St Michael's Uniting Church in Australia

Have Your Say

Sin and Guilt - Discussion on ABC

Brenda Clarke
4th January, 2009
9:47pm

I , as an ex-member of his congregation, admire Dr Macnab and, generally speaking agree with him, but PLEASE could he make his 10 Commandments more concise. I find them excessively wordy. Happy New Year 2009 to all the congregation and I wish I could be back in my seat beside the pillar upstairs.
Cheryl Young
19th July, 2008
1:01pm

I completely agree with Don Nosworthy. I just came to randomly visit this church as I was on vacation and wanted to hear God's word preached on Sunday. Iheard Dr McNab spoke and all I can say I was absolutely shocked and appalled. All I can say that the overwhelming sensation I got was this is a "man-made" church here to exalt Dr McNab.. but where is God in this church!?! He seems to have conveniently been left out of His own church! How can there be a "Christian" spirituality without Christ?? Christ is the centre and heart of the Christian message! As Don puts it, "you should resign and start your own church and not call it Christian" as you are not faithful to Christ or His teachings! Dr Macnab shame on you for leading God's precious sheep astray and for taking all the glory and credit that should only belong to Christ!

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknoweldges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world". 1John 4:1-3
George Galanis
22nd April, 2008
1:58pm

I have been listening to this debate for over two decades--and to me much of what is written below sounds like the old debate of 'Is a Ford better than a Holden'? or 'Who will win the Bathurst this year?'. Will the argument of which religion is 'better' (disguised in the form of 'which religion is more correct, or more relevant') actually get us anywhere?

I don't live in Melbourne, so I don't know if what I am about to write has been said already, but if it hasn't I hope it is of interest.

So rather than arguing the point with Nosworthly, let me paraphrase Nosworthy's original post into what I think he (and I think others) are actually saying---so here is Don Nosworthy paraphrased (maybe in the form of a Psalm?):

I am a longstanding member of an organisation that provides me with a framework that makes me feel secure. The 'Vision' of this organisation is one where there is someone looking over us. It makes me feel important, it centres me in the universe, and it gives my life meaning. Not only that, but it also gives me strength to confront my fear of my own death.

I sometimes lie in bed at night worrying about my unavoidable death. But I am sure of myself because my organisation tells me--and I accept---that there is something beyond death. So when I wake in the middle of the night with that anxiety, I just remind myself that life will carry on beyond death, and I have nothing to fear. And I rest easy and go back to sleep---except for maybe a small niggling feeling at the back of my mind. But even that is allright, because if I stop thinking for myself as well, eventually that little niggling feeling in the back of my mind will extinguish itself as well, and then I can rest easy.

Sometimes I am confronted by human sexuality. I am male, and another male might make an advance towards me. I get an uneasy feeling in my mind if that happens. But then I remember that my organisation says things about that situation too. It says that the person that just made that advance towards me is bad, and so when he dies maybe he will not have a life after his death. That makes me feel superior, and I feel better, and so I rest easy at night. Except sometimes when I am asleep I have a bad dream and I awake with that strange niggling feeling in the back of my mind. But if I stop thinking for myself and accept that my organisation knows better and will do my thinking for me by quoting this old book, then my mind stops niggling and I can go back to sleep at night and not worry.

Now you come along, and you want to take that all away from me. This man who calls himself a leader of this organisation wants to steal what I have worked so hard to attain. He even points to passages in my very old book that I know can't possibly be true. Some of these passages contain my favourite writings. And that niggling in my mind starts up again. I don't know how I will cope with that niggling. I might have to think for myself---but I don't want to! If I start thinking again I will have to stare my own death in the face again. What will I do????

[A couple of days later]
It's better now. I just saw my GP and he perscribed me some anti-depressants and sleeping pills and I feel better. My mind has stopeed racing---well it's stopped altogether. But at least those niggling thoughts have gone away, I read my favourite passages out of my very old book---and I can sleep at night.

