Rev. Tim Costello is a high profile Australian Christian, currently president of the Baptist Union of Australia. This week’s New Life (an Australian weekly Christian newspaper) has a response from Tim Costello to an editorial which was apparently critically of his theological position. It raised issues about theology, evangelicalism, universalism etc.

First, an article which appeared in one of Australia’s leading newspapers, then my response to the New Life material.

The Gospel according to the Brothers Jensen

by Tim Costello

Tim Costello fears greater division among Australia’s Christian churches in
the wake of the election of a new Anglican Archbishop of Sydney.

Despite the Anglican Church’s national profile as an aging, declining
institution, Sydney Anglicans have churches brimming with young people,
church growth and evangelistic fervour. I, and other church leaders,
rejoice in the diocese’s success. Yet, at the same time, many of us are
nervous about the battle for the post of Anglican Archbishop of Sydney,
fearing that the favourite, Dr Peter Jensen, the principal of Moore
Theological College, may drag the wider Christian church into doctrinal
and sectarian controversy.

The Gospel places paramount importance on Christian unity but this
election is offering Sydney Anglicans a divisive, limited version of the
rich evangelical tradition.

The recently retired Sydney Archbishop, the gracious Rev Harry Goodhew,
acknowledged that he had failed to render his diocese less “arrogant,
polarising and aggressive” in its relations with other churches.

He may have had in mind that group of Anglicans within his diocese which
belongs to the Reformed Anglican Protestant Association (REPA) and whose
reading diet includes the militant paper The Briefing. This paper has
attacked Pentecostals, Catholics, the Uniting Church and more recently
myself as president of the Baptist Union of Australia.

The paper is effectively the voice of a founding member of the REPA, the
Rev Phillip Jensen, brother of Peter. He was an unsuccessful candidate
for archbishop last election and his church, St Matthias’ in Centennial
Park, fills all the board positions for The Briefing. More significantly,
The Briefing’s theological position represents both Jensens.

Peter’s tone is regarded as milder than Phillip’s but his beliefs are
similar. He esteems his brother as a prophet and receives nearly a third
of his ministry students at Moore College from Phillip’s church. Hence, if
Peter is elected archbishop, the danger is that Phillip’s influence will
be entrenched.

Robust theological discussion is one thing but the tone of The Briefing
and the practice of the Jensens’ cadres suggest a sectarianism that is
disturbing. For example, after the Uniting Church of Australia held its
national assembly at the University of NSW, Phillip Jensen’s followers,
who control the Christian Union on campus, performed a public cleansing of
the buildings. It was to drive out the contamination that the Uniting Church
presence left skulking in these colleges.

Sadly, it is not just the followers who are fanatics. To the amazement
of colleagues, Phillip Jensen declared at an evangelism conference in
Amsterdam in the early 1990s that Mother Teresa was an instrument of the
Devil! In The Briefing, Pentecostals have been condemned for excessive
emotion and counterfeit spirituality, Catholic doctrine attacked and
Australian Baptists are told to reject my views and instead to follow
the Bible. As if I would suggest otherwise!

So what justifies such an uncompromising tone? Essentially it is their
conviction that their interpretation of scripture is right. Consequently,
evangelicals like myself who allow for other possible interpretations
are the enemy.

A review in The Briefing of my book, Tips From a Travelling Soul
Searcher, said: “You can have either an evangelical Christianity with a
message of salvation from sin, or you can have a social Christianity with its
salvation from oppression and social justice. You cannot have both.”

My considered response, which was not published, was that such
“either/or thinking” is completely foreign to the Bible. It is narrow and
exclusive thinking that indeed leads to arrogance and aggressiveness.

For the Jensens, orthodoxy centres on a single picture of what God has
done for our salvation, namely sending Jesus to die for our sins. I
fervently believe this but dared to suggest other models of atonement, also in the New Testament, that explore how the Cross of Christ offers salvation. I believe that the Cross also points to social and environmental reconciliation in Christ. This was considered a sell-out of the true
Gospel and Baptists were told not to listen to me.

But the spiritual and the social belong together, which can be seen, for
example, in the story of the Good Samaritan, which was prompted by two
questions reflecting both concerns.

The first was “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” This is
individualistic, self-referencing and spiritually narcissistic. Even
though Jesus refused to answer it and threw it back to his interrogator,
this question dominates the priorities of this Sydney Anglican faction.

The second question was “And who is my neighbour?” which is communal,
outward and social. Jesus teaches that inheriting eternal life is not
just about a private, spiritualised faith but a faith that reaches out in
costly love for one’s neighbour and world.

