Our aim is to stay together – John Mavor

“Our aim is to stay together,” a former president, Rev John Mavor, told a press conference at the Uniting Church’s 10th national Assembly on July 12.

The press conference was called because of high media interest in an Assembly Standing Committee proposal on sexuality.

Mr Mavor was asked if the Assembly Standing Committee proposal on sexuality was a progressive one.

“We agree that it’s progressive in that our aim is to stay together – that’s progressive,” he said.

“We could go to one extreme or another and lose congregations and ministers.

“We don’t want to do that. We want to be together.

“The focus of the life of the Uniting Church is on Jesus Christ. He is the head of the church.

“When people focus on Jesus they can live with some difference of opinion. And that’s what this proposal aims to do.

“It aims to say, ‘Let’s live together. Let’s allow people to believe things that are different. Let’s be together, as one church, with a mission to do here in Australia.’

“We believe we have a responsibility to bring God’s love to this Australian nation. We want to be together in doing that.

“This proposal aims to bring this kind of unity, with the diversity that we know exists.”

Mr Mavor was asked how future homosexual ministers would be accepted.

“People who are homosexual are accepted now, in some congregations,” he said.

“The Uniting Church is a broad and diverse church.

“The decisions about who will be a minister where will be made by the presbytery, which is the regional meeting, and by the congregation.

“There’s no way any congregation can be forced to have a minister that they don’t wish to have.

“There are congregations who are very happy to have people who are gay or lesbian as their ministers. There are other congregations who are not.

“The thing we’re aiming to do is to accept that we’re a broad-based, diverse church and to recognise that diversity. The proposal we’re bringing allows for that to happen.

“We know there’s difference of opinion – but we want to live with that difference.”

Mr Mavor was asked if there could be a split in the church over this issue.

“When you deal with issues of sexuality, splits are always a possibility,” he said.

“But our experience in Perth, and in then Adelaide, was that we were able to come together around a decision of diversity.

“We’ve stayed together for the six years and we believe we’ll stay together into the future.”