I spent some time recently talking to far right Christian political candidates about the environment. Some acknowledged environmental issues as important but their visceral dislike of the Greens and of environmentalists in general was palpable. For that reason I was pleased to be interviewed for this timely and scholarly assessment of where the Greens stand visa viz Christianity - and the Judeo Christian ethic more generally. I was also pleased to get an honourable mention.
You will find the article at the link below, and I have reproduced it here. What it reveals (in my view) is an increasing schism in Western Christianity between industrial and post industrial values. This is something I explore in more detail in my book.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/08/27/3834302.htm
The
'Godless Greens': Pernicious myth or political reality?
Marion Maddox ABC Religion and Ethics 27 Aug 2013
Church
and political leaders have portrayed the Australian Greens as anti-Christian,
pagan or atheist. But this doesn't fit with the religious convictions of their
candidates or the party's history. Credit: www.shutterstock.com
"We
don't think automatically of the Greens as a party that embraces religious
communities," ABC broadcaster Andrew
West remarked when introducing a profile on the religious background of
Australian Greens leader Christine Milne. He was reflecting a widespread view,
with critics repeatedly labelling the Greens "anti-Christian,"
"atheistic" or "anti-religious."
In
the lead-up to the 2010 federal election and the 2011 New South Wales election,
these claims escalated, being propounded by Members of Parliament, church
leaders and representatives of think tanks. Any effect of this characterisation
on the vote is tricky to quantify. Concretely, at least one Greens campaigner
was prevented from distributing how-to-vote materials or displaying party
advertising at a polling place because the polling place was a Catholic church
whose priest objected to a Greens presence on church property. Two Greens
candidates reported losing campaign workers because, as Catholics, the workers
felt they could no longer volunteer for a movement their parish priest had
denounced as anti-Christian.
This
portrayal of the Greens was part of a general denunciation which, in 2011, saw
Prime Minister Julia
Gillard declare that "The Greens will never embrace Labor's delight at
sharing the values of everyday Australians ... who day after day do the right
thing, leading purposeful and dignified lives, driven by love of family and
nation," and in 2013 Opposition Leader Tony
Abbott announce preference deals in which "everywhere, everywhere, no
exceptions, the Greens are behind the Labor Party because they [Greens] are
economic fringe dwellers."
Christianity and
environmental concern
This
is not the place for a comprehensive survey of ecotheology, but theological
traditions of environmental ethics are well-established across the
denominational spectrum. Nearly half of all churchgoers, and nearly one-quarter
of all Australians, identify as Catholic, which has a long tradition of
ecospirituality - associated with, for example St. Francis of Assisi, modern
Catholic theologians such as Thomas Berry, Rosemary Radford Ruether and, in
Australia, Denis Edwards, and prominent in church documents such as the 2011
statement on climate change by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which
called on "all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective
and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of climate change on
communities and ecosystems," and in exhortations such as Pope
Francis's homily at his installation, in which he urged Catholics to
"be 'protectors' of creation, protectors of God's plan inscribed in
nature, protectors of one another and of the environment."
The
next largest cohort of Australian Christians is Protestants (such as Anglicans,
Uniting Church, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterian, Churches of Christ and so
on). Ecotheologians in this tradition include Jurgen Moltmann, Sallie McFague and,
in Australia
"The earth is created, sustained and redeemed by
Christ. We cannot claim to love God while abusing what belongs to Christ by
right of creation, redemption and inheritance ... Creation care is a thus a
gospel issue within the Lordship of Christ. Such love for God's creation
demands that we repent of our part in the destruction, waste and pollution of
the earth's resources and our collusion in the toxic idolatry of consumerism.
Instead, we commit ourselves to urgent and prophetic ecological
responsibility."
The
Eastern Orthodox make up 2-3% of the population, and their churches have a long
engagement with ecological issues, including a series
of statements by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople urging
"respect for creation."
Pentecostals
make up only 1% of Australians, but represent around 10% of churchgoers.
Pentecostals have traditionally looked for the experience of the Holy Spirit in
lived experience rather than in theological argument, and Pentecostal
environmentalists include Tasmanian Erik Peacock. Although relatively new in
Pentecostal circles, interest in ecotheology is rapidly emerging. In 2006,
Pentecostal scholar Kylie
Sheppard noted "virtually no explicit discussion of Creation in
Pentecostal literature," instead finding "an anthropocentric
understanding of Creation" coupled in some quarters with a tendency to
"reject this world in anticipation of enjoying the future world." She
conducted a close analysis of sermons and practice at Brisbane Australia
Her
prediction proved correct. Pentecostal contributions to ecotheology to have
emerged since her assessment include work by Aaron Swoboda and Amos
Yong. Citipointe, where Shepperd conducted her analysis, has an affiliated
college, Christian Heritage College (CHC). In 2009, a faculty member, historian
Richard Leo, published an article
in The Christian Teachers Journal, aimed at teachers in Christian
schools, arguing that "in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis and
when refugees are again knocking on our borders perhaps we would be wise to
consider how God commands us to live in peace and harmony with his creation."
