On being a covenanting and multicultural church: ordinary theologians in the Uniting Church explore what it means to be church.

Since the 1970s the Australian church has been grappling with successive waves of migration, as well as its complicity in colonisation and the consequent displacement of First Peoples. This context, reflected in other Western countries, has led to a proliferation of theological work that explores the reality of living in a colonised and multicultural context and champions the theological insights of those marginal to mainstream Western society. These works have provided challenge and critique to how the Western church, including the Australian church, understands what it means to be church.nWhile such concerns have been significant within the academy, there has been little consideration of how people in congregations have wrestled with similar issues. Given this lack of focus,nthe purpose of the thesis is to explore how 'ordinary' theologians, people with little formal academic theological training, articulate what it means to be a multicultural church and a church for and with First Peoples in the Australian context. The research questions are: how do ordinary members of the Uniting Church articulate what it means to be a multicultural church and a church with and for First Peoples? And what relationship do these reflections have with the official statements of the church on these topics?These questions are addressed through a methodology constructed from the assumptions ofnpractical theology, empirical ecclesiology and ordinary theology. The particular population of 'ordinary' theologians, young adult leaders in the UCA, participated in a series of semi-structured interviews addressing the meaning of being a multicultural church and a church for and with First Peoples. These interviews were brought into critical conversations with official Uniting Church statements as well as related academic scholarship.Through this merging of horizons, it is demonstrated that the vision of the official statements and that of the young adults affirm and enhance each other in many respects. This includes an emphasis on the reconciliation and renewal of the whole creation and on lwalking togetherr in lrealr relationships. The young adults and official statements also share a frustration that there is little evidence that the decisions of the past have been embraced in all parts of the life of the UCA. The challenge for the UCA comes from the young adultsr expectation of personal, intimate relationships within the church and their insistence on seeking, rather than avoiding, discomfort in order for these relationships to develop. In the final chapter these insights are brought together in a reflection on a posture of whole-heartedness and pilgrimage towards being a multicultural church and a church with and for First Peoples. Such a posture could further facilitate the embedding of the vision for the UCA to be a such a church.n