Antipodean and biblical encounter: Postcolonial vernacular hermeneutics in novel form

Abstract

This article argues that in postcolonial and post-secular Australia, a country in which Christianity has been imported from Europe in the process of colonization in the eighteenth century by the British Empire, institutional Christianity is waning in influence. However, the article argues, Australian culture has a capacity for spiritual awareness provided it is expressed in language and idioms arising from the Australian context. R. S. Sugirtharajah’s concept of vernacular hermeneutics shows that a contemporary novel, The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton, expresses Australian spirituality saturated with the images and values of the New Testament, but in a non-religious literary form.