| Resolution 84 and some voices from the past Extracts from the thesis notes of Rev. Jason John. What we may have failed to understand in its full extent was the anti-intellectualism of so much Australian life, permeating the Church… What we may have overlooked was the possibility that the governance of the church by inter-related councils … would be misunderstood as an ecclesiastical expression of populist democracy. Davis (J. D.) McCaughey, "If I had Known Then What I Know Now," in Marking Twenty Years: The Uniting Church in Australia 1977-1997, ed. William Emilsen & Susan Emilsen, (North Parramatta: United Theological College Publications, 1997) p.7.
No system of Church government, no rules or precedents, no system of doctrine or ethics, no technique of the evangelism, no tradition of men regarding the ordering of worship, is sufficiently free from error to be permitted hold anything but a subordinate position in the life of the Christian church... The church in each generation will seek to hand over to her children her understanding of the faith by which she lives but in such a way as to encourage them to appropriate the faith for themselves. … The church in each generation will pray that it may be given to those who follow to state the faith more surely, to worship God less unworthily, to obey God more faithfully than those who have gone before. Joint Commission on Church Union, The Faith of the Church, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1959: reprint, 5,. Pp. 43, 45.
The Basis of Union tries to relate ministers and people to that (Biblical) tradition dynamically. Scriptural authority becomes effective in the life of the Church not through what we say about the Bible but aas the Bible is read, and when preaching is controlled by the Biblical message. We need "genuinely educated" ministers who care for what the Christian faith has meant, and "what it might it might yet mean in the intellectual, imaginative and cultural context of their own day. What we may need most is a ministry which holds the Church’s tradition in a state of fluidity. If Church-based Churches know only too well the techniques of ruling, of compromise and of politics, sect-based Churches are in danger of over confidence in their private insights, of perfectionism and of excessive high-mindedness. … The Uniting Church will probably be relatively free of priestly pretensions, it is much more likely to be prone to prophetic pretensions. Davis (J. D.) McCaughey, "The uniting Church in Australia: Hopes and Fears," in St Marks Review 89 (1977): pp. 19, 20, 22.
It has to be remembered that the Bible speaks with many voices; yet it enables the one Word of God to be heard… the authority of scripture stems from the authority of Christ. Scripture is like a broad stream with many currents. Not every current leads to Nicea and Chalcedon… they should not be applied as a filter to the biblical material. Doctrinal statements must be biblical, but not just with bible quotes- the biblical witness must be discernable in them. Chris Mostert, "The Place of the Bible in preparing and receiving Doctrinal Statements, " Trinity Occasional Papers 1, no. 1(1981): pp. 22, 23, 24.
We should use their writings and confessional statements to increase and sharpen our understanding of the faith. But it should not stop there, for God did not stop there. Unusual in a document of this sort though it may be, the Basis of Union commits the church to a serious listening to scholarly opinion and worldwide witness. Davis (J. D.) McCaughey, "Travelling Together: Word and Ministry in Ecumenical Perspective," in Swimming Between the Flags, ed. Walter Abetz and Katherine Abetz (Bendigo: Middle Earth Press, 1994) p. 39.
Section 11 of the Basis was written specifically to exclude fundamentalist and literalist interpretations of the Bible. Andrew Dutney, Where Did the Joy Come From? Revisiting the Basis of Union, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 2001, pp. 24-26.
Quotes and emphasis supplied by Rev. Jason John, Adelaide, June, 2004. |