For almost all Australians this is impossible,due to Fair Work legislation. But if,like Father “Fighting Dave” Smith,you’re an Anglican minister within the Sydney diocese,that’s the deal.
Father Dave was acting rector of Dulwich Hill,in Sydney’s inner west,when,halfway through last year,his marriage broke down. Over his 30-year ministry there,Father Dave had cut an unconventional figure. An accomplished boxer – hence the nickname – and tireless campaigner for social justice,interfaith dialogue and disaffected young people,he was thrice nominated as Australian of the Year. But when his marriage failed,the standard emotional turmoil was intensified by trepidation about what would follow.
There’s back-story here. Dave Smith had been divorced before,decades earlier. That’s why he was never tenured as full rector but was nominally a “priest in charge”. But the story goes even further back,to Dave’s father Bruce.
Bruce Smith,who died in 2001,was a classic Sydney establishment figure:aSydney Grammar old boy and state swimming champion,he had studied divinity in London,lectured at Oxford,undertaken archaeological digs in the Mediterranean,published two volumes of poetry and,through the 1960s and 70s,engaged in televised debates about Christianity. Ordained in 1956,he was also a revered lecturer at Moore Theological College in Sydney – until he got divorced.
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That story ended benignly enough. Bruce found employment teaching classics at Grammar (1975-93) and in later years became sufficiently reconciled with Moore College to resume part-time lecturing there. For his son,however – who attributes his own survival so far,as a radical in a conventional establishment,in part to his father’s aura – things look significantly more grim.
Father Dave is 58. He loves the “broader” Anglican liturgy and its traditions. The Jensens,a stalwart Anglican family,were his childhood friends and,as Father Dave told me this week:“Dad always felt there was room for me within the Anglican church.” It’s his lifelong vocation.
He has a young child. When in May 2019 he told the bishop of his marriage breakdown,he was given till year’s end to restore it. When that didn’t happen,a termination date was set:Easter this year,the time of rebirth. His licence as acting rector was revoked and he was given a general licence as assistant minister in the parish until December. Then he’d be out.