Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		Tension, paradox must lead to understanding, says new Uniting Church president Perth, July 5, 1997 — The President of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Rev. John Mavor, tonight appealed for the church and Australian society to find ways to deal with tension. Preaching at the opening service of the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church at the Perth Concert Hall, the newly installed President addressed racial tension in Australia and, without naming it, the Assembly's own impending debates on issues of sexuality. He also called for a Youth Unemployment Summit and for a just response, including compensation, to the report on the "Stolen Generation". Mr Mavor said the church was being called to live in the midst of paradoxes and tension. "We have many differences about many things in the Uniting Church," he said. "Christ is calling us to face those differences, to listen to each other, to respect each other, to care for each other. And to find Jesus there in the messy middle." Mr Mavor said as Australia moved from a church culture to a secular culture, the Uniting Church's congregations and the Assembly needed love strong enough to create community. Rather than resolve tension as quickly as possible by making decisions, he said it could be better to live in tension and paradox which made way for grace and mystery. In paradox, he said, people could allow opposite points of view to exist with equal dignity and worth. "We can use the energy of paradox to be open to each other and to the Holy Spirit," he said. "If we are willing to live and work in paradox in this Assembly and in the life of the church, the Holy Spirit will bring revelation and we shall have discernment, and they are what we need." On racial tension in Australian society he said, "We must make our own positive stand against those who blame any particular group or groups for this country's problems. We need to do this in the community where we live, in our homes, with people at work, at sporting venues, at cattle and sheep sales, in supermarkets, at church and in other settings." He said he believed when the Wik judgment was handed down by the High Court, Australia was being invited as a nation to live in a paradox between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, between pastoral leases and native title. It seemed, however, that Australia would not grasp the possibilities the Wik judgment offered. "Many people seek to retreat to the certainty of extinguishment rather than live in the adventurous possibilities of paradox," he said. "They don't see that extinguishment destroys the paradox." Mr Mavor said a church in tension moved with God's Spirit when it developed a community of support, had a sense of compassion and displayed courage. "A country without compassion lets economic rationalism rule and endless people suffer. We need economic responsibility but we must temper economic rationalism with compassion." However, he said, the passion of the Thatcher years to privatise and push economic rationalism without compassion was "spreading over Australia like a cloud of poisonous gas". "Without compassion this nation will not deal with the problem of youth unemployment. At 27 per cent across the nation and up over 40 per cent in some areas it is having a devastating effect on the youth of this nation. It is seen as one of the factors leading to 5,000 attempted suicides by young people per year in Australia." Mr Mavor said youth unemployment could only be dealt with by a total national effort. "Let us call on the Prime Minister to hold a Youth Unemployment Summit where political parties, unions, business organisations, welfare groups and young people themselves can come together and find some ways forward. But it must be a summit for action and not just a summit for talk." Another area where he said the nation and church were called to show compassion was in response to the Stolen Generation report. "Surely we must respond to these Aboriginal people by hearing the deep hurt with compassion and by seeking to heal the hurt through a just response which also has to include compensation." Mr Mavor said examples of the Uniting Church's compassion included 42 per cent of Uniting Church people being involved in community care and action groups and the "timely and pioneering" procedures used where there were complaints of sexual abuse.

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992