Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
The Second Sunday of Epiphany, 17th of January 2020
1 Samuel 3:1-20
I am a member of the Council of the University of Divinity. The Uniting Church in Victoria has the right to appoint two people to the Council, and now those two people are me and Associate Professor Natalie Sims. The University of Divinity, founded in 1910 as the Melbourne College of Divinity, is the only university of specialisation in Australia. Its students consistently rate the University highly, in 2019, 93 per cent of students at the University of Divinity rated their education experience positively, the top result in the whole country, and I am extremely proud of it.
I say all that partly as an advertisement in case you or anyone you know is thinking of doing some theological study, but mainly because it is at meetings of the University that I tend to be most strident about the importance of theological education. As a private, specialised, university the University of Divinity is often asked to justify itself. Why does theology need to be studied at a university level? My answer is always that ‘bad theology kills people’, and I mean that literally. In most cases I am referring to the LGBTIQ people who over the decades have died by suicide because they have thought that God would reject them for their sexuality or their gender identity. But over the past week or so I have been reminded again of just how dangerous bad theology is. Continue reading
