Free Speech in Private and Public worlds
 
A veritable avalanche of words has recently been penned in defence of the supposed sacrosanct place free speech holds at the heart of democratic life. But should that place be so sacrosanct?
 
Many, perhaps most of us, live almost all our lives in a private world where our opinions and actions are largely, but not exclusively, a matter of our own choice.
 
The public world is the world of facts upon which every intelligent person can be expected to agree – or be capable of being persuaded. The private world is the world where we are free to follow our own preferences – a world in which there is no right or wrong in lifestyle.
 
The private world is a world in which good is largely understood as being that which serves our personal interest.  The public world is a world in which good is understood as that which benefits the whole, good that is common.
 
Those familiar with the Christian gospel could reasonably assume the Church would be first and foremost concerned about good that is common. However, the response of the Christian Church post the enlightenment has been to retreat into the private world. It has secured for itself a continuing place at the cost of surrendering the crucial field.  The angst president Biden is experiencing from leadership in his Church, the Catholic Church, relates to what is considered morally acceptable in this private world.  The Church has apparently nothing to say about the president’s major leadership burden which he must exercise in the public world. This retreat occurred before the explosion of social media, but having thus retreated, the Church now appears powerless to counter the effect of this medium’s ubiquitous presence which in the last two decades has not simply blurred the edges of these worlds but has seemingly made the distinction void.
 
The ethical consequences are considerable. The loss of an overarching ethical magisterium post the reformation and following the Enlightenment has led western liberal democracies to replace commitment to common good with a view that the role of the State is to protect individual human rights. A transformation has occurred from a substantive morality for the good to a formal morality of rights. This constitutes the central change in Western ethics over the past half millennium in terms of theory, practice, laws, and institutions.
 
If evidence of this move is required, just look at the official response from government in relation to Craig Kelly and his outrageous statements on social media.  The Prime Minister has defended his ‘right’ to speak and express his own views, at least until those views were appearing to hurt the Liberal Party. While on Thursday night’s Q and A, Alexander Downer defended Craig Kelly, deriding those who dared question this right. He said Kelly had become a victim of ‘cancel culture’.  Cancel culture is a pejorative term used in defence of everyone’s right to express their views in the public arena, no matter how extreme, and infers those who beg to differ are socialistic moral crusaders.
 
It is ironic that we appear to need a disaster to restore proper balance. The Covid pandemic has forced political and civic policy making to return to ‘good that is common’, even if it has meant overriding what would otherwise be considered basic human rights.  There have of course been objectors, most thoroughly predictable, but on the whole Australians have complied with that which has delivered the best possible community outcome.  This has not been the case in the US where the culture of ‘rights’ appears so deeply engrained in their DNA that its protection has appeared more important than life itself.
 
Perhaps there is time to prevent Australia sliding inexorably down a similar slippery slope, but only if those who hold public office can regain an ethical understanding of the consequences that flow from holding public office.  No one is forced to hold public office, but if we do, there must be obligations associated with that privilege which have precedence over private opinions.
 
To put it quite simply, a person who holds public or representative office is not free to put forward views that are demonstrably false.  Craig Kelly is the main culprit, but not the only parliamentary purveyor of falsehood.  George Christenson also dabbles in untruth, as does Matt Canavan in relation to climate change.  For some time there has been no wriggle room which might permit scepticism about overwhelming, and sadly worsening, scientific advice.
 
Craig Kelly has been the purveyor of mistruth in relation to Covid 19, Climate change, and the results of the US election. As a public figure he is simply not free to do that.
 
Following the establishment of a much-needed federal ICAC, one of its duties should be the capacity to sanction a politician who consistently presents material in the public domain which is demonstrably false.
 
Craig Kelly and his fellow parliamentarians have chosen to live and work in the public world, a world in which they are called to work tirelessly for good that is common. This truth seems to have totally bi-passed many, including Barnaby Joyce.  When recently asked his view about the desirability of 2050 emissions targets, he shrugged his shoulders saying that by then he will be so old that any target will be irrelevant.
 
In the western world free speech is a privilege to be cherished, a privilege about which residents of totalitarian states can only dream.  However, nothing in life is cost free. Those in the public world who use this privilege to peddle that which is demonstrably untrue are potentially creating a cost in confusion and division which the wider community must bear.
 
 
 
 
 

Australia Day Plebiscite
 
What kind of people are we, who, knowing full well our choice of national day presents insurmountable and painful difficulties to our first nations people, yet we still stubbornly refuse to move to another day?
 
The Prime Minister is fond of saying it is not his role to lecture others on a matter of morality or ethics.  He recently took this line following widespread demands he sanction Craig Kelly and George Christensen for their continuing fabrication of truth in relation to a range of issues including climate change, but more recently, the result of the US election.
 
However, he is more than happy to lecture others when the matter at hand is in direct conflict with his government’s chosen ideological position. He has had no difficulty in lecturing Cricket Australia for their decision to feature indigenous history and culture for the fixture on 26th January.  He told them to play more cricket and be involved in less politics.  The truth of course is that sport has always been involved in politics, be it through grand spectacles like the Olympic Games, or less spectacularly through football competitions, in particular, the boycotting of South African sporting teams which played a large part in the downfall of apartheid.
 
Apparently, he is quite happy that a committee, to be led by the notorious George Christensen, will lecture banks and insurance companies about their decision not to fund or insure various fossil fuel mining enterprises. Minister David Littleproud informed these financial institutions that it is not up to non-elected individuals or businesses to make political decisions based on moral principle.  Apparently, that is the role of government, although extreme reluctance to support an independent federal ICAC casts a shadow over this as a political ideal.   It seems not to occur to the minister that these decisions may have had little to do with morality or politics and everything to do with prudent business acumen. Investing in stranded assets would almost certainly risk litigation from shareholders.
 
