AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph
Laura Banks and Anthony de Cegli, The Daily Telegraph
December 1, 2016
AN unholy war has broken out within one of the state’s biggest church denominations after it admitted to steering clear of religious symbols and even the word “Christ” as part of a rebranding and new advertising to avoid criticism over child sex abuse.
Child abuse survivors have criticised the Uniting Church, which has the third biggest Christian following in Australia, for trying to “disown” the past through a “culture of denial”.
The executive director of Uniting — the services and advocacy arm of the church — admitted the royal commission into child sexual abuse had tarred religious institutions. Therefore he said it made sense to scrap “overt” faith-based language from its PR strategy.
“You are right to highlight that sometimes we do not mention Christ’s name in our advertising,” Peter Worland recently wrote. “Since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, faith-based organisations like ours are perceived pejoratively. So, sometimes we are overt with our religious language, sometimes we are not.”
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