About The Wesley Centre
The Wesley Centre is a Christian voice in the public conversation. In dialogue with other faith traditions, we reflect on the Christian experience of God and ask how some of the big questions in politics, economics, law and society look in the light of that experience. We promote an expansive vision of Christian faith, one which welcomes everyone exactly as they are and sees a place for every person in a society based on justice and the common good. We run events and discussions; we write articles, papers and opinion pieces. We believe in speaking respectfully with those who agree and those who disagree with us, and in rising above divisions based on party or politics. Sometimes we look for answers; sometimes we try to ask better questions. Grounded in academic research, our work brings scholarly rigour to public theology. We hope to bring fresh perspectives—not always our own—to the most important questions in public life.
Theology
Public Policy
Theology
Theology is what we do when we think about God, and the world in relation to God. For Christians, this thinking is shaped by our encounter with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Ethics
Public Policy
Theology
Ethics is about how we live and relate to each other. Christian ethics tries to think about this in the light of the idea that God is love and that we are called to love every person, including our enemies.
Public Policy
Public Policy
Public Policy
Public policy refers to the way our society is set up: its laws, structures, customs and institutions. Christians are called to imagine what these might look like if we took seriously Christ’s concern for the most vulnerable among us.
History of The Wesley Centre
Our Story
The Wesley Centre is an initiative of Wesley Church, Melbourne—a church with a long history of advocating for justice for the poorest and most marginalised people in society.
Wesley Church is on Lonsdale Street, which in the nineteenth century was the heart of Melbourne’s red light district. In April 1893, in the midst of a severe depression, the minister of the Wesley Church, Alexander Edgar, joined a small delegation to see the Premier of Victoria. They asked him to do something about what was then called the ‘sweating evil’—the exploitation of poor and vulnerable workers in dangerous and unpleasant conditions in the factories and back rooms of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’.
When the Premier declined to help, the delegation conferred on the steps of Parliament House. What next? Someone suggested a public meeting, and the Reverend Alexander Edgar offered his church as the location.
Thus was born a series of public conversations known as ‘Pleasant Sunday Afternoons.’ These were not mere talkfests. They helped to change the nature of our state and our nation. The Victorian Government eventually succumbed to pressure to set up its own inquiry into the ‘sweating evil’, and in 1896 amendments were passed to the Factories and Shops Act—one of the first pieces of legislation in the world to set minimum wages through wage boards.
Through Wesley Mission (1893-2016), now called Uniting, Wesley Church has been a leader in the welfare sector for more than 130 years, combining social welfare with policy critique and justice advocacy. As Rev. Arthur Preston (Superintendent of Wesley Mission 1968-1981) wrote, ‘the Gospel is concerned with the dignity and worth of every individual person and with the right of every person to fully share in the good things which [God] has provided.’
Today, the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy exists to once again speak words of hope and justice into the public conversation in Australia. Our logo is a nod to the intersection of the traditions of Wesley Church and the
contemporary urban landscape in which it sits. Like the congregation at Wesley Church, we believe that the Christian message is not just about the liberation of individuals, but about the transformation of the whole of life, including our communal and political life.
What is Public Policy
For Christians, theology is about asking what our experiences of God, as revealed in Jesus, might have to say about human life, including the ethical, social, and political questions facing our world.
Public theology is an attempt to speak out of our belief in a God who is love, into the world as we find it today—a world in which too many people are caught up in cycles of poverty and violence, in which many of us ignore or even despise those who are different to us, and in which our climate is changing in dangerous and damaging ways. It involves grappling with current public policy debates, while at the same time interrogating the values that lie behind those debates.
It has become a cliché to say that we live in a divided world, but it’s true. People of faith live in bubbles no less than anyone else. The Wesley Centre brings people together in respectful and patient dialogue, exploring each other’s positions without rushing to judgement, respecting differences, and looking for common ground. We try to model the kind of dialogue a divided world needs.
We aim to inform, engage, and influence public debate in order to bring about a fairer and more compassionate Australia where everyone in our society might flourish.
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Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge that The Wesley Centre and its staff are working and residing on the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and acknowledge Elders past and present.
Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.