Northey lecture – Mawson

The Northey lecture is a public lecture supported by a generous bequest in memory of JD Northey. All are invited to come along and think more deeply about how theology can engage the world.  

Faith in Protest: Liberation Theologies and Activism in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1969, the World Council of Churches launched its controversial Programme to Combat Racism. Over the next two decades, the programme funded and supported Civil Rights activism in the USA, anti-apartheid movements in South Africa, and revolutionary groups in South America. What is less well known is that the programme made important contributions to anti-racist theologies and activism in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.  

Using the work of the Programme to Combat Racism as a point of departure, this lecture will explore the kinds of ideas and theological commitments that led New Zealand and Australian Christians to become involved in anti-racist activism in the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover, it will suggest how this history can continue to provide valuable lessons for responding to racism and white supremacy today.  

Michael Mawson is a Pākehā (white) theologian and holds the Maclaurin Goodfellow Chair of Theological and Religious Studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland. He previously worked at the United Theological College in Parramatta. Some of his recent books include Standing Under the Cross: Essays on Bonhoeffer’s Theology (2023) and, with Brian Kolia, Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity and Place (2024).