Good Work, Presbyterian Church! By Peter West
It is good to see that the Presbyterian church of Australia has banned welcome to country ceremonies from main services. As I see it, the welcome to country ceremony is based upon the Critical Race Theory idea, embodied in the Voice through the Uluru Statement, that Australia is a racist country colonised by terrible racist white British. This is an eternal sin, and no amount of “sorry” will wipe it away.
Something like that must be going on, because even if colonisation was a “sin,” a “sin” that brought Christianity to the Aborigines in the first place, it should have been forgiven, which of course, it was not. The welcome to country presupposes that Australia does not belong to modern Australians, and that the country is Aboriginal, eternally. Tell that to the ancient Anglo Saxons, after Norman conquest, or any of the thousands of people who have been conquered. And, white Australia is likely, the way things are going, to be absorbed into the communist Chinese empire, so all this business is just moot in the short term.
“The Presbyterian church has banned congregations across Australia from conducting an acknowledgment of country at their regular services, in a decision described as “extreme” and saddening by Indigenous Christians.
The prohibition was made at the denomination’s general assembly in Sydney last week, amid a heated debate over whether the church needed to lament some aspects of colonisation.
John McClean, a spokesperson for the church who took part in the meetings, said the general assembly had authority over how worship services were conducted.
“The decision was to say churches shouldn’t include an acknowledgment of country as part of a worship service,” McClean said.
“Certainly for Presbyterians, the question of what you do in church as public worship is a particularly sensitive issue.”
The Presbyterian edict allows for the short ceremonies at other meetings held at their churches, but not at the main worship services which are typically held on Sundays.
The ban may also influence chapel services held at schools with direct ties to the Presbyterian church of Australia. Those Presbyterian schools that also have ties to the Uniting church won’t be affected.
More than 414,000 people identified as Presbyterian/Reformed in the last census, making it a sizeable Christian group in Australia, although only a portion of that number regularly attend Presbyterian services.
An acknowledgment of country is used to show respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and their ongoing connection to their land. The Presbyterian ban also extends to a welcome to country, which is conducted by traditional owners of the land where an event takes place.
Part of the debate at the general assembly, which meets every three years, focused on whether such ceremonies carry overtones of Aboriginal spirituality inconsistent with Christian beliefs, according to John Sandeman, a Christian writer present at the meeting.
The Presbyterian meeting contrasted with this week’s gathering of Anglican Diocese of Sydney representatives – also known for their conservatism – which included several Indigenous Christian speakers and acknowledgments of country.
Safina Stewart, a Wuthathi and Mabuiag Island woman who is the relationships and storytelling coordinator at non-denominational Christian group Common Grace, said the Presbyterian meeting showed how Aboriginal spirituality was often weaponised against Indigenous people.
“It is disappointing and rather extreme and legalistic,” Stewart said.
“It speaks of fear and misunderstanding about our oldest living continuous cultures in the world.”
Just another reason to get all you know to vote NO! in the Voice referendum!
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