ANGLICANS ONLINE BLASTS SYDNEY ARCHBISHOP AND DEAN

[David Virtue]

ANGLICANS ONLINE BLASTS SYDNEY ARCHBISHOP AND DEAN

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

An independent Anglican news service that claims more than 200,000
readers, has blasted the new Dean of Sydney, the Most Rev. Philip Jensen
in an editorial, calling him intolerant, sectarian and divisive.

The liberal Anglicans Online News Service which has been on the web
since 1994 excoriates what it calls "the continuing saga of the Diocese
of Jensen in Australia... better known as the Diocese of Sydney."

It accuses Philip Jensen and his brother Peter Jensen the Archbishop of
Sydney of "intolerance by a representative of the church is, as we see
it, a formula for sectarian thinking, divisive behaviour, and the
justification of violence, surely things that the Anglican church has
always shunned. We find ourselves rather ashamed of the Jensens."

The preaching of these men tarnishes the comprehensive, tolerant, and
catholic nature of Anglicanism and pushing it to something far
different, narrower, and more brittle, the editorial said. "If we
conclude that the Jensens and their supporters are darkening the
Anglican name, they have often said that they believe the Anglican
Church gives them a bad name."

So, Anglicans Online blasts the Jensens for upholding the historic
Christian Faith while that country's Primate Peter Carnley pushes
something "Progressive Christianity" that, at the end of the days saves
no one and nothing, and waters down the faith to make it largely
indistinguishable from Unitarianism.

Perhaps these same people who consider the Jensens divisive might want
to consider the coterie of warm, cuddly, "tolerant" and "inclusive"
bishops in the US Episcopal Church like Barbara Harris (Washington), Tom
Shaw (Massachusetts) and Charles Bennison (Pennsylvania) to name but a
few, who are slashing and burning the Anglo-Catholic remnant in their
dioceses, and making life hell for the Evangelicals, who have a gospel
to proclaim and who can make churches grow.

Perhaps the editorialists might want to read the more than 20 stories
this journalist has penned about what Bishop Charles E. Bennison
(Pennsylvania) is doing to three Anglo-Catholic rectors and their
parishes who simply want to worship the God of their fathers with a time
tested Prayer Book, and not have to look over their shoulder to see what
the bishop's next move is going to be, to try and get rid of them.

Then perhaps they should spend a few months talking with the dozens of
priests who have fled the Episcopal Church and gone over to the Anglican
Mission in America, and to other jurisdictions, and listen to the
stories of how those priests, who fought valiantly to uphold the
historic gospel in liberal and revisionist dioceses, in the end got
hounded out of their parishes on a range of largely spurious, trumped up
charges.

Perhaps they should talk to Bishop Bennison about what he really
believes, if anything, and ask him what in hell he thinks he is doing
promoting a Visigoth marriage rite, pushing a "sin of heterosexism"
resolution, and if, at the end of the day, his belief system looks
vaguely like the faith he swore to uphold and defend when he took his
vows as a bishop. In his Easter message this month recorded in the
Pennsylvania Episcopalian, Bennison asserted that "Jesus acknowledged
his own sin." Really. No bishop in history has ever dared make such an
heretical statement. Scripture declares that "He knew no sin…He was
without sin…and there was no sin (deceit) found in His mouth" (1 Peter
2:22 et al). Yet this bishop unashamedly said Jesus sinned. He should
resign.

And then these writers should talk to Standing Committees in liberal
dioceses that make sure that any potential candidate for bishop not only
endorses women's ordination but also had better allow sodomite priests
to perform in their dioceses or they don't have a prayer of becoming a
bishop.  This is living proof that when you scratch a theological
liberal you will soon uncover a sexual fascist.

Then they should talk to all those so-called moderate bishops who are
too afraid of their own theological shadows and frightened of offending
anybody (except the orthodox), and who have about as much theology as
Bishop James Pike who was consulting spooks at the end of his life.

And then these "journalists" can watch these same bishops cave in the
moment they hear the word "homophobia" or "hate crimes" screamed at them
by the Integrity crowd if they so much as raise their heads above the
ramparts and say that God has NOT changed His mind about sexual behavior
after all, despite what Louie Crew thinks.

Then these "down under" loonies should take a long hard look at what
dioceses ARE growing and not growing in the land of the Coolibah tree,
and what sort of message the Diocese of Sydney is proclaiming that makes
it stand out like Moses and the burning bush.

And when they have done looking at the Australian and US scene, they
should then take a long hard look at the 'Baghdad Bishop' in the Diocese
of New Westminster, whose reputation as a bully is now well-documented.

In fact the Bishop of Saskatchewan accused Bishop Michael Ingham of
using 'brute power' in his efforts to enforce his will over eight
estranged parishes because he insists on brokering in rites for same-sex
blessings in his diocese.

Ingham has been warned that his action could lead to an "irreconcilable
breach" in the Anglican Communion. Now there's inclusivity for you.

Ingham also inhibited the Bishop of the Yukon when the latter made an
offer to step in as a 'flying bishop' to give pastoral support to eight
parishes, amounting to almost a quarter of the Diocese of New
Westminster. Ingham then warned of further legal steps.

Or perhaps these same blind editorialists should look at Bishop Spong
whose "tolerant" remarks about Third World bishops earned him the title
of racist at the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1998.

Then when they have done all that they should sit down and have a
'Fosters mate' or, in their case, tea and bickies with ECUSA's Integrity
leaders and discuss 'inclusivity' with them. If they come out of that
meeting with their heads still straight, it'd be a miracle.

No. The truth is the Jensens have it right and this crowd, has it all
wrong. It is quite proper to assert, as the Jensens do, that religious
tolerance has gotten out of hand and that other religions are just plain
wrong. G. K. Chesterton was right when he said, "These are the days when
the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own."

The Anglicans Online folk don't think the followers of Mohammed believe
they have the absolute truth and will die for it? Of course they do.

If  "susurrations of schism hang in the air" as Anglicans Online
editorially argues, it is not because the orthodox believe too much, it
is because the liberals and revisionists believe too little, and no one
is buying their watered down gospel.

"Tolerance,"  said Chesterton, "is the virtue of the man without
convictions."  And this crowd has it in spades.

END