The Prime Minister has recently changed ‘young’ to ‘one’ in the national anthem.  Few would disagree with the decision.  However, on its own it is mere tokenism. We are not ‘one’ simply by changing a word in the anthem, and we are certainly not ‘one’ if on our national day the first nations people feel alienated.
 
Changing the day, would not mean changing history. We would simply, but significantly, be changing the way we celebrate history.  In a real sense 26th January is the least suitable day to choose as Australia’s national day.  The landing did no more than strike a claim on these shores for the British monarch and Empire and begin an early settlement.   The landing did not in itself establish a new nation.  This was not to happen until 100 years later. The landing began the establishment of colonies, the purpose of which was largely penal.  Leaving aside the brutality and violence which was to quickly engulf the Dharawal nation, there was no understanding then that the continent upon which the Europeans were setting foot was occupied by more than 300 separate nations with history, culture, and tradition stretching back thousands of years.
 
Consideration of another date is not, to coin a phrase beloved of Prime Minister Howard, to submit to a black arm band view of history.  It is to recognise that as we have matured as a nation, it is no longer a date that best captures nationhood. Over the years many dates have been suggested, no doubt there are many that have merit. 
 
I have always favoured Federation Day as the most logical.  We became a nation because of federation on 1 January 1901.   I fully realise that this presents a logistical problem for annual celebrations, because everybody is asleep or on the beach on New Year’s Day and it is very close to Christmas.  There are ways around it.  The Queen’s birthday celebration is transferred to a date with potentially warmer weather and more sunlight!
 
However, there are other days.
 
I strongly recommend a plebiscite be held with perhaps two or three suggestions being made of which the current date could be one.  A plebiscite requires a significant investment in education which would be an extremely good thing for us all.
 
 
It is simply dumb, as well as insulting to our indigenous brother and sisters, to stay as we are.  Until there is a change, I will seek the company of First Nations people on 26th January, not out of any disrespect to our nation, quite the contrary, but because we can obviously do better, and for the sake of our ‘oneness’ we have to do better.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Christianity’s Watershed Moment
 
Evangelist Franklin Graham compared 10 members of the GOP to Judas Iscariot on Thursday after they voted to approve President Donald Trump's second impeachment. Ted Cruz, a GOP president wanna-be who speaks for conservative Christian values has done all he can to discredit the legitimate election of Joe Biden. Our Prime Minister, deeply immersed in ‘conservative Christianity’, has been inexplicably incapable of admitting Trump’s culpability. Why is Christianity so grafted to corrupt politics?
 
There have been a few watershed moments in the history of Christianity from which there is no turning back.  One of these moments was in the 4th century when, through various Ecumenical Councils, it became clear that to claim the name of Christian it was necessary to say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that in him there is life.
 
A second moment in the 15th century, facilitated by the printing press, saw authority transferred from a clerical, centralised and often poorly educated elite, to the whole family of God, the laity, via scripture. The faithful had been manipulated by this elite to protect their institutional power and authority.
 
Are current events in America heralding another such moment? Christianity has been associated with a seditious assault on the congress, an assault from which Christianity cannot be distanced and appears not to want to be distanced. Trump is not, and has not pretended to be, a Christian.  As far as one can tell he is biblically illiterate. There is no evidence that he is a regular Church attender.  His moral failures are legion and the damage he has done by claiming truth to be fake and what is fake to be true is immeasurable. Chaos and confusion are currently being played out in the lives of those whom he has convinced the election was stolen.
 
So, why this link between the Christian right and Trump?  Quite simply it has absolutely nothing to do with Christian discipleship and everything to do with politics and ideology. The right and Trump have needed one another. From Trump’s point of view the evangelical right provide him with a strong electoral base and from the point of view of the evangelical right Trump provides them with the closest thing they have found to a theocratic state.  He delivers, or purports to deliver, their agenda: supremacy of individual rights over social reform, prohibition on abortion, denial of gay rights and unconditional support for Israel. The situation is truly shocking. Is this the moment when any possible link between Christianity and a theocracy is completely, and finally rejected.
 
It is their obsession with a theocratic ideal, and apparent desire to fight and die for it, that has led to conspiracy theories about its opposite - a satanic cabal. The Christian right’s very identity is immersed in belief that they are soldiers for right against force of evil.  At a spiritual and moral level this is a helpful image as a long as we understand the possibility of good and evil are ever present in the lives of each one of us.  The dangerous error occurs when the idea of evil is transferred to those with whom we disagree of worse, do not understand. According to the conspiracy theorists, the existence and power of the cabal is led by paedophiles and demonstrated through a massive fraud that stole the election from them and their patron Donald Trump.
 
In this context the conspiracy theory makes absolute sense. If you believe God and God’s will is delivered through a theocracy; if this has been thwarted, there must be a reason big enough to match the thwarted aspiration.
 
It is unlikely that this dangerous nonsense with its seditious implications is going to be abandoned any time soon unless or until the ambition that led to it is corrected. The correcting is not the responsibility of secular politics, but of Christian leadership.  Where is that leadership? Where is the voice?
 
It is of course wrong and deceptive to make generalisations, to accuse by association.  Evangelicalism is a ‘broad church’. All evangelicals are not Trump supporters or believers in a theocratic ideal.  However, it remains the case that evangelicals predominate in the Trump movement, that the name of Jesus was carried by the riotous mob into the congress alongside the name of Trump.
 
The irony, of which these people seem totally unaware, is that Jesus eschewed power and the exercise of it. When asked to use it he refused, rebuking those who made the request.  He made it clear that the only power with legitimacy is the power of salt and light.  Without wishing to eulogise Joe Biden, his demeaner, words and influence in the face of relentless provocation has so far been of this kind.
 
