In late 2004, our Research Officer, Bronwyn Thompson, informed us that the rest of the world was publishing blogs, and demanded space to do her own. Our Bronny is a very determined young lady, and we wouldn't dare deny her the opportunity to become a world-renowned blogger. On the other hand, Bronny is likely to say anything, and usually does, so we don't know whether to disassociate ourselves from her words or not. We'll reserve judgement, but we'll rely on our readers to let us know if she gets out of hand.
Responses to this page are welcome, and we will publish responses of interest, whether you agree or disagree with our views.
Posted 17-Apr-06, 10.30pm
Secular Society works best
A common theme amongst religious Right groups in Australia is that the secular society that exists in Australia today is filled with evil and that society must change so that it more closely resembles a Bible-based worldview, whatever that may mean.
Now religious extremists are never shy when it comes to self-righteousness and moral superiority, but do their assertions stand up to scrutiny? The dreadful decline in American politics and society since it lurched to the right in recent years has given many writers cause to question the merits of faith-based politics, or indeed of a society built on so-called Christian faith.
Last year, paleontologist Gregory S. Paul published an analysis entitled Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies in the Journal of Religion and Society.
His findings showed:
... Christian and anti-evolution America performs poorly in terms of rates of homicide, juvenile and adult mortality, STD infections, abortion and teen pregnancy and birth. ... America is the only First World nation to retain Second and Third World rates of religious belief and practice and is the only First World nation to retain Second and Third World rates of societal dysfunction.Paul's work was discussed in a recent article in The Australian by Phillip Adams entitled Religious basket case. In Adams' words:
Paul was surprised to find that "no highly religious nation enjoys high levels of social health". In contrast, "the more secular democracies all enjoy good social conditions never seen before in human history".Meanwhile, US evangelist Jim Wallis, in Australia recently to promote his book God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, claims that rightwingers have hijacked Christianity. In an article in the Age entitled Losing their religion, Wallis says:
... issues such as the environment, war, truth-telling, human rights and poverty are virtually ignored by the religious Right in America, and they are focussed on the narrow moral issues of abortion and gay rights.Wallis also passionately reminds his readers that the term "Christian" is not synonymous with "right-wing Christian fundamentalist". Now I don't agree with everything Wallis has to say, but his views on the religious Right reflect the core concerns of the unBelief website. Not surprisingly, Wallis is gaining a strong following amongst American Christians who are fed up with the way that the religious Right has hijacked and distorted the Christian message to create a "religion without a soul". As he tells it,
One kid at an airport shook my hand and said, 'You're the only Christian I see and don't throw up afterwards'.Wallis has joined with Tim Costello to echo similar sentiments in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Humanity the loser in rigid models of rule and religion.
Bill McKibben, a US Christian writer, says in a recent article The Christian paradox:
America is the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behaviour. That paradox illuminates the hollow core of our boastful, careening culture.The negative influence of the religious Right is not confined to America. Here is Australia, the rich mega-churches preach the so-called "prosperity gospel" and right-wing groups proclaim "Biblical family values", which is code for shrill opposition to abortion and gay rights. One has to ask whether this is nothing more than an excuse to cloak prejudice and bigotry in comfortable middle-class religion.
... One day it occurred to me that the parts of the world where people actually had reduced their carbon emissions, lived voluntarily in smaller houses and used public transport, were the same countries where people were helping the poor and making sure everyone had health care - countries such as Norway and Sweden, where religion was relatively unimportant.
However, Australia is a much more secular society than the USA. Our country is not perfect, but it was built on the concepts of tolerance of other cultures, faiths and lifestyles, and a "fair go" for all. Consequently, we have not seen here the societal dysfunction that Christian America exhibits. Let's ensure that it stays that way!