I think THAT MAN in our organisation is dangerous. I would like to see him removed!
Dr. Peter. A. Kingsbury
8th April, 2008
9:52am

Here is my contribution to the debate, I may have interpreted it wrong. I may have a problem with perception.
"The standard Church" uses Jesus as a cult figure - a security blanket like peanut's linus - to intercede with a judgemental God on our behalf. In the system God acts like the third umpire at a cricket match deciding whether your in or out. Have you crossed the line of societal taboo? Before Martin Luther the priests of the church held the societal values, interceded with God, and were able to offer dispensations - for a price - for your sins. They were the final arbiters of societal values.
With the death of a judgemental, intercessionary God in the mid 1800's (C.E.), we were free to do what we liked, but we were alone in a world without meaning. Our whole lives were pointless if at the end- death- we did not get at least 51% of the examination correct and pass into heaven. So how were we to live?
If you cut away the concretions of theology - did the life of Jesus have anything to say to us that was authenticly timeless. Did it speak to our authentic humanity? A universal that was not dependent on context.
He spoke of a selfless existence. To give up infantice selfishness - where you are at the centre of parental attention. He spoke of an enlarged world view where you respected and understood your neighbour. You treated them as you would like to be treated. He spoke of a world of wholeness and healing. A world where you were your own morality, your own ethics. A man for others.
Simon McCall
7th April, 2008
4:27pm

As a member of St Michaels I would certainly take a totally different view of Dr Macnab's right to the position as Executive Minister of St Michaels. He has the full support of the Congregation. As other contributors to .this discussion have indicated Dr Macnab represents a rich tradition within Christianity,and dare I say it the Uniting Church of Australia of non- traditional or progressive thought, scholarship and theology. There are many interpretations of the Bible and Christ's teaching. I don't believe he opposes huge sections of the Bible, he along with others have made it relevant to the 21st Century and the age of reason and science. He constantly refers to the type of existence and World that Christ was pointing to.
So Dr Macnab do yourself and the Church a great service and keep doing what you are doing!
Wilfried Sawatzky
3rd April, 2008
10:42pm

The remarks by Mr. Nosworthy’s reveal his deep conservatism. However he also shows ignorance of the true spirit of the Uniting Church. To get a good summary of the spirit of the Uniting Church we need to refer to the ABC Compass program of the Sunday November 11 2007. (http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2088713.htm ). This very recent program examines the Uniting Church as it is today. It shows that there are some conservative members, to which Mr. Nosworthy no doubt belongs at the extreme end because he shows no tolerance and does not try to understand another persons viewpoint, he has made p his mind and he know he is right. Then there are at the other end of scale also progressive members who are not afraid to use their brains and to which St Michael, that is Dr Francis Macnab’s congregation belongs.

In this ABC Compass program it is reported that
Philip Hughes-Christian Research Association ”The “”Basis of Union”” for the Uniting Church in itself, in the way that it’s being written is a fairly open statement. It’s inviting people to engage on that journey of faith. It was the opportunity to renew its life, renew its vitality, to be something different to what it had been in the past”. Narration “The Uniting Church burst onto the scene with a reworked Christian message shaped by and for the times: It stood for things - social justice, human rights and equality for women. It quickly became the most progressive church of its day. The Uniting Church had high ideals. It was democratic – It had no Bishops. Churches chose their own ministers. It revelled in its diversity. But this would become both its strength and weakness. One of its unique attributes is that the Uniting Church has sought to listen to the culture, to respond to the cultural context in which it’s in. And to adapt to that. Which has meant that at least in some places there has been some flexibility, there's been some real sparks of creativity in terms of church life. Rodney Evan “Well it’s a challenging theology. It’s certainly not conventional Christianity that even I’ve grown up in the Uniting Church tradition. It looks to redefine the person of Jesus, redefine the meaning of God and to explore things that I guess in some churches are regarded as very controversial.”
And so it goes on.

