Last Sunday, there was a program on Compass about the Uniting Church, promoted with the question "How united is the Uniting Church?" I have to say I found it a rather bland and flaccid disappointment.
I don't know whose agenda was being pushed here, but I thought that they did a bit of a "Richard Dawkins" on the UCA by focussing on the minority extremes of the Progressive Christian network (and the Rev Rex Hunt in the ACT) and the so-called Assembly of Confessing Congregations (and one of their main spokespersons, Max Champion) (together, these two groups would make up less than 10% of the whole membership of the UCA), rather than the majority that fall somewhere between those two positions. At the end of the program I thought “oh, is that IT?! where is the content?”
One of the things that I love about the Uniting Church is that there is a place in it for people with different views and theologies. There is a place for the Rex Hunts and the Max Champions, and everyone else in between. There is no call for strict conformity, or to check one's individuality or brain at the door of the church. I think the people who made this program completely missed the point by suggesting that the diversity within the UCA equals disunity. Sure, there are conflicts, and some issues that as a church we have not been able to agree upon, but like any family, we are trying to find a way to get on.
Darren Wright, a UCA youthworker in NSW/ACT has written a more detailed response to the program on his blog, here, which I think covers a lot of the issues that I would want to raise. It's worth a look.
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