Tag: how to vote

Hey ACL: If your “Christian Values” endorse One Nation, you’re doing it wrong

It’s election time in Australia, which means its time for various Christian pundits and thought leaders to put out their ‘how to vote’ guides, because, clearly, most of us can’t possibly work out how to participate in the democratic process without some sort of pre-packaged checklist highlighting where the parties stand on the issues we’re told we should care about. If you’re after advice from me I’ll stand by my how to vote in (not) easy steps post from the 2016 election, and leave you trying to work things out.

Long time readers (if there are any) of this blog (if that’s even what this is) will know I’ve been a strident critic of the Australian Christian Lobby for various reasons; but mostly because they, historically, never spoke about Jesus, or about why a particular policy direction they took was a particularly Christian approach. There were some observable changes when former chief Christian, Lyle Shelton, left to fight for marriage with the Coalition For Marriage, and then to run for the Australian Conservatives. The new chief Christian, Martyn Iles, has been doing a creditable job making Christian arguments for various (conservative) positions on various issues, he even made promises to broaden the platform a little (as the former chief did when tackling penalty rates). The change has been, I think, a breath of fresh air and represents at least a desire to enter the political realm or public square in a pluralist, secular, democracy as Christians, rather than as people who neuter ourselves and argue for and from status quo assumptions given to us by a hard secularism that assumes religion doesn’t belong in the public life of any individual or society.

The breath of fresh air turned fetid and stale overnight, for me, when the ACL issued its ‘how to vote’ card for the May election. They’ve picked five, that’s right, just five, ‘key’ battleground issues for Christians in this election. And there are certain issues that seem particularly self-serving for Christians, which then frames how our positions on issues like abortion and euthanasia might be understood (that we care more about being in control than being considered as a voice in the mix). The ACL’s “Policy Analysis” considers abortion and reproductive health, euthanasia, religious freedom (specifically for Christian schools), sexual orientation and gender identity, and keeping the Lord’s Prayer in parliament. Picking just these five issues seems an interesting narrow cast; and perhaps it’s because on all the other big issues all the parties are exactly the same? Maybe that’s it? But given the ‘wings’ of this table are ‘all green ticks’ and ‘all red crosses’ it does appear at least to be about contrasting the ‘Christian’ options (the Australian Conservatives) and the ‘non-Christian’ options (the Greens). It’s weird to devote so much column space to Derryn Hinch, and not the many, many, minor parties throwing hats into the ring this election. But what’s perhaps most beyond the pale for me is that picking such a narrow agenda ends up not just endorsing Bernardi and Shelton’s Australian Conservatives, but Hanson’s One Nation Party.

I’m going to put it out there that if your policy platform ends up endorsing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a ‘Christian vote’ in the current climate, there’s probably a problem with how you’re defining your platform. Especially if you don’t prosecute a party’s platform, persona, or character beyond those issues that serve your own interest — or worse, beyond the way that party promises you access to the political process. This is the mistake evangelical Americans have made as they’ve been co-opted by the Trump administration in the U.S; a failure to maintain a distinct sense of Christian character and virtue beyond what is politically expedient, and what is happening to the church in America. These politically active Christian conservatives in the ‘religious right’  have done significant, measurable, damage to the reputation of Jesus amongst the general populace of the United States (and possibly globally) because of the way they’ve jumped into bed with a bloke who literally embodies the vice list in Colossians 3 just because it’s politically expedient to do so; because we Christians, like our neighbours, have bought into an ethic detached from a ‘telos’ or from life in a cosmos where God and his nature defines what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and started pursuing politics like good little utilitarians; jumping on board whatever train will deliver our political ends, no matter what that means.

When I pressed Martyn Iles about this expression of a ‘preference’ for One Nation on Facebook, he justified the position with the following remark:

“…their doors are far, far wider open to Christians than most of the groups listed. They are easy to deal with, are often convinced to do the right thing, and they happen to line up on the social policy issues listed here.

I am pretty happy to defend where they’ve landed in our flyer just on the basis of how willingly their elected politicians work with Christians.

I get it that they have their problems (including serious ones, like their support of euthanasia), but I’ll take 10 One Nation Senators over Palmer, Hinch, or the Greens any day of the week.”

Their relationship to One Nation is, then, analogous to the relationship between the big end of town and the major parties, and the sort of insidious relationship we keep seeing exposed between foreign ‘soft power’ and our parties; the kind that leads people to suggest banning political donations from such quarters. Votes for access is a terrible pathway to the worst kind of democracy; the craven type where elected representatives act based on what will secure votes, rather than what is good, true, and beautiful, and where lobby groups that aim to distort the process for the sake of special interests urge for votes not based on what is best for all, but what is best for them — measured, predominantly, by questions of power and access.

If you chuck virtue and character out the window when assessing what party to vote for, in the name of results, you are making a bed that the rest of us have to lie in. If you end up platforming a party whose leader consistently appeals to the worst ‘angels’ of our nature; who promotes conspiracy theories rather than truth at every turn, who blames the media when her chosen representatives are exposed as degenerates, whose party cosied up with the NRA to try to soften Australia’s gun laws, whose positions on issues affecting the most marginalised members of our society or the global community are well documented, and who moved a motion in the Australian senate using a phrase (“it’s OK to be white” typically used by white supremacists). Hanson is a climate change denier (and the Australian Conservatives come pretty close), she is opposed to foreign aid (in all its forms). The party can’t seem to keep an elected representative in its folds, let alone in parliament. And according to the Australian Christian Lobby they’re the party who’re the second most deserving of your vote, because of what we Christians might get from the deal. Donald Trump might embody the vices in Colossians 3 solo, One Nation’s candidates prefer a cooperative approach.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other… — Colossians 3:5-9

I’m not suggesting that One Nation’s elected representatives should behave like Christians, or that we should expect them to… but I do think Christians should behave like Christians and exercise our participation in the political process as Christians who are ambassadors for Christ — and so not endorse vice for the sake of being closer to worldly power. I’m suggesting that virtue matters for us (and that it’d be nice to elect politicians who display virtue rather than vice, or to call for those sorts of standards rather than pure utility). A Christian vote is not about how they behave, so much as how we behave, and about what it is we express is important. There is no current political party that exhaustively embodies “Christian Values” (even the ones that have Christian in their name), which means a ‘Christian’ vote is not about who we vote for, but how one votes (and participates in political life) as a Christian.  Here’s what should mark our participation in public life.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. — Colossians 3:12-17

If you want to “vote for Christian values” then those are the values, or virtues, you might want to see on display in the people you’re electing and expressed by their policies. What’s tricky, in the way politics happens in the modern world, is that these virtues are thoroughly embedded in a life where a community ‘lets the message of Christ dwell among them richly’… And perhaps a better way of framing our participation in politics (beyond just the ballot box) — a politics built from “Christian values” — would be for us to push for Christians to deliberately and transparently bring Christian virtues into public life. The problem is we’d be bringing them into a “public” that has largely rejected virtue for the sake of utility, and where the key, distinctive, Christian idea that virtue comes not just dispassionately from ‘nature,’ but from a relationship with God is even more remote. To embrace a politics of utility enforces this chasm, which is the very chasm our Christian witness seeks to close.

