A: “Was the fall in Genesis 3 a bad thing?”
B: “Yes, obviously. Adam and Eve sinned, and threw the world into disarray.”
A: “Would it be better if the fall had never happened?”
B: “Well-”
The second speaker, ‘B’, pauses on that question, because the answer is complicated. For an individual to look back at their record of wrongs and wish, for the sake of honouring God, that they had refrained from blatant sin, is an appropriate thing. However, B knows that God’s purposes have been served in what he has done since the fall, namely the victory of Christ over all things. Many feel like they would be offering tacit approval of sin and the fall to say that ‘it is good that that happened, so that Christ could come and demonstrate his glory and power in saving us’.
This author would encourage wisdom and a tongue that collects its thoughts before it speaks on any matter like this one. However, (and may we stand corrected if this is unwise), we are persuaded by the nature of the gospel’s redemptive work that we can love and treasure good things that have sin in their past.
Indeed, this author would have to discard many of his possessions and friends if he could only hold onto things and relationships that have not had the touch of sin in them. We truly believe that the final state will be superior to Eden, such that we will look back at all of the sin and suffering in redemptive history and boldly confess that it was God’s wisdom and kind intention that history should happen in such a manner, such that ultimately God’s purposes would be served: that all would bow their knee on the last day and see the fullness of his mercy, love, wrath, justice, knowledge, beauty, wisdom, eternity (etc).
Let’s bring this a bit closer to home, and reveal the reason for choosing this week of January to comment on these things. Soon it will be Australia Day. Those words mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, it is a proud and grateful day of loving a country that has welcomed them as foreigners and offered them (relative) political freedom and economic opportunity. To others, it is a day of barbeque, face paint, flag waving, beer and generally enjoying a public holiday. For others, it is a day of mourning the great loss of life and indigenous culture through warfare and ethnic animosity that marked the early years of the English presence here. For a final group, it is a day of virtue-signalling and high-horse riding; a day calling for an atonement that will never be satisfied, an endless and unpayable debt, credited to the nth generation.
It is this week in particular that we as a nation will have our annual discussion about ‘changing the date’. For those readers who don’t immediately know what that means, it is a slogan that represents the desire of many for Australia Day to be (a) celebrated on a different day, or (b) for a select few, the desire for the occasion itself not to be celebrated, but rather to be remembered in perpetuity as ‘Invasion Day’.
For many, the motivation for changing the date comes from good intentions, and the desire for true peace in our nation. Unfortunately, the genuine nature of these motivations does not determine whether or not the change will have the desired outcome. In short: just because your motivations are good doesn’t mean your solution will be. Consider this hypothetical situation: there is a national referendum, in which the majority of Australians vote to change the date to the 30th of January, and they do this because they hope that it will bring the catharsis and atonement necessary for the ethnic animosity in Australia to be dispelled. This author would find that to be a kind-hearted but naive move, since we as Christians know that sin goes deep, pain goes deep, and changing the calendar place of a feast day does not go deep enough to bring forgiveness and reconciliation.
Some would be happy to dispense with ‘Australia Day’ or have it celebrated on a different day because they are embarrassed to be Australian, feel no patriotism or love of nation, and feel like they carry guilt due to the sin that has been committed in the past. This is an attitude that this author has no patience for, especially if one is trusting in Christ. Not only does the Christian know that before the True Judge they do not inherit the sin of people entirely unrelated to them, who merely bore a similar skin colour, but they know that all of the sin for which they are actually responsible has been paid and settled at the cross. There is, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
If this kind of talk causes you to bristle, because you have become comfortable with categories of ‘white guilt’ or the need for ‘us settlers’ to ‘say sorry’, then you bristle because you are looking for justice in a system that has none to offer, only endless penitence and grovelling.
Now, briefly, some factors that might influence one’s preference the date of celebration:
- 26th January 1788 was the day that the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Cove, and the day that the Union Jack was raised. It marks a decisive moment in history, and might be considered more memorable and significant than other kinds of dates, such as the date a particular government was formed, or the date a particular piece of legislation was adopted. Some view this as a point for this date, others view it as a point against, for a number of reasons, including (a) its focus on European Australians in the nation’s formation and consequential overshadowing of the history of Indigenous Australians; (b) the arrival of the English being focalised as ‘Invasion’ rather than ‘Settlement’; even (c) the lack of connection that many modern Australians would feel to the English settlement (since many Australians have no English ancestors at all).
