Hedley Fihaki, National Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the Uniting Church in Australia (ACC) a group of evangelicals, is himself no longer a minister within the UCA.
On Tuesday he received an email informing him that “the [Queensland] Synod Standing Committee has implemented the Committee for Discipline’s sanction and has withdrawn your recognition as a Minister effective on and from 14 October. This follows the determination of the Committee for Discipline on 12 October, which the Legal Assistant Darrell Jardine communicated to you on this date.
“You are now a lay member of the Uniting Church in Australia.”
He has 30 days of stipend and housing left and has been told he must step back from leading his congregation sooner. “The Mary Burnett Presbytery [a regional UCA Committee] Pastoral Relations Committee (PRC) …has determined that you must step back from any leadership role that you have within the Mooloolaba Christian Church (MCC) by Sunday 23 October 2022.”
Fihaki’s dismissal follows from the UCA dissolving the Sunnybank church in Inner Brisbane in April. Its former minister Lulu-OHa’angana Senituli is a close associate of Fihaki. Both Sunnybank and Mooloolaba have strong conservatively inclined islander congregations. If the Sunnybank situation has been repeated at Mooloolaba, there will be a smaller group of mostly Anglo church members unhappy with the direction the church has taken with a conservative islander minister.
The Other Cheek understands that Fihaki’s role in leading the ACC forms at least part of the complaints against him. In Fihaki’s response to the charges, he states “I was directed not to use the term ‘replacement assembly’ as ‘the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, has determining authority in matters of government (Constitution of the Uniting Church in Australia, section 38(a))’”
He responded. “I fully understand that the ACC has no legal standing within the UCA and the ACC has never sought to claim legal standing within the UCA, i.e. in matters of ‘government.'”
However, the ACC has long been modelled as a “government in exile” within the UCA, without claiming to be an official UCA body.
The background to the complaints involves “R64” the name of the motion the UCA Assembly passed in 2018 adopting a rite of same-sex marriage alongside the UCA’s traditional rite of man-woman marriage.
“The root of the problem in terms of division within the UCA is R64 with its contradictory and irreconcilable nature,” Fihaki wrote in response to the charges.
“What the complainant is trying to do, however, is make out that it is my ‘behaviour’ that is creating the division within the Church.
“For example,… I am being charged for being ‘disrespectful’ for simply asking the question ‘Does the Moderator understand why we cannot live with this false diversity endorsed by R64’”?
Those two issues combine in a third ground of complaint, that as leader of the ACC, Fihaki signed public statements alongside heads of other denominations opposing same-sex marriage.
“I fully understand that I cannot speak on behalf of the Synod or the Assembly and I always make very clear to the Media that I am only speaking on behalf of the ACC, hence why, for example, Anna Patty [a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald] makes clear that the ACC is ‘distinct from the Uniting Church in Australia’, Fihaki wrote in his response.
“There was footage on ABC news on the 11th of May 2019 where they got my title wrong saying I was the ‘National Chair of the Uniting Church’. I emailed ABC immediately and asked for the mistake to be corrected and they rightly removed the video footage that evening. I also asked ABC to notify the Gen. Sec. and President of the UCA which they did. I also advised my Presbytery Minister, Rev. Chris Crause on the 12 May 2019: 6: 08 p.m.
“Former moderator, Rev. David Baker himself said in his letter dated 14 May 2019, that ‘as soon’ as there is an ‘error in reporting’ is ‘observed, a timely correction was sought by Hedley…’ “
Fihaki believes that the UCA is trying to shut down the ACC which has been the most vocal of several evangelical networks in the UCA. “It has always been my contention that it is R64 in terms of its irreconcilable nature that is the source of the problem and that we should be engaging in discussing the problem with R64 rather than misusing church processes such as the Committee for Discipline to frame the matter around my so-called ‘bad behaviour,'” he wrote in his response to the charges against him.
The Other Cheek has sought comment from the UCA Queensland moderator Andrew Gunton.
Image: Hedley Fihaki
John Sandeman edited the ACCatalyst magazine for five years.
The ACC in the UCA is a spent force; the emerging Propel network in the UCA demonstrates an ethical and mature response to the challenge of congregational life in the UCA. The UCA has many quality evangelical leaders fulfilling their ordination obligations wholeheartedly. The idea that Hedley and Lu were dismissed (after due process) for being evangelical is a total nonsense; completely disingenuous.
Well said, Don
The UCA need s to abandon its anti Biblical stance on same sex marriage and submit to God, not man. Following the world will only lead to destruction and confusion.
All sin, including homosexuality, is condemned in Scripture. We are called to love the sinner (as God does) but never to accommodate his sin.
The Bible is very clear also about salvation: it only comes through Jesus. Persecuting those who speak God’s truth, will not win the Synod any “brownie points” with God and they are playing a dangerous game.
When are fundamentalists going to understand that all comment in the Bible with respect to morality is merely reflective of the morality that existed at the time of writing. St Paul for example gave advice on how to look after slaves, slaves of course being morally acceptable at that time.
Including comment on the morality concerning say stealing?
This is worse than the absolute travesty it appears to be. Hedley is one of the finest Christians I have ever known in my 85 years on this earth. I cannot believe that an organization that claims a Christian heritage could so wantonly abandon its heritage, let alone the practise laid down by Jesus.
The Uniting Church discipline process is serious and demanding of the committee that makes these decisions. It is also meant to be private in order to prevent harm to the people, especially the minister, involved. It is easy for a disaffected person to take potshots knowing that the Moderator and others will act in accordance with the privacy rule. There is also an appeal process. No mention of that.