A Clear and Present Faith

The old man looked the missionary in the eye: “You keep telling us about how sinful we are and how we need to change, but no one ever says this to the white people who steal our land, our wives and our daughters. No one says this to the men who are killing us..."

I’ve been on holidays for the past fortnight, which has given me the opportunity to read One Blood: John Harris’ seminal work on the history between Indigenous Australians and Christianity. Even twenty years after publication, this is still a magnificent book. I’m not finished yet, but already there has already been a lot to give thanks for, as well as a lot of stories that have made me want to weep and pray for Jesus’ return.

Here is Harris’ assessment of the first 100 years of Christian witness in Australia:

1. The missionaries often confused conversion to European civilisation with conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They attempted to conform Indigenous Australians to a life of European-style peasant farming and other symbols of European civilisation. This made them slow to recognise signs of genuine regeneration and maturity.
2. The rhetoric of the Europeans and the Colonial Government made it difficult to distinguish Christianity from the culture around it. It was hard for Indigenous Australians to discern the Christianity preached by the missionaries in the lives of the Europeans who brought death, disease, dispossession, prostitution and alcoholism to their land.
3. The church forgot to preach the whole gospel. They were very strong on preaching sin and judgment to a people seen by the wider colonial society to be savage and barbaric. But it was rarely accompanied by the hope the gospel of Jesus Christ brings. After the shock being disposed from the land and seeing their culture break down under the European invasion, this message of hope and justice may have been what they needed to hear. It was actually when missionaries in Victoria started to preach the whole gospel that they saw fruit from their labour.
4. These were accompanied with a lack of interest for Christian work amongst Indigenous Australians that swept through the wider church in Australia and Europe.
   

The church also played a positive role during this time. Harris points out that it was almost exclusively only the Christians in colonial society who saw Indigenous Australians as humans. Harris recounts some moving testimonies from some Aboriginals in eastern Victoria who said that without the church missions, their people wouldn’t exist today. But overall this all contributes to tragedy of Australia since 1788.

Reading One Blood has reminded me of the need for the church to stand out from its culture and be distinguished and shaped by the gospel of Jesus. Harris writes:

“It is one of the tragedies of the recent history of Australia that true Christianity was for so long so very difficult to discern in the life of this outpost of a distant nation which called itself Christian.”

This reminded me of a quote from Tim Foster that I’ve used before on hebel. I heard it again a few days before I started reading One Blood. Reflecting on the challenge of the Sermon on the Mount for the church, Foster argues:

"The expression of these values (the Sermon on the Mount) by the church is essential to its successful engagement in mission. Just as Torah-obedience was essential for the success of Israel’s mission to the nations, ‘the church’s oddness is essential to its faithfulness.’ The logic of the Sermon on the Mount is that the disciples serve the world by demonstrating that a new society is breaking-in which offers an alternative communal existence shaped by the character and purposes of God.

Because the world is so deeply immerse in the prevailing order "the only way for the world to know it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people." The anticipated outcome is that others will ‘See your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven’ (Matt.5.16). Just as apostasy destroyed Israel’s capacity to mission, accommodation to the values of them world poses the greatest of dangers to the church, diluting its capacity to bear witness to radical nature of the new order." - Tim Foster, A Vision for the Mission and the Message of the Australian Church After Christendom.

The challenge, now as always, is for the church to be the church. I hope to post again soon with some stories from One Blood.

Peter Adam: When Sorry Isn't Sorry

Here a short interview calling Melbourne Anglicans to be a prophetic voice to Australia and why sorry isn't sorry without restitution. H/T Stephen Gardner.

My Country, Your Country

As we approach the first anniversary of Peter Adam's Australia: Whose Land? lecture, Alison has coincidentally finished her three part series: My Country, Your Country. It's worth checking out, particulary for the final post in the series. Here's an excert:

One quote made me stop in my tracks. It was a woman talking about how she had never really understood who she was because she had never been able to be with her own family in their own place. I wanted to be sick on the spot. Only fifteen minutes beforehand, I had been lost in my own memories of family, and the place that my family felt it belonged to. At what cost were these memories created!? Which Aborignal people were removed from Ebeneezer so that white people could farm? Which indigenous families were torn apart so that I could grow up safely with my own?

Under John Howard, people said that the stolen generation was not this generation's fault. Maybe that is true. I personally can't take any direct responsiblity for destoying countless Aborignal families.

But I was blind to the way that I personally have benefitted from the pain that many many others have suffered. That afternoon at Reconciliation Place, I realised. I am truly sorry.

