For Christians, too, the issue of land can be hard to grasp. Our spiritual identity is rooted in a person, not a place. We follow a king whose kingdom is not of this world. Our citizenship is in heaven, rather than an earthly promised land. This side of the cross, ours can seem a pretty placeless faith.
Still, the gospel of Jesus enables us to engage with the issue of land in several positive ways. It enables us, as people who know both the seriousness of sin and the freedom of forgiveness, to acknowledge the terrible wrong done to Aboriginal people and repent of our part in it. It allows us to admit our failures as stewards of creation and seek God’s help in living more responsibly. And it frees us to let go of the Great Australian Dream and leave our culture of land greed. Christians don’t need to feel the kind of anger and anxiety that made Pauline Hanson ask, ‘well, where the hell do I go’ if this land belongs to the Aborigines? The good news of Jesus means we can entrust ourselves to the God of love and grace, confident that he will meet our needs. We can get on with loving our neighbours - those people we encounter in all the various places and locations in which we go about our activities.
[here endeth the series]
Pic: Morrisons bushwalking in the Snowies [JM]
3 comments:
Thanks, Meredith!
Just a small point. Jesus said, "my kingdom is not from this world", rather than "not of this world", in Greek, it is the preposition apo, denoting origin or source, rather than a genitive that could be taken to mean extent. That is, Jesus is not claiming that his rule does not extend over "this world", simply that its legitimacy and authority is not derived from here or us, but from God.
Similarly, I would argue that being "citizens of heaven" speaks to the origin and source of our loyalties, rather than the direction towards which they send us.
Neither of these points undermine your point here, though: that land is not the principle lens of Christian faith and those who seek first the kingdom need have no anxiety about what we will eat or wear, or where we will live.
That said, one question I'm mulling a little at the moment is whether place can be a legitimate secondary loyalty within our overarching and all-encompassing loyalty to Christ. I'm reading Soil and Soul by Alastair McIntosh, an account of his campaigns for land reform in Scotland, motivated both by some kind of Christian faith (I'm still trying to get where he's coming from theologically) and by the rootedness of his family and upbringing in a particular place (in this case, the Hebrides).
Thanks Byron. I'm not actually sure that Christianity is in fact a 'placeless faith' - i just wanted to indicate that it can very easily seem like one. I don't think land can matter to people post-Jesus in the way it did to biblical Israel, but we would be equally in error, i tihnk, to onclude that christianity is entirely other worldly.
BTW, have you read the article by
O'Donovan on 'A Loss of a Sense of Place'? Its in a collection of essays by him and his wife... not sure of all the details of hand though.
But his suggestion is partly that the concept of 'neighbour' helps and perhaps even demands that Christians think and act locally, with a sense of place.
Yes, you did say that Christianity can seem a pretty placeless faith.
I've seen the O'Donovan piece (though haven't read it for a long time) and it was part of why I spoke up. I probably should go back and look at it again.
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