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Conservative Australian politicians who have begun citing Judeo-Christian ‘values’ are simply using this as cover to support their own prejudices, says Scott Crawford.
AUSTRALIA IS A DIVERSE PLACE and proudly secular to boot.
As such, religious debate in Australian politics has historically been taboo. You can’t debate religion, because faith is essentially irrational. Of late, however, some Australian politicians have begun frequently citing Judeo-Christian ‘values’ in their public discourse. In this environment, our secular political culture is seemingly under threat by undercurrents of American-styled religious dogma.
The issue of gay marriage provides a good example.
By invoking Judeo-Christian ‘values’, some politicians argue that marriage is exclusively a union between a man and a woman. The Bible says so, they say, end of the argument. But by following this logic, Judeo-Christian ‘values’ must also infer that marriage is a union under God and officiated by a person who is holy. I was married by a civil celebrant under a tree at an art gallery. According to these same Judeo-Christian values, should I be allowed to marry? If not, where are the politicians advocating for the annulment of my marriage and the millions like mine?
The Church is unfashionable, and Christianity is increasingly stigmatised amongst progressive elites and many on the left of politics. In addition, the many horrific cases of sexual misconduct by Catholic priests has meant that the focus of news reporting on Chistianity in recent times has typically been decidedly negative
In spite of this, Christian values are undoubtedly a source of much good. The born-again-atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali even radically suggests that Christian leaders should be doing more to champion their cause, because she views their values as preferable to others.
We often forget the good that religious institutions can do. Christian homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation centres, international aid organisations and welfare services do unimaginable good in our society and around the world. Don’t get me wrong, it infuriates me when clergy demonise the use of condoms in Africa but, paradoxically, these same people also demonstrate selflessness, compassion and unbounded love by nursing and caring for people suffering with HIV/AIDS. While this is paradoxical to outsiders, it remains consistent with their beliefs.
It is often suggested that there is an uneasy alliance within the ALP between socially conservative Christians and the Party’s more progressive elements. When it comes to the religious politicians on the left, however, at least they seem coherent. My issue isn’t about religion influencing political thought, it’s about the consistency and/or hypocrisy in doing so.
For example, some politicians do not support legalised abortion because of their faith. But, then, why do many of the conservative pro-lifers also favour cutting welfare payments and social services, including those that assist single mothers and less well-off families? If one values life, why did the same conservatives drag their heels on resolving the recent impasse on refugee processing? What do Judeo-Christian ‘values’ say about letting people drown, while you sit idly and watch?
It’s been a while since I’ve been to Church, but I still remember a particular hymn: ‘Jesus held hands with the lepers’. If politicians are to decide policy on the basis of ‘what would Jesus do?’, then let’s not narrow them to a few social issues. If conservatives are to invoke Judeo-Christian ‘values’, they should do so consistently across the spectrum of policy issues. Let them debate funding for the homeless, the sick, the aged, the disabled, the poor and the dispossessed in accordance with their ‘values’.
Could the compassionate conservatives please stand up?
Alternatively, could they stop hiding behind their purported ‘values’. At least then we can get back to debating the issues, and not selective faux-religious dogmas.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
17 Comments
Religion: the bastion of the ignorant and the reference of the intolerant.
Actually, the bible has a lot of things to say about marriage. It has a lot to say about how many wives you can have (polygamy is biblically okay). It has a lot to say about concubinage (also biblically okay), and about taking wives young enough to be your daughter (again, biblically okay). If you look through Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there’s a lot said about exactly how marriage was meant to be performed in the Hebrew faith and culture (right down to the sacrifices you were supposed to perform at temple in order to sanctify it).
Christianity was supposed to be Judaism 2.0 – the revised edition. Oddly enough, one of the things Christ doesn’t have much to say about is marriage (one presumes he was in favour of it, since one of the early miracles is at a wedding in Cana; best guess is the wedding in question may have been his own). He has something to say about divorce (he’s against it – the argument is that divorce is basically adultery under a legal guise, particularly when it’s being carried out by wealthy men divorcing to remarry younger wives).
