Representatives of the peak national organisations of Christians, Muslims and Jews met in Sydney this week for the first ever formal three-way discussion between these groups in Australia.

The meeting, at The Great Synagogue, was an opportunity for the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) to exchange information and opinions in what proved to be a positive and harmonious manner.

Amjad Mehboob, of AFIC, the Revd John Henderson, of the NCCA, and Jeremy Jones, of the ECAJ, led their respective faith representatives.

Other participants were Rabbi Raymond Apple, Sheikh Amin Hady, Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins, Sister Trish Madigan, Mr Hafez Malas, Mrs Peta Pellach, Ms Wendy Wilkie and Bishop Mar Meelis Zaia.

Participants agreed that Australia generally has a strong record of inter-communal harmony and has the potential to be an example to other societies as to how people of goodwill, from these three religions and others, can work together in the interests of the community.

The meeting took place a week after the three faith community bodies issued a joint statement calling for dialogue, as the way to peace in the Middle East, and condemning violence, vandalism and harassment on the basis of religion or race.

All present took part in the process of information sharing and learning about each other, in an open, warm and honest manner.

The group agreed to reconvene next month, as guests of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

* * * * *
Further Information:

John Henderson, General Secretary, National Council of Churches in Australia - (02) 9299-2215

Amjad Ali Mehboob, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Federation of Islamic Councils - 0408-234-434

Jeremy Jones, President, Executive Council of Australian Jewry - 0411-536-436

Revd John Henderson, the new General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), has repeated the call for the release of children in detention and reiterated the need for a royal commission into Australia’s system of mandatory detention.

“Through signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Australia is committed to acting in the best interests of every child.  Why, then, do we create a situation where children are exposed to violence, heated protests and threats of suicide, and expose them to an atmosphere of despair, and the dehumanising effect of being treated as illegal?”

“Current detention practice takes away parents’ ability to protect their children from unnecessary violence and fear.

“Australians have been expressing concern about the detention of children for some time.  While we do not encourage the practice of people smuggling, God calls us to show compassion to those who are suffering.  What problems are we now creating for these children and for the community in general?

“Is the pain inflicted upon these children a just trade-off in deterring people from our shores?”

In Australia, all unauthorised asylum seekers, including children, are subject to indefinite, non-reviewable mandatory detention.  The NCCA believes this practice breaches Article 37 of the CRC that the detention of a child shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest period of time.

Children can apply to be released from detention on bridging visas, but are rarely released in practice as there is no provision for the release of their parents and it is usually not considered in the best interests of the child to be separated.  This system keeps children in detention and has been criticised by the NCCA.

Revd Henderson also asked Australian Christians to pray for these children and their families, who are caught up in circumstances beyond their control.  He said we also need to pray for our government and decision makers, as well as the staff of the centres where asylum seekers are held.

* * * * *
FOR COMMENT:
The Revd John Henderson, General Secretary, Tel: (02) 9299 2215

The Executive of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) has affirmed the Bringing Them Home report and its recommendations.

The statement was adopted after consultation between national heads of churches and the NCCA’s Aboriginal and Islander Commission.  It appears on the eve of May 26 commemorations of the Journey of Healing.

Text follows :-

Australian governments of the past adopted laws which gave warrant to practices resulting in many Indigenous children being inappropriately and forcibly removed from their families.

It was a complex tragedy.  But the fundamental truth of the stories of the Stolen Generations, and their pain, cannot be denied.  As representatives of the churches, we call on our people, and the nation at large, to acknowledge the validity of the Bringing Them Home report and its recommendations.

The harm experienced by Indigenous people, and the healing that has been too long delayed, cry out for attention by governments, by others involved, by all Australians. 
Christians must try to understand what happened from the perspective of the Christian faith.  As church leaders, we commit ourselves to reflect theologically on the trauma experienced by the Stolen Generations and by the nation as a whole, and on our calling to be bearers of reconciliation.

In consultation with the Stolen Generations, we will

• help educate the churches on their involvement in the history of the Indigenous child removal,
• make church and agency records accessible,
• identify ways of supporting Indigenous groups working with removed people,  and
• address instances of alleged abuses, particularly in church-related institutions.

Many churches have offered apologies and taken steps towards reconciliation.  Reaffirming these initiatives, recognising the pain and trauma of the Stolen Generations, we advocate the establishment of a healing commission. The churches stand ready to participate in such a commission in whatever way may be appropriate.

Further, the churches support the establishment by the Council of Australian Governments of a national fund, as part of the healing process. We call on all Australian governments, whose predecessors legislated for laws which gave warrant to practices leading to the Stolen Generations, to contribute generously to the fund.  Because all Australians were represented by those governments, all Australians and all agencies – including church agencies – which cooperated with such practices are urged to contribute to the fund.

Our churches will continue to pray and work for the healing of the nation.

**********

This statement has been endorsed by the following churches:

• Anglican Church of Australia - Archbishop Peter Carnley
• Antiochian Orthodox Church - Archbishop Paul Saliba
• Armenian Apostolic Church - Archbishop Aghan Baliozian
• Churches of Christ - The Revd Peter Overton
• Greek Orthodox Church - Archbishop Stylianos
• Lutheran Church of Australia - The Revd Mike Semmler
• Religious Society of Friends - Colin Wendell-Smith
• Roman Catholic Church - Archbishop Francis Carroll
• Romanian Orthodox Church - The Revd Dr Gabriel Popescu
• Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) - Commissioner Brian Morgan
• Salvation Army (Southern Territory) - Commissioner Douglas Davis
• Syrian Orthodox Church - The Very Revd Zeki Zitoun
• Uniting Church in Australia - The Revd Professor James Haire

On Sunday 4 May 2008 the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) celebrated ten years of membership in the National Council of Churches (NCCA).  It was suggested by the National Office of the LCA to its pastors that one or both of the following prayer petitions be added to the prayer of the Church on Sunday 4 May to help commemorate the event.

We are grateful, Lord, for believers who have kept the faith over the centuries, and who have witnessed to you throughout the world. You have kept your promise and have made disciples of all nations. Help us to celebrate your church, and all believers, whether they come from another country or just next door. Open our eyes to the rich variety of your Church, and teach us to celebrate and learn from our sisters and brothers in the faith wherever they may be, and however their language and customs might differ from ours.

Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

We thank you, Father, that you have made us all one in your Son Jesus Christ. Please help us to show our unity in Christ through lives of mercy, peace, and justice. Thank you for organisations like the National Council of Churches in Australia and (name here your State Council of Churches, and any local ecumenical groups), which remind us of our unity, and our need to learn more about each other. Help us work together with other Christians in (name here your town, suburb or region), across Australia and around the world, to the glory of your Holy name.

Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A Perspective from the Churches

Address given by David Gill at the"Moving Forward: Achieving Reparations for the Stolen Generations," conference held at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, 15-16 August 2001. 

First, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet.

Second, I must acknowledge the hurt and pain of all who bear scars from the tragedy inflicted on the Stolen Generations.

