The Bible: Product of the Church

Since Hans Küng, and doubtless many others before him have pointed out, the Bible was produced by what he called the eschatological community of salvation, that is, the Church.Footnote ⁹ By the middle of the fourth century ad the Church had produced a Bible which has been used liturgically ever since. From his Orange upbringing, Garland understood the Bible to be the foundational document of Western civilization and the virtual handbook of morality for the British Empire. This remained the irreducible core of Garland’s life-long conviction. On this basis was constructed the edifice of Anglo-Catholicism built by Tommy Jones at St James’, Toowoomba. Thus equipped, Garland was admitted to the diaconate by the Bishop of Grafton-Armidale in 1889.Footnote ¹⁰ He served in that capacity in the towns of Grafton and Quirindi and further in Narrandera and Broken Hill in the Diocese of the Riverina until he moved to Perth, Western Australia. There he was finally ordained priest by Bishop Parry in 1892 and from then on Garland’s priesthood began to evince the many gifts that lay dormant within him. For a good decade he worked with uncommon energy, his peripatetic tendencies having been channelled into creative enterprises. There in the West the energetic former Orangeman discharged a range of duties of spectacular diversity ranging from Diocesan Administrator (on the sudden death of Bishop Parry on 15 November 1893), editor of the Diocesan newspaper, The West Australian Church News, agitator for religious instruction in government schools, discharged a roving commission to revive run down country parishes, and a ministry to out-back Aborigines as well as becoming a chaplain for troops in training prior to embarkation for South Africa. The latter posting required Garland’s commissioning as a member of the chaplaincy section of the then colonial militia (Figure 3). It was the beginning of a life-long creative association with service men and army nurses in time of war.

Figure 3.

Garland standing front row second from left.

Source: Battye Library, Perth.

This early phase of Garland’s priesthood in Perth evinces two main features: first, he was extraordinarily entrepreneurial in the number of tasks he undertook. For a young priest whose only previous ministerial experience had been as a Deacon for three years in the Dioceses of Grafton and Riverina, his record of service was unequalled. Indeed, his position on the Perth Diocesan Council alone indicates a person of advanced administrative ability. The second factor was somewhat less positive. Over the course of time Garland came to clash with his second bishop, Charles Riley (Figure 4), who arrived in 1895.

Figure 4.

Charles Owen Leaver Riley, later Archbishop Riley in Perth.

Source: Battye Library, Perth.

The new prelate was a dour Yorkshireman of low church persuasion who found Garland’s High Church proclivities a distinct irritation.Footnote ¹¹ It took, however, until 1902 for the growing rift between the turbulent Irish Canon and his imperious Ordinary from Yorkshire to become irreparable. In that year, undoubtedly embittered, Garland left for Sydney and then for Townsville where he had found a more hospitable Father-in-God.

There in the far north, the characteristic features of Garland’s earlier ministry in the West became over time even more vigorously manifest, especially during his later career in Brisbane and also in New Zealand. These features included predominantly Garland’s campaign for the spread of biblical knowledge for the education of the young, and his abiding concern for troop welfare.Footnote ¹² He was, as shall be shown, at the forefront of agitation for the Queensland State Education Act to be amended in order to allow ministers of religion into government primary schools to give religious instruction.Footnote ¹³ His second major concern was the welfare of troops who had volunteered to fight for the Empire. These two issues were theologically linked in Garland’s mind; the nexus between Bible and Empire in a world of competing Empires.

The Roots of ‘War Theology’