He had absolutely nothing to say about homosexuality.
I’ll just repeat that: in all four synoptic gospels, there is not one mention of homosexuality by Christ.
Some of the things he did talk about at length included: public prayer (he wasn’t in favour of it, since it was too often aimed at glorifying the person doing it, rather than worshipping God); obeying the spirit rather than the letter of the religious law (which, in the kind of theocracy the Hebrew kingdoms were supposed to be, was somewhat radical in and of itself); repentance (necessary, and a key part of the process); sacrifice (a necessary part of the process of repentance); going one step beyond the letter of the law, to the spirit of it (absolutely essential); charity (giving fully of oneself, without ostentation, without hesitation, without resentment).
He also said that the path to God was a hard one to walk, and that not everyone was capable of walking it.
Plus, he had a lot to say about judgement – mostly that we’re not really qualified to render it. God is, and God will. But amongst ourselves, we should be willing to face our imperfections, and reflect on the differences between our words and our deeds. We should be willing to offer mercy, rather than judgement.
Oh, and one of the key things he had to say is that sometimes religious ritual and doctrine get in the way of the true path. In those cases, the advice of Christ was to ignore the religious ritual and doctrine.
Very good article but I am most impressed with the comment above mine. Intelligent, insightful and bang on the money. Tip of the hat to you Megpie71.
Ditto to Benjamins post on Megpie’s. As the piece says, religion is an embedded tool of politics these days. Lots of good and lots of bad. The right, any other movement wanted by above for themselves in our name , can get Gods blessing put on beside the brand name. Condemnation can be applied where necessary or a self righteous tagline threatening the power of the church and community upon you.
Lots of good and not so, part of institution and corporate tool as elsewhere these days.
Now what part of the church is immune to politics when they are into real estate, and the biggest owners of hospitals? Freaks me out a little.
Lots of Christians around, good people, and lots pretending or thinking they are. This is how the heights confuse people on the church and motives. No one and anything is not safe from being used or adulterated in governance for corporate or commercial motive.
We (Australians) have never been a particularly churchy lot — we would rather go to the beach than listen to boring sermons. But, at as a society, we have been (at least through much of our history), better than most at the “Do unto unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
I am not denying the corruption and the almost demon-possessed evil of some of our bureaucrats, but I think corruption in Australia tends to be “top down” — by which I mean the majority of people are good and decent, who are oppressed by a small clique of corrupt officials, police, local councils etc. We may not be churchy or religious, but we have lived and practised treating others well, better than most other societies.
I have been in other countries where the majority of people(rich, poor, workers, businessmen, even the kids seem to be bent, conniving and just plain evil — such experiences make me appreciate Australia even more.
Manning Clark used to say that Australia was built with a vision in peoples’ hearts for a new and better society — and that he feared that conservative elements from outside the country ere doing all they could to prevent that new vision growing to fruition.
SCOTT’s reference to the church hymn provides an example of what is wrong with the conservatives’ Judaeo-Christian values. SCOTT quoted the words “Jesus held hands with the leper”.
Those words are pious claptrap — JC did NOT run around holding hands with lepers expressing nice sentiments – No, JC fixed the lepers’ problems – by providing a cure.
That might seem like splitting hairs, but it highlights a willingness to bend the message — away from really helping people in need, to instead, making a nice gesture, backed up with a pious song.
Like JIM says, lots of both good and pretend Christians running loose.
(Will add an extra post on MILES’ comment below — this one has already gotten longer than planned).
Hi MILES,
There is a lot of truth in your comment.
For a slightly different angle on “religion”, I thought this might be of interest. As I think you will have gathered from some of my other posts, I was commissioned to write some material by the Defence Dept and the Australian Federal Police — the reports (the biggest was 5000 pages of evidence) were (supposed to be) on encryption software and fraud and corruption among defence contractors, and in the Australian banking industry. Cutting a long story short, I found more than I was supposed to (treason, plans for terrorist attacks), and have been in exile ever since.
