This large book tells the story of the Anglican Diocese of Armidale, in the Anglican Church of Australia, over the years 1960 to 2019. The author’s purpose is to recount the events of the conversion of this diocese from a mostly middle-to-high church diocese to an exclusively evangelical one. The liturgical and theological conversion is detailed through 255 meticulously recorded and analyzed interviews with people who witnessed the conversion. Perhaps, the most revealing source is the previously unpublished diary of the Dean of St Peter’s Cathedral, Armidale, the Very Reverend Evan Wetherell, dean from 1960 to 1970, who committed his thoughts to paper at a time of great change. Wetherell’s reflections tell the story of an evangelical take-over and the imposition of particular evangelical theologies on the diocese that did not previously feature. Wetherell’s comments on bishops, clergy of all types, and parishioners, make fascinating reading and allow the reader to see the various strategies employed by evangelical zealots to overturn what they saw as the error and superstition of a previously middle-of-the-road diocese.

The book is meticulously researched and as a reader I found it sad at times to see the will of a few inflicted on the many, turning a previously harmonious diocese into one of bitterness and division. Professor Thomas Fudge sees it as his duty to expose the ‘conversion’ through the recitation of events resulting from the desire of one bishop to bring evangelical clergy into the diocese in order to promote diversity. Not all evangelical clergy were welcomed by others and division between the clergy emerged. Subsequent evangelical bishops increased the number of evangelical clergy, so that by 2019 all parishes in the diocese were evangelical. Fudge details how many ordinary Anglicans did not welcome the reforms the evangelicals brought, including changes in services, removal of items from churches, and even the burning of eucharistic vestments. The conversion aimed at obliterating the liturgical and theological tradition of a diocese and the importation of another.

For many people, clergy and laity alike, there was wholesale destruction of what many had valued over many years of faithful service and worship. Fudge details how one evangelical bishop imposed a confessional statement on the clergy. This “statement of faith” was “presented to selected diocesan clergy who appear to have been specifically targeted” (p. 422). The ten-point list required clergy to acknowledge the sinfulness of humanity as being subject to the wrath of God and the priority of the substitutionary theory of the Atonement. This is entirely foreign to Anglican polity and some resistance from “targeted” clergy emerged, and some refused to sign it. Some felt that these ten points required proper exegesis, contextualization, and consideration before anyone could even consider signing what some saw as humanly devised faith claims.

One priest ran afoul of the evangelical bishop when he preached a sermon at a baptism, condemning the narrow view and espousing liberal attitudes. The priest said in part:

Fudge recounts how the bishop met with the priest some days later, telling him that he must agree to three points if he wished to continue with a bishop’s license on the diocese. The priest was told he had to believe that the Bible was an inerrant text, he must oppose the ordination of women and withhold the sacrament from homosexuals. The priest refused and his license was withdrawn. This incident exemplifies that the ‘conversion’ was about imposing a certain purity on the ministry and theology of the church. After a temporary ban from taking services, the priest returned to ministry and no more was heard of it from the bishop, although the bishop never spoke to the priest again.

Fudge’s talent lies in bringing such fascinating incidents to light and using them to illustrate the way that certain theological and liturgical views were ruthlessly imposed on a whole diocese. Fudge’s book certainly tells the story of one diocese, but it has a more important function in pointing to the danger of imposing a “pure” or “orthodox” view on the wider church and working in ways that undermine diversity and established tradition. Fudge’s message has importance for the entire Anglican Communion, especially at times when some wish to impose a confessional view of orthodoxy on the whole Communion.

For people reading this review outside the Anglican Church of Australia there might be some disbelief that such events could occur, but the events are part of a bigger anomaly, the Anglican Church of Australia itself. The Anglican Church of Australia was set up as independent dioceses, all influenced by significant bishops in their early years, bringing their own traditions with them. Diocesan independence persists. In the Diocese of Sydney, the first and largest diocese, an almost complete evangelical ethos prevails, apart from a few churches with a catholic tradition. Eucharistic vestments were banned by the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, and it was from this Diocese that people went to Armidale to bring about the evangelical conversion. This book is important and tells a cautionary tale for Anglicans to see that confessional orthodoxy is a poor substitute for Anglican breadth and diversity.