Having worked at the synod for only a few months, I was not quite sure what to expect when I attended Assembly for the first time in Perth. Meetings are normally long and dull affairs, but I was surprised by the eclectic mix of worship, music and inspiration that took place during the six days.
In her response to Randall Prior in July Crosslight, Lorraine Parkinson takes issue not only with the ecumenical impetus which saw the birth of the Uniting Church but more generally with Christian faith and its reading of the significance of the person of Jesus.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Jesus Seminar. Readers of Crosslight may have heard of this convocation of scholars who famously, over a period of several years, took a vote on each of the sayings of Jesus to establish whether or not he actually said them. Using a ...
Rev Randall Prior’s article in June Crosslight (‘Why Unite?’) prompts me to respond to assertions he has made about the formation and future of the Uniting Church.
The Uniting Church was formed largely through the faith of its leaders in the ecumenical movement, even as ecumenism had begun its downward slide in ...
By Emmet O’Cuana
An Australian Christian lobby group responded to the events of the weekend in Ireland with the following statement “the redefinition of marriage and family in Ireland this weekend is a wake-up call to Australians who value the rights of children”.
Back home over the past few months in the run-up to the vote, the well ...
By Deb Bennett
Last night, three generations of my family cried simultaneously.
It was vaccination time for my seven-week-old grandson. One minute he was happily sitting on my knee; the next he was red-faced and screaming as potentially life-saving needles pierced his chubby legs.
By Ken Duncan
Have you ever wondered why days seemed to last forever when you were a child… and now it feels like we blink and another week’s over?
The pace of life is faster than ever and we can trip over just trying to keep up. We have all this technology to make ...
Swanston Street in Melbourne is normally occupied by a stream of trams and pedestrians. On Palm Sunday, it was transformed into a sea of protestors calling for justice for refugees.
I was a part of the Uniting Church group gathered outside Wesley Uniting Church before the march. As the congregation approached the State Library ...
“Closest to the believers in love and affection are the Christians”(from the Qu’ran, Chapter 5 verse 82).
As an Australian citizen of African heritage, I wanted to attend the
By Rev Devanandan Anandarajan
In 1985, the UCA Assembly claimed its identity in Christ as ‘a multicultural church’ and made a formal declaration to that effect: “The Uniting Church is a Multicultural Church”. In the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania we are seeking ways to be meaningfully ‘intercultural’ in our multicultural Church.
Uniting Through Faiths seeks to develop closer ties between all faiths, increasing participants’ understanding of each other’s faith and cultural practices. Larry Marshall, Uniting Through Faiths project manager, discusses the belief that through knowledge comes understanding. He says that only once there is understandings can there be peace.
Australia, and Melbourne in particular, is often celebrated ...
While browsing at a market on the weekend, I stopped at a stall selling classic film photo-books. These promotional collectibles were similar to lobby cards, but feature pictures of the movie stars, or fawning interviews with the director, organised by the studio.
The first one I found on top of the pile was of Cecil B DeMille’s The Ten ...