One of the surprises I got, when “researching” some of our banksters and their overseas masters, was that they operate a bit like the NAZIS in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — ie they are trying to tap into anything that they think will give them power — like Hitler’s Spear of Destiny, or the Ark of the Covenant, etc – Hitler, Himmler, Hess and co, were right into all of that (Ark, Spear, occult), and so are their modern successors. These guys study the Bible avidly, looking for anything they can use to boost their prospects of gaining (more) power. They want to keep the public, and the church-goers ignorant about what they are up to, but for them, the spiritual-Bible stuff is very real.
After WW II, the NAZIs funded some of the political parties in the Middle East. German scientists worked on rocket programs for Nasser in Egypt, and SS officers got jobs with Middle Eastern governments and armies. Those links, established before the end of WW II, are still in existence. (Yasser Arafat’s uncle was an honoured guest of Hitlers’s through most of WW II).
One of the reasons the Sept 11th attacks happened on the day they did, was that old agenda to try and tap into spiritual power.
Unbeknown to most English speakers, the English translation of the first verse of the Bible “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” can also be translated as:
“In 911, God created the heavens and the earth”.
All this is kind of an interesting topic — I have enough to produce at least one book on it, probably more. If you know how to “read the script”, we (Australia) are in there (same verse), so is the 7/7 bombing, and even the title of nutty Anders Breivik’s (the Norwegian mass murderer) book, 2083. [I think I just gave IA and DD a "world exclusive" on the meaning of Breivik's book title.]
The old Australian bank holidays used to be timed to fit into a pattern that is contained / coded into that same opening verse. The banksters want us to think it is all just superstition, while they use the power they see in it – to get us up to our eyeballs in debt and mortgages.
Why do they refer to Judeo-christian values ? The jewish religion is old testament while christian is new testament . The Jews are waiting for their god while christians believe their god has come . May as well say a satanist is the same as a christian or a jew because all believe in one supernatural entity rather than several gods that are called pagans .
Very interesting Terra. Something along the lines of Cory Bernardi would be in amongst that. Interesting too that SA crosses paths with my fathers and families woes. Something in the water. I was plagued a few years ago by a policeman who had a stalking like fascination with my partner. At one point I was accosted over parking and speeding fines incurred in a doppelganger’s name. Interesting that it turns up in the IPA.
I watched the rise of a namesake from obscurity to heights googling up my name turning up in comments. Coincidence or the sheep’s lord working in mysterious ways. Numbers aren’t everything in Earth forces.
The piece on Australian’s treating others well is right but lessening in some respects I feel. Gouging commerce and business has organised another class of Australian that was largely here in quieter proportions as you go back through the decades. It also says much of the sheep attitude in too many areas amongst Australians. The stuff you Jack and head turning another Australian pastime which I feel turns this country to US market and people psychologies. Building and forcing receptors to it. And that, what happens by rubbing shoulders and heights and those amongst us that play it’s games, shelter in it for gain and power and camouflage. Making it’s playground. The battlefield it knows and owns. Taking root like tentacles and slowly leaving any and all out it can who it finds offensive to it’s type or unresponsive to it’s “attractions” and intrusions. Much of it conveniently innocent. Other, reaping planted seed and fertilizer.
Numbers are interesting, like some head spinning and unfathomable card tricks. I am not engrossed with them though as dwelling leaves you blind to other realities.
Birds in nature change song by many factors,season, hormone, predator- what noise works best in situation and how permanent is that etc etc. Like the politics of whale song.
In the cage the song that keeps the peace in confinement is forced onto others and all to sing. It can change by dominance of different groups and overthrow by size etc but still balances to some force of peace if equilibrium is found in all factors and the song can be forced onto all. Even if held in disgust and contempt by all for sometimes generations by power of ingrain.
You ever notice how those adopt others song and paint themselves same in color and attribute to walk through doors for gain? An umbrella opens and it can’t shelter all trying to walk under it.