As a prologue, let me explain what the National Council of Churches in Australia is, and is not.

The NCCA comprises fifteen Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The Council is not a "superchurch," with authority over its member churches. I can tell you what I believe the churches are thinking and doing. I can advise them as to what they ought to be thinking and doing. But I cannot command them. Each church is autonomous, making decisions according to its own lights, following its own timetable and processes, consulting with its own Indigenous members and taking account of its own inner dynamics.

Of the Council's fifteen member churches, six were directly involved, one way or another, in dealing with the consequences of government policies that produced the Stolen Generations. Most but not all of the churches that were so involved belong to the NCCA.

But a clear line between churches that were "involved" and those that weren't is hard to draw. For we non-Indigenous Australians were all involved, whether we knew it or not, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. It was people like my parents, and their parents before them, who elected our governments that adopted these policies. It was ordinary Australians - those in the pews as well as those who weren't - who remained silent, who assumed the governments knew what they were doing, who just didn't see or, worse, just didn't feel.

The responsibility rests not just on six churches that found themselves coping with the consequences of government policies. It rests on the nation as a whole, and on all the organisations - political, religious, educational, media, the lot - that so tragically failed many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, and in so doing failed us all.

With the topic of today's panel, I am helped by two things. First, the NCCA Executive earlier this year adopted a public statement on "The Bringing Them Home Report and the Churches". That statement emerged from consultation between national heads of churches and the NCCA's Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission, and it has been endorsed by the member churches individually. Second, the NCCA's governing body, its National Forum, last month received and acted on a major report prepared by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission. Entitled "Continuing the Journey …", the report reviews church responses to the reconciliation process in general and to the Bringing Them Home Report in particular. The two documents, taken together, articulate the common mind that has been developing in Australia's churches. 

I will touch on the main points.

1. Reconciliation requires that the facts must be faced, not avoided. To quote from the NCCA statement: "The fundamental truth of the stories of the Stolen Generations, and their pain, cannot be denied. As representatives of the churches, we call on our people, and the nation at large, to acknowledge the validity of the Bringing Them Home Report and its recommendation

2. Reconciliation requires that apologies be made and meant, and accepted. Churches like many other community organisations have expressed their sorrow. It remains a matter of regret to us that the federal government cannot see its way clear to do the same.

3. Reconciliation requires specific actions by organisations that received the victims of Indigenous child removal. The churches have committed themselves to make their records accessible. For example, we now have "A Piece of the Story," a national directory of records of Catholic organisations caring for children separated from families, as well as "A Guide to Records of Indigenous Australians in the Lutheran Archives" covering records of the Lutheran missions in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. Where difficulties are experienced in knowing who to approach in church structures for such information, the NCCA's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission stands ready to assist. Where records don't exist churches have been urged to develop the fullest accounting possible. Allegations of specific instances of abuse, of course, must be addressed.

4. Reconciliation requires that culturally appropriate healing and counselling be made available to people affected by the forcible removals. Beyond the already significant ministries being undertaken by Indigenous people for Indigenous people, the NCCA has urged churches to support the training of more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in counselling and healing.

5. Reconciliation requires that the churches determine their responses to any proposed reparations tribunal. Clearly, we need an effective alternative to litigation that is suited to the Australian context. Clarification as to the scope, membership, accountability, resourcing and legal status of any proposed tribunal is awaited, and with such information the churches advised by their Indigenous members will determine their stances.

6. Reconciliation requires resources. To quote again from the NCCA statement: "The churches support the establishment by the Council of Australian Governments of a national fund, as part of the healing process. We call on all Australian governments, whose predecessors legislated for laws which gave warrant to practices leading to the Stolen Generations, to contribute generously to the fund. Because all Australians were represented by those governments, all Australians and all agencies - including church agencies - which cooperated with such practices are urged to contribute to the fund."

7. Perhaps most difficult of all, reconciliation requires deepened understanding. Hence the NCCA National Forum urged member churches to take further their efforts to express the gospel in ways that respect Indigenous spirituality, to develop cross-cultural and anti-racism programmes for those being trained for ministry, to teach Stolen Generations history in their schools, to mine the Roadmap for Reconciliation as a resource for the future.

8. Reconciliation requires a shared effort by us all. The various stakeholders must stop playing off each other: the government versus the churches, Indigenous versus non-Indigenous, this organisation versus that organisation. It is time to move beyond the blame game, beyond institutional power plays. The churches are getting their act together. They stand ready to be partners in such a joint effort, within whatever mechanisms may be put in place - if, that is, others are prepared to accept us.

For us, reconciliation is not, ultimately, about policies and programmes. Some of you will remember Noel Pearson's comment towards the end of the 1997 Reconciliation Convention. The Prime Minister had made a rather disappointing speech, and Noel was urging us not to be weighed down by our disappointment. "They are only the government of the day," he said. "They are not God".

But that leaves us with the key question. Who or what is God? Where can we hang our hope, place our confidence, find our strength?

As the churches wrestle afresh with the ancient mysteries of faith, we hope you will allow us to work with you, and to move forward with you on the long road towards a new beginning. 

For more information contact: NCCA General Secretary - Rev. John Henderson- Phone: +61 2 9299 2215 or Fax: +61 2 9262 4514

Almost two years ago, the National Council of Churches in Australia and the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils took a historic decision. They established the Christian/Muslim Liaison Group, comprising equal numbers of leaders representing each organisation.

The Liaison Group has five objectives:

• To address any problems in relationships between the two faith communities in Australia. 
• To discover the substantial area of common ground between us. 
• To deepen mutual understanding and trust. 
• To demonstrate, to our own people and to Australia generally, that harmonious interfaith relations are possible. 
• To identify opportunities for increased cooperation.

Already the Liaison Group has become conscious of how much common ground there is between our two faith communities.

We share:

• Our humanity and all that implies in terms of the search for meaning and value, reconciliation and community.
• A religious world view -- ie. the conviction that that human existence cannot be understood without reference to a transcendent reality that claims our lives, our societies and our world.
• A faith history grounded in the Hebrew Scriptures, read in the light of the Christian Scriptures or the Holy Koran, and focussed in the life and teachings of an authoritative person.
• A monotheism that tends to be uncomfortable with pluralism, has difficulty dealing with dissent and is driven by its own internal logic to seek converts.
• A history of conflict -- with other religious world views generally and with each other in particular!
• A place in multicultural, pluralistic Australia, in which religion in all its manifestations is increasingly regarded with scepticism, sometimes with ridicule and even with outright hostility.

But our two faith communities also tend to misunderstand each other, for many reasons.

Among them:

• We have different approaches to our sacred writings and the way in which they are authoritative for us today.
• We have been shaped by different histories.
• Our people bear in their memories the scars that Christians and Muslims have inflicted on each other in times and places far from here.
• Clashes and tensions in other countries inevitably impinge on perceptions here in Australia.
• We both tend to see our own faith community in terms of what it aspires to be at its best, while remembering the other in terms of what it has sometimes been at its worst.