The Christian right have no business condemning attempts to revive a Muslim caliphate, while they embrace language of violence in attempting to enforce their own.  In the absence of strong contemporary Christian leadership in condemnation of Franklin Graham and thousands of other self-appointed and theologically illiterate evangelical illuminati, I commend the fifth chapter of one of the earliest extant Christian writings, the letter to Diognetus:
 
Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity. The course of conduct they follow has not been devised by the speculation and deliberation of inquisitive men. The do not, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of merely human doctrines.
Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life.
They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers.
They marry, like everyone else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring.
They share a common table, but not a common bed.
They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives.
They love all men and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned. They are put to death and restored to life.
They are poor, yet make many rich. They lack everything, yet they overflow in everything.
They are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor they are glorified; they are spoken ill of and yet are justified; they are reviled but bless; they are insulted and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if raised from the dead. They are assailed by the Jews as barbarians; they are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to give any reason for their hatred.
Those who think Franklin Graham and Ted Cruz and their admirers in Australia are somehow followers of the man from Galilee, please read the above letter and become acquainted with real witnesses, first and second century Christians.
 
 
 

The Danger of Oxygen Fuelled Falsehood
 
Human opinions and views will always diverge greatly.  However, giving oxygen to spurious views in full knowledge they are divisive in nature and designed to misinform should be considered a crime and the perpetrators called to account.
 
The behaviour, language, and deception of Donald Trump over the four years of his presidency have been an international scandal, not simply a domestic scandal, given the role the US has played, and is expected to play, in international affairs. But equally scandalous, on the one hand, has been the failure of leading Republican figures to pull him into line, and on the other, the failure of social media outlets to prevent the dissemination of material that has been factually wrong, and worse, designed to cause division, even hate.  It is almost beyond belief that for four years this president has been allowed to perpetrate falsehood, and in the process, convince a significant following that facts are fake and what is fake to be fact.  Twitter is to be congratulated for permanently closing his account, but why did it have to come to this before action was taken?
 
To be fair to him, the environment in which this scandal became possible, is not exclusively of his making.  Deep within the US psyche is ingrained belief that individual rights must prevail, no matter the circumstance. Any attempt to curtail these rights, be it gun control in the face of shocking massacres and brutality, or responsible behaviour to safeguard the community in the face of the covid pandemic, is perceived as an assault on these supposed fundamental rights. The result is that massacres still occur, brutality towards blacks is endemic, and thousands needlessly die of the pandemic.  Trump has shamelessly played to this psyche, and in the process has brought democracy to its knees and irretrievably reduced America’s standing in the international community.
 
The great challenge facing the Unites States of America is finding a political way forward through which the protection of individual rights and the protection of common good can be championed as complimentary partners of one another, not as opposites. This way forward is as urgently required in international affairs as in domestic national affairs.  True liberty is not the capacity to do whatever you want; regardless of others, it is the capacity to be fulfilled in the company of the much greater whole to which all humanity belongs.  This is a challenge the Republicans must address. If they cannot extract themselves from Trumpism they will lack any real capacity to be a viable, unifying, alternative government.
 
Unfortunately, fake news, divisive madness, also exists on the periphery of Australian political life and because the purveyors are deemed necessary to the survival of ‘conservative’ politics, they have dangerously more influence than they should be expected to wield as individual politicians. Two of the worst offenders are Craig Kelly and George Christensen.   Both are conveyors of untruth, most recently supporting the conspiracy theory that the assault on the US congress was stirred by the left-wing fringe movement - Antifa. If this were true, then not only did Trump egg on the extreme right, but he also managed to influence the left as well! It seems not to worry both gentlemen a jot that the report on which thy relied for the dissemination of their conspiracy theory has been totally discredited.
 
Readers will be aware that both these men have been climate sceptics and have done all in their power to circumvent an energy policy that will assist Australia’s necessary transition to a low emissions future and the development of new industries based on prolific supplies of renewable energy.  Not only have these two men had far too much influence in delaying environmental responsibility, but they have also seriously let down a work force that should by now have been assisted into a future based upon new secure and growing employment opportunity.  Instead, the work force has been left facing an inevitable cliff as fossil fuel extraction comes incrementally to an end.
 
Craig Kelly is an embarrassment; I understand increasingly so even in his own electorate.  Why has the Prime Minister protected him? Surely the Liberal Party will not again support his endorsement?
 
In a recent Opinion Piece Tony Abbott railed against what he considered to be indefensible curtailment of individual rights as Australian state authorities imposed mask wearing and lockdown restrictions. He apparently believed the seriousness of the virus to have been grossly exaggerated and Australian economy growth to have been unnecessarily curtailed.  Having spent some recent time in the UK one would have thought that observing 1000 covid deaths a day, an NHS stretched beyond its capacity and an economy in deep trouble, he would understand this pandemic is not a gentle stroll in the park.  Abbott clearly holds the view that individual ‘rights’ must always prevail.
 
In the same opinion piece Abbott opined that decisions such as those involved with shutdowns should be made by elected members of government and not influenced, let alone be led by ‘unelected expert opinion’. One would have thought the reverse, that the role of elected members of parliament should be to be as informed as possible by expert opinion and both devise and implement policy based on this advice, regardless of its popularity or otherwise within the electorate.
 
Where expert advice or opinion has not been taken or followed, the pandemic is out of control and politically motivated partisan ideology has been allowed to prevail. Where expert advice has been ignored in relation to global warming, the planet becomes unnecessarily more fragile.
 
All human beings tend to read or listen to opinions which coincide with well-established views.  Because of this tendency, it is vital that mainstream news outlets are disciplined in the promotion of facts and that ‘alternative facts’ are not given equal authority. When facts have been determined beyond reasonable doubt an alternative view is simply false.
 
