront about this to Synod reps.
What about the ‘recommend one’ thing? Is that how it works? Or does the ACL recommend more than one?
Also, at what point does Synod become a bit redundant? If a large percent of reps are handing over their responsibility to one other organisation? If lawyers run the show? It makes those claims of ‘lay led evangelical decisions’ a bit hollow.
Hi Mike,
I’m surprised that you say that about non-evangelical candidates. I can’t remember it ever happening, and what’s more, I don’t think I agree with it!
Also, I think ACL’s policy of not disendorsing sitting candidates is an interesting one. As it turns out, I wasn’t nominated by ACL for my position on Standing Committee. I’m happy enough that another candidate hasn’t been nominated, but would also be happy enough to take my chances!
I should say – as someone has pointed out – that I was recently nominated by ACL for the 2011-13 triennium as a South Sydney Region clergy rep on Standing Committee, as part of the ACL ‘don’t oppose sitting members who are willing to keep going’ policy.
What I should have said was that I wasn’t originally nominated by ACL for my position on Standing Committee. It was a casual vacancy back in 2006 (I think) filled by the South Sydney Regional Council.
PS Shortly after that, the policy was changed so that Regional Councils no longer fill casual vacancies.
Andrew, you weren’t nominated by ACL, but you continue to be endorsed by them, right? They don’t put forward another candidate because you continue to fill the chair.
Mike W – I think ACL is more transparent than you think, but less than it could be. The kind of issues that raise hackles are usually to do with supporting Sydney’s cause on General Synod and in the national church more widely.
What the system lacks is the kind of policy conference that the major political parties have at which policies of the party are scrutinised and voted upon. That could be an interesting process. For example, the policy of lay administration is decided on by… whom, exactly? And how would one go about challenging it? Where? In what way?
Fair enough. I don’t really know about the transparency or otherwise. Having some kind of policy conference would indeed be cool. (The ACL doesn’t do this already??? How is anything decided?) But wait a second, isn’t that what Synod is meant to be?
If there was a policy conference, would you end up with an ACL within the ACL, some kind of association of evangelical protestant reformed people who felt the need to win the policy conference?
Mike J,
I guess my question is this:
What would be a good reason not to endorse an additional evangelical nominee for a position?
Good reasons would be: tactical, in terms of voting; or to do with which candidate is perceived to be more competent to do the job; or because the ticket as listed redresses a gender imbalance (believe it or not). All of these considerations have been aired in ACL discussions of various candidates.
And endorsing extra candidates I guess defeats the point of having a how to vote ticket in the first place!
Mike J,
thanks for that – very helpful.
But do you see that it is right there that there’s a problem. The ACL doesn’t promote itself as the ‘more/most competent’ list, or the ‘gender balanced’ list. No, it is the ‘preserve the evangelical character of the Diocese’ list; in other words, its reason for being is that it tells us about people we don’t know who we can confidently trust to uphold the Diocese the way we want it to be.
In other words, the reason it would make sense to endorse extra candidates is if your mission was the broad one of ‘upholding the evangelical character of the Diocese’, in which case, you would endorse all the evangelical candidates, even when you didn’t nominate them.
To do otherwise is to change the purpose of the organisation.
I think that’s not entirely how it is viewed… the issues of competency and diligence and – yes, gender – are inevitably on the table in discussing possible candidates.
I think it is healthy to have a challenge to ACL’s methods and to its assumptions about how best to do the ‘evangelical character of the diocese’ strategy, but publically challenging the trustworthiness and motives of the organisation is a little off, in my view.
Well, maybe, but if the mission really is about the evangelical character of the Diocese, then surely all evangelicals nominated should be endorsed by the ‘evangelical preserving’ organisation. And maybe distinguishing that from those who for other reasons are considered best.
The big problem is that it is very easy to read a non-endorsment by ACL as a statement of non-evangelical status – a very powerful statement. That’s simply how it’s understood. And that leaves a big responsibility for the ACL. That’s why I think this issue matters.
