POLITICS, RELIGION AND OTHER IMPOLITE TOPICS:

WHAT ROLE SHOULD RELIGION PLAY IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS?

Rev. Elenie Poulos

Speech delivered at a forum of the
Don Chipp Foundation

University of Technology, Sydney
22 November 2005


What do you get when you put two Christians together in a very small room to talk
about what they believe?

Whatever seriously witty answer you can come up with to that, I guarantee it would
be better than mine, so Ill leave the humour to you and begin by suggesting that in
reality what would happen is that you would uncover one or more major differences
of opinion within the first few minutes.

Peoples religious commitments do not stand in isolation from the rest of our being. I
am a Christian but I am also many other things. The values and beliefs, and
pathologies, which arise of my experiences and everything else about me, influence
not only my perception of the world, but also motivate my beliefs and my reading of
my religion. My interpretation of my religion, though, also impacts on my values and
beliefs, and pathologies. My actions cannot be explained by describing one part of
my identity. My faith is not something external that seeps into me with a
predetermined and predictable outcome. All of which is to say that all Christians are
not the same.

It is partly for that reason that I am not concerned that, as a matter of principle, there
are Christians in our parliaments, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or atheists or humanists.
If Christians were all inhabiting the same political party, then I would be concerned,
but they are not.

I am concerned, however, about integrity in religious and political life and in the
health of our democracy.

I am concerned that as a nation, we are losing our grasp on political processes which
are authentic, open and transparent, and that we are struggling to know how to foster
a healthy participatory democracy with an active citizenry.

I am concerned that we who profess a religion practice our religion with integrity and
with respect for others and that when churches speak out into the public forum we
are clear about our motives.

I look forward to religious institutions and organisations truly and more consistently
reflecting the values they espouse in the way they order and live their lives.

Elenie Poulos 21.11.05
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Marion Maddox has shown that the influence of the Christian religious right in
Australian politics is not new but that in the hands of a socially conservative,
absolutely committed neo-liberal economic rationalist, this influence has insidiously
been allowed to work its way into the frontline of Australian politics. Conservative
Christian evangelicalism has come full circle from providing the conditions under
which the individualism so necessary for the growth of market capitalism could
flourish to becoming the servant of a rampant free market ideology that is actually
contrary to traditional Christian values.

But none of this, disturbing as it is, is reason to ignore or dismiss the integral
relationship between Christianity and politics.

The Uniting Church has understood from the beginning that its mission to stand with
and for the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed, and to stand against violence
and hatred, will involve it in Australias political life. Agencies like UnitingJustice are
therefore charged with the responsibility for offering leadership to the Uniting Church
in Australia on matters of social and ecological justice and peace.

UnitingJustice has a mandate to advocate for justice on behalf of the Church with
government and in the public forum. My work includes the development of policy and
position statements and national resolutions for the Uniting Church, submissions to
Senate committees and other Federal parliamentary inquiries, some media work and
the production of educational and advocacy resources.

I have found a home in the Uniting Church and in this part of its life because I share
Desmond Tutus belief that the Bible is the most radical political manifesto there is.
He believes, as I do, that the Christian tradition is, at its very core, political.

The Bible is a political manifesto because it contains principles which are meant to
guide us in how we live together. It is radical because its principles challenge so
many things about the way we organise society. Desmond Tutu, Oscar Romero,
Martin Luther King Jr, the Christian churches in Germany helping Jews escape the
Nazis in the Second World War, the Christians who fought to end slavery, were all
engaged in political action, challenging the way the forces of political power were
organising their societies because they believed Gods will is for a just and peaceful
world.

There is, though, a necessary limit. Christianity should never be, or even try to be,
the religion of the state. Christians are called to live on the radical edges, at the
margins, with the marginalised. The closer to the centre we move, the more we risk
the heart of our faith. Christianity is not meant to be a religion of power and force. It is
the religion of the poor which seeks justice for everyone. It is the faith of the humble
who worship God with goodness in their hearts. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday about two thousand years ago on a donkey, alone, not on a white charger
with an army behind him. History has shown us that whenever Christianity has
moved in to the centre of political power it has corrupted itself to become a force for
hatred and violence in the world.



Elenie Poulos 21.11.05
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On the other hand, Christians are called to be involved in political life it is part of
our discipleship be involved in our societies helping to build communities where
everyone is treated with dignity and respect and where the systems and structures
which organise our lives promote justice and peace.