You'll find the series here:

1. Thought 1
2. Thought 2
3. Hard Hitting Thoughts
   

Southern Cross Letter II

Here is the letter that, as I mentioned previously, has been published in the October edition of Southern Cross.*


Ridley College’s Peter Adam has found himself at the centre of a nation-wide controversy. Peter Adam was in Sydney on 10 August as a guest of the Baptist Union of NSW/ACT to deliver the second annual John Saunders Lecture at Morling College. His lecture, Australia – Whose Land?, gained national attention with a carefully crafted and well considered analysis of the treatment of Indigenous Australians. It was a fine example of bringing Christian ethics to a significant national issue. For Sydney Anglicans it provides several avenues for thought and action.

It was a lecture that pulled no punches. Adam called for Australian Christians, and the wider Australian community, to repent and make just recompense for past wrongs. The wrongs, or sins, that Adam had in mind were the theft of Aboriginal land since 1788, and the large-scale murder and genocide that has accompanied it. What particularly caught the imagination of the media was Adam’s suggestion that all post-1788 arrivals in Australia should, in order to make recompense through restitution, offer to leave so the land can be returned to the Indigenous people. However, recognising how difficult this would be, Dr Adam’s suggestion was that if we can’t leave, we should make some form of recompense that would appropriately rectify the wrongs committed against indigenous people.

I won’t try to argue the practicality of Adam’s proposal. You should read the lecture, available on the Ridley College website. This is an important issue that requires serious thinking and action, and I’m really glad that Peter Adam has taken a lead on this issue. He has offered a vision for true reconciliation. Here are five steps we can take in response to Peter Adam’s comments:

1. We should repent. Repenting is the Christian thing to do. According to Dr Adam, while we may not have been personally involved in the dispossession of Aboriginal land and murder of Aboriginal people, we have all benefited from it. The land on which our homes, schools, workplaces and even our churches are built is land that indigenous Australians have unjustly been dispossessed of since 1788. We are effectively enjoying stolen property. Adam described this as a failure to treat those who are made in the image of God justly; a failure to love our neighbours as ourselves.


2. We also need to pray. It would be very easy to start working towards reconciliation. But mere activism is not Christian. We need to pray for wisdom for our church and its leaders to understand the issue at stake, we need to uphold our wronged Indigenous brothers and sisters in prayer, and we need to pray that we will have to strength and faith to respond in a way that gives God all glory.


3. We need to be informed and try to understand the gravity of what Indigenous people have suffered. The most moving part of the evening was after the lecture when people were invited to ask questions or make comments. Several Indigenous brothers and sisters spoke up, some in tears, and shared their experiences of being part of the stolen generation. They also expressed relief and excitement that the rest of the church, who they rightly described as “our brothers and sisters”, might finally recognise the issues they face. The Anglican Church must do more to understand the stories of Indigenous people within our churches and the wider Sydney community so that we can truly love and serve them. This will include taking up the pen and writing to our Governments. Advocating on behalf of our Indigenous brothers and sisters is one way that we can serve them.


4. Non-Indigenous Australian Christians must continue to minister to Indigenous Australians. This will involve continued support for the training of Aboriginal Christians in ministry and theology. There is an urgent need to develop Indigenous leaders in the church. Non-Indigenous Australian Christians must also take up the challenge of connecting with both Christian and non-Christian Indigenous Australians.


5. Perhaps it is time for the Anglican Church to discuss ‘acknowledging country’. This is different to a ‘welcome to country’. Acknowledgment of country is a statement of recognition of the traditional owners of the land. I’ve found one Sydney Anglican church that acknowledges country on their website. Should we have plaques at the entry to our church buildings acknowledging country? Should we do it at the start of major church gatherings, Synod, and the start of our conferences? It’s a difficult discussion to have, but that is by no means a reason not to start the debate.

God has called his people to be salt and light in the world. We should never shy away from seeking justice and showing mercy, even if it means speaking into a tense and complicated political issue. We follow a Lord whose humiliation and crucifixion have made him the head of a church where we know true love and reconciliation. It is tempting to assume that Kevin Rudd’s apology has ended the problems that Indigenous people face – it hasn’t.

Can I encourage you to listen to the case that Dr Adam has made and think about the ramifications it has for you, your church and the wider Christian community.



*Having tonight compared what I sent with what has been published, I have noticed that what is posted here and what appears in Southern Cross is slightly different.

Southern Cross Letter

Following up from Jeremy Halcrow's suggestion, I have a letter published in this month's Southern Cross (the Sydney Anglican newspaper) discussing some of the issues raised in the John Saunders lecture by Peter Adam.

