Following an earlier reflection on “Change”, we are drawn to the work of our subscriber, Bill Synnot and Associates, leading Australian change management consultants. This team of consultants offer refreshing and practical ways to address the challenges of change in organisations based on their work with 700 organisations. Their interactive questioning model fits well with the way progressives interrogate systems.

Four Myths of Leadership

1. Great leaders are charismatic
2. Leaders must have a great vision
3. Change agents must be hired externally
4. Radical change requires radical action

(for more detail see: https://www.billsynnotandassociates.com.au/kb/2040-four-myths-of-leadership.html)

More leadership Myths (5)

1. Too young to lead
2. One leadership style fits all
3. Quality comes at a cost
4. You’re either got it or you don’t
5. If no one is negative, everything is positive

(for more detail see: https://www.billsynnotandassociates.com.au/kb/9647-more-leadership-myths.html)

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As we approach 2024, once again our minds are drawn to speculation about what lies ahead of us. Dr Peter Lewis reflects on the faulty teaching about the Second Coming that takes away our responsibility for following Jesus’ teaching and taking responsibility for all humanity and the place we inhabit.

All the best for the year ahead as we enter our 24th year at the UCFORUM.

No Second Coming

The Second Coming of Christ is an erroneous idea that developed among Christians in the last third of the first century AD. It weakened the assurance that the first Christians had that the kingdom of God had come.

Jesus took on the role of the Suffering Servant as described in Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and in some of the psalms, and as the Messiah giving his life in accordance with that role he expected the kingdom of God to come. In Mark 9:1 he says that some standing with him will not die before they see the kingdom of God come in power, and he was not referring to the Transfiguration.

In some of his parables he describes what the kingdom is like, but they are rather vague and only give hints as to what to expect. Probably Jesus himself had no clear idea of what would happen, but he was confident that people and God would be brought together and he (the Son of Man) would be sitting at the right hand of God, which was what he told the high priest in Mark 14:62.

In Mark 16:19 Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God and the kingdom of God has come for those who believe. During his lifetime the good news was that the kingdom of God was near, but with his ‘sacrifice of love’ it had come.

The first followers of Jesus realized that they were in the kingdom. As Paul or whoever wrote the letter to the Colossians said, “[God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” (Col 1:14) In the kingdom God rules with Christ at his right hand, and a way to understand this is to think of human existence as being in both the objective and the subjective. Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit is prompting our thoughts in the subjective.

The Lord’s Supper is the central sacrament in Christianity, and those who believe in Jesus Christ take him into themselves: the Holy Spirit enters their minds and they are in the kingdom of God. The sacrament is repeated to remind Christians of who Jesus was and what he did. To say that the kingdom has not yet come and to hope for a miraculous event in the sky, as described in 1 Thess 4:13-18, is to deny what Jesus did on the cross.

Some scholars think that 1 Thessalonians was the first letter that Paul wrote, but although some parts might be from his hand, the rest was written much later, probably during or soon after the First Jewish War (66-70 AD). In 2 Cor 3:17b Paul writes that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” but in 1 Thess 5:12 it is written that Christians have people over them in the Lord to admonish them. In 1 Thess 2:16 the author says that the wrath of God has come upon the Jews. Surely this is a reference to their defeat in the Jewish War.

In 1 Cor 15:24-26 Paul talks about the end of time when Christ’s reign has been successful and he hands over the kingdom to God the Father. This is a different situation from the Second Coming as described in 1 Thess 4:13-18, which was perceived as imminent.

To understand how the idea of an imminent Second Coming arose in the early Church one needs to consider the historical circumstances. When Mark wrote his gospel, which concluded with Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, conditions were stable and Christianity was spreading in the Roman Empire. He was writing before the fire in Rome, which occurred in 64 AD. Nero blamed the Christians and they were horribly persecuted. Then in 66 AD the Jewish War began. It was a terrible time for everyone involved, and it is understandable that some Christians would look to Jesus to come again and save them.

But being in the kingdom of God means responsibility. It means living as Jesus exemplified and commanded us to do, in order to consolidate his reign and change the world. It means living in the present, facing the current circumstances and doing something about them if they are in the dominion of darkness. Burying our heads in the sand, saying that the kingdom has not come and hoping for a Second Coming, is the opposite of what Jesus was about.

In Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “Christ lives in me.” Actually he lives in everyone who believes. With Christ in their hearts Christians are in the kingdom of God, and their task is to increase the kingdom. When times are bad and wars are raging their response should not be to pray for a Second Coming but to be Christ in the world.

Peter E. Lewis               28^th December 2023

Peter Lewis was the dux of the Brisbane State High School and studied medicine at the University of Queensland. He went on to become a general surgeon and was a volunteer surgeon in Bangladesh for three years after their terrible war for independence. He was then the supervisor of the Accident and Emergency Centre at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney for five years before becoming the surgeon for the Solom

on Islands. On his return to the Gold Coast he took an interest in palliative care and was the vice-president of Hopewell Hospice for twenty years. For many years he has collected and studied coins relating to the history of Christianity, and since his retirement he has been a volunteer research associate with the Centre for Coins, Culture and Religious History, cccrh.org/ He has always had a strong Christian faith and when in the Solomon Islands he obtained a BD from London University by correspondence, and subsequently a postgraduate diploma in theology from the Brisbane College of Theology. In 2020 he wrote The Ending of Mark’s Gospel: The Key to understanding the Gospels and Christianity, for which Dr Paul Inglis kindly wrote the blurb.

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Lorraine Parkinson responds to Chris Budden

Thanks Chris, for your comments. Much of it is in accordance with my own approach to a desperately tragic, unending enmity between the two peoples inhabiting the land of Israel. I think most of us have seen the current violence coming from a long way off, not least because the West Bank is being eaten up daily by ultra-orthodox Jewish settlers and others hanging on to their coat-tails. It is of course incongruous that Israel has always received support, including financial, from conservative evangelical Christians, mainly in the US. When all the Jews return to Zion, apparently that is when the Messiah (aka Jesus) will return, they believe. From the 19th century, the Zionist Movement was founded in Europe to establish an ‘autonomous Jewish state in the land of Israel.” By 1931 175,000 Palestinian Jews were living in the land of Israel. At the time there were 760,000 Palestinian Muslims living there. By 1947 there were 630,000 Palestinian Jews in Israel, and 1,181,000 Palestinian Muslims.

I want to broaden out the whole picture a little, and refer to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which supported a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The British were granted a mandate over ‘mandatory Palestine’, and were supposed to carry out the promises of the Balfour Declaration. In the 1930s, when Jews were being persecuted in Europe, the British restricted their immigration into Palestine. Ship-loads tried to gain entry to the US, Canada and Cuba and were refused. By 1947 there were 250,000 displaced Jews (Holocaust survivors) in refugee camps in Europe. The British rejected several attempts to allow 100,000 of them to immigrate to Palestine. These people could not return to their homelands in Europe because they had lost family, community and all of their property. They also faced continuing antisemitism. So ships were organised to go to mandatory Palestine without British permission. The British intercepted the ships and sent 50,000 refugees to detention on Cyprus. In 1947 one ship full of Holocaust survivors was sent back to Germany. World-wide opposition to this embarrassed the British and led to the eventual UN recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine in 1948.

This background information I believe helps us observers from the outside of the conflagration to widen our view of all that has gone in in Israel ever since. Desperate people fighting with Muslim ‘people of the land’ who have been there for many centuries, is never going to have a good outcome. People become entrenched in their own point of view and so the struggle has gone. In recent days the increasingly right-wing (read: allied with right-wing religious orthodoxy) government has encouraged more and more taking of Palestinian territory. Hamas is a natural response to this for those who see violence against Israel as the only answer. It has found support mainly in Gaza. Israel’s military superiority has been used continuously against ordinary Palestinians to disrupt their daily lives in many ways, including the endless ‘check-points’, all in the name of security. Palestinians have always had inferior infrastructure and water and power services, plus second-class schools and medical resources.

Like all of us, I despair that there will ever be a peaceful Israel, with Israelis and Palestinians living side by side. It is, however, important to try to keep eyes on the wider picture of the struggle of both peoples to find a home in the land of the Bible. For one thing, we Christians should remember that there are millions of mainly cultural Jews around the world who are very critical of successive Israeli governments in their treatment of the Palestinian people.

Lorraine Parkinson 2nd November 2023

The author: Rev Dr Lorraine Parkinson. Lorraine is a biblical scholar, theologian and author, and considers herself ‘somewhat of a mystic’.  Exploring the faith from a viewpoint outside traditional boundaries has allowed and encouraged her to see the ‘biggest picture of all’. Use our search engine to find other posts from Lorraine.

