Five minutes with the Rev. Matt Wilson
Matt, where has your interfaith work taken you lately?
Took part in the National UCA/Jewish Dialogue meeting in Sydney in mid-November. This was our second meeting for the year, with UCA and Jewish Board of Deputies representatives from Sydney and Melbourne meeting for a day at Temple Emmanuel, Woolahra. We spent the morning session looking at the idea of suffering from Jewish and Christian perspectives led by Rabbi David and Rev Bob Fraser. This led to some good discussion and some interesting questions. The afternoon session was spent in a sharing exercise, with the aim of assisting dialogue members in getting to know each other better on a personal level. We each shared a favourite place or sacred space. This leel of personal sharing enabled participants to gain a better understanding of each other, to appreciate each others interests, and to gain a sense of the similarity and differences between how we each approach issues of place and space.
There was also some discussion of the National Council of Churches resolution to invite member churches to consider a boycott of goods manufactured in the occupied territories. As might be expected, this prompted some wide ranging and varying opinion, and it was decided that the matter and the surrounding issues would be the major item of discussion for at least the next meeting of the Dialogue group in May 2011. It was good to see that the dialogue group has strengthened relations between the two faith groups to a point where the group is now able to address such a discussion, which has often been considered too sensative an issue.
Are there any particular interfaith related issues you are watching at the moment, for example in the news?
At present I am working on two projects that will occur in Sydney in early 2011. The first is the offering of the Interfaith Dialogue Course at United Theological College in Intensive mode from January 17 to 21. This is the second time the course has been offered through Charles Sturt University and United Theological College - and the first time it has been offered in intensive mode. The course will involve a range of lectures, visits to places of worship of other faiths, and a number of inter-faith panels of practitioners and thinkers in this area.
The second is next year's "Focus on" for the School of Continuing Education and U.T.C. Next year's 'focus' will be on aspects of the New Testament, with the keynote lecturer being Donald Hagner, a New Testament scholar from the United States. Alongside the keynote lecture series there will be two other lecture/workshop streams = one on Cross-Cultural and Interfaith issues and one on new forms of ministry. The Cross-cultural and inter-faith stream is to include reflection on 'the pramble and the politics of the people of God' Indigenous issues, an interfaith panel on crusades and holy wars, and other workshops and lectures still to be confirmed. ‘Focus on’ runs from Monday 11 April to Thursday 14 April 2011 at the Centre for Ministry.
What direction would you like the work of the Relations with Other Faiths Working Group to take during 2011?
As we move into 2011 I would like to see the working group strengthen its relations with the 'on the gorund' work occuring throughout the country. I would like to see us being able to help resource such activities with the latest developments in theological and biblical thought and in helping them to assist people 'on the ground' in working through some of the difficult practical, theological and ministry implications of interfaith work. I would also like to see us working further towards helping the Assembly deal with the contentious issues surrounding interfaith work, and the difficulties and tensions that can arise form being a diverse church in a multi-cultural, multi-faith society.
