In her book, The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle gives us some great insights. On the one hand, it is not a new thought that every change that may be thought of as an advance will invariably create an element of stubborn resistance against it. Significant change is a battlefield and takes time and patience. But Tickle digs deeper. She points out that change inevitably impacts the older reality itself. If one has a much needed Reformation, expect a Counter-reformation! And take heart that it is also an achievement of change that probably would not have happened without the other’s initial impetus.

Of course, for the Reformers, the Counter-reformers didn’t go far enough. But there was reform. And these days the animosity between most Catholics and Protestants has dissipated, while acknowledging two ways of being, two different authorities. And now perhaps they both find themselves in need of a new reformation!

Change agents might take courage that the very process of engaging in change has a changing affect on nay-saying resistors. Why, who would have thought, when Albanese announced a referendum to enshrine an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament, that at this stage, nay-sayer Peter Dutton would announce that he, if elected, would have his own referendum!