Northey Lecture – ‘Providence and possession’ by Laura Rademaker

Providence and possession: how colonial concepts of religion explained away a genocide

When settlers came to Australia, many believed in a God-given duty to “fill'” and “subdue the earth” through agriculture and the supposed failure of First Nations people to do this. But the colonists also drew on other religious and biblical ideas to frame themselves in relation to First Nations people. This lecture will trace the ways that First Nations people’s supposed “forgetting” of true religion was used to excuse the rapid First Nations population decline, and the implications of this history for us today.

Join us for this lecture by Laura Rademaker, with Acknowledgement of Country and poetry reading by Alison Overeem (Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Tasmania).

This lecture will also be part of the Pilgrim unit, Respecting Country: Deep history, the colonies and the church