Leo explained that, although his position was "not a mainstream one"
among his colleagues, with some "among the older generation of
Pentecostals" given to "routinely question climate science," he
had observed that "students and the younger generation are used to talking
in terms of sustainability." The article had resulted in an invitation to
lead the staff retreat on "Sustainability 101" at a Christian school,
which, according to Leo, had been "very well received." Another CHC
faculty member, geographer Richard Wallace, is currently conducting a study on
education for sustainability in Christian schools, explaining in an interview
that "the motivation for my research is to bring awareness of
environmental issues to Christian teachers, show that sustainability is a Christian
issue," and "the response is really positive, I've encountered almost
nothing negative." A self-described Greens voter, he felt that one
difference between Pentecostals and the wider environmental movement was that
many Pentecostals do not accept the theory of evolution; but that this was far
from being a bar to environmental activism, since - as a fellow surfer had put
it to him during a beach encounter - "Christianity and the environment,
never heard of that before, but it kind of makes sense, doesn't it, if you
believe God made everything?"
Given
these strong strands of Christian ecotheology, it is not surprising that
practicing Christians from across the denominational spectrum have campaigned
through environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and the Australian
Conservation Foundation, through the major political parties, and some have
represented the Greens in Australia
Like
other Australians, Christians hold a range of positions on the environment, as
on other political issues. Theological arguments can be (and are) invoked on
both sides of many questions, including those which are often perceived as
"religious" - such as abortion, marriage equality and private
schooling. The branding of the Greens as "anti-Christian" turns out
to have been a successful mischaracterisation on the part of opposed interests
in the churches and wider community.
Who's afraid of the
"Godless Greens"
In
August 2010, two weeks before the federal election that delivered the hung
parliament, Australia
"Although ACL is non-party partisan, it is committed to
exposing un-Christ like agendas and has found it necessary to criticise the
Greens who have driven a dramatic up-surge in anti-Christian, anti-life and
anti-family legislation in 2010."
In
the same report, Managing Director Jim Wallace wrote:
"The political environment shifted in 2010 with the
rise of the Greens to unprecedented influence. The danger in the emergence of
the Greens is that if the major parties pursue their dysfunctional and often
aberrant policies in areas such as marriage, family, drugs, immigration,
pornography and the economy, it threatens to pull the whole of politics into
their agenda for social deconstruction. It is a shame that we do not have an environmental
party with Christian values."
The
2011 NSW election campaign saw a similar pattern. Nine NSW Catholic bishops,
led by Cardinal Pell (but not the bishops of Botany or Bathurst), signed a
pastoral letter distributed in Catholic churches and through Catholic schools
warning of "The Green Agenda," which caused "grave
concerns" in the areas of religious freedom, school funding, drug use,
marriage, abortion and euthanasia. The Bishops' statement was distributed
particularly assiduously in NSW's Northern Rivers region. Local newspaper, the Northern
Star, reported a few days later that the letter "already appears to be
having an impact on the election, with reports of Catholic Greens supporters
saying they will change their votes over it," while a volunteer announced
her resignation from a Greens candidate's campaign "because of the
letter."
Like
many churches, the Catholic church of St. Catherine
Laboure in the parish of Gymea was hired by the Australian Electoral Commission
(for $550) for use as a polling place. A Greens campaign volunteer, Colin Ryan,
was told by Monsignor Brian Rayner that, unlike other party representatives, he
could not hang posters or distribute party material on church property, but
would have to stay on the footpath outside. Ryan explained in the parish newsletter
that he had sought advice from the Electoral Commission, which had advised that
he could remove placards from the church and school fence.
'This action by me was taken because the Greens party is
opposed to aid to Catholic Schools, promotes gay marriage, euthanasia,
abortion, etc. The Greens are often seen as a party which protects the
environment. This is commendable. However, it is this often hidden platform and
policies of which Catholics are unaware."
Rayner
said he would have taken a similar action with respect to a Sex Party
candidate, had one stood in his electorate. An Electoral Commission
spokesperson said that the dispute was "between the parties
concerned." The reasoning behind this is not especially clear, since
Section 327 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 states that "a
person must not hinder or interfere with the free exercise or performance, by
any other person, of any political right or duty that is relevant to an
election under the act," with a penalty of $1000 fine or six months
imprisonment or both.
