11 Ridley – Finally in Charge: 1964–6
Ridley – Finally in Charge: 1964–6
Leon spent the next fifteen years permanently based in Melbourne. He had made a sacrificial choice in returning to Australia in 1964. Just a few close friends realized the extent of his sacrifice; the rest were simply elated. News of Leon’s return had spread quickly across the wide brown land of Australia. Here was an outstanding mind on par with the finest scholars in the world, now in charge of Ridley College at the age of fifty. On 24 February at the underground Four Corners Café beneath St Paul’s Cathedral, the smiling faces of the packed crowd informally welcomed back Leon and Mildred.
When he arrived back, Ridley College had seventy students, including thirty theological students. It was poorly resourced in administration and funds. Babbage and Andersen were gone. Leon worked feverishly. In the first week back he was engulfed in an avalanche of meetings, and meetings continued over staff structures and priorities. Bearham’s written assurances that Leon would be ‘freed from performing routine chores and money raising’1 vaporized as Leon negotiated the painting of the old classified stables. Ridley’s Commencement Service took place on Saturday 21 March and the college’s supporters came out in force to witness Leon’s commissioning by the archbishop. The congregation greeted Leon with appropriate words while he knelt:
Put thou thy trust in God,
In duty’s path go on;
Walk in his strength with faith and hope,
So shall thy work be done.
Commit thy ways to him,
Thy work into his hands,
And rest on his unchanging word,
Who heaven and earth commands.
Leave to his sovereign sway
To choose and to command;
So shalt thou, wondering, own his way,
How wise, how strong his hand.2
A New Vice-Principal
While still in England, Leon had participated in the process of finding someone to fill the position of vice-principal at Ridley. Nash had suggested Alan Cole, Keith Cole, Maurice Betteridge, Gordon Garner and John Moroney as suitable candidates. Leon favoured bringing in an outside man while there was a chance, and reduced the list to a choice between Alan Cole’s exuberant brilliance or Keith Cole’s administrative expertise.
He wrote to Nash, recommending that the Ridley Council should approach one of the Coles, hesitatingly favouring Alan. Alan Cole declined, so Leon told Nash that he would write to Keith Cole in Africa. He gave Nash Cole’s address so the council could write too. Keith Cole accepted Leon’s informal approach, letting his name go forward. After further thought and prayer, Cole became increasingly convinced that this move was of God.3 He had been accepted to study for a ThD in Australia, so the Ridley job looked like an offer from heaven – or at least from the ‘Archangel Leon’.4
Leon wrote to Cole, letting him know he was about to receive an official invitation to be vice-principal.5 Cole replied that although no letter had arrived from Ridley (Nash took ages to write to Cole), he was going to accept.6 Leon was delighted.7 Cole was never interviewed and Leon never met him before he set eyes on him in Melbourne. After some time and considerable correspondence, David Williams also joined the staff.
Leon was still in need of administrative help. Cole had made it clear that he could not help with administration while he was working on his thesis, something Leon had not clarified in initial discussions. Moroney, aware that Leon needed a secretary, told him that the current college secretary could not take letters and could not spell, but was charming. Leon replied to Moroney that he hoped the secretary could type as he would be dictating letters onto a tape recorder. At this point, Moroney started the search for a new secretary. Leon commented: ‘Bear in mind that I need something more than charm.’8
More Books
After Leon arrived at Ridley, three books of his were published that had been shaped in England: The Abolition of Religion, Ministers of God and The New Testament and the Jewish Lectionaries. Overall, he produced a dozen books during his period at Ridley, including The Gospel According to John.
The Abolition of Religion9 rejected the ‘religionless Christianity’ made popular in Honest to God by J.A.T. Robinson. Robinson had drawn on other Christian writers, notably Barth and Bonhoeffer. Leon argued that Robinson had misinterpreted Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that some individuals are called to be believers but free of religion. Although Leon affirmed some of the points made by Robinson, he strongly argued that it was facile to suggest that Christianity can be divorced from the proper place and practice of religion. He was wisely reacting to a perennial temptation, among some religious people, to remove oneself from the full revelation of God given in Christ and find one’s own way forward. He noted years later that The Abolition of Religion was the only book he had written in a hurry.10
Ministers of God11 explored what an evangelical believed the New Testament said about Christian ministry. Leon asserted that Jesus Christ was the true minister and that all who follow Christ share in what is essentially his ministry. He looked at how this ministry is delegated through apostles, the ‘gifts’ of ministry and then other orders of elders and deacons. Lastly he considered how this ministry was expressed in the various mainline denominations. His position in emphasizing Jesus as the chief minister was a view that saved many a minister with delusions of grandeur from thinking it was all about him- or herself. When the going got tough in ministry, the burden did not rest on one person’s shoulders alone.
The New Testament and the Jewish Lectionaries,12 a little book by Leon’s standards, was intended for use by students. About this book, Don Carson commented:
Dr. Morris demonstrated a knack for addressing a fad that he thought was unhelpful. For instance, at a time when a small but growing number of scholars were arguing that the structure and substance of the canonical Gospels could largely be explained by showing how they allegedly aligned with lectionaries used in the synagogues, Dr. Morris published a little book – never one of his best sellers, of course, but a useful piece that helped a generation of students sort through one of the muddles of the day.13
Love and Truth in Anglicanism
Leon became a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1964. This was considered to be an astute choice, as he had a reputation as a fine preacher. This position would also allow him to represent his wing of the church in the Melbourne diocese.