One discerns here a unique ‘war or imperial theology’ which was shared by most Anglican prelates and intellectual leaders of the time.Footnote ¹⁴ It was indeed at the core of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone’s thinking when he wrote The State in its Relations with the Church (1838). Essentially, national policy ought to conform to Christian principles, a proposition that drew the jibe of the Prussian statesman and German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck that Gladstone conducted politics like a Pastor.Footnote ¹⁵ Prussianism expressed Realpolitik (or raison d’état) which became the synonym for ruthlessly aggressive amoral politics, an ideology that has baffled Western Christian leaders down to the Second World War. During the First World War the English Bishops and churchmen like Canon Garland were particularly alienated from their German counterparts since the German theologians had very openly endorsed the aggressive actions of the Kaiser’s government and glossed over such violations of human rights as had occurred in the Belgian atrocities which the German armies committed in their westward advance while implementing the Schlieffen Plan.Footnote ¹⁶ Particularly since the time of the Boer Wars when Germany demonstratively sympathized with the Dutch Vortrekkers and as well spurned the offer of an alliance with Britain, did the English opinion of their German cousins deteriorate further. Prior to that, Anglo-German relations had already become less than amiable because of the adoption by Germany of the ‘Tirpitz Plan’ to out-build Britain in capital ships. Relations from then onwards became increasingly strained. The cumulative effect on British Churchmen of all denominations was to perceive any threat to the Empire as hostile also to Christianity because the belief then prevailed that Almighty God had bestowed great power on Britain in order to facilitate the spread of the Gospel among the benighted heathen throughout the world.Footnote ¹⁷ In short, the Empire should be understood as an instrument in the history of salvation.Footnote ¹⁸ Consequently, when in August 1914 the Kaiser’s Germany threatened the security of the entire British Empire most bishops and priests like Garland were both ideologically and theologically programmed to resist what they came to regard as Godless Prussianism.Footnote ¹⁹

Back to North Queensland

We recall that on his departure from Perth for the East, Garland had first tried to find a base of operations at the historic Anglo-Catholic Church of St James’, King Street, Sydney. Frustratingly, however, a tenured appointment there was blocked as Archbishop Riley had warned his Sydney counterpart against licensing a putative trouble-maker like Garland. Undismayed, Garland then found an initially welcoming prelate in George Horsfall Frodsham, the Bishop of North Queensland.Footnote ²⁰ Soon after arrival in Townsville, Garland was collated Archdeacon and installed as Rector of Charters Towers, at that time the second city of the northern diocese. Here, besides engaging creatively in local welfare politics with his Baptist colleague,Footnote ²¹ Garland resumed his agitation for religious instruction in government schools, becoming secretary of the Queensland Bible in State Schools League.

Garland Moves South

After some five years in the distant north Garland felt the need to get closer to the centre of action in the state capital, Brisbane. He was driven by the need to advance the cause of biblical knowledge, which he prioritized above his very active ministry as Archdeacon of North Queensland. Accordingly, Garland sought a parish in the south in part to avoid the relatively frequent and arduous train journey from Townsville to Brisbane to attend inter-denominational meetings of the Bible in State Schools League. This was chaired by Brisbane’s Archbishop St Clair Donaldson.Footnote ²² After various frustrated attempts to persuade Donaldson to find him a parish in Brisbane, Garland was finally appointed in 1907 to the city parish of Holy Trinity, Woolloongabba in South Brisbane, the title he held until February 1913. While there, Garland devoted himself single-mindedly to the campaign to have the Queensland Education Act amended to allow religious instruction in State schools as he had done in Perth.Footnote ²³ Indeed, Garland had toured most of the vast State of Queensland armed with a lantern slide projector giving public lectures stressing the centrality of biblical knowledge for the healthy development of civil society.

It was essential to inculcate school children with the values enshrined in the biblical narrative. His efforts were richly rewarded when the Act was amended in the Queensland Parliament (1911) to enable clergy of all denominations to conduct religious instruction in primary schools and for teachers to be required to give lessons in Bible study. The jubilation among the leaders of all denominations except the Roman Catholic was palpable.Footnote ²⁴ Garland’s efforts were acknowledged with the award of a canonry of St John’s Cathedral. ‘Canon Garland’ became a household name throughout the State, nation and abroad as shall be seen.

Education in Biblical Knowledge: The Bible Readers for Government Primary Schools

Apart from exhibiting dogged lobbying skills in promoting the adoption of the amendment among all interest groups, political as well as inter-denominational, Garland had prepared handbooks containing excerpts of Bible passages for school classes. Ostensibly, this was the work of ‘A Departmental Committee … appointed to compile Readers in accordance with the Act’.Footnote ²⁵ As far as the Old Testament was concerned, the readings selected reflect the sovereignty of God over all Creation as well as the nature of God as a caring, benevolent deity whose truth and mercy is available to all humankind. Here much use is made of readings from the Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah. And in particular with regard to Isaiah, there was an emphasis on the prophecies relating to the coming of the Messiah. So pedagogically the stress was on the beneficence of God and humanity’s indebtedness to God as well as the continuity between the Old and New Testaments.