Christianity is, at its core, political, because when you have a faith that begins with
the idea that human beings are created in the image of God, then you're going to
have to think about what that means when people are treated like dirt by
governments or armies or groups of school bullies.

When you have a faith that grows out of one man eating with the poor and
marginalised of his society, healing the sick, preaching freedom and dying nailed to a
tree because he had made a political nuisance of himself, then you do have a faith
which has serious political and economic implications.

In an interview with Geraldine Doogue on Compass in October last year John
Howard said that he regards the Judeo-Christian tradition as the single greatest
influence for good in the Australian Community and that he has a very strong belief
in the...stabilising influence of the Judeo-Christian ethic in this country.
1


The Governments responses to concerns about Government policy raised by the
people charged with the expression of that ethic, would suggest that he regards that
influence as one for good only some of the time.

During the last Federal Election campaign, George Pell and Peter Jensens
comments criticising Labors school funding policy seemed to please. They certainly
received significant media coverage. But who heard about the Uniting Church calling
for a commitment from both parties to cancel the debt of the worlds poorest
countries or commit to a treaty process with Indigenous Australians?

In the lead up and the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, however, all the
Churches received some considerable media space maybe it was because we all
agreed on something and that in itself is newsworthy. By August 2003 the
Government, and Alexander Downer in particular, was obviously fed up with being on
the receiving end of some pretty harsh, well reported criticism. In a public lecture Mr
Downer told Church leaders to stop spreading our amateurish ignorance and one-
sided moral message about the invasion of Iraq and go back to doing what were
supposed to, by which he meant tending to and praying with our little flocks in our
decaying buildings at 9:30 on Sunday mornings and visiting them when they get sick.

More recently, and for the second time in as many years the churches are
unanimous once again in their concern about the implications of the industrial
relations reforms on Australias most vulnerable workers. And once again we are
facing attack for being uninformed and economically ignorant.

Should I be surprised, then, that I have not heard Alexander Downer berating those
Christian leaders and Christian politicians who have also had a great deal of attention
for spreading another one-sided moral message? Maybe that time, about abortion,
the message suited.

1 http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1201238.htm
Elenie Poulos 21.11.05
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When Gerard Henderson wrote a piece entitled Mock Christians at your peril, lefties
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in October last year, he wasnt talking about Christians like me. He was referring to
those who stand for family values, or moral values, the real churches, the ones that
are traditional and of course evangelical.

Henderson certainly wasnt worried about Christians like me, who are mostly ignored,
told to butt out of issues we know nothing about, or are written off by that most
damning indictment of our time and place as members of the chardonnay-sipping
leftist intellectual elite. If we are not talking about moral values about sex and the
nuclear family we are at most a small frustration.

But what Henderson and so many politicians do not understand, or at least fail to
acknowledge, is that there are those of us who believe that the Christian life is not
about a small set of personal moral issues and that the counter-cultural thrust of
Christianity lies in its vision of authentic human community, justice and peace.

Basic Christian values are antithetical to a rampant consumer economy driven by an
unfettered global market in search of ever greater profits and Christians are not living
the faith if they are not resisting the prioritising of the pursuit of wealth and material
possessions over all else. Basic Christian values are antithetical to the rhetoric which
works to drive compassion out of our hearts and instil fear of difference. We cannot
live our faith if we fear the stranger and remain indifferent to suffering.

Christians are called to feed the hungry, house the homeless and care for the sick. In
a world where there are so many hungry and so many homeless and so many sick,
this becomes political action. We are called to love without discrimination. In a world
where people are discriminated against because of the colour of their skin, their
gender, their age, their sexuality and their poverty, this love becomes political action.
We are called to work for peace and in a world where so much power is held by
those who wage war, this work is political action.

Christians are called to challenge, in word and deed, systems and structures that
breed hate, greed, oppression, poverty, injustice and fear. Anything less than this is
at best a pale and anaemic version of the faith, and at worst, a perversion.

Christianity that is true to the Bible, true to the person and being of Jesus Christ and
true to the fullest experiences of our humanity must be a source of great hope in our
society. It can remind us that we are capable of something better and that if we work
together, those of us of all faiths and no faith, we can build a world where nature is
respected and all humanity flourishes in dignity and hope.

2 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/18/1097951626689.html?from=storylhs