In his work A Secular Age, Charles Taylor makes this observation about the ‘field’ public life, including politics, now takes part on, or at least about the way we think about how we should live as people in the modern world.

“The dominant philosophical ethics today… conceive of morality as determining through some criterion what an agent ought to do. They are rather hostile to an ethics of virtue or the good, such as that of Aristotle. And a Christian conception, where the highest way of life can’t be explained in terms of rules, but rather is rooted in a certain relation to God, is entirely off the screen.”

Taylor suggests the stakes of playing the game with these rules and assumptions are high; they reinforce the view that reality is a ‘closed system’ or an “immanent frame” that excludes God from the picture. There’s a real danger that the way we do politics, if we embrace ‘utility’ or the idea that being good is about obeying certain rules, or having a certain moral framework, rather than imitating the character of God, actually serves to reinforce the assumption that God isn’t in the picture, Taylor says that promoting a morality (or politics) that arises from ‘an impersonal law” or “impersonal order” — rather than from “a personal relation” is a problem for Christians. He says: “All these forms of impersonal order: the natural, the political and the ethical can be made to speak together against orthodox Christianity, and its understanding of God as personal agent.” Playing the political game this way, as Christians, takes the game further and further away from a Christian view of reality.

“On one level, we have the natural order, the universe, purged of enchantment, and freed from miraculous interventions and special providences from God, operating by universal, unrespondent causal laws. On another level, we have a social order, designed for us, which we have to come to discern by reason, and establish by constructive activity and discipline. Finally the Law which defines this order, whether as political/constitutional law, or ethical norms, can be expressed in rational codes, which can be grasped quite independent of any special relationship we might establish with God, and by extension with each other. The human relationships which matter are those prescribed in the codes (e.g., Natural Law, the Utilitarian principle, the Categorical Imperative).”

Christian values are going to be the ones that push back on the idea that we should make political decisions simply about what’s going to be convenient for certain groups — including us — here and now, they’re going to be the ones that say there’s more to life than just political success, or lawmaking, or winning, they’re going to be the ones that point to an actual, not just mechanical, relationship with God being at the heart of reality. And while keeping the Lord’s Prayer in parliament could be a nod to this higher ordering of reality, I’m not sure that having a bunch of politicians pray the Lord’s Prayer — including the line ‘your kingdom come, your will be done’ (which is a prayer for the Holy Spirit to come, and for the sort of kingdom ethics expressed in the Sermon On The Mount, where the prayer is found, to be lived) — who are then going to do their best to do the opposite — is the sort of pushing back on this closing of the system that’s required. Hypocrisy is not a “Christian value” and I think we should avoid the enshrining of ironic hypocrisy, especially given how Jesus opens up his teaching on prayer when he teaches the Lord’s Prayer: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full” (Matthew 6:5). If we’re going to ask our politicians to keep praying the Lord’s Prayer, we’ve also got to ask them to both believe it, and mean it, and to turn their attention to the sort of ethical vision and kingdom that the prayer entails.

I’m not going to cast my vote just to secure an ‘open door’ and a few key ‘ticks’ on policy areas that serve my interests. A Christian vote is not the vote that secures the best possible result for us on certain positions, or the best access to those in power, no matter the cost. A Christian vote is the one that looks to our relationship with Jesus as Lord, to his example, and to his commands, where we vote with integrity and character and virtue — the highest of those virtues being love. This will certainly mean that Christians consider the elderly, the sick, and the unborn in our political matrix — but also the refugee, the foreigner not on our shores, the widow, the poor, the not yet born (whose natural environment our decisions affect), and just about any ‘other’ — given that they all fall into the category of ‘neighbour’ or ‘enemy’ and Jesus calls us to love both (but first to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength). Here’s the paradigm that’s meant to mark our politics as Christians because it’s what it looks like to be a citizen in the kingdom of God — the kingdom Jesus launched in his death and resurrection, at the cross.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” — Matthew 16:24-27

Cosying up to One Nation might gain us the whole world in terms of political access and power (it probably won’t); but what if the cost is not just our soul, but our witness to our crucified king? Is it worth it? Or is it the equivalent of trading our birthright in God’s family of promise for a bowl of gruel?

UPDATE: A friend connected to the ACL has reached out to suggest the take put forward by this piece on the flyer is less than charitable, and that a statement posted by Martyn Iles might clear up what the aim of the flyer is. Iles says:

“There is an important difference between an education resource and a political tool.

A political tool has to effectively appeal to people who are disengaged and influence them.

An education resource is for people who are engaged, and it takes them on a much bigger journey.

If our flyer were primarily an education resource, it would include all parties and all conceivable “Christian” issues (which I do care about – anyone who follows my vlogs and blogs will know that). It would also have a small distribution, targeted to rusted-on Christians.

But it is not.

(Actually, it wouldn’t be a flyer at all – it’d be a website).

There are a number of good resources of that kind already available, which most people who are that engaged will already have seen.

The flyer is for middle-Australia, marginal seat, politically disengaged, Christian-sympathising voters. It has a mass distribution.

It’s for a target that other groups are simply not reaching. It is for a target that is not in yours or my mindset.”

I’m not sure I understand how this makes my post unreasonable, I’ll let you be the judge. There’s a little more in his post.

I will say, briefly, that I think this explanation makes things worse, not better. If this is designed to present a ‘Christian values’ approach to politics to people who are largely not actually Christian, but might share some Christian values, then this misrepresents the heart of Christianity (and Christian political concerns). It might be politically expedient (or utilitarian), but it is not helpful for the wider mission of the church (or the Kingdom of God, of which the ACL is, universally, a part). I’d also point out that there is a website that goes with the flyer, and lots of opportunities for the ACL to be clearer in its repudiation of One Nation, especially for the sake of those who receive this flyer in the mail who might be confused about how Christians stand with regards to that political party.

May 4, 2019

How (not what) to vote in the plebiscite in 11 (not easy) steps


I made this image for my last how to vote in 11 not easy steps post; it still seems relevant…

It’s funny that in the context of a big sermon in Matthew’s Gospel on how people are going to persecute Christians for being different, that talks about loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, and turning the other cheek, Jesus teaches people to pray the most political prayer ever. It’s funny that our politicians pray this prayer when parliament sits too (and they should probably stop it). It goes like this. You might know it.

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.’ — Matthew 6:9-13

Your kingdom come… your will be done…

Makes voting simple. Right?