What has befallen the US is unlikely to befall Australia.  However, if voices of falsehood and discontent are given oxygen, it is possible that such madness could find root in Australian life.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Star Worth Following
 
If William Shakespeare were alive today his pen would be burning a hole in his manuscript, such has been the volume of material available to him for multiple new plays.  If drama, pathos, intrigue, conspiracy, false truth are the staple resources for a great script writer, 2020 has been the greatest of all years to be alive.  On a planet in our galaxy the year has ended with the pathetic spectre, more tortured than any caricature could imagine, of a beaten and pathetic president fawning over sycophantic conspiracy theorists who help him keep his world of unreality alive. Pain in the loss of power and visibility is obviously impossible to bear.
On the other hand, on the planet we all call home, we have thousands upon thousands of women and men, scientists, health workers, doctors, carers, drivers, shop assistants, who without power, prestige, visibility, or adequate reward have striven to keep us together, healthy, and alive.  The contrast could not be starker.
2000 years ago, the calm enjoyed by shepherds tending their sheep in a field on the edge of a little mid-eastern village was frighteningly disturbed by a strange light and presence.  They had become involuntary witnesses to an unfolding drama which would reveal how wrong the world was then, and is now, about the true nature of power and citizenship. The unfolding story would challenge the meaning of governance, the meaning of leadership, indeed the meaning and destiny of life itself.
The recording of this story in the pages of scripture remind the reader that a thousand years earlier, a famous and charismatic leader (David) had sought to cement his legacy in the construction of a physical temple to house the presence of God. He was forbidden and told through his prophet Nathan that this was not to be his legacy, rather God would provide him with the legacy of a household whose membership would be embraced and transformed by the God he had wished to house.
Then came a carpenter and pregnant partner to Bethlehem in obedience to citizenship’s demand that they be counted in a census.
The shepherds witnessed the no vacancy sign, the baby, the stable, the inauspicious beginning.  They witnessed in embryo what the early Christians were later to reflect upon as life-giving paradox.  Vulnerability is strength.  Service is power.  Generosity is wealth. Hospitality is inclusion with the power to abolish rivalry and violence.
The shepherds were to hear the message from angel voices. But the message was destined to become incarnate in a person.  In Jesus, the message and the messenger are the same.  To embrace the message is to embrace the messenger and to experience the promised hope joy and peace.  What takes life and form inside one’s very being becomes life giving and transformative, what can never be more than an external adornment remains ephemeral and falsely seductive.
And yet. And yet…………………. We humans are strangely resistant to inner life and would prefer to chase after that which can never fully satisfy, in the process continuing to cause damage not simply to ourselves but to others and the world.
Perhaps the year of Covid will prove, with the benefit of hindsight, to have been the reality check we in the consumer orientated Western world have needed. It has always been a mistake to measure “progress” solely in materialistic, technological, economic, digital terms.  What the year has shown is that community, friendship, intimacy, family, are always more important than the endeavours to which we usually commit most of our energy and priority.  True progress is always an internal not an external matter.  More sober judgement will tell that the behaviour of many world leaders and captains of industry and media, in 2020, has been no different to the scandalous emperors of Rome in Jesus time, or European leaders of the Middle Ages.  It is just that sophistication camouflages the reality that we have not progressed a jot.
The headline in the opinion piece for Christmas Eve in the Australian was headed:  Faithful haunted by quest for meaning.   No, they are not!  The reverse is almost certainly the truth.  The world is (or should be) haunted by the reality that avoiding the truth revealed in the birth of Jesus is to condemn humanity to constantly repeating its history of mistakes, notwithstanding technological sophistication.
We are not born to triumph over others, but to serve them.  As Desmond Tutu says, it is the strong who apologise, the weak do not.  Believing we are members of the same family under God, we should seek alliances and cooperation, always breaking down barriers, never afraid to take the lowest place.  Not much sign of this in Trump’s “America first”, Johnson’s “Brexit”, Xi’s dominance through “Belt and Road”, or Morrison’s “Australia will not be dictated to”.
In the birth of Jesus profound and eternal truth is made known. Embracing this truth has the capacity to transform the world in which we live.  Ignoring this truth is to condemn us to perpetuating the same.
Unto us a child is born
Unto us a Son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder
He will be called wonderful counsellor
Mighty God
Everlasting Father
Prince of Peace
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Saying I no longer intend to cheat, does not merit applause
 
It is all very well for the Prime Minister to brush off his failure to gain a speaking role at the Glasgow global warming summit as inconsequential, but it is far from that and a serious slap in the face. The reality is that the Prime Minister and his government have scored a D minus in one of the most important challenges facing the global community this century. The result of this D minus is that the rest of the world concludes we are pariahs with nothing worth saying or hearing.
 
Mr Morrison you have failed even by your own benchmark.  You have said you will not be dictated to by voices external to Australia but will be answerable to Australians alone. Well, good!  The facts of the matter are that between 60% and 70% of Australians have made it clear they want a far more stringent response to climate change and carbon emission reductions than you are prepared to make.  No Mr Morrison you have made it clear you are not accountable to Australians either.  To whom are you accountable?  Presumably, it is your friends in the mining industry whose financial interest are expected to  be diminished in the transition to renewable energy.
 
Mr Morrison you have failed those currently employed in the mining industry, more specifically the coal mining industry. I spent eight happy and productive years in the Hunter Valley at the start of the mining boom.  Prior to this the valley flourished on its dairies, equine industries, and vineyards. It is facing the next inevitable transition and desperately needs energy and investment in new industries based around a carbon neutral economy.  In maintaining your position against all the economic evidence to the contrary, you are denying these women and men a smooth transition commencing now, leaving them with the prospect of falling off a cliff in the foreseeable future.   This is both cruel and unnecessary.  We know coal is in decline.  We know there will never be another coal fired power station. We know Liddell is closing.  We know Bayswater will not continue indefinitely. Why are you leaving these employees directionless when they could begin to be excited about a future as equally prosperous as the past, without the ugliness in which the valley is now being left.
 
Mr Morrison you have failed the scientists. The science of global warming has been clear for decades. Strategies to meet the challenge have also been clear.  Because of governmental policy failure over decades there is now one major change.   It is that the challenge is now infinitely more demanding than it need have been, the seriousness of the situation much more acute, and the cost of action now far more expensive.
 
Mr Morrison you have failed your two daughters, indeed all children who face a monumental task if their world is not to be a shadow of the world we have been accustomed to enjoy.  It is no wonder that children are taking the lead in demanding action.  I hope the action currently before the courts, taken by children who claim government inaction is stealing their future, is successful.
 
