AP

It was an honour to be invited to the Opening Service of the 52^nd General Assembly on 7^th September 2026. It has been a regular feature of the triennial Assembly for the incoming Moderator-General to invite representatives of sister churches of the Reformed Faith as a testimony to our unity in Christ, despite institutional distinctives. I am sure I speak on behalf of all attending church representatives that we greatly appreciate this invitation.

I first attended the General Assembly’s Opening Service in 2014, soon after becoming the Archbishop of Sydney. On that occasion, and several other occasions, public tribute was made for the hospitality of Moore Theological College in welcoming and training future Presbyterian ministers when it was deemed no longer appropriate after 1977 (the year the Uniting Church was formed) to train ministers through the theology faculty at St Andrew’s College at the University of Sydney. This arrangement continued for a decade until the Presbyterian Theological Centre (now Christ College) was established in 1987 under Principal John Davies, with whom I had studied at Westminster Theological Seminary. My presence on the faculty of Moore College at that time had apparently been an encouragement, knowing that Presbyterian students would receive a thoroughly Reformed education, including covenant theology!

When I was invited to become the Bishop of the Diocese of the Southern Cross in 2022, a new Anglican diocese independent from the Anglican Church of Australia, I received a very warm letter from the Moderator-General, the Rev Dr Peter Barnes, co-signed by previous Moderators-General, welcoming this new diocese and urging Presbyterian churches to offer Southern Cross churches hospitality in the use of their buildings if required. At the Assembly three years ago, I was invited to speak on behalf of the visiting sister church representatives and able to express my gratitude for the generous hospitality of the General Assembly towards the Diocese of the Southern Cross.

This new diocese had been forced to emerge out of the mire of revisionist theology that was permeating the Anglican Church of Australia (though not Sydney Diocese, I’m glad to say!). In similar manner, the Presbyterian Church had courageously decided not to join the Uniting Church in 1977, despite the subsequent loss of property, but in so doing were able to rid themselves of the vestiges of liberal theology promulgated by false teachers, such as Professor Samuel Angus (to whom the Rev Dr Stuart Bonnington referred in his inaugural address at this year’s Assembly).

I am glad to report that for the Anglican Communion the tables have now turned. Gafcon is a global movement of biblically faithful, theologically orthodox Anglicans who have re-ordered the Global Anglican Communion in accordance with the Reformation Formularies of the sixteenth century. The Diocese of the Southern Cross has been recognised and authenticated as a genuinely Anglican diocese – and therefore genuinely Reformed – by the Gafcon Primates Council. As we seek to advance the gospel and seek repentance, renewal, and ongoing reformation within the Australian Anglican church, it is extremely heartening to have the right hand of fellowship with the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and with all those whose commitment to the authority of Holy Scripture is the same as that of John Knox and Thomas Cranmer.