In
August 2011, NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith told the Panel of Experts of the
International Religious Liberty Association, meeting in Sydney, that the
Australian Greens had "a strong atheistic and anti-religious
tendency" and that it "would be fair to say that if the Greens had
their way, people with any religious beliefs, particularly Christian ones,
would not have any role or say in public life." When I asked from the
floor how that tallied with the many Christians who had taken their beliefs
into public life as Greens MPs and candidates, he replied that he was aware of
some who "claimed" to be Christian, but that they needed to consider
the denunciations of their party by "bishops and archbishops."
Shadow
Minister for Families, Housing and Community Services Kevin Andrews wrote in Quadrant
in 2011 that Green politics relied on "a new pagan belief system,
concerned not with the relationship between humans and a creator, but based on
a deification of the environment," and that:
"What is at stake in the Greens' 'revolution' is the
heart and soul of Western civilisation, built on the
Judeo-Christian/Enlightenment synthesis that upholds the individual - with
obligations and responsibilities to others, but ultimately judged on his or her
own conscience and actions - as the possessor of an inherent dignity and
inalienable rights."
On
22 February 2012 , Stephen
O'Doherty, former Liberal Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (1992-2002)
and then CEO of Christian Schools Australia, told ABC
radio that the Greens "seem to be very anti-religious." In an online
video interview with The Australian newspaper on Easter weekend
2012, Cardinal Pell reiterated that the Greens are "quite explicit about
their opposition to Christianity."
The
Australian Christian Lobby posted a media
release on its website on 22 July 2012 under the headline "Labor win
in Melbourne bodes well for removal of Greens at Federal poll," in which
ACL chief of staff Lyle Shelton worried that "mistakenly associating
with" the Greens was "causing Labor to damage its brand with
mainstream voters." Despite repeatedly claiming on its website to be
"non-party partisan," the ACL enthused, "There is a real
opportunity now for Labor and the Coalition to combine to see Mr Bandt removed
from the Parliament." The ACL continued this theme during the 2013
election campaign, issuing a media
release on 14 August 2013 :
"ACL's Managing Director Lyle Shelton welcomed
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's announcement to preference Greens candidates
last in the lower house and urged Labor to do likewise - particularly in the
Senate.
Labor has a choice to woo back the Christian constituency
which helped elect Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2007 or choose the Greens which
have significantly damaged Labor's primary vote and brand ... Labor has many
Senate candidates who are attractive to Christian voters but a preference deal
with the Greens would be a turn-off."
ACL's
view that the Greens should be "removed from Parliament" was not
unique to those opposing the party on theological grounds. The Australian
declared on 9 September 2010
that "Greens leader Bob Brown ... and his Green colleagues are hypocrites;
... they are bad for the nation; and ... should be destroyed at the ballot
box." The newspaper's coverage amounted, according to political scientist Robert
Manne, to "a kind of jihad against the Greens, a party supported by
1.5 million of the nation's citizens" in a manner which "in itself,
undermines any claim to fairness or to balance."
Godly Greens
Characterisations
of the Greens as "pagan," "atheist" or "thoroughly
anti-Christian" are difficult to reconcile either with the party's history
or with the range of people who have committed their time and other resources
to its electoral success.
The
Australian Greens is a confederation of eight State- and territory-based
political parties. The first Green party in Australia
Western
Australian Senator Jo Vallentine was initially elected to represent the Nuclear
Disarmament Party in the 1984 federal election, but left the party in 1985 and
sat first as an Independent, then for the "Vallentine Peace Group"
and finally, from 1990, for the Greens (WA). In her James Backhouse Memorial
Lecture, Quakers
in Politics: Pragmatism or Principle, delivered to the annual meeting
of the Society of Friends in the year that she became a Greens representative,
she recounted how she was mentored into politics by an older generation of
Quaker activists, and decided to run for office after prayer for
"leading" (the Quaker term for divine guidance). Perhaps
appropriately, then, her election to the Senate was announced while she was
attending a Quaker Peace Camp. While a Senator, she ran her office according to
Quaker principles:
"We attempt to operate a non-hierarchical model, using
consensus decision-making. For example, everyone is paid the same daily rate,
with my contribution to that equaliser being the handing over of my entire
electorate allowance ($17,000 pa) to the team, to be spent as the group
decides."
