The Radical Irony of Tradition: Revis(ion)ing Antipodean Anglo-Catholicism

This essay uses the recent revisionary histories of Australian Anglo-Catholicism by Colin Holden to revisit the antinomies of conservatism and radicalism in traditions (theological and political). In particular, it highlights the radical ironies contained within “retro-radicalism” of Anglo-Catholicism whereby the renewal of tradition requires both the recognition of its own plural and conflictual history and an active engagement with contemporary challenges. By developing a peripheral vision of the peculiar and contingent stories of provincial and regional traditions of one reform movement within Australian Anglicanism, Holden's histories offer a rich and complex vision of recurring global themes of centre and periphery: of empire and colony, imperialism and nationalism, race and culture, city and country, church and state. It is concluded that the future of Anglo-Catholicism, after the fact of its historic decline, must perforce lie in a rediscovery of its radical kernel: namely, of a sacramental connecting of ritual and art to the politics of socialism and associative democracy, and in both keys reaffirming a theology of the Trinitarian God.