“You are always and dearly loved by God! So robe yourself with virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavour to understand others, and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffendable in your patience with others. Tolerate the weaknesses of those in the family of faith, forgiving one another in the same way you have been graciously forgiven by Jesus Christ. If you find fault with someone, release this same gift of forgiveness to them. For love is supreme and must flow through each of these virtues. Love becomes the mark of true maturity.” (Colossians 3:12-14, TPT)

In less than five weeks – on 14 October 2023 – our nation will face a referendum on an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. This proposal has come as the result of the call of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart – as well as other historical calls from our First Nation leaders – for the establishment of a First Nations Voice to Parliament to be enshrined in the Constitution.

In alignment with our commitment to biblical justice, we issued an invitation a few weeks ago to our Baptist churches. Our invitation was to communicate resources regarding The Voice to Parliament that our churches have developed or have used to facilitate discussion. We are aware and grateful that there are already many resources out there and so the ones on this resource page are filtered through a Baptist-lens and collated in the hopes that it will be helpful to your faith community.

You can access the resources here: https://nswactbaptists.org.au/referendum-resources/

Our purpose is not to tell you how to vote but to present opportunities to listen, read, reflect, pray and discern in community on what we believe is the heart of God in this matter.

 

We respect and understand that God’s people, with deep, personal faiths, may arrive at different conclusions on the best response to the referendum. But we hope that together we will genuinely seek a Jesus-shaped approach, prayerfully listen to His voice, and be guided by His wisdom – for this referendum and beyond.

As the first Aboriginal Baptist to be ordained (1968), Rev Graham Paulson says, ‘We have to be clear about where we have come from, and what we need to repent of, before we can focus on the future with integrity’.

Message on behalf of The Baptist Churches of NSW& ACT.