Author: revivewa

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Stories & Feature Articles

Concern for WA’s remote Indigenous communities

As the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary on 29 May this year, its members and supporters enter, yet again, an emotional  struggle to protect their human rights.

On Close the Gap Day, 19 March, hundreds of people marched from Forrest Place in Perth’s CBD to Parliament House in West Perth, to voice their concerns over the planned closure of 150  remote Aboriginal communities around Western Australia. Last year, the Federal Government announced it would pass on the responsibility of funding remote Aboriginal communities to the  states. In turn, this led to an announcement from the State Government that it could no longer afford funding to these WA communities, and that it would be cut.

The announcements have caused anger, frustration and devastation amongst Indigenous Australians and the wider community. Even more hurt was caused when Prime Minister Tony Abbott  suggested living in an Aboriginal community was a lifestyle choice, and that Australia could no longer afford to fund those choices.

Rev Sealin Garlett, chair of the WA Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, disagrees.

“Indigenous people have a deep connection to our land. This is not just a ‘lifestyle choice’, but part of our cultural and spiritual identity. We need to be on country to look after it,” he said.

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Stories & Feature Articles

President’s Easter message: Receive the peace, seek the justice

Christ is risen: he is risen indeed! I wish you all a happy Easter, on behalf of the Uniting Church in Australia. I hope that this Easter is a time of peace for you and that you have opportunities to share it with your family and friends. Holidays are precious, but the meaning of this one in particular is profound.

The Apostle Paul summed up Easter like this:

“…in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace…and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Paul’s message of equality and mutuality remains as radical today as it did 2000 years ago. It wasn’t just a religious elite or a specially favoured clan or class or community who could become people of God. All people were people of God through Jesus’ death on the Cross and his resurrection. For Paul, this equality surpassed the bounds of race, class and gender.

He said, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

This is the consistent message of the New Testament that echoes to us down the millennia: In the risen crucified Christ, God gathers people together who don’t belong together, and have no history of getting along together.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Why did Jesus die?

Why did Jesus die?

Many of you will immediately respond (wondering why I ask the question) “He died for my sins.”

But I’d suggest that we Christians need to stop and think about this a while, for at least a couple of reasons.

Firstly, if you respond with this answer when asked what is Easter all about by someone who is not ‘churched’ what would they make of it? What do you actually mean? “Jesus died for my sins” is actually a shorthand phrase for a lengthy theological account that many of us would have trouble explaining.

But secondly, as the billboard outside St Lukes, Auckland says “Jesus did NOT die for our sins.”

We actually know very little about the death of Jesus. We do know that he was crucified, probably around the Passover, in Jerusalem, by order of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. It’s not much, but it tells us something significant about Jesus and why he was killed. It tells us that his executioners were Roman, not Jewish. It tells us that his crime was sedition against the Roman state. It tells us that he was regarded by his executioners as a peasant nobody who had the temerity to challenge the Roman ‘peace’.

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Education & Training

Diaconal ministry: Faith at work in the everyday

While kangaroo tails are cooked and smoke billows above an inner city church courtyard on a balmy summer’s evening, stories are told by indigenous people. During morning worship, chairs are stacked in a haphazard pile to express sorrow over injustices experienced by the marginalized. Encouragement is given through Biblical stories of women and men who show their faith in Christ by listening, serving and forming new worshipping communities.

These are a few examples of the diverse and enriching experiences of the Deacon Intensive (for candidates) and the national DUCA (Diakonia in the Uniting Church in Australia) Conference that was held in February in Adelaide over two weeks.

The candidates were a diverse group, including two indigenous leaders, an Irish pastor, a Filipino journalist and an African-American woman, as well as several Australians, all with long experience of diaconal ministry. The candidates in the first week participated in worship, Bible studies, discussions, and immersion visits to a prison, refugee place of welcome and a community garden. Evening sessions, facilitated by Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal of Uniting College and Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, further extended their engagement with mission and community service.

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Social Impact

Compassion for refugees well overdue

Hundreds of people turned out in Perth for the Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees on Sunday 29 March. The crowd gathered at St George’s Cathedral in Perth before peacefully marching through the CBD calling for humane policies for asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. The event was organised by the Perth Justice4Refugees network, comprised of more than 20 community groups and churches.

Tim Winton, multi-award winning West Australian author spoke powerful words to the crowd.

“We’re here to call a spade a spade, to declare that what has become political common sense in Australia over the past 15 years is actually nonsense. And not just harmless nonsense; it’s vicious, despicable nonsense.  For something foul is festering in the heart of our community, something shameful and rotten,” he said.

