I am receiving many requests for the research and sources to confirm my sincerely held concerns with traditional Aboriginal religious ceremonies and symbols such as Welcome to Country and Acknowledgment of Country, Smoking Ceremonies and the Aboriginal flag.

I regret the time – over a decade – it’s taken me to preach boldly against this pagan idolatry, as there are many sincere Christians who are getting this wrong and probably going to Heaven anyway as believers in Jesus, but who are affirming or tolerating the mixing of false religion with the one true religion of Jesus Christ: the only Way, Truth and Life. This presents an unacceptable risk to the evangelisation and spiritual health of neighbours we all sincerely aim to love.

Unity is not more important than Truth, and the Jesus of the Bible makes extreme demands of doctrinal purity, holiness and exclusivity from the beginning to the end.

I ask for your forgiveness as I repent of my cowardice and hesitancy for fear of what mere people might say. It would please all of us if the Gospel wasn’t so offensive, so divisive, so difficult. But there it is. There is Truth, and there is everything else not true. Far better I stand now in fear of God, and trembling stewardship of this Gospel Truth we are recipients of.

“But suppose the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people. Then the sword comes and takes one of their lives. He is swept away for his iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for that person’s death.”
 – Ezekiel 33:6

Let this be borne in mind. Christianity and Christians personally routinely face sincere critique and flagrant mockery. That is fine and good because religious Truth claims should be robustly examined and fearlessly debated. Feelings are always irrelevant to people who care about Truth. That’s not licence to intentional rudeness, but it is a reminder to the overly-sensitive. It’s not about you.

Politically, even non-Christians should be indignant at the ubiquitous imposition of pagan religious observances upon all Australians. Every time the plane lands, before you’re allowed to take of your seat belt, you are effectively captive while acknowledgement of “Country” is imposed upon every single passenger and crew member, regardless of their personal religious convictions. Radically unwinding the progress of civil rights reforms which made it illegal for the government to discriminate against citizens on the basis of immutable traits such as ethnicity, everyone from the “wrong” religion is being locked out of increasingly numerous national parks and tourist landmarks. What happened to the State being prohibited from establishing a religion, or requiring religious tests of citizens instead of equal opportunity for all regardless of identity?

This page will be updated without notice as new, helpful resources and references are received. If you have any more sources, for or against this warning preached in love, feel free to add in comments. Comments which are not expressed with sincerity or civility may be deleted or edited to retain substance.

The above video is from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). AIATSIS was established in 1964 by the Menzies government to record material culture and ceremonial life of Aborigines and is regarded as the premier information resource on indigenous Australians.

On this page, Jude Barlow (Ngunnawal Elder) teaches:

Being welcomed to “Country” means that you are talking to your spiritual anecstors and you’re saying, just let this person come through – we trust them. We trust they’re not going to do any harm on this “Country” and so do not harm them. So for me, the significance of being welcomed to “Country” is about ensuring your spiritual safety.

 

Ancestors…are still present on “Country” ’cause they’re still with us. They’re in the animals, they’re in the trees. So when I walk onto another…”Country” I look to be welcomed so that I feel a sense of – that the spirits are okay with me being there.

 

It’s a connection with my ancestors.

 

We can welcome, as traditional owners, someone to the “Country”, to quiet the spirits.

Australia’s museums, places curated by leading authorities on anthropology and artifacts, all bear witness to the religious nature of beliefs about “Country”.

Here are photos I’ve personally taken of installations in the National Museum (Canberra), the South Australian Museum and the Tasmanian Museum.

And then we have more confirmation of this religious importance by the widely promoted and allegedly representative Uluru Statement from the Heart. Here’s what it claims authority to teach us about “Country”:

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.

 

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty.

Truth claims being asserted here include the land, “Country”, as the place babies’ spirits come from, are spiritually connected to and as the eternal destiny of people’s spirits after this life.

That’s exactly what we’re assumed to be acknowledging if merely present for the ceremony called acknowledgment of “Country”.

The popularised, modern ceremony needs to be publicly rejected by all Christians

The Guardian on Dingo & Walley

Reported by The Guardian in 2016, Aboriginal Australians Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley claim the ceremony has thousands of years of history, but their ceremony in 1976 was the first to be performed in the country for non-Indigenous Australians.

Walley previewed his welcome’s content:

May the good spirit watch over you. You’re looking at the land of my people, we call Whadjuk. Later on when you go home to your country, may the good spirit take you safely home. May the spirits of my people and the spirits of your people watch over us now.

When Ngambri elder Matilda House-Williams presented Prime Minister Rudd with a message stick in 2008 and opened federal Parliament for the first time with a WTC, she explained:

[A welcome to country] acknowledges our people and pays respect to our ancestors, the spirits who created the lands. This then allows safe passage to all visitors. For thousands of years our peoples have observed the protocol.

The Guardian reporting continues:

In performing a welcome to country, Walley says ancestral spirits and spirits of the land are invoked “to watch over our guests and our visitors while they’re in the country”.

Ernie Dingo reportedly believes the ancient ceremony has the same religious purpose and spiritual weight as attending church. He’s quoted:

You can’t kill spirituality. You can’t take somebody’s soul. You can’t kill the presence, the inner sanctums of spirituality. You can’t do that.

Richard Walley’s welcome to “Country” at a Christian youth conference

In 2019 I published excerpts from a 10 minute long video of Richard Walley performing a Welcome to Country ritual at a Roman Catholic youth conference in Perth. I was horrified to think Christian parents had unwittingly sent their impressionable youth to be indoctrinated it such anti-Christian religious ceremonies. I republished that article here recently.

Here are the quotes I captured before someone wisely deleted the idolatrous nonsense:

“When you see the tree and the river and the birds and the land animals as one, as brother and sister, then our world becomes a greater place… How do we see a tree as our loved one, as a brother or a sister? Everything is created equally. And this is where we now, as an opportunity to remind us on the country that we stand on, that we are able to give you a sense of unity before you start to move all this beautiful energy once again for the next three days and you get a chance to be bathed on country on… the Mother, the land we call home.”

 

“As we stand on this beautiful country… look for the gift. It’s there. The Great Mother… the land we come from, she has many gifts… many teachers: the bird, the tree. Why do we celebrate our birthdays, why do we celebrate your life? Because as the sun comes up, our Mother, the warmth, the bird goes [whistles like a bird]. That’s the magpie. He sings and he dances to the sun, and the birds and the trees start to move with the wind as a beautiful coolness comes across from the ocean, and then the warmth from the desert comes back, and you see the movement and the dance of all things. And then when the sun goes down it does the same. It slowly but surely drifts downwards, and then you hear the bird come back again. [more whistling] And they sing and they dance again for the sun as it disappears into the distance. For us as Aboriginal people to be still to embrace the art, song, dance, language, story of everything – this where our greatest teaching of the [local tribe] down here and right across Australia – we always have art, song, dance, language, story that connects us to the bird, the tree, the sand, the ant, the bee…”

 

“I encourage you to lay underneath that [Christmas] tree for you are one of the greatest gifts that the Universe and Mother gave to itself.”

 

“If you see our countrymen on country they’ll come up to the sand and go like this here.” At this point the speaker simulates kneeling down to gather sand in his hands and rub it on his stomach, “‘Don’t forget me, Mother.’ And we rub everything on us because everything turns to dust. When we put the ochre on our body and our sand and our dirt and our ashes of trees, everything is connected. And we show our great country. ‘Can you see me, Spirit Country?’ For there… is where everything is connected, never separated. And we now say to those old people, ‘Bad spirit, go away, we don’t need you right now. Good spirit, come, sit, not in the air, but on our skin.‘ And when you feel the goosebumps going over your body, hopefully transferring from one to another, that’s the old people dancing with your spirit child inside you. Everything is born with the spirit.”

 

“…Let our spirits be connected for eternity. Thanks you very much. May all the gods bless you. And may all our spirits give you goosebumps, not just for today, but for the rest of your life.”

The thing is, this isn’t inconsistent with the widely published and understood meaning of the ceremony as detailed from the beginning.

A 2025 article on SBS.com.au, “What is a Welcome to Country ceremony, and why is it important?“, sought to clarify the facts around meaning. It reported Larrakia Elder Richard Fejo explained:

“We are welcoming people to our ancient lands and we’re very spiritual people,” he said.

