Paul Clark on being an evangelical who wants to stay IN the Uniting Church.
Not a year seems to go by without the Uniting Church becoming the punching bag of conservatives for seemingly weird or heretical positions taken on an issue – often sexuality. The question is regularly asked, “Can you be an evangelical in the Uniting Church?” or other such variants.
This is all very unfortunate because the Uniting Church is full of very faithful Christians, and quite a lot of them, like myself, are evangelical. It is also unfortunate as the Uniting Church has a wonderful Christian legacy in Australia, having shaped our country with missions like the Royal Flying Doctors, School or the Air, Lifeline, Wesley Mission, UnitingCare, and Blue Nursing without detailing our schools and hospitals. My understanding is that the Uniting Church is the biggest non-government provider of community services in Australia. Biggest. The Uniting Church was also the first Australian Church, constituted in 1977 without submission to overseas authority.
To understand why the Uniting Church continues to gain controversy, yet evangelicals happily remain within her, you have to understand the Uniting Church. That is a big task because if you haven’t been a member of the Uniting Church, we are a bit of a mystery. Even for long-time members, we can be a mystery!
Firstly, I don’t speak for the Uniting Church in Australia [UCA]. I’m not an eminent theologian. This is my account of the denomination, using metaphor to help us understand, rather than scholarship! Many would challenge my account – which, to me, supports the very arguments I make!
I’m a Minister in the UCA who has served for almost 20 years. I’ve lived in four states and have been as frustrated with my denomination as I have valued her. I call myself an evangelical in the biblical sense of someone passionate about sharing the ‘euangelion’ – the good news, rather than the modern sense, as someone who believes in a specific set of conservative doctrines.
Because I’m an evangelical, I have over 20 books published; drama, puppet plays and the Car Park Parable children’s series, and almost 1,000 one-minute radio At the Top spots out, all aimed at sharing the good news. My current church in Redcliffe Qld, has just added an integrated community services Hub to their life with the aim of transforming people’s lives with the gospel.
My evangelical learnings have been appreciated and supported by my denomination, not challenged. So why does the UCA have this anti-evangelical stigma?
The first thing you have to understand about the church is its formation. The UCA formed in 1977, after 75 years of negotiations, between most of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalists.
At first, that may not seem very remarkable, but considering the absolute momentum of Protestantism has been to divisions since its beginning – any coming together of protestant groups should almost always be presumed to be a move of God.
When you also realise the theological and ecclesiastical differences of these denominations, it is a miracle such a union took place…
Presbyterians believe in the Sovereignty of God in salvation [no human free will]. Methodists take the opposite Armenian view [we freely choose]. Congregationalists locate power democratically in congregations [bottom up]. Methodists submit to the head of the Church [top down], and Presbyterians something in-between!
You cannot have a Union of theological positions that have been fought over with guns, and ecclesiastical structures that people have gone to the gallows for, without approaching the Union from a completely different perspective.
Rather than theological or ecclesiastical uniformity being the driving ‘why’ for the UCA, the raison d’être for its existence was the unity of the Body of Christ; Jesus’ prayer in John 17.
Simplistically; if we are all going to have to learn to get on together in heaven (because are we really saying these differences damn people?) we had better start now. That is a much more
Biblical church. The unifying principle, the true locus of salvation for the church is Jesus Christ.
Those who formed the Uniting Church began, not with a list of doctrines people must believe to belong, but Jesus Christ as the founding principal, the cornerstone of the church. Our Unity is in our allegiance to Christ, and the ‘Basis of Union’ defines Christ in very orthodox ways.
It doesn’t seem at all remarkable to base a church on Jesus, but back in 1977, this was unique. The founding document of the UCA, the basis of Union, is well worth a read; less than 5,000 words.
What I’m trying to say is – before you even begin, you have to understand that the Uniting Church is an organisation where people who had conflicting theologies and ecclesiologies decided to put them aside for the greater good; the mission of God in Jesus Christ who was reconciling the world to himself. And in Jesus’ own words, the world will know you are my disciples by your love for one another. (John 13:35)
If the Uniting Church put ‘essential’ theologies aside for a greater purpose back then, it’s not a surprise they would do it now. That’s why of all the labels they could have given themselves, Uniting was the one they chose. Staying together in Christ, demonstrating our love for one another in our difference, is our highest value.
To help you understand this, it’s better to see the UCA, not as a denomination, but as a movement like Scripture Union or the Bible Society [or perhaps something in between.] Scripture Union has a mission to promote scripture to the world. To achieve their mission and work across the broadest group, they put much doctrine aside. As long as you adhere to the classic creeds of the Church Scripture Union will work with you.
This is what the UCA was trying to do. It was a movement of Christians working for the uniting of not simply Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, but all denominations into one Australian church. That’s why they called themselves Uniting, not United. The idea was you could still hold your Anglican membership, but be part of the UCA. You could still be a Baptist and part of the UCA. You can still do this today; keep your denominational membership, and be a part of the UCA.
So, to enable this, the Uniting Church is light on core doctrines – just the classic creeds of the church – and agnostic, or pluralistic, about non-core doctrines.
Asking if you can be evangelical and Uniting Church is like asking, “can you be evangelical and part of Scripture Union?” Scripture Union doesn’t care about your brand, they are happy to work with all. That becomes the important question in the Uniting Church, “Are you happy to put non–essentials aside for the mission?” If so, you’re going to fit here.
This long introduction poses all sorts of questions I might come back to in future; “What are the essentials?” “If this is true, why is the Uniting Church the least united denomination?” “Don’t you have members who don’t even believe the classic creeds!?” All good questions, and like all churches, we have great ideals, but bad follow through.
For the purposes of this article, given our story, it should not surprise anyone to discover that the Uniting Church is a very broad, diverse, eclectic organisation that holds all sorts of paradoxes and puzzles in tension for the greater good – the mission of God, and that evangelicals and liberals can coexist, so long as they have developed that all-too-rare capacity to be secure in their own salvation, without the need to have everyone around them like them.
Paul Clark
Minister, Redcliffe Uniting Church