Sex, Power and the Clergy, Muriel Porter.
Hardie Grant Books, 2003. isbn 1 74066 026 9,
rrp $29.95
While I was reading Sex, Power and the Clergy the media were fascinated by the resignation of Dr Peter Hollingworth as Governor-General. By the time I had finished, their focus had switched to the furore over homosexual clergy in the Anglican Church. Porter rejects the accusation that the media focus on clerical sexual abuse is a conspiracy.
Sex, Power and the Clergy examines the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children and women, looking primarily at the inadequate responses of the leadership of churches. The focus of the book is on the Anglican and Catholic churches of Australia and the US. Porter’s avowed aim is to contextualise the crisis in terms of the churches’ attitudes to sexuality, women, power and leadership.
Porter argues that clerical sexual abuse is the result of the unhealthy patriarchal power structures of the mainstream Western churches. The book makes a cogent case, but it also leaves many questions unanswered. Porter acknowledges that she is not writing as an outsider; that as a committed Anglican laywoman she is both involved in the governance structures of the church she criticises and a long-term challenger of church patriarchy. Not surprisingly, Porter’s writing is strongly polemical. Porter argues that clergy have a greater responsibility than other individuals because they claim, implicitly or explicitly, to represent God. This may be a reasonable position, but when Hollingworth’s (then) failure to stand down from the position of Governor-General is compared unfavourably with Christ’s willingness to die despite his innocence, my sympathy turned to the clergy of whom so much is expected.
Sex, Power and the Clergy is a fascinating piece of journalism, but it frequently lacks sources and explanations for the arguments it makes. It is the first draft of a history that deserves much more
study.
Avril Hannah-Jones
Media Mania: why our fear of modern media is misplaced, Hugh Mackay. Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2002.
isbn 0 86840 709 7, rrp $24.95
Two elderly people sit together watching television, in silence, focused on the screen. Meanwhile, the wallpaper peels from the walls around them.
Hugh Mackay argues that the culture of blaming the media for society’s problems is misplaced. Images of guns and bombs on television do not make children violent. And advertisements for mobile phones that take photographs cannot make you buy one.
Mackay suggests we stop seeing