"I don't know how candid I should be," he said last week, "but Sydney Anglicanism goes through its ebbs and flows. It's a lot more precise and defined right now than it was in '80s."

Asked if this was a polite way of saying Sydney Anglicanism had become too rigid, he paused, laughed and added: "Yes, it probably is."

To add to all this misery, Enoch Powell had made his inflammatory 'rivers of blood' speech in Birmingham, igniting a race relations crisis. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Richard Nixon, already presciently regarded by many as a crook, was elected president.

Artist Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1512 to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here, God gives life to Adam

At the same I am aware of a growing atmosphere among American Christians that I would describe as fearful apprehension. I see responses among my fellow believers that call for political responses such as lobbying for the closures of mosques, or the censure of all immigration on the part of people from Islamic areas.

Yun said he became a believer in Jesus Christ when his father was supernaturally healed of cancer.

"I received a call to serve the Lord and to preach the gospel during the Cultural Revolution in China. As a result, I was arrested and ended up in prison several times.