You'll find it on page 24 of Southern Cross.

If you would like to read it but a) don't live on Sydney, b) aren't Anglican, c) Can't wait until I post the letter here, let me know and I'll email it to you.

Where's the Coverage?

I attended the the John Saunders Lecture in August where Dr Peter Adam discussed Aboriginal land claims, the history of injustice against Indigenous Australians, and appropriate Christian responses including the question of recompense. I followed the resulting media coverage with interest (including the SMH, The Age, and Melbourne Anglicans).

And so I was somewhat disturbed and surprised by the relative lack of coverage of the lecture in the Sydney Anglican media. Besides this quick mention in Russell Powell's weekly column and 26 words in September Southern Cross (see the picture), the lecture might well never of happened.

Despite Southern Cross reporting the lecture under the Anglican Communion Wrap: Melbourne, this landmark lecture actually took place in Sydney. I was there, along with several members of the Moore College Faculty.

Although the lecture was organized by Morling College and the Baptist Union of NSW & ACT, it had several Anglican connections. Peter Adam is Anglican, and the principal of an important Anglican theological college. The Aboriginal elder who helped organize the evening is an Anglican from Queensland. Several members of the Sydney Diocese Indigenous committee and Social Issues Executive where present. I think on the night that mention was made of support the lecture had received from the Sydney Diocese. And a collection was taken at the end of the night to fund indigenous theological training through the Baptist and Anglican churches. I thought that all this would make the lecture worth reporting in September's Southern Cross (particularity given page two caries a feature article on the bicentenary of William Cowper's arrival in Australia).

What really disturbs me is that the lecture received national coverage across the media spectrum and yet it has been virtually ignored in the Sydney Anglican mouthpiece. Peter Adam offered a Christian call for recompense that received national attention and we (Sydney Anglicanism) failed to engage with it. I know Sydney Anglican Media are facing major staff reductions, but I expected more from them. The 2009 John Saunders Lecture was of significant interest to Sydney Anglicans, and I'm disappointed that it wasn't reported to them.

The Colony: A History Of Early Sydney

With recently renewed discussion about the history and occupation of Australia Grace Karskens' newly released "The Colony: A History Of Early Sydney" is a fresh and timely account of the origins of Sydney. Grace Karskens brings a personal touch to the book that I also found to be helpful.

Karskens, who worked as the Project Historian for the Cumberland Gloucester Street Archaeological Project, has produced a multidisciplinary book. This is one of the strengths of The Colony - besides using traditional historical and political accounts, Karskens addresses social history (including the history of women and convicts), environmental concerns, Aboriginal history and archaeology. It also sets Sydney Town in its context of being the center of surrounding settlements spread out across the Cumberland Plains. Drawing on Inga Clendinnen's earlier research, Karskens account of the indigenous experience of the British invasion and continued settlement is especially worth reading. Karskens herself is well aware that what she offers isn't the Aboriginal history of 1788, but it does go along way towards that.

The Colony also some way towards busting several myths that have arisen about the foundation of Sydney. The narrative presented by Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore is well and truly in her sights. Karskens also spends sometime dealing with the 'foundational orgy' story and also the continued presence of Eora people in Sydney for several decades after 1788. Of particular note is Karskens reconstruction of the Minto massacre in 1816 of Aboriginal, elderly men, women and children.

My main gripe with it is the absence of religion in The Colony. Neither the religious beliefs of the Eora or the British were adequately dealt with. This doesn't mean that it isn't mentioned. On one occasion Karskens point to the Evangelical motives some officers had in educating Aboriginal children. But that's about it. Religion floats across the pages, but for a multidisciplinary work religion remains ungrounded. The Church of England clergy are presented only as farmers and country squires. As Meredith Lake has pointed out elsewhere, "there are...important questions about how post-christian Australians try to make sense (or not) of our Christian past."

Overall, I found the The Colony to be an insightful and read. It left me wanting to know more about Sydney's past, and was for me an extremely useful introduction to the Eora's experience of the invasion. If you only read one historical book each year, you should strongly consider this one.

Restitution

"Then it is at once our duty, and our wisdom to humble ourselves in penitence before God. But repentance supposes reformation, and where injuries have been inflicted it involves recompense….But the next step to reformation is restitution. And do we start at this word? It is one an honest man need never shrink from; it is one a noble mind will never discard; it is one which religious man will cheerfully adopt. It is our duty to recompense the Aborigines to the extent we have injured them." - John Saunders, ‘Claims of the Aborigines,’ a sermon preached at Bathurst Street Baptist Church, Sydney, 14 October 1838.

