THE country’s housing affordability crisis has become so dire that even God has been forced to sell off his weekenders.
Five churches in the country town of Young will go under the hammer due to rising costs of living and the falling attendance of parishioners.
The Anglican churches, which have a combined 428 years in the Lord’s service, will be auctioned next Saturday and are expected to sell for between $20,000 to $100,000 each.
Anglican Diocese of Canberra assistant Bishop Allan Ewing told The Daily Telegraph they simply couldn’t afford to keep the churches operating.
“We’re having to deal with reality. They became a real financial burden and while we made the decision relatively recently we’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Bishop Ewing said.
If this had been an Episcopal church, normally by this time, an ample number of people would have chimed in about the fast, inevitable disappearance and relevance of TEC. However, this is down under in an outspoken conservative, evangelical branch of the Anglican church.
From the full article:
[blockquote]We merged three parishes a couple of years ago and were left with one clergy person looking after 13 different churches from an earlier period when there were lots of small farms and communication wasn’t so extensive.
“Over a period of about 10 years families sold their farms to their neighbours and retired to the regional centre because it became harder to make a living off the land, leaving less people going to our remote churches.”[/blockquote]
Mark, by contrast. most of the reappraiser church closings have been in areas of steady or growing population. That would be right in line with ++KJS’ thinking, who rightfully doesn’t want to put God in too small a box, (though she thinks He should be allowed to contradict Himself in His word) but thinks the ever-shrinking TEC is a sign of quality. TEC may soon fit in a very small box, indeed.
[blockquote] However, this is down under in an outspoken conservative, evangelical branch of the Anglican church.[/blockquote]
Canberra evangelical??? Sydney is — but then its adding churches. Canberra — I don’t think so.
Perhaps the best guide is this comment in the good bishop’s profile
[blockquote] During the last few years Allan has been a student within the Doctor of Ministry program offered by the San Francisco theological Seminary. His concluding thesis, now ‘on hold’, is on the relationship between experience and faith in the Australian context. [/blockquote]
Now I am sure that the San Francisco theological Seminary is evangelical. Yeah Right!
Thanks, MargaretG, for that bit of research! ; > )