Bishop - Post Referendum Remarks
The last few months have been very intense as we have headed to the referendum vote, and now the vote is over and the answer is in.
I know that in our churches and maybe in our families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and networks, there has been a lot of divided opinion. Social media platforms have reinforced the differences. This morning many people are very relieved and many people are bitterly disappointed.
There are a number of things, three for now, that I want to highlight for us as Christians in this Diocese.
1) a lot of the media commentary has been very unkind to the views it disagreed with. There may have been respectful debate in some places, but I wouldn’t say respectful debate has been the norm. As Christians, God calls us to treat everybody with gentleness and respect. I am assuming that people who voted differently from me (at least some of them) did so after careful thought and consideration, not because they were bowled over by campaign slogans or were complete idiots, or were bad, selfish or frightened. A major task ahead of us now is to see if we can be part of rebuilding towards unity in our nation, and on a local scale in our other groups, including our churches. I hope that if we were in the majority vote, we won’t be arrogant or rude or dismissive; and that if we were in the minority vote, that we won’t be hurtful to others, despairing or hateful. I would love it if our churches could be models of how people can stand together despite their many differences.
2) Christians know that God cares for those who are oppressed, who suffer, who are marginalised, who are at the bottom of the heap. And in Australia, Aboriginal people are a disproportionately large group in that situation, particularly in the Territory. Now that the vote is finished, we can get on with our normal work of doing all we can to show love for our neighbours and act in ways that will bless them. That will include praying for them, helping our congregations to always remember that we are one family together whatever our background, doing what we can to be informed about current situations and to be careful in our speaking and acting to honour all people. The Voice is or was just one way for Australia to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and from my point of view one that would be pretty distant from most of our day-to-day lives. But there are opportunities in all of our communities to encourage listening to and hearing the voice of local Aboriginal people, what they see as the biggest challenges facing them, and what they would like to see happen.
3) In our own Diocese, Aboriginal people are such a treasured part of our family. We have our own Voice group (WALK – wed/ayakwa/lhaawu/kunwok – the word in our four major diocesan Aboriginal languages for word or story), we have Nungalinya College as a training and encouragement place for church people from many communities across the Territory including Anglicans, we have many ministries that seek to help Aboriginal people in various kinds of trouble – sickness, old age, young families, poverty, prison, hunger. Almost all of our ‘mainstream’ parishes have Aboriginal people attending in big or small numbers. At events that bring us together across our language and culture boundaries, like synod, ordinations, clergy conferences and other events, it is so clear that we already have these beautiful family relationships in place. I hope that we will keep praying for and seeking to encourage Aboriginal people in the Territory, as we seek to encourage everybody in the Territory regardless of their background, to know above everything else that God loves them, that God has acted for them, that they have the enormous dignity of being made in God’s image, that in the age to come there will be complete repair and renewal of this world that God has made; and that God’s family in Jesus will be done with death and sickness and sin, with everything that breaks us, and will be part of God’s eternal life. Whatever we are feeling today about the referendum result, that remains true, and is a stronger foundation than anything else that we can do or that government and others can do. Jesus said, “let your light so shine that people may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven”.