Peter Adam, in Monday night's Second Annual John Saunders lecture (available here) called for Australia (those who have arrived since 1788) to make recompense to Indigenous Australians. Following Richard Baxter, Adam argued that this needs to come through either through restitution (returning what was taken) or satisfaction (returning something of equivalent value where restitution isn’t possible). Adam then offered a practical proposal for recompense:

1. We would recognize that recompense is a duty and responsibility, that we owe it to the indigenous peoples of this land, out of respect for them as our brothers and sisters made in God’s image [see Acts 17:26] and out of awareness of the vileness of the crimes which have been committed against them and their ancestors.
2. We would recognize that recompense is based on our duty, not the needs of indigenous people. I am not saying that we should not care, but that we must act with integrity and justice [rather than being condescending].
3. We would recognize that no recompense could ever be satisfactory, because what was done was so vile, so immense, so universal, so pervasive, so destructive, so devastating, and so irreparable.
4. We would ask the indigenous people if they wanted those of us who have arrived since 1788 to leave (Baxter’s ‘Restitution’), or to provide an equivalent recompense (Baxter’s ‘Satisfaction’). Leaving would be a drastic and complicated action, but, as I have pointed out, it has happened in India, Africa, and Indonesia in the last sixty years.
5. If we do not leave, then we would need to ask each of the indigenous peoples of this land what kind of recompense would be appropriate for them. This would be an extremely complicated and extensive task, but must be done.
6. We would need to be prepared to give costly recompense, lest it trivialize what has happened.
7. We would then need to adopt a national recompense policy, in the form of a Treaty. It would need to be implemented locally, according to the wishes of each indigenous tribe.
8. By negotiation, it could be a one-off act of recompense, or it could be a constant and long-term series of acts of recompense.
9. We could also implement voluntary recompense by churches in a coordinated way, and should include support of indigenous Christian ministry and training, as negotiated by the leaders of Christ’s indigenous people. Christian churches should lead the way in this, not least in supporting indigenous Christians and their ministries. For churches too have benefited from the land they use, and from income from those who have usurped the land.

Are Adam's propositions an appropriate way forward? How would you make it happen?The apology from the Commonwealth Government took an incredibly long time - how long can we wait for the government to make any moves on this issue?

Quoting Paul in Romans 13:8-10, Peter Adam finished with these words:

Love involves duty, as well as charity. We have wronged our neighbours. It is now time to pay our debts, to confess our sins, to give the recompense that we owe. We who know God’s great love in Christ should be the most active in loving others. May God strengthen us to love the Lord our God, and so to love our neighbours.

The Time Has Come To Say Fair's Fair...

The Herald has an article on last night's lecture by Peter Adam: 'Australia - Whose Land?'

I'll blog about this later, but for now, check out the Herald's report and Chris Swann's far more helpful analysis.

UPDATE: Peter Adam has used parts of his lecture for an editorial in today's Herald.

Australia – whose land?

Alison has sent me the details for an interesting lecture Morling College is hosting in August. The
second annual John Saunders Lecture will feature Melbourne evangelical Peter Adams (Principal of Ridley College) touching on the subject “Australia – whose land?”

7.00 pm Monday 10th August
Morling College Chapel. 120 Herring Rd, Macquarie Park 2113
Admission free (an offering will be taken to support training of Indigenous Christian leaders).

Alison and I are keen to go. Anyone else? We've been reading the recently released 'The Colony - A History of Early Australia' by Grace Karskens. According to it's dust cover: he Colony is a unique portrait of Sydney from pre-contact Aboriginal times to the end of convict transports in 1840. From the coast across the Cumberland Plain to the rivers at the foot of the Blue Mountains, Grace Karskens presents a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the early history of Sydney. It is a richly textured approach that draws on social history, traditional political history, environmental concerns, Aboriginal history and archaeology."

It has got us wondering - Nat Swann too incidentally - Why don’t we acknowledge country in Christian circles? Should we acknowledge country at things like synod or at a KCC conference? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

100 Years in the North

This year not only marks the apology by Kevin Rudd to the Aboriginal people of Australia. It also marks a centennary of work by CMS (the Church Missionary Socitey) in Arnhem Land and Northern Australia. This work arose out off the Anglican Churches response to wholesle murder of Aboriginal people by pastoralists in the 'Top End' at the start of the 20th century. Watch the video, watch out for celebration events this year, and if you are interested in finding out more, you can by the John Harris book (author of One Blood) 'We Wish We'd Done More' from CMS.