The momentous, 4 day meeting of the Uniting Church's Synod in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory ended yesterday. Among many highlights several shone particularly brightly.
(1) The Synod's theme, "Uniting for the Common Good" seems to be being enacted within the various agencies and senior staff of the Synod. It was refreshing to interact with people who talk straight and talk together.
(2) We elected an alien widow to be our next Moderator. If you have followed the developing discourse throughout the bible on the status of aliens and of women, let alone of widows, you will understand what a radical step this is. Not only that, but one of the other candidates, an Anglo Australian man in his prime, told me that he hoped she would be elected, not him! This points to an ethos radically at odds with that which prevails in Australian society and much of the rest of the world.
(3) The Synod's ecological concern has come of age. 3 significant proposals were passed, one opposing coal seam gas mining, another moving towards divesting from companies that mine fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy providers, and the third asking the Synod and the Assembly to speak and act both pastorally and prophetically in the Murray-Darling Basin.
I was one of a diverse consultation group that presented the report on its consultation over the MDB and the proposal arising from it. To be honest, the sea of orange cards indicating assent that greeted our proposal was one of the highlights of my life. It was a culmination of a process that began when I spoke at meeting of Synod 24 years ago about environmental concerns arising from my experience in my first placement as a minister, the then Northern New England Parish. Since then the story has developed for me and also for the Uniting Church. I've done an honours degree, then a PhD in ecological theology as it relates to the MDB, and I'm a presenter with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. In the Uniting Church there has been a deepening and broadening of ecological concern that is immensely heartening, but has come none too soon. Now on to enact the Proposals!
(1) The Synod's theme, "Uniting for the Common Good" seems to be being enacted within the various agencies and senior staff of the Synod. It was refreshing to interact with people who talk straight and talk together.
(2) We elected an alien widow to be our next Moderator. If you have followed the developing discourse throughout the bible on the status of aliens and of women, let alone of widows, you will understand what a radical step this is. Not only that, but one of the other candidates, an Anglo Australian man in his prime, told me that he hoped she would be elected, not him! This points to an ethos radically at odds with that which prevails in Australian society and much of the rest of the world.
(3) The Synod's ecological concern has come of age. 3 significant proposals were passed, one opposing coal seam gas mining, another moving towards divesting from companies that mine fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy providers, and the third asking the Synod and the Assembly to speak and act both pastorally and prophetically in the Murray-Darling Basin.
I was one of a diverse consultation group that presented the report on its consultation over the MDB and the proposal arising from it. To be honest, the sea of orange cards indicating assent that greeted our proposal was one of the highlights of my life. It was a culmination of a process that began when I spoke at meeting of Synod 24 years ago about environmental concerns arising from my experience in my first placement as a minister, the then Northern New England Parish. Since then the story has developed for me and also for the Uniting Church. I've done an honours degree, then a PhD in ecological theology as it relates to the MDB, and I'm a presenter with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. In the Uniting Church there has been a deepening and broadening of ecological concern that is immensely heartening, but has come none too soon. Now on to enact the Proposals!
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