Mr Morrison you are failing the Australian economy.  By now we should have been well down the track in the development of new industries and new exports such as liquid hydrogen.  You may think you are doing the right thing by protecting current sources of budgetary income, but the reality is you are failing to build strong foundations for the economies of the future which Australia is more than capable of leading.
 
Mr Morrison you are failing our neighbours in the Pacific. How you can attend meetings with fellow Islander leaders without severe embarrassment I do not know.  You know as well as I do that certain Islander nations are already in real peril.
 
Mr Morrison you are failing the conservative tradition.  A true conservative is one who wishes to conserve, who wants to protect culture, values, traditions, resources that are meritorious.  Are you a conservative only in the sense that you wish to protect what is held in private hands?  Our most precious commodities are common and protecting them is the solemn duty of those who govern.
 
Mr Morrison you have said the most sacred duty of government is to keep its people safe. The greatest exponential threat facing Australians this century is climate change.  We are already reaping some of its fury.  We are sadly on the threshold of a new normal, and not a pleasant one.  If you seriously believe you have a duty to keep us safe, then you are bound, by weight of office, to act.
 
Above all Mr Morrison you are failing the total environment upon which we all depend for our wellbeing.  In Covid you and the Premiers wisely concluded that putting health first was the best way of shoring up the economy. Put the economy first and both health and economy would collapse.
 
Why you cannot see the same parallel with climate change is beyond me.  Human economic activity is utterly and completely dependent upon the health and balance of the natural environment.  We have no resources other than those that are drawn from the natural order.  Prioritise the environment and long-term economic health will be protected. Ignore the health of the environment and the very foundations of civil society will ultimately crumble.
 
Mr Morrison, it is not at all surprising that you have been denied a voice at the table.  You have nothing to say, nothing worthwhile to offer.  It is reported that what you wanted to say was that Australia will not depend upon its Kyoto credits to meet its 2030 target.  In school, students are not considered meritorious simply because they announce they are not intending to cheat.  A much more significant ambition is being called for.
 
In one sense federal energy and climate policy is increasingly irrelevant.  The States are taking the lead.  Farmers are taking the lead.  Ordinary householders are taking things into their own hands.  The business council is setting ambitious targets.   But on the other hand, the national government should not be irrelevant. We look to you to lead, set a standard, stretch our ambitions. 
 
Why you continue to fail us I simply do not understand.
 
 
 
 

Is the Anglican Church about to spilt?
“The Conversation” recently published an article co-authored by Dorothy Ann Lee, Stewart Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity College Melbourne, and Muriel Porter, Honorary Research Fellow, Trinity College Theological School, University of Divinity, under the heading “Is the Anglican Church about to split? It is facing the gravest threat to its unity in more than 200 years”. Both writers are highly respected and credentialed, so what they have written deserves serious attention.
The context of their article is a decision by the Anglican Church’s Appellate Tribunal on November 11 to uphold the right of Dioceses to bless same sex marriages that have already been formalised in a civil ceremony.  The Appellate Tribunal is the highest court of the Anglican Church with national weight, capable of deciding ecclesiastical matters. The decision was a 5-1 majority.
If our two scholarly authors are correct, the consequence would be far more serious than the inevitable feeding of lawyers with questions of identity, property ownership etc for years to come.  Much more serious would be the utter irrelevance of the Church itself.  The world has already moved on.  Same sex unions have acceptance amongst most Australians as shown by the plebiscite. The seeming narrowness, indeed pettiness of debate in the Church is not simply a matter of yawning irrelevance to most Australians, worse, it is offensive. Who wants to be part of Church which priorities divisive judgement on sexuality and gender whilst remaining silent on far more serious matters such as growing global financial inequity, world poverty, racism, intolerance, violence, and climate change?
This tribunal judgement will not so much cause division but serve to illustrate a chasm that already exists, a chasm both within the Church and between the Church and civil society. This chasm is epitomised and characterised in the public mind, as a cause of exclusion, division, even violence. The chasm does not exist exclusively or even primarily in the Anglican Church. It exists in one form or another across all word religions and within all Christian denominations.
On one side of the chasm are those who, through their sacred texts and traditions, are wedded to favoured and piously held certainties, however illogical, unreasonable, and exclusive.  The certainties of radicalised Islam are all too painfully and violently obvious, experienced by many through terrorism.  The certainties of Zionism have led to the stealing of Palestinian land and the painful denial of their human rights. The certainties of Hinduism and Buddhism have led to conflict in Sri Lanka, India, and Myanmar.   The certainties of Roman Catholicism are all too apparent in the struggles of Pope Francis to rise above the historically expanded and elitist accretions of canon law and Vatican bureaucracy.  The certainties of America’s evangelical right blind them to all the moral failings of the Trump era. Etc. 
Certainty is the diet of populism.  It is nourished by fear and the need for identity which makes the adherent different, if not superior to others.  There will never be a shortage of those who long for certainty, particularly in times of adversity. Some of the most egregious forms of religious manipulation of the human longing for certainty are found in assertions that seek to describe eternal destiny in terms of those included, and those excluded. The utterances of Israel Folau, supported by the Australian Christian Lobby and the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, are amongst the most recently notorious.
Certainty is also about power. Political parties trade in promises of certainty.  Religious groups, through the carrot of certainty, attract membership, promising some the prospect of wealth in this world as well as an eternal destiny.
On the other side of the chasm are those adherents of faith whose lives and attitudes can best be seen through the prism of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Simone Weil and Martin Luther King. Bonhoeffer was deeply conscious of the paradoxes of life.  He coined the phrase “Religion-less Christianity”, meaning that Christianity is not primarily about religious doctrine, liturgical formation and ministerial or priestly office, but commitment to the path that love demands. If the only certainty worthy of the name is that God is love, and that love is the only transformative power that matters, then most other certainties simply get in the way.
Those who flirt with certainty flirt also with dualism, which Christianity denies.  At the heart of the Christian faith is belief that God in Jesus embraces the world in its entirety. Those whose company I yearn to keep on my side of the chasm know that this finite world is a messy place, but because it is loved by God it must be loved by us too.  Engaging with it for its transformation and redemption is a messy business, but it is the road less travelled and the only worthy route. It was the prophet Micah who posed the rhetorical question “What does the Lord require of you?” and then answered it with “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”.
We live in a world in which it has become acceptable to equate opinion with fact, to disallow appropriate authority if it is in some way inconvenient. Those on the other side of the chasm to the path I walk accuse me of fudging, of not taking the bible seriously.  I would argue the reverse.  By giving single verses authority, scripture is diminished. In the matter of sexual identity and practice, overwhelming scriptural condemnation falls on those who abuse, who use sexuality as an instrument of power, who seek gratification at the expense of others, who separate sexual expression from relational commitment. This condemnation falls equally across sexual and gender identification.
The real crisis facing the Church is not potential division over gender and sexuality but over the reality that  the scandal of child sexual abuse has so tarnished the name of the Church that whatever it may wish to say on almost any subject is devalued. Similarly, religious leadership has become so buffeted by the storm that its voice on issues that really matter have become inaudible.  The real crisis facing the Church is not its internal squabbles, but that it is irrelevant, not engaged as Jesus was with the world in all its complexity, but has retreated to the comfort of its ecclesiastical internalities.
Covid 19 has been a challenge to the Church as it has been to the rest of society.  But it has also been a blessing.  It has become transparently obvious that some aspects of life we thought to have been indispensable are not, whereas values such as intimacy, connectedness, care of others, neighbourliness, nourishment of the inner spirit are basic.  Only time will tell whether the Church, will possess the vision and grace to transform itself away from meaningless and divisive internal wrangling, based on dubious exegesis, to a more attractive life-giving network of Jesus followers.
 