Archbishop Woods knew that Leon would not constrain everyone to see things as Leon saw them. That much was clear from their exchange of letters in 1963, when Leon had to consider the position at Ridley alongside diocesan issues relating to the celebration of Communion. Leon had told Woods about his acceptance dilemma and how much Woods had helped him. And Woods embraced Leon’s return: ‘Welcome back to the Diocese and your kingdom.’14
However, the Ridley ship would not sail smoothly on the diocesan sea. Choppy waves and deep currents were present. Woods was disturbed when Cole was appointed vice-principal because he shared Leon’s churchmanship.15 Furthermore, other forces were at work supporting a more liberal approach to theological education. In 1962, the diocese had founded the non-residential Perry Hall Theological Training Centre to train married men.16 It would allow the diocese to assert more control over the theological education provided to candidates in training.
It was not long before a rocky interview took place between Leon and Woods. In response, Leon wrote to Woods about the wearing of stoles, which had been raised in the interview. He listed five points:
1. Although he appreciated Woods’ personal friendliness, he felt crushed and upset by Woods’ suggestion he should wear stoles as was the local custom.
2. Leon saw his practice as an expression of his doctrine. He explained his trouble with an eastward position and the mediation of a priest. He set out a similar reservation about stoles.
3. Then he made his key point: ‘I made my position on these matters clearly to you before accepting the Ridley position. I cannot be put in a position of having to wear stoles or having no students.’
4. He further explained: ‘The suggestion that I use stoles gives me the worst of both worlds for when visitors come to Ridley I will allow their stoles but I cannot keep my custom when I visit.’
5. He asked to be judged on the kind of men he turned out rather than his personal liturgical practice.
He told Woods that Point 3 was the important one. He had been happy in England and had been offered a very attractive job in America. He assured Woods that he had the best interests of the diocese and Ridley’s students at heart, but he needed to be able to follow his conscience while allowing others freedom.17 Leon and Ridley continued to draw students and Leon maintained his stance to not wear stoles both within the college and elsewhere in the diocese.
College Life
After four years of teaching in the USA and UK, Leon arrived in Ridley with some ideas for how to improve the college. He wanted to raise its academic standards, increase the number of full-time staff, build a chapel to aid the college’s worship life18 and provide married student quarters. To achieve these goals with the college’s limited finances, he would have to operate as an effective administrator and lead creatively.
On Saturday 1 August 1964, St Andrew’s Hall opened next door to Ridley. Its purpose was to train missionaries for CMS Australia, and there was a considerable amount of synergy between the two institutions. The hall’s first principal was Francis Foulkes, who hailed from New Zealand. Francis was a kindred spiritual and scholarly spirit, and he and Leon lunched periodically.
The last term of the year commenced on 14 September and it was a busy one. Leon attended a round of meetings at the Tyndale Fellowship, the Melbourne High School Inter-School Christian Fellowship (ISCF; a Scripture Union [SU] initiative), an SU Conference, the Coburg Teacher’s College EU, the League of Youth Bible study (CMS), the Melbourne Bible Institute, the Evangelical Fellowship of Victoria and the Caulfield Grammar School Council. In addition, he preached around Melbourne and at some end-of-year independent-school services. At Christmas, Leon and Mildred flew to Sydney so that he could speak at the Katoomba Convention from 26 December to 3 January and be with family.
In contrast to their first two stints at Ridley, this time Leon and Mildred lived in accommodation provided by the college. They had sold their house in Coburg19 and invested in some other property. According to Leon’s solicitor, Bayston, ‘Harold McCracken got Leon money to buy a block of flats. He liked getting properties on mortgage on a rising market. He made money by buying properties in a rising market.’20 Royalties also arrived from growing book sales. Leon and Mildred observed a lifestyle of simplicity, having a propensity to save, not spend. This lifestyle was partly a result of their own discipline and partly their emotional response to the depression. They had no children, some of their meals were college-sponsored and they did not own a car.
Mildred was not well in the early years back in Melbourne, and she reached a point where the simple task of sweeping a floor left her with no energy. Eventually a specialist found a large non-cancerous tumour in her neck. After he operated to remove the tumour, he told Mildred and Leon that if he had left it any longer it would have perforated the jugular.
There were many lonely hours when Leon was either studying or writing and Mildred was left alone. Sometimes she took advantage of these opportunities to visit her parents in New South Wales. She once asked Leon whether he had missed her. His reply: ‘Yes indeed, I missed the noise.’21 To her sister, she lamented that they were not blessed with children, although she always quickly added that they would not have been able to travel and Leon would not have been able to write as much as he did if there had been children to consider.