Whenever the human community is under pressure, it can so easily fracture along the ancient fault lines of ethnicity and religion. With only one crisis -- like the tragedy in the USA that has overwhelmed us all in the past few days -- people are tempted to forget what we share and relapse into the suspicion, fear, recrimination and abuse of centuries past.

If anyone had doubted the need for closer contact between Australia's Christians and Muslims, the events of recent weeks, and especially of the past three days, must surely have underlined its importance -- for us, yes, but through us for Australia as a whole.

Friends, on behalf of the Christians here present I want to say that we are shocked and saddened by the hostility that is being expressed towards the Muslim community in these days. We want to do whatever we can to stand with you, to reject the voices of hate, to challenge people who denigrate your faith, and to resist those who are trying to tear us apart from one another.

To all I say, let us be grateful for the circle of understanding, trust and friendship that has been growing among us. And let us go forth resolved to do everything we possibly can to strengthen and enlarge that circle. Our two faith communities need it. Australia needs it too.

For more information contact: NCCA General Secretary - Rev. John Henderson- Phone: +61 2 9299 2215 or Fax: +61 2 9262 4514

The Australasian Religious Press Association Conference
Sydney - 9 August 2002

Opening Reflection - The Reverend John Henderson
General Secretary
The National Council of Churches in Australia

This afternoon I bring you a greeting from the National Council of Churches, and its President, Dr Lance Steicke.

Your conference is only just beginning, and I notice that you are meeting under the title, "Out of this world?" with the subtext, "media at the interface of church and society."

I wish you joy with that theme, and the purpose of your meeting here in North Sydney. I want to ask you, however, to consider whether the primary interface between church and society isn't the people of the church - the ?a?? - rather than the media. You will always be troubled whether you should address the world, or the membership of the church. They are not mutually exclusive, of course, but there will always be ambiguity about your target audience.

For this, and for other reasons, I think your job is quite difficult, and at times, quite thankless. You will rarely satisfy all your constituents - the church hierarchy, church members, the general public, or the secular press. As religious media you will always be a little off-beat, out of the main pack. You will rarely be resourced sufficiently to do the job as well as you would like, supposing you have been able to define what the job is. Your readers, listeners, and watchers will be as fickle as the rest of consumer society. I suspect that most, if not all of you, have asked: "How can we possibly compete?"

There is a more profound reason, however, that I think your job is very difficult. What you have is fundamentally an unsellable product. You may not agree, but I think St Paul, in the reading you have just heard (1 Corinthians 1:18-25), does agree. I'm not talking about trying to sell the institution we call church - although God knows that is hard enough, with all its foibles, peccadilloes, divisions, and sometimes wanton foolishnesses. If you follow the old adage that 'any press is good press', then I suppose you might applaud some of the recent media attention. I am also not talking about trying to sell the agencies of the churches, whose unstinting service has become so much part of the scene that they no longer capture the public imagination unless there is some controversy like injecting rooms. It is quite disappointing that on the one hand churches are easily pilloried and on the other, that credit is rarely given for their sacrificial work.
What I am referring, however, is the word of Scripture: "the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." I know that this is contentious ground among us, including within the organisation I represent, the National Council of Churches. It is frequently our very understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ that divides us. What does it really mean? How central is it to our theology? To listen to some Christians, and some Christian media, you would think, "Not much!" It's rarely mentioned, and its shame and embarrassment are glossed over. People prefer to hear about heroic human endeavour, natural good intentions, spiritual successes and human interest stories. We chase sporting heroes and high profile personalities. In this there isn't much to separate the religious press from the secular press, except that we are usually not nearly as scintillating, and suffer certain moral restrictions on the kind of images we portray.

But when do we stop at the cross and make it our centre-piece? It really doesn't sell. Many of our logos have the cross at their centre, but how much of our text dares to reflect it? When do we boast about the cross, as St Paul does? When do we admit to foolishness and weakness? Are we busy trying to beat the others at their own game, to be wiser than the wise and stronger than the strong? Wouldn't we love a Murdoch or a Packer among the church press, to really get things humming!

It can be so disempowering to be a religious professional. As a parish pastor I often conducted weddings, and would be invited to the reception. I worked hard at those weddings, and developed strong relationships with the couple. And yet it was often palpable that the family were waiting for me to go so that the party could really begin. Is that how it is with us? Are we the wowsers that have to be tolerated, but everybody is quietly glad when they don't have to bother about us? Is that the deflating truth of our engagement with the world? Is that why we are 'out of it', as your theme might suggest? Do we really have so little to bring to market? Just a little foolishness, with a dose of weakness? Are we the bridesmaids of society, who never get to be part of the real action?

So my thoughts go out to you, in your most difficult of tasks, beset on every side by complications, lack of resources, disinterest on the part of the wider audience, and a message that is often unpalatable. To cap it all off, if you are an official arm of your church, you are restricted by its public policies. Is there freedom for the Christian media?

Well, so far this isn't much of a pep talk, and Margaret may well choose not to invite me back. I have never thought, however, that the purpose of the church was to give a pep talk and to provide easy solutions. We are to listen to and speak the Word of God. That's our business. There will be varieties in the way we understand God's Word, and that's why there's an ecumenical movement, and a National Council of Churches, to help us learn that our variety needs not be divisive. We are to find ways of understanding each other and of working together.

As the newish General Secretary of the National Council, I find that presenting the Council in the media is fraught with all the same difficulties I have just described, with even less resources. Tied as I am to 15 member churches, finding consensus on common material is a Herculean task that considerably slows down our response. By the time we get an agreed statement the issue is past and no one is listening any more, not even you, the Church press.

Friends, we need to gather our courage, and whatever faith we have, and reassess our core task. I am aware of many interfaith issues confronting us, and the need to assess the religious question in society. Before coming here today I asked what kind of meeting this is, and I was told that this is a gathering of Christian press, even though your title is the Australian Religious Press Association. This is an anomaly, and it will press upon you soon enough, if it isn't already.

The gift and task we share as Christians revolves around a central point - that God sent his Son into the world, and that Son, in both his divine and human natures, died on the cross. He did this out of love for humanity, love for you, so that we could share in his life. This involves forgiveness of sin, resurrection, and eternal life. This faith is interpreted and expressed in varying ways throughout our church communities. Our shocking and seemingly unsophisticated core faith begs many profound philosophical and religious questions, but remains our motivation and reason for being. However adept we become in interpreting it for our contemporary society, it must remain at the centre.

1 Corinthians calls it the "foolishness of the cross to those who are perishing." Our strength is what others see as a laughable weakness. Despite our frequent embarrassment and the temptation to join the rest of the gang in the search for marketable success and smart logic, we insist on "Christ crucified … the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."

I know that people will say there are other wisdoms in the Bible, other ways of speaking of God's relationship to the world and to humanity. There are different paradigms and streams, and we shouldn't become fixated on one to the exclusion of all others. I believe, however, that all of them relate specifically to Jesus Christ, whom this passage places at the centre of our shared Christian reality, the core of our faith and our message.

