LONG ago, the Gideons learned to spread the gospel by putting millions of New Testaments in hotel rooms around the world.If Sydney's Anglican archbishop, the Most Reverend Peter Jensen, gets his way, Sydney Anglicans will be handing out more than 1.5 million gospels in their neighbourhoods.
The costings are done ($1.8 million), the speech he will give to the diocesan synod today has been finalised: Connect 09 will become a reality if the synod approves the initiative tomorrow.
Annual synods, or parliaments, are a clearing house of diocesan business, usually accompanied by a grab-bag of motions covering concerns of the standing committee (executive), plus a few from individuals.
It would be unlikely for Sydney to rebuff the archbishop's latest Bible idea. But it remains to be decided which part of the New Testament will be chosen, which version, and the exact mix of books versus media such as CDs and MP3s.
"I favour Luke," says Jensen. "It's the longest, it contains some stories not in any other gospel, like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, and to my mind it most powerfully tells the Jesus story."
It also contains a version of the parable of the talents, the story Jesus told of servants being given money to manage while their master was away.
One hid it. Others, to their master's great delight, invested and increased it.
Likewise, Jensen is keen on the creation of spiritual wealth. "I'm always thinking how best to communicate the good news of Christ to our generation," he says.
Jensen is a man very comfortable in his theological skin, a man for whom the "Jesus story" is revealed first, last and always in the Bible. He is also very clear about the job in front of him.
From the moment he took to the stage at the State Sports Centre in Sydney's Homebush Bay in 2001, wearing sunglasses and rapping to Isaiah 53.6 in front of a crowd of 4000, he has fought for relevance.
"We all, like sheep, have gone astray," wrote the Old Testament's most famous prophet, and the new archbishop preaches it. The following year he announced a bold mission for Sydney: to convert 10 per cent of the population of the diocese within 10 years.
He has taken flak for his conservatism, notably his stand against ordaining women as priests.
This is on the basis that in the Bible headship belongs to men.
While Sydney does not allow women priests, most of the rest of the country does. However, a long-standing effort to take the next step, getting church approval for women bishops, is moving at a glacial pace. It's being held up while the church's court, the appellant tribunal, deliberates whether the church's constitution allows it.
A less publicised Jensen stand, at least in the secular world, is to permit preachers who are not ordained priests to administer holy communion.
This may seem dry and technical but in fact explains a lot: by saying only priests can administer communion, yet allowing the non-ordained to preach, communion is elevated above preaching. Jensen says this must be resolved.
Meanwhile, he sits at the apex of ecclesiastical success, single-mindedly chipping away at the central problem.
"The Bible on its own will make Christians," he says. "We have confidence in our product."
But the Bible is known by fewer people as time goes by. "You can tell that by the way people quote it without realising what they are quoting, or fail to recognise stories you think are obvious."
Recently he had to explain the origin of the phrase "manna in the wilderness" to a well-educated colleague. Hence the rationale behind Connect 09: "Recognition of biblical illiteracy in the community and the question of how best to forward the project of helping people to come to know God through Jesus."
The Sydney diocese is the richest in Australia, with net assets of $272 million, from which flows $10 million in annual income. It is also attracting newcomers.
Although this is not happening at the rate Jensen would like, it is still a much healthier performance than elsewhere. Blessed with financial and human resources, the archbishop is investing. "I don't think the day of big meetings has passed necessarily but as we look around we can't see that God has sent us anyone like Billy Graham who will draw Sydney together in the way that he did back in 1959."
In the absence of a crowd-puller such as the American evangelist, he says: "We still have the same job to do."
Giveaway Bibles are not a first for Sydney or its Anglicans: in the early 19th century the Bible Society of NSW distributed the word in the young colony and in 1988, the bicentenary year, the Sydney diocese did the same.
But now Jensen wants to use the chance to invite people to church. "We want to establish or re-establish our links to the community through this," he says. "It is coming back to what we used to do when we used to take more interest in and notice of the communities in which we were set."
Jensen is also exercised about federal intervention in Aboriginal communities, aimed at eliminating child abuse. This has made it on to the synod agenda via a motion criticising the Government's high-handed approach to its implementation.
"The welcome we give to it is the realisation that things had reached a crisis point and that something had to be done to break this cycle," he says.
"So we are glad that the Government is really doing something new and really trying to break through into a crisis situation.
"We approve that they are doing something rather than nothing. On the other hand. Anglican Christians have had a long relationship, particularly in the Northern Territory, with indigenous people. Our people on the ground are saying the lack of consultation that occurred over this will probably hinder or damage what the Government is trying to do. A great deal of patience and listening to the Aboriginal community (is needed), particularly in the Northern Territory, if effective intervention is to occur."
"The sort of difficulties into which we have put indigenous people are so profound that quick solutions are not going to be found. We need good policies put into place and kept in place over years and decades."
"But what is sure is that the Australian people as a whole and Christian people in particular are going to support any government that gives a high priority to this issue."
"We are not going to let it go, we are not going to abandon this. It is one of the highest priority issues facing our community."
It is a clear message, with an election looming. But for now, temporal politics is less challenging than church politics. Jensen will attend another synod within weeks of presiding over his own: the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia will run for a week in Canberra late next month.
There will be debates on mission and climate change, and a "listening process" to accomodate gay Christians.
No one yet knows whether women bishops will be discussed.
More significant is that by then the worldwide church may be closer to the brink of open warfare over its future, a situation stemming from an incident in 2003 when Gene Robinson, a priest living in a same-sex relationship, was ordained as bishop of New Hampshire, which is part of the American or Episcopalian arm of the church.
It is an understatement to say the rest of the church, which includes many millions in African and other developing countries, was not ready for this.
Lacking a pope, the 77 million-strong Anglican communion operates with a looser structure than the Catholic Church. The authority of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is not such that he can command obedience.
When the Americans flouted the moral authority of the global church - also known as the worldwide communion - the bonds of fellowship were stretched to snapping point, where they have stayed, creaking and straining.
The latest request for the Americans to repent is still under consideration, with a response expected at the end of this month. If the answer is unsatisfactory, Jensen is among those who will take action, which may include boycotting next year's Lambeth conference, a gathering held under the auspices of Canterbury every decade to plot the way forward for the global church.
Australia's will be among the first national synods held after the Americans announce their decision and the gathering will be buzzing with the issue.
For now, worried bishops are wondering what to do about the Lambeth invitations they have received. Jensen and his bishops have missed the first RSVP deadline while they wait on events.
"There is a possibility," he says of non-attendance. "And I know others around the world are considering the same possibility."
What would it take for him not to attend Lambeth? "Well the presence of Bishop Robinson I've always said would be a barrier to me attending Lambeth.
"Is the Anglican communion in a position to be able to have a meeting like that at the moment, given that circumstance?"
But he is emphatically not a subscriber to the theory that a schism is imminent.
"Now I don't think that's the end of the Anglican communion, I don't think our decision on Lambeth divides the Anglican communion, but I think the Anglican communion has suffered a series of jolts that have loosened our fellowship.
"How that will work out, with the Africans busy consecrating bishops for the Americas - I mean things have happened, you can't deny things have gone badly wrong - how it will pan out in the future we have yet to see."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce