Michael Powell

 

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Spirituality & Perception - Paper 12

UNDERPINNING FROM DOWN UNDER

This paper is based on the book:

THE UNITING CHURCH IN AUSTRALIA : THE FIRST 25 YEARS (1977-2002)

eds William W and Susan Emilson

Melbourne Publishing Group 2003                  0 9580938 2 2

 

INTRODUCTION

1 AFFIRMING THE SECULAR

2 AFFIRMING LAY VOCATION

3 AFFIRMING CHAPLAINCY

4 AFFIRMING BI-FOCAL MINISTRY

5 AFFIRMING BUSINESS ETHICS

6 AFFIRMING SOCIAL HOUSING PROVISION

7 AFFIRMING ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS

8 AFFIRMING RIGHT USE OF CHURCH-OWNED LAND

9 AFFIRMING THE ROLE OF CHURCH BUILDINGS

CONCLUDING COMMENT

   

INTRODUCTION

The Uniting Church in Australia is made up of previous Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian elements. While much of the story of its foundation and the first 25 years of its life is about structural and theological issues, it is amazing how much comes through which relates to various aspects built environment. The book consists of sections relating to the central church and to each of its seven synods. The various authors tell the stories in their own way in terms of what they see as significant; the effect is kaleidoscopic rather than synoptic. I present them as Affirmations as follows:

Affirmation 1 relates to the secular aspect of life in general; Affirmations 2, 3 and 4 to vocations and ministries; Affirmations 5, 6 and 7 to business and public ethics; and Affirmations 8 and 9 the Church’s own property.

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1 AFFIRMING THE SECULAR  

In the sandstone universities, lay people encountered the new theology that had emerged from England and the United States , such as Bishop JAT Robinson’s Honest to God (1963) and Harvey Cox’s The Secular City (1965). The new theology had the confidence to reinterpret Christian doctrine in the categories of modern science and technology. This generation believed that God was encountered in the secular world as much as in the church...

(p140 South Australia Synod)

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2 AFFIRMING LAY VOCATION

At every level of Victorian society there were those who were recognised by their colleagues as being associated with Uniting Church and who saw their vocation as a way of serving God and contributing to the well-being of the community. Some were in high profile in large companies and statutory bodies. Many were locally known as small business owners and trades people. In rural areas many farmers had a Uniting Church link and were active in local government and community groups. Principals and senior teachers in the Church’s twelve schools touched a wide section of the community and some were well-respected professionally. Many teachers in Government schools also shaped their pupils ethically as well as professionally... Two Uniting Church hospitals were reminders of the Christian commitment to healing... Universities, research institutes and institutes of technology provided another context for the search for truth and new knowledge, as well as giving both church and community a pool of people with expertise on a variety of public issues.         

(pp195-6 Victoria Synod)

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3 AFFIRMING CHAPLAINCY 

The scope of the Queensland Synod’s community service agencies had made chaplaincy, once the Cinderella of ministry, the growth area of ministry. The synod identifies seven areas of engagement: healthcare (including hospitals); human services; aged care; education; the defence forces; sport, tourism and leisure; police and emergency services... chaplaincy’s most significant function will be to support the work of lay people as they express their gifts and graces through their own vocation.

pp 127-8 Queensland Synod

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4 AFFIRMING BI-FOCAL MINISTRY

St Michael’s Uniting Church in central Melbourne has been led by Francis MacNab from 1977. It has become one of the largest inner city congregations in Australia . MacNab did post-graduate work in Scotland and founded the Craigmillar Institute as a counselling and educational centre. It has become a highly respected institution, which complements MacNab’s rare gifts for communication and sense of the dramatic and artistic possibilities for worship. He is a liberal in the best sense of the word, encouraging his congregation to wrestle with contemporary issues, using the best resources to follow truth wherever it may lead... A psychotherapist with an international reputation and prolific author, MacNab also presided over a major re-development of the St Michael’s site. With the expert help of a group from the congregation, the site was sold off for $5million and a major office block erected. As part of the deal the developer paid for the south wall of the church to be strengthened and provided 1600 square metres of ground floor area for church use at no cost.         

