Time: 09:00 AM – 09:30 AM

Welcome to Country

Presenter: John Lochowiak

The Welcome to Country will be delivered by John Lochowiak, a local Wadi – initiated Man – who has strong ties to many language groups throughout Australia including but not limited to Pitjantjatjara, Kaurna, Ramindjeri, Narungga Yankuntjatjara and Arrernte. His strong cultural grounding is complemented by his deep Catholic faith.

Time: 10:40 AM – 11:10 AM

Moana Keepers, Story Carriers: Indigenous Pacific Ways of Holding Knowledge

Presenter: Rev Prof Dr Nasili Vaka’uta

Moana Keepers, Story Carriers: Indigenous Pacific Ways of Holding Knowledge and Life: Reflection on Indigenous Pacific/Oceanic understandings of knowledge as relational, embodied, ancestral, and spiritually grounded. Within Pacific worlds, knowledge is not treated as an abstract possession or individual achievement, but as a sacred trust held in genealogy, land, sea, language, ritual, memory, and community. Stories are among the primary means by which this knowledge is carried. They transmit identity, preserve ancestral wisdom, shape moral imagination, and sustain right relationships between people, creation, and the divine. In this sense, stories are not merely cultural artefacts but living theological texts through which communities discern meaning, responsibility, and hope. From an Indigenous Pacific theological perspective, to be keepers of knowledge and holders of stories is to participate in the ongoing work of remembering, interpreting, and renewing life.

Time: 11:45 AM – 12:20 PM

Küthsükime – An Indigenous Methodological Starting Point

Presenter: Rev. Prof. Dr. Hukato N. Shohe

One characteristic of the Sumi life is the notion of relationship between God, creation & humanity on one hand and the idea that our understanding of things is based on the relationship we share with the world around us. This presentation explores the idea of Kuthsukime, a Sumi dialect, similar to the English concept of Relationality. Firstly, Relationality as a philosophical & theological term carries the abstract idea of the relationality of the universe with the concept being the starting point. Whilst the notion of Kuthsukime always is grounded on the concrete living context out of which our understanding of the world emerges. Secondly, Kuthsukime is a compound word Küthsü (related) and Kime (joined). A relationship that implies joinedness & relatedness. Hence, we are not only related by our beliefs and history but are somehow joined to the world’s fate. This work intentionally explores the Sumi understanding & idea as a theological tool for understanding, expounding & engaging.

Time: 10:05 AM – 10:40 AM

Because Country is Method: Reframing Christology, Axiology and Hermeneutics

Presenter: Naomi Wolfe

This paper outlines a decolonising framework for theological education that recentres Indigenous Knowledges, reconfiguring the grounds of theological method. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander epistemologies are not extra to Christian theology but constitute rigorous, generative knowledge systems that both complement and critically interrogate & deconstruct dominant Eurocentric paradigms. Moving beyond deficit-based constructions, Country is foreground as a primary locus of theological meaning articulated as Christological, axiological, and hermeneutical. As Christology, Country discloses a relational and embodied understanding of divine presence, disrupting abstracted and dislocated accounts of Christ which EuroChristianity claims as orthodoxy. As axiology, it reorders value through kinship, reciprocity and responsibility, challenging extractive forms and individualised ethical frameworks. As hermeneutic, Country offers interpretive practices grounded in story, place & continuity.