Euangelion
Michael Jensen’s Sydney Anglicans: An Apology has prompted some more reviews by insiders and outsiders.
Arthur Davis, a missionary in Tanzania, reviews it over at Jesus Creed.
Sydney Anglicanism’s shrillest detractors don’t seem to be conversant with real live Sydney Anglicans. For the non-Sydney, non-Anglican reader, the great value of An Apology is in hearing a Sydney Anglican respond to criticisms in his own terms. There are of course questions to be asked of Sydney Anglicans, but if these are to be of any use, they need to be connected with a Sydney Anglican voice. This is exactly what An Apology provides: an authentic and fruitful starting place for conversation.
Tony Payne also rips into it over at the The Briefing for being insufficiently Chappological.
Michael meets his opponents on the ground of their choosing—their unhappiness with Sydney’s supposed puritanism and fundamentalism; their distaste for how ‘un-Anglican’ Sydney is compared with the practice of most other Australian Anglicans; their abhorrence of our doctrine of church, our opposition to women’s ordination, or our advocacy of lay administration. This locates the discussion within a world view where the truly significant questions revolve around church structure and order, the sacraments, the debates of academic theology, the search for social justice for the oppressed (women, gays), the quest to influence society for the better, and the maintenance and reform of Anglican liturgy and tradition. But these issues are of less (and in some cases very little) significance for Sydney Anglicanism, because our worldview rests on different foundations. The abiding and central issue for us remains the gospel of Christ, including the repentance and faith that it calls forth and the disciple-making urgency that it motivates.
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