Unsurprisingly, the New Testament selections began with the content of the Sermon on the Mount, divided into five sections covering Matthew, chs. 5 and 7. Thereafter came the various parables that illustrate the great Christian virtues as well as the fatherhood of God. So overall the key lesson was the essential humanizing potential of Christianity, implying that to be truly human one must be genuinely Christian. But beyond this was also the underlying message that the full flourishing of humanity under Almighty God was made possible by the political order; that is, the rule of law that was safe-guarded within the bounds of the humane jurisdiction of the British Empire. The booklets containing these excerpts from the Bible were still in use until the Second World War.

Garland’s Ambitious but Frustrated New Zealand Mission

The success of the Bible-in-State Schools movement in Australia after the Queensland Education Act had been amended led to an invitation to Canon Garland from the New Zealand Anglican Bishops to cross the Tasman and take charge of a campaign to accomplish the same goals as in Queensland. He had no hesitation in accepting. Little could he then appreciate what an impact his trans-Tasman campaign that lasted a good two years would have on the long-term historical evolution of the sister Dominion. Garland duly arrived with his wife and son in Wellington and was licensed there on 12 August 1912. However, despite his assiduous efforts at pursuing the cause through innumerable sermons and public addresses throughout the length and breadth of both islands, the campaign was denied the success experienced in Queensland. Certainly, the feisty Canon had encountered vigorous opposition and resentment from the atheistic press, which frequently vilified his campaign. On the other hand, he enjoyed the support of not a few leading political figures upon whom he could rely in his later promotion of Anzac Day commemoration. But the real reason for the collapse of Garland’s New Zealand campaign came from a force majeur. Before the Referendum could be held the looming European war had finally broken out and Dominion concerns became more focused on immediate existential threats such as posed by the Imperial German East Asia Naval Squadron based in northern China. Consequently, by the end of October 1914 the fate of the New Zealand Religious Instruction in Schools Referendum Bill was sealed.Footnote ²⁶ The campaign had to be dropped and its collected funds bequeathed to the purchase of ambulances for the military.

Garland’s dedicated two-year investment in the project, however, had sufficiently impressed the New Zealand bishops that they collectively nominated him for a Lambeth Doctorate which was within the prerogative of the Primate of All England to award. This honour, however, was effectively vetoed by Garland’s own Ordinary in Brisbane, Donaldson, on the grounds that Garland possessed no university qualifications whatsoever.Footnote ²⁷ How Garland responded to this is not revealed in any surviving documentation. More important were the portentous challenges to Dominion security posed by the Kaiser’s Germany. Garland, together with like-minded figures in the universities around the Commonwealth, immediately came to grips with these. The first need was to explain the German aggression and its implications for Britain’s overseas possessions, and secondly to stress the logical need for increased recruitment. This became Garland’s next major project.

Return to Brisbane and New Challenges

From his role as Secretary of the Queensland Recruitment Committee, Garland had closely followed the exploits of the ANZAC contingent in the eventually futile Dardanelles campaign. Hundreds of wounded and very sick and dying Diggers had already been transported home to be hospitalized, also in Brisbane. Consequently, after the withdrawal from the Dardanelles, the Recruiting Committee prompted by Garland convened a public meeting in the Brisbane Exhibition Hall on 10 January 1916. The high-profile key-note speaker would be Lieutenant General James McCay, at that time Inspector General of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). McCay had himself been in the Dardanelles and having sustained a severe leg wound, had been temporarily invalided home. At that Brisbane meeting McCay dwelt on the need to replace the men already lost. It was strongly implied that simply to cheer the remaining men on from the sidelines was futile. They were exhausted and desperately needed fresh recruits in their ranks.

