T he event of the Summer for Common Theology’s constituency was, arguably, the Federal Parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations of the Aboriginal people of Australia.
Church leaders’ responses to the apology were surprisingly muted, guarded, almost grudging. It was as if church leaders had been arguing the social justice corner for so long they had forgotten how to make a pastoral response to what was quintessentially a pastoral situation.
A later, more considered response is in this edition’s Home Truths, from Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall.
A review in these pages of the autobiography of that most gracious of plaintiffs, Aboriginal Elder Uncle Bob Randall of Uluru, puts the apology into a personal perspective.
On Wednesday 13 February, in Canberra but broadcast throughout Australia, the words of the apology itself had a liturgical rhythm; the faces of speakers and hearers wore a gravitas rarely seen in Australian parliamentary life. Bob Randall pointed out that by the simple protocol of a smoking ceremony admitting the Parliament to the land for the first time, the colonisers had now become guests of the original owners.
In Eye Witness, Bernard Spong, an old campaigner against apartheid, pens a salutary reminder that the process of reconciliation has only just begun, with an update on what is happening in South Africa.
This edition begins with a reflection on food from the veteran essayist Kendall Berry. Moves are afoot to reunite our alienated senses to a more holistic pilgrimage in the world.An important study of the senses in a theological context,T J Gorringe’s The Education of Desire, reintroduces us to the foundations of our life in the world, and is reviewed in this edition.
This year looks set to focus on mulit-faith issues and the threats of religious fundamentalism. A short piece from Jeff Sparrow marks the mooted discovery in March of the gravesite of Ned Kelly -that most famously executed Australian terrorist of the 1870s.
Maggie Helass