Moore Theological College, otherwise known simply as Moore College, is the theological training seminary of the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia. The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney holds ex officio the presidency of the Moore Theological College Council.
The college has a strong tradition of conservative evangelical theology with an emphasis on the study of the Bible in its original languages, the use of primary sources in theology, the heritage of the Reformation and the integration of theology and ministry practice. It gives particular attention to full-time study in the context of a Christian learning community as an appropriate context for training for full-time Christian ministry, however it also offers part-time and online learning opportunities. The college trains both men and women at every level of its program. On 1 July 2021, Moore College was recognised by the Australian Government's Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency as an Australian University College.
Overview The college is one of the largest Anglican seminaries in the world, with normally around 300 full-time students in its BTh and ThM programs. Over its history, it has had 13 principals and over 5000 graduates. While Anglican in foundation and governance, it has also trained Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists and others who are sympathetic to the evangelical ethos and theology of the college. The college has also prepared missionaries, church planters and independent church pastors. It attracts students from around the world into its undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
While the largest group studying in its four-year full-time undergraduate program is typically those preparing for Anglican ordained ministry, Moore has also trained other Christian workers. Moore graduates also serve as school chaplains, Christian studies teachers and scripture teachers, university chaplains and staff workers, cross-cultural missionaries, social workers, community workers, hospital and nursing home/retirement village chaplains and refugee advocacy workers.
Moore College has an international reputation as the home of evangelical biblical theology. In the 1950s through to the 1970s, Donald Robinson pioneered a way of seeing how the whole Bible fits together as God's unfolding purposes. The underlying pattern of promise and fulfilment unfolds as God's gospel promise of salvation, first for the Jews and then for all the nations, is given to Abraham, partially fulfilled in Israel's history, and realised in the coming of the Christ.D. W. B. Robinson, 'The Pattern of Biblical Truth', reprinted in Donald Robinson Selected Works: Volume 3, Biblical and Liturgical Studies, ed. E. A. Loane (Sydney: ACR/Moore College, 2018) in 232–255. In the 1980s and 1990s, these ideas were developed by Robinson's pupil, Graeme Goldsworthy, in a series of books, Gospel and Kingdom, According to Plan, and Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture.G. L. Goldsworthy, Gospel and Kingdom: A Christian Interpretation of the Old Testament (Exeter: Paternoster, 1981); According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (Leicester: IVP, 1991); Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Biblical theology in this mode has been characteristic of the work done at Moore College since Robinson's time as vice principal.
Robinson was also influential in developing a doctrine of the church that, in a distinctive way, resisted the strongly ecumenical tone of the mid twentieth century. A study of the terminology and contextual associations of 'church' in the Bible led Robinson to insist 'church' is a gathering, either fundamentally around Christ in heaven and instantiated throughout the world in local congregations.D. W. B. Robinson, 'The Church of God, Its Form and Unity', reprinted in Donald Robinson Selected Works: Volume 1, Assembling God's People, ed. P. G. Bolt & M. D. Thompson (Sydney: ACR/Moore College, 2008), 230–253. Each congregation is the church, and associations of congregations (denominations), while valuable, cannot attribute to themselves the identity and privileges of 'church'.D. B. Knox, 'The church, the churches and the denominations of the churches', reprinted in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works: Volume 2, Church and Ministry, ed. K. Birkett (Kingsford, NSW: Matthias Media, 2003), 85–98. Such structures exist to support the local congregation in its life as a community of faithful men and women committed to the global gospel mission. Broughton Knox gave these conclusions added theological depth in his own studies of 'fellowship' and the critical nature of 'relationship'.D. B. Knox, 'The Biblical Concept of Fellowship', reprinted in D. Broughton Knox Selected Works: Volume 2, Church and Ministry, ed. K. Birkett (Kingsford, NSW: Matthias Media, 2003), 57–84. While this perspective was sometimes decried as 'congregationalism', both men were active throughout their lives in the work of the Diocese of Sydney, and Robinson himself became a bishop and, in time, Archbishop of Sydney. They cannot be construed as congregationalists in any pure sense of the word. However, their teaching gave a priority to the local congregation over denominational and ecumenical concerns, and located the unity of the church, something to be maintained rather than established, in the unity of the heavenly gathering around the throne of Christ.
Moore College has played a role in the shape of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney by training the vast majority of the diocese's clergy, including the last five Archbishops of Sydney, three of which were also full-time members of the college faculty. Members of the current faculty also serve in various capacities in the diocese, including its Synod, Standing Committee, the Social Issues Committee and the Sydney Diocesan Doctrine Commission.
