Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Jensenists strike at National Broadcaster

There has been a furore in our local paper this week about the axing of a program on our National Broadcaster (ABC) called The Religion Report.
Today the axing has been criticised by Archbishop Philip Wilson, the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the President of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Reverend Gregor Henderson, and the President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Patel as well as the Primate of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall.

However, guess what, the Sydney Anglican Diocese outed itself yesterday as one group grateful for the program's demise.
"The Religion Report has conducted several in-depth interviews with the Sydney Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, over the past five years. The program has also given voice to many opponents of the conservative Sydney Diocese. In an interview with Crittenden in January, Peter Phillips, the conductor of the renowned choir The Tallis Scholars, publicly accused Dr Jensen and his brother Phillip Jensen, the Dean of Sydney, of hypocrisy and compared them with Poland's notorious former leaders, the Kaczynski twins."

These thugs will brook no criticism and want everyone else under their thumb.

I am attending a series of lectures on "Preparing for Holy Week and Easter"
We are studying a Book of Liturgies published by the Liturgy Commission of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia. The book is only published online for study and will never be in print. Why? Because this would require approval by the General Synod and the Jensenists will fight it tooth and nail.

One of the book's authors is our lecturer (from the Diocese of Adelaide) and he was surprised to learn that on Good Friday we do not invite the congregation to come to the foot of the cross for private devotion. He was told a number of years ago we made the mistake of inviting one of our local bishops to preach and the parish were ordered not to allow worship of the cross in future. He told us of one of the most moving occasions in his priesthood. As he held the cross while members of the congregation approached he observed two women, both widowed in the previous few months but not close friends, coming arm in arm to the cross.

God preserve us from the hypocrisies of the Jensens and their tribe of followers. I wish they would leave the true Anglicans of Sydney to worship in their own way.

4 comments:

Fran said...

Astounding. I can't believe that about the veneration of the Cross.

Many prayers for you all.

Davis said...

The Jensenites are so dreadfully dull and uninspiring - I can't imagine a God that would want such intensely boring stuff s they ptoclaim...

BooCat said...

Any time I get discouraged about the church in America, a quick visit "downunder" reminds me just how reasonable it remains up here. As always, you all continue in my prayers.

Brian R said...

Thanks Boocat, fortunately the problems are only in Sydney, the rest of Australian Anglicanism is quite sane. However numerically Sydney is able to cause problems.