Re: BHA: On spirituality, the Church and Indigenous Australians

[Hockeys <limhockey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all

I reply to this as the 'white' student Gary referred to. First of all I
must say that I'm really enjoying reading everyone's contributions to
the list. And I look forward to any replies to this topic. My hope is
that there will be some who will continue to unpeel the layers of
Christian influence and colonisation that have impacted our world for
two millenia. But as I wrote to Gary today, "... one point that many
people seem to find difficulty in grasping is that within my journey so
far, there has been a steady growth in understanding of the colonising
impact of Christianity within my own heritage. My resistance to
colonisation is first, within my own being and then within the contexts
of my life. I was shocked (shouldn't have been) to see once again the
assumption from a few people present, that because I am perceived as
'white'(??!!), I am therefore an anglo-saxon christian with all that
that is seen to entail. Yet from my Jewish perspective (and that of many
radical followers of Yeshua the Jew), Christianity is indeed the
anti-Christ."

Must go for now.

Neil Hockey

Gary MacLennan wrote:
>
> I am hoping to be able to persuade some of my graduate students to make the
> trip to Bradford. I think that two of them are currently doing interesting
> work around the question of Aboriginality and Emancipation.  One of the
> candidates is white while the other is an Aborigine.
>
> Central to both theses is the matter of spirituality.  How though can this
> be understood?  For one of the candidates his spirituality comes I think
> out of his Christianity. In my own case how do I relate to this? Well I
> have been a militant atheist who has grown to detest the aggressive
> secularism, which so dominates our epoch and I urged him to come out as a
> Christian in his thesis writing. People have a right to be religious. There
> I said it!
>
> However for Aborigines the Christian Church represents something else -
> something not very good either. So I think for this candidate the task is
> to find a way of formulating the spiritual turn which disassociates it from
> the organised religions through an uncompromising commitment to the
> eudaionistic society.   The kingdom of god must be located here on earth.
>
> What of the other candidate?  I have mentioned him in an earlier post.  His
> is a struggle from within the Aboriginal community.  He is striving to work
> with progressive sectors of the state bureaucracy to bring about a rebirth
> in Aboriginal education.  For him the key is the construction of an
> Aboriginal identity that is empowering. Much to think about here. Not the
> least this which I snipped from Mervyn's post
>
>  >"the identity of identity and non-identity"
>  >(Hegel) versus "the non-identity of identity and non-identity" (Adorno).
>
> regards
>
> Gary
>
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