(p212 Victoria Synod)

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5 AFFIRMING BUSINESS ETHICS  

...the work of the South Australia Synod in ethical investment was significant, particularly in relation to uranium mining... The Social Justice Commission produced a resource kit, which contains contributions from mining interests, anti-nuclear campaigners, academics and pastors and the response of government to synod resolutions. [The Synod] established a Business Ethics Committee in conjunction with the activities of the Australian Council of Churches Action for World Development to consider criteria for ethical investment. The group included a mechanical engineer, computer programmer, lawyer and accountant. It argued that traditional investment criteria were usually governed by economic considerations, which were insufficient for investment to be ethical.                                    

(pp155-6 South Australia Synod)

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6 AFFIRMING SOCIAL HOUSING PROVISION  

There were few doubts about the imperative of service to the community as living-out of Christian love and the extent of involvement and the time and energy spent on planning and management by volunteers of all ages was enormous... Hostels for students and workers, and refuges for the homeless and destitute operated in inner Sydney and the suburbs, while on the far north coast Tweed River Parish took on the huge and expanding job off providing motel-style accommodation for homeless people.

(p46 New South Wales Synod)

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7 AFFIRMING ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS

Noonkanbah in the Kimberley region stood at the centre of public attention in Australia for almost two years. It soon became part of the mythology f Australia , being generally acknowledged as a landmark of modern Aboriginal history... and one of the most significant episodes in the history of Aboriginal-European relations... With the mining boom of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a new threat descended upon the community. Mining companies pegged their claims in a relentless search for diamonds and oil, often with little awareness of Aboriginal religion or the significance of Aboriginal sacred sites.

Noonkanbah soon became identified as a ‘ Uniting Church thing’... On 12th August 1980 four Uniting clergymen together with an Anglican priest working for the Australia Council of Churches, participated in a last ditch effort to blockade the convoy transporting the oil rig and joined about sixty Aborigines in a sit-down in a dry creek bed, refusing to let anyone through, [They were] among twenty-two arrests made. The President of the Uniting Church , Winston O’Reilly was unequivocal: ‘I am proud that the Uniting Church stands with the Yungngura people of Noonkanbah Station in their struggle to protect their native sites’.

pp77-8 Northern Synod

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8 AFFIRMING RIGHT USE OF CHURCH-OWNED LAND  

[A further] event that brought the Northern Synod into national focus also centred on land, this time over two acres of land in down-town Alice Springs.

[Within the Synod the argument for commercial development] was that the Synod had a responsibility to become self-sufficient and decrease its dependency on the national church... Strong opposition to the development came from the Northern Synod’s own powerful agency, the Aboriginal Development Service, who saw this parcel of real estate, or at least part of it, as an ideal venue for developing facilities for Aboriginal work. [Opposition increased] when consultants recommended that the best commercial use for the land would be to build a first-class international motel. Opposers included the Christian Conference of Asia , the Australian Council of Churches and  several Aboriginal organisations centred in Alice Springs . Theological opposition within the Synod centred on Jesus’ parable about building a tower without fully counting the cost (Luke 14:25 -33). After much argument the opposition view prevailed. Synod turned down a guaranteed income of $4m over ten years and a further annual income of $0.5m. The wisdom of God prevailed over the foolishness of men.

pp80-3 Northern Synod

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9 AFFIRMING THE ROLE OF CHURCH BUILDINGS

Anyone arriving in Tasmania in the late 1970’s, at the time of the birth of the Uniting Church , might well have commented on how many churches there appeared to be. Churches stood in the centre of major urban areas, on main arterial roads, in country towns, rural hamlets, on isolated back roads or on paddocks of large farming properties. some were built of warm sandstone or having decorative weatherboards; others were made of unimaginative red brick or modern steel and glass. Adorning many of them were notice boards with the Uniting Church logo. ... By the time of union in June 1977, Tasmania had a long experience of robust and assertive denominational church life and the expansionary phase of each denomination had produced the many churches to be found in every part of the island ... many with centenary celebrations well in the past.                                       

pp159-60 Tasmania Synod

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CONCLUDING COMMENT  

It is the fact that these references to various aspects of built environment arise absolutely naturally in a work of almost contemporary church history that gives them their authenticity. They enable me to say, ‘Yes, I think I am right in my general thesis that built environment and Christian theology and practice are intimately bound together. They underpin it, meaning that they prevent it subsiding in the difficult ground conditions of today’s world’.


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