AP

THE NSW ASSEMBLY OF 2024, AND WORK, HEALTH AND SAFETY LEGISLATION

If we would bring non-Christians to Christianity, we must first be Christians (Erasmus).

I am yet to meet an Assembly commissioner who was pleased with the proceedings and outcome of the 2024 Assembly.Some compared it to the bitter Assemblies just before and after church union.

But why was there such angst, such distress? Why was the house so divided?

It appeared to me that some commissioners had quickly forgotten that, as far as the wider community was concerned, the church had lost much of its ethical authority.  

On the 11 January 2013 the government of the day established a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Many of the major denominations were called before the commission. And while the Presbyterian Church was not called, we did not escape unscathed. Some of our leaders faced the full force of the law.

Instead of leaders in the Churches being noted for moral integrity, we proved to be ethically incompetent. We, like others, tended to believe and protect the guilty and further punish the abused. The Christian churches, including the Presbyterian church proved to be ineffective moral governors. We did not take appropriate action when our own leaders were abusing children. Some Christian leaders have besmirched the Church’s reputation and dishonoured God.

Consequences for moral misbehaviour and hypocrisy.

Did we think God would allow such behaviour to be free from any consequences when the perpetrators claim to be the people of God?

King David sinned, he repented but there were still consequences to be faced. And in terms of the Royal Commission, Jesus warned us against placing any stumbling blocks before children under our care. He promised there would be consequences (Matt 18:6–7).

Jesus went out of his way to protect and support and welcome the weakest and most vulnerable in his society: the leper, children and the handicapped. In one instance, Jesus took his disciples through Samaria, and it appears that the only reason he was passing through this avoided region was to meet an ostracized woman and give her the opportunity to enter God’s kingdom (John 4:1-42). Remember Jesus had time for everyone EXCEPT the religious hypocrite. Jesus was scathing in his assessment of such a person. So how would Jesus feel when his ambassadors, those who were called to be salt and light allowed poison and darkness to flourish in their midst?

Serious hypocrisy within God’s people has been brought to light from time to time. There was the disciple Judas; Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5; the pornographic excesses of Pope Alexander VI; and the sexual perversions of some Catholic leaders in Pascal’s day. More recently C. S. Lewis wrote that there should be a book written “the full confession by Christendom to Christendom’s specific contributions to the sum of human cruelty. Large areas of the world will not hear us until we have publicly disowned much of our past.”

As far as the wider society and the government is concerned all the Christian denominations are viewed as one entity. The demands of the NSW Work Health and Safety act, that psychosocial effects should be considered and that counselling or perhaps consultancy would be made available to any who wanted, are designed to safeguard the welfare of our church members. We shouldn’t need to be told to do this, the state is simply ensuring that we will do the right thing.

This is not interference with church matters by the state. The decision of the 2024 NSW Assembly was to ensure that an appropriate procedure was set in place before any further discussion on the gender of elders. The Work Health and Safety legislation will not prevent the NSW Assembly from discussing anything. We just need a framework that is compatible with state legislation and that allows us to discuss whatever we want.

Some see this as the thin edge of the wedge, that in time the government will take control of the church (the Erastian model). I reject the slippery slope argument. Personally, I understand the state government legislation as a consequence of the churches’ proven moral sin. We remain free to exercise our religion; and while we should naturally take all due care for our members, the Royal Commission is a salutary warning that should have humbled us. And the Work Health and Safety legislation should remind us of our responsibility to look after our most vulnerable, for the reality is that at times we have failed to consider their needs.

– John Buchanan