Talk:Phillip Jensen

Very Reverend?

this starts by referring to Phillip Jensen as "very Rev". Is this an actual title, or is someone being silly?

Mihoshi 01:33, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

It's serious. You get Rev, Very Rev, Most Rev and lots of other fun silly titles in the Anglican church. I want to get ordained as "Kinda Rev"

If we're getting free titles, I'd go with "Unbelievably Rev". Why not? Does Wikipedia cover the process of rev, very rev, and so on? It would be good to link that title to something

Mihoshi 12:56, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey. :-) 202.59.19.66 12:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

You can find a list of revd., very revd, etc. at Forms_of_Address_in_the_United_Kingdom#Clergy. Journeyman 01:29, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The Very Reverend ..... is his title as the Dean of a Cathedral.

--Amandajm 14:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct context

What is the correct context refered to in this article? If we need to satisfy NPOV, then I think we should state it. - 202.59.19.66 12:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Phillip Jensen addressed the context of his talks at the 2004 Sydney Synod. The transcript of this explanation is linked. the following is a excerpt from it. "For the last twenty years I have been in dialogue with a group of Evangelical Anglicans who have come together under the name Reform. Their conferences have become stuck because there are those who want to take one action, those who want to take a different action, and those who want to take no action. However with the current crisis in the Church of England, their committee knew that at this conference they would have to agree to take action or give up. So they pressured me to come to their conference in order to persuade their membership that it was time to take action. I gave three long talks – each over an hour – as well as being in their consultation groups all day and into the evening.

The talk pursued one long argument through the topics such as – should Christians fight or contend, if so how – with what weapons under what circumstances and with whom? This required discussion as to the nature of the Church of England: Is it the church of the English people or the church of Jesus Christ in England? Is it God’s heavenly church or a temporal religious organisation? It required discussion on congregationalism and denominationalism as well as corporate sin and responsibility compared to individual sin and responsibility. In particular it required the exploring of concepts of the corrupting consequences of heresy and immorality, in order to gain some agreement and understanding of the extent of the problems in England – where there is great diversity from one diocese to another, and confusion between the present presenting problems and the underlying real historical problems. Especially we discussed the issue of the extent of the problem and whether the Church of England was systemically corrupt and sinful. All these issues and more, as you can imagine, need to be explored by the faithful members of the Church of England before they can choose to take serious action and reform the church. In the process of this lengthy discussion I used many illustrations of the problems. I tried to keep them anonymous wherever possible because I was illustrating principles and ideas not attacking persons. Some illustrations could not be anonymous because they were so famously public there was not much point to trying to cover what was being spoken about. The Journalist who attended only one of the talks, referred to some of these illustrations without ever explaining what they were illustrating or what I was speaking about. He clearly did not understand some of the illustrations and filled in the names where I had studiously avoided doing so. I was not playing the man but the ball. So what of these notorious illustrations? As I remember it, the Prince of Wales illustration was part of the discussion on whether the Church of England was the Church of the English people and if so then he could become as he wishes “the defender of faith” – or the Church of Jesus in England and if so he should become “the defender of the faith”. However such a consideration cannot be made without noticing the connection between his morality and his religion. On the difficulty of the Church of England’s understanding of itself, I used my first visit to King’s College Chapel in 1983 as an illustration. There were large signs indicating that this was the holy place of God and a house of prayer for all nations. Therefore we were bidden to be quiet and meditative. Beside these signs was the counter selling mugs and tea towels and recordings. I pointed out that if the signs were right then as a follower of Jesus I should have cleansed the temple of the traders. On the other hand if the signs were wrong and it was only a beautiful rain shelter then they could legitimately sell their goods and wares and I could legitimately use the place to declare to the other tourists the great saving message of Jesus.

But what of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the phrase “the prostitution of Christian ministry”? There I was discussing whether the church had become systemically corrupt. With allusions to several different bishops but without naming him or any other one, I pointed out that when the chief office bearers publicly subscribe to the church’s official set of beliefs but privately pursue a different set – while still in the pay of the church – we do in fact have corruption. They cannot teach what they do not believe for that would be hypocrisy – but not to teach what they have been appointed and have undertaken to teach is a dereliction of duty. Worse still, their appointments and committee work is at best under a cloud of suspicion, or worse are plainly expressions of their personal agenda.

