Essentials
Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism
- Written by: Peter Corney
Peter Corney builds on some of the insights in Peter Sutton’s book (reviewed last issue by Joy Sandefur), critiques the cultural relativism of our society, and suggests ways in which Christianity challenges it.
A couple of years ago I read the most profoundly disturbing book that I have read for a long time: ThePolitics of Suffering:Indigenous Australia and the end of the Liberal Consensus, written by Peter Sutton, one of Australia’s leading anthropologists and an expert on Aboriginal culture. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try and understand why the results of our public policy on indigenous affairs have become such a tragic mess.
Peter Sutton speaks from the inside and he cares passionately about Aboriginal people, but he is deeply critical of the failure of many of our policies since the 1970s. One of the reasons he states has been the unwillingness to name and tackle a number of very negative practices and values embedded in Aboriginal culture that have been exacerbated by colonial conquest. One of the reasons for this is the influence of a romantic view of indigenous cultures that took hold in the early 1970s and the pressure of political correctness that protected it from any critique and has allowed it to go unchallenged until recently. This view is an example of ‘cultural relativism’.1
This raised a bigger issue for me and that is the wider influence of ‘cultural relativism’ today on Western culture generally.
Read more: Christianity’s Radical Challenge to Cultural Relativism
Essentials online
- Written by: Chris Appleby
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Essentials 2014
- Written by: Chris Appleby
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Essentials Autumn 2014
- Written by: Chris Appleby
Essentials Autumn 2014
Another Reason to Keep on Preaching the Scriptures
- Written by: Steven Daly
Book Review by Steven Daly
Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization . Thomas Nelson 2011. ISBN 9781595555458
The Book That Made Your World is a thoroughly enjoyable, thoroughly un-put-downable, thoroughly encouraging look at what makes Western civilization so very different to all the others.
Vishal’s purpose is not to uphold Western civilization as faultless or the model to be emulated. He is nevertheless crystal clear that our Western European intellectual-social-political heritage carries with it some astonishing advantages when compared to any other historical civilization or human culture; and that these advantages are all plainly the inheritance of generations of people who have taken the Bible seriously.
Read more: Another Reason to Keep on Preaching the Scriptures
Some other books on Indigenous life and ministry
- Written by: Dale Appleby
Four books that connect with Peer Sutton’s Politics of Suffering.
Diane Austin-Broos, A Different Inequality. The Politics of Debate About Remote Aboriginal Australia. Allen Unwin 2011 ISBN 9781742370491
Professor Emeritus in the Dept of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, Diane Austin-Broos brings perspectives from central Australia that reinforce the kind of concerns expressed by Peter Sutton.
Marcia Langton, Boyer Lectures 2012: The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the
Resources Boom. Harper Collins 2012. ISBN 9780733331633. Also available as podcasts from the ABC. Terrific set of lectures.
Noel Pearson, Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia. The Quarterly Essay 2009. ISBN 9781863954440.
Here is a radical rethink about education, especially as it applies to indigenous communities, from one of Australia’s leading intellectuals.
Noel Pearson, Up from the Mission. Black Inc 2011. ISBN: 9781863955201
Biography and essays including essays on the apology, welfare dependency, politics, alcoholism and more.
Three books that connect with the story of Gumbuli.
Gumbuli of Ngukurr
- Written by: Joy Sandefur
Book review: Joy Sandefur
Gumbuli of Ngukurr. Aboriginal elder in Arnhem Land. By Murray Seiffert Australian Christian Book of the year 2012. Published by Acorn press. 414pp. ISBN 9780987132925
I warmly commend this biography of Rev Gumbuli Wurramara, AM, of Ngukurr. I first met Gumbuli in 1976 when I went to live at Ngukurr and work in what was to become the Kriol Bible Translation Project. He has remained a significant figure in my life ever since. I was delighted and surprised when he made the trip to Darwin to present me at my ordination as a priest in 2006.
This warmly written biography gives an insight into his life moving from his childhood on remote islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria to his move to Ngukurr in South East Arnhem Land as a young man, his later significant contribution to the Anglican Church in the Northern Territory and his leadership in the community at Ngukurr.
Have you ever wondered how the gospel came to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory? Why were missions established? Is it true that the missionaries destroyed the local culture and language? What was the reason for the missions to be handed over to the Government? How did the Indigenous churches and clergy emerge? What are the reasons for today’s high unemployment rates, passive welfare, high death rates and other social problems? This carefully researched biography of Gumbuli Wurramara will give you some insight into these issues as the story unfolds.