Pilgrim Theological College

Northey Lecture: Dr Laura Rademaker and Poetry Reading: Alison Overeem
2026-02-26 19:00 - 21:30 (Australia/Melbourne)
Event description

Northey Lecture – ‘Providence and possession: how colonial concepts of religion explained away a genocide’
This two-part event begins at 7pm Thursday 26 February at Pilgrim Theological College.
Supper is provided. All welcome! Join in person or online.
Register online here
Acknowledgement of Country and Poetry Reading by Alison Overeem (Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Tasmania)

Alison is a proud palawa woman and Leprena Centre Manager (UAICC). Leprena is a lead provider of cultural and spiritual learning and immersion, uniting First and Second Peoples through Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, and the National UAICC story, across the nation. Alison will share a poem with us and lead us in an Acknowledgement of Country.
Northey Lecture: ‘Providence and possession: how colonial concepts of religion explained away a genocide’ by Associate Professor Laura Rademaker (Australian National University)

When settlers came to Australia, many believed in a God-given duty to “fill'” and “subdue the earth” through agriculture and the supposed failure of First Nations people to do this. But the colonists also drew on other religious and biblical ideas to frame themselves in relation to First Nations people.  This lecture will trace the ways that First Nations people’s supposed “forgetting” of true religion was used to excuse the rapid First Nations population decline, and the implications of this history for us today.
This lecture will also be part of the Pilgrim unit, Respecting Country: Deep history, the colonies and the church
Contact us to enrol in the unit – study@pilgrim.edu.au
