Extraordinary prevarication from Archbishop Jensen: no wonder the interviewer was baffled! Presumably he is terrified of being labelled a misogynist, but he would be better advised to speak plainly, rather than meandering around the question.

He says: 'I'm standing for the relationship as the sexes as being equal but different. I'm standing for another set of values and that's what makes me, believing as I do about the Bible, against this development.'

What is his reasoning for this? Jensen doesn't explain to listeners, but hides behind the 'Equal but Different' organisation, which he approvingly recommends. There we find the following, together with an exhaustive list of Bible quotes:

In marriage the husband is lovingly to lead his wife, and the wife is to submit willingly to his headship (Eph. 5:21-33; 1 Pet. 3:1-7; Col. 3:18-19). Similarly in the church, it is the responsibility of suitably gifted men to lead the church family, through faithful Bible teaching and pastoral oversight (1 Tim. 3:1–2; 5:17; Tit. 1:6–9; 1 Pet. 5:1–3; cf. Matt. 28:19–20; Acts 20:28–31; 1 Cor. 16:15–16; Eph. 4:11–12; 1 Thess. 5:12–13; 2 Tim. 2:2; Js. 3:1). In God’s loving wisdom, leadership of the church family is not a responsibility for women (1 Tim. 2:11-15; 1 Cor. 14:33-35)... For this reason, the ordination of women to the priesthood must be rejected.

http://www.equalbutdifferent.org/currentissues/2006synod.html

++Peter Jensen:

"...what you are saying there reflects how people are determined to view my position, not through any malice or anything like that, but because it's so, it has become so self-evidently right that what I'm saying is nonsense and unjust."

I'm amazed. Could this be a moment of divine revelation?

I'm pleasantly suprised that Peter Jensen acknowledges the sincerity, good motives and intellectual conviction of his opponents in the debate over homosexuality. How suprising, because he usually says that his opponents are unbiblical and devalue the authority of scripture.

Having heard him speak in a public forum once, his opposition to gay sexual relations is based in his devotion to the classic family and to classic gender roles. It seems that these commitments determine his negative view not only of homosexual sex but also of women bishops.

Jensen thinks that human relationships and community are threatened and sees the classic family as a kind of advance-guard defence.

Even if you don't agree with his prescriptions, you may agree with his assessment of the basic problem: industrial society is relationship poor.

What he says about women and families and translates to episcopacy is almost worse than what he says about the gay issue. The interviewer could have sat back a bit and let him have more time to gather his own rope.

I noticed that he seems to be somewhat drawing back from schism causing, so there must be a reduction of temperature around some people's feet:

"very severe loosening of the communion and new ways of being Anglican are going to have to be found in the world."

Well, they might have thought of this in the first place, without all the appear-to-be centralist resolutions and the rest. Mind, if there are to be in effect two main blocs, one via Africa and one via Canterbury, then it will still look, talk and walk like a schism.

"Jensen thinks that human relationships and community are threatened and sees the classic family as a kind of advance-guard defence. "

Define the "classic family". I grew up in a culture (white, rural, of European descent) where the large extended family was the norm. I can identify, and have a sense of family relationship to, my third cousins. The "classic family" as it is touted in North America actually destroyed what I know as family. The nuclear family is, to me, a deformed thing, as much a product of the modern world with its high degree of mobility that separates us from each other as anything. It is really just the Post-Industrial Age family. The extended family, which is a heck of a lot more than the people you see once or twice a year for family gatherings, has been the norm for most of human existence, and is far better for all concerned. Also, define "classic gender roles". The culture in which I grew up superficially looks to have those roles, yet it was what some of us call a closet matriarchy. Even now, there are families where everyone gives Mom their cheque every two weeks, and she looks after the family finances. It is still the women in rural communities who decide what needs to be done and then tell their hubbies to go do it. This despite the fact that until perhaps 30 yrs. ago, in many areas a quorum for a church meeting was ten MEN! Fact is that "traditional" and "classic" in this instance simply mean "what we've become accustomed to", or "what we look down on as a relic of patriarchy". And what does any of this have to do with whether or not God is calling women to the episcopate? The astonishing inability to give any kind of sensible argument on the part of someone who claims such a leadership role in conservative Anglican affairs just shows that he has no sensible theological reason for this other than a few verses from Paul and an appeal to tradition. "We don't want women bishops because Fathers don't have their 'traditional' roles in society any more". What kind of argument is that? I have great respect for Tradition, and wouldn't change it wantonly, but sometimes Tradition gets it wrong. Besides, as I claim above, the "tradition" he is standing for is no more than two to three centuries old.