She
also endeavoured, in the midst of the Parliamentary routine and demands of a
trans-continental commute, to maintain her Quaker spirituality:
"The start of my daily routine is fresh air and
exercise, coupled with meditation, supplication and affirmation all combined
... Of course, I value meeting for worship enormously, but because of so many
weekend commitments, my attendance is irregular. But it's always renewing ...
When things go badly, I know it's because I haven't been paying enough
attention to the spiritual dimension."
At
least one aspect of Quaker tradition created potential problems for her role as
a Senator. Elected on a platform of environmental protection and opposition to
the nuclear weapons industry, Vallentine felt she needed to maintain the Quaker
commitment "to act as we believe, to ensure a correspondence between our
outward, visible lives and our inward, spiritual concerns," including
through civil disobedience which, as she noted, "has landed Quakers in
gaol ever since 1660." She ascertained that "as long as I didn't do
anything dreadful enough to attract a gaol sentence of one year, I could not be
thrown out of the Senate." Vallentine was arrested three times during her
parliamentary career - at an American nuclear test site in Nevada United States Alice Springs in the
Northern Territory
After
eight years, the marathon commute from Perth Canberra Perth Western
Australia
The
first Greens MP in the House of Representatives, Michael Organ, elected Member
for the NSW seat of Cunningham in a federal by-election in 2002 was described
in a 2004 party media
release as "one of a number of practising Christians" among the
Greens NSW candidates for that year's federal election. He was raised a
Catholic and sent his children to the same Catholic school he had attended as a
child, where the lessons of "compassion, peace and love" made
"an easy fit" with the values he found in the Greens.
During
the 2011 NSW election campaign, two Greens candidates from the Northern Rivers
region, Sue Stock and Janet Cavanaugh, expressed disappointment with the
Catholic bishops' pastoral letter, telling local
newspapers that their own Christian commitments had been part of their
reasons for joining the Greens. A third candidate, Simon Richardson, described
Greens policies as "a very comfortable fit" with the values he had
learned in his Catholic schooling, because "the Jesus I studied was
concerned with compassion, equality, non-judgment and love" and
"would look to the suppression of women, minority groups and the
environment by current-day Pharisees with dismay." Richardson
Christine
Milne was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1989 and to the Senate
in 2004. She succeeded Senator Bob Brown as Leader of the Greens in federal
Parliament in April 2012. She was raised a Catholic and attended Catholic
schools from the age of ten, followed by residence in a Catholic university
college. As a member of the Catholic Earthcare Advisory Committee, she
delivered the second "Common Wealth for the Common Good" address in
2003, entitled "Reclaiming
the Common Wealth for the Common Good: The Moral Challenges of Shaping a
Sustainable Earth Community." The event commemorated the Australian
Catholic Bishops' statement of 1992, Common Wealth for the Common Good,
which Milne quoted:
"the Earth is God's creation intended for the use and
enjoyment of all who inhabit it. Human beings have been entrusted with its
stewardship. If this principle is accepted ... it is completely unacceptable
for some inhabitants of the Earth to possess far more than they need while
others lack the most basic necessities."
Interviews with Green candidates
To
supplement these previously-recorded instances which seemed to challenge the
"Godless Greens" characterisation, I interviewed Greens party members
who have stood as endorsed candidates for local, state or federal government
(often more than one) and who identify as Christian or who had publically
discussed the relationship between religious faith and environmentalism. I
contacted some by referral from Green party co-ordinators; others contacted me
after an ABC radio broadcast mentioned the research. I conducted a total of
thirteen interviews with Greens MPs or endorsed candidates. Here I concentrate
on interviews with seven Greens candidates who identified as Christians.
The
inclusion criterion with respect to party involvement for this part of the
study was having been an elected representative or endorsed candidate for the
Greens (including related groups such as Greens WA). The inclusion criterion
with respect to religion was being a practising Christian at the time of the
interviewee's being involved in the Greens. Not all the interviewees were the
highest-profile Greens candidates: they were selected because of their
willingness to articulate the connection between their political and
theological commitments, and in party terms they are representative of the many
people who do much of the heavy lifting in all political parties, without
necessarily achieving national recognition. The selection criteria did not
involve any minimum level of church involvement beyond being willing to
articulate a connection between their Christian and Green commitment; but those
who volunteered for this part of the study all turned out to have high levels
of church involvement, beyond just attending services.
