Welcome to a special Anglican TV interview. I have with me David Old. He's a priest and well you're in Australia. Are you the priest of Sydney, Australia? In the Dostos of Sydney in Australia, yes. All right. As I mentioned before, we have David Olden. Again, he's a regular contributor from Down Under, bringing us news that happens as it happens. And right now, it's happening. You're electing a new archbishop of Sydney. He will be the Metropolitan also of South Wales. New South Wales. New South Wales. Too many terms for us Americans to know. We just, you know, we'll do North Carolina and a South Carolina, but a new South Wales. That's just too much. You do have a New York and a new Jersey. Yeah. Just top of the thing about that for a moment. Yeah. Okay. So let's make the announcement. Sure. So it's not official yet. As you and I speak, although perhaps it will be when this goes to air, but the results have just been announced from what's called the final list election of our election for a new archbishop. That is to say there were two names left on the paper, the previous evening, two of the candidates having been removed from that list. And all those two names, only one candidate got a majority in both houses of the Synod and the clergy and the lay. And that candidate is Kanishka Rafale, who is currently the Dean of the Cathedral in Sydney. He was always going into the election, the presumptive favourite. So it was going to be a hard work for any other candidate to get enough support, I think, to overcome that. But Synod over the last two or three nights has had the chance to test that notion. And it's come, it's clearly come to a mind now that Kanishka Rafale is going to be Sydney's new archbishop. They will meet in a few hours time here in Sydney, I think in about five or six hours time, they'll be meeting. There'll be a final list election. There'll be one name on the list. Kanishka Rafale's name is straight up and down. Yes, on a vote, you should expect to see almost everyone say yes to that name. And then if it's anything like the last archbishop that I was part of, at that point, Kanishka Rafale, the archbishop elect will be called in to rapture and support and he'll give a short speech to Synod. He'll expect to see the press releases and all that. But it's de facto now. It's as good as the man standing up at the Republican Democratic Convention with the votes in the bag. A little bit of background. How many rounds did this go? Sure. So this went to competitive rounds and the round tonight will be the third round. On the first round, we had four candidates. Kanishka Rafale himself. And then the other candidate who was thought to have a chance really, which was Bishop Michael Stead, who's one of the regional bishops in Sydney, well-liked candidates, seen maybe as a little bit more of an administrator than the charismatic leader. And that certainly was one of the big issues that came up. I understand in the debate in Synod over the last two nights. Alongside those two, we had Bishop Peter Haywood and Bishop Chris Edwards. All, both of them also regional bishops in Sydney. On the first night, it's a straight up or down vote on individual bishops. Do you want them to go forward to the next round? And on that one, it was only Kanishka and Michael, who went through. And then last night Synod voted on each of them, individually, to put them through to the final round. And the results were just posted. You see them on my website, David Olds.net. And Kanishka was the only name that went through. So two nights of proper debate. And tonight, a bit of a, I want to say coronation kind of feel to it. Although that obviously will be the consecration, which will happen. I think later this month. All right. Number one topic in my, my book, shoes to fill. Can this can, shoes to fill, can this candidate fill the shoes of the previous two archbishop's in, in Gaff contimes? You know, we're now in, you know, we're down Gaff contimes. We're dealing no longer with an effective Anglican communion. The instruments of unity are shot. The Archbishop of Canterbury is, you know, basically A wall. They don't let the primates do anything. The AAC is useless. Or ACC is useless. So, you know, can this candidate fill the shoes? Well, yes. He's a known entity in our, in our last general Synod that happened here in Australia. He of course was the composer alongside with Bishop Richard Condi, who's the chair of Gaff cont Australia, who's the composer of the main motion on the issues that divide as he, and that was a motion censoring the Scottish Episcopal Church. I spoke very clearly to that. And has been speaking on a number of occasions at events on that issue. So, in terms of where he stands on the, on the key contentious issues, no change. I just described a moment ago to someone else who asked me exactly the same question. Different hand on the tiller. Exactly the same direction. There'll be a bit of a different style. Canisca is not a Sydney man through and through and through. I don't think brought up in the Darse's. His parents came to Australia from Sri Lanka when he was seven years old. So, he's always been a little bit culturally outside Sydney. But Sydney is clearly embraced in as their own. And we don't elect people that we're not confident in. So, there's the great deal of confidence in Canisca. He's media wise. We're looking at someone who actually is getting better and better at being in the media. Got that same sort of win some approach that Glen Davis became known for. And he's also well respected around the traps. Canisca was the wrecked for many years of St Matthew's Chentin Park in the Darse's of Perth. It was essentially a lighthouse, not the only evangelical, but a lighthouse gospel place in what many people might consider to be a Darse's that's gone off the rails. And he handled those relationships very, very well, worked his place in the Darse's very, very well and hard to find anyone that speaks ill of him even if they disagreed with him profoundly on theology. So, all around a great choice. And all I'm hearing some people say right now is that actually Bishop Michael Stead is keeping his position as a regional bishop, right hand man, the slightly more administratively minded, the more theologically adept, even more theologically adept guy as well, one would say that's the one thing about Canisca that's different to the previous two. The previous two have had doctrines in theology and have been known as theologians. Canisca doesn't have that reputation, but he does have a reputation as a fine Bible teacher, a great expositor, and a leader of people as well. So, yeah, not quite the same, but Stead is she goes, I think is where we're looking at with a little bit of flair perhaps. And so, how is he going to be received by the other, and I'm going to say this, provinces, you have many provinces within your province, three provinces within your province, how will he be received by the other Archbishop's? So, look, when he sits down with the Metropolitan Archbishop's and the rest of the Darse's and Bishops, obviously he's a different man, maybe a slightly different tone and style of engagement. But I think they are acknowledged already, there'll be very little shift in position. The GaffCon position hasn't changed and Canisca of course is fully signed up to that as so many of us are. He's won some like Glen Davies was before him. I think Glen Davies' great advantage was that he worked so hard at relationships that when people, well, let's be frank about it, broke their word, went back on agreements. The notion that they've done so to a gentleman, such as Glen Davies, made it doubly bad. I don't see that changing much with Canisca himself. Like I said before, boats moving exactly the same direction, just a different captain but holding the tiller in exactly the same angle that it was before. What's really interesting here is not so much the National stuff which hasn't changed, but the Synod was addressed right at the start by its president, which is Peter Lynn, one of the bishops that wasn't nominated. Our big challenge here is not just the National Church issues, but Sydney is expanding exponentially. It's a strange city. It's bunched up against the coast and the CBD is right upon the Pacific coast and then sprawling out westward is the growing Sydney, greater Sydney base and we're expecting to see two and a half, maybe million more people in the next 20 years or so. That's the great challenge for us, not just those political things, but getting churches built and planted into those new communities that are growing all the time and he'll have to be thinking hard about that as well how we put their structures in place. Yeah, we get some preview to the Australian politics up here in the upper great regions and you're just about as quizzes, we are sometimes. Do you mean the actual politics in our national parliament? Yes. I don't know what I can add to that. Yeah, we're all doomed aren't we? Come Lord Jesus. Yes, indeed. I mean, well we'll talk about that sometime. Well, thank you so much David for the update. I'm going to put this online so people get the information first hand. Thanks Kevin, great to be with you. Do keep praying for us.