 

A Warrior Culture
 
The Prime Minister warned us that we would be in for some shocking reading as the report into Australian war crimes in Afghanistan was released.  That there were 39 alleged murders, and 19 Australian soldiers involved, is indeed shocking; but the report was heavily redacted, sparing us the details.  We are told that one of these crimes is the most shocking to have occurred in the whole of Australian military history.
 
How is it possible that such awful atrocities occurred?  One of the explanations, quite apart from shockingly inadequate supervision and leadership from the top down, is the development of a known ‘warrior culture’.
 
Let us assume for a moment that the development of this perversion of culture contributed to a conditioning of the soldiers involved, enabling the crossing of a line that would otherwise be considered inconceivable.  Where does this perversion have its origins?  Is it possible that fertile soil exists outside the closed ranks of the military within the myth making of greater Australian identity, especially the ANZAC myth? To a lesser degree, are we all complicit for condoning a particular version of nationhood to the exclusion of other influences which might otherwise temper the dominant narrative?
 
Now, I am not suggesting for one moment that the ANZAC myth tolerates such shocking behaviour, but I am suggesting that the exultation of the ANZAC myth above all other contributing factors of Australian identity leads to a corruption of the true nature of what it means to be an Australian.
 
We all know that when politicians are in difficulty, a proven method of distracting public attention from domestic difficulties is to become involved in overseas conflict. John Howard did this, as did Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnston, and many others.  Equally perverse has been Australia’s recent ambition to be one of the leading exporters of armaments, despite the fact we have a very chequered history in the usefulness or effectiveness of big-ticket items we purchase.
 
Australia has been involved in almost every conflict involving our ‘allies’ during my lifetime.  With the benefit of hindsight, the only morally defendable conflict was World War 2.  And yet, around this history of conflict we have woven a myth of nation building that exaggerates the impact of conflict in the business of nation building and leaves room for the perversion of identity through lack of balance and a more considered perspective.   If however we are to continue building such a view of ourselves then we should not be surprised that those who are deemed to be the elite of the elite as flag bearers of this identity should consider themselves heroic beyond what might more reasonably perceived to be authentic Australian identity.
 
Politicians of all persuasions load onto the military bandwagon when it suits them. An iconic example of the disproportionate attention being given to Australia’s military history is the obscene amount of money about to be spent on pulling down and rebuilding part of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.  The venture is quite outrageous when seen against the reduction of money available to other institutions that mark equally important aspects of Australian life and nation building. 
 
I venture the elements that should be celebrated as foundational to Australian identity and nation building are:
 

1. The history, culture, dispossession, giftedness and contribution of Australia’s First Nations people. The history of wars and conflict against First Nations people should have equal priority to remembrance of lives lost in overseas conflict. More Australian First Nations people lost their lives in conflict on this soil than Australians who have lost lives in overseas conflict, with the possible exception of World War 1.
2. The life and struggle of the early settlers
3. Australia’s multi-cultural migration
4. The development of Australian arts in all their forms
5. Australia’s involvement in overseas conflict.

 
While the honouring of First Nations people should be given the highest priority in elements that shape national identity and nation building, the next four are of equal importance. Our involvement in overseas conflict should not be given priority over other elements.
 
It is a matter of sober thought that those who engage in any form of violence are less likely to acknowledge the point at which boundaries are crossed.  Considerable thoughtful work is emerging about the relationship between interhuman violence and violence done to the natural order. The conservative side of politics appears to define as heroic any form of exploitative work, however demeaning to the natural order, that produces short term monetary wealth.
 
As a nation we must give serious reconsideration to that which we consider heroic. If we consider heroism to be inextricably connected to some form of violence, then we should not be surprised when this comes home to haunt us.
 
As General Campbell has said, the heroes in this tragic saga are those who have blown the whistle. It is salutatory to be reminded that the Australian government, through the office of the Attorney General, is still pursuing whistle blowers in another context and for too long was doing so in this context.
 
