A delightful Australian Anglican - A true Anglican - a Reformed Anglican

One of the highlights of attending Together for the Gospel (T4G) in April (11-13, 2016), for me, was hearing this man, Phillip Jensen here.  Mark Dever interviews Phillip Jensen, the author of the gospel tract, "Two Ways to Live" and also one of the main mentors of those that wrote the concepts in the book, "The Trellis and the Vine".  Take note of other books mentioned by Dever that Jensen has written, and the ministry of Mathias Media.

The Theme of the Conference was "We are Protestant" and had lots of the Reformational sayings and emphasis the whole time.  Excellent!

Jensen has a delightful sense of humor and interesting story.  We need more Anglicans like this!

The authors of The Trellis and the Vine write:

"Col and I have been writing this book, often without realizing it, for most of the past 25 years. . . . None of it would have happened without the extraordinary influence and friendship of Phillip Jensen, who has been there all along, who taught and shaped us profoundly, and who was instrumental in forming both MTS (Ministry Training Strategy) and Mathias Media."  (The Trellis and the Vine, page 5)

What Phillip Jensen said about the Anglican Church was very interesting, especially how the Oxford Movement of the Tractarians, one of the main leaders being the famous John Henry Newman, who went on to convert to Rome, actually corrupted the Anglican Church.  They took the Anglican Church away from the great doctrines of the Reformation and emphasized external rituals and things like bishops mitre hats, etc.  (the "smells and bells" of High Anglicanism)  He points out that Anglicans did not wear bishops mitre hats until after Newman and the Tractarian movement influenced them.  (from late 19th Century onward)  Also interesting was Jensen pointing out that after that, the Anglican Church influenced by the Oxford Movement slowly drifted into theological liberalism.

The Oxford Movement of the Tractarians did not affect his group of Anglicans in Australia, Jensen points out.

Another book that Jensen mentions:  The Masters of the English Reformation. (About William Tyndale, Thomas Bilney, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer).  Notice that Henry VIII is not considered a good person to consider the leader of the English Reformation, as he was actually very Roman Catholic in his theology until the day he died.  He was just angry with the Pope for not giving him an annulment; and he lived a very debauched life and committed adultery a lot, it seems.

Jensen has some good insights into University Campus ministry:  "they are always 18 years old" (when you do campus ministry, every year, a new group of 18 year olds enter ); and "teach what the Bible says on two subjects that University Students are interested in: Sex and Predestination".