'Listening to John Wesley' in the Uniting Church

 

Paragraph 10 of the Basis of Union calls upon the Uniting Church to ‘listen to the preaching of John Wesley in his Forty-Four Sermons (1793)’ (along with the ‘witness of the Reformers’) and commits its ministers and instructors to ‘study these statements, so that the congregation of Christ’s people may again and again be reminded of the grace which justifies them through faith, of the centrality of the person and work of Christ the justifier, and of the need for a constant appeal to Holy Scripture.’[1] 

It is sometimes difficult to say too much about one of the precedent traditions of the UCA since to do so might seem to be privileging the contribution of one tradition over the other two. There are those who feel that hearkening back to Wesley’s Sermons would be a backward step when the UCA is called to be a new, dynamic, and forward-looking Church.  Yet the Basis of Union calls us to pay close attention to such formative voices of the past.    

J. Davis McCaughey, in his Commentary on the Basis of Union, reflects on the Uniting Church’s readiness, expressed in Paragraph 1 of the BoU, to ‘go forward together in sole loyalty to Christ, the living Head of the Church.’[2]

There is an exhilaration and a loneliness about this. The reader ought to catch his breath. It would have been easier to say, ‘we shall go forward loyal to the best of our traditions as Calvinists and Wesleyans…And…we would neglect what Calvin and Wesley have to teach us to our peril. But at the beginning the Basis of Union reminds that our loyalty is not to them but to Christ.[3] 

There is wisdom in these words.  The ancestors are not to be followed blindly or uncritically and our loyalty is first to Christ. Yet to neglect Calvin, Wesley and other fathers and mothers of the faith is to be imperilled. It is worthy of note that it is the Standard Sermons that are singled out from Wesley’s many writings as having a level of special importance and that these focus on the dynamics of Christian experience. Their selection perhaps reflects their official status in Australian (and British) Methodism, along with Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, as constituting a doctrinal standard.[4] However, a collection of sermons is very different from a formal Creed or Confession.[5]  When a selection of Wesley’s sermons were chosen for inclusion in a book of ‘Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia,’ those chosen were focused on Christian experience – Salvation by Faith, Justification by Faith, The Witness of the Spirit, The Means of Grace and Christian Perfection.[6]  When the Uniting Church listens to these sermons it will be listening to preaching ‘aimed at awakening and reviving faith, not to faith declaring what it believes nor to systematic instruction in the faith.’[7]

The study of the Standard Sermons and other important historical documents must of course be carried out with the recognition that they are bound to a great extent by their historical context and particularity. ‘That is at once their glory and their limitation.’[9]  John Wesley was a man of his time and we cannot simply restate his formulations as though no further thinking were needed.  When earlier this year I read Bos and Thompson’s Theology for Pilgrims, it was interesting to note the tendency in the documents selected to appeal to John Wesley and the Methodist tradition when wishing to affirm the ongoing significance of Evangelicalism and evangelistic activity in the Uniting Church.[8] The idea that Wesley’s thought may be an important theological resource for the Uniting Church was less evident.  I think it is fair to say that the renaissance in Wesley studies that was initiated in the second half of the twentieth century and continues to the present, has made it much clearer than the framers of the Basis of Union could have foreseen, how valuable a theological resource is the thought of the founder of Methodism.

While the Christocentric features of the Basis of Union make the document profoundly Evangelical in the broadest sense of that term, there is one particular place in the BoU where the characteristically Wesleyan emphasis on sanctification is identified.  Paragraph 6 confesses that Christ, by the gift of the Spirit, ‘awakens, purifies, and advances in [us] that faith and hope in which alone [the] benefits [of new life and freedom] can be accepted.’[10] Giving close attention to Wesley’s theology can continue to be one way that the Uniting Church can live out of that freedom which is made ever new by the Spirit. 

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[1] BoU, paragraph 10, pp. 9-10.

[2] BoU, paragraph 1, p. 5.

[3] J. Davis McCaughey, Commentary on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1980), 8.

[4] To these American Methodists had added the 25 Articles (Wesley’s abridgment of the Anglican 39 Articles). See Thomas C. Oden, Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008). 

[5]‘They are perhaps best thought of as doctrine tested in preaching: they are expositions of the map, rather than the map itself.’ J. D. McCaughey, Commentary, 56.

[6] Michael Owen, ed. Witness of Faith: Historic Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1984), 175-223.

[7] Owen, ed. Witness of Faith, 177.

[8] Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson, Theology for Pilgrims: Selected Theological Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: Uniting Church Press, 2008).  This is my anecdotal reflection, though specific page numbers could be provided.

[9] J. D. McCaughey, Commentary, 52.

[10] BoU, Paragraph 6, p. 8.

Church and State in the Uniting Church's Statements to the Nation

This post was co-written with Berlin Guerrero as part of a Uniting Church Studies Intensive in which we both participated in July 2012.