David
Collis is a Masters of Theology graduate and former church social justice
worker who stood for the federal seat of Bruce in 2001, the State seat of
Pascoe Vale in 2006 and the federal seat of Willis in 2007 and for Deputy Lord
Mayor of Melbourne Uniting
Church Uniting
Church Victoria Victoria Uniting
Church North Sydney ,
and also stood as the Greens candidate for North Sydney
in the 2010 federal election. Tim Senior is a Uniting
Church Sydney
Why they joined the Greens
It
goes without saying that environmental issues are central to Greens recruits'
concerns. Most interviewees, however, stressed the confluence of environmental,
human rights, and social justice concerns. Dismay at the major parties' actions
towards refugees had been a significant trigger for several. Lisa Owen told me
that she had always been environmentally conscious, and had tried to persuade
her parish priest to lead the church community in initiatives such as
composting, a vegetable patch and tree planting. She said, "I think that
you cannot be Christian without being an environmentalist, because the earth is
God's creation, and we've been given stewardship over it." To her, the
fact that "we have this incredible soil, and people are about to ruin it
all by mining for oil and coal seam gas, and yet we're not allowed to put up
windfarms" was "sinful." As a Catholic, "My being a Green
is a response to the changes of Vatican II, a holistic way of living - my faith
can't be separated from [my politics]."
The
immediate stimulus sending her into the Greens was the "Tampa
episode" in August 2001, when Prime Minister John Howard refused
permission for a Norwegian freighter, the MV Tampa, to enter Australian
waters with the 438 refugees the Tampa's crew had rescued from their stranded
20m wooden fishing boat. Owen explained, "They call us [people who joined
in reaction to the affair] the 'Tampa Tampa
Similar
motivations drove David Collis. After studying four years of theoretical
physics and applied maths followed by four years of politics and psychology,
Collis undertook a graduate diploma and then Masters in biblical studies. He
explained:
"My first encounter with [practical] politics was when
I'd just finished my politics degree, and I was working for the Jubilee 2000
and Water Matters campaigns, living in Collins
Street Baptist Church Tampa
Collis
was also impressed by hearing Brown speak next to a unionist at a rally to save
a heritage building:
"The unionist was saying that buildings are part of
human creativity; and Bob Brown said, 'Yes, and buildings are part of the
substance of the earth, so it's appropriate for an environmentalist to stand
with a unionist.'"
Tim
Senior is a doctor who moved to Australia UK
"Moving to Australia
Andrew
Robjohns joined the Liberal Party on his sixteenth birthday, and then formed a
branch "because there wasn't one for me to join." He left the Liberal
Party when John Howard returned to the leadership because "I couldn't
stand the nastiness," specifying race relations and human rights as
particular concerns. To him, the Greens and the church both encompass
"Jesus' vision of living with other people, especially people who were
previously enemies."
Like
Robjohns, Rev. Rob Humphreys described himself as a "lifelong Liberal
voter" until he found he could no longer support the Liberals after 1998
because he felt that the party was too close to Pauline Hanson, and "I
could see where all that was going." He voted Democrat for a few
elections, before joining the Greens. He felt quite at home in the party, whose
consensus decision-making process was very similar to that used by the Uniting
Church
Churches
of Christ theologian Jim Reiher had resigned from the Greens by the time of our
interview. He described the break as neither final nor ideological, but for the
sake of concentrating on other things, including writing a book. When I
contacted him to check facts for this paper, he said that, although he had not
rejoined the party, he expected to be helping his Green friends on polling
booths in September 2013. He described his path into the Greens as closely
related to his theological journey.
Reiher
came from a Labor family: his father, an ALP member and bread carter, had
favourite sayings, including "God put our hearts a little left of
centre." The household was not particularly religious to begin with.
Reiher converted to Christianity as a teenager, followed first by his sister
and then his parents. His early religious experiences saw him moving between Anglicans,
Assemblies of God and Baptists. After lecturing at the Assemblies of God's Harvest
Bible College Tabor College
Victoria
"I was always politically left of centre. I tried hard
to be theologically conservative because I was told by Christians from when I
was aged 16 onwards that that's how it had to be. 12 years ago, I made a
conscious decision that I couldn't be."
Lin
Hatfield-Dodds stepped down from her position as National Director of the Uniting
Church
"A genuine sense of 'call'. It didn't come as letters
of fire on the wall, but it was a definite call. In my family of origin and in
the Uniting Church
Theology and politics
The
participants represented a wide theological spectrum, including Catholic and
Protestant, theologically liberal and evangelical. All emphasised a connection
between their theology and politics. Andrew Robjohns had been involved in the
church as a child, but left at the age of nine: "I was interested in the
theology, but not in the paper cut-out Jesus." He resumed a church involvement
in his thirties, after he had joined the Greens, and as a result of contacting
churches to organise a local demonstration against the invasion of Iraq
"My political and also theological position comes from
Jesus: when you work out how to live with the enemy ... Jesus's kingdom has
been 2000 years coming, and I think it is achievable in our lifetime, but so
many people seem waiting for someone else to make it happen."
