The black path to Jesus: the Christian appropriation of Aboriginal culture

Abstract

A portrayal of settler Australians as a spiritually bereft people alienated both from themselves and from the land they inhabit has become commonplace. Our dwelling in the littoral regions has been turned into a metaphor which tells of our own superficiality and fear or absence of an interior life. The production of this Australian self creates an alleged need within the individual and the opportunity for advocacy on how to fill the void and heal the divided self. The correlation drawn between alienation from landscape and self has provoked the idea that through finding and embracing the spirit of place enjoyed by Aborigines, the spiritual pith of settler Australians will also be revealed. This paper examines how these issues manifest in Christian inspired discourse. It also discusses the extent to which this discourse contributes to the notion of Aborigines being from and of the past.