One of the areas that I have been trying to explore, as my time permits, is how to characterize the United/Uniting churches around the world.  These are denominations generally formed by the uniting or merging of a few Protestant, although not necessarily Reformed, denominations into one Christian witness.  I have had multiple people suggest that they are essentially Presbyterian in nature and therefore should be on my radar.  So I am starting to ask the question “How Presbyterian are they?”

To answer this questions I have started to chip away at reading the Constitution and Regulations of the Uniting Church in Australia.  The Uniting Church was formed in 1977 by the gathering of Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches.  The union did not bring all the congregations into the merger and 44 Congregationalist congregations formed the Fellowship of Congregational Churches,  some Methodist congregations not happy with the union switched to the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, and about one-third of the Presbyterians chose not to join the Uniting Church and continue as the Presbyterian Church of Australia.  (Interesting note:  That is about the same proportion of Presbyterians that chose not to join the United Church of Canada in 1925 and continue there as the Presbyterian Church in Canada.)

As I said, I have been chipping away at the basic constitutional document of the UCA, the Constitution and Regulations, and have finished studying the first three chapters.  The first section is the Basis of Union, which is also available as a free-standing HTML page.  This section, as the name implies, outlines in broad sweep the structure of the church and the basic components and understandings on which the church is structured.  It was first written in 1971 and the notes and various versions available indicate that it has been updated a few times since then.  It appears that most of the changes have been in the use of inclusive language or of an editorial and formatting nature.

The next two chapters are the first two parts of the constitution proper, the Preamble and Division 1 on Membership.

Reading through all this a Presbyterian very quickly gets the idea that the church is Presbyterian in structure.  (I would be curious if the language is such that a Congregationalist or Methodist, reading through their filter, would also perceive their structure in the language that is used.)  All the typical governing bodies – church councils, presbyteries, synods and the assembly – are included by those names and described as a “series of inter-related councils.”  The officers of the church are likewise what a Presbyterian would expect: minister, elder, deacon and deaconess.  There are clear references to the other polities because deacon and deaconess are split out as separate classifications and elder is always used in the phrase “elder or leader.”  In addition, there is the category of Lay Preacher.  While Presbyterians have lay preachers, sometimes under other names like licentiate or commissioned lay pastor, of the three churches that joined it has been my experience that the position of lay preacher is more often associated with the Methodist tradition.  I don’t know what place it may hold in the Congregationalist tradition.

These sections are fairly broad and general in nature setting down the larger framework.  Looking ahead, but not having studied it in detail, it is clear that the fine points of the polity are set out in the remainder of the document, the Regulations.  For reference, the Basis of Union is just over eight pages long, the Constitution is 17 pages long, and the Regulations are 168 pages long.  And, while there are clearly sections dealing with Government and Discipline, I don’t see as part of this document any sections that describe Worship.

While the structure may be Presbyterian the real test will be in studying the details of the polity, which I have not really gotten to yet.  An update when I have had a chance to reflect on those.  However, two interesting details do jump out at me so far.

In the Preamble to the Constitution the last section is called Purposes and it reads in full:

The purposes of the Church are to provide for the worship of God, to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to promote Christian fellowship, to nurture believers in the Christian faith, to engage in mission, to assist in human development and toward the improvement of human relationships, to meet human need through charitable and other services and to do such other things as may be required in obedience to the Holy Spirit.

Now I don’t know if anything jumps out to other readers, but to me this has significant parallels to a formula that is part of American Presbyterianism – The Great Ends of the Church.  Here is a side-by-side comparison with the Great Ends reordered to match the Purposes:

While the UCA “mission” clause is a one-to-many match and the PCUSA “truth” clause is not a one-to-one match either, most of the rest have fairly, if not very, close matches between the two constitutions.  And yes, these are probably general enough all the way around that almost any Christian church’s “purpose” could be made to fit the parallels.

The second detail of interest is not actually something I read first in the Constitution and Regulations but in a news article.  Thanks to the Illawarra Mercury we find out that the Rev. Gordon Bradbery was not granted an extension of his call by his synod and presbytery.  So, after 23 years in the ministry and 15 at the Wesley Uniting Church on the Mall his tenure at the church will conclude at the end of 2010.

If the above description left other G.A. junkies scratching your heads, here is the interesting polity behind it.  Under the UCA Regulations, beginning at section 2.7.6, it has an interesting phrase that says “The placement of a Minister in a pastoral charge shall normally be made for an undefined term but shall not continue beyond ten years except as provided in Reg. 2.7.10.”  So does this mean even though the term is undefined, there is an expectation that it will last no longer than ten year
s?

Now, jumping down to Reg. 2.7.10, it says that a placement may be extended beyond ten years if everyone – pastor, congregation and presbytery – agree.  If further says: “Any extension shall require a two-thirds majority by secret ballot of those present in each of the meetings of the Church Council, the Congregation and the Presbytery.”  And, an extension is normally for five years according to this section.

On the details of this, if the Regs. say five years and the news article says three I’m not sure where the answer lies.  The news article numbers actually add up for a ten year placement with two three-year extensions.

Now, before I proceed further, let me acknowledge that these are the regulations of that denomination.  I am not being critical and I’m not out to change them or make them Presbyterian.  My only questions here is “How Presbyterian is this?”

My reaction at this point is that while the UCA seems to broadly have the marks of a Presbyterian style structure, this whole thing about placement, initial terms and extensions where the governing bodies have such a significant hand strikes me more like the control in a hierarchical appointment system.  While the presbytery has an approval and review role in typical Presbyterian pastoral calls, usually the session has no say in the final selection, while in this case the church council also approves.  It is typically a given of a Presbyterian system that the full body of people chose their officers, including the teaching elder.  The presbytery only reviews the decision and if everything is going well the presbytery has no hand in deciding how long the pastor stays.

Reading through this polity I keep asking myself “Why is it like this?”  With these precise controls I get the distinct impression that there is a story behind why this section of the Regs. was written like this or how it developed.  Can anyone point me to an historical profile of the Regs. or the equivalent of the annotated version that might answer this question?  (In my own research this does not appear to be a feature brought from the Presbyterian side.  The Code of Regulations for the Presbyterian Church of Australia does not deal with the call process, but rather it is detailed at the state level.  For the Presbyterian Church of Australia in the State of New South Wales the call process in the Code of Regulations is very much what I would describe as typical Presbyterian with a search committee, congregational vote, and presbytery approval.  It does have some very interesting nuances but that is material for another time.  But in it there is no sign I can find of the term length or extension to be approved by the three different bodies.  Interestingly, it is specified that the minimum expectation of the time in a call will be three years.)

So my initial opinion?  The Uniting Church in Australia has a broadly Presbyterian-like structure, but in examining this particular detail there are typical elements of Presbyterianism lacking and the upper governing bodies wield a lot of influence in pastoral calls.  And I repeat, this is not a criticism of that system, only an analysis of the system by a Presbyterian G.A. Junkie.  So I currently have some questions about classifying the UCA as Presbyterian in polity, but that is not a final conclusion but I’ll have more to say after I’ve read more of the Regs.