“When I welcome people to my land, I ask that my ancestors guide and protect us always. So we’re taking you under our wing and we’re introducing you to our spiritual ancestors, we’re asking for them to guide and protect you.”

The Aboriginal Flag

The national flag of Australia – the one that isn’t by definition racially exclusive – features three Christian crosses honouring the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ: the One True, Almighty God as referred to in our Constitution. The cross of St George, the cross of St Andrew and the cross of St Patrick all preach the Gospel. There is no accepted, credible or sober analysis of the symbolism of our flag which implies anything idolotrous or deifying of created things.

The symbolism of the Aboriginal flag, on the other hand, is far more problematic. It’s designer, Harold Thomas, says the colours of the flag represent the Aboriginal people of Australia and their spiritual connection to the land. Thomas retains moral rights to the flag. According to Carroll & Richardson Flagworld, the exclusively licensed manufacturer and provider of the Aboriginal flag:

The symbolic meaning of the flag colours (as stated by Harold Thomas) is:

Black: Represents the Aboriginal people of Australia

Yellow circle: Represents the Sun, the giver of life and protector

Red: Representing the red earth and Aboriginal peoples’ spiritual connection with the land; and representing the blood of the Aboriginal people

This symbolism is widely accepted as credible, sober descriptions of the meaning of the flag, for example by:

• Brittanica
• University of Queensland
• Queensland Health
• Victorian Public Sector Commission
• Aboriginal Art & Culture, Alice Springs
• Common Ground
• Planet Corroboree
• Art Ark
• Kate Owen Gallery

The land does not have a spirit, and no person’s spirit comes from, returns to or resides in it – according to Christianity. It returns to God for judgement.

“And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
– Ecclesiastes 12:7

“…People are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment.”
– Hebrews 9:27

The sun most certainly is not the giver of life or protector.

“All things were made through Him [God], and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
– John 1:3-4

All that is unambiguously animism

Britannica explains:

animism, belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests. Animistic beliefs were first competently surveyed by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his work Primitive Culture (1871), to which is owed the continued currency of the term. While none of the major world religions are animistic (though they may contain animistic elements), most other religions—e.g., those of tribal peoples—are.

Truth isn’t racist or vilifying. It’s ok to be wrong. It’s not ok to suppress the Truth.

CompellingTruth.org is a network site of Got Questions Ministries. It confirms:

Animism is the belief that all things have a spirit or soul, including animals, plants, rivers, mountains, stars, the moon, and the sun. Each being is considered a spirit that can offer help or harm to humans. As such, spirits must either be worshiped or appeased. Animists offer sacrifices, prayers, dances, or other forms of devotions to these spirits in hopes of blessing upon areas of life (crops, health, fertility, etc.) or for protection from harm.

 

Animism has been practiced since ancient times and is often mentioned in the Bible. The Israelites, for example, were commanded to not follow the practices of the nations around them who followed other gods. The Egyptians who enslaved Israel prior to their wilderness journey followed many deities as animists. In Daniel, the people worshiped “the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone” (Daniel 5:4).

 

In comparison with biblical Christianity, animism is a false belief in gods who are not truly gods at all. Isaiah 45:5 teaches, “I am the Lord and there is no other, besides me there is no God.” In the Bible, animism is instead taught as a deception that leads people astray from the true and living God (1 Peter 5:8).

Smoking ceremonies

BWTribal explains:

Smoking ceremonies have been an integral part of Aboriginal culture for millennia, weaving together the spiritual, physical, and social threads of Indigenous Australian life. These ancient rituals, still practised today, hold a deep significance that goes beyond the visible act of burning native plants. They are a powerful means of cleansing, healing, and connecting with the land, the spirits, and the community.

 

At the core of every smoking ceremony is the use of smoke, born from the smouldering of carefully chosen native plants. This smoke is believed to possess both spiritual and physical cleansing properties, capable of warding off negative energies, purifying people and spaces, and promoting the overall well-being of the community.

