Category: Social Impact

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Social Impact

Unity of the Spirit

Most of us have probably had the experience of going through the security checks before boarding an aircraft. The routine goes something like, keys and coins out of pockets, belts off, laptop out of bag and all items placed in trays before they are x-rayed for any security risks.

I was recently at an airport going through this routine when out of the blue a security man looked at me and said, “What is the Uniting Church’s view on homosexuality and what is your personal view?”

He caught me completely off guard. Not wanting to hold up the queue or totally avoid the question, I said something like, “We are engaged in respectful conversations about this sensitive issue, and at this moment, I am not prepared to share with you my personal view.”

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Social Impact

15th Triennial Assembly Meeting

The 15th Triennial Assembly Meeting opened on Sunday 8 July in Melbourne, and Dr Deidre Palmer was installed as President of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Members of the meeting have already discussed some proposals on marriage;  heard from the National Task Group, which is the body appointed by the Uniting Church to respond to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; discussed sovereignty for Australia’s First Peoples; and have adopted a statement that commits the Uniting Church to repudiate all teaching and theologies that justify domestic violence.

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Social Impact

Moderator’s Column: Christ the controversialist

Some people love a good controversy. They write letters to the newspaper, attend rallies, join movements and engage in vigorous debates.

I am not such a person. I have, however, attended a number protest marches. My first was at the age of nineteen when I joined a couple of hundred other Christians, carrying crosses near a nuclear shipyard that planned to name a new nuclear submarine ‘Corpus Christi’, Latin for ‘the body of Christ’. We could not reconcile giving such a sacred name to a weapon of mass destruction.

More recently, I spoke at a rally on behalf of the suffering Rohingya people, and at Palm Sunday peace rallies I have felt compelled to join many other people giving support and solidarity to  poorly treated refugees.  I have reluctantly at times engaged in controversial issues, sometimes forgetting that Christ, who I claim to serve, was controversial. It seems that on some of the issues of the day, Jesus entered the controversy.

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Social Impact

Record crowd at Perth Palm Sunday walk

Former Premier of Western Australia, Dr Carmen Lawrence, and now Professor in the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia, addressed a record crowd of close to 1 500 people outside St George’s Cathedral at the Perth Palm Sunday Walk for Justice for Refugees, held on 25 March.

Dr Lawrence drew attention to the cruelty of Australia’s refugee policies, saying, “We know that the current policies are costly, costly in human terms and financial terms, and cruel, unutterably cruel, defying the refugee convention to which we’re signatory.”

Newly installed Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Kay Goldsworthy AO, Australia’s first female Archbishop, in one of her first major public appearances as Archbishop added her voice to the call for a humane response to people seeking safety saying, “Australians are a compassionate people. Instead of limbo and uncertainty, we can offer safety, freedom and a future.”

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Social Impact

Polar parallels on a journey of the heart

Colleen Geyer, General Secretary of the Uniting Church in Australia travelled across Canada last year with a group of seven Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (Congress) leaders, as part of the Moderator of the United Church of Canada (UCC), Rev Jordan Cantwell’s, Reconciliation Dialogue.

The purpose of the trip was to take a look at the way another church had worked through sovereignty and treaty discussions with its First Peoples, to better inform the conversation the Uniting Church is currently engaged in. She shared her experience with Revive.

Our journey began in Vancouver where we met students at the UCC’s Native Ministries Consortium Summer School and visited the Vancouver School of Theology.

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Social Impact

Apology Day: ten years on

On Tuesday 13 February UnitingCare West teams came together at their respective sites to acknowledge the 10th Anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations.

Apology Day was marked by UnitingCare West service centres in Victoria Park, Perth inner city, Fremantle, Inglewood, Merriwa and Subiaco, with teams coming together over morning tea to share their reflections and feelings about the Apology. It was also an opportunity to hear stories from those affected by the Stolen Generations policies, including Ann and Kevin from Kinship Connections Aboriginal Corporation.

It was an emotional day of sharing, leaving UnitingCare West staff with hope for moving towards a more just, equitable and reconciled WA.

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Social Impact

President’s message: Standing alongside First Peoples this Survival Day

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA), Stuart McMillan, has called on governments state and federal to speed up negotiation of treaties that recognise Indigenous sovereignty.

In a video message released to coincide with 26 January, Stuart has urged all Australian governments “to give First Peoples a voice into the political processes which affect their lives.”

“First Peoples in Australia have not only survived but they have withstood injustice and today stand proud.”

Since 2015, the Uniting Church has been exploring what recognising sovereignty and treaty for its partners in the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.

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Social Impact

Editorial

So much has been going on in Australian politics in the lead-up to printing this edition of Revive. In a landslide victory, Australia has voted yes in the marriage equality postal survey, and crazy things are happening around our Federal MPs concerning dual citizenship.

But a horror situation is also unfolding on Manus Island.

I’ve struggled to keep up with news on this situation, I think because I feel utterly helpless. But as Revive goes to print, around 600 men have been abandoned by the Australian Government at the Manus Island Detention Centre. They fear for their safety if they leave. Their food, power and water has been cut and I can’t even imagine the mental anguish they must be going through.

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Social Impact

Just #BringThemHere

President of the Uniting Church in Australia, Stuart McMillan, has called on the Federal Government to take moral leadership and resolve the status of refugees on Manus Island in mainland Australia.

Hundreds of men who remained in the offshore detention centre after its closure on 31 October have been transported to new facilities by Papua New Guinean authorities. Their removal follows a tense stand-off in which the men initially refused to leave.

“Haven’t these people suffered enough? After all this time, is it still impossible for the Federal Government to show some compassion and bring them here?” said Stuart.

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Australian churches stand in unity for refugees in PNG

The National Council of Churches in Australia, Act for Peace and the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce stand together to bear witness to the suffering that Australia’s bipartisan refugee policy in regard to offshore processing, has caused.

They mourn the loss of justice for those refugees in Papua New Guinea (PNG) who are willing to put their own bodies in danger as the last cry of despair in the search for a safe future and pray for Australian Government leadership who may not have envisaged such suffering in re-enacting offshore processing, but who now cannot shy from the reality of the damage that has been done.

They are standing with the Manus Island and PNG people who are facing the presumption that they are not a safe and hospitable nation and cannot be trusted to host these vulnerable men and plead that if the men are to remain in PNG for now, that force is not used to relocate them and that the Australian Government contributes to securing their dignity and safety.

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