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I withdraw my comments criticising the UCA
President. Please disregard them. I apologise to Dean. I repent in dust and
ashes. I take the point Terence has made that Dean was not invited to an event
where he could speak. He certainly should not have attended an event merely to
listen to the US President. Under those circumstances, he
obviously did the right thing.
In order to explain why I made
the comments that I did, I need to refer to an email that was sent to me
privately. Otherwise there is no way of understanding what has happened. In
an email to the President and Terence I have included the name, as evidence that
I was using what I thought was trustworthy information, but I will not include
it here. I will use "N" instead for this colleague in
ministry.
Yesterday, Stephen put on the Insights list the
article by Gordon Moyes. I made a short comment to the list. In
response, N sent me this email privately:
"Dean Drayton was
also invited to this gathering. He chose instead to go to Port Hedland to meet
with the Christian group in the detention centre who are threatened with
deportation. He made this decision on the basis of his understanding of the
gospel. I fully support Dean's decision." In the context, "this gathering"
was the gathering Gordon Moyes had described. I
trusted this information, but I was concerned about what
she seemed to be saying Dean had done. I did not tell her so, but I did not
agree with N.
N's email coloured my reading
of Rosemary's email on the Insights list; I assumed that she was saying publicly
what N had said to me privately. After all, the email was in a thread about the
meeting Gordon had described, and still had the content of his article
attached. Before sending my email to the Insights list I reread the email from
Rosemary but still I read it as saying in a different way what N had said.
That was a misinterpretation on my part. So I was wrong. I
apologise.
I agree entirely that it is more important to meet with
detainees in Port Headland than listen to Bush's speech in Parliament. But that
is not the impression that I had as to the choices.
But I make no apology for the fact
that one of my hopes for the church is that sometimes our
leaders will get the chance to speak what needs to be said to those with
political power.
I hope that Dean will forgive me. I hope he will agree
with me that the issue of using one's authority to speak as UCA President is an
important matter, and that if the facts had been as I assumed they were, then
there was an issue worth debating.
I believe that as my criticisms were based
on a misunderstanding, the email should not be included in the Insights archives
as that may lead some people to think Dean has done the wrong thing when he has
not.
Ann (Rev. Dr.) Ann Wansbrough
UnitingCare NSW.ACT PO Box A 2178 Sydney South 1235 Phone (61) (02) 8267 4280 Fax (61) (02) 9267 4842 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
