Ecclesiastical man at the top

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34041, 3 January 1976, Page 10

Ecclesiastical man at the top

Watch How You Go. By Martin Sullivan. Hodder and Stoughton. 220 pp. N.Z. price $10.95. New Zealanders in many parts of the country will look forward to reading the autobiography of the Very Reverend Martin Sullivan, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, because they remember well his down-to-earth and direct style of writing and speaking. A straightforward man who never suffered fools gladly, he looses his scorn only on those whom he regarded as incompetent, intolerant or mean-minded, such as a previous Bishop of Auckland who managed to turn St John’s College into a seminary isolated from the life of Auckland University. A man at the top meets most of the other men at the top. Understandably there are more English names at the top than there are New Zealand ones, and the latter part of the book on his work in London is more stimulating than the earlier chronological account of his growing up in New Zealand. He gives tantalising glimpses into famous personalities. Yet in spite of rubbing cassocks with the great and being flattered by Princess Grace of Monaco, what shines through is Martin Sullivan’s sympathy with the ordinary and his tolerance of humati foible. In normal people and their pilgrimage he has found more than “glimpses of the love of God,” and he writes of that with quiet honesty. He is honest about himself as well, mentioning his fear under shellfire in Italy, blows to his pride, his awkwardness dealing with “working men” (this in .spite of the fact that they appreciate his directness), and his reaction to today’s youth. Martin Sullivan likes young adults and writes feelingly of their struggles, and describes the motives behind the vouth festival, “Pop in St Paul’s,” which suffered heavy criticism from the commentators for. his “stunts.” in a way that use of St Paul’s was a symbol of the style of ministry engaged in by Martin Sullivan, always moving out, attempting to involve the church with the community in which the church stands. Influenced heavily by his short but inflential post-war time at St Martin-in-the-Fields, he attempted to transplant the vitality of that parish programme into Te Awamutu. He moved on to vigorous university chaplaincy at Victoria University College, to College House and then the Deanery at Christchurch, keeping always the relevance of the church’s mission to the community in his mind. “My job,” he says “is to communicate the Gospel,’’ and his style of doing

that in a relevant manner has always been one which aroused some accusation of showmanship. Clergymen should take note of his experience that w’hat worked in one situation failed in another. The successful lunch-time addresses, part of his ministry to this city, did not work when transplanted to the West End parish of St Mary, Bryanston Square. Nor did the Christmas tree. But the innovative style of ministry, and the qualities of personality which he showed in Christchurch seem to benefit St Paul’s Cathedral. He keeps asking the same questions of relevance, and while he attempts to cope with change, he does not necessarily like it. Martin Sullivan’s story is a success story, which for a churchman is not as paradoxical as it would seem. And yet while it has been a full and “successful” life, it has not been without agonies. He writes of his bitter disappointment at not being elected Bishop of Waikato, of the despair which faced him and his wife when they arrived at Bryanston Square in mid-winter, and of his wife’s death, who had graced all their successive homes with “simplicity, beauty, and dignity.” About his ministry at St Paul’s some fascinating questions still -remain. Was it really Martin Sullivan who invented “Jesus Christ — Superstar”? Rice and Webber certainly talked with him before they began their project. Will Harold Wilson ever tell the truth about the Dean’s appointment when he retires? Will the massive restoration programme for St Paul’s, touched on only lightly in the book, overcome the financial difficulties which now beset it? With the postscript we begin to get into the mind of the man, not merely what he does, but why he does it. Martin Sullivan’s autobiography shows him as a libera! of the old school, with a breadth of spirit and imagination. Ecumenical in spirit but grounded in Anglicanism, intolerant of bigotrv, suspicious of party politics and distrustful of religious power, socially concerned for powerless individuals, but doubtful of the church’s political involvement. A gifted speaker and preacher he believes the “spoken word continues to have power,” and uses the brilliant phrase almost as a throw-away line. He is distrustful of the news media after their often careless treatment of him. It is surprising that his search for an appropriate way of working out the mission of the church in a contemporary form earned him the journalistic title of “the swinging Dean.”

For at the heart of Martin Sullivan s ministry is the person of Christ and the proclaiming of his purpose and power. A photograph in the book shows him in typical pose, during a service, arm and head flung back in a characteristic gesture of blessing all the world in the name of God, baptising it in Christ’s name. Perhaps that is how he would like to be remembered. He writes of his predecessor. Dean W. R. Matthews, “He adorned his office and from the pulpit and by his pen enlightened us all.” Maybe the present Dean of St Paul’s has done the same.