Christians Accept Atheist Prime Ministers

Those Christians complaining about our new Prime Minister’s atheism have forgotten their Bible and Church history.

Paul wanted the Roman Christians to submit to government authority (Romans 13). This authority was a pagan government that had persecuted both Paul and the Roman church. Yet for Paul government authority, regardless of its religious views, was a good thing.

Constantine established religious tolerance as a principle of Christian government in 313 AD. It took centuries but the lust for power created a totalitarian Christendom with its thought police. An institution duplicated by the 2oth century’s godless totalitarian governments.

Religious toleration was re-established as a principle of Christian government in 1636. That year Baptist pastor Roger Williams was excommunicated from Massachusetts, bought land from the local Indians and set up Rhode Island. There was no religious test to be part of the colony or its government. Though initially predominately Baptist, Rhode Island attracted other New England dissidents, European Jews and English Catholics wanting to flee religious persecution. For a variety of reasons, the United States and later Australia wisely adopted the same solution to religious pluralism.

If one is going to follow the Christian principle of religious toleration, one is required to welcome an atheist as Prime Minister. That person’s suitability for office should be judged by their abilities, not their religious faith. I might pray for Julia Gillard’s conversion. However, I will vote according to my assessment of the competing policies and the proponent’s capacity to implement them.

And with all my being, I will fight any attempt to establish the blasphemy of Christendom in Australia.

Sent to West Australian Letters Editor on 8 July 2010

Mr Neal is Entitled to be an Agitator

Let us pray for an entire High Court of Lionel Murphies. Lionel Murphy (1922 – 1986) was one of those rare lawyers who were interested in justice, not just the law. The law rests on precedent, which entrenches the injustices of the past. Justice requires a broad understanding of many areas of study and their use to empower the poor and destitute. Hence, we need judges who are skilled in areas other than the law. Lionel Murphy was a lawyer critical of his own discipline. He had read widely. This breath of knowledge is reflected one of his many descents that involved the chair of the northern Queensland ‘Yarrabah Aboriginal Council.’

I do not know how old Percy Arthur Neal, chair of Yarrabah Aboriginal Council, was at the time of his 1982 High Court appearance. This was the height of the paternalistic Bjelke-Petersen Queensland where Neal’s aims of aboriginal self-determination was met with “don’t you worry about that.” The Queensland government controlled aboriginal affairs and consulted who and when they wanted. The government never employed aboriginals except as ‘liaison officers.’

At Yarrabah, Percy Neal was making a nuisance of himself complaining about the local government run store selling rotten meat to aboriginals. Presuming, the store was the only one for miles. After the official channels ignored the Council’s and Neal grievances, Neal confronted the stall manager and, in anger, spat in his face. The local magistrate fined Neal $75 and gave him two months imprisonment because he was a stirrer. Neal appealed but the Supreme Court of Queensland increased the imprisonment to six months. Neal appealed to the High Court.

Again, Murphy dissented from the main judgement. Yet the decent is a brilliant defence of direct non-violent political action. The key paragraph states:-

That Mr Neal was an ‘agitator’ or stirrer in the magistrate’s view obviously contributed to the severe penalty. If he is an agitator, he is in good company. Many of the great religious and political figures of history have been agitators, and human progress owes much to the efforts of these and the many who are unknown. As Wilde aptly pointed out in The Soul of Man under Socialism, “Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.” Mr Neal is entitled to be an agitator.

Note the redemptive quality of the agitator. He wakes up some class by confronting them with their ‘incomplete state’. This awakening brings forces the oppressed to redemption. Human progress occurs! It is not an economic rape talked about by the conservative vandals but the empowerment of the oppressed that marks human progress for Wilde and, by inference, Murphy. Here is a description of an Old Testament prophet, one who stirs against injustice. Here is a description of Jesus.