This prayer should shape our politics, as Christians, because it should shape our ethics (the sermon on the mount is a picture of what the life of the king of God’s kingdom looks like; and this prayer is one that king, Jesus, ultimately answers — he also calls us to take up our cross and follow him). Because this should shape our politics, it should also shape our engagement in something like a non-compulsary, non-binding, postal survey about marriage in our nation.

But first, a note on why I’m putting this out there…

Lots of Christian leaders are handing out how to vote advice while saying at the same time they’re not seeking to ‘bind people’s consciences’ (though it appears that means something quite different to people to what I think it means). Their how to vote advice has, so far, exclusively been what to vote advice. I said in a recent post that I wouldn’t be telling people how to vote; but I think I missed an important distinction, I think there are things to be said about how we approach voting as Christians that are potentially good and wise things to put out there; I certainly won’t be telling people in my church what to vote; not from me, not from anybody else.

This sort of advice and its relationship to your conscience gets confusing in different church polity structures; there’s a question of how much a congregation member or attendee needs to be bound by doctrinal positions of a church; and how to understand those doctrinal positions, and how much a ‘how to vote’ approach is consistent with a church’s polity, let alone their theology. Senior figures from the Baptist Church, the Anglican Church, and the Presbyterian Church have all issued statements consistent with being part of the coalition for marriage; and those statements have different bindingness in both the theology of these churches and the polity they represent. It’s interesting times…

I assume, on any given Sunday, that barely anybody in my congregation knows what ‘Presbyterian’ means when it comes to our governance; they’re with us because they love Jesus and we’re on about Jesus, they come from a variety of backgrounds — whether they’re Iranian asylum seekers, new converts, people who’ve relocated to Brisbane from around Australia or the world looking for churches, or people who’ve grown up Presbyterian who do hold to reformed theology, but love the way it’s the Gospel that gets centre stage in our community; and that we’re able to gather with quite an eclectic bunch where a plurality of theological views are held alongside our unity in Jesus. Plus I assume there’s going to be a bunch of people with us on a Sunday still figuring out how with us they are, and what they think about this Jesus thing. We’re a church that is seeing people decide to follow Jesus from pretty diverse and extreme positions. This means I’m never going to read out an ‘official position’ statement and assume that anybody but I should hold it (if it’s a question of doctrine), and our polity as Presbyterians means we’re able to make this call as a church (led by our senior pastor). This is true for all other Presbyterian Ministers who are ‘moderators’ of their own church gatherings. We do not have bishops. Our committees are not bishops. Our assemblies are not bishops. How we respond to issues and moderate our communities, while holding to the doctrine and oaths we’ve sworn is not quite so simple as it is in a top down form of church government (think Anglican or Catholic).

People want short soundbite advice and easy conclusions; a one page thing to handout in church or chuck on a website; a simple directive… something accessible. I believe that actually becomes unhelpful both in how it helps people to come to their own conclusion based on conscience (ultimately, belief in what is Godly or not); and in how we then participate in a conversation beyond the soundbite. In West Wing terms, for fans, it’s all well and good until somebody says ‘what’s the next ten words’…

I know there are lots of Presbyterians, and lots of people in my congregation, thinking through how to vote (and asking for advice). So here’s my advice on how to vote (different to the last post where I laid out why I’m not telling people what to vote, in my next ‘how to’ post I’ll talk about how to participate in the conversation).  I think you can follow these steps and end up with a variety of positions on the plebiscite; but these are the things I think we should be weighing up. As Christians.