If dead center evangelicals aren’t endorsed by ACL, it means that the ACL’s agenda is narrower than simply upholding the evangelical character of the Diocese. And that’s worth knowing!
Maybe. But I think it is known widely that not being endorsed by the ACL is not tantamount to being called a non-evangelical. It has endorsed single candidates for years.
Are you kidding!? That is exactly the inference that is widely drawn!
And so it should be – after all, what is the ACL’s mission? To uphold the evangelical character of the Diocese!
“not being endorsed by the ACL is not tantamount to being called a non-evangelical”
huh?
We live in a church culture where we are constantly told that there are liberals and other naughty people hiding among us, even those people that preach the gospel of jesus, they might actually be liberals too. We are told to trust particular leaders, who of course can’t ‘name’ the naughty people, but they know about it and we need to support them in the fight.
The ACL is often presented as a key part of that fight.
I’m flabbergasted to think that a member of the ACL council might not see how endorsing one candidate could stain the non-endorsed candidate.
(we may not agree with Keith Mascords letters, but were we even listening?!)
Now, it may or may not be the ACLs fault that we have that kind of church culture, but we do.
Hi Andrew,
I have three thoughts.
First, can you show how with the dilution of favoured candidates it is still mathematically impossible for a non-evangelical to get it? I’d like to see how you arrive at that. Thanks!
Second, I think your right observation – that the ACL nominates people they know rather than every evangelical – can be given higher motives than you give credit for.
As MPJ indicates, in the current atmosphere of the diocese it’s not simply a matter of whether the person is evangelical or not (ie,as it was back in previous generations when the ACL was created to promote conservative evangelicalism over and against liberalism and liberal evangelicals and the anglo-catholics) but – in God’s grace and in large part due to the work of ACL – we are in the privileged position to think about the best evangelical for the job. Is it in the interests of the diocese to be given a large degree of evangelical candidates of varying suitability?
But actually, the point I wanted to make with this second thought is this: the ACL is itself limited in a large diocese to whom they know. The trust that ACL is founded on is the fact that they know the people they recommend. In any other context, the size of the council (around 50 members) is unwieldy at best. But the ACL has a deliberately large council because in large part it functions as a brain-storming group for suitable people for different positions. The size of the council helps here, not hinders, because it casts the net wider than a small group can do. The size of the council steers away (not guarantees to be sure) from the very motive you suggest.
But even then, there is simply the reality that they cannot know everyone. In this sense, yes, they may only recommend those they know, but that’s actually a good thing: they are taking the task seriously to make sure they don’t recommend anyone and everyone whether they know them or not. ie, we don’t need a hermeneutic of suspicion here, and in my 5 years on council I never saw a sinister approach. In fact, as a young and relatively unknown person on the council, my suggestions were taken with generoisity and warmth, and likewise with the other new blood on the council: the council as a whole was never adverse to finding new people to fill positions in the diocese.
You can’t fault the ACL for human limitedness of who they can know in a diocese of the 50 000+. To ask the ACL to be trustworthy by recommending people they don’t know or – yes – don’t think is the best for the job is actually to undermine the foundation on which proper trust is built.
Third, and I say this with all respect – the ACL is itself an elected body and not a club. I was barely known to most of the council when I was elected onto it, but was always treated with respect, and in my time recommended 4 other new relatively unknown young bloods for nomination (and subsequent election) on the council. I’d hardly call that a club.
As an elected body, then, and a body that receives for agenda the correspondence of its members, I trust that you have written to the council to discuss these concerns and seek their discussion and response to you on this topic? As a registered member of the league, to what extent do you participate in it – AGM attendance, letters, etc?
As I’m not a council member anymore, you’ll have to forgive me for not knowing if you have infact done so in the last twelve months.
In him,
Scott.
Hi Scott,
very briefly on the maths.
For example, if there are 4 positions and 6 nominees, and 150 voters. Each voter gets 4 votes, so there are 600 votes. If the 6 nominees get a perfectly even split – ie the minimum each – then they would get 100 votes each.
