Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Haire: Gospel is public truth Thursday, July 10 President-elect, Rev Professor James Haire, has called for doctrinal clarity and relief from "analysis paralysis" in the Uniting Church. The Trinity Theological College principal was named as president-elect late yesterday and in his address called on the church to proclaim the Gospel as public truth. "With the growth of economic rationalism, there has been a kind of symbiosis, a kind of conspiracy between governments and populations by which everything is measured as if it is a marketplace, as if there is some kind of grand croupier in some kind of international casino," he said. "Everything is measured only by its market value. If it sells, it's true; if it doesn't sell, it's not true. It is our absolute responsibility as citizens of this country to present another kind of picture so that the world may believe." "Christianity has quite clear faith claims and they have quite clear implications for human life. "We have to be aggressively involved in community debates — it's our duty as citizens." Prof Haire betrayed a sense of frustration in relation to the myriad reports and reviews before the church. "I think we're engaged in what I call analysis paralysis," he said. "We're constantly analysing, reviewing, etcetera. I think it's time to stop the analysis paralysis for five years and get on and do." Although Prof Haire's challenges to the church are sure to be taken seriously, his first warning was met with laughter: "The first president of the Uniting Church was an Irish New Testament teacher [Rev. Dr Davis McCaughey]. To elect one Irish New Testament teacher to this office seems to be unfortunate — to elect two seems to me to be downright carelessness."