Posted on 07/17/2003 8:27:06 AM PDT by dead
The crisis in the Uniting Church lies less in gender and sexual issues than the fact that it is in decline because liberals have taken control, writes Gordon Moyes.
The conflict at the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia being held in Melbourne is not a fight over gender issues proposed by the gay lobby. It is a symptom of a malaise that has been growing throughout the three decades of this denomination's existence.
Twenty-seven years ago the Uniting Church came into being when three denominations - Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational - decided to leave behind their different cultures, heritages and tradition and form a new denomination. There were much idealism and hope at the time. Neither remains today.
The new denomination was the third largest of the Australian churches after the Catholics and Anglicans. Today it is the fifth largest. It has been passed by the Australian Christian Church, a coalition of Pentecostal churches, and the Baptist Church, which 30 years ago was one fifth the size of the Uniting Church.
The Uniting Church is like a cruise ship that left harbour well, but is sailing in ever decreasing circles without a captain. Members of the crew get together every now and then to elect a first mate. Large numbers of the passengers have jumped ship, and the rest, discontented, are going along for the ride because they have few options: life outside is worse than living inside.
The founding ethos was that the new church would be Australian in character. It would cut its ties with tradition and church customs, provide leadership based on mateship, rid itself of traditional theology and authority, and remove all sense of mystery. It would be driven by whatever was popular at the time. It hasn't worked.
Churches by their nature require an ethos which includes tradition and culture, mystery and authority. Reject the bishops and abandon the Bible and all that replaces them are mates and newspaper polls. Standards of behaviour are the stuff of Christian churches. Become inclusive of all beliefs and all behaviours and you have nothing unique.
That might not find acceptance in the cafe latte set, but they are not central to the Christian faith. The Christian church does not have to be popular in society to survive, but it must be faithful to Jesus Christ.
Effective leadership is absent in the Uniting Church.
When an army is constantly routed and the officers are defecting, it does not make sense to blame the foot soldiers. Look at the generals. The Uniting Church has few people of leadership ability who would be at the top of any enterprise outside of itself.
If a competent manager or leader from the commercial world - say Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman - were to become active in the Uniting Church, he would find very little resistance in reaching the top. After all, recent appointments by synod boards have needed no requirements of church membership or even of Christian faith.
If Harvey were to use church buildings for new store locations, his plans would be met with comments that the church would be meeting the needs of people, be relevant to today's commercial standards, and would be producing a better return on funds invested. Welcome to the Church of St Harvey Norman.
The Uniting Church is not alone in its decline. Mainstream denominations are in decline everywhere. Church memberships eroded for the better part of the 20th century. Some predicted their demise altogether within 25 years. Thomas C. Reeves, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, in The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity, asks: "Why are mainstream churches failing to teach right from wrong? Why are young people abandoning them? Why are church leaders so quiet in the face of growing moral anarchy?"
US mainstream churches have been in a serious and unprecedented numerical decline, losing between a fifth and a third of their membership.
How do theologically liberal clergy, out of touch with the members in the pews, gain control of church structures? Why are views expressed by the hierarchy so often out of tune with their members?
Dr Jim Heidinger, of the United Methodist Church, says the hierarchy "often have difficulties in the parish because of their views, and then they begin searching for power ... Conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, tend to stay out of the political side of church life and concentrate on spreading the gospel. The result is a liberal takeover of church authority." That is true of the Uniting Church in Australia.
Consequently mainstream denominations have fallen for cultural fads and political correctness. Liberal Christianity is indistinguishable from a dozen humanitarian causes. It may cease to be essentially Christian.
The result is terminal. Secular humanism has triumphed over the faith of our fathers. The social, political and sexual agenda of church officials finds little support in the pews. Church members are discouraged about the direction and future of the church we love. The gender issue is only part of a large scenario.
I love our denomination. I will spend the rest of my life within the Uniting Church in Australia. I have no intention of leaving, but I am not content to leave it as it is. I am working to improve it, to be a true church of Jesus Christ, obedient to His will and word. I am committed to remain within the Uniting Church and change it.
The Reverend Gordon Moyes is an upper house member of the NSW Parliament and superintendent of the Wesley Mission.
For the other side, see:
Church's rejection can fuel hatred ("Excluding homosexuals does not reflect God's way")
Liberals may take over denominations, but they do so only to run them into the ground. God sends the faithful elsewhere.
An excellent point and a fact that we're struggling with in The Catholic Church today, as well.
Owl_Eagle
The Catholic Church has long been a target and the Liberal Left count their successes daily.
That's a great question. I have often wondered the same thing. I am not a lawyer so I cannot answer definitively.
However, I do know how God-less governments behave, and when the state declares itself Almighty (as they would be doing symbolically in the case of Mass SC) it will tolerate no counter claims to it's sovereignty. So ti would seem logical that at some point the left will find it necessary to crush the church's witness through the use of raw state power.
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