Posted 19-Feb-06, 10.05pm
RU486 - More than an abortion debate
It was inevitable that the Parliamentary debate and conscience vote on removal of the RU-486 veto would turn into an argument over the availability of abortion. And so we had the unedifying spectacle of politician after politician proclaiming their own personal stance on the matter. Although commonsense won out in the end, there is something vaguely uncomfortable about decisions on matters of personal morality being decided on the whims of politicians. After all, the debate was concerned with removing approval of RU486 from the personal whim of the Health Minister, Tony Abbott.
Let us not forget that the Ministerial veto was put in place 10 years ago because of a moral crusade waged by Senator Brian Harradine, whose vote the Government just happened to need to pass legislation for the partial sale of Telstra in 1996. Thankfully, the biased opinions of the then Senator from Tasmania and the current Health Minister have been soundly rebuffed and, subject to safety and efficacy approval of the drug by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the decision on whether or not to use RU486 will reside where it belongs - with women, their partners and their doctors.
A great deal of emotive nonsense was spoken and written during this debate. The Religious Right groups and the Catholic Church, of course, mobilised their followers to bombard the Senate Committee and individual politicians with demands to oppose the Bill. The irony is that, while opposing abortion, many of these groups also oppose sex education in schools and the use of contraception, two measures which would go a long way towards reducing the incidence of abortion.
Although anti-abortion campaign letters swamped the Senate inquiry, the Committee Report wisely recognised the polarisation of views and declined to make a recommendation. After the Senate voted in favour of the Bill by 45-28, the Australian Christian Lobby issed a media release entitled Will Representatives show Responsibility on RU486? in which ACL Executive Chairman Jim Wallace said:
73% of Australians believe the rate of abortion is too high and since RU486 is clearly an abortion drug, there seems to be a disconnect between the values of our Senators and the values of the Australian people.This is a spurious and fallacious claim. The fact that a majority of Australians think there are too many abortions does not mean that they would deny women the right to choose abortion, or to choose RU486 instead of surgery. In fact, newspaper and online surveys have indicated that Australians strongly support the decision of the Parliament. In this matter at least, there is no disconnect between values.
The conclusion to be reached from this debate is that Australians do not want to be told what to think on matters of personal ethics and morality, either by the Religious Right or by politicians. Instead they have spoken loudly and clearly to the noseyparkers and busybodies of the world, "Get out of our bedrooms, and stay out!"
Posted 5-Jul-05, 10.58pm
Politicos meet the fundos
Last night we saw the unedifying spectacle of several senior politicians from both sides of politics, led by would-be Prime Minister Peter Costello, ingratiating themselves with the happy-clappers of Hillsong:
Costello soaks up Hillsong's praise The Age, 5-Jul-2005.
No doubt taking the lead from George Bush and Tony Blair, they've decided that wearing their faith on their sleeve, if not on their forehead, is good politics. Well maybe it is, in certain quarters. No doubt the Hillsong believers are warm supporters of Costello, if the rapturous welcome they gave him is any guide (this is his second trip to Hillsong). But what of the rest of the population? The pollies are saying faith is good, God is good, Christianity is good, while conveniently ignoring the divisiveness of such platitudes, and the huge divisions that exist within Christianity let alone between Christianity and other faiths. And does that mean that the 25+% of non-believers in Australia, or the 19.8 million people who don't support fundamentalist Pentecostal Christianity, are now regarded by our potential future PM as second-class citizens?
As Marion Maddox, author of God under Howard said on ABC Radio this evening:
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When a treasurer argues, as Peter Costello did at the National Day of Thanksgiving in May 2004, that interreligious tensions would be solved if everyone shared Christian values (forgetting the history of wars between different Christian traditions), or that social problems require a return to the Ten Commandments, it is time to question religious privacy. When the Deputy Prime Minister tells a Christian magazine that, until saved by Jesus, we are "a mob of dirty rotten sinners and we’re on a path to hell", it is time for a discussion about the range of beliefs in Australian society.
Every Australian is entitled to practise whatever belief system attracts them. But politicians need to be wary of being seen to side with particular faiths, especially faiths that promote the teaching of anti-science propaganda in schools. The drafters of our Constitution wisely prohibited the intrusion of religion into public life, as did America's Founding Fathers. Yet is seems there is a danger that Australia may well follow America into faith-based politics, producing the disastrous crevasse that splits America down the middle today.