It was at that meeting in the presence of the State Governor, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, the Premier T.J. Ryan and dignitaries from the mainstream Churches that Garland also spoke of the need to remember those who had already made the supreme sacrifice. He tabled a motion that a committee be set up to explore the idea of establishing a national day of mourning for the fallen. Unsurprisingly, given Garland’s reputation for getting things done he was elected to chair what became the Anzac Day Committee (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

The Anzac Day Committee, 11 March 1922. Back Row L to R: A Watson (Chamber of Manufacturers), Charles Gibbon (Fathers’ Association), Colonel McKenzie (Salvation Army), Stanley Wilmott (Overses Club), Arthur Exley (St Gerorge's Society). Third Row L to R: P McDermott (Irish Association), JF Maxwell MLA, ERB Pike (joint secretary ADCC), W Meyers King (Chamber of Commerce), Rev. AG Weller (Chaplin), Ald. Faulkner (Mayer of South Brisbane).

Second Row L to R: Canon DJ Garland (Secretary ADCC), LT Colonel Durant, Rev. Dr EN Merrington (Chaplin), Major Dibden RSL, Brigadier General Cannan RSL, Major General Bruche, Captain Maddock.

Front Row L to R: TA Ryan, Archbishop G Sharp (CofE), Jon J Harry Coyne (Chairman ADCC), Archbishop J Duhig (RC), Alderman Down, Hon. AJ Thynne. Source: The Week, 17 March 1922.

Thus was the machinery set in motion that produced the most important national event of civic religion for both Australia and New Zealand, namely Anzac Day, 25 April, the date in 1915 of the fateful landing of Empire and French forces on that Turkish beach in the Dardanelles.Footnote ²⁸ What the Dominion troops called ‘Anzac Cove’ lies between Suvla Bay and Gaba Tepe on the Aegean side.Footnote ²⁹ The objective of the invasion was for the Allied troops to drive north to capture Constantinople and thus put Turkey out of the war. The entire campaign was a monumental failure. Strategically considered it may have been a rational enough idea but it was disastrously mismanaged. After some eight months of bloody and futile fighting an ingenious withdrawal operation was planned and executed by year’s end with minimal casualties. News of these events had been delayed by military authorities but finally the reports of the British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead Bartlett were allowed through. Those of the famous Australian war correspondent, Charles Bean arrived later.Footnote ³⁰

The regular publication of casualty lists in the daily and weekly press had already brought home to the Australasian public that this war was a deadly serious business soon to become even more brutal and bloody on the Western Front. It was there to which most of the troops evacuated from the Dardanelles were immediately dispatched. Well before that, however, on 10 June 1915, a Thursday morning at 10.00 am, Archbishop Donaldson in Brisbane was to celebrate a Requiem Eucharist in St John’s Cathedral. This event was a state occasion attended by the Governor Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, together with the consuls of both France and Russia.

One recalls that the purpose of the Dardanelles campaign was to enable war supplies and possibly troops to support the Russians on the Eastern Front where the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had invaded. The Cathedral Service Register for that day records some 600 worshippers, thus making it the very first commemoration for the fallen. The entry was made by Donaldson himself. Both Donaldson and Garland, despite the friction resulting from their personality differences, were in total agreement as to the need to prosecute this war against Prussianism to a clean finish.

The Role of Archbishop William St Clair Donaldson of Brisbane

Brisbane’s archbishop (Figure 6) was not only a highly educated prelate having gained a first in Classics at Cambridge but also a member of the British Establishment who had strong family connections to the corridors of power. And having just spent leave in England just as the war broke out, he was fully informed as to the mind of the imperial government. He boarded the next ship back to Australia. The SS Themistocles weighed anchor in London and docked in Sydney unscathed on 14 October. Back in Brisbane Donaldson was dismayed to observe that the citizens there were showing scant concern for the implications of the great imperial collision between the British and German empires.Footnote ³¹ This complacency the learned prelate set out to remedy by preparing a series of Lenten addresses to be delivered in St John’s Cathedral on the subject of Christian Patriotism in which he painstakingly explained the dangerous militaristic character of the Kaiser’s Germany in order to emphasize the existential dangers that confronted the entire British Empire. It was a logical appeal for imperial solidarity and an eloquent rationale for conscription. Donaldson’s public addresses were held weekly in his cathedral during Lent and prior to the Gallipoli landing.

Figure 6.