Mr. Nosworthy’s statement reveals his closed mind, which remains in the past despite modern evidence everywhere of a different world. There are many more Christians who question some part of the writings in the bible in the light of modern irrefutable facts and knowledge, writings which were written and added many centuries after the death of Christ and no doubt had accumulated some strange ideas particularly toward the end of the book “closing” to further additions, which were still going on some 300 hundred years after the death of Christ. It seems likely that some untruths and other anomalies have been included and to try and identify such aberrations by using present state of the art science is not an unchristian thing to do. Not all Christians suspend their ability to think, when they practice their religion and faith. Of course centuries ago no intelligent critical examination of the words in the bible was permitted without severe sanctions. Such sanctions are no doubt still favored by Mr. Nosworthy and his fellow conservatives

Christ has an important message for the human race in the past as well as today about how to live life and to look at a new way to live together in harmony which is not contradicted by modern science and contains wisdom, which clearly was relevant and is even more relevant today. As Dr Macnab has stated: “don’t look at the finger but where the finger is pointing”. Christ was pointing at a different and new way forward .
Annette Neville
28th March, 2008
9:23am

I wonder if Don Nosworthy has attended a service at St. Michael's led by Dr MacNab? He would find a full church-while so many are closing or amalgamating-full of people who do not want to be fed a cosmology of 2000 years ago and who want to be part of a group who are inclusive, compassionate and welcome discussion. I think the service and the congregation speak for themselves!
Richard Siegersma
27th March, 2008
4:08pm

If Martin Luther had taken taken the position that Mr Nosworthy is taking, the protestant reformation would never have occured and we may still be paying for indulgences! Luckily we have people like Dr Macnab who are prepared to develop an intelligent approach to an otherwise outdated belief system.

"Luther was not a person you would want to have dinner with; he was temperamental, peevish, egomaniacal, and argumentative. But this single-mindedness, this enormous self-confidence and strident belief in the rightness of his arguments, allowed him to stand against opposition, indeed, to harden his position in the face of death by fire, the usual punishment for heretics. Luther became an Augustinian monk in 1505, disappointing his equally strong-willed father, who wished him to become a lawyer. He earned a doctorate in theology from the University of Wittenberg, but instead of settling down to a placid and scholarly monkish life or an uneventful university career teaching theology, he began to develop his own personal theology, which erupted into outright blasphemy when he protested the use of indulgences in his 95 Theses." Richard Hooker
John Abbate
27th March, 2008
3:52pm

I should first of all say that I am research assistant to Dr Macnab at the Uniting Church in Melbourne, so my views are somewhat differently informed than those of someone who does not know him. I am neither theologically trained nor a church-going Christian, but I have a growing respect for that tradition and the thought that it continues to inspire.

I have no doubts about Dr Macnab as a Christian, and I see his radical rethinking of Christianity as no different from the likes of earlier church reformers such as Luther. Macnab expresses his views honestly as an intelligent, rational and spiritual person inspired by the life of Jesus, but confronted with the reality of our situation as a culture (or collection of cultures) and as a species. This reality is coloured by numerous past events in Christian history when superstition was upheld at the expense of human emancipation, often violently.

I suspect that what drives Dr Macnab is a passion for those elements of the Church that potentially elevate us as individuals and as a society, and a refusal to uphold other elements that he believes hinder that cause.

There are deep theological and philosophical questions and assumptions underpinning his views, some of which I'm trying to nut out with him (as I continue to educate myself in this role), and perhaps not all of which we would both agree on, but once again, I can't doubt his Christianity.
Don Nosworthy
22nd March, 2008
11:45am

I listened to what Dr McNab had to say on the ABC last night. It saddened me to think that Dr McNab remains a leader in a Christian church. I do not deny that like everybody else he should be able to freely say what he believes. I find it amazing however that he believes that he should hold the position he does in the Uniting church.To be true to himself and the church he should resign and start his own church but not call it Christian.Obviusly there are huge sections of the bible and Jesus" teaching he opposes.He is like someone being a leader in the Labor party opposing unionism and other strongly held beliefs of the party.Please Sir do yourself and the church a great service and resign.

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St Michael's Uniting Church in Australia - Have Your Say

Have Your Say

Sin and Guilt - Discussion on ABC

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