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Re-reading the story of Palestine and Israel

There are, in my opinion, three contributing factors to both poor analysis and inadequate responses to the conflict between Palestine and Israel, and the particular role of Hamas.

Let me be very clear from the beginning. Hamas’ actions in Israel were wrong, profoundly and horribly wrong.

First, however, the response and analysis has sought to ignore history. There is a pretence that Hamas simply attacked Israel out of the blue in an act of irrationality. They are mad people who must be eliminated, regardless of the cost to the civilian population. Consider the reality:

• In 1917 the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration supporting the establishment in Palestine of a home for Jewish people. The aim was not to protect Jewish people, but to get rid of them out of Britain.
• Prior to World War 2, there were relatively small numbers of Jewish people in Palestine, which was controlled as a British Protectorate.
• At the end of the war, and with the guilt of the near annihilation of the Jewish people in Germany, support was given to finally enact the Balfour Declaration. People entered Palestine, often illegally, and began to push Palestinians off their land.
• By 1948 there was significant occupation. The UN declared that the land should be partitioned, and two states established. Israel was established, but a Palestinian state has never gained proper support. Israel is opposed to such a state, believing it would threaten their security.
• The State of Israel is a settler-colonial state, and has done exactly what such states have done in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. That is, they have stolen land, and justified that theft with the claim that the place was largely unoccupied. Where it was, the people did not use the land properly. People can be dispossessed because they are lesser people – it is a racist narrative, that has been imbedded in apartheid.
• Palestinians have been pushed into smaller and smaller enclaves, reducing any chance of a proper state. They have had walls built around them, their movements are controlled. Witnesses say that they live in a virtual prison.
• In the last 10 years, 3500 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF, including large numbers of children.

One of the things we learned from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa was that we should asked those who are oppressed to tell the story of their oppression, and not to ask the oppressors. People should tell their own story, and not have it told by those who continue to harm them.

Second, the clear narrative across the world is that some people are of more value than others. The latest deaths in Israel quite rightly bring forth international condemnation. But the deaths of Palestinians rarely cause a protest. And because people are not seen as equal, then it is okay to seek revenge that is completely disproportionate. Many more Palestinians must die to make up for the death of citizens of Israel.

Third, the US and its allies like Australia must take some blame for what is happening because we have failed to uphold international law; we have failed to insist that the law applies to Israel. The settlements on Palestinian land are illegal, yet they keep expanding. The state of Palestine has been declared by the UN, but no-one does anything to make it happen. It is illegal to attack civilians, but civilians in Palestine are attacked and killed all the time, and no-one is held accountable. It is illegal to punish civilians for what their military do, which is exactly what Israel is doing, but the US and its allies will not tell them to stop.

Let me say it again, this is not a defence of Hamas. Which, by the way, was supported by Israel for years as a way of dividing the Palestinian opposition.

This is a claim that we will not have peace in the area until people are treated as of equal value, until international law is respected, and until people stop stealing land. The alternative is a never-ending spiral of violence.

The response to this argument is often to label it and me as antisemitic. This is about the actions of the State of Israel. To name the ways a state breaks international laws, and oppresses other people is not antisemitic or aimed at Jewish people at all. I hope opponents will not throw labels that obscure the debate but will actually respond to the arguments I have made.

Chris Budden, 31 October 2023

The author:

Rev Dr Chris Budden is a retired Uniting Church Minister who is still actively engaged with First Peoples, and teaches a course on reconciliation at UTC, Sydney. He has a long interest in ways to find peace in Palestine-Israel. His present research interest is the Preamble.

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SUPPORT PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI PEOPLE IN THEIR QUEST FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE

If you have any illusions about Hamas militants being freedom fighters, bravely putting their lives on the line for a just cause, please listen to Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon’s address to the National Press Club on Wednesday (25/10/23), especially the first part where he describes in detail Hamas’s actions on October 7—go to YouTube and you will readily find it.

Of course, you may not be well-disposed to listening to a senior spokesman for the Israeli government at this time, so please look at the facts. Apart from the over 200 innocent Israeli people it now holds hostage in Gaza, Hamas is also holding most of the innocent Palestinian population of Gaza hostage —men, women and children—using them as a human shield to protect themselves behind. This is not courage, not fighting for freedom. Hamas is no respecter of human rights, only a violator of them.

