Christina كريستينا (Taylor's Version)’s Reviews > Rainbow Spirit theology: Towards an Australian aboriginal theology > Status Update

“There is certainly only one Christianity - one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism - but there is equally many cultural expressions of one Faith, many variants of Christian theology.”

“God’s love and renewal comes to us in the midst of our suffering and the suffering of the land, and then brings the whole creation to a new liberation in Christ. ... The whole creation: people, animals, trees, the land and the seas, the spiritual realm - all will experience a new birth.”

“The narrow theologies which restrict God’s interest and salvation to individual humans do not help us. But Paul in chapter 8 of Romans helps us to see that we, as well as the land, are under the bondage of sin and suffering. Paul also affirms that the land aches for salvation and freedoms, just as we do.”

- The Creator Spirit belongs to our country. For us, Christ is not European but one of our own, from our land, and present whenever our people are struggling, sick or suffering.”

“What the Creator Spirit was doing in Jesus Christ was becoming fully one with us. The Creator Spirit hunts with us, shares our food, camps with us, speaks our languages, dances our ceremonies and sleeps by our fires. This Christ is not a foreigner but an Aboriginal person like us. -

“... the early church ultimately decided that Christ set people free from these Jewish cultural trappings (Acts 15). The Gospel made people free to be themselves and worship Christ in the terms of their own culture. We Aboriginal Christians claim this same freedom in Christ. We do not have to become European before we can become Christian.”

“Our missionaries did not acknowledge that the Gospel writers and missionaries in the New Testament, such as John and Paul, we’re keen to present Christ in a way that was appropriate to the culture of the people to whom they were speaking.”

“We believe... that Christ frees us to return to our culture, our stories, our Creator Spirit. ... We believe that we are now empowered by the suffering and resurrection of Christ to discern Christ’s presence in our culture and the presence of the Creator Spirit in our land. We believe we are free in Christ to proclaim Christ in terms of our own culture.”

“Christ strengthens us Aboriginal people to confront the Western-orientated church with the cry of God’s people throughout history: ‘Let my people go!’ Reconciliation between peoples is only possible when people are free and equal.”

“For the work of reconciliation in Christ to be effective, the Christian churches in Australia need to acknowledge the crimes committed against Aboriginal people, their culture and their land; seek reconciliation; and work with Aboriginal people in their struggles for justice. ... The non-indigenous people in this country, including Christians, are heirs to these evils.”