- Peter Cameron (minister)
Dr. Peter Cameron is a Scottish
Presbyterian minister, theologian, lawyer, and the only churchman to be branded as aheretic in the 20th century for challenging Christian beliefs.cite news| first = Sheena| last = MacLean | title = The 'heretic' at God's right hand| url = http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=Peter+and+Cameron+and+presbyterian&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=author&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=news950720_0112_4463| work = Features| publisher = The Age| location = Melbourne| page = 11| date = 1995-07-20| accessdate = 2008-02-26 ]Early life
Cameron was born in
Scotland , read law atEdinburgh University , and studied theology atEdinburgh andCambridge before being ordained as a minister in theChurch of Scotland .Career
Cameron and his family moved to
Sydney ,New South Wales ,Australia at the beginning of 1991, when he was appointed Principal of St Andrew's College at theUniversity of Sydney , and thus became a minister in thePresbyterian Church of Australia .Conviction
In 1993, Dr Cameron became the only churchman to be branded as a
heretic in the 20th century for challenging Christian beliefs. He was convicted by the Presbyterian Church of Australia ofheresy for disagreeing with the first chapter of theWestminster Confession of Faith , which as a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, he was required "firmly and constantly to adhere thereto and to the utmost of [his] power to maintain and defend",cite web|url= http://www.presbyterian.org.au/section6.htm|title= Vows|accessdate= 2008-02-26|work= An Introduction to the Presbyterian Church of Australia|publisher= The Presbyterian Church of Australia] by questioning the writings of Paul in theNew Testament .The charge related to a
sermon that he preached on2 March 1992 called "The Place of Women in the Church" to 300 members of a Dorcas Society Rally (a Presbyterian women's organisation) in the Ashfield Presbyterian Church.cite news| first = Peter| last = Cameron | title = The making of a heretic| url = http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=cameron+and+%22presbyterian+ladies%22&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=news930708_0204_3483| work = Opinion-Analysis| publisher = The Age| location = Melbourne| page = 14| date = 1993-07-08| accessdate = 2008-02-26] In the sermon Cameron supported theordination of women to the ministry, criticised the church's hard line onhomosexuality , and attacked fundamentalist Christianity in general.cite web|url= http://www.sof-in-australia.org/heretic.htm|title= Heretic|accessdate= 2008-02-26|last= Jensen|first= Rod|year= 2002|month= March|work= Reviews|publisher= Sea of Faith in Australia (SoFiA)] cite web|url= http://www.carelinks.net/books/dem/dd.htm|title= Chapter 5: Religious Dissenter: Peter Cameron and the Heresy Trial|accessdate= 2008-02-26 |last= de Maria|first= Bill|year= 1999|work= Books and Articles|publisher= Carelink ministries] According to Bruce Christian, a member of the Sydney Presbytery in the Presbyterian Church, Cameron was prosecuted for his attitude to Scripture in the lecture, stating: "The point he actually made at the public rally was that there was little value in arguing the hermeneutics of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 on the ordination of women, the simple fact is that Paul got it wrong."cite news| first = Andrew| last = Carey | title = The New Liberals| url = http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/culture/thinking/390a/| work = Culture| publisher = Sydney Anglican Network| location = Sydney| date = 2002-09-06| accessdate = 2008-02-26]In
Australia , most congregations of the Presbyterian Church had left that body in 1977 to join theUniting Church in Australia . The thirty-six percent of congregations that stayed tended to be more conservative or fundamentalist than the majority that left. This meant that the Presbyterian Church in Australia was a far more conservative body than its 'parent' theChurch of Scotland . Thus, Dr Cameron's opinions were far more remarkable in the context of the Australian church than they would have been in the Scottish context. Church spokesman Reverend Paul Cooper noted that:"though the views that Dr Cameron is spouting would be acceptable in Scotland, they are not acceptable in Australia. We are a different church...an independent Church. Colonialism is dead. Dr Cameron wants the Presbyterian Church to be like the Church of Scotland...but we make our own decisions and our decision is that we don’t want to be that sort of church. We stand under the authority of the Bible."
The ordination of women was a particularly 'live' issue at the time. Seven months after Dr Cameron's arrival, the General Assembly of Australia had decided to reverse a seventeen-year-old policy of ordaining women. Cameron's thoughts towards women in the Church has been also attributed to him having a daughter, with him stating in his controversial sermon:
"it was only recently that the full significance came home to me when I suddenly realised that the effect of the decision to ban the ordination of women is that my daughter cannot become a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. I don't mean that she was intending to. I mean that up to that point it was only the absurdity of the position that had struck me...after that I began to get angry. My daughter...goes to the PLC Croydon. It occurs to me that these initials now stand for Presbyterian Ladies Can't."
Dr Cameron's conviction did not have any legal standing, only standing within the church itself. Thus the worst consequences for him would have been deposition (exclusion from the ministry) or
excommunication (expulsion from the church). However he withdrew his last appeal and resigned from the ministry on31 July 1994 .cite news| first = Tony| last = Stephens | title = Devil's Advocate Quits Ministry to find God| url = http://newsstore.smh.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=smh&kw=cameron+and+%22presbyterian+ladies%22&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=news940801_0082_3282| work = News and Features| publisher = The Sydney Morning Herald| location = Sydney| page = 5| date = 1994-08-01| accessdate = 2008-02-26] He returned to Scotland in January 1996, and left the Church of Scotland to be ordained in theScottish Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in Scotland).Published works
Dr Cameron is the author several books, the most well-known of which, "Heretic", ISBN 0-86824-544-5, gives his account of the trial.
References
ee also
*
Heresy in the 20th century
*List of Australian Presbyterians
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