Sponsored by Iran, Hamas is the main roadblock right now to a negotiated peace settlement in Palestine/Israel, a “two-state solution”. Hamas have effectively held Palestinian people hostage in Gaza since seizing power from Fatah in the “Battle of Gaza” in 2007. The stated aim of Hamas, and Iran, is the destruction of the state of Israel, by any means possible.

Do we care about Israeli and Palestinian people, their legitimate claims to lands, their hopes for peaceful co-existence with each other? If we do, then please have no illusions about Hamas, and do not support their cause.

The hope we might cling onto, in the midst of the current awful conflict, is the setting free of the people of Gaza from the tyranny of Hamas’s occupation—even if some at least of the Gaza population actually support Hamas. Then the two sides will be able to engage in meaningful dialogue and negotiations for peace.

A ceasefire—how could this be the solution? It would mean a return to the simmering tensions of the last 17 years, ready to explode into an even more deadly conflict next time. Hamas might surrender the hostages back to Israel, surrender themselves to the International Criminal Court for trial on crimes against humanity, in return for meaningful negotiations on a two-state solution—now that would be real bravery, real freedom fighting. Israel, on the other hand, what choice does it have but to continue trying to bring Hamas to account?

Yes, the underlying problem is both sides clinging onto to their religious and national identities, both sides claiming an absolute right to the same land. Both sides will have to let go of something, compromise, change, for peace to occur.

Israel is a democracy, with rule of law and basic rights for citizens; but it is not a democracy when it discriminates amongst citizens on the basis of religion or race, and continues to expand settlements into Palestinian territories, in violation of rulings of the International Court of Justice, justifying its actions on the basis of self-defence. Democracy is open, gracious, inclusive, “no respecter of persons”; anything less, even or especially when it is under fire, is not democracy but a form of tyranny.

With the help of the international community the two sides have been close to a settlement before, in the Oslo Accord process from 1993-2000, then in the Road Map to Peace from 2003. So let us not despair but live in hope—and continue to support both Israeli and Palestinian people in their quest for justice and peace.

Fergus McGinley 26/10/23

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Not sure I wish to retain “the theologically open and welcoming place that has been the Uniting Church”, as Lorraine Parkinson remarks. Rather, I’m more at one with Bev Floyd and her feeling that “the ideas of Jesus should never have become a religion.”

Actually I was reflecting on these issues today while taking family from Sydney around our Australia Zoo, and could not help noticing how prominent and prolific were pictures of the late Steve Irwin, regular references to him and videos featuring this enthusiastic “wildlife warrior”.

Steve and Jesus may have much in common in a “sacred” secular way, as Bev would put it.

What was not very prominent at the Zoo but still very touching was this plaque which I spotted almost hidden away.

These sincere statements can be found on the Australia Zoo website:

It is only by working together and standing shoulder to shoulder that we can follow in Steve’s footsteps and make his dream a reality.

The annual Steve Irwin Gala celebrates the life and legacy of the original Wildlife Warrior, Steve Irwin. This very special event takes place annually in Brisbane and Las Vegas to raise much-needed funds to continue Steve’s conservation work worldwide.

…surrounded by fellow Wildlife Warriors, it’s a remarkable night honouring one extraordinary man.

Be part of our Wildlife Warriors family as we follow Steve’s legacy.

The Steve Irwin Gala is a celebration of the life and legacy of the original Wildlife Warrior – Steve Irwin. These annual events, which take place in Brisbane and Las Vegas, honour Steve’s larger than life personality and his extraordinary passion for wildlife. Now, it’s through his wife Terri, children Bindi and Robert, his loyal supporters and these very special events that Steve lives on.

“My heart will always beat for wildlife. Terri and I fight every day for the preservation of wildlife and wilderness – it’s our mission in life. Our children are also taking up the challenge” Steve Irwin

Terri, Bindi and Robert’s efforts today honour the greatest Wildlife Warrior that ever lived. They are ensuring that Steve’s legacy lives on. Australia Zoo now encompasses over 700 acres and employs over 500 staff, continuing Steve’s mission of “Conservation Through Exciting Education”.