A wonderful insight into how the 19th century evangelical mind looks at the 21st century. No doubt too many flogging parsons 200 years ago produces Jensenites today.

Pluralist comments: "they might have thought of this in the first place..." . Peter Jensen did think of "this" in the first place: his view that loosening the communion ties is the way ahead for Anglicanism has been consistently expressed by him for some years now.
Despite being asked by North American parishes Sydney has held back from offering oversight - preferring that local solutions be developed. Sydney is resistant to all forms of centralism in the communion.

I must say that my reading of both the Old and New Testaments has provided me with models of the family as far removed from the "classic" married man with one wife faithful to each other for life as it is possible to imagine.

Polygamy, concubinage, celibacy, renunciation of family seem far closer to "classic family" in Scripture than whatever Archbishop Jensen considers "classic". The classic family owes more to tradition, reason and concepts of social justice (particularly social justice for women and children) than it does to Scriptural examples.

Surely it is not a case of simply assuming that the Bible agrees with one's most cherished views?

;-)

IIRC, even before ("false teacher") ++Rowan was appointed ABC, My Lord of Sydney was talking about a looser WWAC & an evangelical Anglicanism centered in the Global South -- (which is to say, none of this really has anything to do with poor Bishop Robinson)

"Surely it is not a case of simply assuming that the Bible agrees with one's most cherished views?'

Oh, good heavens, no! I mean, Solomon only had one wife! And when Jesus taught that the Kingdom was more important than family, that we should actually hate our families in favour of the Kingdom, he was only joking. I mean, heterosexual marriage and 2.5 kids is ordained by God as the basic building block of society, always was, always will be. "Holy Family" means something utterly different to us Protestants, it seems. No, marriage is not something we MAY do if our desires get in the way of our doing the work of the Kingdom, marriage is the way God makes sure that society unfolds as it should. It is the keystone of Godly civilization. And it is the nuclear family we are talking about here. The only family that counts is Mom, Dad, and the 2.5 offspring. Anyone who points to "untraditional" things like extended families, and certainly polygamy, well, they're just lying, but what do they know, I mean anyone who believes that sort of thing is obviously just a Hell Bound Lberal selling out a Gospel he doesn't even read, much less believe, in order to be popular with the world.

I told you Archbishop Jensen is a man of principle even if you do not like his theology.

You know where he stands ( unlike Rowan) and politically he speaks up for the underdog and is not tied to the establishment.

There’s a bit of dialogue about whether women should be heads of families and thus churches. Jensen notes that there is an “…unwillingness of modern people to actually marry and… commit and it's an unwillingness, particularly of men – and why should they?... commit to women and families.”

Yet what is a woman to do when a man abdicates his parental and husbandly responsibilities? She still has children that need to be raised and kept safe. She still needs to model prudent management and organizational skills. Such women often need God more because they have to convince their children that God loves them, even if their human fathers don’t. We still need to inspire love, hope, patience, faith, endurance, hospitality, compassion, sharing and justice.

If men have walked away from their responsibilities, it is stupid for women to abdicate the “head of the family” roles that need to be done. Self-absorbed men can not be shamed into returning to care for the broken family, they have already demonstrated they don’t care.

