Debunking Aboriginal Myths (By Rebecca Walker)

I was recently lent a copy of All-About: The Story of a Black Community on Argyle Station, Kimberley by Mary and Elizabeth Durack. It is a children’s book published in 1935 which went through five reprints up until 1944. Even just looking at the cover, it is immediately distressing, as it emblazoned with a picture of an Aboriginal man who looks like a demonic ape. It purports to tell the story of a white family living on a station in Kimberly, with many aboriginal workers. The Sunday Times in Perth wrote of it that “The book is, indeed, a happy book for Christmas, full of good cheer, excellent fun, and a splendid tale of station life in the vast Nor’-West”.

Mary Durack went on to write many other children’s books about aboriginals up until 1964. If we assume that the books were probably in circulation at least until the 1970s, it gives us an insight into the kinds of myths about Aboriginals which have informed the understanding of many Australians growing up between 1935 and the mid 1970s, which has been passed on either consciously or subconsciously to later generations of Australians. Again just before we get started, it should be emphasised that this content is from a children’s book!

Myth #1 – Aboriginals are Inferior
From the opening lines in the dedication of All-About, the tone of white superiority is distinct. “You will never read this, for to learning you have no pretensions. You cannot sue us for libel, though we have exposed your characters, your secrets and your private lives. Forgive us! Our protection lies in your unworldliness”. So basically, Aboriginals are too dumb to realise what the Durack sisters are saying about them. This of course, means that it is completely morally acceptable to say malicious things about the Aboriginals. The fact that the Duracks felt that the Aboriginals might sue them for libel if they understood indicates that they were aware that what they were saying was, at a minimum unkind, if not outright slanderous!

This tone of superiority continues throughout the book, another awful example appears on page 17: “We have long ago had to face the fact that our more cultured mode of speech is equally intelligible to the blacks as is the pidgin form. The latter we use in evidence of the superiority which they so unreasonably refuse to recognise. Our darkies have none of the docile inferiority complex which makes such excellent servants of their brothers of other lands”.

This almost does not need commentary, it is so disgustingly prideful. To know that aboriginal people can understand the so-called “cultured mode of speech”, yet to insist on using pidgin when speaking with them as “evidence of the superiority [of the whites] which they so unreasonably refuse to recognise” is oppressive, racist and mean-spirited. It is appalling that on top of this assumption of superiority, they go further to censure the Aboriginals for not agreeing with that racist assumption. It is disgusting that in a book that is supposedly “the happiest book of the year”, the Durack sisters actually criticise the Aboriginals for not having the “docile inferiority complex which makes such excellent servants of their brothers of other lands”! Here the evil intent of the superiority/inferiority divide is made clear: it is to legitimise the enslavement of the “inferior” human beings.

Myth #2 – Aboriginals are Promiscuous
Probably the strongest theme in the book is that Aboriginals, particularly the women, are promiscuous. The book is full of sly gibes about Aboriginals sleeping around, and needing white people to point them towards marriage. This is rather hypocritical given the number of children many Aboriginal women had to white fathers. Clearly, the white men were not following their own advice on sexual morality. And that is without mentioning the numbers of Aboriginal women who were raped by white people. To accuse Aboriginals of promiscuity, in the moralising tone the Durack sisters use, is hypocrisy in the extreme.

All of the Aboriginal women at one point or another are accused in the book of promiscuity; of sleeping with both Aboriginal and white men. One particular example is the character Polly. On page 10, Polly explains Aboriginal sexual ethics, if an aboriginal woman leaves her man and runs away with someone else, then her tribe will kill the man she ran away with. If she even looks at a white man, then her tea and meat will be poisoned so that she dies. The next page goes on to describe how she tricked her husband regarding one of her sons, “He caused her no worry after she managed to convince a somewhat dubious husband that her son’s extraordinary lightness of colour was due to a shortage in the charcoal supply at the time of his arrival. ‘S’posin’ me got plenty charcoal put ‘longa this piccaninny, ‘im go black then like ‘nother kids; only too late now”. So not only is Polly promiscuous, she is also hypocritical.

Myth #3 – Removal of Aboriginal Children is Good
Another theme of the book is that Aboriginals are bad parents and that the good of the children demands that the government remove the children from their families. Page 11 describes how Polly’s daughter was removed by the government. It starts by talking about how Polly hid Daffodil so that she would not be taken. “The ‘Government’ brought torches to seek her out, and old Polly fought for her young like a tigress at bay... But the white men had right on their side and were fired with the spirit of purpose. Daffodil must learn to read and write and sew fine seams with her slim brown fingers and learn the godlessness of her mother’s people. Later, if she wished, she could go back again, provided she kept away from the blacks’ camp and as much as possible from the old black mother who had fought so hard for her ignorance”. You almost cannot caricature the obscenity of this viewpoint!

