Date: 2009-07-27 13:40:39
Some weeks ago I quoted historian Anna Haebich. Today the conclusion of her book (Spinning the Dream. Assimilation in Australia 1950-1970, 2008) seems particularly relevant: “Enmeshed in today’s anxieties we are vulnerable to the same spin that plays on our fears with promises of a safe place where there will be no strangers and the problems of others can slip into the deep recesses of forgetting... Recognizing the spin and seeing beyond it might just propel us into the clear light of a better future.”
The Uniting Church chose to leave the safe place of “forgetting” in a particular way last week – with all the vulnerability, fears and joy that unleashed.
The Uniting Church in Queensland is a member of QCT.
In their significant statement on ecumenical responsibility, “Called to Be the One Church” (2006), the members of the World Council of Churches remind each other – and thus us – of our mutual accountability. How can we create the safe place together in which we can “speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25)? St Paul surely does not mean a self-righteous, finger-wagging truth, but “only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear” (v.29).
This place is safe not because everything unfamiliar is somehow done away with or ignored. “Safe” does not mean full of certainty. It may even sometimes feel unsafe, when some or all of us take our eyes off the source of the grace that unites us. Nevertheless the safe place is paradoxically the space in which we allow ourselves to be transformed so that we can “live as children of light” (Eph. 5:8).
Other QCT member churches are on their own journeys in terms of acknowledging our colonial past and its impacts – journeys that may not be as publicly visible, or they are simply different paths. It is my prayer that we and our member churches, as well as Indigenous and non-Indigenous Christians in our churches, will seek the safe place to talk to each other about these journeys, allowing our loving God to transform us.
Glenine Hamlyn
In a new Preamble to its Constitution, the Uniting Church in Australia now defines itself in terms of its relationship to the First Peoples of Australia.
Church leaders have expressed grave concerns about plans to mine coal in good farming land on the Darling Downs, citing food security and environmental issues.
Migrant workers perform many of the mundane jobs in Hong Kong. An ecumenical network will guard their rights when, as planned, government protection is removed.
A church-related advocacy network emphasizes that food is not like any other trade commodity, as the WTO releases its latest World Trade Report.
By QCT Monday, 27 July 2009
Gamblers Anonymous Queensland in conjunction with the 31st National Conference of Gamblers Anonymous cordially invites you to attend our first ever Public Information Meeting.
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