"We'd like to acknowledge that we are meeting on Gadigal land."
So starts every school assembly at Petersham Public... and pretty much any formal gathering I've been to in the inner-west.
But not in church.
We never acknowledge Aboriginal claims to the land when we meet on a Sunday. Why not? Now I can see issues in that actually the land belongs to God and is merely entrusted to any human being as a steward. However, surely there could be ways to acknowledge this. For example we could start services sometimes with Psalm 24:
The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it...
or do you think that would be seen as yet another snub to the Aboriginal people?
What do you think people read into the fact that we don't make any reference to this issue? Does the silence speak even louder than saying something?
4 comments:
Intriguing! Perhaps it's a sign of how 'out of it' I was that I never heard made this acknowledgement of the Gadigals' one-time occupation of the Inner West.
Also, is it just because we're continuing to mistreat their descendants that we continue to acknowledge this occupation? Other conquered peoples don't usually get this kind of consideration.
And if we got treatment of Aboriginal people right today, would we feel the need to keep making acknowledgements like this?
Thanks Stuart,
You raise one of my questions - why does this acknowledgement have to be an on going process? Isn't that rubbing it in?
Does not mentioning it mean that we have moved on or that we are ignoring it?
John, this issue has been bearing on my (and Melinda's) heart for some time. So thanks for even giving it airtime.
I agree with stuart that "instrumentally" such an acknowledgement might not even be useful.
However, "forgetfulness" (or ignorance as JS mentions) is where I think we persist in sinful practice.
Christian involvement and complicity in past + present atrocities toward indigenous ppl was probably due to our "forgetting our task was to obey God and not men, that our task was not to form a civilization where we would be safe from being thrown in jail for preaching God's forgiveness, but rather our task is to be a community of the forgiven." (Hauerwas) We conflated Empire of the Crown with Kingdom of God.
In Christ, we become a community of forgiveness, even for the Australian killing fields. But the power of the gospel also compels us to seek forgiveness, which is where i think an acknowledgment might be efficacious.
Stanley Hauerwas has a brilliant sermon on Christians and the Holocaust, and he ends with some moving advice I think:
"For the resurrection not only means that we Christians have an obligation to accept forgiveness for the Holocaust, but we must ask the Jews to forgive us. If we do not do so we cannot help but be caught in the eternal game of I am guiltier than you and thus fail to face our common destiny.
The reality of the Holocaust cannot be made to go away by continuing to weigh up guilt and responsibility. Such exercises, while not completely pointless, often come close to being obscene.
Rather what we and the Jew must both do is to remember. But without forgiveness we Christians are tempted simply to forget or deny; and Jews are tempted to lose their humanity in humiliation or vengeance.
But if we are forgiven we have the chance to remember and to make this terrible event part of our common history as we each look forward to the day when God's kingdom will come and we can embrace as brother and sister."
I really really agree John. I'm so glad you brought this up.
I don't think it's 'rubbing it in' to keep saying it at the beginning of events - I think it reminds us that we continue to live on land that was forcibly taken from Indigenous people.
Of course we should also seek restitution and reconciliation - but I don't think an acknowledgement would negate this.
I agree that our failure to have an acknowledgment (or a written plaque or message) at church suggests an attitude of sweeping it all under the carpet. We should in fact be leading the way for society to approach reconciliation - not lagging along behind, afraid to broach a hot political issue.
One objection I have heard from Christians is that the awknowledgement sometimes reflects an understanding of the land that displaces God - that is, it is the Gadigal people's land, not God's land. Perhaps we could reword the phrase to speak of traditional custodians or caretakers. (This seems to more suitably reflect traditional Indigenous attitudes anyway). Or perhaps we could say something that reflects the need for churches to reach out in reconciliation, inviting the Holy Spirit to heal the past... in any case, I think the acknowledgement is a great idea and I hope we think seriously about this for PBC services.
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