ANZAC day should be honoured, but it should not become Australia’s national day as it has more recently become by default.  Nor should there be a ‘Military Division’ alongside the General Division of the Australian Honours system, a change recommended by the panel commissioned to review Australian honours in 1995 but dropped stone dead by the incoming Howard government.
 
The soldiers who have been accused of Afghanistan atrocities should face the full impact of the law, nothing can excuse their alleged conduct.
 
However, Australia and Australian politicians should think again about our propensity to easily send men and women into harm’s way for the most dubious of reasons.  Those who fought in Vietnam, The Gulf, Iraq, or Afghanistan must wonder what on earth it was about and what it has achieved.
 
But more broadly, Australia and Australians should consider more carefully what in our culture and nation building we consider to be most heroic.  Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount for a definition of heroic activity, those who deserve this accolade are not those involved in violence, but the doctors and nurses at the front line of the pandemic, refugees who have risked everything to give their children a better life, the emerging generation of indigenous leadership and figures such as doctors Richard Harris and Craig Challan.
 

All Saints Day – 1st November
 
Communion, or commonality of life, is a sacred truth the secular world desperately needs to experience. As a lived reality this truth can reshape this transient world from its growing antipathy, polarised communities, and aggressive competitiveness.  We all belong to one another. No one is an outsider. This truth builds hope that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, harmony and wholeness are always on offer. Everything matters, everyone matters, the distinctiveness of each individual part and person contributes to the beautiful mosaic of the whole.
 
After Good Friday/Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost, All Saints is the next most important festival in the Christian calendar and should be accorded the focus it deserves.  It is more than tragic that the US, supposedly the Christian capital of the world, has bequeathed to us ‘Halloween’ as an All Saint substitute; a celebration of pranks, ghouls sugar fixes and conspiracy theories.  Bizarre that a celebration of light should have morphed into a shadowy world of spooks.
 
If time is of the essence and reading the Bible is a task too difficult, the readings for All Saints Day could be enough to sustain a weary pilgrim, or a would-be pilgrim, on many a day’s journey.  They are Revelation 7: 9 -17, 1 John 3: 1-3, Matthew 5: 1-12.
 
The book of Revelation is avoided by many, for good reason.  Because of its apocryphal style it has been the source of many misguided theories about the past and the future of the world.  The despicable  Pentecostal US leader, Pat Robertson, has gifted us with the latest prediction, loosely connected to this book, that Trump is about to win the election on Tuesday, that war will break out against Israel, to be followed by the Rapture or the end of the world. (The first is a frightening possibility, but any connection to this Book is rank nonsense).
 
The book was written to and for the era in which it was lived, but because of its deep insights it is applicable to all times and ages.  It is affirmation to a besieged community post the resurrection that the love and sacrifice of Jesus (referred to in the book as the Lamb), brings life in all its fullness, conquering darkness and pain. Therefore, be under no illusion – love reigns. Further, as this passage so wonderfully proclaims, in taking human form, in his dying and rising, Jesus eternally lifts humanity beyond the shackles of mortality and decay. 
 
Christianity does not have Islam’s equivalent exultant cry in ‘Allahu Akbar’, but if it did, perhaps it would be: “The Lamb reigns”.  Because of its use in terrifying tribal form, Allah Akbar, has become a cry that generates fear and division rather than love and unity.  ‘The Lamb reigns’, is a cry that humility triumphs, that service and sacrifice are all powerful, that dignity has been bestowed upon humanity because God has taken our nature.  
 
Faced with the frightening might of the Roman Empire and requirement that the Emperor be worshipped, it was a brave person who was prepared to say no: and more particularly to claim the counter intuitive – the Lamb, the crucified one reigns.
 
It is generally assumed that John, who wrote the Gospel bearing his name, also wrote the three epistles and the Book of Revelation. (If Covid settles enough to allow international travel to resume, put the island of Patmos, his Mediterranean island retreat, on your bucket list. A visit to his rock cave makes for a very special pilgrimage.).  The passage set today from his letter should be savoured.  “We are God’s children, what we will be has not yet been revealed, what we do know is that when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is”. Wow!!!! 
 
Why do we find such a grand vision so hard to grasp, and to live its truth? In recent weeks, many stories confirm that Australian culture carries an under-current of racism.  None of us like to admit this is the case. Racism is about a presumption of superiority and inferiority. It has long existed in relation toward Australia’s First Nations people.  In the mid-20th-century it existed in relation to people of southern European descent.  Recently there have been too many examples of prejudice towards those of Asian descent.  John 3: 1-3 dignifies all with an identity which disallows any possibility of inferiority.
 
The three readings climax with the Beatitudes. This stunning passage is not simply an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, but in a real sense a summary of the whole Gospel, of the Christian faith. 
 
If we do believe the ‘Lamb reigns’ there are consequences, as counterintuitively outlined in this passage.  “Blessed are …” is perhaps a bit too sanctimonious for everyone’s taste.  If so, then read: “You are in the right place when ….” you are meek, merciful, hunger and thirst for righteousness, mourn, are poor in spirit, etc.  These virtues may well have us in the right place, but they are not virtues or qualities beloved of the world’s controversial leaders, nor dare I say of the general run of Australian politicians.
 
For many weeks Dan Andrews and Victorians have been ‘poor in spirit’ as they have endured a painfully long shut down.  Right wing media and right-wing politicians have lambasted the premier for his stance, some in a most sanctimonious manner.  And yet while staying this course he has delivered not simply Victoria but the whole of Australia from what could have been a fate similar to that currently being experienced in the US and Europe.  He, and Victorians, have been appropriately lauded internationally for an outstanding achievement. The rest of Australia, at its best, has mourned with them and now also rejoices with them.
 
When not focussed on Covid, the media has run many recent stories about corruption.  Some have been stories associated with senior staff at Australian Post.  The Prime Minister chose to be angry and appalled by the stories that emanated from outside his political inner circle.  He has been neither angry, nor appalled, by the continuing stories of malpractice by members of parliament and most particularly by members of his own cabinet.  To ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’ applies first and foremost to actions over which we have personal responsibility - before making judgements about others.  It may well be the case that gifting cartier watches is inappropriate, but buying land at ten times its value from wealthy donors is another category of corruption altogether.
 