I am sorry that the media reporting of my activities have caused embarrassment to Christians in Sydney over the last week. Our friends around the world are in great difficulty at this time and are looking to us for help. Their problems are much greater than embarrassment. We cannot ignore their pleas for assistance. We cannot be engaged in their battles without calling sin, heresy and corruption for what it is. We are engaged in a spiritual warfare and if the first casualty of war is truth you can rest assured that a war with the father of lies must inevitably be encased in falsehood, rumours and lies."

I'm not sure how one would summerise such an explanation, certainly the SMH made no attempt to.

Islam/Christianity

"Phillip Jensen told a April 14, 2006 service at St Andrew's Cathedral that Islam denies some of the Christian beliefs about Jesus. Islam views Jesus as a prophet but does not believe he was the son of God who died on Good Friday to save humanity from its sins and was resurrected on Easter Sunday. "Now that Islam has become more common in our society, you need to know the difference between Christianity and Islam," he said. "For the Koran, and therefore Islam, denies that Christ dies." http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/islam-and-christianity-cant-both-be-right/2006/04/14/1144521506471.html"

Why is this in the article? It's not exceptional in any way, and is given with no comment. --Sambostock 10:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I reads as if it was put in by some fairly inexperienced young person for whom this was a clarification of the difference between Christianity and Islam. As a quotation from Phillip Jensen it's worthless in terms of the article. It tells us nothing about nothing about Jensen except that he acknowledges that Christian beliefs and Islamic beliefs are different. I'm deleting it.--Amandajm 14:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV??

The links at the base of this are all favourable to the Sydney Anglican point of view (nothing wrong with this in itself - just lacks balance) - so I will try to added some to balance them. Likewise I shall look at the text to provide some further NPOV references. Cor Unum 12:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure exactly which parts fo the text aren't NPOV... can't comment on the links. However, see this link from St. Andrew's Cathedral. They write: "You can find out more about Phillip on Wikipedia. We don't know who wrote the article, but most of the information appears to be balanced." - Ta bu shi da yu 23:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Clothing

What is the point of mentioning what clothes he wears? It sounds as though he wears much the same clothing as many other evangelical Anglical ministers in Australia. Why not say he wears leather shoes? As for the Surplus being canonically required, it appears there are many caveats that allow the surplus not to be worn, and even encourage the hood to be worn. So again what is the point? Echinoman 10:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Does anyone mind if I remove the comments about his clothes? It doesn't seem worthy of a biography Echinoman (talk) 12:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Original research

There are a few claims in this piece that are not supported with any reference, and indeed for which it is difficult to be sure what kind of evidence could even substantiate them. I am thinking particularly of the following: 1. "Jensen and his "Campus Bible Study" revolutionised student ministry." Without saying how, or giving any source, this claim is too vague to be particularly useful. 2. "The result was a large number of conversions, large student gatherings at UNSW and the growth of St Matthias' Church from a group of 20–30 in 1977 to well over 1000 by the mid 1990s." While it is quite possible to document membership numbers of these organisations (though the article does not do so), the causes of these shifts are likely to be complex and multifactorial. Attributing them to a single person, however charismatic, is oversimplified. Furthermore, the claim that the conversions can be attributed to Jensen is one that I suspect the Dean would reject himself (being Calvinist, he is more likely to attribute conversions to the work of the Holy Spirit). 3. "It was the strong growth of the MTS strategy in other universities and churches throughout the 1980s and 1990s that saw student numbers at Moore Theological College grow from around 150 in 1985 to over 400 in 2004" Again, a causal claim regarding a complex trend. Without supporting evidence, it amounts to original research.EthicsEdinburgh (talk) 14:55, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Reply to 1. Jensen's model for Student Ministry has been copied at most university campus's in Sydney which I would suspect the justification for such a statement. However there are probably many academic sources which could be cited to show this is correct.