 

…When a baby is born, the smoke welcomes them into the community and offers protection for both the child and mother. During initiation ceremonies, such as circumcision in some Central Australian groups, the smoke serves to cleanse and spiritually prepare the individual for their new role.

 

…Public ceremonies offer a chance for cultural sharing and reconciliation, inviting the wider community to engage with the spiritual life of Indigenous Australians.

 

At their heart, smoking ceremonies are a profound expression of Aboriginal spirituality, deeply connected to the natural world…

Deadly Story shares:

A Smoking is an important part of any ceremony and can also be performed as its own ceremony. Usually at the beginning of a ceremony it accompanies a Welcome and assists in cleansing the area and the people of bad spirits and to promote the protection and well-being of visitors.

Aboriginal Australian, Rodney Rivers courageously preaches:

There are two sides to Aboriginal culture: the domestic and the religious. Hunting, cooking, family relationships, etc are part of the domestic side. The religious side involves ceremonies, rituals, spirit and idol worship, witchcraft, astral travelling, ancestral blood covenants, ‘singing’ people with curses to hurt or kill them.

 

Ceremonies and fetishes are used to seduce men or women into wrong relationships. Some men and women even have a relationship with spirit beings… This all brings people into bondage to the spirit world, because its foundation is animistic.

 

It involves ancestral spirits connected to stones, trees, animals and the natural world. The Aboriginal dreamtime is an evolution of aboriginal myths and stories connected with fear and superstition. I know because I, and thousands of other indigenous people, have come out of that background.

 

These spiritual forces affect all people, both religious and secular, indigenous and non-indigenous. Aboriginal religion, along with the New Age movement, is part of the smorgasbord of the occult world.

 

I want to tell these stories so that people will know that these curses are real, and the ever-increasing number of smoking ceremonies are having devastating effects on people and the ecological environment.

 

Aboriginal custom has always used protocols to welcome people to their land, but these smoking ceremonies are spiritual practices to appease the ancestral spirits. When some Aboriginal tour guides take people into traditional places, they speak to the spirits in tribal languages and use rituals to appease the spirits first.

 

Don’t get involved in smoking ceremonies and these rituals. You will open yourself to the power of these curses.

 

I come from a semi-tribal background, where I have observed all these things from when I was a young child.

 

It is only the blood of Jesus that cleanses and protects us. Satan is a master of deception – of tricking us into the ways of hell and death. We need the discernment of the spirit world that comes only through God’s Holy Spirit.

The whole article is compelling reading for oblivious Christians rationalising syncretism. Here is is again spelling it out for those who claim there is no occultism or animism to avoid mixing with Christianity.

An Aboriginal Christian leader originating from Roper River (Ngukurr), Anderson George, has rejected Aboriginal ceremony, contrasting with those who, wrongly, believe they can be redeemed. Anderson gives thanks to the Lord for healing him from witchcraft in 1998.

I was in the Darwin prison when God said, “Wake up Anderson, wake up” – to stop sinning. My sister Loretta kept praying for me, even when I was an alcoholic and sniffing petrol.

In 1998 I was saved, and had a faith in Jesus, as small as a mustard seed. I knelt down and was praying in my language, Kriol.

The Lord just spoke clearly, “Anderson, do you want a good life or a bad life?” [I accepted Christ] and just cried more than I had ever cried.

I [had been] dying slowly of witchcraft. I had a grandfather who was a witch doctor and I would question, “how come he didn’t heal me?”

The topic of being in and practicing the ceremonies was burning on my heart as an Indigenous man. The Lord really put on my heart [in 1998] to ask Him a question. Reflecting to back when I was a teenager in 1982, involved in a sacred men’s ceremony, I asked God, “Can I worship You Father God; can I worship You and worship my ceremony? My old pastor back in Ngukurr where I come from – he worshipped You on Sunday and when the sacred ceremony was on, I saw him worshipping [dreaming spirits / totems / ancestor animal spirits]. Can I do that? Can I serve God and serve ceremony?”

God made me realise, when I was being initiated…that in these ceremonies we were worshipping idols. From [that point on], I didn’t want to believe and be involved in the old way or interfere with them. This has led to total transformation, freedom, healing and blessing.

I did not directly talk to my old pastor about his view on sacred ceremony and it was only much later that I learnt that he later expressed concerns about ceremony himself.

