ABSTRACT
The connection between Christianity and the ancestral law of Aboriginal culture has generated considerable debate within Australian Christianity. I explore the intersubjective flow between faith and fear emergent within these two systems and show how external influences have impacted ruptures of ontological thought and experience. These ruptures have both emerged from and shaped social and political change for Yolngu from Galiwin’ku in north-east Arnhem Land. I examine a range of discourses of religious rupture and argue that Christian influences have, at different times, variously competed with, moulded, and naturalized Yolngu ancestral understanding, leading to a surveillance of the social, spiritual, and political relationship between the Gospel and Culture by Yolngu Christians.