Jim
Reiher mused:
"I can't see how people can read the scriptures and not
come out on the left. It grieves me that people can read the scriptures and
don't make the step of applying it to their lives. Everything about the Liberal
Party is about accumulating wealth. Tony Abbott made a joke about 'the Good
Samaritan wasn't a public servant' - but what was he really saying?"
Several
interviewees particularly valued the fact that going to church compelled them
into close community with people with whom they did not necessarily have much
else in common and with whom they did not necessarily agree about very much.
Tim Senior reflected:
"Church is the only place I go where I meet people from
a wide variety of backgrounds, where we care for and support each other and
devote our attention to thinking about other people and direct our attention to
them in prayer. There's no other place where that happens. It's that
combination of intellectual and emotional engagement."
To
Rob Humphreys, the Uniting Church
"If you drew a Venn diagram with the values, ways of
acting and so on, the Greens and the Uniting
Church Uniting Church
Tim
Senior reflected:
"It seems obvious to me that we should value every individual.
I don't know whether I have that from my faith and then apply it outwards, or
whether I'd have it even if Christianity didn't hold that. I'm very happy for
other people to be nonreligious, atheist, Muslim, or other views. Christianity
gives me a vocabulary for saying how we should value other people, and one that
engages the emotions. It's not enough just to know that we should be nice to
other people, you have to feel it as well. When you see someone in need, that's
your God looking back at you."
David
Collis no longer identified as a Christian by the time of our interview,
explaining he had "gradually drifted away from theism, towards a similar
value system." Nevertheless, he had no regrets about doing his Masters of
Theology, with a thesis on Isaiah 44 - "a beautiful passage, I still love
it." The Greens and traditional religion shared "a value system which
is in touch with ... streams of deep historical and cultural value."
Faith and policy
As
one might expect for endorsed candidates, all the interviewees supported not
just the environmental and human rights aspects of Greens policy, but also the
aspects, such as marriage equality and assisted voluntary euthanasia, most
stringently attacked by conservative Christian critics. The Christian candidates
in my sample did not merely take these policies on sufferance, or as a matter
of compromise: they insisted that they comprised essential parts of an
integrated theological and political vision.
Jim
Reiher explained, "I am pro-choice. I'd love to see no abortions, but
banning it doesn't work. There are better ways to reduce the abortion
rate." He also said, "I support gay marriage," and in 2013 his website
carries an article entitled "Why Some Christians Support Gay Marriage in
the Wider Community." Lisa Owen found it hard to imagine how a Christian
could not support marriage equality, a view that she traced back to her
theological studies under George Pell thirty-five years earlier.
"Same-sex attracted teenagers are eight times more
likely to commit suicide than heterosexual teenagers. Just in that figure there
- if you can't get married, you're an outsider ...
Christ said nothing against homosexuality, not one word ...
Christ was a rebel. Christ came to redeem humanity and involve everyone in
God's saving grace. Marriage is a malleable institution, it's been constantly
changing, we've had polygamy, slavery, it's all been a part of marriage - so
how can we say that marriage is just this one, narrow thing?
As far as the sacrament is concerned, it happens between the
couple; they don't even have to go to church. Something evolves between the
couple, and therein lies the physical presence of God on earth. So how does that
exclude same sex couples? We have developed rites of passage, and they have
become very important in our society. They are about property as far as the
state is concerned, but also it's about community, communities come together
and share in the life of that couple, and share in the love of that couple. And
if you belong to a group that's shut out of that, then you're shut out of
community.
And marriage is the beginning point of family - well, for
some - and family is the starting point of community, and community is vital to
Christianity, to how we get together and fix the world. So if you're a same-sex
attracted teen, of course you're going to feel more depressed, anxious, shut
out of community."
The
interviewees knew that their political views were not shared by everyone in
their church circles. They also believed that their Christian faith was also a
minority position within the Greens; but few had experienced hostility from
either side. Lisa Owen described her Greens colleagues' reaction to her faith as
"more bewildered than anti." Andrew Robjohns commented that most
people in his congregation "are pretty conservative - they probably mostly
still vote Liberal because they liked Bob Menzies! - but they are generally
supportive of having a Greens councillor in church."
