In 1938, as Australia celebrated the sesquicentenary of European settlement, Cooper and other Aboriginal leaders resolved to hold a Day of Mourning to acknowledge the suffering of Indigenous people since settlement.

Monash University has described William Cooper as a man with “a prophetic sense of history” due to the influence of his missionary mentor, Daniel Matthews:

This envisaged a relationship between past, present and future as a long trajectory marked by epochs and days – of Judgement and Restitution, of Mourning and Hope – at the end of which there would surely be deliverance for Aboriginal people from the suffering they had experienced since the coming of the white man.

Cooper was eager to attract the support of the Christian churches and wrote to the National Missionary Council in December 1937, saying:

We now ask all Christian denominations to observe Sunday 23rd January as ‘Aborigines Day’ [sic]. We request that sermons be preached on this day dealing with aboriginal people and their need of the gospel and response to it and we ask that special prayer be invoked for all missionary and other efforts for the uplift of the dark people [sic].

The Day of Mourning was observed until 1956, when the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee was formed and the second Sunday in July became a day of remembrance for Aboriginal people and their culture – not only a day of protest. In 1991, recognition of Torres Strait and Islander culture was included and NADOC became NAIDOC, and the celebration was expanded to a week.

At its meeting in 2023, Synod encouraged all parishes to be better informed about the Indigenous history of their area, and to find ways to prayerfully and practically partner with Indigenous ministries in the Diocese. In response, I also established a small group of people to work towards a process for hearing the stories of God’s work among and through Indigenous people in our Diocese.

The Indigenous History Project seeks to accomplish two things over the next few years. First, to provide a forum for Indigenous people to tell their stories, including their experience of engagement with the Sydney Anglican Church and, second, to commission more formal written reflection on this part of our history.

In the words of our diocesan Director of Indigenous Ministries, the Rev Michael Duckett, in the midst of the grief with which Indigenous communities typically live we want “to trace the hand of God’s grace”.

Recently, I had the privilege of spending a day with a small group of Sydney Anglican Indigenous brothers and sisters, in Glebe. As longstanding servants of the Lord shared the story of their lives and ministries, I was struck by several things that I had not previously appreciated.

The policy of removing children from their families and communities (the Stolen Generations) continues to have a pervasive impact on Indigenous communities. Not only those who were themselves removed (of whom many are still living, and members of our churches) but their children, grandchildren and extended family live with the pain of not knowing who and where their family are, and where they themselves fit in and belong – or where they are from.

Indigenous culture typically puts great emphasis on family, or “kinship” networks. So in this cultural context, the grief and loss that has resulted from forced removal and displacement is magnified.

Nevertheless, so many of our Indigenous brothers and sisters humbly and confidently give thanks to God for his sustaining, protection and provision amid trauma and injustice. I was inspired and humbled by the endurance, perseverance, forgiveness, trust, humour and hope in God that was expressed by Indigenous speakers from three different generations. There was not a hint of self-pity.

I was convicted that our Indigenous brothers and sisters have a just claim as members of Christ’s family to be heard, respected and valued. This should be the shape of all relationships in church, yet the experience of Indigenous people has often been different.

I remember the shock of hearing of one aunty (still living) who, as a child, along with her family, was compelled to have church outside on the lawn because the church building was for white people. I am sure everyone reading this will be dismayed to hear it, but I suspect that few of us would ever guess that such things took place in Sydney Anglican churches so recently.

By God’s grace, and the labour of many European and Indigenous pastors and leaders, the church of Christ has been planted among Australia’s Indigenous people, and God has raised up godly and faithful leaders from among them.

Will you join me in praying that the Lord would raise up many more Indigenous men and women to serve him in Sydney, among the largest Indigenous population in Australia? And will you pray that we will hear and honour this part of our history with equal measures of humility, repentance and hope as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples meet at the foot of the Cross of Christ, where the Lord has broken down the dividing wall of hostility so as to make peace, creating “one new humanity out of the two”.