History Thomas Hobbes Scott, the first Archdeacon of New South Wales (1825–29), shared his vision for a tertiary training college in the colony in the 1830 Report of the Church and Schools Corporation.See P.G. Bolt, 'Training Colonial Clergy after Moore's Will and Before Moore's College', in Thomas Moore of Liverpool: One of our Oldest Colonists. Essays and Addresses to Celebrate 150 Years of Moore College (Camperdown NSW: Bolt Publishing Services, 2007), 249–293, and "Educating for Eternity: Ultimate Learning Outcomes in Colonial NSW", in P.G. Bolt & P. Laughlin (eds.), God’s Exemplary Graduates. Character-Oriented Graduate Attributes in Theological Education (LATT Series No.2; Macquarie Park, NSW: SCD Press, 2021), 32–57. With this vision in mind, one of the early settlers of the colony of New South Wales, Thomas Moore,See P.G. Bolt, Thomas Moore of Liverpool. One of Our Oldest Colonists. Essays & Addresses to Celebrate 150 Years of Moore College (Camperdown, NSW: Bolt Publishing Services, 2007); and A Portrait in his Actions. Thomas Moore (1762–1840). Part 1: From Lesbury to Liverpool (Camperdown, NSW: Bolt Publishing Services, 2010). made provision in his will to leave a substantial portion of his considerable fortuneP.G. Bolt, ‘Thomas Moore’s Fortune: How Did He Get it? How Did He Use it?’, Anglican Historical Society Journal 56.2 (2011), 39–50. to found a college to train young men in 'the principles of the United Church of England and Ireland'.M. L. Loane, A Centenary History of Moore Theological College (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1955), 8. Moore died in 1840, but the vision was realised when Bishop Frederic Barker opened Moore College on 1 March 1856 in Moore's former home in Liverpool, New South Wales. In terms of the date of opening, at least, the college is, therefore, the third-oldest tertiary institution in Australia after the University of Sydney (1850) and the University of Melbourne (1853). It began with three students and one full-time tutor, the principal. For almost the first one hundred years of its life (1856–1953), the principals of the college came from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Marcus Loane was the first Australian-born principal of the college (1953–58). The current principal, Mark D. Thompson, took up office in May 2013.
After a theological controversy which, alongside a downturn in student enrolments, led to the dismissal of the principal of the day (T. E. Hill), the teaching activity of the college was suspended in 1888. It reopened in 1891, at the present site in Newtown adjacent to the University of Sydney. The college began to grow in student numbers and influence, particularly under the important principalships of Nathaniel Jones (1897–1911) and later T. C. Hammond (1935–1953).J. A. McIntosh, Anglican Evangelicalism in Sydney 1897 to 1953: Nathaniel Jones, D. J. Davies and T. C. Hammond (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2018). However, the college's most notable leader in 20th century was Broughton Knox (1959-1985).M. Cameron, An Enigmatic Life: David Broughton Knox, Father of Contemporary Sydney Anglicanism (Brunswick East, Vic: Acorn, 2006). His vision, drive and shrewd management of the college saw it built into a theological college with an international reputation, a noted faculty and students spreading out from Sydney to many other parts of Australia and the globe.
The site on which the college reopened in 1891 has expanded considerably since then. Numerous adjacent buildings have been acquired or built. The Broughton Knox Teaching Centre was opened in 1994. In 2017, a major new building was opened that houses, amongst other things, the Donald Robinson Library and Marcus Loane Hall.
By 1985, the Donald Robinson Library held 90,000 books, and it has since grown to contain close to 300,000 works, including numerous manuscripts and other items of significance to Anglican, Australian and Evangelical history.Details of Moore College Collection In recent years, it has developed a significant body of electronic resources and a growing collection of rare books, including the Latimer Library, which was once housed in Latimer House Oxford and was acquired by the library in 2020. In the 1970s, the college established its own theological bookstore, I.M.P.A.C.T. Books, which was later renamed MooreBooks. With the advent of internet books sales, Moore Books became financially unsustainable and was closed in 2012.
Well-known Moore College theologians and writers have included Broughton Knox, Donald Robinson, Paul Barnett, Peter Jensen, Graeme Goldsworthy, Peter O'Brien, David Peterson, Barry Webb, John Woodhouse, Peter Bolt, Mark D. Thompson, Andrew G. Shead, Paul R. Williamson, Edward Loane and Tony Payne. Through the influence of Moore College, Sydney Anglicanism has maintained its distinctive Evangelical perspective within worldwide Anglicanism.Darling, B. (2009). "Sydney and Melbourne Anglicans from 1836 to 2009: Historical and personal reflections"
In 2021, Moore College received approval to develop new student accommodation for 91students to replace the existing John Chapman House on the corner of City Road and Carillon Avenue in Newtown, New South Wales.
Annual events In 1977, the college began to host an annual lecture series: the Annual Moore College Lectures, which have been a showcase of leading contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, and most of which have been subsequently published. International guests who have contributed to the lecture series have included J. I. Packer, F. F. Bruce, D. A. Carson, Kenneth Kantzer, Henri Blocher, Mike Ovey, Ashley Null, Gerald Bray, Michael Horton, Kevin Vanhoozer, Carl Trueman, James Hely Hutchinson and Thomas R. Schreiner. Past and present Moore College faculty have also contributed to this lecture series.