Oprah or Opera and Dr Macnab

from w
I am still disturbed that St Michael's Uniting Church, in Collins Street, Melbourne, has swung in a different way - from a place of worship where I once found dynamic preaching to something not quite right!

Oprah or Opera
Wishy-washy new-agism or powerful life and death drama and mystery which often acknowledges danger, cruelty, sin and transformative love?

I read through Dr Macnab’s new ‘commandments’ (not that the word ‘command’ is right there is no personal God to address the people,) and conclude that it is a mish-mash of Oprah style new-age self-centredness rather than a religion. Certainly it is distant from the strong elements that carry the narrative of God’s dealings with humanity which is set down in the Biblical texts. It seems to be a soft wish-list of personal growth and a kindliness towards your neighbout. Motherhood statements are all fine but this is far from the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church so our Uniting Church leaders should clearly disassociate themselves from this new/old way of looking at our lives.

The following was taken from St Michael's website, so it is not a journalist's brief summary, but it comes straight from Dr Macnab himself. It's a bit out of order because it was in two columns.

Commandment 1
Believe in a Good Presence in your life. Call that Good Presence: God, G-D - and follow that Good presence so that you live life fully - tolerantly, collaboratively, generously and with dignity.
Commandment 6
Be magnanimous and excessive in your support of good causes, and use your affluence and material goods and scientific skills in altruistic concern for the future of the world.
Commandment 2
Believe in a God-Presence in your life that will lift you constantly to live harmoniously in yourself and with others, always searching for your best health and happiness.
Commandment 7
Study ways to encourage and sustain the dignity, hope and integrity of all human beings and study ways to help all human beings embrace their dignity, hope, and integrity.
Commandment 3
Take care of your home, your environments, your Planet and its vital resources for the life and health of people in all the world.
Commandment 8
Be alive to new possibilities, new ways, and to the unfolding mysteries and wonders of life and the world.
Commandment 4
Be kind and caring of the animals, the birds, and the creatures of land and the rivers and the seas.
Commandment 9
We often focus our lives on many things and pursuits that promise our fulfilment. Study the deeper things of the Spirit, and the things of ultimate concern for all human beings. Be part of an evolving life-enhancing Faith that will also bring a new resilience to the future.
Commandment 5
Help people develop their potential and become as fully functioning human beings as is possible from birth, through traumas and triumph to the end of their days. Commandment 10
Take time to worship the great Source of all the positive transforming energies of life, and search to be at one with "the spirit of the good, the tender and the beautiful."
---------------
So what do you think?

Macnab's New Faith and a response

Photo: John Woudstra
from w
Bad timing Dr Macnab - a few days before the Synod meets, and the Opening Worship at St. Michaels!

from the Age last week:
New faith throws out the Ten Commandments• Barney Zwartz
• September 16, 2008

"THE TEN Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written." With that provocative claim posted high over two city streets, controversial cleric Francis Macnab yesterday launched "a new faith for the 21st century", a faith beyond orthodox Christianity. Dr Macnab says Abraham is probably a concoction, Moses was a mass murderer and Jesus Christ just a Jewish peasant who certainly was not God. In fact, there is no God, in the usual sense of an interventionist deity - what we strive for is a presence both within and beyond us.

Dr Macnab, a noted psychotherapist and executive minister at St Michael's Uniting Church in the city, said the new faith was necessary because the old faith no longer worked.

"The old faith is in large sections unbelievable. We want to make the new faith more believable, realistic and helpful in terms of the way people live," he said. St Michael's is promoting the new faith with a $120,000 campaign over several months, involving newspaper and radio advertising, the internet, banners and billboards. Dr Macnab is being advised by Barry Whalen, who was the media guru for Cardinal George Pell when he was Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne.

According to Dr Macnab, the new faith transcends denominations and religions. It is about searching, not dogma. It seeks the good, the tender and the beautiful, and finds it in Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism.

