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“Me and God, We’d Be Mates”: Toward an Aussie Contextualized Gospel Robert L. Gallagher ith boyish optimism and laconic wit, Paul Hogan Separation of Church and Culture Wswaggers through the Australian film Crocodile Dundee in good-humored naïveté.1 In many ways, his behavior and There is no simple way to remedy the decreasing percentage of worldview typify the self-perception of contemporary Austra- Australians attending church. Some church leaders have looked lians. In fact, one specific scene in the movie may hold the key to to society and found reasons for the decline in secular humanism, unlocking the Australian heart toward God. When questioned as urbanization, and the increasing power of the state over the to whether he was afraid of death, Crocodile Dundee confidently church.6 Regrettably, few investigators have looked within the declared, “Nah. I read the Bible once. You know, God and Jesus church itself to find the solution. I believe that one of the church’s and all them apostles. They were all fishermen, just like me. Yep. main challenges is the cultural divide between itself and the Straight to heaven for Mick Dundee. Yep. Me and God, we’d be community it desires to serve. Too many churches do not include mates.” This mythology of mateship demonstrates a theological essential cultural concerns in their Christian faith. Church life, paradigm whereby the Gospel might be presented and received though, must be grounded in the experiences, attitudes, and by a present-day Aussie society in spiritual decline.2 reflections of its people if they are going to embrace the church. A marked decline in church attendance in Australia over the By bridging this divide, the church might see a reversal of present last fifty years has been confirmed in an analysis done by Peter trends. Religion in Australia needs an Aussie accent, that is, an Kaldor and associates in Winds of Change.3 Although the number approach that presents a contextualized Gospel in harmony with of unchurched people had increased, the majority of Australians the cultural elements.7 still saw themselves as religious.4 Reasons for nonparticipation Trying, instead, to duplicate the church life of another coun- in church life were unrelated to beliefs or religious experience but try shows a lack of understanding for the need to plant the Gospel pointed instead to the nature of the churches as institutions.5 story in Australian soil. Unfortunately, the majority of Christian Perhaps by understanding the reason behind this lack of re- traditions that have been brought to Australia from other coun- sponse, the Christian church might relate better to the Australian tries have been modified only slightly, if at all, to fit the Austra- population. lian context. Therefore, the Gospel has largely been received as a foreign message packaged in imported forms that appear to Robert L. Gallagher is Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies at Wheaton show little concern for reflecting the specific nature of the Austra- 8 College Graduate School, Wheaton, Illinois. He served as a pastor and executive lian community. The unique characteristics that Australian pastor in Australia (1979–90) and has been involved on a short-term basis in culture has developed as its own have little connection with the theological education in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific since 1984. personality of Australian Christianity.9 July 2006 127 European expressions of worship have dictated the struc- secret aspirations were all a part of having a special “mate.” Even ture of the Australian church service throughout its history. when wronged, mates would be prepared to make almost any Much like the European landscape, these forms have a sense of sacrifice to help one another. By the 1880s the myth of mateship composed restraint and elegance, an ordered formality through had become a powerful institution, and it was further implanted practice and experience, as well as a balanced beauty in architec- in the Australian tradition by the country’s involvement in two ture—forms that are completely alien to the Australian bush.10 world wars. Australians characteristically yearn for an expression of worship In 1915 the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps that harmonizes with the spirit of the land and its people. An (ANZAC) was defeated in a bloody battle against the Turkish authentically Australian liturgy would value freedom, irregular- army at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. The ity, and informality, as well as a celebration of earthiness, wide- Australian legend of mateship was propelled into the twentieth open spaces, creative energy, and rugged beauty. century because of the courage and sacrifice that the young The Australian church has made little or no attempt at diggers displayed in such difficult circumstances.15 Of all the embracing the myth that makes the Australian national identity stories passed down from this time, the one with the most unique. Like that of any people group, the Australian ethos has continuing power is that of the work of Private John Simpson sprung from its own unique history, in which the convict work- Kirkpatrick, a twenty-two-year-old medical orderly who carried ing class was responsible for the shaping of much of the culture. his wounded comrades to safety on the back of a donkey at great personal risk. He was killed within the first four weeks of the long campaign, but the sacrifice of this common soldier for his mates will always live in Australian history and touch the hearts of the The song “My Religion” 16 suggested that mateship had Australian people. become a deliberate Religion of Mateship substitute for religion. The 1905 bush song “My Religion” expressed an attitude toward organized religion that had prevailed in Australia since the beginning of penal settlement.17 The song suggested that mate- Vance Palmer explained the need to incorporate Australian myth ship had become a deliberate substitute for religion. A number of in Australian Christianity: “Men cannot feel really at home in any prominent historians have noted this idea that mateship became environment until they have transformed the natural shapes a replacement for God.18 Allan Grocott states, “The typical bush- around them by infusing them with myth. Myth making is an man did not ‘care a fig’ for theology, heaven or hell, or any of the important means of communication, bringing people together, consolations of the Christian religion; he was far more concerned and giving isolated communities something to hold in com- with the pleasures of the flesh. His strength and comfort came mon.”11 from mateship.”19 For the majority of Australians, it would seem Some of the more obvious characteristics of the Australian that the imported Christian message has always been unappeal- myth include egalitarian collectivism, a rough-and-ready capac- ing and unacceptable. Historically, convicts and former convicts ity for improvisation, a light-hearted intolerance of respectable were both cynical and contemptuous toward clergy and or conventional manners, and an antiauthoritarian attitude. There churches.20 The early Anglican clergymen were chaplains to the is also a conviction that the working bushman is the “true convict settlements and were often seen as extensions of the Australian,” a view that includes the concept of mateship. This penal system. Many of the ministers were also magistrates, such value has led to an egalitarian and familiar attitude toward as Samuel Marsden, who had such a reputation for savagery that God—one, however, that is not essentially sacrilegious.12 he was nicknamed the “flogging parson.”21 The resulting atti- tude toward the church and Christianity has been passed on Traditions of Aussie Mateship from the convicts to the bushmen and on to the Anzac diggers. Even today the Australian church has a reputation for Mateship, the spirit of comradeship, originated as a response to wowserism,22 emotional rigidity, and a killjoy attitude, that the historic and geographic conditions of a harsh continent, distances it from the everyday life of the people.23 where difficulties were shared and mutual dependence was Rather than viewing this negative image as unredeemable, needed. Between the years 1788 and 1868, over 160,000 convicts sympathetic observers will find within the Australian tendency were transported from the British Isles to Australia. The chief to demean the church and clergy an underlying yearning for trait among them was their strong feeling of group solidarity and personal identity and self-worth. Australians have channeled loyalty. Amid the cruel environment of eighteenth-century prison this deep desire in the direction of mateship and egalitarianism life, egalitarian class solidarity was the one humane characteris- out of a historic reaction caused by years of suffering and tic remaining, once “the system” had done its worst. This frater- rejection. Since the desire for intimacy and security is fertile nity was not a voluntary union among brothers but a necessity ground for the Holy Spirit to work, there is value in planting the for survival among exiles. The difficulties of prison life made the Gospel within the soil formed from the positive aspects of the practice of a collectivist mateship essential.13 myth of mateship. For God himself, as revealed in the narratives Over the years, as the convicts earned pardons, the majority of Israel’s past, used these same universal desires to form a stayed and settled in the country areas of eastern Australia. covenant with his people. Again, the difficult conditions in the outback made mateship indispensable.14 The great distances, the loneliness, and the Covenant Making harshness of the climate provided opportunity for people to treat one another as family. In a spirit of Christian community, citizens For the Hebrew people, entering into covenant with another offered what they had.