Journey: Clergy clash in Sydney: "Clergy clash in Sydney
By Journey staff
September 03, 2003

According to Kelly Burke, religious affairs reporter, in today's Sydney Morming Herald:

Two church leaders have gone toe to toe -- accusing each other of violence, bullying and intimidation -- in their dispute over the rights of gay clergy.

Last night, at a meeting in a Strathfield parish church, the national head of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Reverend Dean Drayton, was called in to address the warring factions of the Sydney Presbytery.

The row over gay clergy allegedly came to push and shove in the same church on August 12, when the Reverend Bill Crews, a liberal Uniting Church minister and 2GB broadcaster, clashed with a conservative, the Reverend Doug Clements, from the Wesley Mission.

Mr Clements claims Mr Crews bullied him and prevented him from reading a verse from the Bible, shoving him away from the lectern during the Presbytery's last meeting."