The best of a bad choice

I think.

But who knows in Sydney Diocese?

It has been announced that Bishop Glenn Davies of North Sydney is to be the next Archbishop of Sydney.  He is 62, so will have to retire in 8 years whereas the other candidate was only 49 and the diocese could have been stuck with him for 21 years although he apparently said he would only stay for 15.
it seems Dean Philip Jensen was campaigning for the alternative and wrote some on the surface polite criticisms of Bishop Davies. That would be the obvious reason for me to prefer Davies. I have written elsewhere that I knew Philip at University and even in those days did not like him and actually told him once he was not a real Anglican.  I think he was pleased.  It would be great if he was soon sacked but, of course, that will not happen but he is only a year younger than me so will soon be 70.
I also read there is an emergent generation of bright young, evangelicals, now in their early 40s, who are still conservative but seem to think for themselves.  Philip must be losing his touch.

Both candidates oppose any teaching role for women in the church. they also agreed they would continue to license women to preach if a parish asked them to, but they would not encourage the practice. Women can only lead Bible studies if a man leads too. If the man was sick, Glenn added, then you would not necessarily need to cancel.

I just find this unbelievable. 

In my youth when I was still an evangelical and the idea of women being ordained was just surfacing.  I am pleased to remember that I was in favour.  I remember arguing with my then rector. He was an old school evangelical. He once reprimanded me that, although I spent most of Sunday at the church with sunday school teaching, Christian Endeavour, afternoon meetings, Youth fellowship and Evening Prayer, I rarely attended 8am Holy Communion so only took Communion once a month in the evening.  In other words, I had imbibed the Evangelical view that preaching was more important than the sacraments.

He was not theologically opposed to women teaching/preaching but believed that if women became priests, men would leave the running of the church to them.

I felt he would be turning in his grave last Sunday.  

In my church in Roslyn, Dunedin, the vicar is on leave.  

At our service last Sunday, our woman associate priest presided and preached. As Jo was ordained while I was in Rome,  it was the first time I have been present when she has presided at the Eucharist so was a time of joy for me.  Barbara, our deacon and a good friend, read the Gospel and carried out the other deacon's duties. Both lessons were read by laywomen  and the prayers of the faithful were led by Verna, the parish licensed lay minister.

A young boy was the crucifer and altar assistant and I think our male church warden assisted with the distribution so some males were involved. :-)

I can find nothing Christlike in those who deny women roles in the church. The current situation in England with flying bishops and no women bishops is ridiculous and, of course, I do not see why any young person, especially women, would be attracted to belong to churches in the Diocese of Sydney except the handful of Anglo-catholic parishes such as St James, King Street.

Schadenfreude

May God forgive me for my feelings.

Anglican Church slashes staff, programs

 AUSTRALIA'S richest Anglican diocese will slash staff and ministries after revealing it lost $160 million on the sharemarket - $60 million more than reported at the height of the global sharemarket downturn.

The cutbacks will be deepest at St Andrew's House, Archbishop Peter Jensen's power centre, with central funds for ministries and programs to spread the Gospel slashed by half over the next three years.

In its report to the synod, the board expresses regret for mistakes made, not only for its highly geared portfolio which exposed it to the market freefall, but for realising debts just as the market rebounded. ''We thought we would be able to ride out the fluctuations in the market and hold the bulk of our market positions.

''We did not, however, envisage the severity of the falls that occurred concurrently in the various markets due to the global financial crisis. Our diversification strategy did not provide the protection we had expected.''

As a result, distributions from the diocesan endowment fund - the main source of funding allocated by head office to support ministry and organisations outside the diocese - halved to $5.3 million.

This is in a country which is the only western country not to have fallen into technical recession and has been the first western country to begin raising interest rates as we have managed to avoid the worst of the GFC.

Perhaps it will keep ++Jensen at home and stop him interfering in the affairs of the World Anglican Communion. We can but hope.

There is a television program interviewing Jensen next Sunday night. I do not know if I can watch it,   There would be a risk to my TV screen.

