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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