"At the Jesus Seminar (a scholarly but sceptical international enterprise examining the statements attributed to Jesus, of which Dr Macnab is a member), we are inclined to think there was a real Jesus but we don't know much about him. The record has been embellished a great deal along the way. He gives glimpses of something beyond him, and that's the most powerful aspect of what he was doing."

Photo of Rev Jason Kioa recently with Rev Bill Lidgett and Peceli when he visited the Altona Meadows/Laverton Uniting Church.

A response (also in the Age newspaper) from the Moderator, Rev. Jason Kioa

Gentle rebuke over minister's 'new faith'
Barney Zwartz
September 22, 2008

THE "new faith" launched last week by Uniting Church minister Francis Macnab seems a departure from Christianity, moderator Jason Kioa told the church's state synod yesterday. It is as close as the church leadership can come to calling Dr Macnab a heretic without a disciplinary hearing, for which it first needs a formal complaint.

Last week Dr Macnab, minister for life at St Michael's in Collins Street, launched what he called a "new faith for the 21st century", retaining some of the ethical elements of traditional Christianity but rejecting a personal God and a divine Christ.

The launch comes with a $120,000 advertising campaign.

Mr Kioa told the synod at La Trobe University: "The views expressed by Dr Macnab in the media last week discard much of what has been accepted for 2000 years as orthodox Christian belief. "It also concerns me that Dr Macnab's expression of a 'new faith' as reported in the media appears to be outside the teachings of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church."

But Mr Kioa also obliquely called for restraint by outraged church members, saying it was important to be aware how public statements would be perceived within and beyond the church. "I remind all members that we are called to be a fellowship of reconciliation," he said.

Dr Macnab yesterday replied that he was at one with many outstanding preachers and theologians who were certainly within Christendom.

"We are asking the traditional church to re-examine and renew their basic thinking about what faith can be, because millions of people do not find the old faith meaningful to their lives," Dr Macnab said.

The church response to Dr Macnab has been tied by protocols that require an official complaint from a member before it can act, and none has yet been made.

The Uniting Church initially sought to distance itself from the "new faith". Acting moderator Sue Gormann posted a statement on the synod website, saying: "We regret any offence that may have been caused to other members of the Christian family or people of other faiths in statements made to the media or used in St Michael's advertising campaign."

--
other comments:
Minister for life in one church community! Time to retire. Stay with your psychology.

Everyone can follow their own thinking, their own journey and can change their mind over many years. Okay, but to still stay within the Uniting Church with its quite clear Basis of Union and being part of a 2000 year tradition is not okay.

Within the Uniting Church there is room for liberal views, but Macnab just is going too far, and in his position as a well-known leader, he ought to re-align himself.

Synod Opening Worship at St Michael's

from w
Sunday afternoon Peceli and I went up to Melbourne for the opening worship for the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania of the Uniting Church. About a thousand people packed into the attractive old (once upon a time Congregational) space. A building about 140years old I think. I used to go to this church when I was about 18 as it was like a breath of fresh air. Nowadays there is a kerfuffle as the current clergyman, Dr Francis Macnab, has announced in the media last week that he has gone kind of New Age in his old age! Throwing out much of the Bible and traditional views of most Christians. So it ironic for the Uniting church (which is mainstream though with liberal elements) to have the worship there. The Moderator made a beaut faux pas in welcoming everyone to St Francis church instead of St Michael's church! So Dr Macnab is now a saint, I wondered.

Anyway the afternoon went splendidly with an orchestra and choir from Albury, symbolic gifts from our Aboriginal Congress friends from Geelong, migrants, and people from many towns and cities. The organist Rhys Boak was amazing when he played the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' from Nabucca.(I have the piano music of it but there are six sharps to sort out!) The organ music was stunning.

There was a genial spirit in the air, positive vibes, a sermon about being engaged with the communities where we live, and of course beaut songs by John Bell and Robin Mann as well as a token old Methodist hymn 'O for a thousand tongues to sing'. My comfort zone.