- January is a part of the Australian calendar that doesn’t already have a prominent holiday. This may sound trivial, but it would be a packed holiday season if we put it in November, say. This isn’t an argument for or against the 26th specifically, but this factor can be leveraged in support of a January date.
- 26th of January is the traditional date. Some will see this as a point for that date, appreciating and valuing its connection to history, and the fact that Australia Day has been celebrated on that date ever since the English arrived. Others will see this as a point against, perhaps arguing that a date that stands for genocide and destruction of culture is still being celebrated to this date.
There are many reasons you can find on other sites, if you so chose, for and against this date. That’s not the purpose of our list. Our purpose is to show that the 26th itself doesn’t have as much power as either side would hope. Keeping the date will not make the nation more patriotic, nor will changing the date bring the reconciliation that such large numbers of Australians desire.
Only the powerful grace that God has shown to the human race in the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of his Son can bring the ethnic reconciliation and friendship that we desire. Some of you will hear that as a tacky line, “don’t worry about politics and history, just tell them about Jesus!”
Such a response appreciates the complexity and emotional pungency of the Australia Day problem, but treats the reconciling gospel of Grace as a trite epithet. Perhaps the dissatisfied scowl on some faces is only there because the hearts behind them know that they have done little to leverage the powerful gospel of peace for the reconciliation they ostensibly desire.
No, we will not yet move on. Before the throne of the Lamb there will be all kinds of Englishmen (who are by no means one group who all like each other) and all kinds of Indigenous Australians (who also are by no means one group of people who like each other). They will all worship the same Middle-Eastern God–man, Christ Jesus. They will worship him through the same Spirit, in the same Baptism, through the same Faith, which was granted to them by the same God (see Eph 4). They will see the debt forgiven them by their father, and consider the debt that they owed one another to be a small thing in comparison. The Englishman will not approach his Wurundjeri brother in shame, but in the confidence of forgiveness and peace. Likewise, any woman of Kulin nation will not have to approach in shame a sister from a different Indigenous people group that her tribe was at war with (and be not mistaken, the Indigenous people groups were not all friends). No, the Greek and the Roman will embrace, so will the Palestinian and the Israeli, so will the Vietnamese and the American, the Uyghur and the Han Chinese, the Spanish and the South American, the Jew and the German.
One final time: ethnic animosity is only killed for good at the cross. Ethnic harmony is a product of the resurrection. You are working in vain if you seek to accomplish this reconciliation outside of the gospel. The schemes of man may pat it down, subdue it, assuage it with so many reparations and annual apologies, but it will still be there until it is crucified at calvary. The good news is that since Revelation teaches us of a Millennial period of great blessing, and since the Psalms tell us that Christ is putting all enemies under his feet, that there will be final and complete reconciliation for the Australian people groups in history. It will happen. We should be agents that help it come, and come quickly.
A final point of consideration is the reality that until the arrival of the English, the gospel of the Kingdom had not yet touched Australia. This is the baby that must not be thrown out with the bathwater. We ought to mourn the sinful actions of the English and Indigneous alike, but that ought not stop us from thanking God that he used this colonisation to bring the good news about Jesus to a people deeply entrenched in Animism. Consider this: None of the suffering that the English caused for the Indigenous people is worse than the suffering they will experience if they come before a Holy God without the blood of his Son. We ought to be honest and truthful about the immorality of the English, but so grateful that God used them to bring the gospel to a spiritually dead country. There is a time to mourn, and there is also a time to rejoice. Dear reader, this author thinks that the 26th of January ought to be both.
If you are a Christian whose heart breaks for the Indigeous, you mustn’t lay on the non-Indigenous a debt and burden that by God’s standards is not their to shoulder. If you are a Christian with little care at all for the plight of Indigenous Australians, you ought to ask God for forgiveness and repent of your hard-heartedness. We are agents of justice, and injustice should not leave us with mild feelings of things being quite alright. If you are a non-Christian, we exhort you to come to Jesus and find in him forgiveness for the sins that you have personally committed, which are the ones you ought to be concerned about most.
With those things established, may we Advance Australia Fair, Faithful and Free.
Distilled Orthopraxy 