The official teaching of the Uniting Church is contained in our Basis of Union. In the Uniting Church we place a strong emphasis on the authority of scripture. It is an essential part of our Methodist and Reformed heritage and of our membership in the universal church. Our official position is very strong, but I fear that the scriptures are not given the attention they ought to be given today by faithful members of the church. They are not read sufficiently, there is too little study of the scriptures in our fellowship meetings, and there is not enough testing of what we believe by reference to the scriptures.
People are far too ready to test scripture by what they desire rather than the other way around.
For many people in the modern world the whole idea is unacceptable that there could be any authority apart from their own limited understanding of what seems right for them at the time. That cannot be for Christians, because our starting point is belief in Jesus as the Christ, as Lord, as God himself, the Word made flesh. We believe that the truth about God and his purpose in the creation, including his purpose for us, is to be seen in the man Jesus. That is, we look to an external objective reality, to an actual historical figure. We are not free to invent our own God, or even to make up our own picture of Jesus.