Enqi Weng
5 February 2025
Deborah R. Storie, Barbara Deutschmann and Michelle Eastwood (eds). Reading the Bible in Australia. Wipf & Stock, 2024.
This edited volume is a welcoming and refreshing addition to Australian academic literature on theology, particularly through its centring of Indigenous perspectives. It is a compilation of chapters responding to Meredith Lake’s (2018) multi-award-winning book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History.
Published a year after the failed Voice to Parliament referendum, this book is timely as it addresses not only the historical role that churches have played in colonisation, but also the ongoing impact this has on Indigenous cultural systems and spirituality, and more broadly Australian landscape and environment.
As a collective of voices, truth-telling is key, as theological reflections centre on topics that address the persistent tension between Indigenous and settler-Australians. This volume concludes with a response from Lake herself, as part of an ongoing dialogue. The edited volume addresses several key themes, with a strong focus on addressing cultural perspectives – broadly conceived – topically.
The volume foregrounds Indigenous perspectives, beginning with a ‘Healing Prayer’ from Safina Stewart, who also provided the front cover visual for this volume. Key Indigenous Christian leaders Pastor Ray Minniecon and Dr Naomi Wolfe drew on their lived experiences to illustrate how specific Bible passages can be recontextualised to address the afflictions and violence inflicted on Indigenous people. Professor Aunty Anne Pattel-Gray continues her advocacy for greater awareness of colonial violence perpetrated against Indigenous communities across Australia. Her work also demonstrates the diversity of Indigenous perspectives, as she thinks “it is necessary for Aboriginal people to decolonize themselves and to realize that the Bible is still being used by some to colonize us”.
Some closer reading of specific chapters will provide a richer view of what this volume offers, and more poignantly, how as settlers we can critically examine our perspectives of the Bible. Brian Fiu Kolia offers a diasporic Samoan perspective in reading Exodus 12-13. He considers that seeing the Bible from a different cultural perspective can offer fresh ways of thinking and meditating on God’s word. In particular, Kolia shares that the Pasifika use of talanoa is one that “will allow us to consider questions, perspectives, dimensions, and experiences that Western methodologies do not usually consider”. The aim of this approach is also to “stimulate conversation and dialogue”. In Kolia’s view, adopting the use of talanoa to read the Bible differs from the way his communities have been traditionally taught through Western ways to interact with the Bible.
Read more: Indigenous theologians set to challenge Churches to hard conversations
Mark G. Brett and Deborah Shuh Yi Tan examined the translation of Genesis 1 by Assistant Aboriginal Protector William Thomas in his outreach to Aboriginal people in the Port Phillip District, and how his approach changed across his work. Though initially Eurocentric in his worldview and approach, he shifted to a transliterated approach overtime, as he attempted to present a distinct creator God who is relatable within Aboriginal cultural contexts. This work was short-lived, however, and similar to other historical attempts in Australian history towards intercultural contact and engagement.
Jonathan Cornford adopts an economic perspective in his chapter, as he focused on Jesus’ teachings about money and how Australians have historically interpreted this teaching from the time of European settlement. He referenced Donald Horne’s thesis on Australia as a lucky country, perceived as so because of its resource richness. As readers, we are prompted to consider who are the benefactors of this luck. The ecological damage that ensues from this perception of luck, through early resource extraction to current environmental crises, were often acted upon based on supposed Christian values. Selective reading, and justification of texts from the Bible have occurred across history, also noted in Michelle Eastwood’s chapter on the limited narratives that the Australian Christian Lobby adopts in their conservative Christian public advocacy.
This volume is a significant and timely contribution to contemporary theological and public discourse. It examines the Bible as both a cultural artefact and a message of kingdom redemption and renewal, while also considering the contested and complex history of its introduction to Australia. It emphasises the importance of understanding historical contexts and promotes empathy and justice through recontextualised readings of Biblical texts. I see this volume as occupying that liminal space, of holding onto a hope for a collective capacity for greater love and justice as fellow believers, in anticipation of a reconciliation yet to be fully realised.
Dr Enqi Weng is a Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University and an Honorary Research Associate, Whitley College, University of Divinity
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