Jenan Taylor
25 September 2024
Indigenous church leaders say the Church in Australia has continued to show little support for Aboriginal people almost a year since the voice referendum.
Australians voted against the proposal to recognise the First Peoples through an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, last October.
The decision, and the contentious tenor of some the narratives surrounding the campaign left many Indigenous people and communities bereft.
Newcastle diocese Director of Reconciliation the Reverend Canon Dianne Langham said she received many negative reactions from people in various parts of the church during and since the referendum campaign.
She said the outcome had exacerbated the racism, and the lack of coverage of how Indigenous people were coping with this seemed to intensify people’s intolerance towards them in some places.
“Some people perhaps felt the result gave them permission to be negative. It was very, and it is very overt, and has been very hard to deal with,” Canon Langham said.
But Canon Langham said there were some people who were supportive of Aboriginal people and ministry, and this kept her moving forward and gave her hope.
Read more: Voice a matter of justice, reconciliation: Christian leaders
She said many of them wanted to learn about Aboriginal culture, and did Bible studies through campfire churches and similar Indigenous ministry initiatives.
She said it was important that non-Indigenous and Indigenous people strived together to see what they had in common and what they believed, because this could foster unity instead of division.
Indigenous elder and Anglican minister the Reverend Ray Minniecon said the lack of a supportive response from the church was the biggest disappointment for many First Nations people.
Mr Minniecon said they didn’t expect an apology from any denomination, but rather wanted to know whether churches would change their attitude.
“It’s about what they will they do about their racism towards Aboriginal people,” Mr Minniecon said.
“That’s not about preaching the gospel to us. We know the gospel. It’s not about preaching the gospel anymore.”
Mr Minniecon said Indigenous people always had hope, and for him it was that non-Indigenous people would acknowledge they were on stolen land, and take responsibility for this.
Read more: A ‘Yes’ begins our journey of healing
The Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Policy director the Reverend Dr Robyn Whitaker said it was important that non-Indigenous Christians were honest about their contribution to the harms Indigenous people experienced. These included less access to healthcare, higher incarceration rates and poverty.
She said it was not about non-Indigenous Christians beating themselves up but about recognising they needed to work towards repair and being part of addressing the trauma they’d caused.
Dr Whitaker said the Wesley Centre aimed to raise awareness about the continued racism being experienced by Indigenous people through holding a forum to mark the year since the referendum.
She said it also aimed to hear what First Nations people had been through in the past 12 months, and call people to greater action about the work that they needed to do to support them.
Dr Whitaker hoped it would start a continuing conversation about truth telling, justice and treaty, all the things in the Uluru statement that Christians knew about and could hopefully contribute to.
“It’s not about trying to be politically a certain way but rather that we are embodying gospel values when we work towards reconciliation between first and second nations people,” she said.
“There’s more theological work to be done on why that matters, and thinking about [how] in our own tradition and the biblical stories we read, the place where we find God, the assumptions we make about what God looks like and sounds like. All of this is interrelated in terms of some of the assumptions we bring to our interactions with Aboriginal people.
Read more: Indigenous Christian leaders ‘gutted’, but unwavering after Voice setback
The Wesley Centre’s Reconciliation and Referendum: Where are we now? forum panel will feature Aboriginal Christians Brooke Prentis and Uncle Will Pickett, Deakin University academic Dr Enqui Weng, and Dr Whitaker.
It will take place on Sunday 13 October from 3pm, and a service of lament and prayers for reconciliation will be held afterwards at the Wesley Church.
To find out more and register for tickets, see here.
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