Percy Neal was the real hero of this story. He was the agitator, the stirrer or the prophet trying to bring justice to his people. Neal’s modern comparisons are Ghandi, King and Mandela. They all fought for their people’s right to determine their own future. Murphy simply said that such action should be a lawful activity. No court should consider whether one is a nuisance to the powerful in either judgement or sentencing. Murphy was saying that we are all entitled to be political agitators.

Yet in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus wanted us to go beyond the law. Our citizenship of the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to engage in social redemption; a social redemption that requires us to be agitators. I pray that I will fulfil that mission.

I read Murphy's judgement in Michael Cathcart and Kate Darian-Smith (eds), Stirring Australian Speeches: The definitive collection from Botany to Bali (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004), pp.290 - 294.

Why Read Christian Right Blogs like CultureWatch

Confessions, I do like to read Bill Muehlenberg’s CultureWatch blog. Yes, it is an extreme Christian right political blog. The Christian right believe that the oppression of women, the hatred of those with other sexualities, the idiocy of creationism, the desecration of the natural world and the evils of capitalism have been all ordained by God. They are totalitarian, mocking those who disagree with them. They hold a right wing dominion theology.

So why bother reading? First and foremost, whatever I think of the vile opinions of Muehlenberg and other extreme Christians right wingers they are my brothers and sisters in Christ. They are family. Christ want me to do more than just be civil, Christ requires me to love them like a blood relative. Love requires, among other things, to care what they think and to correct. This means I must engage in debate with them. They might deny me legitimate Christian faith because of my opinions. Since neither of us have a copy of Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelations 21:27), I refuse to return the rudeness.

The second is to correct my own opinions. I am fallible; no matter how much I want to delude myself otherwise. There are two ways to test ones views. Both ways involve study of scripture, prayer, reason and understanding Christian tradition. One is to do this constantly talk with those who agree with you. Another way is to engage in study under some neutral tutor. Finally and most importantly, is to talk and debate with those who you disagree with. Why is that most important? It is because that way my ideas are tested by the purifying fire of debate.

And finally, one needs to know what your opponents think. How am I going counter the views of those I oppose without first listening to my opponents first? Forgive me, if I think that is too obvious

There is another reason I read Bill Muehlenberg’s blog besides the reasons above, I enjoy it! I am nothing but a theological tragic. I love the interplay between Christianity and public policy. So does Muelenberg.

Revival cause Conflict

This post is a response to Bill Muehlenberg's posting of A Few Thoughts on Revival.

Hello Bill,

I disagree that revivals lead to peace. Christians look to rival like some Marxist look to revolution. Both groups believe that both are inevitable; both groups dream about their occurrence and both groups send large amounts of time, thought and money working towards those eschatological hopes. The difference is that revolutions tend to initiate violence while rivals have violence inflicted upon them.

A Biblical template is supplied by the healing of the demon processed fortune teller by Paul and Silas (Acts16:16ff). Out of frustration, Paul cast out a demon from a woman. The charitable act got Paul and Silas thrown into jail because it threatened the income of some of the town’s wealthy citizens.

It is a small example of the rule that conversion leads to healing leads to lasting social change. If many turn to Christ it affects nations and beyond. Many good church folk resisted the rise of Methodism for it challenged the established norms. The Wesley brothers preaching about Christ had consequences for the social and economic basis of Britain. I have read about riots preventing either of the brothers from preaching near a town. That is why they preached in open fields.

Though they were not agents of social change, the converts were. However, the changes were resisted at every point. The film Amazing Grace illustrated the resistance to the abolition of slavery. One institution that came from that revival was the Trade Unions. Early Union cells were based on local communities called ‘chapels’, for that is who formed them. Indeed, one former secretary of the British Labour Party said that the labour movement owed more Methodism than it did to Marx.

Revivals lead to social reformation. Why? The personal change in the new Christian’s life leads to a desire to change the social condition that entrenched evil in their former life. Revivals inject energy into the thirst for justice. Every time Christ comes it is with a sword (Matt 10:34).