This is what we proclaim: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Unless we use whatever resources we have to do this, we have no business calling ourselves Christian. May God bless your conference, and your work in his service. Amen.

12 August 2002

Churches and Ecumenism in the 21st Century
Tasmanian Council of Churches Annual Meeting, 3/5/03

Thank you for the invitation…

Greeting from NCCA, the Executive & Staff …

The church has a future - a bright, positive, and glorious future. Despite all obstacles the Christian faith is a beacon of hope, a positive statement by God about where things are going and what is about to happen. The promise of God has not failed, and Chris-tians are people of the promise. It is a great and precious gift to be a Christian, what-ever doubts, ambiguities, and paradoxes we experience.

This is not a simple or straightforward time, however, to be church. In the early '90s US Anglican priest Loren Mead wrote a book "The Once and Future Church", where he ex-plained what he called the 'paradigm shift' of the church in Western societies.

At the time what he said was a definite 'ah-ha' experience in that it gave content to the impressions of many people. The term 'paradigm shift' has become commonplace, but I think it is still useful. It gives us a handle to understand something intangible. We need it because the organised Churches, naturally and often with very good reason, are resis-tant to influences that force them to change. Despite almost becoming a cliché, the con-cept of paradigm shift is useful in understanding trends in "Churches and Ecumenism in the 21st Century".
What is the 'paradigm shift'? Very simply it is a historical change in the circumstances of the church. It's no-one's fault, and it is morally neutral, although it can have moral out-comes. The church in Western culture is leaving its mould of the last 1700 years, and being shaped in a way that has some features in common with the church of the first 3 centuries even though it is not identical.

The lectionary readings of the immediate post Easter Sundays give us an inside view of the church immediately after the resurrection of Jesus. These texts help us understand paradigm shift. Immediately after the crucifixion those who believed in Jesus were a small, marginalised and fearful group. Just before the crucifixion all his disciples had deserted him. Peter denied him. Their malaise wasn't instantly solved by the resurrec-tion. They locked the doors 'for fear of the Jews'. They grappled with questions like "Is he really alive?" When first asked this must have sounded absurd, and it still does to some ears, Faith was immediate, demanding, and dangerous. Disciples risked ridiculed ridicule, estrangement and at times, death.
It is an over-generalisation, but in essence things continued like that for another two centuries. Christianity was a faith of the margins, the underprivileged, and the down-trodden. There were exceptions, and the miraculous spread of the Word and the growth in faith was remarkable. The Spirit was alive, active, and immediate. Faith was formed, however, in the crucible of suffering, persecution, and rejection. The church became strong through its martyrs. The state was viewed at worst in opposition to the church, or at best as indifferent. There were no friends in high places - just read the Revelation of St John. God alone was the helper of Christians.

The church was God's beachhead in a hostile world, a beam of light entering a dark cosmos. It competed for adherents with many other religions and cults, many of which had natural advantages in society. Christian belief in a single God, for instance, was very dubious, especially since there was no image of this God. The cross was literally a scandal, equivalent to the electric chair. The thought of a crucified and risen Jewish Saviour for all time and the entire world was offensive to reasonable, moderate people. As is the case in modern India, conversion to Christianity could mean the loss of socie-tal privileges, including employment. It was the religion of non-citizens and slaves. If you were a Christian, the immediacy of mission hit you in the face every time you stepped over your threshold, or faced your sceptical friends and family members,
Things changed in 313 of what is now called the 'Common Era' when the Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity. Christianity began to become the province of the rich, powerful and privileged. For the first time there were Christian rulers, a term often better observed in name than in practice. Over a period of time the borders of the church became the borders of the Empire. The Emperor was involved in, and influenced the outcomes of, the Councils of the Church, as in Nicea in 325. Although by this time the Roman Empire was fragmenting, it took a very long while to happen. It was long enough for Christianity to become firmly embedded in the shards of the Empire, espe-cially in the West, but also in large parts of the East.

It might be hard for us to see the remnants of the conversion of a Roman Emperor 1700 years ago in our world today, but it should not surprise us. Several of our calendar months are still named after Emperors! In some ways the disintegration of that Empire is still with us - for instance, in the historic split between the Eastern and Western Christendom. The term Christendom itself tells us that the church inherited the Con-stantinian paradigm of Christianity as the dominant, if not only, religion in society, and that the boundaries of the state equal the boundaries of the church.

This paradigm was in strong evidence, for instance, during the 16th century Reforma-tion in Western Europe. "Cuius regio, eius religio" - which roughly translated means: Who the ruler is, his is the religion. So, for instance, when the King of Sweden became Lutheran, Sweden also became Lutheran. You see this in the English Reformation and the bitterness between Protestants and Catholics typified in the battle for the English throne among Edward, Elizabeth and Mary. This was only possible in the assumed un-derstanding that the State and church, if not identical, at least went hand in glove.

For its part the Church began to assume it lived in a benign society that supported its faith and moral principles. The task of the church was to see to the moral welfare of so-ciety and keep evil out of it. Ecclesiastical power sat in courts of rulers and houses of parliament, and at various times directly adopted the mantle of temporal power. That is, the church controlled the state. This is a long way from the experience of those first dis-ciples. Mission was no longer at the front door, but overseas, often in another region or continent. Societies were arranged around the parish, and everyone who lived within the physical boundaries of the parish was 'of' that parish. Early Europeans in Australia still thought that way, and town-planning subdivisions of the 19th century still used the terminology. I am not sure whether it is still in use.
When did all this change? It began to change some time ago, and was already chang-ing at the time Europeans arrived here. Some of the roots of that change might lie in the Enlightenment that accompanied the Renaissance. Some of them might lie in the in-creasing global awareness of other religions, other cultures, and new ways of thinking. The European empires of the last few hundred years brought back to their centres many of the concepts and methods of those they ruled. We should not be surprised that things have changed. We all feel a sea change in Western culture. It may seem to be the most dominant global culture at this time, but it has not arrived there without, in itself, being changed.

Despite certain fears and misgivings, we can argue that many, if not most, of the pro-gressive changes have been for the better. In terms of church, however, it can look as though we are, quite literally, living in the past.
Have we come to terms, for instance, with the reality that the church is no longer at the centre of power? How will we get used to the church being marginalised in the ethical and moral debates of our era? Will we protest this, or will we learn to accept it as even, possibly, an advantage? The recent war in Iraq clearly indicated, for instance, that per-haps the majority of Catholics in the United States did not follow the Vatican line op-posing the war, and articles in the American press indicated that the views of bishops had little influence over their people. This might be a manifestation of the massive trou-bles racking that Church in the US, but it is more likely to be would part of an ongoing global trend. The church is just not the moral authority it used to be.
In Australia, the general population has always been sceptical of the church and its authority. Beneath the bravado and cynicism of our national code, however, there was a grudging respect. That too, now seems to be eroded. We don't like to hear it, but people have an image of a church engaged in ineffectual philanthropy and religious musings that can be ignored with little or no peril to their soul, social standing, employment, or aspirations. Again this is a sweeping generalisation, but 20 years of parish ministry have convinced me this is often the case.

Australians think that most of the time they don't need the church, whatever argument we might put up to hotly deny it. The paradigm has shifted, and as one of the first West-ern liberal democracies that seems to be truly secular in its intent and application, we need to take notice. What is the church, and how will it respond in this situation?

If you move through our congregations on a Sunday morning, you might be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed. Yes, we have made what we think of as major ad-justments to the issues of relevance, contemporary language and music, and fiddling, so some extent, with our theology and even being sacrificial over issues of social justice and equity. But our efforts and struggles, profound though they seem from inside the church, do not seem to impress those on the outside. Society has little sympathy for the church. Compounding this our buildings, which to us are pleasant punctuations in the utilitarian architecture of recent years, look like relics of the past, which even in their day were copied from another time and another place. So-called "successful" urban Churches are using a much more industrial style of building. Our means of attracting people still says 'come to our place for our worship and other activities'. We are deeply concerned, if not absolutely panicked, by our finances, and we are not sure how to dig ourselves out of the hole we seem to be in. Is our problem that we are still working within a Constantinian 'Christendom' paradigm, as if the world is, or should, be ours, and we aren't quite sure what to do when it isn't?

The new paradigm suggests that the parish or congregation, intact though it may seem from the inside, is once again surrounded by an ambiguous world that is a mixture of hostility, indifference, and conditional support. The clergy and laity of are once again missionaries in their own land, regularly crossing between church and world, and called to give daily account of their faith and their allegiance to the Church. Their participation in Church life can bring stigma and disadvantage. These may not be as severe as in some other regions of the world, but it can be to your economic disadvantage to go to worship on a Sunday when shops are open and many businesses are still operating. The erosion of the traditional 'weekend' of Christendom has made our religious practice more difficult, as our Muslim neighbours who attend prayers on Fridays already know. Religious practice, while not actively discouraged in Australia, is rarely encouraged.

So Australian churches of the 21st century are facing, in terms of their social and politi-cal presence, a great sense of disenfranchisement and some alienation from the culture they once thought was theirs. My own feeling, probably with some bias, was that the world and the culture never was, and never should have been, the property of the churches, and that the drive for the church to control its external world subverted its truly gospel character. That subject, however, should wait for another day.

This is a time for us to recognise something that has already been there in the shadows for a long time. I will tell you the anecdote of my own church, The Lutheran Church of Australia. It is a national church that is entirely Australian. It owes no allegiance to a mother church anywhere else in the world, even though many Australians still mistak-enly identify it as German, or in some cases Scandinavian. It has been here as a Synod since 1838, and for most, if not all, of that time, it has been on the fringes, unable or unwilling to play in the societal stakes that other churches were embroiled in. Austra-lians viewed it as an ethnic enclave isolated by language and culture at a time when such enclaves were unacceptable. Even though it was European based, it was too ex-otic to join mainstream Anglo culture. Today that sense of difference is celebrated in places like the Barossa Valley and sections of the wine industry, but it was not always like that. Third and fourth generation Australian Lutheran pastors were interned in WWI, town names were changed, and churches were burnt down. Even during WWII stones were thrown at school buses and more recent arrivals were again interned. Despite this, the toehold of the Lutherans in Australia has been maintained, and they have not expe-rienced loss of influence in wider society because they never really had any.

There is a strong sense in which the dislocation of the Australian churches from the centre of mainstream culture is no shock to Australian Lutherans, although they are not quite so phlegmatic about the loss of their youth and families to the pervading secular culture. There is also a sense in which the churches were not quite so much in the bosom of society as people often assume they were. Australia has always had a love/hate relationship with its Churches, and I imagine this is felt here in Tasmania. I have visited convict era churches like St Georges in Hobart where I think you can still see the solitary confinement boxes for the convicts. In Sydney town the Revd Samuel Marsden was the Anglican priest, but he was also the local magistrate. "Save their souls on Sunday and flog them on Wednesday", is something like what used to be said.

These impressions of the church might be old hat to many of you, but I am stating them because I do not hear or see them being consistently and seriously taken into account in the debates about the ongoing life of the Churches. The new situation does not have to be a disaster. It may not be a disaster at all, except in a narrow sense. If God is still in the church, if it is the presence of Christ in the world, and if the Word still speaks, then maybe it can be no other way. We have just come through Lent into Easter, and yet there seems to be a lot in the way we Christians think, speak and act which denies that Easter ever happened, and that the church will somehow triumphantly go from strength to strength. This is not the history of the church, and it is not the history of faith. In our search for victory we often, both unintentionally and intentionally, discard the cross of Jesus that says the church will ever only be truly effective and blessed from the mar-gins. It lives in the lives of the oppressed and discarded, those who understand what it is to be lost and to be found. Powerful parables, such as the tale of the Waiting Father, or Prodigal Son, in Luke 15, go to some length to bring this message home, a message we are so quick to forget.

The church is not dead any more than Christ is dead - and the nature of the resurrec-tion still raises ongoing debate after all these years. Sometimes what we call the church might not be quite the same thing as what God calls the church. Where does the church truly exist today? Is it there in Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Calvinism - or some other human group or movement?

That, perhaps, is the quest of the Churches through the ecumenical movement. Ecu-menism, however you label it or structure it, is vital for the ongoing relevance of the church. Our future is together, not apart. We have a duty, and a responsibility, to do everything we can to express the unity the church has in Christ, and to sing our praises as one people with one God. Before God we cannot walk away from one other, we can-not withdraw into forms that mimic the old joke about walls in heaven that don't let you see that the others are there.

We have no future apart from the future we have with each other. Current trends should drive that home to us. We need to be reminded of our common future as, in the name of institutional survival and the preservation of many precious achievements, we are tempted to pull up the drawbridge and use our resources to keep individual denomi-nations, parishes, and congregations, in existence. It is intriguing how often the question of survival comes down to the question of finance. This is the very question that divided Judas from the other disciples long ago in Jerusalem, and finally led him to despar. What is going on here? Denominational leaders complain of money being retained in regional Synods and Districts. Synod and District leaders complain of money being re-tained in congregations. Congregations run stewardship that despite the most sincere best attempts to widen the concept of stewardship, in my experience usually become campaigns to increase the level of personal offerings. On a sea of change there is comfort in familiar things, familiar structures, and the money to pay for them.

Is this all too melodramatic? Have I overstated the case? Do we forget that the survival of the institution is not the same as the survival of the church, and that to be church we must be together as one?

The Ecumenical movement is not Councils or other ecumenical organisations, but the churches working and moving together. Ecumenism does not create unity, because God in Christ gives us unity - through the church. The Churches are the ecumenical movement. Experience demonstrates, however, that without structures like Councils of Churches, individual Churches do not move together, but apart. Although we would like to think that Christians operate spontaneously out of good will and a common under-standing, it seems we need structure to empower us to fulfil our intentions. And until the churches are one in that sense, it seems they will need something to keep reminding them of it. None of us, I think, want to return to the separations and misunderstandings of the past.