So, now, in the same scenario, assume the worst case voting pattern for the evangelicals.
The way that works is as follows – if one of the 6 candidates is non-evangelical, and fully 1/3 of the voters are also non-evangelical and they all vote perfectly ie, don’t vote for any other candidate (throw away 3 of their votes so as not to help any of the evangelical candidates at all) and all vote for the non-evangelical candidate; then how it would go is that the remaining 100 voters get their 4 votes each = 400 votes, and split them perfectly among the remaining 5 candidates, 80 each, then every one of those 5 candidates would beat the non-evangelical (who would only get 50 votes).
Notice a couple of things about this. It’s only when the evangelical vote is split 8 ways for 4 positions that the voting would tie; and that’s only if the non-evangelical portion was fully 33% and they all vote perfectly.
In fact, the non-evangelical vote is no where near 33% (I would say more like 10%), and they wouldn’t vote perfectly anyway.
The result – it makes it virtually mathematically impossible for a ‘through the middle’ non-evangelical to get up.
Actually, ACL exists to: ” maintain the reformed, protestant and evangelical character of the Anglican Church.”
I’m not currently on the council; but I served on it for some years. ACL recommendations for elections always make it explicit that no negative inference should be drawn about other candidates; it is sad that some chose to draw those inferences anyway.
As for endorsing all ‘evangelicals’ who stand, that is neither wise nor more just. It does not follow that ACL has to do this in order to be above reproach. ACL makes recommendations based on other explicitly stated criteria like experience, gender balance etc. The overwhelming feedback I have received over the years is that ACL’s recommendations are very helpful to Synod members.
As for the comment about ‘naughty people’ that is to trivialise the fact that there are indeed some, as our Lord predicted, who will teach and practise what is false. We ought to thank God that organisations like ACL exist, not disparage them.
That is not to say that ACL is perfect anymore than the Anglican denomination or the diocese of Sydney is perfect. But I think the criticisms here are off the mark.
Sorry Phillip, that did come across a little more glib than I meant it to. I couldn’t find the right word to sum all the various positions that are warned against.
I do thank God that organisations like the ACL exist, when they do the job of protecting the truth and keeping out falsehood.
My comments were not meant to disparage the ACL, but simply to note the kind of church culture that the ACL operates within.
In Sydney we have a highly developed sense of suspicion.
So, unfortunately, even with explicit comments that no negative inference should be drawn, sometimes negative inferences are drawn. It is sad. Sad for the ACL, but even sadder for those who have the negative inferences drawn.
It isn’t the ACL’s fault that we have this kind of culture (as far as I know), but that is the kind of culture we have.
Andrew’s question is whether the ACL is trying to do more than protect the truth and keep out falsehood. It is not automatically ‘wrong’ for the ACL to try to do more, but it may be a distraction from its main mission and it may be disingenuous to claim only the ‘keep the evangelical, reformed and protestant character’ when other things come into play.
Could you elaborate on why it wouldn’t be wiser or more just to endorse all evangelical candidates? That is a genuine question, I’m willing to be convinced here
Scott,
thanks for your broader comments, and reflections on your experience with ACL.
It’s worth clarifying – I’m not having a go at any individuals, or impugning the motives of any one. As I said, I believe in having an ACL, good friends of mine are on its council, i respect the ACL council members etc.
I’m trying to talk about another thing – institutional slippage.
ACL has set itself an important and valuable task (as I said at the start of this post) – I am thoroughly committed to the cause of maintaining the evangelical character of the Diocese. It is a task broadly conceived – not the narrower commitment to make an assessment of the quality of candidates, their gender etc (at least, not according to its charter) – but the broad task.
It is a task full of institutional temptation, because it exercises a great power. It never seems like this from the inside (how many churches think they are incredibly friendly!) – from the inside it seems open and welcoming and positive.
But, to act on the basis of concerns that are narrower than the institution’s charter – well, that just is institutional slippage.
Of course, it could change its charter – to recommend people known to the members out of the larger number of evangelicals nominated. But that would be a very different thing.