The same with our churches. If the priests abdicate the covenant of peace promised to the Daughter of Zion and Levi, then the parishioners (including females) have a responsibility to work towards that covenant. If the men refuse to renounce tyranny, insist on vilifying and denying who Jesus’ crucifixion covers; then they have no right to complain that women and others get on with completing those parts of scriptures they have neglected.

If the male priests did not want to be dealing with female leaders, then they could have been the men that they should have been. When covenants are broken, God has the right to restate the covenants as God wants them e.g. Zechariah 11 & 4 “Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line…”

Jeremiah 31:37-40 “…if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the LORD. “The days are coming… when this city will be rebuilt for me… The measuring line will stretch… and all the terraces out to… the east … will be holy to the LORD. The city will never again be uprooted or demolished.”

A friend of mine thinks that maybe if Monica Attard interviews Akinola (and a few others) then things might work out after all .........

"you do not like his theology."

It's not that I don't like his theology so much as I don't like his behaviour. His argument in this piece makes no sense: women can't be bishops because modern day fathers don't fit into traditional gender roles? What kind of argument is that? He refers to "Bible based Churches", the clear implication being that those of us who are different from him, including parishes in his own diocese, are not Biblically based. What do we believe, the Necronomicon? This is a subtle form of "non-Evangelicals have no faith, and are all going to Hell because they are not 'saved'." This is the kind of narrowminded judgemental fundamentalism I grew up around, and I can't believe I see this is an Anglican. There's lots more, but I'll just add that I have corresponded online with "Sydney Evangelicals" and they make NP look positively benign. If this is what Sydney style Evangelicalism produces, I want no part of it. It's not his theology, it's his attitude and the fact that his "theological teaching" seems to produce some very badly behaved Christians.

Monica Attard implies that because there are many types of family, *therefore* they are all equally good or well-suited to flourishing.

Talk about a non sequitur.

It's a bit like saying: There are many types of women/men out there, and *therefore* they are all equally suitable to marry.

Peter Jensen is virtually a reformer :--

PETER JENSEN: Yes it is. I think we need to say, and it's not often said, I think that those who take a different point of view from me on this are not suggesting that we bless all expressions of homosexuality. They're really talking about quite a limited thing. Namely they're asking that the Church recognises the permanent union of two persons.

They're not saying that all homosexual sex is good and so forth and so on. They have a real heart for homosexual people and they wish to, they wish to make sure that homosexual people understand the love of God for them as we all must do. That is true. But they're not suggesting that all homosexual sex under all circumstances is a good thing.

So, therefore, the people that I disagree with on this are closer to me than it may appear at first sight. We have a lot in common and we have a great deal of respect for each other. But there is a fundamental difference and that difference is causing us a great deal of grief.

Gollum says, tricksey, tricksey, tricksey. (I’m being intellectually stunted by bed time stories?) But all fun aside, this interview with the archbishop of Sydney helps show just what is so difficult for so many of the rest of us to comprehend about this standardized conservative way of putting those issues, headship, and relationship.

So far, thanks to wide ranging and successful experiments in recognizing womens' equality, which deliberately includes recognizing equivalent domains of skill or competency, we will continue to ask: Just what, exactly, exactly, is this allegedly biblical notion, Headship?

So far, the images and such which are supposed to explain Headship all nod solemnly towards cultural and institutional remnants of what the rest of us call Patriarchy. Headship always boils down to: special male privileges (Based on having those gold standard genitals) which talk about particular women having privileges to be second rank in relationship to first ranked men. Since that man is higher ranked – how can social dominance hierarchies NOT come to mind for anybody who has ever taken anthro 101, or social 101, or a class in animal behavior? – one guesses that the women thus gains a certain social status, over all the men her father or husband is higher than. If there is something else to Headship, besides particular men having special social, legal, economic, or cultural privileges over particular women (usually their wives and daughters at minimum); and if those particular women do not continue to lack equivalent special privileges until/unless conferred by contingent association in some degree with the high ranked man involved; and if all of this simply presumes a classical conservative social bargain, male distinctly power up in exchange for some obligation of support and protection? – then what is Headship, besides a biblical sounding way of restating core commitments to Patriarchy, i.e., to male privileges based on human anatomy? If all citizens in a democracy are equally entitled to safety and protection and the supports that are available to all, at least in theory, what happens to this traditional bargain exchange?