What is the Truth?
The bible is clear in its teaching that all people are created by God in his image and so are of incredible value. When we feel or are taught that we are less than loved and valuable, it comes not from God but from the Devil. Obviously we are all fallen, and all fall short of the glory of God. However, this does not diminish our value. This is a state that is shared by all humans; there is no racial grouping that are more/less sinners than others. Jesus taught that we should be more worried about the plank in our own eye than the speck in our brothers. Yet the interface between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures in this country has been based on the unjust oppression of Aboriginal people, supported by the notion of white superiority.

The social basis of the kingdom of God is of a harmonious people brought together from disparate cultures around the one King Jesus Christ. This is displayed in the very throne room of God, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb… And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’" (Rev 7:9-10). What then should the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people look like? We are brothers and sisters, and one day we will join in one voice to worship our Lord and our God as one holy, equal and diverse people. This is how we should be beginning to live now.

Work & Calling (Kitty Cheng)

The Transforming Melbourne team was invited to participate in the Cre8 Kingdom Summit organised by Australian Marketplace Connection. Being part of the Cre8 team, I had the privilege of learning from the process of assisting to organise, as well as during the conference.

I was reminded that the Bible has a lot to say about work and business. Indeed, Jesus said, “do work / business till I come.” So how would Jesus have us, in the midst of our busy and often stressful work environments, rise up and bear fruit to our Father’s glory?

According to Dr Wynand J de Kock’s roundtable sharing “Vocation and Careers” during Cre8, many workers feel unfulfilled and frustrated in their work, including Christians. Work can be boring, mundane, stressful, and insignificant. Many do not see a bigger purpose for their work than simply earning money or meeting temporal needs of those served. While satisfying the needs of self and community are necessary, these purposes are ultimately unfulfilling if one does not sees a connection with God’s purposes.

For some, work feels a bit like the Egyptians must have felt when Pharaoh said, “let them collect their own straw but don’t reduce their quota of bricks.” This is not how work is meant to be. The Bible gives us an entirely different view of work – a realm where we can expect to see His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the way God intended work to be from the beginning of time – His children managing His creation in relationship with Him.

We should establish that our everyday business as a call from God for which He anoints us and equips us. God’s personal invitation for us to work on His agenda using the talents we’ve been given in ways that are eternally significant. (Thomas Addington and Stephen Graves, A Case for Calling).

The Church: A Broken Vessel To Be Loved ( By Andre Van Eymeren)

Amy, Josh and I have recently moved to the leafy, middle class suburb of Ringwood (Oh sorry – of course egalitarian society – there are no classes!). Only 20 minutes down the road, yet at times, it feels a world away from the multicultural Dandenong we have called home for the last 2 years. However, under the surface of our new community, there appears to be desperation. I saw this in the eyes of a mother with 3 kids in tow, at the end of our street. Something was going on in her life that had left her not only frustrated, but you could see in her eyes a massive pain and block, perhaps there is no word other than desperation.

This confirmed for me a vision I received the previous night… somewhat unsettling. My eyes well with tears and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the thought of it. I awoke to what I thought was a knocking and a cry, my first perception was that Joshua had got lost somewhere in the darkened ramble of our new house. But after startling him, as he slept safe in his bed, a vivid image came to me.

It was of a woman, broken, her brown, shoulder length, lightly curled hair was all dishevelled, her eyes were wild. She was running in a blind panic and knocking on our door. She was crying for help. The desperation was written all over her face. I hope I have captured some of the intensity of that moment. It was stark, it was startling, fleeting, yet has stayed with me over the last few days.

So what did the image mean? The house we have moved into is a DHS house, in which we will be caring for teenage foster kids. Sometime in its past it has been a refuge for women escaping domestic violence. There is a sense for me, that a spirit of desperation is over the house. We have been praying for God to turn that into a spirit of hope and new life… please pray with us.

On a deeper level, I believe God was showing me a picture of the church! Oh what a haunting image. His beloved bride, battered and bruised, hurt and desperate. Calling out for help. Don’t know about you, if a woman in that state turned up at my place, I would be overwhelmed with compassion, and I would want to do whatever it took, to see her begin to mend the desperation and come to a place of hope. I wouldn’t pay her out, I wouldn’t make fun of her, I wouldn’t be harsh with her. I would show her love, the restoring love of Christ. Yet I have not been that way with the church. I have criticised, I have chastised, I have made fun of, I have torn down…

What is needed is love and compassion. This is Jesus, beloved! Like the image of the woman coming for help, once the crisis has subsided, you would want to address issues in her life, but not with condemnation, with love and compassion. Gently peeling back one bandaid after another, to reveal yet another festering sore that needs the touch of the healer. Perhaps this is the heart attitude we need to have towards the church?

The story of Hosea and Gomer comes to mind. Hosea’s life became a prophetic message to the people of Israel. They were like an unfaithful bride, running around in a desperate effort to meet their needs for security, prosperity, fertility etc. It got to the point that God disowned his people (Hosea 1:8,9). Yet you see his heart for them coming through again and again. (11:8,9; 14:4-9) He can’t let them go, his love is too great, his compassion unfailing even in his anger.

