Uniting Church Poles on Compass
Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
Compass, the ABC religious affairs program, presented a documentary on the theological tensions within the Uniting Church on Sunday night.
“In 2007 the Uniting Church turns 30. Our third largest Christian denomination (after Catholic and Anglican churches) is a uniquely Australian institution formed in a spirit of ecumenical unity and strong social justice ideals. It combined the Methodist and most of the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches. But over the past decade its constituency has divided and fractured: many different expressions of faith are today lived under one church banner. How can it survive? Compass examines the unfolding story of a modern and dis-united church.”
The documentary attempts to report on the tension of a denomination struggling to live with both progressive and conservative wings in tension.
From the Assembly of Confessing Congregations pole (previously EMU and Reforming Alliance) we have national spokesman Max Champion, with John and Marion Morrison, a retired couple who lead Boys and Girls Brigades at Bondi in Sydney.
From the Progressive pole we have Rex Hunt, minister at St James in Canberra, along with a few members of St James. There’s a connection with a younger generation with Alison Proctor, a young woman attracted to the liberal progressive theology at St James.
We have excerpts of a sermon by David Gill, former General Secretary of the Uniting Church Assembly, and an interview with Philip Hughes, Christian Research Association (somehere in the middle of the divide).
Take a look at the transcript at Compass, and watch out for the typo in which Max Champion advocates belief in reincarnation rather than incarnation! The transcript doesn’t include the narrator’s unfavourable contrast between the inaugural citywide service in Sydney in 1977 and a local congregational celebration in 2007.
Overall I found the doco disappointing. There was little sense of engaging with the ‘messy middle’, nor with the emerging young voices I’m in touch with regularly. The documentary helped me understand the importance the Assembly of Confessing Congregations places on adhering to orthodox statements of beliefs - a ‘confessing stream’ within a contextual church.
Darren Wright’s written a bit of a rant on the Compass program at Planet Telex.
Tags: Uniting Church