Archbishops??? of Sydney

As I have noted before, Sydney is particularly cursed in its Archbishops, both Catholic and Anglican.
Cardinal Pell naturally agreed with the Pope in an interview at Easter and as reported by David Marr in Pell rides papal bandwagon of death
"They encourage promiscuity," the cardinal told Sky Television. "The idea that you can solve a great spiritual and health crisis like AIDS with a few mechanical contraptions like condoms is ridiculous."

It's hardly news but in the face of this ridicule it has to be said again: Australia waged the world's most effective war on AIDS by ignoring the Catholic Church. We did not heed the demands of John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI. We encouraged people to use condoms, we distributed clean syringes and we saved thousands of lives.

Of course there has been plenty of criticism from people who actually know what they are talking about like medical practitioners especially those dealing with AIDS patients.

Archbishop Jensen has not been so controversial this year but one does cringe when the TV news shows him preaching on Easter Day from the Cathedral pulpit in a coat and tie. If he is ashamed to wear the vestments of an Anglican bishop he could just resign from the Anglican Communion and make us all very happy, he would not be missed.

His brother the Dean, however, who is an even bigger twit (and was when I knew him at university in the 60's) managed to comment on the same matter by admitting Anglicans are not opposed to condoms but blaming the whole thing on Virginia Woolf who apparently brought all the evils of the sexual revolution upon us.

"In terms of adultery, in terms of divorce, in terms of grandchildren [???], yes we are in big trouble as a society because of the sexual revolution," he said.

"It came out of Virginia Woolf and that crowd (in England in the early 20th century)."

Apparently such things did not happen before then.

Have to tell that to my Great Grandmother who in 1857 at age 17 gave birth to my grandfather (Father Unknown). Of course it is all her fault that I am having trouble finding my ancestors. Apparently this was a common problem at the time long before Virginia Woolf.

I see next Sunday the preacher at St James, King Street is to be the Very Reverend Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark Cathedral. I googled him and found an interview on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission, our national broadcaster) in 2005 at the time of the furore over Canon Jeffery John.

Some of his comments are delightful.

"I think his (Archbishop Jensen) role in particular has been really quite reprehensible because for any Archbishop anywhere, to interfere in the affairs of another province, or as he did, in the affairs of another diocese, namely the diocese of Oxford, is completely out of order.

The association of independent provinces, the 38 of them around the world, has always depended upon mutual trust and freedom of action and for people from around the world, and the Archbishop of Sydney isn't the only one to have done so, to get involved in another country's activities is actually breaking with Anglican tradition and very un-Anglican. ........

the Sydney diocese is well renowned around the world as being a very maverick place where the Archbishop can appoint his own brother as dean, where he can extend his own tenure, where all sorts of strange things can happen that haven't happened anywhere else in the world."

I look forward to his sermon but guess he will not actually criticise Jensen while preaching in the Sydney Diocese, more's the pity.

However Peter Jensen is quite capable of making a fool of himself as seen in the following:

On this rock the Jensens build a church

Only a half truth but one does not know whether to laugh or cry.

Scene: St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. The stained glass windows have been boarded up, the altar table pushed into a corner, and the choir stalls broken up for scrap. A team of qualified demolition experts are using specialist heritage-sensitive tools (a jackhammer and two wrecking bars) to prise the last pipes out of the organ for scrap.Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney (enters, looks round): All the Gothic business means the acoustics are rubbish, but this will do until I can bulldoze it and build something modern.
Read the rest
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/on-this-rock-the-jensens-build-a-church/2008/09/11/1220857739151.html

Why Sydney Oh God?

It is claimed Sydney is a godless, pleasure and money seeking city. Is it any wonder most see the churches as irrelevant when we have two Archbishops who could only be regarded as complete jokes except they are serious.

I do not say much about Cardinal Pell but I taught in Catholic schools for many years and know most of my fellow teachers were exasperated by him. He is in the limelight at the moment at World Youth Day and yesterday he said
"Jesus didn't run around handing out condoms, we preach what Jesus taught."
He didn't drive round in a popemobile either, nor wear funny red caps and he did not condemn homosexuality.
He also said
"No western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no western country"
This in a country suffering water shortages and facing food shortages in the long term but then Pell has admitted he is a climate change sceptic. He is wrong anyway, Australia's population growth is still increasing even before immigration.As for the other Archbishop of Sydney, I have written enough but must publish the wonderful cartoon from Madpriest.