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Tuesday 2 December 2008

Dissent in Sydney

Peter Phillips on church music

I gave two formal lectures, after which I was invited on to a prime-time breakfast programme on the ABC to outline my concerns. The Sydney Morning Herald then ran several reports, the last — a few days ago — informing its readers that, although the Dean (who once referred to Prince Charles as ‘a serial adulterer’ and has since been gagged by his minders) was not prepared to go on the same radio programme in person, he was inclined to accuse me of being a musical snob while underlining that his anti-cultural stance had doubled the size of the congregation in the Cathedral while halving its age. Old Cathedral hands have pointed out that this would mean, if true, that hundreds of people must be worshipping outside the building, and that the majority of them are now children.

The main objection to the egregious Jensen brothers is that while they are destroying things of beauty, including the musical tradition of a great Cathedral which it will take decades to revive, they are only able to replace it with a cult of themselves. Unsurprisingly the terms of this cult encompass one of the most arch-conservative doctrines any modern man has been capable of devising. They speak slightingly of everything that cannot be justified in the narrowest reading of the New Testament: not just high culture but also any culture, not just gays and Muslims but even the proper status of women. I am told they have redefined the Trinity to suit themselves, saying the three elements are equal but different — meaning that ultimately God is in charge. They then transferred this thinking to marriage, in which the man and the woman are equal but different, meaning the woman should be subservient. In one homily on this edifying topic the Dean went so far as to point out that the Jensen women were ideally ‘strong’ while knowing their place.

We are used to televangelists strutting about the stage, but even in the most revolutionary days of the Reformation few families managed to assume as much power as this from within the official structure of a religion — we do not hear much about Calvin’s brother. In the 16th century the way forward was to start a new Church; the insidious problem with the Jensens is that they say they are Anglicans, while trying to destroy the framework which feeds them. Even the Baptists have trouble sympathising with this strain of Christianity, and the talk is that eventually the whole nightmare will be undercut by Pentecostalism, the fastest-growing religion in Australia at the moment: an ironic fate for the hierarchy of a leading Anglican Cathedral.

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