Sydney diocese has generated more recent literature than any other Anglican diocese in the world. A fistful of studies continues to roll from the press at a remarkable rate. There is analysis from ‘outsiders’ like Muriel Porter’s Sydney Anglicanism and the Threat to World Anglicanism: The Sydney Experiment (2011) and ‘insiders’ like Bruce Ballantine-Jones’s Inside Sydney (2016). There are new assessments of archiepiscopal worthies, like Allan Blanch’s biography of Marcus Loane (From Strength to Strength, 2015) and Rory Shiner’s doctorate on the biblical scholarship of Donald Robinson (Macquarie University, 2017). Chase Kuhn’s doctorate is recently published as The Ecclesiology of Donald Robinson and D. Broughton Knox (2017), while both Robinson and Knox have three volumes each of their collected works with Matthias Media, Sydney’s evangelical publishing house. These historical and theological volumes are only a small sample of the bourgeoning Sydney literature which has become a veritable cottage industry. Marcia Cameron has previously published a biography of Knox, An Enigmatic Life (2006), and her new volume jostles for space in this overflowing field. She writes as an ‘insider’, seeking to explain the diocese to the world, and is naturally sympathetic. Her title, Phenomenal Sydney, sets the tone. We are told that it stands out from the non-evangelical dioceses in Australia ‘as a light on a hill, a beacon in the darkness’ (p. 3). Liberal theology is ‘as solid as a blancmange’ (p. 133).

Cameron clearly feels constrained in her writing, fearing to criticize the Sydney saints or to betray confidences. Archbishop Glenn Davies observes in his foreword that she has exposed the flaws of Sydney’s leaders, uncovering secrets that some in the diocesan establishment want to keep hidden. But Cameron asserts the direct opposite, that she has faced the dilemma of keeping ‘sinful behavior’ secret. Therefore, she admits, this account ‘is not the whole story, for the sake of charity and peace … some of the real causes and effects remain hidden, despite their potency. This means some men and women may be painted in cleaner, brighter colours than they deserve’ (p. 1). This is deeply unsatisfying. Character assassination is always inappropriate and ahistorical, but facts are facts and deserve to be told, especially as they shape proper interpretation of the events being narrated.

Despite Sydney’s emphasis on the importance of ‘grassroots’ parish ministry, this study is organized around the rule of the last six archbishops as separate epochs. The chapter on Hugh Gough is especially important, because he is usually sidelined by Sydney historiography. Gough was the last Englishman to be elected Archbishop of Sydney, but he clashed with the conservative leaders in the diocese and his ministry ended in 1966 after accusations of an inappropriate relationship with a married woman. Perhaps this is one of the embarrassing secrets alluded to by Archbishop Davies? Cameron gives us the fullest account to date, labelling Gough ‘an immoral archbishop’ (p. 262). His archiepiscopate proved a turning point in Sydney’s recent history and he deserves further research, especially to integrate his careers in England and Australia. Gough’s successor, Marcus Loane, is Cameron’s favourite and the hero of the piece. He is portrayed as a bold but compassionate leader, a first-class administrator with a remarkable memory, excellent charisma and ‘an aura of authority’, but ‘a man of peace’ during whose tenure goodwill reigned throughout the diocese (pp. 108, 133, 140). The pacific 1970s are ably contrasted with the destructive 1990s, when Sydney ‘turned in upon itself, as though eating its vitals’ (p. 179). Archbishop Harry Goodhew is praised as ‘a man of particular grace’, though too weak, while Phillip Jensen is described as the most powerful man in the diocese, who has stamped Sydney Anglicanism with its present pragmatic, radical, combative ethos. Cameron describes Jensen as ‘a phenomenon … an enigma … enormously gifted … publicly he can be insensitive and provocative; privately he is kind, gracious and charming’ (p. 191). In this chapter, most of all, we are left with a sense that Cameron has much more she would like to say.

The volume brings together fresh material from the Sydney Diocesan Archives, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s papers at Lambeth Palace Library, and Cameron’s many interviews with leading protagonists. She shows that Sydney is far from monochrome, though there is no mention of non-evangelicals in the diocese. Surely there are some, albeit a very few? Where are the Anglo-Catholics, for examples? They deserve a place in the story. The intra-evangelical tensions are especially evident in the debates over women’s ordination, which recur throughout the narrative. Cameron does not declare her support explicitly, but frames the material in such a way as to make her allegiance obvious. She praises, for example, those men who in supporting women’s ministry ‘could gain nothing except opprobrium’ and were labelled ‘liberals’ (p. 176). She delights that Scripture is always central in Sydney, but admits this produces friction, ‘especially when no room is allowed for the validity of another’s interpretation’ (p. 185). Her history will become a standard introduction, though we wish she had decided to write more freely and offered a fulsome explanation of the complex diocesan power dynamics at which she only hints.