What relationship should the Christian church have with the State? The earliest Christians had no formal relationship with the Roman Empire and the church was often persecuted. With the conversion of Constantine in 312CE a process of change was initiated which led eventually to the Church being co-opted by the state and placed at the centre of European society and culture as well as the cultures and peoples that Europeans colonised. It is a very real question whether the church best fulfils its mission by ‘calling the shots’ for the wider society, or whether it functions better as a radical alternative community. There are many examples of how badly the church behaved when it dominated society.  On the other hand, the Church has insights as a prophetic community that need to be heard by the wider society.  How do we find the right balance?   

There is a formal separation of church and state in Australia, in the sense that no religion shall be the test of any political office and any established religion is ruled out. There has been a relatively harmonious relationship between church and state in the sharing of such functions as education and welfare. The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has issued two Statements to the Nation (1977 and 1988).  They were deemed significant enough to be included along with the Basis of Union and other formative documents in the 2008 collection, Theology for Pilgrims.[1]  This paper will examine these Statements to see what they reveal of the way the UCA sees itself in relation to the state.

The Statement to the Nation(1977)[2] 

It should be remembered that the Statement to the Nation is not a statement to the government as such but to ‘the nation’ including but not limited to ‘the state.’  It is addressed collectively to ‘the people of Australia.’ Nonetheless it reveals a certain stance toward the ‘powers that be’ that helps us to understand the Uniting Church’s relationship to secular governments.

There is an acknowledgment in paragraph 2 that the Congregationalist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches had each in its own way ‘contributed in various ways to the life and development’ of the nation.  Furthermore, it is affirmed that ‘a Christian responsibility to society has always been regarded as fundamental to the mission of the Church’ and that the new Uniting Church will see continued involvement in ‘social and national affairs’ as part of its response to the Christian Gospel. In its thirty-five year history the Uniting Church has not been afraid to ‘mix religion with politics or, as Rollie Busch (Moderator of the Queensland Synod in 1977-78) put it, challenge governments with the brilliant insights of the Bible and the radicalism of Calvin, Knox, and Wesley.’[3]

This makes it clear that the Uniting Church does not take a stance of withdrawal from ‘the world,’ such as is found for example in some expressions of the Anabaptist tradition which see the church as an alternative society called to withdraw from the polluting influences of the ungodly. Rather believers are to be ‘citizens of two worlds.’ The fact that the Uniting Church’s first President, J. Davis McCaughey also served as Governor of Victoria indicates that there is no necessary incompatibility between ecclesial and civil loyalties.[4] 

It is clear however, that the Uniting Church does not align itself exclusively with one particular national government, nor with one particular side of politics. Paragraph 3 speaks of the Church’s ‘responsibilities within and beyond this country.’[5] It has particular responsibilities as ‘but one branch of the Christian church within the region of South-East Asia and the Pacific.’ This means that the Church’s witness in the political exigencies of neighbouring nation states is also the concern of the UCA. For example the UCA has recently expressed its deep concern over the military control of the Methodist Church of Fiji and stood in solidarity with its fellow Christians there. 

Paragraph 4 speaks of ‘the need for integrity in public life, the proclamation of truth and justice’ and ‘the rights for each citizen to participate in decision-making in the community.’  Again this shows that the Uniting Church declares itself more than ready to participate in the political process and to bring distinctively Christian insights into public discourse. 

Of great significance for the focus of this paper is the affirmation in paragraph 7 that ‘the first allegiance of Christians is God, under whose judgment the policies and actions of all nations must pass. We realise that sometimes this allegiance may bring us into conflict with the rulers of our day.’ This means that the Uniting Church recognises that its members may at times be called to acts of civil disobedience when Gospel priorities conflict with government policies. Provision for such civil disobedience is explicitly made in the UCA’s present Code of Ethics.[6]

The Uniting Church’s partnership with State and Federal governments in the provision of welfare, health care and education through its various agencies might be seen by some as a ‘cosy one’ that reflects a Constantinian relationship between church and state.  However it is clear in the 1977 Statement to the Nation that this is not the case. The Christian’s first allegiance is to God ‘under whose judgment the policies and actions of all nations must pass.’ This opens up the very real possibility of conflict between the Church and the powers that be. This may be illustrated in the Church voicing concern, for example, at the Federal Government’s treatment of asylum seekers or the current attempt to continue the Intervention into Indigenous communities by enshrining new and potentially destructive legislation.