In the difficult scenario of churches today the Ecumenical movement, and Ecumenical Councils such as TCC and NCCA can sometimes be wrongly treated as luxuries we can ill afford. I believe the opposite is the case. We need them more than ever. Yet they are regarded as being at the 'end of the food chain', relying for their volunteers and their in-come on denominational structures that are already under such pressure.

For their part, ecumenical councils need to be relevant to the churches, because they are nothing but the combined presence of the churches. An ecumenical council does not have any life apart from the Churches. Just like Churches, there is a temptation for the ecumenical movement to move into having its own, independent life. People who are frustrated with the lack of movement in their Churches may adopt the ecumenical movement as being more amenable to the kind of church they would like to have. It is wrong for the ecumenical movement to remove people who have energy to bring about healthy reform from their churches. That energy should be used for the Churches - we all need it. Ecumenical councils must work with and for the Churches that form them. They are worth having; they are useful tools to help us learn what it is to be church to-gether. We would be much poorer without them.

This talk has been headed 'Ecumenical Impressions', and that is all that it is. It is not a developed thesis or a carefully detailed analysis. Impressions are all it is. Some of those impressions will see to be well founded, and others might seem far-fetched. You can sort that out for yourselves. I will finish by saying that this is a time of soul searching, a cross roads that is being encountered in Christian Churches and Ecumenical Councils across the world. The paradigm has shifted, and it is taking time for us to see the new landscape. How that process goes will to some extent be up to our courage to let go of old forms and embrace new ones, however hesitantly, and, as the saying goes, "Let go, and let God."

John Henderson
Sydney
1 May 2003

Rev John Henderson, General Secretary, National Council of Churches in Australia
Malek Fahd Islamic School, 405 Waterloo Rd Greenacre

Saturday 30 April 2005

My friends, it is a great pleasure for me to be with you again this evening.

I bring greetings from the National Council of Churches in Australia and its 15 member churches across the country. I also bring particular greetings also from our President, the Revd Prof James Haire

I also have been pleased to meet here tonight the Hon Peter McGauran, Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, and acting Minister for Immigration. Like other speakers tonight, I also checked his press releases, and I saw that on 14 January he commended the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims, and Jews for its efforts in community harmony. I am pleased that he appreciates the importance of dialogue between religious faiths, for the welfare of the Australian community at large.

Now, at this time, for us, it is more important than ever that we have a mutual understanding and appreciation of our varying backgrounds, traditions, and religious beliefs:

• People of good faith and commitment can stand against apathy and self interest that leads to a lazy society that is only concerned with self interest
• People of deep conviction and compassionate ideals can show a way of living that is not dominated by fear or victimisation
• People of difference with diverse backgrounds can unite in their common humanity and find cause for doing good at all levels of society

Australia today is a unique opportunity to build a unique society. We gather our strength from around the globe. Our backgrounds are from many nations, cultures, and faiths. Out of that variety we can demonstrate a society which is symbol of hope for the world.

Our belief, through the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, is that we can make a difference. We can own what we do here, in this place, without mindlessly importing agendas, hatreds, or issues from other places. They will affect us, for sure, but we must equip ourselves to assess their reality under the light of an Australian sun, and transform what could hurt us into a force for good.

To do this we must be in dialogue. Dialogue between faiths “requires a knowledge of (your) own faith, and both humility and openness to the spiritual depths of the other person’s faith… (Dialogue) demands that there should be no fear, no arrogance, no domination, and no exclusion in the discussion. It presumes a sense of adventure, a wish to work for the future, and sensitivity to the infinite mystery of God.”*  Those words are the reflections of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne after it made an intervention on behalf of the Islamic Council of Victoria during the recent case under Victoria’s new anti-vilification laws. To me they also accurately reflect the views of the wider Christian community of churches as represented by the membership of the National Council of Churches.

It is surely also reflects vital aspects of a healthy Australian society – a place of safety and inclusion, yet also of joint enquiry, with a sense of adventure, working for a common future.

As a Christian I am obliged to be involved in dialogue. One day, when Jesus was asked, “And who is my neighbour,” he told a remarkable story about an outcast who became a real neighbour to a man in need. We call it the story of the Good Samaritan.**  Jesus revolutionised the concept of neighbour, the fellow traveller who is there beside me, and whom God asks me to love as myself. The true neighbour is not someone I select, but someone whom I meet on life’s journey apparently by chance, but within the providence of God.

You and I are neighbours. We are not the same as each other in every detail, and neither should we be. God did not create clones, but people. Life is not about sameness, but about relationship, both with the divine and with each other.

We are here, in this place, together, and we dare not, we cannot, walk past each other as though the other did not exist. It is our sacred duty to share this place, this time, and this nation, with its opportunities, its struggles, and its unlimited potential. How we deal with this challenge will be the measure of us as human beings, as citizens, and sons & daughters of God.

Let us remain committed to each other. Let us never ignore one another. Let walk together into the future, in dialogue, in partnership, in life, and in hope, as Australians. Let us never label one another with tags, but always see in each other a fellow human being, a traveller, a neighbour, a friend.

My friends, thank you for your hospitality tonight and for letting me say these few words.

----
* ‘Talking about other Faiths’ A Position Statement of the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. Adopted 16 March 2005. Available at http://www.melbourne.catholic.org.au/eic/Talkingaboutotherfaiths.htm
** Luke 10:29-37

Foundation and consecration of Church of the Holy Resurrection

20 April 2006
Edgarian Hall, 10 Macquarie St Chatswood NSW

The Church’s contribution to moral issues facing today’s society
Rev John Henderson, National Council of Churches in Australia

It is a great pleasure for me to be asked to address you this evening. The vibrant relationship between the Armenian Apostolic Diocese and the National Council of Churches predates the foundation of the Council, which is such a young body alongside the Armenian Apostolic Church, with its long history of faith and witness to the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

The Armenian Church was part of the discussions that led to the formation of the National Council of Churches in 1994, a new body that includes Catholics. It represents a new era in Australian Church relations, and it is significant that the Armenian Primate, His Eminence Archbishop Baliozian, was selected by the new Council to be its first President, a role he served with skill and no small distinction. His involvement continues unabated: until the 2006 Assembly he represented the Armenian Church at the World Council of Churches; in 2005 he led the Armenian Church into membership of the Christian Conference of Asia; and he currently serves as President of the New South Wales Ecumenical Council. 4 years ago His Eminence was one of those who sat on the selection panel for the job of General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.

