MEDIA RELEASE:
BISHOP TOM FRAME’S CRITIQUE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH
Saturday 21 August 2010
Tom Frame’s new book A House Divided: The Quest for Unity in Anglicanism, launched last night in Canberra, is a no holds barred, insider’s look at the Anglican Church in Australia.
Bishop Frame is the author of twenty two books, including Losing My Religion: Unbelief in Australia, which recently won the 2010 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award; The Life and Death of Harold Holt and HMAS Sydney: Australia’s Greatest Naval Tragedy.
In a House Divided he writes,
“In the face of growing anti-Christian sentiment, the time has come for the Anglican Church to declare what it believes and to determine the limits of diversity; to divest itself of the institutional baggage that drains its members of so much energy and enthusiasm, and to shed much of its antiquated Victorian accoutrement and stifling English mindset.”
Tom Frame argues that affluence is the greatest challenge to the Church in Australia.
He suggests that the church’s response to “the delusions of monetary wealth and the dangers of material affluence has not displayed the conviction and confidence that might have been expected…Christians have not made their mark as people who have overcome ‘affluenza’ or taken a stand against the mindless accumulation of manna. In this respect they are little different from their unbelieving neighbours.”
Tom Frame