  1. Consider your vote prayerfully.
    Knowing that God isn’t just the creator, but the sustainer of all things — who works through governments for his purposes, even as he hardens the hearts of these governments in judgment, or uses them to promote good and restrain evil. Pray to God for his wisdom, that he would be merciful, and for the sake of your neighbours. Pray that his kingdom might come (you know, the Lord’s Prayer), and then live as though your life is shaped by that prayer. There’s a great irony that this prayer is prayed by our parliament before it sits — I agree with those who say it shouldn’t be; because I don’t think our politicians are in a position to work towards it being answered the way God answers it in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the launch of his kingdom; the church.
  2. Consider your vote knowing that if you’re a Christian, Jesus is your king and you are a citizen of heaven.
    You live as a dual citizen, or a foreigner, whose first allegiance is to Jesus. This is what it looks like to live the Lord’s Prayer — his kingdom coming as you live for Jesus and encourage others to do the same. This doesn’t present issues if you’re a Christian in terms of our Aussie constitution — our government doesn’t recognise this dual citizenship; but you must.
  3. Consider your participation in our democracy carefully.
    Marriage is a big deal. How we engage politically is a big deal. And this is more complicated than an arbitrary black/white view of the world allows. We live in a parliamentary democracy. Consider how parliament should be making decisions for a diverse community. We live in a secular democracy where our constitution says there is no established religion (s116), and we generally consider this a good thing because, for example, it means we’re not a Catholic country, and our head of state is not also the head of a church (though the Queen technically is the head of the Church of England, so, umm…). This stuff — the nature of our political reality — matters more than some voices suggest it does. Different people have different ideas about how democracy functions, and how we should function in it as a Christian; don’t vote blind on this. Consider how you want others treating democracy when it comes to your citizenship, when thinking about how your citizenship should be exercised for their sake too.
  4. Consider your participation as a Christian carefully.
    What does your faith require of you? I’d say we’re people who follow Jesus as king, who live for his kingdom as members of his kingdom, and so we seek to follow his example and his commands. We also want our neighbours to become disciples because that’s the chief good for them. How might our vote (and our conversations around the vote) best serve those ends; not just support a secondary good thing, like marriage, but present and pursue the primary good — people knowing Jesus. Jesus says some very clear things about marriage and how our sexuality is shaped by participation in the kingdom (Matthew 19); but it’s not immediately clear how these words about life in the kingdom apply to our neighbours who aren’t yet citizens of heaven (which, we believe, comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit). How might the Lord’s Prayer apply to your vote and actions? What best serves the fulfilment of that prayer being not people living as though they belong to the kingdom when they don’t, but people following Jesus as Lord and King.
  5. Consider your vote in terms of what the Bible says and expects of people who do and don’t worship God
    The Bible pretty much begins with marriage, and it ends with marriage. God makes people and gives us marriage as a way (not the only way) to fulfil his command to be fruitful and multiply. Marriage is part of God’s design for human life (but not essential to being human). It is a good gift from God, and when people, Christian or otherwise, enjoy that good gift in ways close to how God designed it, it’s good for them. Marriage as we know it is never as God designed it. It is frustrated by the curse of sin (specifically in Genesis 3:16). There is no ideal marriage; but we still have a picture of that ideal. The Old Testament tells many stories of marriages that are not ideal amongst God’s people (eg David and Michal, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and his 700 wives), and many that aren’t ideal outside of God’s people (eg Esther and Xerxes), and some that appear to be reasonably beautiful (Ruth and Boaz). The Old Testament operates on the expectation that people who reject God as God and turn to other gods will trash God’s design for humanity and marriage — that we will become dead and breathless, reflecting the images we worship, but also that once that happens the natural order of things will be rapidly eradicated (eg Leviticus 18). It also assumes that God’s relationship to his people is a marriage like relationship — and they become adulterous, cheating, spouses who God patiently waits for. The New Testament contains the life and example of Jesus, and his teachings on marriage, but it also contains a wedding invitation — we’re invited to become ‘the bride of Christ’ — to be God’s faithful people again (to join the love story of the Old Testament); without that story people won’t understand marriage as God designed it; with that story how we approach our marriages (if we’re married) will be shaped by the love of Jesus (Ephesians 5), as will not being married (Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7). Marriage makes sense to us as Christians because of what we believe; can we really expect it to make the same sense to people who choose not to love and worship God (Romans 1, which is a lot like Leviticus 18).
  6. Consider the models of engagement we have with non-Christian (or non-Godly) governments in the Bible
    Lots of our ‘political theology’ in the west was written in the context of governments that had been shaped by, and were supportive of, Christianity. That’s not the scenario we find for ourselves now, so it’s time to channel the Spirit of the protestant reformers and go back to the source material. The Old Testament Prophets had a particular responsibility as the voice of God speaking to Israel’s government (mostly) calling for repentance; there’s not much evidence of these prophets speaking directly to the nations (there’s some in 1-2 Kings). Joseph participates in and supports the regime of the first Pharaoh, Moses becomes a member of the later Pharaoh’s household and uses that position to unsuccessfully make the case for life God’s way; his success depends on God pretty drastically stepping in to rescue his people from deadly slavery. Jonah is probably the best picture of a prophet speaking directly to a government outside of Israel calling them to but we don’t really hear much of the substance of his message (Jonah 3), the whole book seems to serve as a condemnation of Israel for its collective failure to bless the nations the way they should have (Genesis 12), by representing God well (Jonah ends on a downer, him being in the whale is a like exile from God for disobedience). Solomon also had lots of opportunities to share God’s wisdom with the leaders of the nations (in the world of the Old Testament, like in the story of Jonah, if you converted the head of a state to a religious belief, that became the religion of the people). Esther operated from within the courts of a pretty nasty regime, at personal cost, to bring about God’s promises to his people. Daniel and his friends did the same with Nebuchadnezzar who saw himself as a god (idolatry); but they did this in a manner of faithful difference; they didn’t participate in disobedience to God personally, but by serving that regime they were participants in that system without being corrupted. I’ve seen John the Baptist cited as a political model a few times — but he called Israel to repent and be ready for the coming king and kingdom; and challenged Herod, who had set himself up as a pretender to that particular throne — Herod and his old man considered themselves the kings of Israel. Herod sr had tried to exterminate Jesus as a baby because he didn’t want competition. Jesus told us to expect persecution and to love our enemies and turn the other cheek, including from the authorities and promised to give his disciples the words to say when they were on trial (Matt 10); the government of his day executed him (the same government Paul says is used by God for his good purposes and as a servant). Paul appears before governors and kings on route to his trial in Rome; and uses his trials to proclaim the Gospel — when he’s appearing before Festus and Agrippa, Agrippa even says to him ‘are you hoping to convert me’, to which Paul replies:Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” — Acts 25:29Imagine if that was the approach Christians were taking when our positions are put on ‘trial’ in the public square. Recognising that governments (and governors) aren’t Christian; but that we can live with them as Christians seeking the good of our neighbours while being different and using that difference to persuade people to love Jesus. If Joseph, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus are your models for engaging with a non-Christian government (I’m not sure you should marry the king, like Esther did), then that’s probably a good thing; the prophets and John the Baptist adopted a particular stance towards God’s people when they looked indistinguishable from the nations. We might one day need Moses types who call the government to ‘let our people go’ — but we’re not there yet. 
  7. Consider your vote in terms of what it means to love your neighbour as you love yourself; and to do for them what you would have them do for you
    This one is where it gets tricky and all the options are still on the table because we have to balance competing goods (and life in a non-ideal world with what the ultimate ideal is). Vote out of love for your neighbour. Weigh up what the complexity of life together throws up at us. Consider your ultimate goal for your neighbours — whoever they are — for Christians our goal for one another is to present others mature in Christ; I suspect that pastoral goal should frame all of our political endeavours, and that our sense of what is good for our Christian brothers and sisters (and ourselves) should shape our love for others and the future we would have for them, which means our political goal should also be evangelistic — in that we should want our neighbours to be open to hearing about Jesus. We don’t love people as a means to that ends though; love is an ends in itself for our ‘political life’.
  8. Consider your participation in democracy as much more than voting
    Politics is not about power but about life together as people. It is about citizenship; not government (that’s what the word means). People in a polis are people who in some sense are joined as citizens. Voting is one way we shape that life together, as we appoint people to govern for us (or make our voices heard), but there is much more to life together than voting, and much more to a good life together than simply not transgressing laws; the good and ethical life is not constrained or limited by our politicians but by something like civility, or neighbouring. Consider what being a good neighbour and citizen might look like here beyond this non-binding, non-compulsary, survey  — and how, perhaps, your participation in the conversation around the survey is more political and will shape your relationships with other citizens and what life together looks like than the vote itself.What would happen if we saw politics first as neighbouring or hospitality and our participation in public conversations first as being an exercise in listening and empathy before in being heard? What would happen if every Christian committed to getting to know at least one individual or couple who are seeking a law change because of their desires (I suspect there’d be a lot less slippery slope arguing and a lot less talking past each other). How might that change your vote? Your process of considering your vote? Your approach to politics? What if before you vote you commit yourself to reaching out to people you know in the LGBTIQA community to find out what they desire and why; to figure out what parts of those desires you can understand, empathise with, and recognise? What if you commit to understanding the best arguments for or against by listening and seeking to understand; not simply proclaiming your vision of the truth by vote or declaration (or Facebook profile picture).
  9. Consider gently and respectfully rejecting the status quo as it is served up to you (this is a democracy after all)
    Accepting that politics is about participating in a vote where there are only two options on the table and the contest is framed as a zero sum game is an unimaginative reinforcing of the status quo. Consider that a plebiscite might run counter to the spirit of our system of democracy (where we elect decision makers to act for all, not just to act according to the opinion polls or the popular vote).
  10. Consider not telling anybody how you’re voting or making this a further point of division between Christians and the world.
    It’s one thing to have a stance, it’s another thing to aggressively campaign in the name of ‘participating in the conversation’ or ‘defending what you believe’; you don’t have to campaign just because people organising a campaign tell you to. You’ll inevitably defend a position against somebody who holds that position rather than finding some sort of common ground or different solution. What is gained by publicly taking a stance? I recognise you might think this is ironic given my recent post about abstaining; but I publicly did not take a stance (or took no stance) in response to a call from other Christian leaders suggesting that not only should we take a public stance; but we should be compelled to publicly take a particular stance.
  11. Consider that our best political statement as Christians is Jesus; that praying and living ‘your kingdom come’ and proclaiming the kingdom is political; and allows our words and marriages to be political in a different sense.We Christians have made the mistake of allowing our view to be defined as the ‘no case’ for same sex marriage rather than the ‘yes case’ for Jesus and what he says about marriage, sex, and love. Getting people to love Jesus more than the idea of marriage is the most profound political change we can be part of in our society; it’s also God’s political mission. There’s lots we can say about marriage that is tied to the Gospel; Paul says that marriage is a ‘mystery’ in how it reflects the relationship between Jesus and the Church, so that to speak of one is ultimately to speak of the other; you wouldn’t know that hearing Christian voices in the public square making the ‘no case’ — our challenge, at the water cooler, online, in our marriages, and as we participate in political life (and this conversation about marriage); is to have our dual citizenship on show; to live ‘your kingdom come’; to love our neighbours by pointing them to the marriage proposal we have on the table from God, and to have those we engage with echo the words of Agrippa:”Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