Tonight, as part of these special 40th Anniversary celebrations, I have been asked to speak on ‘The Church’s contribution to moral issues facing today’s society’. There are many views on this topic, and the Churches themselves do not necessarily agree. Our views are shaped by the theology of our respective Church and our personal histories – that is, how we believe God acts in the world today. I confess therefore to being shaped by my own history and understanding, both within my own Church, and within the Ecumenical movement, where I have been formally employed for the last 4 years. So I want to start this topic from within, from the Church itself, rather than from without, where there are many pressing moral issues confronting contemporary society. Starting in this way will us help us get our bearings far more effectively than if we simply respond, piecemeal, to the urgent demands of modern life.

Just a few weeks ago I had the privilege visiting Israel, and I spent some days in Jerusalem. A memorable moment, and something I shall not forget, was a visit to the Armenian Patriarch, His Beatitude Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, and being escorted through the Cathedral and the Patriarchate by His Grace Bishop Aris. The visit was enabled by His Eminence Archbishop Baliozian, who I understand is a member of the St James brotherhood, vowed to maintain the existence and the rights of the Armenian Church in the Holy City.

It was a wonderful visit, and his Beatitude was gracious in the extreme. The Patriarchate was a haven of peace in a frantic and troubled city. Jerusalem has seen many conquerors, rulers, and nations come and go. Over the decades the walls of St James’ Cathedral have protected the Armenian people from swords and bombs. In his day even Sal ad-hin was forced to confess the sanctity of the place. As we were leaving, Bishop Aris escorted us through the main reception hall, where we viewed the objects and pictures. Around the walls there is a gallery of those who have led the Church, and those who have ruled Jerusalem, from the time of the Patriarch Abraham in the 7th century. It was a profound lesson in the deep witness of the people of God in that place. Rulers come, and rulers go, but the Church, the kingdom of God, remains.

I believe that’s an important place to begin this topic. It will be important for me to address some specific examples and I will briefly treat two: Australia’s current policies towards refugees, and the emergence of Islam in Australian society. Firstly, however, I want to say that making a genuinely moral contribution to society means understanding the principles with which you operate. We must know who we are and where we have come from. Otherwise as situations develop we will not know how to behave. There is a strong temptation for Churches to act opportunistically.

To make a contribution to moral debate today, we need to know three things. Firstly, history does not begin or end with us. It is in God’s hands. Secondly making a moral contribution means going back to the source. We have received the testimony of a long line of witnesses who have defended the faith. I need hardly remind the Armenian Church of this, as memories of the Genocide still resonate 90 years later, and 1700 years of Church history inform your thoughts and actions. Thirdly, how we behave will have an impact on others, both now and in the future. We are in the process of handing on our legacy. The choices we make will impact future generations, whether they remember us or not. What do we want to leave behind?

While these things might seem self-evident, they are not so in contemporary Australia. Australia can seem like a kind of ‘historical bubble’, de-linked from thousands of years of preceding human history. In this country it can feel like everything began yesterday, or perhaps 100, or at the most 200 years ago. This is a great grief to Indigenous Australians, but it should also be a massive concern to us immigrant Australians. It is what happens when a culture focuses on gratification of the self, the ego. From economics to personal lifestyle, popular morality immodestly promotes self-gratification and growth. It persists with the assumption that big is better than small, strong is better than weak, now is better than then, and new is better than old. When this becomes our attitude over an extended period of time, the lessons of history disappear. In the end we don’t even notice what’s missing and we have no resources to fall back on when contemporary answers fail us. Recent events like the so-called ‘Cronulla riots’ show the difficulty contemporary Australia has in coping with issues that have history, such as the Christian/Muslim relations.

To discover our place in the world, including what it means to be moral, Christians must return to their first witness, the word of Scripture, preserved as it has been in the Church. They must especially turn to the New Testament. What Jesus and the Apostles have to say about the human condition still matters as we make our moral choices today.
 
In this context Romans 12 is particularly relevant. There are many others passages like the Beatitudes and the parables of Jesus. I have chosen Romans 12, however, because it is addressed to the Church at a time when it was emerging as a community of faith, a community of difference.

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect...

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ...

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

There is enough material here to supply a month or more of Conferences. Christian moral responses are based on the principle of self-sacrifice, modelled on the sacrifice of Jesus. The moral balance is shifted from self-preservation to conformity with God’s will. Difference is to be valued. The law of retribution is to be replaced by the law of love. The cycle of greed and envy is to be transformed into the growth of blessing and peace. No-one is to think too highly of him or her self or to pretend to have superior wisdom. It is all summed up by the well known words, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Whether now, or then, these commands are counter cultural. They go against the grain of much accepted human behaviour. The first, and ongoing, lesson about the moral leadership of the Church is that it continues to be counter cultural. It swims against the tide. It will not be controlled by wealth, big business, political expediency, or even survival. To be Church takes courage, courage that is impossible without faith.

When the Church loses courage and fails to act morally it not only lets itself down, it lets the world down. The results can be immense evil. The Churches of Germany, and parts of Europe, are still in shock over what happened in the 1920s and 30s, and their failure to act morally in the face of hatred, prejudice, and genocide. Their experience then explains their sensitivity today, as they repeatedly examine their theology, and always decide to err on the side of supporting those who are vilified or oppressed, often at their own cost. Per capita today European Churches are among the largest supporters of international advocacy, development and aid as they live out that legacy and vow never to repeat it.

I should also point out, however, that the Church has no monopoly on morality or on good deeds. Many people, Christians and non Christians, act morally and in accordance with the law of love. The Church, however, is in a special place, and it has no choice but to behave in this way, or lose its birthright as the people God called to be witnesses to love and to truth.

In summary, then, here are some of the things the Church contributes in general terms to the moral issues of society.

In their internal life Churches contribute by:

• Being ‘Church’ – God’s people gathered in worship and prayer. “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another ...”  Being Church, worshipping regularly, is not only a reminder of the ‘otherness’ of God, and our moral responsibility to a higher power, it speaks of the self giving sacrifice of God for the sins of the world, a particularly poignant message at this time of the year. Worship provides the moral base for all of our statements and actions
• Creating & sustaining a sense of community, continuity, and belonging. Moral action requires a reference point in human society. We must be able to measure what is ‘good, and acceptable, and right’. To be truly moral we need each other.
• Raising believers with lives of personal modesty & restraint, resistant to models of excess, the pursuit of wealth, & over indulgence. It takes training to behave morally, and the Church has for centuries provided this training to generations of young people. This should be reinforced by all levels of Church structures.

In society Churches contribute by:

• Acting with love, compassion, and inclusiveness – the eyes of many people are on the church to see how it treats people. It model what it preaches. Cases of abuse within the Church are not only devastating for the victims; they are devastating for the Church and threaten to rob it of moral authority.
• Maintaining the language of hope – the Church has 2,000 years of preaching and teaching upon which to draw, as well as its experience under many circumstances. It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, institution in the world. As such it has always lived in hope, both for this life and for the life to come. It is now more important than ever to maintain this language of hope.
• Telling the Good News – this is the core task of the Church, in word and deed. The Good News includes honesty about the human condition, and God’s response.
• Remembering the lessons of history in understanding the human condition – the Church is a reminder to society of a continuous human history that is constantly forgotten. Its antiquity, and its place in the roots of our culture, reminds society and its rulers of our ultimate accountability to God for our moral choices.

