Carols from St Andrew’s Cathedral Sydney

Australia's many different Cathedral church choirs are visited by ABCTV one at a time, year after year to share their Christmas carols with the nation. Lessons and Carols this year on ABC1 come from the oldest standing Cathedral in Australia; Sydney Anglican Cathedral. Sydney also happens to be one of the most distinctively evangelical Anglican diocese in the whole world. Its predominant evangelicalism has been continuously developing since the founding of the colony of Sydney.

World Anglicanism has had two chief polarities since its founding; firstly a "catholic" sense of continuity with the universal church, and secondly a "protestant" sense of reform and renewal which consciously rejects catholic ideas. These polarities have developed and changed over centuries to produce a complex international fellowship of Anglican churches - some "high" church, some "low" church, some "broad" church. The tensions among the various factions have played on the world stage over issues like how to interpret the Bible, the role of women in ministry, human sexuality (especially gay and lesbian issues) and, of course, styles of worship.

The founding of Sydney diocese predates the famous "Oxford Movement" that has so significantly produced a more catholic form of Anglicanism in most other locations in Australia and the English speaking world. Sydney diocesan leadership has consciously resisted the Oxford movement's influence, and promoted and developed the Reformed Protestant tradition of its founders.

The Anglican diocese of Sydney has been a significant influence on world Anglican affairs. It works through its emissaries, missionaries, its robust preaching, and through lobbying to argue its own understanding of Biblical Christianity. Moore Theological College in Sydney is its "brains-trust" where its ministers and lay leaders are educated. To read more and to view the video, click here.