Inspired by the good people at Signposts, I have decided to start up Sydney Anglican Watch. In short, Sydney Anglican Watch is a site dedicated towards opening up the critical issues in the Sydney Diocese for discussion and debate without moderation. Indeed, it is almost with a sense of sadness and reluctance that I open up this blog – I would have hoped that such a course of action was unnecessary. However, events over the last few months have demonstrated to me that it is a step that must be taken to combat the general tenor of censorship within the Diocese. I hope to give a voice to the voiceless, to the disowned, the disenfranchised and the disillusioned.
Although I will make some commentary on the issues myself, most of the impetus for my posts will come from primary sources – media releases through Anglican Media Sydney, the Briefing and Southern Cross as well as articles from St Andrew’s Cathedral. Occasionally, I will refer to secondary sources – sermons, forum postings and prominent Sydney Anglican blogs, though I will be careful to indicate when comments are made by official bodies of the Sydney Diocese, when they are made by ordained members of the Diocese and when they are simply made by individuals in their private capacity. Most of these sources are already freely available on the internet. The only difference is that there will be a lot more latitude for people to air their thoughts about the subject at hand. I should also mention that I sincerely hope that I will have positive as well as negative things to say about the Diocese. Indeed, this as been my practice in the past, a fact to which I hope my post “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due” testifies.
It is my intention for my moderation policy to be as open as possible. There are only two types of comments that I will moderate. The first of these are comments that could prove to be legally actionable, that is comments that are potentially libellous. The second are “comments” that deliberately aim to undermine the pursuit of open discussion, that is, spam or intentionally and wildly off-topic comments. I say this because in my private blog someone took advantage of my liberal editorial policy by posting 50 pages cut and pasted from a medical journal. Suffice to say, this was not the issue we were discussing.
My final words in this introductory post are to cordially invite would-be Sydney Anglican apologists into the fray. Your perspectives are as valuable as those of anyone else and it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that they are not welcome. As iron sharpens iron, your comments could well prove to provide a new perspective on a certain matter and SAW would be poorer without them.
