Black Lives Matter and its implications for our Australian context

On Sunday 24 January 2021, Rev Dr Garry Deverell (Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow in Indigenous Theology at the University of Divinity) was an invited guest on the Black Lives Matter Webinar.

Part of an ongoing webinar series inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and sponsored by the Uniting Church Chaplaincy at Charles Sturt University, this conversation ranges across responses to the celebration of ‘Australia Day’ in First Nations, multicultural and Anglo communities and touches on the inauguration of President Biden, the state of discourse about race in Australia, intersections with climate justice, notions of ‘care’ inspired by the commandment to love our neighbours, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Our BLM webinar this first month of 2021 is particularly significant given the fact that Sunday 24 January is celebrated by some churches in the country as Aboriginal Sunday. This is an opportune moment for Australian Christians to stand in solidarity with many of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters for whom Australia Day on 26 January is not a day of celebration but rather one filled with painful reminders of the devastation, loss and their continuing subjugation since the invasion and colonisation of their country and land. In addition, the recent insurrection in the United States Capitol committed by Trump supporters, many of them known white supremacists, is a stark reminder that the concerns of the BLM movement can never be overestimated and that our webinar continues to be relevant and necessary”.
– Rev Dr Katalina Tahaafe-Williams

Panellists

• Rev Dr Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, theologian and minister of Nightcliff Uniting Church in Darwin
• Rev Liam Miller, theologian and minister of Toukley Uniting Church, NSW (UD graduate)
• Emma Jackson, PhD candidate in psychology at Macquarie University and Uniting Church activist
• Rev Tau’alofa Anga’aelangi, spiritual advisor and Uniting Church chaplain, Charles Sturt University in Port Macquarie
• Rev Dr Garry Deverell, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow in Indigenous Theologies, University of Divinity, and Anglican priest

Watch the webinar replay

Skip to 10 mins 30 seconds for the start of the webinar.