A reply to Rod Benson's address to the CDP

The Reverend Rod Benson, ethicist and public theologian, of the Morling Baptist College addressed the NSW Christian Democratic Party on Saturday, 11 August 2012. Benson addressed issues like Australia’s Christian heritage and Christians be involvement in politics. Also, Benson stated that “the Christian Democratic Party can … have significant positive influence on the policy direction and moral outlook of a community.” In this it has failed! Let us address that issue last.

Christian Involvement

Benson is right! A Christian can be called to be involved in politics. Christians might not be of this world but God has put us in this world to serve. Politics is one of the ways in which a Christian is called to serve. But the Christian involved needs to remember two important points. The first is that there are no professional politicians or policy advisors. It is that some get paid and others don’t. Some have academic qualifications and others don’t. Their insights are equally valid until proven otherwise.

The other, ethics matter in all policy areas. I never have forgotten Kevin Andrews, a Christian, a prominent member of the ‘Lyons Forum’ and in 2005, the Howard Liberal governments Minister for Industrial Relations statement at the beginning Work Choices debate. He said, “an emphasis on fairness only leads to regulatory excess and inefficiency’. For a Christian, fairness (or social justice) is the ends, not economic efficiency or the cutting of red tape.

Australia’s Christian Heritage

Yes, Benson is right in saying Australia has a Christian foundation, something denied by some historians. For years, when Australia tells it story it is, among other things, anti-religious. Depictions of Christians or Christian institutions have been negative while there positive aspects have either been ignored or downplayed.  An example of the churches relationship with aboriginals in which mistreatment and paternalism have been stressed but the not the Christian role in Aboriginal survival, advocacy and empowerment.

But that Christian foundation was not about the creation of an antipodean Christendom. Most Christian’s involvement in the formation of Australian democracy strove to create a secular democracy, not a ‘Christian nation’. They attempted to find those things that God has disclosed to all (Romans 1:19) and then make them the basis of an Australian law. The Americans pioneered this approach and the European has followed. Benson makes the mistake of thinking secular means anti-religious, not just the rejection of any religious test.

The Christian Democratic Party

However, Benson is wrong in assuming that the Christian Democratic Party has the potential to be a force for good. The CDP has a racist conservative political ideology, not a Christian one. The truth in that charge is shown by the 2009 expulsion of Gordon Moyes . Moyes is a former pastor of Sydney's Wesley Mission. His expulsion occurred after he complained that the party needed to stop being anti-Muslim. Like the Crusaders of old, CDP has laid siege to Muslim immigration and Islamic schools. This was strange because the Islamic community could be a source of support for the CDP. Muslims do not trust anything ‘secular’. If they can afford to, Muslims prefer sending their children to Christian schools, rather than secular state schools. They might prefer to support a Christian political party as oppose to the secular main stream parties.

Moyes other criticism of the CDP was that it has no positive policies. Moyes argued that the CDP was known for being anti-homosexual and anti-abortion. Don't get Myes wrong. He was likand, I believe, still is anti-homosexual and anti-abortion. Yet like me, he could not name a positive policy position the CDP has taken. It had even fail to take what it is passionate about and promote positive policy outcomes. I have always wondered how one can oppose abortion without advocating policies to help the offspring and their families. Yet, at each election the CDP seems to be stone cold silent on ensuring single mothers have adequate income support, teenage mums have equitable access to education, access for all to affordable child care and greater parental support in the community. I have never heard the CDP candidates being passionate about these or any costing of them.

Benson takes a swipe at people like me who object to the word ‘Christian’ in the title of groups like the CDP and the Australian Christian Lobby. He says, “Neither the CDP nor the ACL, nor other groups like them, have ever (to my knowledge) suggested that they speak for the whole Christian constituency.” One contradiction springs to mind but involving the ACL, not the CDP. In 2005 and 2006, during the debate over the ACT’s Civil Marriage Bill 2006, the ACL attempted to speak for ‘a majority of Christians’ but not all Christian groups approved. In keeping their coalition together, the ACL needed to ‘compromise’ its anti-homosexual stance. This got them in trouble with groups like Melbourne’s ‘Saltshakers’ and Perth’s ‘Life Ministries’. David Palmer of Victorian Presbyterian ‘Church and Nation’ committee wrote a good summary of the argument.

But the greater problem is that groups like the ACL and the CDP is the use of the word ‘Christian’ in their titles. In spite of Benson’s assertions, this is an attempt to alienate from the faith all those who reject the CDP’s racist conservatism. Their re-badgine of the CDP into "Australian Christians" has made it worst. I am one of those who say they don’t speak for me! It is un-Christian to promote hatred against Muslims, gays, lesbians and transsexuals. It is unbiblical to deny women the right to reproductive justice, including access to safe and affordable abortions. It is simply stupid to promote celibacy before marriage and fidelity during marriage – it never has worked! The rest of the CDP policies have nothing to do with Christianity but have to do with a racist conservative political agenda being read as the Christian political philosophy.

The Truly Christian Political Party

So what is the most Christian political party? My views are already on the public record. During the 2005 Western Australian State election, I stood for the Greens in Ballajura. The endorsing body asked me to stress my faith, so I wrote my introduction. Benson and the CDP might not like it but I still say the Greens are the closest thing to a Christian party in Australia. I put my money and my vote where my mouth is!