Tim O’Dwyer

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The Historical Jesus is not The Christ

Thanks (Rev) Rex Hunt for forwarding this paper from David Galston for circulation through the UCFORUM.

David Galston is the Executive Director of the Westar Institute and a Scholar of Westar. David has a B.A. from the University of Winnipeg, a M.Div. from Vancouver School of Theology, and a Ph.D. from McGill University in the Philosophy of Religion. He is the author of three books, Archives and the Event of God (McGill-Queens Press, 2010), Embracing the Human Jesus (Polebridge Press, 2012), and God’s Human Future (Polebridge Press, 2016).

Rex A. E. Hunt is an Australian ‘grass roots’ religious naturalist , social ecologist, and progressive liturgist.

Since the publication of David Friedrich Strauss’s The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined in 1835,
there has been a controversy involving the separation of Jesus as a historical figure from the Christ as a Christian confession. To put it plainly, since Strauss, the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith have been regarded as two different animals.

It is natural, and expected, that the church has never been happy with this separation. The historical Jesus is not the Christ, and so to affirm that the historical Jesus is important is equal to saying that the church’s history of Christ-confession has been misplaced. It is hard to imagine that the church could be happy with such a conclusion.

However, even historians and, especially, theologians are often unhappy with the historical Jesus. Christian beliefs that an historian holds and will defend can lie hidden behind the examination of history. It is the hidden nature of these beliefs, precisely because they are hidden from view, that makes it difficult to judge whose version of the historical Jesus has truly satisfied the criterion of objectivity. I want to look at a few ways the significance of the historical Jesus is surprisingly denied and suggest that this denial prevents the church and Christianity from moving forward into a new age for religion.

The first tactic used to deny the significance of the historical Jesus is obfuscation. This is really a
classic move that politicians use all the time. To obfuscate is to blur the picture, which makes a
question obscure and then confusing, such that by the time the politician finishes crafting an answer, everyone has forgotten what the question was. Obfuscation avoids a question, and avoidance allows for the status quo to continue.

While David Friedrich Strauss did not really know who the historical Jesus was, he was extremely thorough in indicating who Jesus was not. Jesus was not the Christ, the Son of the living God, and, he stated, the gospel writers “flattered” themselves when they reported mythic narratives as historical events. Strauss imagined that Jesus was some sort of prophetic personality. He did not have the tools developed later in biblical criticism to go much further, but he had enough sense to identify storytelling when he saw it.

Later theologians and historians took advantage of this uncertainty in Strauss. The popular
conclusion was that we can’t know anything about the historical figure, so we must go forward with the post-resurrection Jesus, the Jesus of the church, and find ways to make the confession about Jesus as the Son of God relevant for today. In other words, the more we can hide Jesus behind the confession of the Christ, and the more we can make the Jesus of history irrelevant, the more we can continue on with the same old story. Hidden inside academic obfuscation was a commitment to maintain the ancient doctrines of the church.

A second way to deny the importance of the historical Jesus is the use of jargon. Insider language is jargon language; it is the language specialists use with each other to impress their colleagues and to make the public believe that they know what they are talking about. It is possible to do good academic work, or any form of technical work, in everyday language that avoids jargon and includes the public. However, in the competitive marketplace of ideas, being identifiably in the know is important for tenure, for status, and for coolness. The study of postmodern philosophy is full of “cool” expressions that sound profound but mean something simple. A “signification matrix,” for example, just means “community.”

Theologians use jargon to talk about the Christ within the technical problems of theology. The
problems of theology are explained with obscure insider words like soteriology, Christology, analogia fidei, Docetism (there is nothing worse than being accused of Docetism!), perichoresis, and other (strange) words usually unfamiliar to the uninitiated. The problem with using theological jargon in relation to the historical Jesus is that the historical Jesus eliminates the need for jargon. The jargon goes with the Christ either to talk about the work Christ accomplishes or the identity Christ holds as the Son of God. Once you no longer have a “Son of God” to play with, there is no purpose to the jargon.

