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Similar to the Anglican Church, the UCA has a small number of ecological policy and praxis bodies at the sub-national level, with the primary example being the Earth Team that operates in the Synod of Victoria/Tasmania and its minor derivative in the Synod of New South Wales. Only the Victorian/Tasmanian Earth Team had any substantial on-line presence or recognition in publicly available Synod documents during the period of this research. It has a part-time staff member based in Melbourne and is administratively part of the Synod’s Justice and International Mission section. Smaller scale presbytery (the equivalent of a diocese) or individual church bodies concerned with ecological policy and praxis may exist but lack a readily detected on-line presence.

The state-based Synod structure of the UCA may be an important structural difference to the other denominations in relation to the formulation and implementation of ecological policy. UCA Synods are essentially far larger versions of the diocesan administration seen in the Catholic and Anglican Churches. The Catholic and Anglican Churches also have synods but these are little more than state and national gatherings of the diocesan leadership. In contrast, UCA Synods are substantive administrative units that effectively replace, at a state level, the functions of Catholic and Anglican dioceses.

UCA Synods have more resources, including staff, and they are not answerable to a single senior clergyman the equivalent of a bishop. Instead, the Synods are headed by an elected Moderator backed by an extensive administrative hierarchy (at least in the eastern States). Moderators have fixed terms rather than lifelong tenure.

In contrast to the diocesan structures of the Catholic and Anglican Churches, UCA Synods represent a far more modern, democratic and secular structure, arguably with a lesser theological orientation and a greater administrative focus. The managerial models of Torry, 2005 p176, would place the UCA Synods closer to the ‘utilitarian/bureaucratic’ end of the spectrum, with the dioceses of the Catholic and Anglican Churches being at the ‘normative/traditional’ end.

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The Synod structure is likely to be a significant factor in the existence and endurance of the Earth Team – a body unlikely to exist at a diocesan level, in part due to scale. Earth Team is also apparently unique amongst the three denominations in that it is dominated by younger (<40 years) people and an informal, action-oriented agenda. Again, it has no power to implement ecological policies outside its own operations and can only advise other levels of the Church. Its activities include functioning as an advisory and education body but only on an invitation basis. I discuss the Earth Team further in Chapter 10.

7.4 Summary

Each denomination has a different structure in relation to ecological policy formulation and implementation. None has core institutional ecological policy bodies that also have the power to enact or enforce policy outside their own operations. This is not a problem unique to the Church. Somewhat similar situations exist in most forms of Australian government. Even where large and relatively powerful ‘environment departments’ exist, they are always subsumed by more established and powerful aspects of administration and government such as finance, and some areas of operations are effectively or completely beyond their reach, for example, the activities of the defence force. Similar situations can be expected in the business world, with ‘environment departments’ generally being structurally marginalised – they can produce PR- winning policy documents and can provide annual ‘state of the environment’ reports, but few if any would have the power to significantly alter the way that the firm operates.

The situation in the Churches reflects the situation in ecological policy and praxis across most of society’s institutions. Ecological concerns are rarely given the administrative force and resources necessary to drive whole-of-institution reform – they are usually a negotiable and peripheral extra.

A key structural limitation to the Churches’ ability to convert their national policies into institution-wide praxis is the fact that most of the power to enact policy is at the diocesan or synod level. These bodies are virtually autonomous and able to ignore national denominational policy, even where this clearly conflicts with the official theological position of the Church and its leadership.

The gap between denominational ecotheology and its related policies is not filled by the enactment of Canon Law or its equivalent. Despite popular notions of the Churches being strongly hierarchical and ‘top-down’, at least in the context of national ecological policy this is not functionally the case. This is in part because the hierarchies are yet to make ecological policies administratively enforceable. This contrasts with other more traditional areas of theology and policy such as finance, and more recently, child protection.

Nonetheless, all three of the subject denominations have produced ecological policies, and all three demonstrate ecological praxis to varying extents and in different ways. Even though the vast majority of their policies are externally directed and voluntary, there are still substantial instances of praxis responding to and perhaps even informing ecological policies. I address these in the following denominational chapters.

Chapter 8: Catholic Church ecological