Liberating the Will of Australia. Geoffrey Burn

      Liberating the Will of Australia

      Towards the Flourishing of the Land and All Its Peoples

      Copyright © 2020 Geoffrey Burn. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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      paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-6382-6

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-6383-3

      ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-6384-0

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. 08/19/20

      Biblical quotations, unless noted otherwise, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Warning

      This book contains the names of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

      Preface

      I began my working life as a research scientist. After about ten years of working in that field, I answered what was a strong calling into the ordained ministry in the Anglican Church. During my theological preparation for ordination, I came across theological ideas that were both challenging and exciting, as I began to explore how theology could help us to understand political issues on a large scale, and direct us towards actions that could lead to human flourishing in the very complicated and intricately connected ecosystem and universe in which we live.

      In around 2002 I embarked on study and reflection which has eventually led to this book being written. Initially, I had intended to try to write about how international politics is based on the myth of redemptive violence: that we overcome aggression by being more powerful than those who seek to do us harm. It was my PhD supervisor, Tim Gorringe, who suggested that I make a study of land in Australia. I was surprised by what I found. I am ashamed to say that, born in 1960, I had managed to grow up in Australia and study to degree level without really engaging with what was happening for the First Peoples in Australia. It took me seven years to complete my PhD as I read widely in history, anthropology and law, as well as theology, keeping up with developments through reading the media and making an extended visit to Australia to listen to whomever would talk with me. Writing my thesis was my first act of repentance: listening and then developing something from the Christian theological tradition that I felt brought some deep insights into why there was still such dis-ease amongst the First Peoples in Australia, and also why so many people, who had worked so hard, were disappointed that their actions had not produced as much good as they had hoped.

      Such a work is of little use if it is hidden in a PhD thesis, a piece of academic work which is inaccessible to most of the people who might find it of value. After completion of the thesis, I determined to write a more accessible account of its key insights, with the hope that it might be of some value to everyone in Australia. This process, however, has taken me over nine years to bring to completion. There were several reasons for this.

      The first, and most important, reason for the length of time that it has taken to write this book is that I became aware that what I had written in my thesis seemed to have deeply upset some people who have worked in the legal profession for the welfare of the First Peoples, people whose work I had greatly admired, and who were very generous to me during my research and the writing of my thesis. It was clear that I had got the tone of what I had written wrong and, in pursuing what I believed was an important insight, I had not given a properly nuanced account of what had happened. In particular, in my concern to present how the failure to recognize the humanity of the First Peoples and their relationship to the land had worked its way through the whole of Australian history, I failed to properly discuss how there were several ways that some of the legal judgements and acts of parliament were attempting to redress part of this failure. So, writing this book is a second act of repentance, seeking to give a truer reading of the situation in Australia. It has taken me a long time to find a more acceptable tone of voice. I had several false starts and this is the best that I can do for the moment. I hope that others will be able to take what I have written and develop any insights in this work in ways that are more helpful than I can currently see.

      The second reason why it has taken so long to write this book is that I was unsure of how to write it for a wider audience. In particular, the work is inherently theological in that the theological ideas are not reducible to some other system of discourse; it is not possible to understand the situation in Australia without reference to God and the rich and generous ways of God in the world. Moreover, I am reading the Bible in ways that might be unfamiliar to many in the Church, and so it requires considerable work to validate reading the Bible in this way. The result, I hope, is that the eyes of the reader are opened to see how the Bible and Christian theology can be a much deeper resource for reflection on real political issues. The consequence of this is that this book is a work of practical Christian theology. I hope that there is enough in this book for those who are not from the Christian faith to be able to see something of value in it.

      The final reason for my tardiness in writing is personal: I have been working in some situations of deep conflict, first within the church, and then as a chaplain in a team of chaplains of different faiths in a prison, taking on responsibility for managing the team and being part of the senior management team of the prison soon after starting work in prison. This has taken a lot of energy and in itself has been a focus of theological reflection.

      As the time since I finished the initial research got longer and longer, I wondered if the moment of opportunity had passed, so that what I had to say was no longer of any value. Most of the time the work sat shelved at the back of my mind. But whenever I had the opportunity to speak about my ideas, and as I heard and read about the push for the reception of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, I was always in touch with a passion deep within me that the fundamental ideas contained in my thesis are still of value and need to be made more available, especially if responding to the Statement is to be a process which gets to the heart of Australia’s wounded spirit. It was on an eight-day individually guided prayer retreat at St Beuno’s in October 2018 that this work surfaced so powerfully in me that I could no longer refrain from writing the book, and the framework for the book emerged during my prayer. Others have kindly allowed me to draw back from my commitments outside my paid employment for a period so that I can work on this in the evenings and on my rest days from my work in the prison.

      It is always a risk to offer one’s ideas for the consideration of others. I offer this book, in all its awkwardness of style and its shortcomings in vision, for I am part of the problem that it is seeking to address, in the humble hope that some will find it of value, and will be able to use some of the ideas it contains in order to bring good for all the peoples in Australia.

      Acknowledgements

      Many have helped to make this work possible.

      I began this research whilst in St Austell, and Tim Gorringe of Exeter University agreed to supervise it. I came to Tim with a desire to work on a political theology of reconciliation in conversation with a real problem, and I am grateful to him for suggesting that I focus on land in Australia. When we moved to Kent, so that Helen could work full-time in the Eythorne Benefice and in theological training in the Diocese of Canterbury, Gareth Jones kindly agreed to take over supervision of my research and he arranged for my fees