So what are we to do? The church is broken, battered, bruised - desperate. Like Israel it has got there, through its own sin (which we are all a part of). But like Israel, God’s great love, even in his anger and hurt and disappointment, is calling the church back, with a promise of destiny, hope and new life. Instead of condemnation and frustration, could we be God’s instruments to call his bride back to him, to see it restored to the picture God has in his wallet?

The same morning that I saw the desperate woman, as I was travelling to the office, I saw a bridal boutique, and realised that’s what we’re preparing the church for - the great wedding feast. Will you join me, more will you join Jesus, in his task of calling and restoring his bride to be all that it can be?

Church Models for Missional Engagement (James Walker)

A Revolution
A revolution is taking place in both the theology and practice of the church as the twenty-first century begins. Statistics show that people are leaving the church at a rate of 4,500 per year from church attendance in Melbourne, and this probably reflects the case nation-wide. There are numerous Christians who “have come to the conviction that the institutional church as we know it today is ineffective” and the church must change its attitudes and practices to engage with the average Australian . Thus there are a number of different church models that are endeavouring to overcome to address these abysmal statistics.

Simple Church
The simple church model has been born out of a need and desire to redefine the nature and practice of church. It structures its life “around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth. The leadership and the church are clear about the process (clarity) and are committed to executing it. The process flows logically (movement) and is implemented in each areas of the church (alignment). The church abandons everything that is not in the process (focus)”. Furthermore, simple church defines itself as “a Christ-centered community established primarily on relationship both to God and to the other members of the group”. In doing so it discards many aspects of conventional expressions of church, which are considered beneficial by some, and problematic by others. The simple church model gives those in the movement the opportunity to focus on what it considers to be the core practices of Christian spirituality”.

Whilst there are a number of benefits of simple church there are also some negatives or dangers that exist. For example, simple church can simply be an idea that is not practiced by those promoting it; simple church becomes complex when denominations get hold of them. They can also become insular and isolated, similar to what can occur in house churches or small groups.

Multi-Site, Multi-Congregation Church
A multi-site church is where a church “meets in many locations…a multi-staffed church, meeting in multi-locations, offering multi-ministries, with a single idenity, single organisation, single purpose and single force of leadership”. These locations can vary from “different rooms on the same campus, different locations in the same-region, or in some instances, different cities, states or nations”.

A couple of strengths of a multi-site church. It firstly permits different sites to leverage all of the benefical ministries of the parent site such as childrens, small groups and teaching. This can be an advantange because new church plants typically do not have the resources to deliver these ministries at a high level from the start [6]. Another strength is what Dave Ferguson calls “Brand new and trust brand” which means the multi-site church has the benefit of “congregational loyalty” thus the particular congregation has a trusted brand (parent site), and another site in another location is brand new.

However multi-site church also has some disadvantages. The multi-site church can be a form of “Spiritual Colonization”. The senior pastor functions as the “virtual” bishop, the parent site as the head office and the sites as “affiliated members” [9]. This spiritual colonization can be true of many aspects of the services, such as “the message, the musical style and atmosphere”, taking away from contextuality of the individual congregation. According to White this “contradicts the biblical principle of congregational polity because the founding location sets the budget, hires the staff, and determines the membership”.

Missional Church
The missional church originates from the life of Jesus. The church defines itself around the principle of mission. Alan Hirsch says “when the church is in mission, it is true church…The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus”. Dan Guder believes mission is not a department of the church. The mission of God should define the church and its believers otherwise the “scope of the gospel and the mandate of the church” is unfulfilled [11].The missional church is applicable in a number of different contexts. For example, it “can go to the average non-Christian in our context, a person who has little real awareness of, or interest in, Christianity but is suspicious of the church. Connecting with these people can be carried out in the average café, local bar/pub or nightclub”.

The missional church also has some disavantages. Most missional churches in Australia thus far are only seem to be reaching the de-churched (those who have left the church to seek Christian life outside organized church structures) and not the non-churched (those who have never been part of a church community before beyond the occasional wedding, funeral and occasional Christmas and/or Easter service).

Though the missional church can endorse itself as the solution to advancing the kingdom, its techniques and appeal only impacts certain groups of people. In the missional church community there is a big focus on the arts and the same problems of exclusion can exist. The solution is not to expect everyone to fit into an artistic community mould, but network and rethink how to reach and connect with different interest groups such ministry to children and elderly.

Conclusion
Even though there is a move towards different models or expressions of being and doing the church, models such as simple and missional church will exist alongside multi-site, multi-congregation. Thus both will need to work together in partnership. However unless churches start to “think about Christianity apart from its institutional expression [then] the church culture [will] continue to decline”. So it is imperative that experiments such as simple and missional churches are explored and implemented to endeavour to connect with the average Australia then otherwise “in twenty years time the churches will be two-thirds of the size they are today, while Australia will have grown considerably larger”.