Sydney Anglicans have been the worst offenders in distancing themselves from other Protestants and that needs to change if "our common enemy' " secular humanism " is to be defeated, says the Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen.
Saying the idea of being ‘Protestant’ was largely dead, he is calling on all Christians to join with Roman Catholics to protect the disadvantaged and protest against social ills such as pornography, gambling, abortion and alcohol and drug abuse.
Dr Jensen says the loss of an old common Protestantism is evident in the postponement of the forthcoming wedding between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles due to the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
"Now" even a royal marriage gives way to a papal funeral " an inevitable choice but it marks the death of protestant England," he says, referring to a recent article in The Guardian.
The late Pope, he says, "stood against the forces which folk Protestantism capitulated to: the relativism, libertarianism, individualism and materialism of western culture'. "The spiritual vacuum is everywhere apparent."
The Archbishop made his statements while addressing the NSW Council of Churches for the inaugural Bernard Judd memorial lecture on the topic of "the protestant conscience'.
"Evangelism is our first social duty, but it's not our only social duty," he says.
"It must be a united evangelism. We are weak theologically and divided denominationally far more than we should be."
Dr Jensen is urging Christians to refuse "abusive' labels such as right wing and fundamentalist or being dismissed as "wowsers'.
Instead, they should reclaim the word protestant as long as it stands for the "biblically shaped conscience'.
"When we keep being called right wing, let's not be frightened," he says.
"All that means is that at various points [the protestant conscience does] not fit in with the wishes of the permissive libertarians who have had so much to say in the running of the country since the 1960s."
And the Australian political landscape has been profoundly affected, Dr Jensen says.
The gospel-based virtues that once shaped the Liberal Party's concerns for individual freedom and a duty to serve the nation had given way to society's "egocentric and rights obsessed' individualism.
Dr Jensen insists that his call for a renewal of the protestant conscience does not mean he is telling Christians how to vote.
"This is not a political manifesto, it is not a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church; it is not a covert way of soliciting votes for any political party or any program of social action," he says.
"But as Protestants we have resources" relevant to the society in which we live. It is these I wish to point to and reintroduce into the debate."
