Learning to Dream: an urban Pentecostal embraces his Aboriginal identity

Abstract

Providing a distinctly Pentecostal voice to the larger pool of literature on Indigenous Australian
Christianity, this paper maps some unique relationships between a specifically Pentecostal spirituality and
worldview shaped, in part, by the subject’s Aboriginal heritage. As such, the paper contributes to the growing
field of studies in Australian Pentecostalism and, with its cross-cultural approach, participates in the larger
dialogue on the denomination’s renowned cross-cultural ubiquity. Significantly, the content of the paper itself
materializes out of the oral tradition, central to both Aboriginal and Pentecostal cultures. Written in narrative form,
and interlaced with autobiographical material and supporting academic literature, the paper tracks the spiritual
journey of Wangkumara Pentecostal, David Armstrong. David’s choir ministry, “One Good Day,” is the focal
point of the narrative and is the material and figurative expression of the intersection between his two spiritualties.