This interview with Peter Jensen on the current election is worth a listen. I’m surprised it hasn’t been spoken about more in the blogosphere this week. Perhaps it’s not controversial enough. It’s from Sunday night.
Q: Do Christians necessarily vote from the viewpoint of faith, do you think?
A: Yes we do. And fortunately in Australia it’s perfectly possible, even across the range of options, to vote from faith and to vote differently. You can not say to a Christian in Australia “you must vote for such and such a person. It’s a matter of balance. You’ll work out which way you want to go.”
He discusses Gillard’s atheism and its impact on Christian voters frankly. He discusses Abbott’s faith and its impact on voters with equal frankness.
Comments
It’s an excellent interview. I really appreciated the points he made:
“Why shouldn’t he have a view of the matter which comes from this faith, assuming that the faith is an intellectual faith?
Now the trouble is that in contemporary Australia in the shortcut way we have of talking of things there’s a sort of crazy, crazy belief that faith means non-intellectual whereas in fact the Roman Catholic teaching on life and on the embryo and on abortion, all those sort of things, you may not agree with it but it actually is both profound and intellectually worked out.
It is a proper way of thinking. And for Mr Abbott to reflect that way of thinking is quite legitimate.
He may be wrong. I think the Roman Catholic Church is wrong about lots of things. But I never underestimate its capacity for thought. ”
and
” What I don’t like is the sort of discussion where the answer is presupposed already, that a forward moving nation will inevitably come to this position.
I have to say that in this whole area I have a strong feeling of censorship, that I am not allowed to say certain things, I’m not allowed to express my mind as I would like to because of the speed with which abuse begins to occur.
Now this may occur on both sides. I’m talking now not so much about people who disagree with me but the nature of discussion and debate in Australia where people are very quick to take sides and to dismiss other points of view.”
Yeah, those were good. I really liked his approach, and his tone, and his content. If only other Christians could interact with politicians the same way.
I remember a two page spread in The Australian 6-7 years ago. It didn’t come across as a terribly sympathetic article – the big issus at the time was the ordination of women (as bishops?) in the Anglican Church. The closing paragraphs said something like, love him or hate him/agree with him or disagree with him “there is not a whiff of hypocrisy about this man.”
Listening to as many Peter Jensen media interviews as possible should be mandatory for students of apologetics.