Then, Relationship. Relationships are SO important that gay men and lesbians must be commanded NOT to have them? Decode? Straight relationships – classical and conservative – are so important. Gay or lesbian committed relationships are not quite so important?

The Headship bargain failed, because so many ordained men failed so egregiously to support or protect. So, instead: fairness, equality, mutuality, Relationship?

"Monica Attard implies that because there are many types of family, *therefore* they are all equally good or well-suited to flourishing."

Perhaps they are not, but who are you--or Jensen--to pick and choose which are and are not?

Christopher,
couldn't agree with you more!

The same goes for the - hypothetical - statement that "because there are many types of homosexual relationships, *therefore* they are all equally damaging or ill-suited to flourishing"

To quote you: "Talk about a non sequitur."

Guffaws of laughter "There are many types of women/men out there, and *therefore* they are all equally suitable to marry."

Oh My God.

Are we now going to have to pass tests as to who is or is not suitable to get married!?!

Are we going to base that on skin colour? Baptism? Church attendance? Ethnic background? Affluence? Bribe fees?

How about we start judging males on their cleaning and home making skills? How would the wandering Jesus or Paul shape up in this regard? What was John the Baptist's idea of cleaning? Oh look, bug! Breakfast!

Love Korach bickerers, they're so busy trying to score the point that they walk straight into a manure pile of their own making.

Great posting drdanfee. The Archbishop of Melbourne recently commented that one role of prophets is to strip away veils so we can see how an elite has co-opted a system to garnish more than their fair share, usually at somebody else's expense.

I loved your concluding passage: "The Headship bargain failed, because so many ordained men failed so egregiously to support or protect. So, instead: fairness, equality, mutuality, Relationship?"

The bible does just this often. God confronts the "holy" priests and rebukes them for transgressing God's covenants and then re-establishes the covenants. Often a new layer of souls are incorporated in the fields of grace because God uses outcastes or despised to make the point.

Covenants that have been transgressed include breaking peace, with night and day, with the Sabbath. There are covenants with various levels of Creation that have been denied, corrupted or attacked: the earth as God's footstool, eunuchs, the elderly, children, the alien, the foreigner, the holy ones from the holy of holies when the temple veil was torn open, those for whom Enoch advocated, celestial beings, souls both seen and unseen.

Jesus still has his kingdom and authority and his churches. But his priests can not complain that God brings reformers to restore that which they sought to bury and in the process of healing the oppressed are lifted to the status of peers. It is the vindication of God's servants and the living testimony that God despises repression, tyranny, accusations, greed and corruption.

Ford, I’ve seen first hand what you have seen on the web. Yes it is nasty. I wonder if they even know what the word “gentle” means? Matthew 21:5 ““Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ” The Daughter of Zion accepted Jesus’ free will offering on the basis of this scene, Jesus’ priests have broken her covenant of peace.

See also John 12:14-16 At first Jesus’ disciples did not understand. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him. The glorification refers to Jesus’ resurrection, the scene in the Mount of Olives, which parallels the scene at Mount Sinai. The Daughter of Zion is the Cherubim of the Glory who weaves throughout all these scenes.

I do think that Archbishop is genuinely trying (which I do not believe of all senior clerics in the WWAC), but it does seem to me that he confuses the ideal of the middle class Victorian family (& patriarchy) with the Gospel of Jesus Christ (which seems to undercut all of the above, IMHO).