Garry Worete Deverell

In this brief volume Garry wrestles with questions Indigenous Christians everywhere regularly confront. As have others before him he asks, "How does an Indigenous person authentically make the faith that has been used as a means of oppression of him and his people, the ultimate source of his liberation from that oppression?" "Furthermore," he inquires, "how can he challenge the White Christian world that has all but subsumed his and his people's lives in theirs, with the need for reconciliation and change of heart, if their own hearts continue to harbour only bitterness, resentment, and anger?" The key concern is, of course, "What will it require of each of us to live together well in the land?" Personal story, embedded with pointed inquiry, and a spiritual pleading for transformation, invites the reader to consider her own way of faith and her own journey toward wholeness. Enjoy in these pages, a work of heart and soul seeking the good way. Dr Terry LeBlanc North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies In this compelling work, Garry Deverell ofters a remarkable synthesis of autobiographical reflections, theological analysis and liturgical creativity. Putting aside theoretical jargon and conventional God-talk, we encounter here an Aboriginal voice that none of the churches in Australia can afford to ignore. This is a book that all Australian Christians need to read Professor Mark Brett Whitley College

In this brief volume Garry wrestles with questions Indigenous Christians everywhere regularly confront. As have others before him he asks, "How does an Indigenous person authentically make the faith that has been used as a means of oppression of him and his people, the ultimate source of his liberation from that oppression?" "Furthermore," he inquires, "how can he challenge the White Christian world that has all but subsumed his and his people's lives in theirs, with the need for reconciliation and change of heart, if their own hearts continue to harbour only bitterness, resentment, and anger?" The key concern is, of course, "What will it require of each of us to live together well in the land?" Personal story, embedded with pointed inquiry, and a spiritual pleading for transformation, invites the reader to consider her own way of faith and her own journey toward wholeness. Enjoy in these pages, a work of heart and soul seeking the good way. Dr Terry LeBlanc North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies In this compelling work, Garry Deverell ofters a remarkable synthesis of autobiographical reflections, theological analysis and liturgical creativity. Putting aside theoretical jargon and conventional God-talk, we encounter here an Aboriginal voice that none of the churches in Australia can afford to ignore. This is a book that all Australian Christians need to read Professor Mark Brett Whitley College

Contemplating Country picks up where Gondwana Theology (2018) left off. It extends and deepens the ways in which Aboriginal spirituality and Christian theology may talk to each other. Employing the image of conversation around a campfire, Contemplating Country invites the reader to consider the ways in which Christian theology, community, and practice may be transformed through a deep and profound encounter with Aboriginal ways of seeing, knowing, and doing. Such transformation is necessary, according to this author, if Christianity is ever to leave behind its Eurocentric habits and truly arrive in the sovereign and unceded country of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.

Contemplating Country picks up where Gondwana Theology (2018) left off. It extends and deepens the ways in which Aboriginal spirituality and Christian theology may talk to each other. Employing the image of conversation around a campfire, Contemplating Country invites the reader to consider the ways in which Christian theology, community, and practice may be transformed through a deep and profound encounter with Aboriginal ways of seeing, knowing, and doing. Such transformation is necessary, according to this author, if Christianity is ever to leave behind its Eurocentric habits and truly arrive in the sovereign and unceded country of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.

This book proposes that Christian worship is a key source for any theology seeking to understand the covenant between God and human beings in the Christian tradition. Through a detailed examination of phenomenological, biblical and theological sources, the author seeks to write a theology in which the selfhood of both God and human beings is seen as essentially 'vowed' or 'covenantal.' This claim is then explored through a detailed examination of Eucharistic worship, which is understood as a 'non-identical performance' of the covenant established between God and human beings in baptism. Here, then, is a theology that understands Christian worship not simply as 'form' or 'event' but, more radically, as a mutual act of promising and commitment between God and human beings.