Congregation loses faith with Uniting Church progressives

Conservative congregation locked out after clashing with the Uniting Church’s progressive hierarchy.

Members of the conservative Tongan congregation gather in Sydney after their clash with the progressive hierarchy of the Uniting Church. Picture: Jane Dempster

A conservative Tongan congregation has been locked out after clashing with the Uniting Church’s progressive hierarchy.

Reverend Ma’afu Palu, a Tongan Methodist minister who has been volunteering as the group’s spiritual leader since the January lockout, said the congregation had been uncomfortable with the minister in charge of the church in Campsie in Sydney’s inner west and had clashed with its presbytery, the regional ruling body, over issues such as same-sex marriage.

“In October last year, a clash occurred between some Tongan members of the congregation and the minister in charge,” he said.

“The congregation lodged a complaint, which the presbytery turned around and ­accused the congregation of being unco-operative. They wanted the church to become a faith community, which in the Uniting Church is for ­people who are not yet members of the church. But the congregation has people who have been members for 20 years, so that was unacceptable.”

Mr Palu said the matter came to a head when the church decided to join the breakaway ­Assembly of Confessing Congregations, which accounts for about 150 of the Uniting Church’s 2000 congregations, and includes some of the biggest migrant congre­gations that don’t accept the leadership’s embrace of same-sex marriage and progressive social causes. “Next thing we knew the locks had been changed, a security guard and cameras put in place and we weren’t even allowed in to get our possessions, things like cooking utensils and musical ­instruments,” he said.

“We had to worship on the street for a couple of weeks, before we found someone’s home to hold services in … now we have found a home at the Padstow Anglican Church.”

A spokesman for the Synod of the NSW and the ACT and ­Georges River Presbytery said there was a “documented record of ­addressing and mediating issues in the Campsie congregation” that went back 12 years.

“To address these ­issues and provide a safe space while these issues were resolved, pastoral and administrative steps were taken that have now satisfied both parties in the process,” he said.

It is understood the church leadership sees the problem as a clash over leadership and property use, not same-sex marriage, and that such intervention is rare.

Mr Palu said the congregation was not satisfied, had retained a lawyer and was still ­exploring its legal position.

The Australian revealed last week that the Uniting Church, the nation’s third-largest religious ­denomination, was divided, with congregations opposing same-sex marriage claiming they were being “pushed, harassed and bullied” out of the church by inner-city progressives.

The church’s president, Deidre Palmer, said since July last year, the church had resolved to recognise two statements of belief on marriage, in order to honour the “different, faithfully held perspectives on marriage” among its members.

“This decision allows ministers and celebrants authorised by the Uniting Church the freedom to conduct or to refuse to conduct same-gender marriages,” Dr Palmer said.

“Uniting Church ministers continue to have the freedom to teach their faithfully held Christian understanding of marriage.”