In relation to the authorities, Churches contribute by:

• Reminding governments of their God-given responsibilities – Churches have a legitimate role to remind government of the mandate by which it assumes power. As Jesus said to Pilate, when he refused to be afraid of him, “"You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above …”
• Bringing to their attention issues of morality and justice within their responsibility – since the time of the prophets religious leaders who are outside the structures of power have had the mandate to speak to rulers about issues of justice. This tradition continues today as Churches engage governments on matters of justice, peace, human rights, and now also on environmental matters.\
• Sitting with the excluded and those who have no voice – just as Jesus sat with us in our sin, so the Church is to sit with those who have no hope and no voice. This is the moral position of the Church dictated by the actions of Jesus – e.g. the woman caught in adultery . Such actions can have the most remarkable results.

Finally, I will look at two examples of contemporary moral issues in Australian society. These are symptomatic, and there are many others I could have chosen. For the sake of brevity two public issues will do. First is our treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, which is fairly self evident. Second is our response to the emerging Muslim community in Australia. This may not strike us at first as being a moral issue, but I briefly hope to show why I think it is.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

On Maundy Thursday, in the Gregorian calendar, just before the Easter long weekend, the Federal Government announced that it was changing the rules relating to onshore arrivals of people seeking asylum in Australia. A few years ago the Government established what it called ‘migration zones’ which ‘excised’ off shore islands that are normally regarded as Australian territory. For the purposes of refugees landing on these islands and reefs, they were now declared to technically not be in Australia, and so they could be sent to off shore processing centres, which we commonly call detention centres. These centres are to all intents and purposes prisons into which everyone is put: women, men, and children.

This was all part of the so-called ‘Pacific Solution’, and it rightly earned the condemnation of people across the world, including, locally, most if not all Australian Churches. The ‘solution’ was offered up amid a barrage of language that dehumanised those seeking refuge. They were called ‘boat-people’ and ‘illegals’, and accused at an earlier stage of throwing their children overboard to gain sympathy. This accusation is well known to have been manifestly untrue, but somehow the label has still stuck.

After a boatload of people from West Papua recently arrived in the Northern Territory seeking asylum they were granted Temporary Protection Visas. While many refugee advocates speak against the whole TPV system, nevertheless it mean there was recognition for these people as having legitimate cause to seek refuge. Soon, however, after a threatened diplomatic incident with Indonesia, our government promised that future boatloads would not be received even if they landed on mainland Australia, but will be sent to off-shore centres, where their cases will be reviewed after first discussing them with Indonesia.

As far as I know there is no precedent for this, and it smacks of legal convenience and a moral vacuum. While the intricacies of Australia’s relationship with Indonesia have to be acknowledged, and a lot of care has to be taken about what is best for the Indonesian province of Papua, this treatment of refugees has to be challenged. How can they at first be said to have valid cause, and then, suddenly, for diplomatic reasons, have nothing?

You might have already heard some Churches, particularly the Uniting Church, registered their immediate protest. Due to the Easter holiday, however, most Churches have not yet had a chance. Already the Uniting Church has been heavily attacked for what its moral stance, not least by the Indonesian Ambassador.

How do we make a contribution to this issue, which is undoubtedly a moral one? We can take the road of direct protest – as the Uniting Church has, and no doubt others will. We can join consultative processes of review within government departments, which the Churches have been doing for years. We can create support structures for refugees and asylum seekers – which is being done and Christians daily visit the centres, help people and ease their transition them into the community when they are released. We can take up individual cases by providing legal assistance and making representation and that is going on all the time.

Ultimately, however, the Churches must hold the government accountable for their moral responsibilities. In a democracy this finally happens through the electorate. Activists, advocates and Church leaders will do their bit, but it will require Australian voters to hold the government accountable and make moral issues matter. This is complicated, because a moral issue that appears black and white to one Church might seem quite ambiguous to another. The morality, for instance, of stem cell research, or of the so-called abortion drug RU-486, are cases in point. Churches should not tell their members how to vote. Such an effort would be misdirected, would transgress the principles of democracy, and would backfire in any case. They should, however, be ready to engage in the debate, and let their voices, even if not in total agreement, be heard among the members of their community.

The emergence of Islam

The growth of the Islamic community in Australia has been widely reported and frequently commented upon. Why do I view this as a moral issue? The growth of Islam in Australia is not in itself a moral issue, but it does present us with a series of moral choices. This is so whether people come from a country where there is a significant Muslim community or not.

The moral questions come from the choices we make as we respond to a growing community which is different from the mainstream and of which many are suspicious. How will we define it and how will we treat this difference?

On one level some try to elevate this to a ‘clash of civilisations’, giving conflict a sense of inevitability, and making it sound as though we can choose between a ‘Christian’ Australia and a ‘Muslim’ Australia. This polarisation precipitates tension and may well result in increased hostility and violence. It feeds the language of fear, and builds a desire to ‘get them’ before they ‘get us’. A simple comparison between this and the ethic outlined in Romans 12 will tell the Churches that even though some would agree with the danger, this is not a moral Christian response. Even more so, Jesus commanded us to ‘love our neighbour’. What does this mean when our neighbour is a Muslim? Does a Christian have any choice but to love them, and if we do love them, does this mean some kind of unconditional surrender? What about the untrammelled growth of the Muslim influence in Australia, and people’s fear of Sharia Law and Jihad? Are these fears realistic, or are they hyperbole whipped up by people who want us to hate?

On another level some people try to make this a matter of personal relationships. There are many dialogue groups based on this premise. If you get to know the ‘other’ they will not seem so strange and you will not be so afraid of them. You will start to see them as human beings, people just like you. At its best this approach can be very enlightened. At its worst it can be simplistic and ignore wider issues. All in all, however, surely it is better for neighbours to know one another than to listen to hearsay and even lies about one another. The Church’s moral response surely should encourage such interaction.

Churches must take a realistic viewpoint, but they are also required to counter the rhetoric of vilification and separation that makes some kind of war or violent struggle inevitable. If there were to be violence, the Church’s moral responsibility is to have done everything in its power to find another way. That better way has to be explored through dialogue – ongoing discussion that examines who we are, what our respective views are, and how we can live and work together.

A third alternative, and one I personally reject as immoral, is to try and make out that somehow Christianity and Islam are different versions of the same religion. This is immoral because it is dishonest about our differences and fails to witness to Jesus Christ. Christians have a moral responsibility to the whole of society to stand up for what they believe and to engage in genuine dialogue.

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In conclusion, I simply reiterate that the Church’s greatest contribution to moral issues today will come from us being who we are and have been for 2,000 years. This could be summed up by the Pentecost message of St Peter: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

This lack of partiality based on the Christian gospel is what sets the Church apart and makes its moral witness unique. That’s what we must preserve at all costs, as it is our basis for being and our ultimate and unique witness to Christ.

Revd John Henderson
20 April 2006