Both the techniques of obfuscation and the reliance on jargon form, in large measure, the history of Christian doctrine. The historical Jesus does not have such a history; only Jesus as the Christ composes the history of Christian belief. The shock value of the historical Jesus, regardless of how one approaches the question, lies in the simple truth that Jesus was a human being like anyone. The Jesus of history does not hold the confessed Son of God status that Christianity has given him. He was, like all of us, a human being who was right sometimes and wrong at other times. Giving back to Jesus his humanity requires, on the part of later generations like us, a certain act of generosity and, even, humility toward him. Accepting Jesus as a human being, not a Savior or a God, is the sincere act of loving him both as he was and for who he was. People who hold this respectful quality of love for Jesus are, amazingly, not welcome in the church.

A future for a religion like Christianity with an historical Jesus is a humanist future. This future does not involve a loss of respect for Jesus; indeed, quite the contrary, it involves an honest love for him. Second, it is a future that is not built upon confessing theological doctrines. The historical Jesus eliminates this need, which is tied to the Christ. The historical Jesus is not a confession but a person. Equally, the historical Jesus, by virtue of being a human being who lived, struggled, and lost in the Roman empire, requires of us not a belief in him but a commitment to the struggles, the gains, and the losses of our own time. The historical Jesus impels us to be “historical” too, that is, to be our true human selves in our time with the same honesty, the same realism, but also the same hope.

A future Christianity with the historical Jesus is a humanist Christianity that remains “spiritual”
because it remains in the present moments of history with honesty. There is no attempt at
obfuscation, and there is no need to employ jargon. What is needed, and what is honest, is our own humanity, living on this planet as creatures respectful of nature, committed to our common future. Without the honesty that such a commitment requires, we do forfeit our sense of spirituality, and we do settle for obfuscation over clarity and for jargon over community.

–© David Galston

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Thank you to Lorraine Parkinson for this timely opinion piece:

The Uniting Church and the Evangelical Takeover

 I am entering this conversation with an urgency that I am hoping will be adopted by those who read this article.   I am a lifetime member of the Methodist and then Uniting Church.  I have a long memory of ways those churches operated from the late 1940s.   As a young child I was taken to Sunday School ‘Kinder’ and also to the worship of the congregation.  As my parents were in the choir at the evening service, I would sit with my grandmother and search her handbag for ‘Steamrollers’, a mint lolly that would keep me quiet.  Many children from babies to young teenagers and older, were part of the morning and evening congregations.  Sunday School happened during the last half of the morning service, when the children went to the Sunday School hall while the adults listened to the sermon.  In the first half of the worship, the words, the music, the worshipful atmosphere, the attentiveness of the adults, the expectation that the children would be quiet, all sank easily into our consciousness.  That was, after all, the era of children sitting quietly in rows of desks in schoolrooms.  Apart from the meetings of those who ran the congregation, all ages participated in every part of its life, including children’s and youth clubs and bible study for all ages.  It was, to all intents and purposes, ‘intergenerational’, although not using that word.

In several congregations to which I have belonged, and in those with which I have ministered, the same expectation of participation by all ages has continued.  As time has gone by, and many Uniting Church congregations have declined, particularly when losing children and younger generations, participation by all ages has accordingly declined.  We all know of many congregations where the attendance ranges between 30 and 50, almost entirely of those aged 70+.  Alarm bells that began tinkling in the 1970s grew louder with each decade of decline and have become siren calls for attention.  In the 21^st century a new word entered the Uniting Church’s lexicon – ‘intergenerational’.  This was to be the answer to the comprehensive absence of younger generations.  This would draw ‘young people, children and families’ to experience a ‘modern’ approach to being church.  The ‘Messy Church’ programs swept across many of our churches, as resources for ‘intergenerational’ programs made their way into the inboxes and mailboxes of clergy, church councils, Presbytery and Synods.  This would be the answer to attracting younger generations, and why not?

Through this era the idea of separate services for older members and younger adults and children became popular.  This was in large part because of the difference in music felt to be appropriate for each age group.  The older members wished to continue singing the hymns they had always known.  The younger looked to ‘contemporary’ music and songs.  Again, why not?

It is no secret that music is one of the most powerful means of conveying sacred meaning to the heart.  It explains the reluctance of older church members to put aside music that has always represented their own faith through the ages.  The introduction of ‘contemporary’ music (I recall a ‘rock n roll’ service in the Methodist church in the 1960s – guitars in church!) brought with it a different way of conveying that sense of the sacred to the younger members attracted by its resemblance to their generation’s pop music.  At first we became aware of large congregations in other denominations where the worship was conducted in auditoriums with music led by instruments used in rock bands.  Mainly for that reason, those churches attracted young people and their parents to a new style of church.