Reply to 2. I would agree it might be better to say, the numbers of participants in the UNSW church and St Matthias Church increased by X rather than discuss conversions.

Reply to 3. I think one of Phillip's influence is to create a more proactive culture in identifying and developing potential full time Christian. MTS is just one part of this. There is probably ample literature to prove my assertion as well.

I generally agree with the points the OP made in this section — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclone99 (talk • contribs) 13:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

November 2013 edits to views section

Please assume good faith and discuss changes to the article here. There are sources available for criticism of Jensen within the anglican church in Sydney and the wider Anglican communion. If this violates WP:BLP or WP:NPOV, please say so on the talk page, don't engage in an edit war.

Added section:

Phillip Jensen has been a controversial figure in Sydney Anglicanism, commonly perceived as being more evangelical than the rest of the Anglican communion and he has been criticised for pushing for the creation of contemporary services as opposed to traditional Anglican mass common in other, more liberal Anglican churches in Australia. He has been accused of the creation of a elite within the diocese and nepotism as he was promoted to Dean of Sydney by his brother over other candidates.

-- Aronzak (talk) 05:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for starting a talk page discussion. However, you should know that according to the rules of Wikipedia, poorly sourced material concerning living people is to be removed immediately - see WP:BLPREMOVE. This is definitely poorly sourced. The article concerns worship at the Cathedral, but it was before Jensen took up the post of Dean. There is nothing here about him creating contemporary services. There is indeed a reference to "nepotism", but anonymous messages scrawled by students have no place in a BLP. Indeed, it would have been the Archbishop rather then the Dean who was accused of nepotism. The article also has nothing in it about the creation of an elite. So once again, please do not add unsourced or poorly sourced material to BLPs. StAnselm (talk) 05:27, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for detailing your concerns on the talk page, User:StAnselm. To save bringing in an administrator, I'll detail the additions I will make here. I'll add seealso Anglican Diocese of Sydney#Characteristics of Sydney Anglicanism as it reflects broader discussion/criticism of Sydney Anglicans within the Australian and international Anglican communion, relevant to Jensen's criticism of Dr Williams in 2002.

I'll add a statement on nepotism, as Peter Jensen (bishop) already has this:

Shortly after his appointment as Archbishop of Sydney, Jensen was accused of nepotism after nominating his brother, Phillip Jensen, as Dean of Sydney and appointing his wife, Christine Jensen, to an official position in the Sydney diocese.

It would be better if this statement be added to the section that discusses his election as Dean of the Cathedral — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclone99 (talk • contribs) 11:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

And will add source http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/17/1037490056085.html

I'll add the http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/27/1035683304261.html as a ref to the changes at the cathedral, it has a comment on personal dislike for traditional music, but no evidence of widespread changes. User:Bandito69 is welcome to find a WP:VER source about anglican discontent at changes to services at other churches.

I have no WP:VER source for the claim that Jensen created an elite, there used to have been a claim about Moore college having narrow theology, but that seems to have been removed. User:Bandito69 is welcome to find one. -- Aronzak (talk) 06:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

As well as being written in inadequate English style and grammar, Aronzak's edits to the article so far have included a number of unacceptable policy problems. It was, therefore, correct for StAnselm to revert these edits. Any further editing which also doesn't conform to an acceptable level of English and has any policy and MOS problems will need to be either rewritten or removed until they are acceptable. Anglicanus (talk) 07:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for voicing your criticisms here rather than reverting the article. You are welcome to change any content that does not match MOS or your criteria for an "acceptable level of English." Do not remove any content that is factually supported by the references. Unless you can point to clear BLP policy violations, do not remove any material. Please assume good faith and do not unnecessarily threaten or disparage those that want to contribute with a different POV to your own. -- Aronzak (talk) 08:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I edit strictly according to the MOS and policies as far as I know and understand them. I do not remove edits simply on the basis of a conflicting POV as long as they are supported by reliable sources. If anyone makes edits that require being removed then they will be removed if they cannot be acceptably rewritten or referenced. This is a non-negotiable BLP requirement. Anglicanus (talk) 08:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

References

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