It’s been said that the trick getting into heaven is to walk in backwards like your walking out.
I see them everywhere.
Not everything is as bad as it seems when you have a broad mind to dismiss coincidence and a grounding in nature but potential and camouflage another thing.
It fascinates me.
I could expand on your situation and post but the flock is prone to panic and reading into matters too much. Except to say on one aspect that the removal of one infestation doesn’t change the course our laid back leaders and reps let us go down by other forces. The trick is to not put another weed in place of the one removed for that is another of misfortune’s deception.
A big subject. I can clearly see your situation and the excitement that would pervade some. I don’t miss much.
Hi JIM,
I was asked (about 20 years ago), to look at an office (finance type company) computer system in West Perth that was over due for an upgrade. Having looked through their system, I suggested that it would probably be cheaper to get the upgrade done by the same outfit that had written the original system. they explained that the guy who wrote it was in Canning Vale prison. He was there because a detective was having an affair with his wife. The wife and the detective had framed him to get him out of the way – everyone knew it was a stitch-up, but nobody did, or was able to do, anything about it. [Not quite what you experienced, but there are parallels.)
Although I got hunted out of Perth for getting too close to cover-ups surrounding the serial killings in Perth’s western suburbs (Claremont etc), these days I can write about WA police “failings” in the murder investigations, without triggering any flak.
However the one area that has quickly gotten me attention is if I delve into the deeper side of the mathematics, planning and “choreography” involved in creating the “New World Order” — there are some pretty dark “magicians” pulling the strings behind the scenes — including a few home-grown Aust “products”.
All that IS a big topic, but it is pretty deep and pretty advanced -it would take years, even decades of study for most people to get a handle on it.
I have encountered / spotted the same apathy re what is going on. I suspect it is also a contributing factor in what SCOTT’s article was decrying. Part off Christianity (one of the judgement criteria according to the founder) is feeding the hungry, and housing the homeless, but, as SCOTT notes, some of our hard-core values promoters” don’t seem to get as upset/vocal about the fate of the hungry, dispossessed, unemployed and homeless, as about some of what they see as “moral issues”.
I have too much to say on your topics here Terra. Expand, point out, examples, anecdotes, good and bad of matters.
With your last paragraph I will repeat a piece already spoken on IA.
Nothing is worse for the people than when the rich and capitalist socialize like communists.
The people’s peace, comforts and health, and welfare has been displaced/ stolen, to the top.
The psychology and excuses it is done under and held with is there to see for anyone who opens their eyes.
For those who haven’t heard of others concerns in one matter in a complicated world, I will post a link if it doesn’t offend or worry the good people running IA.
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/if-you-like-sarah-palin-youll-absolutely-love-cory-bernardi/390/
Hi JIM,
Since this article was originally written on a topic related to religious values, I will add some info on a city that tends to still live in infamy with most of the “devout” – SODOM.
It regularly gets cited as an example of God’s judgement being visited upon a city because of its night-time entertainment, ie homosexual pack rape.
But I know something that the regular English speaking churchgoer does not — that there were some other nasty practices in Sodom, besides pack rape. These were:
Sodom’s lawyers and judges were totally corrupt AND those same bent lawyers had passed laws that made it illegal to feed the hungry and homeless — the judges were having people tortured and killed for doing that. (Sounds a lot like the USA today, where several cities have passed laws to prosecute foodbanks for feeding people. And it isn’t only the USA – the City of Stirling in Perth (wCity of Stirling has a notorious history for corruption – easy to find with Google) was threatening to fine a Scarborough church for feeding people – just a few weeks ago.
[I might have a day or two off the computer, so I will read up on the Republican Party poster girl when I am back on air — I remember the election campaign staff saying afterwards, that she was such an airhead that she thought Africa was a country — and yet, the Republicans had been willing to try and get her elected to a job where she could have ended up with her finger on the nuclear button. Yikes!!}
I pictured and picked Sodam from vague bible reference quite well from life on the streets and bottom of the heap and knowing the nature of how things work. Especially the human side of nature.