    And our answer be: I pray it’s so, such is my love for you.

August 24, 2017

How not to vote (3): Three more reasons not to just vote to secure a plebiscite, and one secular reason to vote for same sex marriage

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I’ve posted a guide to voting as a Christian in this election, and some initial summary reasons that a plebiscite might be a bad idea, and specifically why voting for a plebiscite as a means to securing freedom of religion or speech is a bad idea. Here are three more reasons not to vote just for a plebiscite. Again, and particularly for this post; the standard disclaimer applies. I’m speaking as an individual, a Christian, looking to figure out how we live well in our society through to this election, a potential plebiscite, and beyond. I’m not speaking for my church, denomination, Christians everywhere, or whatever… And I’m quite open to being persuaded that I’m wrong or have missed something.

1. Don’t vote for a plebiscite because you fear a changing world

There’s plenty of fear operating in the conservative community, both inside and outside the church, because the world is changing very, very, quickly. Or rather, it has changed pretty slowly but like the frog in a boiled-from-cold pot of water, we’ve only just realised the temperature has hit boiling point.

These changes have been coming for a long time — changes in how we understand democracy, how we disagree, the role the media plays in fuelling disagreement, changes in the place of religion, and Christianity, in the public square, a change in the ultimate common objects of love in our community so that sexual freedom is the ultimate good, and it trumps all other considerations; all of these changes are significant in and of themselves, and all of them are frightening for a bunch of Christian voices. Some of these voices are now seeing marriage, and its definition, as the final frontier (others are seeing it as some sort of last bastion to fight for before they come for what we really treasure: free speech).

Christians aren’t meant to fear the world. We have no good reason to fear the world, and good reasons not to, and we also have good reasons to believe that the world will cause us temporary pain. We are citizens of God’s kingdom before we’re citizens of earth, and that controls our destiny. We’re followers of Jesus — who the world hated and crucified, and yet he was raised from the dead and said, in talking about how we’d be treated by the world:

“What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” — Matthew 10:27-28

2. Don’t vote for a plebiscite because you think it is ‘democratic’

A plebiscite is not the answer. It might feel democratic — and its a form of democracy — but its not a good form of democracy. It’s the form that isn’t about a government protecting the freedoms and difference of the communities and individuals it governs for; it’s the form of government that isn’t about leaders who embody certain virtues making decisions with wisdom; it’s the form of democracy where majority rules and where persuasion and manipulation win out.

And so, these voices that tell us how to vote at this election because it is different are telling us not to rely on the principles of our liberal democracy but populism — we realise that the principles of liberal democracy almost necessarily lead to a community-within-our-community — the gay and lesbian community — having their voice heard on the definition of marriage so that it would include their relationships, so we want to turn to a different form of democracy. One where the majority might rule in our favour if we’re able to say just the right things. Populism. Majority rules.

This is a dangerous version of democracy. It isn’t about giving everybody equal standing under the law, and an equal share of the public life. It’s about giving the most popular position a disproportionate amount of power over public life — total control. And this will be dangerous for Christians for the other 2.5 years of a 3 year term, or for the future. Direct democracy, which is becoming popular because the internet allows it, is a stupid, stupid, idea.

If we want majority to rule, and so argue for a plebiscite as a good way to do serious and important political decision-making, then we need to carefully figure out why this issue is worth it and other issues are not. Adopting a blanket rule that populism is how we want government to happen (and its bad enough when its the opinion polls shaping our policy platforms), we also risk doing significant damage to our increasingly marginal position in the community if we want to make populism the way democracy happens because it might suit us now. It’s a live by the sword, die by the sword deal.

Do you really want the tides of populism turning on the church? Especially if in the plebiscite we manage to offend everyone by assuming they’ll listen to arguments from the 1960s, and we fail to understand what people are actually asking for? Especially if we’re seen as wanting God’s law to rule a secular nation (a legitimate criticism, though it’s because we believe it is good for society) or not loving gay people.

3. Don’t vote for a plebiscite because you think defending marriage is the way to love your neighbours

In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre talks about what happens to ‘morality’ when we shift looking at other people as ‘ends’ in themselves, and start treating them as a ‘means to an ends’ — he suggests there’s no morality outside of seeing other people as their own ends. In a plebiscite, where we Christians are told to seek a particular result and to try to persuade people to vote the same way, there’s almost no chance we’ll be using our speech to do anything but treat other people as a means to this greater end — securing the result we want.

And in the process, we risk turning our neighbours into objects to argue with and persuade (rather than people to understand and love), and further run the risk of marginalising already marginalised people in our community — gay and lesbian people — both in the wider community, and in those in our Christian community-within-the-community who are seeking to live faithfully for Jesus. We straight married people have the tendency to see the world, sexuality, and marriage, through the grid of our own normal experience and so take certain ‘realities’ for granted. We don’t know when we’re going to say things that our same sex attracted brothers and sisters find soul crushing and debilitating, unless we let them take the lead a little on this.

This is a pastoral minefield that we’re encouraging people to shut their eyes and run around in hoping to secure a particular result in the political minefield a plebiscite presents.

I’m particularly worried about the way we speak about marriage being idolatrous and being pastorally damaging. As Christians we don’t believe marriage is the best unit for a flourishing society; or for our children: a village of people following Jesus is.

Marriage is a good thing, and especially good within that community where people are loving each other as a reflection of Jesus’ love for his church. Marriage can’t bear the weight we put on it, socially or individually.

