Office Address: Ecumenical Relationships Committee
Uniting Church Centre, GPO Box 674 BRISBANE 4001
Mailing Address: 5 Fathom Close, JAMBOREE HEIGHTS 4074
Contact details of Executive Officer:
Name: Revd Bruce Johnson, Moderator, Queensland Synod Uniting Church
Phone: 3377 9702 Fax: 3377 9717 Email: Bruce Johnson@ucaqld.com.au
Organizational Structure
Oversight of Ecumenical and Interfaith relationships for the Uniting Church in Queensland.
Current Officers
Moderator: Revd Bruce Johnson
Secretary: Revd Don Whebell
Brief Description/History
Vision and Mission
- Keeping ecumenical questions before the church;
- Be a forum for discussion of theological issues pertaining to ecumenism;
- Maintaining contact with the National Assembly Christian Unity Working Group;
- Maintaining involvement in the work of Queensland Churches Together;
- Exploring ways to establish contacts with churches not connected with Queensland Churches Together;
- Reporting on progress made in the dialogues between the Uniting Church and other churches;
- Oversight of Interfaith Relationships in the Uniting Church’s Queensland Synod.
Our community began to promote interfaith dialogue over the past three years or so in Queensland – for a longer period nationally, where there is a Working Group on Relationships with people of other faiths. We have a representative on that Working Group. Several people are involved in events at Griffith MFC. Basically, our people have become aware that there is a need to build relationships with people of other faiths in the light of the changing nature of Australian society in this area – and since events of Sept 9/11. We are also participants in Queensland Churches Together, which has an interfaith dialogue group.
The mission of Jesus is God’s offer of reconciliation for humanity and the whole creation. That involves us in unconditional love and acceptance for all people. It calls for dialogue based on mutual respect and willingness to listen to those whose faith formation has been different to ours.
We have not so far, encountered difficulties or barriers during our interfaith dialogue initiatives/activities. We discovered however that the willingness of both groups to get together has been a key helping factor in facilitating the success of interfaith dialogue activities.
In the future, we plan to offer experiences and learnings to the Uniting Church in Queensland with the view of modelling a positive approach to dialogue.
We want to see where this will lead us and lay the foundations for developing the contact and to explore further dimensions of the differences and similarities of our faith experiences and perspectives.
We have taken a very small first step – but that’s where it all has to begin. Some Uniting Church congregations have become quite involved in the inter faith area – notably Aspley, which last year hosted an evening with the local mosque and had George Negus as keynote speaker.
Activities
For members of our Committee, interfaith dialogue has been new work. We have begun with two contacts with the Muslim community at Kuraby. Those contacts have been gathering for worship, sharing meals and engaging in conversation on interfaith issues. We are hopeful that this will continue. The goal was to follow up our participation in Forum for people of the Abrahamic faiths. Dr Mohamad Abdalla was a key speaker at that and we accepted his suggestion that we seek opportunities for gathering with the Kuraby group.
Those are noted above – a gathering for worship according to our different traditions, discussing that experience, sharing a meal and conversation. At the recent gathering, we viewed a DVD, The Imam and the Pastor, which focuses on conflict resolution between Christian and Muslims in Nigeria.
Our partners are the Muslim people indicated above. We have not yet moved beyond that.
Our website has an Inter-faith page. The address is www.ecumenical.ucaweb.com.au it contains stories, papers, sermons and a novel.