National black congress: Ambivalence and ambiguity

In May 1985, the National Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) formally established the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC). This new organization offered Aboriginal and Islander people associated with the Uniting Church an opportunity to break out of the multiple bondages that had shackled them. They were now in a position to develop indigenous styles of worship, evangelism, and ways of making their own decisions.1 Anthony Nichols, the Anglican principal of Nungalinya College, the ecumenical Aboriginal theological college in Darwin, favorably likened the establishment of the “Black Congress” to the Protestant Reformation.2 Mission Probe, a magazine produced by the Uniting Church’s Commission for World Mission, compared the creation of Congress to the dawning of a new day in Australian history: “something that future generations may regard as a turning point in Australia’s Christian—and national—history.”3