In contrast to Costello's fawning praise for Hillsong (an AOG church), there are signs that the Coalition's "family impact" agreement with the AOG-backed Family First Party may already be foundering:
Family First signals Costello showdown The Age, 5-Jul-2005.
Costello seems to believe that spending taxpayer funds on military hardware is not an issue that has a family impact. Perhaps the families of those who lose their lives fighting politician's wars might have a different view.
Let's work to make sure that the Australian people let their leaders know that religion is a personal matter, not something to be exploited for grubby political gain.
Posted 20-Mar-05, 10.35pm
Who would Jesus vote for?
What would Jesus have done if he'd had to vote in the recent WA State election or perhaps in the Werriwa by-election held just yesterday? He looks at the ballot paper and sees not one, but two gold-plated, dyed-in-the-wool Christian 'family' parties, Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party (CDP) and the Pentecostal-based Family First Party (FFP), just begging for his vote.
Of course, Jesus didn't have to vote in either of these elections, but surely we should be able to get some idea of his preference by looking at the election results. I mean, assuming that he was subject to a similar amount of prayer by the partisans of both CDP and FFP, he must have leant one way or the other to indicate his approval of either Fred Nile (a Congregationalist) or Family First (overwhelmingly Pentecostalist).
Alas, we can make little of the electoral outcomes. In the WA Legislative Assembly the CDP scored 2.93% of the vote while the FFP trailed on 2.02%. However, the CDP contested all seats while the FFP only ran in about 60% of them, so we may as well call it a tie. In the Legislative Council, the CDP also had its nose in front - 2.28% against 2.01% - but again Fred Nile's party contested all six electoral regions while Family First ran in only five, so I think Jesus must have given FFP the nod here, but only by a whisker.
In Werriwa yesterday, Family First tipped out the CDP, 4.34% to 3.83% , but I think we have to rate this as a Family First slam-dunk as it took place in Sydney, heartland of the CDP. The parties' combined total of over 8 per cent looks pretty cool until we recall that the absence of a Liberal candidate left thousands of conservative-leaning voters looking for a home and not many opted for either Religious Right party.
So where does this leave Jesus? Well, Labor won both elections by a substantial margin and well over 90% of voters ignored the Christian parties entirely.
Jesus must have been otherwise engaged.
Posted 02-Jan-05, 2.35pm
Few answers in Genesis
I have been doing a little more research on the response of Religious Right groups to the recent catastrophe. Thankfully, in Australia we haven't seen much evidence yet of support for the "Rapture craze" that has swept America (the "Left Behind" books etc.) so there is little discussion yet about whether the tsunami might have "end times" implications. The Rapture Index, a wacky "temperature" measurement predicting the nearness of "end times", has gone up a bit, but hasn't been updated since Dec 27. I do hope the author hasn't been vanished ;-)
Nearer to home, Carl Wieland, chief honcho of Answers in Genesis in Australia, has had a stab at explaining the disaster from a creationist perspective:
Answers In Genesis - Waves of sadness, by Carl Wieland
The temblor-triggered tsunami terror raises the same age-old questions."
Don't expect much by way of a satisfying answer to these "age-old questions". Basically, yes, God is in charge, but people die at random, whether from old-age or terrifying walls of water. But Wieland does make this interesting claim:
"A World Vision representative once told me confidentially that it is conservative, Bible-believing churches and Christians who are far and away the most generous givers to that organisation's efforts to help people in poor countries."
and he has a further unsubstantiated dig at the generosity of those Christians who reject his creationist worldview:
"Liberal Christians (i.e., those who take alarming liberties with biblical truths) talk a lot about social justice and helping poor countries—all noble concepts, of course. But in practice, although keen to see laws passed to take money from others, they are as a group less enthusiastic about dipping into their own pockets."