Archbishop St Clair Donaldson.

Source: Anglican Archives, Brisbane.

Garland’s Imperial Theo-centric World View

It has been emphasized that Garland had conceived of the Anzac commemoration as a ‘secular requiem’. Admittedly this is not a concept that resonates especially in the secular mind because it presumes the existence of a benevolent Creator in whom only a few really believed. Garland was well aware of this so the actual liturgy for Anzac Day was designed first to avoid offending atheists and agnostics. The latter obviously harboured doubts about the existence of either a unitarian or a trinitarian God, a concern which also affected Jews. Secondly, it was designed to avoid the objections of Roman Catholics who were then forbidden to pray with non-Catholics. So Garland saw the need to accommodate ‘all sorts and conditions of men’ in an inclusive Anglican way. Nevertheless, both prayers and hymns presumed the existence of a benign Creator. Obviously, sceptics of all categories cannot intellectually endorse this dimension but in a spirit of solidarity with fellow veterans many still manage to turn out for Anzac Day ceremonies, both for the Dawn Parade and the later morning march in impressive numbers. How does one explain that?

Explaining Australian Sentimental Humanism

The notable Australian historian and Anglican priest, Dr George Shaw recognized this some decades ago and designated the phenomenon as ‘Australian Sentimental Humanism’. He called it ASH in the Australian Soul, pointing out that whereas there was a certain admirable decency manifest in the Australian character, it was lacking in rigorous intellectual reflection. It was essentially sentimental and expressed in such elastic concepts as ‘mateship’, without any concern from where such values came. The question about what the real origins of ‘decency’ might be rarely occurred to them.Footnote ³² ‘Mateship’ is of course an Australasian male concept of expressing feelings of loyalty to one’s comrades in arms. It is essentially a human emotion that transcends doctrinal categories.

Against this background, then, Garland’s concept of the Anzac Day ceremonial must be seen as a boldly imaginative experiment in evangelism, namely to awaken in the vast majority of secularized Australians an awareness of the numinous. In short, the act of paying homage to the fallen who died in defence of true Christian values was supposed to arouse a deeper sense of true humanity and spirituality. Garland had obviously understood that being human was not simply having a physical body; this was complemented by a spiritual nature. The ‘plain blunt men’ of the AIF simply loved their comrades in arms without theological reflection.

During the inter-war years when Anzac Day was being firmly established in the Australasian calendar, padres were often asked to speak at the public ceremonies held at cenotaphs and they would emphasize that ‘the cream of our youth had sacrificed themselves for God, King and Empire’.Footnote ³³ That is certainly what Canon Garland had been at pains to stress and that is why he conceived of Anzac Day as a day of strict solemnity. There were to be no sports or horse racing, no cinemas and no public houses open. Solemnity as practised on Good Friday was to prevail. The phrase then used was, ‘No jubilation!’Footnote ³³ War was the ultimate denial of true humanity. It was, however, a stern necessity whenever nations driven by the forces of darkness tried to impose their godlessness on neighbouring countries. Sacrifices would inevitably have to be made. In that case the duty of the home front was to honour the fallen, comfort the bereaved and ensure that war should never occur again. For Garland and his committee, Anzac Day was sacred; it was Australia’s All Souls’ Day. The Day was meant to invoke the ‘idea of the holy’, indeed a ‘sense of the numinous’. That was what may be called the ‘Garland option’ for 25 April. Here, however, there arose an unforeseen problem. If 25 April fell on a Sunday the Anzac commemoration had to be postponed to the next day because the priority of the Church was exclusively to maintain the sanctity of the Sabbath. On this there could never be any compromise, but precisely here a great bone of contention arose when the Queensland State President of the Returned Soldiers’ & Sailors Imperial League (RSSILA – now RSL) Raymond Huish and Garland clashed over the mode of commemoration.

Huish had an issue over two elements. First, he did not approve of the total solemnity of the day; sports should be allowed in the afternoon. Secondly, if the day fell on a Sunday as it did in 1937 then it should be held as usual and not postponed until the following day. Despite the remonstrances of Garland and both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Archbishops that precedence had to be given to the Church’s tradition, Huish became very truculent towards Garland and the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee (ADCC). He would not accept that the ADCC had been from the very beginning a civilian committee whose aim was to demonstrate the nation’s gratitude for the sacrifice of the soldiers, sailors and nurses made in the service of freedom.

