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.

Unfortunately, the Uniting Church has engineered these political port folio's. They have also given license to people such as Elaine - to speak in words and ways, which do not express the gospel. The gospel is the church's charter.

A human rights charter, based upon the best of current day human wisdom, may help society in some aspects. But it will also be used to shut down conversation and opinion, which does not fit the charter. That will include attempts to silence conservative opinions and valid criticisms, regarding cultures, religions, and expressions of sexuality, to name a few current hot spots and semi-no go zones.

Ultimately, the charter may only serve to camouflage the gospel. People may even think that is what the gospel is - a push for human rights. Not so, Elaine. Not so.

"Every person is precious" What does that mean, Elaine? Do you mean, created in the image and likeness of God? That is a high nobility. Do you mean God loves the world, so in that sense we are precious? Do you also say that the heart of fallen humanity is desperately corrupt, thinking 'only evil continually? Some people very clearly become a danger to society and, humanly speaking, less 'precious' to those about them, bearing the pain and terror, that is for certain. Your article is, in short... clear as mud.

The only authentic bleeding heart theology, is that of Christ, who had to do something far more drastic than sign a legal charter, to rectify the evil of society.

I am a UCA member. And I disagree, with you, Elaine. I say 'No' to the Charter. But then, the 'human wisdom' approach has the numbers in the UCA. So that is why you get to write such unhelpful material, and we who seek to preach the cross, as the power to transform society - have to bear with your unhelpful confusion. And yet again, we bemoan our being tied, ecclesially, to 'another gospel'.

Thanks to others who, for various reasons, have also criticised Elaine's opinion!

Elinie,
Why does a responsibility to life (others) have to mean Religion? Logically it doesn’t.
The one thing that always frustrates me on this site and I guess with your piece too is that the unproven(able) absolutism with which a matter of Choice (belief) is proselytized rather than discussed.

I respect your choice but by laying claim to all that is noble as being the sole province of religion smacks of elitism. Likewise claims that it belongs to A SPECIFIC religion are large parts of the reason why there is so much Conflict to day.
What other explanation of diversity makes sense?

“Good will”, “responsibility to life” as ideals are universal and independent of religion. Therefore one is entitled to ask was your purpose to advocate for responsibility or simply to promote your version of Christianity.

Neither is it as the Colonel put it a matter of life’s diversity therefore justifying Survival of the fittest. (A concept quoined by an Astronomer and devout Christian who deliberately misinterpreted Darwin as an insult). Darwin actually advocated Survival of the most able to ADAPT to the environment. One could argue that BECAUSE of that diversity we all live.

My view is that Life is its own destination and its purpose is to maintain existence. Which in turn’s purpose is to maintain life? Nothing more nothing less. All else are man created and therefore equally valid.

Likewise good ideals (responsibility to others) are their own purpose and need no religious affectation they are simply variations on our survival instinct, the reason we live in communities. It makes no sense for thinking people to create communities, only to advance the individual at the expense of those they indirectly rely on for their own survival. Of course we have a responsibility to others ( our communities are simply more complex versions of bee’s) we simply have a more complex (reasoning) processes.

The dark history of practised Christdom [along side some good], would seem to be an aside to the core values of the NT, who borrowed its values. There has been good and bad in the twentiety-first century, before the twentiety-first century, before the Enlightenment, before Christ, before Alexander the Great, way, way back to genetic Adam. Even Chimps display these characteristics. Being primates, so do we.

To the Rev Sellick. I fail to see how working for social justice is a failure of the Uniting Church’s mandate. The Uniting Church of 1977 that you so fondly recall had this to say in their Statement to the Nation at the Inaugural Assembly:

‘We affirm our eagerness to uphold basic Christian values and principles, such as the importance of every human being, the need for integrity in public life, the proclamation of truth and justice, the rights for each citizen to participate in decision-making in the community, religious liberty and personal dignity, and a concern for the welfare of the whole human race.

'We pledge ourselves to seek the correction of injustices wherever they occur. We will work for the eradication of poverty and racism within our society and beyond. We affirm the rights of all people to equal educational opportunities, adequate health care, freedom of speech, employment or dignity in unemployment if work is not available. We will oppose all forms of discrimination which infringe basic rights and freedoms.’

And to Col Rouge. You write that ‘Our dependence on diversity argues against every person being precious…’ With respect, you appear to have misunderstood the claim. We are all precious to God and this is what unites us in our diversity. That we don’t have the Creator’s capacity for infinite love, to value each person as inherently precious, is why, presumably, we live in a broken world. And surely it is why in the liturgy of the Church we make our confession by saying, ‘I have not loved You with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbour as myself.’

To tennyson's_1_far-off_divine_event. Frankly, I find it concerning that a self-professed Church member would find the assertion that ‘every person is precious’ a contentious one. You may recall hearing somewhere that God’s grace surpasses all human understanding.

I for one am glad that the Church has weighed into this debate. Issues important to our democracy benefit from being informed by as many considered views as possible.

It is a pity that the 'social welfare' wings of the organised churches are caught up with issues and approaches that the good congregations that pay for them would find abhorrent.

While most congregations would support integrating aboriginals and giving them equal opportunities, many social-rights-welfare advocates support the out-dated apartheit system we have had in Australia for the last 30 years.

While good people put protecting families and protecting children from divorce as a top priority, many social-rights-welfare policies encourage 'winner-takes-all divorce.