Rev Dr Garry Worete Deverell published an opinion article on ABC Religion & Ethics on 2 May 2024.
Full disclosure: I’m a trawlwoolway man from northern lutruwita/Tasmania who also happens to be an Anglican priest and theologian. That means that I came to hearing at the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria on Wednesday, 1 May 2024, with a certain amount of baggage — namely, a long experience of ecclesiastical handwringing over their brutal history with Aboriginal people, my people.
That history, it seems, is not in dispute. Not, at least, by protestants. The Anglican and Uniting Church leaders who gave evidence at the commission — Bishops Genieve Blackwell and Richard Treloar, along with Moderator David Fotheringham — agreed that their churches had willingly participated in the genocidal work of the state in the “missions”, “protection”, and “assimilation” eras of the colonial project. This work included the forced dislocation of mob from our lands, cultures, and spiritualities, as well as the removal of our children and their use as indentured labour. At the same time, with the enabling cooperation of both the state and the Christian squatocracy, the churches received large grants of land stolen from Aboriginal nations.
The church leaders acknowledged that the consequences of this history for contemporary Aboriginal people were catastrophic across every social indicator of health and wellbeing…
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Reverend Dr Garry Deverell is a trawloolway man and a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the School of Indigenous Studies in the University of Divinity. From 2019, Garry chaired the working group that conceived the model for the School and brought it into being. Garry is a theologian of liturgy and sacraments, of Christian community, and of Indigenous experience in the colonised world. He is the author of Gondwana Theology (2018) and The Bonds of Freedom (2008) as well as multiple journal articles and book chapters.
School of Indigenous Studies
Keith Mitchell
University of Divinity
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