The Place of Anglicanism in Australia: Church Society and Nation
By Brian H Fletcher
Critical Review by Deryck Schreuder, Em Prof. Deryck M Schreuder FAHA FRHS LL D, Chair, Australian Universities Quality Agency, Visiting Professor, The University of Sydney, Adjunct Professor, The Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University and recent editor of Australia's Empire (Deryck Schreuder & Stuart Ward) by Oxford.
This is a remarkable work of fine scholarship. Emeritus Professor Brian Fletcher has exhaustively covered and integrated the published literature on the Anglican Church as an Australian institution. He has also taken appropriate account of the voluminous writings on the Church of England itself. Finally, he has thoroughly and creatively sampled critical archival deposits of original documentation which gives added power and originality to his narrative and to his conclusions.
The text also bears witness to a senior scholar at the height of his research and writing powers. There is a bold capaciousness in the range of this History – from broad thematic trends, to issues and personalities. The judgments are carefully made and tone is that of the rigorous scholar, while the study itself is also informed by a quiet sense of positive faith in the ultimate mission and impact of the church in the life of our national community.
The narrative style is accessible, easy to read and often elegant in its sheer compression of the story. The whole text is mercifully devoid of trendy jargon. It is a critical work which will be of value to academics and students; and who will wish to engage with its detail and its scholarly judgments. But it is also a work which can be read for the sheer pleasure of its narrative as an example of modern institutional history at its best. The reader comes away with a sense of having been guided through a highly complex aspect of the past by a scholarly guide in whom they come to have trust for both his sense and sensibility.
No text is perfect; we are all still human as scholars! Indeed, it is likely to become the ‘standard’ work on the history of the Church as an institution - a benchmark for other writers exploring different and more detailed aspects of the great story of the planting of Christianity in a New World environment.
Conclusion
Em Professor Brian Fletcher has brought the same scholarly standards and
the same empathy towards the Anglican Church as an Australian institution
as he did to his recent and remarkable history of the Mitchell Library. He
has a natural talent to get inside the very workings and character of an
institution; and to then offer an analytic narrative which is deeply valuable
to the outsider or to those associated with the institution. We are fortunate
indeed that he has now turned his attention to the Anglican church of Australia.
I would certainly commend this book to as wide a readership of Australians
as possible.