Over
successive State and federal elections, the ACL, along with some other church
and parachurch organisations, distributed "Christian Values Voter
Guides," scoring the parties' policies against "Christian
values." ACL's guides have consistently scored the Greens last, as the
party whose policies correlate least with "Christian values." During
the 2006 Victorian State
The origins of the myth
The
portrayal of environmentalists as "anti-Christian" or
"anti-religious" is not unique to Australia Australia
In
May 1984, Hugh Morgan, Executive Director of Western Mining Corporation and
immediate past president of the Australian Mining Industry Council, addressed
the Council's annual Mining Outlook Seminar, held in Canberra and attended by
the federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister Clyde Holding and Federal Home Affairs
and Environment Minister Barry Cohen. It was to them, rather than to the mining
executives, that Morgan particularly addressed his remarks. The speech, which
takes up over 11 pages in the published proceedings, was almost entirely about
theology. Mining companies, he argued, were following the New Testament's
instructions. "Our task, our obligation ... in terms of St. Paul's
exhortation, first to the Corinthians 1900 years ago [1 Corinthians 7:20] and
ever since as a continuing demand is to be good miners, successful miners,
profitable miners." So clashes between mining companies and their critics
- environmentalists and supporters of Indigenous land rights - were nothing
less than:
"[a] clash between the Christian orthodoxy of those who
work, including the miners, who as St. Paul told us, are abiding in the same
calling wherein we are called, and must perforce find the best orebodies
wherever they may be; and the Manichean style commitments of those who regard
rivers, or trees, or rocks, or aboriginal sites as belonging to the spiritual
world; who regard such sites as incommensurable, and seek to legislate such
incommensurability into the statute books."
The
speech gained such traction that news and current affairs reports were still
referring to it more than a year after its delivery. Morgan, who described
himself as an Anglican but "only an occasional churchgoer," continued
to establish the themes of "Godless Greens" that would prove so
powerful decades later. In 1991, he framed the debate between mining companies
and environmentalists as a "battle against the antinomians of
environmentalism," warning of "the threats posed by the green
antinomians, to the mining industry and to Australia
The
Hawke government's decision to ban mining at Coronation Hill in order to
protect a sacred site of the Jawoyn people was evidence, he said, that the
Prime Minister had "quite simply, become what is best described as a
neo-pagan, and [Hawke's] defence of paganism has become more emotional as the
Coronation Hill debate progressed." Christianity had to be defended
because "some religions" - of which Christianity was one - "are
more conducive to economic success than others."
In
1992, in the wake of the Rio Earth Summit, Morgan described the environmental
movement as "a religious movement of the most primitive kind, nature
worship, coupled with extreme distaste for the human race, which in a short
space of time has established a dominant position among a powerful and
influential group in Western society." Morgan characterised
environmentalism as "chattering-class religion" promising
"economic decline," while the Rio Earth Summit had produced a
"commitment to global warming as an act of faith" which "represents
a retreat into superstition."
Morgan's
mission included restoring Christianity to theological orthodoxy. He explained
in a speech
to the H.R. Nicholls Society (a conservative ginger group co-founded by
another Western Mining executive, Ray Evans) that he had realised in 1982,
after criticism of the mining industry from the Uniting and Catholic churches'
respective social justice bodies, that churches were central to what he termed
"the Culture Wars." Morgan explained that the need to engage in
"the Culture Wars" had been brought home to him by a comic book,
produced by the social justice arms of the Uniting and Catholic churches in
NSW, which criticised the mining industry's environmental and Indigenous rights
record. Morgan threatened the churches with defamation and had the book's
"tens of thousands of undistributed copies" pulped. Nevertheless, he
"had not the background" for "engagement in the Culture
Wars," so his theological crusades were "due so much to the
encouragement of Ray in our very close working relationship at WMC." The
"Ray" referred to here was Ray Evans, former Deputy Dean of
Engineering at Deakin University, who joined Western Mining in May 1982.
Evans's several think tank connections besides the H.R. Nicholls Society
included the Lavoisier Group, founded in March 2000 with Morgan as President,
devoted to challenging the science of climate change.
In
1994, the Galatians Group was founded by Uniting
Church
Evans
is also acknowledged as the inspiration for a book published in 1995 by Bendigo
academic Roger Sworder, entitled Mining, Metallurgy and the Meaning of Life:
A Book of Stories Showing the Hidden Roots of the Great Debate over Mining and
the Environment. The book argues that "of all the crafts and
professions other than the priesthood, none has been more closely connected
with the religious traditions of western peoples than mining and
metallurgy" and that mining's modern critics are engaged in "an
active rejection of the spirit."
