I find it strange that churches wish to tell us how society should be organised but protest adamantly if any move is made that would require them to make some cash contribution towards the cost. The United Church’s wealth, largely in trusts, has been estimated as approaching a billion dollars. Religious trusts pay no tax on dividends or other income and if the income is from shares the government pays them the franking credit on the dividends as cash. For example, Sanitarium Health Foods of Weetbix fame is owned by a church, pays no income tax, and competes with Kellogg’s but if a trust owned by the Seventh Day Adventist Church held shares in Kellogg’s some of the tax paid by Kellogg’s would be refunded to the church. How fair or sensible is that!
The income of churches should be taxable with a deduction for expenditure on charitable works, but not expenditure on promoting their faith, the same as secular charities.
Why is a minister of religion’s salary largely tax free when any contribution a minister makes to a person’s well being is at best marginal. How many of us with a deep personal problem would consult the clergy? Most of us would have enough sense to consult a health professional or a good friend whose wisdom we respected.
In the case of young children the clergy’s efforts are most likely deleterious to a child’s confidence and self respect? The clergy try to convince each young child that he or she was born in sin. Original sin is a ridiculous concept. How can a person be blamed by a just god for something which is attributed to his or her forefathers? Original sin is a concept dreamed up and kept in vogue by exploiters.
Many clergy make a negative contribution to the well being of citizens and pay no tax yet a health professional making a significant contribution to community health is taxed. I am not arguing that health professionals should not be taxed but rather that everyone should be taxed but receive a deduction for their charitable efforts.

Are we supposed to applaud the Uniting Church for forsaking its mandate of proclaiming the righteousness of God and jumping onto the bandwagon of the current “rights and responsibilities” debate? I would have hoped that theologians in the UC would take a deeper view and expose the debate as yet more pious utopian mush churned out by those who believe in the ultimate perfectibility of society by our own means.

The idea of human rights comes from early Enlightenment thinking that had no room for the righteousness of God. It is atheistic and individualistic. The emphasis on responsibility is Pelagian, the idea that we can haul ourselves up by our own bootstraps. How is it that the UC, that began its life so well with the Basis of Union, has now become just another wanabe in the race to improve society? How come it has forsaken the scandal of its Lord for all the current weasel words that mean nothing? This means that the church has become indistinguishable from the society that surrounds it, it has simply become part of the world. So who could care less about it?

Come on Uniting Church, give up your pretensions of being among all of the good and well meaning people of the earth and return to the Lord whose Word is a two edged sword among us.

Peter Sellick

Sells, pray tell what exactly is the "righteousness of god"?

Such concepts always lead to the suffering and misery by the binary exclusions they create.

We are right or righteous, you are wrong or unrighteous.
Which leads to bang-bang you are dead.

Have you read your HIS-story books?

And todays "news"?

How can/could the A-Causal Conscious Light that IS The Happiness of the World, possibly be "righteous"?

Does the sun only shine on true believers and/or the "righteous"?

Meanwhile the kind of entirely exoteric religion that you peddle in your occasional essays on this forum isnt all that much different from the social gospel message advocated in this essay, and my many mainstream Christians of a liberal ecumenical kind, too.

This Earth-world is not a place for "righteousness". Each of us could be snuffed out at any moment. Everyone is suffering here, and everyone dies too. And usually in either terrible circumstances or wretched suffering.

And no one goes to "heaven"---least of all the "righteous" who would draw lines around people, both individually and collectively. And thus broadcast to the world the divisions in their own heart---and their infinite godlessness.

And where does your righteous "god" fit into a schema where 300,000 people are wiped out in a Tsunami?

“we believe that every person is precious and deserves a decent chance in life and because we believe that we have a deep and abiding responsibility to ensure that our society is based on principles of social justice and equity.”

What does that statement actually mean?

Our dependence on diversity argues against every person being precious, some are more precious than others and some turn out to be more a liability than precious at all.

“Social justice” should mean a criminal receives a punishment fitting the crime but will simply lock up killers, instead of executing them. Where is the ‘justice’ in that?

“Social justice” can only be achieved where everyone applies similar wisdom in the exercise of their personal decisions, yet some choose to take drugs and others choose to maintain a healthier life style.

So no jingoistic weasel words to demand “social justice”.

Without defining exactly what is meant by that term in the first place.

Then, I will argue against it.

Every person IS precious.We need to live within a policy of social justice and equality before law that is for everyone,man and woman and child..I will strenuously argue for it.Let's not get the issue messed up in religious gobble-de-gook.Religion has no part to play in all this. Long before there were religions who hijacked the issues primitive societies were evolving their own justice policies and ethics.From these grew the refinements of the groundwork.

But..
let's be careful about what we mean by social justice. Whose "social justice" ? The phrase has come to acquire exclusive religious brands and demands. The issues must be based on democratic principles,essentially secular in nature and serving the needs of the majority and those whose country it is. For example, the social justice that is valued in Iceland is different to that of Chad, that of the USA different to that of Saudi Arabia and so on.

The individual is precious.Yes.No exceptions. Male as equally precious as the female. Therefore,each accorded the same respect and rights.Both protected under law.

Let's be quite sure whatit is we are talking about and take nothing for granted.

socratease

Ho Hum

'And where does your righteous "god" fit into a schema where 300,000 people are wiped out in a Tsunami?'

With wretches like you and me it is amazing that all 6 billion people have not been wiped out. This is more amazing than the 300000 who were wiped out. One day you might get it that every day is a gift and not a right. You are the created not the Creator and your fist waving at an all powerful God is quite pathetic.

I happen to agree wholeheartedly with Col Rouge (dare I say it) on this one. 'Social Justice' with no clear definition has little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ or anything else for that matter.