The Uniting Church describes itself in its 1977 Statement to the Nation not as a state church but as ‘an institution within the nation’ called to ‘stress the universal values which must find expression in national policies if humanity is to survive.’ Its stance therefore is a prophetic one, but prophetic within rather than separated from national life.  There may the need to adjust our perspective even further.  We tend to think of the state as a ‘given’ – something to which the church must respond or in relation to which it must define itself. But what if we were to think of the Reign of God as the ‘given’ reality to which both church and state are called to respond?[7] 

 

President Rev Prof Andrew Dutney and Rev Rronang Garrawurra lead the prayer vigil on the steps of South Australian Parliament, Wednesday 18 July 2012

The Statement to the Nation(1988)[8]  

The second Statement to the Nation was issued eleven years after the first, during the Bicentenary of European settlement (1788-1988). It is not incidental that in such a year there would be a focus on Indigenous Australians (whose presence is recognised as existing ‘40,000 years’ before Europeans) and the need for Reconciliation. Three years prior, another statement, The Uniting Church is a Multi-cultural Church was adopted by the 2005 General Assembly.

Like the 1977 Statement the second is again addressed not to the government alone but ‘to our fellow Australian citizens.’ It expresses thankfulness for ‘those times when the Australian society has established justice, equality, and mutual respect among people;…placed care for the people who have least…welcomed new migrants and refugees; exercised solidarity and friendship …and has engaged constructively with the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and the rest of the world as peacemaker.’[9] It does not describe how ‘society established justice, equality etc.’ but it is of significance that the Uniting Church recognises, if not asserts, that it is the Australian society, not the state by itself, which establishes what is considered valuable and beneficial to the people.

The fourth paragraph needs to be studied critically especially the phrase ‘all of us are beneficiaries of the injustices that have been inflicted…’[10] What are the benefits of injustice to which it refers other than the land and material bounty derived from colonization? It is like saying we benefited from the ‘first sin’ and the ‘fall.’ Should the end justify the means, so to speak? However, for the church to say ‘we all contribute to, and perpetuate those injustices’ is a mark of a confessing church.

Indirectly, the 1988 Statement calls on the state and social institutions such as the educational system, legislature and media to strive for ‘the integrity of our nation’ (mentioned three times) and the requirements and actions necessary to achieve it.

In declaring solidarity with the Aborigines and in cooperation with ‘Australians of goodwill’ the Uniting Church commits itself to the work of justice…etc. and ‘in obedience to God’ to ‘struggle against all systems and attitudes which set person against person, group against group, or nation against nation.’ This commitment is repeated and made even stronger in subsequent paragraphs which pledge to ‘seek to identify and challenge all social and political structures and all human attitudes which perpetuate and compound poverty,’ and ‘seek to identify and challenge all structures and attitudes which perpetuate and compound the destruction of creation.’ 

The UCA Statements to the nation reflect the church’s view and attitude towards the nation and the world, present the various issues and concerns of the nation and the world, and affirm obedience to God.  They do not address any particular government administration either in the past or in power at the time the Statements were adopted.

The UCA has strong commitment to the plight of the poor, Indigenous peoples, victims of injustices, refugees, etc. and on the basis of this commitment recognises that at times it can be in conflict with the state’s policies. The Constantinian ‘marriage’ between church and state is no longer in effect in Australia, though on the whole, the UCA’s relationship with the state can be said to be one of ‘critical collaboration.’ The church must always remain aware, however, that its loyalty is first to Christ, and that this loyalty must always take precedence over state-like institutions or worldly authority.

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[1] Robert Bos and Geoff Thompson, Theology for Pilgrims: Selected Theological Documents of the Uniting Church in Australia (Sydney: Uniting Church Press, 2008.)

[2] Uniting Justice Australia http://www.unitingjustice.org.au/component/content/article/28-statements-resources/uniting-church-statements/190-statementtothenation-1977

published 21 January 2009. Accessed 19 June 2012.

[3] William Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, The Uniting Church in Australia: The First 25 Years  (Melbourne: Circa, 2003), p. 2.

[4] For a collection of J. Davis McCaughey’s writings see Peter Matheson and Christiaan Mostert, eds. Fresh Words and Deeds: The McCaughey Papers (Melbourne: David Lovell, 2004). See also J. Davis McCaughey, Commentary on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia (Melbourne: Uniting Church Press, 1980).

[5] Emphasis ours.

[6] According to Paragraph 6.2 of The Uniting Church in Australia Code of Ethics and Ministry Practice for Ministers in the Uniting Church in Australia (Whether in Approved Placements or Not) Approved by the 12^th Assembly July 2009, ‘It is unethical for Ministers deliberately to break the law or encourage another to do so.  The only exception would be in instances of political resistance or civil disobedience.’  

[7] We are indebted to Randall Prior for this insight given during feedback on our class presentation. 

[8] Uniting Justice Australia http://www.unitingjustice.org.au/component/content/article/28-statements-resources/uniting-church-statements/189-statementtothenation-1988 published 21 January 2009. Accessed 19 June 2012.

[9] Italics ours.

[10] Italics ours.