Mr Huish, although himself having served in the AIF, was emphatically not interested in accommodating the attitude of the various Churches. Consequently, a bitter confrontation erupted between him and Garland, the outcome saw the RSSILA increase its nominees on the ADCC and ultimately to gain control of it. Garland regretted this deeply since it meant the certain end of his concept that the day should be essentially spiritual, albeit in a non-denominational sense, but nevertheless Australia’s All Souls’ Day.Footnote ³⁴

Garland’s Death at Seventy-five

Until his death, poetically for a priest on Sunday 8 October 1939, having collapsed after he had celebrated the parish Eucharist, Garland had retained his secretaryship of the ADCC. Over the previous two years his relationship with Huish had become irreparably estranged, so much so that the President of the RSSILA declined to attend Garland’s requiem with other State dignitaries. It was celebrated by Brisbane’s highly esteemed archbishop, William Wand, and not held in the Cathedral as Wand had expected for such a renowned public figure, but at Garland’s express wish the service was held in his own modest parish church of St Barnabas, Red Hill in Brisbane among his people, where to this day the congregation still reveres his memory.

These events suggest that the ideological-theological rift between Garland the priest and Huish the ex-soldier and now ambitious businessman over their respective conceptions for honouring the fallen is a parable for today’s Australia and New Zealand. When the RSSILA assumed control of the ADCC a secular hedonistic culture became dominant and that was precisely what Garland throughout his priestly life had opposed. His ambition had always been to exploit the day for the intensification of national spiritual awareness of all the things for which the Gospel of Christ stood.

Against the forces of secularism, however, this proved to be a vain hope. Nevertheless, Anzac Day is still firmly fixed in the Australasian calendar despite the best efforts of some agitating to have the Day abolished.Footnote ³⁵ Further, it does still have some non-denominational religious significance as the considerable attendances at both Dawn Parades and the later public services throughout the country illustrate. If these are only the consequence of Australian sentimental humanism then Canon Garland would have laboured in vain.

Finally, the solemnity for Anzac Day that Garland strove for so long to uphold as Australia’s All Souls’ Day may never be completely recovered. The priorities of the RSL, the ‘sporting public’, entertainers and the business community have clearly triumphed. Pacifists, too, had been pointing out for decades that the way in which Anzac Day is celebrated is virtually a glorification of war. That, of course, was far from Garland’s vision. How could this situation be turned around? The question now posed is whether there is not a role here for the Churches again to revive the day as originally conceived by resuming the services that were once held on that day? That is something to be seriously explored on an ecumenical basis.Footnote ³⁶ Nor is it exclusively an Anglo-Celtic Australasian concern; it has to be inclusive of all immigrants to Australia and New Zealand of all ethnic backgrounds. These people want to become citizens precisely because of the freedoms constitutionally enshrined in our respective counties.Footnote ³⁷ They, too, appreciate that this must be defended from the threat of tyranny from wherever it may come because democracy comes closest to enabling the values of Christianity to be realized, and freedom, both spiritual and political, is the supreme Christian priority.Footnote ³⁸ Furthermore, Garland’s ability to bring into alignment the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic paradigms – that is, the complementary functions of Word and Sacrament – must be the path to follow. He became the force he did because he comprehended the Bible, on the one hand, as the foundation of our civilization while, on the other hand, he understood the Church as God’s agency for the sacralizing of humanity, that is, the means by which a sense of the numinous is communicated to all peoples, because it is essential to becoming truly human. Canon Garland was an Evangelical Catholic or a Catholic Evangelical. For all these reasons Garland designed Anzac Day as a secular requiem to honour the fallen, to comfort the bereaved and to engender into the community the biblical values of justice, peace and decency for ‘all sorts and conditions of humanity’. The task lies ahead.

Figure 7.

Garland’s funeral, 10 October 1939; State Premier Forgan Smith walking on extreme right.

Source: Courier-Mail Archives.

Figure 8.

Canon Garland in his final year.

Source: Oxley Library Collection.