Jensen plan to attract men to church
Linda Morris Religious Affairs Writer
October 17, 2006
MEN have gone missing from Sydney churches, but to ordain women as priests would flout scriptural authority and harm the church’s mission, according to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen. Opening the Sydney church’s annual synod, Dr Jensen said the church needed to discover why men hated church as part of its broader challenge to reach out beyond “the same faces and same people”.
It was a key question, he said, because when men came to church they brought their families with them.
According to the 2001 National Church Life Survey, men are under-represented in church, where they make up 39 per cent of worshippers. The typical churchgoer is a married woman, over 40 and university educated.
“You can respond to that, if you agree with the premise, in three ways,” Dr Jensen said. “If you are antique, the easiest thing to do is simply to blame the men who are absent.
“If you are thinking mission, you will at least agree that it is a good question. If you are thinking leadership, you will go and act on it and do something about it. It’s a key question, since when men relate to church, their families are more likely to come and more likely to stay.
“One thing is for sure: you will not increase your contact with men by treating them as though they are women. In other words, don’t even ask this question if you are not willing to do something new and different.”
Dr Jensen also criticised moribund congregations that treated church like “a religious club for people who still like the Rolling Stones”.
He called for energetic church leadership and a more muscular, adaptive and outward-looking church, instead of one marked by passivity, timidity and habitual Christianity in which “reassurance trumpets repentance”.
Despite his public criticism of government policies ranging from industrial relations to David Hicks, the archbishop also took aim at uncivil critics of the Prime Minister, John Howard.
“There is something revealing about the malice and hatred, the sheer lack of civility … in so many of those who write to newspapers about the Prime Minister.
“I think it reveals a fear that Mr Howard’s social conservatism may actually have proved to be broadly correct – and that it is the libertarian position which has done untold harm during the 40 years that it has been the ruling philosophy.”
As the synod prepares to revisit the thorny issue of women priests for the first time in six years, the archbishop gave supporters of women’s ordination little hope for change.
“Let the whole of scripture speak for itself,” Dr Jensen said.
“The answer is clear: the ministry of women is encouraged; the eldership of women in the congregation is denied.
He added: “I am unpersuaded by arguments that this is all a power play by men to keep women out. I am even less persuaded by allegations of injustice and inequity. Experience has shown me that what starts as a plea for diversity finishes as a means of exclusion and division.”
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