In
1996, Morgan was appointed to the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia
Much
of the crusade against "anti-Christian" Greens was taken up by the
Australian Christian Lobby. Formed in 1995 as the Australian Christian
Coalition, the group adopted its current name in 2001. Its website states that it "operates
in the Federal Parliament, and in all the state and territory
parliaments," although it does not appear on the register of parliamentary
lobbyists. Its objections to the Greens derive significantly from the
party's stance on marriage equality, opposition to which features so
consistently in ACL campaigns that some observers have argued that ACL has become
close to a single-issue organisation. Its website states that it is not
"party partisan," making it worthwhile to examine further its
consistent opposition to one party, which has extended to calling for the
Greens' "removal" from federal Parliament. ACL's proximity to the
mineral and resources sector should be considered as one source of such
hostility to the Greens.
ACL's
structure is corporate rather than democratic, with the Managing Director,
state directors and the rest of its 20-member staff answering to a seven-member
Board. The Board is chaired by
Tony McLellan, a company chairman of not-for-profits and mining companies and
director of the Liberal Party's think tank, the Menzies Research Centre. McLellan,
in addition to his directorship of the Menzies Research Centre, has a
background in mining, including, through Felix Resources, coal, an industry
frequently at odds with both the Labor and Green parties during the 2010-2013
electoral term over the introduction of mining and carbon taxes. McLellan's
other board activities have included Bemax Resources (mineral sands and
titanium dioxide) and Norton Gold Fields. He is also chairman of ASX-listed
Elementos Limited, which has an active exploration program for gold and silver
in Argentina
ACL
is a registered company limited by guarantee. It relies on donations from
private individuals and businesses. It does not disclose names of its members
or donors. The Power Index cited a membership of 15,000. Although it
releases annual reports, these contain no financial records. The Power Index
cited a budget of $2 million. Since 2007, Australian electoral law requires
disclosure of political donations over a certain amount ($11,900 in 2012). ACL
disclosed no donations for the financial years 2009-10 and 2011-12. In the financial
year 2007-8, it received $113,239 from Bangarie Pty Ltd, the investment
company of MYOB software entrepreneur Craig Winkler, a regular donor to many
causes, including the conservative political party Family First. In 2010-11,
it received $30,000 from Gloria Jean's Coffees International, $13,636 from
superannuation firm Christian Super and $100,000 from an individual called Neil
Golding. The post office box address given for Neil Golding on the Australian
Electoral Commission disclosure form is the address of CQ Realty real estate
business in Gladstone Queensland
While
these donations represent only a small proportion of the budget, they are
consistent with the business and conservative party backgrounds of its founders
and board members.
***
Christians,
like other Australians, hold different opinions about the appropriate response
to environmental problems. Despite occasional references to a supposed
"Christian vote," Australian Christians have never voted as a bloc.
Nevertheless, some church and political leaders have portrayed one party, the
Greens, as "anti-Christian," "pagan," "atheist"
or "anti-religious." Prima facie, this claim seems challenged
by the numbers of Christians who have represented the Greens as candidates,
including the first Greens to sit in each chamber of the federal Parliament.
Interviews with Greens candidates who identified as practising Christians,
exploring the connections they drew between their theological and political
commitments, found that they understood their choice of party as being not in
spite of, but as an expression of, their religious beliefs. In addition to
environmental concerns, human rights was a paramount motivation, especially Australia
Claims
that the Greens are "anti-Christian," "pagan,"
"atheist" or "anti-religious" are often justified by reference
to aspects of the party's social policy, such as marriage equality and support
for a right to assisted voluntary euthanasia for the terminally ill. These
topics are often the subject of heated debate within churches, and public
opinion surveys suggest that support for such positions enjoys similar levels
of support among Christians as in the general population. The candidates
interviewed saw the Greens' position as a valid expression of a Christian
ethic.
In
addition to reservations about social policy, claims that the Greens are
"anti-Christian," "pagan," "atheist" or
"anti-religious" have sometimes rested on the idea that concern for
the environment is akin to "nature-worship" or to various heretical
positions such as Gnosticism, antinomianism or Manichaeism, and that support
for the Greens represents a fundamental assault on the philosophical roots of
"Western" or "Judaeo-Christian" civilisation. As far as my
historical study has been able to ascertain, these ideas were first introduced
into Australian political discourse not by theologians but by mining
executives. That at least some of those promoting the "Godless
Greens" theme in the public arena today, although speaking under the
mantle of parachurch organisations, nevertheless share financial interests with
those who stand to lose financially from Greens policies (such as a carbon
price, mining tax and higher use of renewable energy), should be a further
reason to exercise caution about such claims.
Further
investigations of how the "Culture Wars" played out in Australia
Professor
Marion Maddox has been the Director of Macquarie
University Australia
Tag Line: ecotheology, Marion Maddox, ecospirituality, the Greens, post modern Christianity, liberation theology, culture wars, Australian Christian Lobby
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