Marking 30Years of the Covenant

 - Rev Mark Kickett, Noongar man, National Chair, United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress 

On 10 July, the Uniting Church will mark 30 years since the signing of the Covenant statement between the United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) and the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). The anniversary marks an historic moment in the UCA’s journey of what it means to live as the body of Christ in these lands we now call Australia.  

In 1982, First Nations Christian leaders gathered at Crystal Creek, north of Townsville, to sing a ‘Black Congress’ into being. This First Peoples Movement within the Uniting Church was the genesis of the UAICC. The following year, a larger gathering of First Nations Christian leaders resolved to form the Congress. This occurred within a context where the 3rd Assembly had committed to boycott national bicentennial celebrations, planned for 1988, unless there was significant progress towards land rights for First Peoples.  Despite the ratification of Congress in 1985, in this year the Assembly reneged on their commitments around the bicentenary, causing significant hurt for First Peoples, who led protest rallies in 1988. The wounds of this period led to an increased need for repentance from the wider church and a mutual relationship of listening and respect between Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the church. 

It was in May 1988 when the 5th Assembly met that Rev Charles Harris and Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra with other UAICC leaders called for a Covenant to bind the UCA and the UAICC together in relationship under God. This was endorsed by the full Assembly by acclamation.  

The Covenant was signed 30 years ago, in 1994, at the 7th Assembly, by Pastor Bill Hollingsworth, UAICC Chairperson, and Dr Jill Tabart, President of the Uniting Church in Australia. This document was accompanied by an artwork depicting the Wukindi ceremony, which is intended to restore relationship and bring reconciliation after blood has been spilt. 

Dr Jill Tabart recalls this moment, “By 1994, National Leaders in Congress and the Assembly had reached the stage of agreeing to this Covenant commitment between UAICC and the Uniting Church. As President by that stage, I was deeply honoured to be representing the people of the Uniting Church in formally apologising for our former church’s actions in committing us to this new Covenant relationship, walking together into the future, and also in receiving the challenging response from the Chair of the UAICC to these statements. That was particularly poignant for me because the Chair at that stage was Pastor Bill Hollingsworth, who had been my chaplain and mentor during the 1994 Assembly meeting. Starting that commitment was a momentous occasion in the history of the Uniting Church.” 

The Covenant statement, as spoken by President Tabart at the Assembly meeting, reads: “Long before my people came to this land your people were here. You were nurtured by your traditions, by the land, and by the Mystery that surrounds us all and binds all creation together . . . I apologise on behalf of the Assembly for all those wrongs done knowingly or unknowingly to your people by the Church and seek your forgiveness." 

Pastor Bill Hollingsworth, Chairperson of the UAICC at the time of Covenanting in 1994, responded to Dr Tabart, "The UAICC believes it is just for the Uniting Church, as a result of its enlightened understanding of the Gospel implications of creating new community, to offer a practical response to the past history of dispossession and resulting disenfranchisement of Aboriginal and Islander people from their social, economic and spiritual development of Australia, by taking action to empower the UAICC ministry by offering to share the assets of the Uniting Church . . . Therefore it would be wrong to just say "I forgive", without reaching a commitment to work together to lay a new foundation upon which we may build a more just future together by ensuring that the Uniting Church plays an active role in providing adequate resources to address the present disadvantages caused by the past injustices and dispossession by the invasion of this country." 

The signing of the Covenant marked a new chapter in the relationship between First and Second Peoples within the Church.  

Another significant event occurred in 2009, with the adoption of the revised Preamble to the Constitution. The newly adopted wording of the Preamble affirmed that First Peoples had encountered the Creator God in these lands prior to the arrival of the colonisers. In 2024, we are also marking the 15th anniversary of this significant constitutional change. 

The Preamble resulted from the work of Congress, in collaboration with an Assembly Standing Committee working group. Its wording was assented to by Congress members shortly before the meeting of the 12th assembly. Not only did the adoption of the Preamble represent a significant event within the Covenant relationship between Congress and the UCA, it is also an important theological document. It is one of the key statements which uniquely embeds the UCA within its context as an Australian church, as the church is compelled to wrestle with its social and geographic location on sovereign Aboriginal land.  

Rev Chris Budden wrote about what the shift meant for the church: "While the existing Preamble speaks of what it means to be the Uniting Church, the new, proposed Preamble seeks to answer the question ‘what does it mean to be this Uniting Church in Australia?’ And while it is recognised that being in Australia implies many things, not the least being that we live in a multicultural society, this Preamble takes the position that the most significant and defining mark of what it means to be Australian is that we live on land that was and is Aboriginal land and that the critical relationship in this land is the relationship between First and Second peoples." 

15 years of Covenant relationship had passed between the signing of the Covenant and the revision of the Preamble; now a further 15 years has passed, during which the church continues to wrestle with what it means to live out the Covenant relationship. While the church has paved a path for wider Australian society, through Covenant, apologising to First Peoples and constitutional recognition, steps towards Voice, Treaties and truth-telling have thus far been thwarted at the national level. There remains progress towards justice to be made within the church as the Covenant relationship continues to be lived out into the future, beyond the first 30 years. 

Rev Mark Kickett reflects on his vision for justice in the church and in the nation: