Zac Veron - Yes

The press coverage is a big win for the gospel. By challenging secularist lies head-on, Peter and Phillip Jensen are changing Australia’s cultural climate.

Coverage of Sydney Diocese in the press over the last two years has been a great win, as we aim to see ten per cent of people in Bible-based churches within ten years.

On occasion some Anglicans have had the impudence to use the secular media to achieve their political agenda against the interests of this Mission. As a result they have forced defenders of the Mission to enter the public debate, and in the process they have played right into the hands of the secularists who enjoy seeing Christian fight against Christian.

An excellent article by Paul Ham in The Australian’s media section last month exposed the secular media’s tendency to report Christianity unfairly and in terms of political conflict. The article supports Dean Phillip Jensen’s claim that the secular media has reported religion so poorly in past decades because the journalists are not ‘experts’, but mainly journalists used to reporting politics. Thus they can only report religion through the framework of politics and conflict.
As Ham explains, it just seems plain bizarre to the press that Phillip Jensen is a Christian preacher who actually believes that Jesus is the only true path to salvation. (Wait until the press discovers that at least a thousand other preachers in Sydney believe that too!)

Ham quotes Kelly Burke, who claims that The Sydney Morning Herald seeks to keep a ‘balanced’ view on all religious faiths. This can only mean the Herald is preaching no faith at all. For it is only atheistic humanists who claim that you can ‘balance’ mutually incompatible belief systems, as they alone hold all religions in equal disdain!

It is even more disturbing that the only clergyman reporting on religion for the press, James Murray from The Australian, is just as beholden to the secularist agenda. He asserts that he is in no position to give preferential treatment to Christianity in his reporting because Christianity ‘should not mean the rejection of other ways to reach God’. If that is true, then what was Jesus doing dying on the cross? If there were other ways to reach God, Jesus would have known that, and skipped the crucifixion!

By challenging these secularist lies head-on, Phillip and his brother, Archbishop Peter Jensen, can change the culture of media reporting in Australia.
The work of the Jensens in placing God back on the public agenda in the last two years has helped develop an environment in which we can make inroads into our Mission. We now have the opportunity to talk about Jesus in public and without apology.

Overall, recent media coverage has been fantastic. Those of us who have been praying for years for God to provide us a cultural climate where unbelievers will at least listen rather than look straight past us are starting to rejoice that the prayers are being answered. My only regret is that the TV press has not run these kinds of reports as well.

My prayer is that our diocesan leaders will continue their outstanding public work, but we must not think they will make our vision a reality on their own. To grow to ten per cent of the population, lay foot soldiers serving in the trenches of our suburban churches need to verbally share Jesus with millions of others, many of whom will be converted. Those foot soldiers are the key to this Mission.

I wonder what our friends in the press will write when those foot soldiers are fully mobilised?

The Rev Zachary Veron is rector of St James’, Carlton, and President of the Anglican Church League.

Tim Foster - No

Unnecessary bad press has politicised the Mission making it hard for rectors as they try to encourage parishioners to commit to the Mission’s goals.

I sometimes wonder if progress in the diocesan Mission is helped or hindered by the publicity the Anglican Church receives. Comments to me as I engage non-Christians, and concerns raised by my own parishioners as they move ahead in evangelism, suggest our handling of the media has often only served to undermine our common Mission.

On the one hand, the controversy surrounding Dr Hollingworth has seen our diocesan leaders diligently explaining their current handling of cases of abuse to ensure that we are not disgraced in this manner.

Yet on the very day Archbishop Jensen skillfully handled this issue, controversy continued in the secular press over Standing Committee’s action to extend the Archbishop’s tenure. This included a very public debate between two churchmen in The Sydney Morning Herald’s opinion pages.

I personally believe that Dr Jensen’s articulation of the Mission and statesman-like handling of the media justifies the claim that ‘he is the right man for the job’ at present. Some excellent reasons for the extension have been advanced, but I also note equally good reasons have been put forward for making this decision in a couple of years and in a more transparent manner.

My point is that the manner in which the decision was made has only made our efforts in evangelism more difficult by the negative publicity it has generated. I’m particularly intrigued (considering he was defending Standing Committee in The Sydney Morning Herald at the time!) by Bruce Ballantine-Jones’ argument that he was motivated to hold the debate behind closed doors and not in the public forum of Synod out of a desire to avoid negative publicity.

The entire Hollingworth debacle and the ensuing public rage was a result, more than anything, of the failure of the Anglican Church to be transparent. When these things are dealt with in a public manner, far less controversy seems to follow. The negative media coverage arising from the decision to hold discussions about the Archbishop’s tenure behind closed doors, rather than openly in the Synod, was entirely predictable. Holding the debate in the closed forum of Standing Committee has served to undermine our cause and raise questions in the public mind about our Archbishop’s credibility. I am left wondering whether Anglican Media was consulted about which approach would generate a less negative public impact.

Moreover, the decision to hold the debate in Standing Committee ran the risk of people seeing the extension of the Archbishop’s term as being purely politically motivated. Mr Ballantine-Jones’ argument that the extension was given so the Archbishop can continue to maintain leadership throughout the period of the Mission has something to commend it. However, perceptions are important and by handling the inevitable decision to extend Dr Jensen’s term this way,
Standing Committee has politicised the Mission thus making it more difficult for rectors like myself to convince my parishioners that the Mission is something they should commit to.

Much of the negative publicity we are facing is of our own doing and has nothing to do with the offence of the gospel. The media is predictable. If we learn from this episode and act in a careful manner in future, we can ensure that the media makes it easier for us, rather than harder, as we engage in God’s mission.

The Rev Tim Foster is rector of All Souls’, Leichhardt.