Marcus Loane 1911-2009

This obituary article by Iain Murray appears in the new June Banner of Truth Magazine.

The wider evangelical world hardly knew that there was ‘a prince and a great man fallen this day’, when Marcus Lawrence Loane died on 14 April 2009. At ninety-seven, he had outlived so many of his colleagues, and was seldom seen in the public work of the churches in recent years. In one sense he belonged to an age that was past. With his main convictions formed before 1939, he was a representative of an evangelical, Protestant Anglicanism that today is too largely a matter of history. It may be doubted if any archbishops remain in the world who commend the beliefs and witness of the Puritans as he did. Born in Tasmania, 14 October 1911, Loane studied at the University of Sydney and Moore Theological College before his ordination in 1935. He looked back with thankfulness to the preachers who were his examples in that period. They included the Rev. George Mackay of the Free Church of Scotland who, as a visitor from the Scottish Highlands, spent twelve months preaching in St George’s, Sydney, in 1929.

I was so impressed by the preacher that I began to attend regularly. Mr Mackay took a personal interest in me, encouraged me in my studies, and made no secret of his hopes that I would eventually be ordained. I will never forget the sense of awe, the deep reverence, and the solemnity of his preaching. His ministry left a lasting mark on my life.

Another of Loane’s early guides was the Rev. D. J. Knox, rector of a Sydney parish, whose daughter Patricia he married in December 1937 — ‘The greatest prize I ever won was the heart of the noblest girl I ever knew.’ The next month they sailed for Britain, where he served at Edgware and St Thomas’s, Edinburgh. This formed life-long contacts with the ‘mother-country’ and with such friends as Dr Douglas Johnson of the Inter-Varsity-Fellowship.

In 1939, at the age of 27, Marcus Loane became Vice-Principal of Moore College, which work was to be interrupted by war service as a chaplain in the armed forces in Papua New Guinea from 1942-1944. In 1954 he became Principal of Moore College, and in 1958 was consecrated as a bishop. He would enjoy repeating the words of a non-Anglican minister to him on the latter event, ‘Congratulations on becoming what some of us have long been.’ It was in the year 1959, when the leadership at Moore College passed to his brother-in-law, David Broughton Knox, that Sydney was stirred by the preaching of Dr Billy Graham. Bishop Loane took a leading part in that campaign and made it the subject of one of his early books. In 1966 he became the first Australian-born Archbishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia from 1978-1982. He was knighted in 1975. The termination of public office for Sir Marcus did not mean ‘retirement’. What was first for him he expressed in the sentence, ‘I trust that the Lord who began a good work in me will continue it until the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ On his eightieth birthday he added his approval to the words of Charles Simeon, ‘I seem to be so near the goal that I cannot but run with all my might.’ For many years after that date he remained active in writing, reading, encouraging, and corresponding. When, on occasions, he still preached he did not forget the rules he had long given to students, ‘Sermons must possess three essential elements: insight, logic, passion.’ Marcus Loane has left to us a large heritage of books. Three of them are currently in print from the Banner of Truth Trust – an organization with which he had cordial relations. They are Masters of the English Reformation, They Were Pilgrims, and Jesus Himself: the Story of the Resurrection. His Makers of Puritan History is currently being reprinted by the same publishers. In addition, the present writer values another 14 Loane titles on his shelves, and they do not constitute the total output. Archbishop Loane has written on both English and Australian Anglican evangelicalism in the first half of the twentieth century. His works contain information invaluable for evangelical history, and his record challenges the idea that the best-known clergy of that period were weak ‘pietists’ who withdrew into corners. His narratives are always at their most inspirational when he is dealing with the evangelicals whose lives changed the direction of history. He wrote of such men Tyndale, Latimer, Bunyan, Baxter and Whitefield, not out of any longing for the past but from the conviction that the Christianity these men had would be admired and followed long after the trivial reading of the present is long forgotten. Those who did not understand him thought him too conservative – ‘his reading had not kept pace with the times’ – but it is in part from the influence of Loane’s books that a new generation is already arising. His vision was for the future, and he had faith in the promise, ‘Instead of your fathers will be your sons’ (Psa. 45:16). Sir Marcus was a Christian of dignity and humility; firm and courageous; kind and courteous to all. When the frailties of age at last overtook him, his mind and memory remained as comprehensive as ever. Few who have known it can forget the hospitality of his home. For that he would have been the first to point to Patricia, ‘My true fellow-pilgrim to that city whose builder and maker is God.’ It was only in the last weeks of life that home had to be left for hospital. Perhaps it was there that he thought for the last time of the words of the Australian evangelist, John Ridley, that he liked to quote:

‘No more sorrow’, Sing to me By the shining of the crystal sea! ‘No more sorrow’, on that shore Where the waves have lost their roar.

‘No more tears.’ All grief has fled! No more weeping for the dead. Former things will pass away At the dawn of God’s great day

Sir Marcus is survived by Lady Loane. Billy Graham spoke of them both in 2008 as ‘two great servants of God’. There are four children, 17 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren, with another soon to be born.

Banner are soon to print his Makers of Puritan History.