We’re also going to open up the idea, intentionally or otherwise, that we so loathe the gay community that we don’t believe they have the same rights to be heard and accommodated in our secular liberal democratic state.

If we engage in the plebiscite because we think its essential to protect our religious freedom we’re missing the point that for a society that worships at the altar of personal sexual liberation, we’re trying to curtail the religious freedom of others.

The chief good for our neighbours is not found in a broken worldly institution of heterosexual marriage — as much as it is a testimony to the goodness of God’s created design for people — it’s found in the one who will restore and renovate creation, and who invites us to be part of his kingdom.

We can’t confuse the act of arguing for lesser goods with securing this chief good; we might in the logic of 1 Peter 2, by robustly living out the goodness of the lesser goods, secure a hearing from people about the goodness of the Gospel, the chief good. But the chief good is the chief good because it re-orders how we approach and understand all other goods. It, as Augustine says, rightly orders our loves for the things in this world. People who don’t primarily love Jesus and serve him as Lord can’t and won’t approach other goods the way Jesus calls them to.

We should probably put lots of energy into making marriages within the church remarkably different and better than marriages outside the church, and keep teaching people about the goodness of marriage as God designed it (by marrying them and so teaching them about God’s goodness and chief goodness in the process).

Why there might be good secular reasons for Christians to support same sex marriage

There are good reasons to not change our definition of marriage within the church; Biblical reasons and an understanding of God’s design for humanity and sex. These reasons make no sense to an idolatrous world that hasn’t just rejected God, but has had God change the way they see the world (Romans 1:18-28). These reasons are bad reasons for a world where people now worship sexual freedom, such that when we speak against same sex marriage we are speaking against a particular form of religious freedom.

There are good reasons in terms of understanding how our post-modern public square works, and to keep having a voice of integrity within it, to vote against our own interests and beliefs to allow others to practice their interests and beliefs freely, because a liberal secular democracy falls apart if it becomes a case of majority rules.

Others believe integrity requires not compromising how we see the world because others see it differently; I think real integrity requires being clear about what we think and believe, speaking for that, but then compromising because we know that is how the world works, and we expect others to compromise for us. If we want religious freedom, freedom to be Christian as a community-within-a-community, freedom to disagree with the majority, then we need to give this freedom to others.

The argument about protecting children at this point would’ve been a plausible argument had we not already socially de-coupled children from marriage ages ago, and if there weren’t already things in place to allow gay couples to give birth to, and raise, children. I personally don’t even think the argument that marriage is for children bears much weight; I think marriage — as the one flesh union between a man and a woman — is an end in itself, not a means to an end.

There’s also the question of not just how we are seen to love the gay community, but how we actually love them — especially if they are as Romans 1 suggests “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” because “God gave them over in the sinful desires” — how is it loving to tell people not to live the way God is making them live? Sure, the reason God gives people over to sinful desires is because we worship created things in his place… but the kicker in Romans when you’re getting all judgy about these awful idolaters who sin lots is in chapter 2:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” — Romans 2:1

We don’t love the gay community by trying to make them live a way that God is preventing; we don’t love them (or others in our community) by insisting people see marriage the way we do, as a created thing that reveals the divine nature and character of God (Romans 1:20).

If our vision for their flourishing is that they come to know Jesus and perhaps rethink where their sexuality fits into their identity as a result (which it is, not that they become heterosexual).

We love the gay community, absolutely, by presenting them with the chance to know Jesus — that’s consistent with our ultimate vision of human flourishing — their chief good — their ultimate telos. If they don’t, and can’t, see or pursue that telos on their own steam, if they need the Spirit (Romans 8), via the Gospel (Romans 1:16); is it actually loving to limit how a liberal, secular, democracy defines marriage for its citizens because we can possibly get the votes to enshrine our view as the majority view?

Is it truly democratic?

Is it loving to prevent their freedom to define their relationships the way they see fit because we see things differently by the grace of God? If sexual freedom is, itself, an idol — a created thing — that people worship in the place of God, whether they know it or now then is this not a question of religious freedom too?

Gay marriages won’t be good for people in the sense of their created telos — what is good for people is being transformed into the image of Christ…

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. — Romans 8:28-30

This is what ultimate good looks like, but there will be smaller, secular, goods for our gay neighbours consistent with the desires and other temporal benefits that come from long term committed relationships. If our neighbours — gay or straight — aren’t going to change the pursuit of their gods, or of sex and love and happiness without Jesus — then perhaps the most loving thing we can do, while proclaiming Jesus to them, is maximise the good and virtuous things these relationships produce; rather than seeking to limit vice. I guess other people will see this differently; I get that. And they’ll see the fabric of our society being torn apart and changing and damaging all sorts of people; I get that too. I just don’t see it that way. Because the fabric of our society has fundamentally been torn apart already. Years ago. We’re grasping after a shadow.

I’m not sure at that point that we can consistently oppose same sex marriage in a secular frame, to do it requires people seeing the world through the lens provided by the Spirit, which is why we need to get better at getting our own house in order within the church; so that our good marriages are part of our testimony to the ultimate good.

 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” — Ephesians 5:31-32

June 28, 2016

How not to vote (1): Don’t vote just to secure a plebiscite

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In the first post in this election week series I wrote about how I think we should be discharging the responsibility of voting this weekend, now I turn to a specific reason not to base your vote on in this election; and it’s important, and the reasons are many, so it’ll take a few posts (rather than one mega post).

There are many, many, Christian voices telling us that this election is different from every election that has come before it.

We’re told there is lots at stake in our vote; so much at stake, that we might even have to give up on liberal democracy and its values — and the freedoms it should be providing us as a minority group — in order to attempt to enshrine our view as the popular one.

I’ve read a handful of blog posts and opinion pieces now that say Christians must vote for the Liberals or the National Party in order to secure the electoral Holy Grail — a plebiscite on Same Sex Marriage — that will allow us to protect our view of marriage (with the caveat that we believe it really is the best relational unit to enable humans to flourish).

I’ve read a couple that very strongly infer it but then stop short of endorsing a party because it’s not only marriage at stake but our religious freedom, and freedom of speech.

My own denomination stopped short of telling us exactly who to vote for in a public statement, but did state that it is our duty to vote for the definition of marriage to remain unchanged should a plebiscite happen, and further, that churches should be involved in the campaign for this particular result in a hypothetical plebiscite.

I believe if this is your sole reason for voting for the Liberal Party then it is a bad reason to vote for them. There are perhaps many good reasons to vote for them, and many good people standing for election with them.

