The Anglican Diocese of Sydney does not teach that the dreadful tsunami of last week was a judgement of God on the people who are dead and suffering, Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth said yesterday (January 3).
Bishop Forsyth was responding to media enquiries about reported comments of Dean Phillip Jensen that "disasters of this world are part of God's warning that judgement is coming".
"I know that is not what the Dean or any Church spokesperson has said or intended," the Bishop said. "These comments did not mean that God had deliberately willed this tsunami to judge individual people."
However, Bishop Forsyth said that such terrible tragedies can, in the mysterious providence of God, "also serve as a warning to us all of our own mortality and the preparedness to face God's judgement as Jesus said in Luke 13 1-5".
"This is what the Dean was alluding to," he said.
An extract of Bishop Forsyth's interview on ABC Local Radio AM program, Monday January 3, is available at [url=http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1275803.htm]http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1275803.htm[/url]