Now World Vision makes no bones about the fact that it is a conservative Christian group, so it is hardly surprising that it attracts more donors from that section of the community. But since when does the religious belief of donors to disaster relief charities become a matter of record, public or otherwise? Please explain, Dr. Wieland.
And yet another article today explores the question of divine omnipotence:
The Age - When God goes missing
"... There it is - biblical literalism is dead; science is king. Or is it? Not every brand of religion has so readily offloaded the idea of omnipotence to get around the thorny intellectual questions of divine malevolence. What of the creationists, who believe that the Bible is not merely metaphor, but the true account of divine miracles? Where was their god this week? How can they explain his role in this? Was it vengeance - even against babies not old enough to talk?"
Posted 30-Dec-04, 4.15pm
Tsunami and God
The tsunami disaster continues to dominate world news as the death toll increases daily. Two articles in the Australian media yesterday took up the theme I raised in my last post, i.e. how do believers reconcile a disaster of this magnitude with their faith in a benevolent God?
The Age - Is God to blame for this?
"It is a pertinent and challenging question for all those who believe in an interventionist higher being, an omnipotent God. What did the many thousands of victims throughout Asia and Africa do to deserve their fate? And what sort of God would sanction such apparently meaningless devastation?"
Sydney Morning Herald - Waves of destruction wash away belief in God's benevolence
"How, then, did a God as powerful and benevolent as this allow such a thing to happen? If he is benevolent then he cannot also be omnipotent, for a God who has both these attributes would have wanted to, cared to and been able to prevent such a catastrophe."
Both of these articles are worth reading, although neither is able to answer the fundamental questions raised.
Posted 28-Dec-04, 3.20pm
Tsunami disaster
A massive earthquake on Boxing Day generated tsunamis which killed thousands throughout Asia, while millions lost their homes. Let's hope that those affected can re-group, with help from the rest of the world.
Natural disasters like this must create a dilemma for those who believe in a benevolent God. Pastors will wring their hands and say "we cannot explain God's will". Thousands of believers of all faiths will pray to their God for help, but thence comes the dilemma. If a supernatural God can answer prayer and therefore control worldly events, why does He allow such disasters to occur? Surely these events cannot be divine retribution for unspecified sins, as some victims have said in the past few days? These are questions as old as belief itself, questions that religious leaders are no closer to adequately answering.
Posted 25-Dec-04, 10.00am
The true meaning of Christmas
Christmas Day. What are we to make of this festivity? The churches exhort us to consider the "real meaning of Christmas", the "reason for the season" etc. But Western society left the nativity behind many years ago. We know that the celebration of Christ's birth wasn't invented until 336AD, and that the day itself was in fact a pagan feast for hundreds of years prior to that (natalis solis invicti - the Roman "birth of the unconquered sun"). Most of the symbols of Christmas (gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; Yule logs and various foods from Teutonic feasts) have their origins in pagan traditions. So let us ignore the ponderous exhortations from pulpits: let those who wish to celebrate the birth of a god-child do so, and let others show goodwill towards all men in their own way.
Posted 17-Dec-04, 7.30pm
Victorian religious vilification case
Today, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) handed down its decision on the long-running religious vilification case Islamic Council of Victoria v. Catch The Fire Ministries Inc. The case concerned a seminar, newsletter and website article promoted by Catch The Fire Ministries Inc., a Christian fundamentalist group affiliated with the Assembly of God. The case was brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria on a representative basis under the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. The judge found that all of these presentations breached the Act by "inciting hatred against and serious contempt for people who are Muslims" and has reserved sentencing.
I have mixed views about this case. On the one hand, freedom of speech is a cherished and fragile "right" in Australia and the Victorian legislation can have the effect of stifling religious commentary and criticism. On the other hand, inciting hatred towards those of another faith is not something that should be encouraged. Much of the history of the last two thousand years is littered with bloodshed justified by religious zealotry. We should learn from that history and promote tolerance of all religious beliefs, while remaining free to constructively criticise any particular belief system. The tricky part is to do that without deliberately or inadvertently inciting hatred.