If it could be assumed that all who serve us in the corridors of power are wedded to the virtues embedded in the Beatitudes, there would be no need for a federal independent corruption watchdog with teeth,  but an endless parade of corrupt activity illustrates that such an assumption is unwarranted.
 
All Saints day is an affirmation of communion, now and into eternity.  None of us travels this earthly path alone.  We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.  Everyone and everything matters. Together we are children of the same God.
 
Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
And thanksgiving and honour
And power and might
Be unto our God for ever and ever
Amen.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​News or Propaganda
 
Kevin Rudd is not right on everything, but in describing the Murdoch Press and News Limited as a cancer on democracy, ceasing to be a news masthead, but morphing into a propaganda machine, he is absolutely correct.
 
Anecdotal examples are too numerous to cover.  Most recently, following the results of the New Zealand election, the Australian proffered the view that Jacinda Ardern is populist and incompetent.  Was this statement based upon the fact she is female, or a Labor leader? What gratuitous arrogance!  In the view of many, inside her native New Zealand and throughout the world, she is recognised as one of few national figures to offer genuine leadership. Why?  Because she has the skills to galvanise nationhood on the basis of ethical values: service, compassion, justice, equality, common good.  The drivel emanating from the likes of Alan Jones, Rowan Dean, and Andrew Bolt is like water off a duck’s back to her.  Qualities necessary in leadership are commitment to justice and common good, compassion, capacity to unify through diversity, strength and wisdom in the face of trauma and crisis, clear rejection of partisan self-interest and trustworthiness.   She has these qualities in spades, it is hard to find sufficient other world leaders with the same qualities to cover the fingers of a single hand.
 
In a recent opinion piece supporting the return of Donald Trump, Greg Sheridan, the Australian’s foreign editor, suggested the reader should be afraid of a Biden presidency for a variety of reasons, one of them being his stated intention to enact legislation which would require the US to set a zero carbon emissions target within a timeframe set neither by politics nor neoliberal economic theory, but by science.  Ridiculing or contradicting climate science has long been the mission of the Murdoch press, with undue weight given to ‘scientists’ promoted by the mining industry and charlatans such as Lord Monckton.
 
The Murdoch legacy will prove far more costly to future generations than economic damage left by the Covid pandemic.  For far too long, Murdoch and his stable have sought to foster doubt about the science that lies behind the call for environmental responsibility in light of global warming. It has refused to accept the human footprint is the primary contributor to escalating climate change. Murdoch and his empire have successfully prevented the development of appropriate energy and environmental policy for two decades, through its championing of the extreme right-wing of Australian political life. The consequences of this reprehensibility are already obvious: loss of species diversity, uninsurable real estate, greater health risks, lost agricultural production, inadequate investment in green technologies, a power grid that is no longer fit for purpose,  more intense weather events, etc.
 
Even minor figures do not escape the ire of this ideologically driven, rather than fact driven, masthead.  In 2009, while living in the UK, I preached at a memorial service in Westminster Abbey to mark the terrible losses incurred by the Victorian bushfires.  In the sermon I noted the obvious, the intensity of these fires indicated the growing threat of climate change through the escalation of severe ‘natural’ events.  I was lambasted in the next day’s edition of the Australian and accused of hypocrisy by flying from Australia to the UK to preach.  That I was then living in the UK was pointed out, but this did not extract an apology.  The ideological convictions of the paper are always presented regardless of facts to the contrary.
 
Democracy should never be assumed as a given.   It needs to be nurtured in every generation and renewed at every general election.  The media plays a crucial role in this process.  The strengths and weaknesses of all sides of politics need to be laid bare and policies scrutinised.  The Murdoch press is ideologically committed to a neoliberal economic agenda and opposed to Keynesian intervention.  For ten years the Murdoch press lambasted Labour for its ‘socialist’ intervention in the global meltdown of 2008, blaming it for consecutive budget deficits and giving absolutely no credit  to the truth that this action saved Australia and Australians from recession and escalating unemployment.   In the wake of the Covid pandemic, where the conservative coalition has been forced to intervene on an infinitely grander scale, the same critique is not applied. 
 
The promotion not only of the Coalition but the far right of the Conservative Coalition is quite shameless.  The headlines carried by the Murdoch press following the recent by-election in the seat of Eden Monaro would indicate that Scott Morrison had pulled off a stunning victory and wiped Labor from the map, in fact Labor won.
 
Democracy requires facts to be presented and possibilities weighed. 
 
It is to his absolute credit that James Murdoch has parted from the family company because of these issues.
 
Scott Morrison loves to speak of the ‘Canberra bubble’.  In this reference he appears to mean interest in, or examination shown, by commentators of agendas that do not correlate with his own.   But I would ask, who lives in such a bubble, is the boot not on the other foot?   Until Covid struck, I was a reasonably regular visitor to the Australian parliament.  TV screens are ubiquitously present in public spaces as well as private offices.   One might, not unreasonably, expect these screens to be tuned into the national broadcaster. Not a bit of it.  They are invariably tuned to Sky News. Sky News has a miniscule public audience and yet it is the channel of choice of our political representatives as they seek to be better informed.  Who is living in what bubble?
 
Murdoch, and his followers in the far right of parliament, are doing their best to destroy the effectiveness and independence of the ABC.  All of this, not in the public interest, but in the interest of total dominance being given to the propaganda machine of a particular ideology. Should we be worried for the ABC?  Yes, we most certainly should, but even more concerning, should these subversive and self-interested forces have their way, we should be deeply alarmed for the future of democratic processes in Australian public life.
 
Let the bells of truth ring out.  The dominant news outlet in Australia has ceased to be a news outlet, it is a politically, ideologically driven, propaganda machine.