Murder In The Pulpit..and Other Encouraging Essays... Rev. Harlin Butterley

We were fortunate to interview the late, great Harlin Butterley. He was an extraordinary and remarkable character who will be very much missed.
Tribute to Harlin.

Harlin Butterley was ordained in Sydney in 1951, and after a curacy in Narrabeen, and a short stint in the parish of Mascot, he worked as the CMS secretary in Tasmania, following this with nearly ten years in Hong Kong as a school chaplain.

In 1967 he and his wife, Judy, Simon and Joanna, went to England and Germany, for service in the chaplaincy department of the British Army. From 1972 to 1980, Harlin was Dean of Hobart and Chaplain of St Michael’s Collegiate School, and this was followed by thirteen years as vicar of St Andrew’s, Brighton Victoria. He was chairman of Firbank Anglican School for that whole period and on the Council of Brighton Grammar School.

From 1993 to ‘retirement’ included service as a locum priest in vacant parishes, as a school chaplain at Brighton Grammar, and as an after dinner speaker with the Saxton Speakers’ Agency.

Harlin has been a Rotarian since 1972 and is still active in the Rotary Club of Brighton.

We asked Harlin a few questions….

What do you think of ‘retirement’?
As I am now nearing eighty, I have had a lot of time to contemplate retirement. I entered the ministry in 1951, earning 300 pounds a year, and with no mention of superannuation. Only in the final years was any provision made to help in retirement. But old vicars never die; they just use their old sermons again. So I had the opportunity to teach a few periods a week at Brighton Grammar for about eight years, and I have continued a regular locum ministry. So I still call myself semi retired.

And I have found the computer, with internet and the web has added a new interest and a new dimension.

Any comments on people and retirement?
Most of the people I know have been determined to remain involved and active in retirement. The main problem is usually financial, with also the ever looming question of where to go when you are unable to continue in your home or unit. I realise people are living longer, but so often it is evident, as I visit nursing homes, that it is very much life in inverted commas.

I have a great admiration for Probus clubs, started by Rotary, where retired people meet regularly, make new friends, and hear speakers address many of the questions that they themselves are facing.

Do you have a motto?
I think I have two. One, for myself, “All will be well”; and when speaking to my wife “Well, it’s not the end of the world”.

Harlin‘s latest book is called 'Murder In The Pulpit..and Other Encouraging Essays’. It is dedicated to Kate, his 19 year old grand-daughter who was killed, with three other girls, in a car accident in Tasmania.

PS:
The Age, April 13th 2007
By Lawrence Money, Birthday suits
CELEBRITY pastor Harlin Butterley, perhaps the only dog-collared public
speaker ever featured on TV's 60 Minutes, turned 80 this week and invitees
to his birthday knees-up at Brighton's St Andrews Church had to dive for
the hymn book to nut out his ruling on gifts: "I refer you to the first
line of the third verse of Rock of Ages."
There invitees discovered the following: “Nothing in my hand I bring.” Butterley later thanked the good Lord that none present had misunderstood and taken the third line as a guide instead.
You know the one: “Naked, I come to thee for dress.”