Michael

John Clifford's Socialism and the Teaching of Christ

It is strange to read a Christian advocating state based socialism which has no reference to the Communist tyrannies of the twentieth century. John Clifford’s Socialism and the Teaching of Christ (London: Fabian Society, Fabian Tract No 78, 1897) does this simply because it was written over twenty years prior to the Russian Revolution. It is the text of a lecture given by Clifford, then a well know Baptist minister, to the Christian Socialist League during February 1895 (p. 2).

My Reply

Another reply on Bill Muehlenberg's Culture Watch. This is a reply to Muehlenberg's reply to my post.
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With all due respect Bill Muehlenberg, there is evidence that I did read you comments. I quoted your essay in the middle of my reply. However, I believe you misread my response.

The soccer score line title flavours your essay. My point is that fashions come and go and being triumphant over an election victory is transitory. All things change over time! On this my life experience has re-enforced Qoheleth’s teachings. As you know, Qoheleth is the Hebrew title for the writer of Ecclesiastes.

Nor did I make a positive Biblical case for neither socialism nor Marxism. You might have concluded such from my negative framing of my questions. Your reply made Biblical assertions about capitalism, Marxism and socialism. I am not so brave as to draw any such conclusions. The Biblical references were illustrating the American journalist conclusions about the welfare state could be question within the context of Christian ethics.

I must disagree with you on the Acts. My view is that Luke believed that the Church had replaced the Israel as the people of God. Given this, what happens in Acts 4 and 5 is not emergency provisions or a voluntary society but the permanent expression of the new Kingdom of God. I am aware with the potential anti-Semitic problems with this interpretation of Luke. I also agree that other texts could be brought to support a “capitalist” interpretation of a Christian understanding of the state.

However, Luke 16:1-8 is not one of these. Under the Western Australia Criminal Code the ‘manager’ could be charged with s.378 stealing as a servant and s.407 fraud. I would be surprised if Victoria did not have similar laws. The basis of capitalism has always being the appropriation of wealth and calling it private property. Or are you taking the line that property is theft?


Some other replies to your article have argued that Christianity leads to conservatism labelling Christian socialism as an oxymoron. Like the Great Methodist Christian socialist Donald Soper, I wounder how a conservative can be a Christian. Christian socialism is the oldest of the modern Christian political movements. From them came the trade union movement and the Labor Party. Both Rudd and I claim that tradition for ourselves but with different policy outcomes. Unlike Rudd, it leads to the mistake of joining the Communist Party in the mid-eighties and my current membership of the Greens from the mid-nineties. Marx derided Christian socialist as ideal socialists. Marx advocated a ‘scientific socialism’.

I have always thought that the compassionate conservative as the great modern oxymoron. Will Wilkinson is right, welfare handouts are demoralising. However, begging for charity from the wealthy is both demoralising and ineffective. Australia prior to Medibank Public or the current state decay of Australian teeth illustrates the ineffectiveness of charity! It is interesting that the Old Testament did not help the poor or disposed by either method. The second harvest was for the poor to take. This suggests that the Biblical Israel had different views about private property.

Muehlenberg Again!

Bill Muehlenberg’s blog has provoked me to the word processor again! In a triumphant piece on the French presidential elections entitled Conservatives 1, Socialists 0, he berates the progressive political groups again. So I gave him the following reply

And what if the Socialists win the next election? Success and the proper way are transitory this side of glory. Whatever is the shape of the great eschatological event, sin will continually dominate all human affairs. The divine counter balance is in John 3:16; Christ came because God love the whole world. My interpretation is that means Christians and everyone else.

One silly question, when has a good society be determined by its economic performance alone. Why is the Stefan Bergheim of Deutsche Bank Research economic centric approach to the good society the ultimate measure for any Christian? Luke’s Gospel and Acts seems to disagree Wilkinson assertion that “welfare handouts, lower levels of inequality, and bigger government have little or no positive effect” on happiness. How does that equate with the common purse of Acts 4 and 5 or the parable of the dishonest servant of Luke 16?

The layout of the last paragraph is questionable but, I think, one understands the general is idea.