Mildred threw herself into college life and spent a lot of time with the wives at Ridley and others in parishes. One recalled: ‘She was always a caring and interested friend to those of us who were clergy wives … She invited the theologs’ wives into her lounge room to hear one of us speak on the opportunities and challenges of vicarage life. I found her a wise and helpful friend, always available to speak to our parish women’s groups with a faithful and enriching message.’22 More widely, Mildred hosted a meeting at Ridley where Miss Audrey Weatherall Johnson – who had initiated the Bible Study Fellowship in the USA and whom Mildred had met – asked Shirley Temby to start Victoria’s first Bible Study Fellowship.
A University College
Even after some years of Leon’s influence, the college continued to live from hand to mouth. It still operated as a small theological institution with a few secular students crammed in where they could be fitted. It was regularly joked that if another student turned up Leon would find a cupboard and fit them in. Nevertheless, the students endured inadequate dining, library and common-room facilities as their confidence in the quality of their education and training grew under Leon’s imprint.
The secular students who lived at Ridley were enrolled at Melbourne University or the Pharmacy College. In one of his annual addresses to the student body, Leon highlighted the advantages of Ridley’s independence from the Church of England’s structures, but affirmed that this did not equate to irresponsibility. It was important that Ridley was involved in the life of the church – not just for the theological students, but also for the sake of the secular students ‘studying to be pharmacists, scientists, engineers and all the rest. For members of these professions cannot live in isolation … they belong to the community … it matters to the Church that our secular students train at Ridley with theological students.’23
In 1965, Ridley gained university college status, having been accepted by Melbourne University as a linked residential college. The first students under this new system arrived in 1966. Views differ as to how passionate Leon was about Ridley becoming a university college. A Ridley history records that he was strongly committed to the university side of the college. However, Moroney, who was very close to Leon at the time, recalled: ‘I am not sure that Leon really wanted to have a University College from an academic point of view. The strong argument at the Council meeting was that the Australian Government was paying the Colleges a subsidy for every residential university student, and this won the day. The Government rescinded the statute before Ridley ever received a payment on this basis.’24
In the same year, The Cross in the New Testament was published and won a US category of the best religious books of 1965. Its treatment, chapter by chapter, of the appearance of the doctrine of the atonement in the various books of the New Testament was in effect an analysis of the textual evidence for the cross and the meaning each New Testament writer attached to it. The book sold in excess of thirty thousand copies over thirty years. As with his other books, Leon forwarded a few copies to friends and others he wished to encourage. One of these was R.B. Robinson, who wrote: ‘Thanks Leon for a copy of The Cross in the New Testament … you are often in our prayers and thoughts.’25
Love and Truth in History
Towards the end of 1965, Leon and Mildred heard from his sister Jean that his mother had been having heart turns that were getting more frequent but that his mother hoped to get down to hear him speak at Sydney’s Stanwell Tops in the New Year.26
The next year opened with Leon accepting more outside commitments. After Easter, he went to Queensland to deliver IVF’s Annual Public Lecture.27 His lecture was on ‘The Problem of History and the Gospel’, and it gives a fascinating insight into Leon’s thinking about the intersection between history and Christianity and where it is possible to find truth.
In the lecture he pointed out that Christianity was an historical religion, not simply a religion of ideas or great principles. He then considered and rejected several theological developments by scholars that, in his view, misunderstood the historical nature of Christianity and were therefore flawed – including the Jesus of history/Christ of faith analysis. He was less than impressed by the form critics who divorced Jesus of Nazareth from the subsequent Christian community, arguing that it was simplistic to overlook and reject the historical elements of the New Testament, including the gospels. On the contrary, a close look at the evidence precluded such a rejection.
He maintained that the Christian faith depends on historical events and therefore the scrutiny of the historian should be welcomed. He did, however, acknowledge the difficulty for the historian trying to deal with key events like the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus using methods only applicable to purely human phenomena.
Leon then pointed out that all history is a mixture of fact and interpretation, including the gospels. Furthermore, while the exclusion of the miraculous or eternal by the modern historian might suit secular historical method, a Christian historian, normally bound by those methods, would in principle have no trouble accepting the miraculous and special events of Christianity.
Quoting William Lillie,28 he concluded that the Christian did not need to abandon their pattern of thinking. Rather, this pattern gave a more coherent interpretation of the facts than any other that has been suggested. The modern Christian was therefore free to suggest that the Christian explanation of the facts best fits the data before us. In the light of twenty-first-century secularist assumptions, the lecture seems just as fresh today.
In calling Leon to Ridley, God was clearly drawing Leon away from a life purely devoted to writing. The ordinary observer missed this shift in Leon’s focus as his publishing output continued to be prodigious. However, from 1964 onwards Leon operated differently. He interacted less often with other scholars as time elapsed, instead working from his base at Ridley to defend and promote a truthful understanding of the atonement within his own denomination.
During this time at Ridley, Leon’s work widened to affirm the authority of Scripture and Jesus Christ by linking revelation with history, showing how both might be used in biblical scholarship to attack secular and liberal assumptions. He continued to champion evangelism locally and internationally at every opportunity, responded to occasional eruptions in the theological and philosophical world, steadily produced commentaries and other works, and mentored people in Australia and overseas. In all of this, his focus was to facilitate the spread of the good news of God and the empowerment of God’s people in his day.