Southern Baptist minister and educator Edgar Young Mullins. By Rod Benson Historically, Baptists have often been described as a radical and dissenting people. Not primarily conservative or fundamentalist, but radical and dissenting. That is the historic Baptist DNA. The earliest Baptists emerged from the contested religious world of post-Reformation Europe, questioning inherited ecclesiastical arrangements, rejecting …
Subsidiarity and Uniting Church ecclesiology
Murray River mouth and Coorong lagoon system near Goolwa, South Australia. By Rod Benson One of the most significant principles in Catholic social teaching is the doctrine of subsidiarity. In broad terms, subsidiarity holds that responsibilities should be exercised by persons and smaller communities when they are capable of doing so, while larger institutions should …
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Rethinking the future of the Uniting Church
By Rod Benson The Uniting Church in Australia has undertaken many reviews and reorganisations since its inauguration in 1977, but few have matched the breadth or potential significance of the Act2 Project. Act2 is arguably the most consequential attempt in recent decades to reconsider the structures, governance, theological formation and mission of the national Church. …
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Ecumenism as a response to the gospel of Jesus Christ
The ecumenical movement is often associated with an image of Jesus and the faithful on a journey in a boat. Ecumenism is often misunderstood as an attempt to minimise theological differences or merge churches into a single institution or movement. In reality, ecumenism is a theological response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christians pursue …
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The church’s one foundation
A sermon by Rod Benson What books and movies did you love as a child? I seem to have spent a large part of my childhood in books. Among my favourites were The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, the Tom Swift science fiction series, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, mystery …
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