Joy Sandefur worked for 25 years in the north of Australia with Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Bush Church Aid Society. She recalls how Aboriginal Christians there regarded smoking ceremonies:

When a Christian woman died, her son and daughter-in-law, who were also Christians, saw no reason to have their house smoked, where she had died. They believed her spirit had gone to be with God and that the house did not need to be smoked. However, the grandchildren who did not have the same Christian convictions insisted that the house be smoked. The Christian couple went bush for the day and had nothing to do with the smoking. They moved back into their house the same day.

Syncretism is mixing false religion with Christianity

Syncretism in South America

The fusion of conflicting religious beliefs is not new anywhere. Syncretism is characteristic of Latin American culture, and without intending offence to those cultures either, it’s wrong there too. Many Latin American nations have embraced syncretism in flawed attempts to convince indigenous people to embrace Christianity.

They combined Aztec faiths and Roman Catholicism in the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is a mix of the Mother Mary and the Aztec goddess of fertility, Tonantzin. Such Goddesses as “Mother Earth”, the “Goddess of Sustenance”, “Honored Grandmother”, “Snake”, “Bringer of Maize” and “Mother of Corn” can all be called Tonantzin, as it is an honorific title comparable to “Our Lady” or “Our Great Mother”.

There are predominantly two cultures in the Andean world: the Aymara and the Quechua. Both worship the Pachamama – “Mother Earth”. Many gods of the indigenous people continue to be worshiped through Christian saints.

As recently as 2019, statues which were identical to carved images of a naked, pregnant Amazonian woman, had been displayed in a church close to the Vatican, and used in several rituals taking place during the Amazonian synod. Some have characterised the figures as images of the Blessed Virgin Mary, others as the indigenous religious figure Pachamama, while Vatican spokesmen have characterised them more vaguely as symbols of “life.”

The pope said they had been displayed in the church “without idolatrous intentions,” according to a transcript provided by the Vatican press office.

While perhaps well meaning Christians may rationalise syncretism as unevangelised people reaching for the One True God revealed by Creation and left without excuse for not worshipping Him, the Apostle Paul was not so tolerant or inclusive.

We should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination. Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.

Indeed, he demonstrated that the only loving thing to do when encountering a proud but pagan culture is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to persuade them to abandon “very religious” “times of ignorance”.

Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you. The God Who made the world and everything in it, Who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone. From one man He made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for Him and find Him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Syncretism in Australia

Just last year an Australian Roman Catholic Bishop participated in a smoking ceremony led by Janine Mayer, a representative of the Western Wakka Wakka people, who intoned:

Today I’m doing a smoking ceremony to welcome you all and your bishop, to bring in healing and healthy positive vibes, and to cleanse and remove any past negative energies. I hope that this smoking ceremony brings you all peace and good energies, and that it cleanses the area and brings success and confidence to you all.

 

One of the most important things about a smoking ceremony is to just take it in, let it cleanse you, take all that the elders have to offer.

She invited Bishop Howell to “take in a bit of smoke to cleanse yourself.” He stepped forward and wafted the smoke toward his face three times. She then asked him to take a pinch of shaved sandalwood, drop it into the smoke, “and make a wish.”

My God, forgive us, for this paganism is not even close to rare in Christian churches.

Conclusion

No Christian should place such an idolatrous stumbling block in the path to life of any person they aspire to love with the Gospel. Rather, the challenge of the Gospel is to die to self and to choose Jesus as Lord of all.

“They exchanged the Truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen.”
– Romans 1:25

“Now obey the Lord and worship him with integrity and loyalty. Put aside the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and worship the Lord.  If you have no desire to worship the Lord, then choose today whom you will worship, whether it be the gods whom your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will worship the Lord.”

– Joshua 24:14-15

Dave Pellowe is a Christian political educator & commentator, founder of The Good Sauce, convener of the annual Australian Church And State Summit and host of Good Sauce’s weekly The Church And State Show. Since 2016 Dave has undertaken the mission of arming Christians to redeem culture through events from Perth to Auckland, videos, podcasts and articles published in multiple journals across Australia and New Zealand. [more]

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