I still believe the greatest immunising against many ills in system and community is the inclusion and infusion of gays by way of acceptance.
I strongly believe the quoted pack rape to be animalism not homosexuality. My apologies to animals too, it’s a term most relate too.
Enjoy your peace for a couple of days.
There is a particularly weird difference between Australia and New Zealand in this context. We got over our fundamentalist infection much sooner and our Christian Right is much, much weaker than yours, as can be seen by the strategic advantage LGBT New Zealanders have within our marriage equality debate.
Have to say that one of my adverse impressions of the Aussie left is the fragmentation of its political culture. Instead of just one, there seem to be several, centred on particular states, ranging from the sublime (Canberra/ACT) to the rancid (Queensland). And its lack of strategic planning.
I think that this might have something to do with the fact that about ten percent less of New Zealand’s total population are “Christian” than Australias. New Zealand’s Christian Right keeps having to import Aussie activists like the ‘beardie weirdie’ from Victoria (!!!), Bill Muehlenberg. He’d be laughed out of debates over here, must be said.
Terra and Jim, there are no spiritual or occult forces at work in the world, and there is no such thing as spirit. That is all superstitious garbage. Numbers do not have any power, and nor do planets. There is no god or gods that control our lives, nor is there any devil. There are no angels and there are no demons. There are no ghosts, no fairies, no gremlins. There is no heaven or hell. There is no karma, and no reincarnation.
The universe does not care for us, nor does it have any ill will towards us. The universe has no will at all. It has no thought or feelings at all. It is just matter.
Hi SILKWORM,
One of the things that has both surprised and fascinated me, was how seriously some of the people wielding power take spiritual stuff eg
I was exporting software on behalf of the Australian banks and Defence Dept, and found that my business partners were really NOT the Aust banks and military, but a bunch of true believers in the NAZI cause, who had strong links to the Las Vegas and Chicago mafia.
I am going back to the late 1990′s, to an era when former members of the Hitler Yugend were still in the right age bracket to be running companies. For those guys, the NAZI movement was more a religious cult than a political movement.
Amazingly, they were running an SS Temple in Toronto (Canada) as late as 2001. (I would have thought such things died out in 1945 – I learnt otherwise after Defence recruited me.
I dealt with similar things in other western governments — ie that while the voters “think secular”, some of their leaders are leaping about in hooded robes on full moons, thinking they will gain more power through their kooky antics.
Hi KIWILEFT,
You are right about the fragmentation and in-fighting within Australia’s left — it has been pretty nasty at times – probably more vicious than disputes between right and left..
My educated “guess” is that your “TEN PERCENT” difference between Aust and NZ is a very low estimate– ie I think the differences are way bigger – eg the Aust govt gave millions to the Catholic Church to host World Youth Day — an equivalent donation in NZ from the Beehive is almost unimaginable.
There are a few reasons for the difference including teh different racial/ethnic mix in Australia — more Irish, Italian, and Greek genes in the Australian population, and a Catholic church that was back in the 19th century one of the main buffers between a working class Irish population and the colonial governments.
But the major difference stems from the lying and hypocrisy in the NZ churches over that prize bastard, Samuel Marsden, aka the founder of Christianity in NZ. The guy was a sadistic monster, which everyone in Sydney knew and admitted — his record of torture, floggings, sadism is no secret in Sydney. Even the Anglican church in Sydney, with which he was associated, still cringes in embarrassment that they ever had anything to do with him.
But not so in NZ – where the churches still sing his praises, build monuments to him, and name schools after him. There was an open letter published in the NZ media within the last couple of years, praising Marsden, and his wonderful first Christian service in NZ. The letter was signed by somewhere in teh range of 50 to 70 NZ clergymen from all denominations.
To endorse Marsden, the NZ clergy have to be either congenitally stupid, or their deception is 100% intentional. You only need Google to know what a sadistic monster he was.
Such hypocrisy and lying was guaranteed to make the NZ public right;y see the NZ churches as a joke.