I believe a plebiscite is a bad idea and will be bad for our country (though not really for the reasons the same sex marriage advocates say it will be), and that it will be bad for our Gospel witness to our country if we actively campaign for a plebiscite, or in a plebiscite. Clearly it’s too late to stop the former…

Further, I believe those pushing for a plebiscite and those arguing against same sex marriage are holding onto a modernist (old fashioned) view of law and Australian society, and this view in an of itself will become increasingly damaging to the Gospel. A modernist Christian approach to the public life of our secular country will lead to fear, disappointment, and discouragement for Christians, and will have us fighting battles on the wrong front. It’ll lead to isolation, and misunderstanding of what Jesus desires, for non-Christians.

We need to reframe the way we think about politics, and more importantly, about being the church: God’s Kingdom of people following King Jesus, as citizens in a post-modern, secular, world.

In a later post, but in order to flag where things are going now, I’ll suggest that if we want people meeting Jesus to be the chief good we stand for in our nation, then pushing for a plebiscite is a bad idea, and so too, potentially, is opposing Same Sex Marriage (though practicing marriage as Christians are called to practice it within our counter-cultural ‘kingdom’ will be an important part of our witness to the chief good).

Life as a Christian in post-modern Australia

Here are a couple of not uncommon scenarios, that are, in fact, real. They’re not just real in an isolated sense either; they’re real in that they happen in Australian communities all over the place.

There’s a Christian who loves the gay community in his small town and is seeking to build relationships with them in order for them to experience the love of Jesus in action, and to hear the Gospel. This Christian meets with this couple who tell him of their great desire to marry as an expression of their freedom to be who they are. This couple might not realise what the Christian perceives as the spiritual reality behind this desire; which is a function of putting sex and marriage as the chief love and aim of this couple’s humanity, a spot we believe belongs ultimately to Jesus; but this desire is real. It is fundamentally as religious as the Christian’s desire to love and worship Jesus in Australia. The Christian wants to hire a public space at the local pub to run a course on Christianity, and is relying on a shared belief in religious freedom, to make that booking a reality.

There’s another Christian family who lives on a street full of friendly people. They talk about politics regularly, and religion sometimes. They love each other, lend a hand, and do life together. One couple on the street are men who wish to marry. The people on the street see the love and commitment these men have for one another, and they see the love the Christian family has for those who live on the street; they struggle to reconcile a consistency between these people who want to live following Jesus and their speech about love and freedom, with what Christians say about the relationship they witness in the house down the road. If the Christian’s rationale for denying these men who already have children the object of their desires is: that it is unnatural, that marriage is for raising and protecting children, or that a God they don’t believe in, or a 2,000 year old book says it is wrong, this fails to adequately address the humanity and experience of the couple on the street in a way that works for their neighbours.

Both these Christians desperately want their neighbours — gay and straight — to hear about Jesus. They both want religious freedom and the freedom to speak about Jesus, but this freedom, in a secular post-modern world of competing truths and differing moral visions, is earned, not an inherent right, it is earned by extending the same freedom to others.

These realities are our post-modern, post-Christian, secular realities. They’re not easy scenarios, but we need to be careful that in our desire to proclaim the Gospel in this context we don’t keep hold of old strategies that didn’t really work. The moral framework of the 1950s may have had a bunch of people living like they were Christians, and ticking a box on the census that indicated a Christian identity, but it didn’t do a great job of forming people as disciples of Jesus. And holding on to the idea that Godly morality will deliver anything for the Gospel, or that resisting a shifting public moral framework is what will win us religious freedom just seems quaint and old fashioned. And it’s entirely the wrong question for Christians to be grappling with.

It is, to borrow an Australian expression “arse about” — people won’t meet Jesus because they’re told not to gay marry, or that gay marriage is wrong; they might, if they meet Jesus and put him at the centre of reality — their own reality, and the cosmic reality of the universe — understand marriage in a different way and approach it differently in their own lives.

What we should be spending our intellectual energy on as Christians is what to do if after they get married these couples, their children, and their neighbours, turn up in church wanting to hear about Jesus. How do they then live in the light of the Gospel?

A plebiscite, whatever the result, and for various reasons that I’ll elaborate on in future posts, denies the complexity of reality in post-modern, post-Christian, secular Australia. It’s a bad idea foisted on us by the very conservative wing of a political party as a last ditch attempt to defend a good thing that our society has walked away from. Marriage as God created it is remarkably good. It is almost all the things people campaigning for it say that it is — but the campaign is falling on deaf ears because the arguments being mounted are the arguments of modernist, nominally Christian, Australia. And most of our neighbours don’t live there any more.

Don’t vote just to secure a plebiscite. Vote for three years of government, not 6 months of uncertainty, and an uncertain and by no means final outcome.

Why choosing how to vote just on the basis of a plebiscite is a bad idea

Making the plebiscite your single issue this election is a bad idea. It’s probably not great to tell Christians that it’s their duty to vote a particular way either to secure a plebiscite, or in a plebiscite either — but that’s the subject of one of the next posts.

You’re going to vote to give government to a party you may or may not agree with on a bunch of other moral issues over one issue that will be voted on and legislated in the first six months of government where all the evidence suggests the result is a foregone conclusion?

What about the next 3.5 years? What about all the other defining moral issues of our times? It might be that you can have your cake and eat it to on that front if you believe the Liberal and National Party platforms deal well with these issues, and if their candidates are well equipped to govern with wisdom and virtue. That’s good.

Is that period of government so unimportant, or same sex marriage so important that all other considerations about ethical and good government are irrelevant? Vote for the person in the party who is going to make decisions with the most wisdom and virtue.

Even if it isn’t, a plebiscite in and of itself is a bad thing in our form of democracy and will come back to bite us if we further enshrine a belief that democracy is a combination of populism and majority rules.

A plebiscite in particular is a bad reason to vote for a party; and I believe (though I understand others will differ) that support for same sex marriage is a bad reason to vote against a party in a secular liberal democracy. I’ll unpack this in two subsequent, longer posts, unpacking some of the rationales I’ve heard from Christians in support of a plebiscite.

June 28, 2016

How to vote as a Christian in 2016 in 11 (not-easy) steps

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There are plenty of ‘Christian’ how to vote guides floating around the internet this week. Ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, I’m aiming for somewhere in the moderate middle. I’m also writing this purely as an individual, not on behalf of anything or anyone. Consider these thoughts appropriately disclaimed, and take from them what you will.  I’ve written my own guides and checklists in the past. Whatever happens next weekend, Australia faces stability that second world countries like England and the US can only dream of. We’re not staring down a #brexit or a Trump. Our major parties agree on most things, and they’re even pretending to disagree about certain policy ideas but promising to ‘check the costings’ after the election and adopt them if they stack up. There are good ‘Christian’ reasons for voting for just about every party on the spectrum from Family First, through the Liberal/Nationals, the Nick Xenophon Team, Labor, and the Greens.

I won’t vote 1 for at least four of those parties (because that would be an invalid vote), but I’ll understand why others would, and I think our country would do better to hear voices from each of these perspectives as we figure out how government should provide a common legislative threshold for a bunch of groups who increasingly disagree with each other on what is ‘good’ for people.

