Caring for the Police
CATHEDRAL NEWSLETTER - 2 March 2023
Friends in Christ,
This morning I attended the investiture of our dear Cathedral colleague and minister, Canon Chris Allan, as an honorary Police Chaplain for the Sydney Local Area Command, headquartered in Day Street, just down the road from St Andrew's. When time permits, he will offer pastoral care and support to sworn police officers and unsworn civilian police staff who work there.
Our police officers do a tough job, with much exposure to trauma. They've been a great help to us in our very public site in the CBD, adjacent a place of many protests and with the occasional disturbed or disruptive person in our precinct.
Senior Anglican Chaplain, Rev Andrew Nixon (formerly an Assistant Minister of the Cathedral) led the small service, attended by many police officers and staff, along with Sandra, and Chris' older son, Sam, and the Archbishop and Bishop Stead. It was a good time of fellowship between clergy and police! Senior Chaplain Nixon closed with this scripturally based exhortation and blessing (see 1 Thessalonians 5)...
Go forth into the world in peace;
be of good courage;
hold fast that which is good;
render to no one evil for evil;
strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak;
help the afflicted; give honour to all;
love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit;
and the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always. Amen.
Reflecting afterwards, I was reminded of one of the most stimulating books I've read in the last couple of years, Reading while Black, by Easu McCaulley, an African American Anglican Minister, who works as a professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, Illinois.
Here's a little extract which explores the concern for prayer for those in authority alongside wider questions of justice.
The popular misconception that Christians are called to pray and not to speak plainly about contemporary concerns fails to take seriously Paul's own testimony in 1 Timothy about injustice. A quick glance back at chapter one will reveal that Paul makes a not so subtle jab at the practices and laws of Rome.
In 1 Timothy 1:8-11 Paul argues that the law was not put in place for the righteous, but the ungodly. His point is that the law prescribes punishments for wicked, not those obedient to their creator. He then lays out the kinds of ungodliness that the Old Testament law condemns. One of the groups that he singles out are the andrapodistais, the slave traders. He groups these slave traders in a category of those who are "contrary to sound doctrine" (1 Tim 1:10). When Paul refers to sound doctrine (didaskalia) he has in mind the received teaching of Christians everywhere.
For Paul, then, slave trading is a theological error to be shunned by Christians. I am not an expert on Roman slave law, but I am quite sure that there are no laws against slave trading. In fact, slave trading was seen as a good way to make money. Therefore, in the passage immediately preceding Paul's call to pray for leaders he critiques an established practice of the empire as wicked and indicative of ungodly behavior. Prayer for leaders and criticism of their practices are not mutually exclusive ideas. Both have biblical warrant in the same letter.
The purpose of this section has not been to criticize prayer. As an Anglican clergyperson, I pray for our leaders as a part of our weekly Sunday liturgy and my daily private devotions. The goal has been to highlight the problems that occur when this is seen as the totality of our testimony...
If you want to read the Reverend Dr McCaulley's article focussed on the theology of law enforcement, here's the link: "Paul’s Word to Police: Protect the Weak".
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney