The national chairperson of the Evangelical Members within the Uniting Church (EMU) has pleaded with Sydney Anglicans for forgiveness, saying all Uniting Church members have to accept fault for the recent decision to allow the Church’s presbyteries to accept and ordain practicing homosexual clergy.
Mary Hawkes, who said 12,000 Uniting Church members have already signed a petition denoun-cing the move, believes the decision that is currently dividing the denomination is a case of ‘reaping what we’ve chosen to sow.’
“We have done a very foolish thing here. It’s scary when a church calling itself Christian can come to this point,” Mrs Hawkes told Southern Cross. “I’m devastated by the pain we’ve caused the body of Christ in this land. If one part’s hurting, we’re all hurting.”
The Uniting Church has become the first mainstream Christian church to accept ministers who are practicing homosexuals. Individual presbyteries can still decide about the ordination and placement of clergy on a case-by-case basis.
Following the majority vote in the church’s National Assembly in July, Mrs Hawkes has travelled around the nation urging Uniting Church members – the majority of whom she says are Bible-believing Christians – not to walk out in protest.
‘Most of Queensland’ will leave if the decision is not repealed, she said. “The ordinary people in the pews are horrified and devastated and don’t know how [they] reached this point.”
The Rev Fred Nile agrees that the decision ignores the beliefs of the UCA’s grassroots members, and has resigned in protest from his role as Minister in the Church. The Rev Dr Gordon Moyes, Super-intendent of Wesley Mission, despite having ‘no intention of leaving’, says he is not content to leave the church in its current state. Dr Moyes is calling for evangelicals within the Uniting Church to unite in reform to revive its declining numbers.
Dr Moyes said the UCA must ‘practice aggressive, intelligent and effective evangelism’, and added that adherence to biblical authority is critical to the church’s future.
“My primary concern has nothing to do with the sexuality issue. My concern is, what is the role of the Bible in the Uniting Church? [It] has to accept that the Bible has a continuing role in guiding its total ministry, including the qualifications of ministers. Biblical passages such as 1 Timothy 3 indicate church leaders must strive for personal holiness.”
Mrs Hawkes says the hand of God was upon the decision to show the Uniting Church it has a long way to go to return to a biblical understanding of morality and what it means to be a church.
“Our weakness is that we’ve allowed compassion and care to come at the expense of the gospel. We’ve put no limits on anyone, saying ‘how could we deny people their experience?’”
Mrs Hawkes believes the people who are suffering most are parish clergy who have deep connections with their con-gregations, which have been torn apart. She says struggling rural areas in particular are bearing the brunt of the decision where the Uniting Church is often the only church left in the community.
Mr Nile says reform will be difficult and appreciates that many clergy, particularly in rural areas, have to think very carefully and make courageous decisions about the future of their ministry.
Bishop Peter Tasker of the Georges River region says Sydney Anglicans cannot ignore the decision. “Biblical teaching states clearly that a sexual relationship should be expressed between a man and a woman in heterosexual marriage. It is painful to us to have to point out to the Uniting Church that [these] decisions raise important questions for biblically-minded Anglicans”, he said.