Some notice was taken of the fact that the music itself, coming from large ‘mega-churches’ in Australia like Hillsong, or from overseas, particularly the USA, represented and encouraged a distinct kind of theology.  The songs are often dismissed by older UCA members as ‘those choruses’, that have no depth of meaning.  Yet they do convey meaning – in accordance with a conservative approach to the faith.  The ‘victory’ of Christ appears in many, along with belief in the Saviour Christ and his ‘saving blood’.   Nothing new there, you say.  No, but in the foundational churches and in the Uniting Church itself, those tenets of belief have not traditionally been the only explanation of faith in God and following Jesus.  The Uniting Church and its predecessors have always practised ‘theological hospitality’, where an individual’s understanding of the faith at any point along their life’s journey has been welcomed and accepted.  People have been nurtured in their own relationship with God.  Following Jesus has always meant embracing and working with the many and amazing ways the Uniting Church has followed Jesus in reaching out to those in need.  It has always embraced as equals those often marginalised by Australian society, including people of other faiths and people described as LGBTQI+.   Act2 proposes that this continue.

All of this is now seen as ‘Act 1’ of the life of the Uniting Church.  Act2 is a response to the gradual decline in numbers in the Uniting Church and no longer tenable ways of ordering the church’s structures, congregational life and property.   The aim is to find a way to give the church a new start – ‘Act 2’ of its journey of faith and life.  Again, I say, why not?

I will tell you.  In December 2021 I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane to be near my immediate family.  Since then I have tried to join two Uniting Church congregations.  In both cases I found a tightly focussed conservative evangelical theological observance as I previously mentioned.  I was informed that this was ‘the faith of the Uniting Church’.  Both churches were using the term ‘intergenerational church’ to describe their congregation’s vision.

As part of the development of Act2, the UCA Assembly has just released a new resource called “Being an Intergenerational Church”.  The foreword to the document includes the words: “every member, of every age, from every culture, no matter their gender, is called to confess the faith of Christ crucified and to be a follower of the way of Jesus.”  That is a quote from the Basis of Union.  Following Jesus is the way most Uniting Church members would wish to describe their faith journey.  But ‘confessing the faith of Christ crucified’ carries the conservative theology of the 1960s when the Basis of Union was created in large part as a means of enticing the Catholic and Anglican churches into union with the UCA.  It also points to belief in the saving blood of Christ, the theological mainstay of conservative evangelical churches.

The resources underpinning the move toward recreating the Uniting Church as an ‘intergenerational’ church are almost entirely from the United States, from conservative evangelical institutions, universities and seminaries, a primary source being Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.  Their statement of faith is quintessential conservative evangelical.   The books and speakers recommended under the resources section of the document are from that background.   While the Assembly resource paper contains much to be affirmed in the Uniting Church of the future, it is the theological underpinning of the intergenerational proposal, not stated there, but already evident in many congregations, which ought to be of great concern to members of the church as a whole.

These resources are not new to the Uniting Church.  They have been knowingly distributed under the heading of ‘Children’s and Families Ministry’ through Synods for well over a decade.  The person primarily behind the distribution of those resources has left the Victorian and Tasmanian Synod and is now associated directly with ‘InterGen’, a part of an international association of conservative evangelical organisations.  The person concerned has now been appointed as Assembly Intergenerational Consultant.

Nowhere does this document mention the UCA tradition of theological hospitality.  Nowhere does it encourage a discussion of faith and beliefs.  They are apparently assumed to be included in the section under Vision, where safe and empowering spaces are created – for discussion about issues regarding the life of the church.  Nowhere does this explicitly indicate that differing theological perspectives may be discussed.

I fear that the Uniting Church is well and truly along the road to becoming an exclusive conservative evangelical church.  I have seen it in action, with those who disagree with it made to feel very unwelcome.   Many have had to leave such congregations.  If none of our people who are concerned about this call out the infiltration of the UCA by the Trojan horses of intergenerational resources, then sooner or later, the takeover will be complete.  Wherever and whoever you are, if you wish to retain the theologically open and welcoming place that has been the Uniting Church, it is up to you to call out the process that is being promoted on behalf of all of us, through the Assembly.

(Rev Dr) Lorraine Parkinson

oOo