“If current refugee policy is common sense, then I refuse to accept it. I dissent. And many of my countrymen and women dissent alongside me. I don’t pretend to have a geopolitical answer to the worldwide problem of asylum seekers. Fifty million people are currently displaced by war and famine and persecution. I don’t envy those who make the decisions in these matters, those who’ve sought and gained the power to make decisions in this matter. I’m no expert, no politician. But I know when something’s wrong. And what my country is doing is wrong.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Life Abounding: A reading of John’s Gospel, by Brendan Byrne

Brendan Byrne completes his excellent Gospel commentaries with Life Abounding on John. He believes John proclaims a  gospel that will lead readers from mere existence to abundant life, enabling the development of a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. I find it a joy to read Byrne’s clear and uncluttered style and profound insights simply expressed.

While a commentary, Byrne’s pastoral aim means he does not enter into every academic discussion, preferring to seek  theological and spiritual riches in the text. It is both full of depth and accessible. A Melbourne Jesuit, Byrne’s decades-long experience as a New Testament teacher and researcher in the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne is evident.

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News & Announcements

Call for a new approach to remote Indigenous communities

The Uniting Church in Australia, Western Australia and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress WA (Congress) are deeply troubled by the planned closure of remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia. They are concerned about the ramifications this will have on individuals and communities affected and believe it displays a concerning lack of understanding about Aboriginal culture and the rights of Indigenous people.

“We call on the Federal and State Government to reconsider their approach to remote settlements, and engage upon a consultation with remote communities about the best way to deliver services to them,” said Moderator of the Uniting Church, Rev Steve Francis.

“We need to act sensitively with Indigenous people who have suffered so much dispossession and trauma during the history of European settlement of Western Australia. Making decisions to remove services to remote Indigenous settlements could increase the sense of Indigenous dispossession and displacement.”

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Stories & Feature Articles

From the Archives: World War I chaplains

Throughout 2015, to mark the centenary year of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli, Revive will be publishing a series of articles  highlighting the men who provided chaplaincy to those who served in WW1.

Rev Charles Jenkins was born in Maldon Victoria 1869 and arrived in Western Australia in 1896 to become the assistant to  the Rev Dr Rowe of the Perth Circuit. On the completion of his term in Perth he moved through the country areas of WA as a much loved pastor to the people.

Charles, a Methodist minister, was commissioned on 20 January 1915 and sailed on the troopship HMAT Itonus doing duty  as a transport Chaplain for the voyage only. He returned to Australia three months later.

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Stories & Feature Articles

Tradie volunteers prepare for Outback Links farm revival

The farmers of remote Australia need your help. Many are facing their third year of drought.

Without good rainfall, there are no crops or less stock to generate income for farmers. If vital equipment and infrastructure wears out or breaks down, there isn’t the money or means to repair it. It’s part of a downturn on the land that can lead to stress and depression.

Frontier Services, a national agency of the Uniting Church in Australia, has been helping people in remote Australia for more than 100 years. Since 2005, their volunteers’ program ‘Outback Links’ has grown to more than 1,000 volunteers who travel to remote properties to assist families through difficult times.

This April will bring a new development in ‘Outback Links’ when 10 young apprentice tradespeople participate in a 6 day ‘Outback Links’ farm revival in the drought-afflicted region around Lightning Ridge in North-Western NSW. This trip is a follow up from one in November 2014 where volunteers worked on 30 local properties.

Volunteers include plumbers, mechanics, electricians and carpenters. Under the supervision of professional tradespeople and host farmers, they will repair broken equipment like tractors, motor bikes and farm machinery, and rebuild infrastructure like sheds and homes.

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News & Announcements

National appeal for cyclone affected communities

UnitingWorld and the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) have launched a national appeal to support the communities devastated by Tropical Cyclone Pam.

Thousands of people across Vanuatu are homeless after the Category 5 cyclone. The UCA’s partner in Vanuatu, the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu (PCV), is providing much needed shelter with 10 churches set up as evacuation centres. The Cyclone’s 300 km/h gusts of wind wiped out entire villages and an estimated 15,000 homes have been destroyed. At least eight people have lost their lives, with the toll expected to rise. Hospitals, government buildings, shops and hotels were also significantly damaged.

Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Ralph Regenvanu reported from the National Disaster and Management Centre that a state of emergency was declared for Province of Shefa, which includes Port Vila.

“Once aerial assessments are in, the state of emergency will be extended to other provinces, if not the whole country. The total population of Vanuatu is considered to be affected,” said Ralph.

PCV health program co-ordinator Richard Tatwin said Port Vila looked like a “war-zone”.

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