The Jensens’ reductionist grid is quite breathtaking in other ways. Men
are the only ones authorised to proclaim the good news. Women can teach
women but cannot be ordained, thus trivialising the declaration of St Paul
that “there is neither male nor female in Christ”. Lay and evangelist roles
are also clearly demarcated. The role of the laity is seen as putting bread
on the table and money in the offering plate to pay those who proclaim the
Gospel. Finally, salvation becomes a justification by intellectual
consent and, thereby, a form of Christian rationalism.

Sadly, this strips the Gospel of social implications and neutralises its
power to transform society. The Jensens see no necessary link between a
vibrant personal faith and overcoming social injustice, as Jesus merely
died as a sacrificial lamb for our individual sins.

They ignore that he was also crucified as a blasphemer who challenged
the religious (temple) and economic policies that preyed on the poor he had
befriended.

The gaming industry, which has 10 per cent of the world’s poker
machines, preying on the most vulnerable in NSW has nothing to fear from
this reduced Gospel. Neither have those who damage the environment. As long as the polluters are putting money in the plate to fund evangelism, they need not expect uncomfortable questioning or prophetic preaching.

This approach distorts the evangelical protestant tradition which the
Jensens purport to cherish. The great evangelicals from across a range
of denominations, like Charles Finney, John Wesley, William Wilberforce and
Charles Spurgeon, refused this privatised reduction of the Gospel.

At this time of crucial archbishop-making, I hope the Sydney diocese
will follow suit.

The Rev Tim Costello is president of the Baptist Union of Australia.

(Sydney Morning Herald, June 5, 2001)

~~~

Some aspects of the kerfuffle between the president of the Baptist Union of
Australia, Rev. Tim Costello and the ‘Reformed’ wing of the Sydney
Anglicans, as Alice would say, get ‘curiouser and curiouser’.

A few general observations:

1. I am thankful that some Australian holders-of-high-office (like the
recent governor general Sir William Deane, Tim Costello, Ronald Wilson among
others) use their position to demonstrate compassion for the
underprivileged. May their tribe increase.

2. Having been the guest speaker at about 15 Anglican clergy conferences
over the past decade or so, I have come to appreciate many aspects of
Anglican theology and life. The Australian Anglican Prayer Book is one of
the best devotional aids in print.

3. Some Anglicans (in the Sydney and Armidale dioceses in particular) would
describe themselves as ‘Reformed’. A basic principle of the Reformed
position is described by the phrase ‘ecclesia reformata semper reformanda’ –
‘the church reformed always reforming’. I believe that’s another way of
saying ‘The Lord has yet more light and truth to break from from his Word’.
Just about all branches of the church have changed their stance over the
last couple of hundred years – to varying degrees of course – on issues like
slavery, racism (including anti-Semitism), gender, ecclesiology, worship
practices, care for the poor, democratization of political processes in
Church and State etc.

4. Tim Costello’s stance on ‘orthodoxy’ is quite compatible with ‘mainstream
evangelical’ thinking. Many of us in the ‘Lausanne’ stream would not have
any problems here. I was privileged a month or so ago to attend the tribute
in London’s Festival Hall to John Stott on the occasion of his 80th
birthday. In his classically lucid way he spoke for about seven minutes on
what he felt was ‘essential Christianity’. Briefly: ‘Christianity has much
less to do with creeds and doctrinal systems, than about a personal
relationship with Jesus, the Son of God.’ Amen.

5. Re universalism. My ‘conservative evangelical’ friends have problems
getting excited about such statements in Paul as ‘As in Adam all die, so in
Christ shall all be made alive’. They should read these texts in one
sitting: Romans 5:18-19; 2 Corinthians 5:19; 1 Corinthians 15:22; Ephesians
1:10; Colossians 1:20; Philippians 2:10-11; 1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Timothy 4:10;
Titus 2:11. On the other hand my ‘liberal Christian’ friends don’t seem to
have much of a clue about Jesus’ and Paul’s assertions that without Christ
humans are ‘lost’.

6. Evangelical scholars like John Stott, Leon Morris, Klaas Runia etc. have
been saying/writing for years that there are many metaphors in the New
Testament explaining the Cross. Our theology on this issue should be as
broad as the biblical teaching on it.

7. Finally, the creative tension between love and truth: My conservative
friends need to understand better why Jesus and Paul put love at the top of
their hierarchy of Godly values. My liberal friends need to worker harder at
figuring out why the apostles were strong on ‘orthodoxy’. Here’s something
from a prayer of Spurgeon’s I read in my devotions this morning: ‘Lord…
guard our minds from error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings,
and our lives against evil actions. ‘

(Rev. Dr.) Rowland Croucher

30 June 2001