This is really what a liberal democracy is all about; allowing competing interests and minorities to be equally heard and catered for in our shared life as citizens. When we disenfranchise a particular minority in our community because the majority disagrees with them — when we remove some of their liberty to pursue a particular vision of the good life — we run the risk of not being a liberal democracy, but a populist democracy. A populist democracy is not built on the idea of all of us, in our various communities-within-the-community having equal freedom to work out how to live, but on the idea that the majority rules and in the majority ruling, the majority dictates what vision of human flourishing or goodness everyone else has to sign up for.

As Christians we’re told to respect our governments, pray for them, to live such good lives in our world that people know we’re citizens of heaven; and at least one New Testament Christian, Erastus, who Paul commends is a part of the Roman political system an ‘aedile of the city of Corinth’. The important thing is don’t waste your vote just voting for a plebiscite. That’s dumb. And I’ll explain why in parts 2-4 of this series. In fact, I think it’s important that we don’t make our free vote a cheap vote, but that we see voting as something that flows from certain obligations we bear as citizens, and creates new ones.

How to vote as a Christian in 11 steps.

Step 1. Decide what issues are important to you, particularly because they affect your neighbours (and I’d say especially your neighbours in marginalized communities — the poor, the refugees, the widow, the oppressed, children). The Eternity Election Guide is a good one to know what issues are in play.

Step 2. Spend some time familiarising yourself with the platforms of the parties who are fielding representatives in your electorate.

Step 3. Find out about the candidates in your electorate — figure out who displays the most wisdom and character. Who will act virtuously when complex issues outside those of the campaign arise? Who listens? Who do you want representing you? Who do you feel you might be able to speak to about significant issues in your electorate and our country over the next three years? All our parties need people of wisdom and virtue.

Step 4. Pray for wisdom. Pray that when crunch time comes you’ll cast your vote for the good of others, not just for yourself, and not for the leader you like best.

Step 5. Walk into a polling booth with valid ID. Line up. Get your ballot papers for the Lower and Upper Houses. Do this without fear, and do it knowing that whatever the outcome you face relative social stability; which is an amazing privilege that you should thank God for.

Step 6. Vote. Mark your ballot papers appropriately — don’t spoil your vote. Voting is a privilege, and is a thing you do as part of a wider network of relationships. Your vote isn’t free — it brings a bunch of responsibilities with it.

Step 7. Buy a sausage on bread to support the school or church you just voted in. Celebrate the relative global and historical rarity it is to vote so freely.

Step 8. Pray for the person you voted for. Pray for the people you didn’t vote for. Pray for the person who wins your electorate. Give thanks for their commitment to sacrificing their interests for the interests of others. Pray for wisdom.

Step 9. Your participation in a democracy does not start and finish in an election. Spend the next three years working to build relationships with your local member and community; join a political party, speak up on issues that affect your community with wisdom and grace, and write letters (find out the difference between local, state, and federal governments and the issues they govern).

Step 10. You know that issue you care deeply about — that social cause that keeps you up at night. Maybe it’s refugees, or homelessness, or something equally important. Invest in it yourself. Don’t outsource that issue to pollies. If you’re not giving your time or money to this cause — owning it and investing in it, why should they? Your criticism is meaningless, and unethical. If you’re a politician, by nature, you have skin in the game. You’re making big and complex decisions as an adult, at your own cost — at the cost of your family, and increasingly in a stupidly adversarial media, your reputation. Get some skin in the game. Get out there and seek to change the polis as a concerned citizen. That’s political. That’s democratic. Make your vote actually count by putting your time or money where your mouth is. Arrange meetings. Do what your vote obliges you to do. Keep praying for our politicians that they would act with wisdom and sacrificial love. Respect their decisions even when they go against you and your interests. The people you’re criticising from behind your screen have. They’re not perfect. But they’re getting their hands dirty. Maybe you should too…

Step 11. If you’re a person with some wisdom, and a desire to serve, why not get in the political business. Don’t just join a party. Seek pre-selection. Run for office? Or get a job as a public servant? Become part of the process and speak into the process from within. You’ll, of course, have to be prepared to compromise your own personal views for the sake of those who disagree with you whose job it will be for you to represent, serve, or govern for. But be like Erastus — the guy Paul mentions in Romans 16, who’s high up in the government of Corinth and a Christian.

June 28, 2016

“How to vote” (or do politics) as a Christian in 2013

I have never been more disillusioned about politics in Australia. There are policies I like from all the parties, but policies I abhor more from each platform. Navigating this election is going to be tough.

Here’s what I’m thinking through, personally, as I try to cast my very valuable vote – let’s not forget that being able to take part in the political process where you’re choosing between least bad options is an incredible privilege, globally and historically speaking.

One of the things I’ve become convinced of as I’ve developed and tried to articulate what I think is a Christian approach to the political world here on this blog is that a Christian approach to politics is an approach to politics that is framed by the gospel and that presents the gospel. How you vote is part of how you live as a Christian – how you vocalise your participation in the democratic process on Facebook or at the water cooler is part of your communication of the gospel (provided people know you are a Christian).

So here’s my snapshot to how to vote as a Christian:

Have your vote shaped by Jesus’ actions at the cross, and use your vote to testify to Jesus as the true king.

Can you do this by voting for any or every Australian political party? On the one hand, no. Sadly, I don’t feel like there’s a party platform that ticks all the boxes, so it really is a matter of picking what your policy priorities are. But can you in good conscience pick any major party in the Australian election, or many of the minor parties, and articulate why you’re voting for that party in a way that demonstrates that you belong to Jesus? I think you can.

I’ll explain a little more.

The Bible Stuff

There are, I think, four passages that shape my approach to thinking about this election.

This passage from Matthew 22 is something of a “purple passage” for Christians when it comes to politics. It’s one I’ve turned to time and time again to push for a strong separation between church and state, it’s led me to be pretty libertarian, pushing for a government that doesn’t intervene in private affairs. And while I think there’s validity to that thinking, I think there’s something even more profound at play that has changed how I think about our participation in the political process as Christians.

15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

I think Jesus is making a huge claim here, based on Genesis 1.

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Jesus isn’t just saying obey Caesar – he’s claiming ownership over those who are made in God’s image. If you wanted to speculate a little further you might make a link between “inscription” and the law being written on the hearts of those who have the Holy Spirit. But that’s a pretty interesting jump to attempt.

If you can be bothered reading my thesis you’ll see that I think our capacity as image bearers is functional – it describes how God made people to function. As images that point people to him (there’s a pretty convincing argument that Eden is a temple, images in temples represented and manifested the God who made them – there’s a cool jump from that to Jesus being “the image of the invisible God” in Colossians 1). So part of this political theology, I’d argue is participating in the church-state relationship in a way that shows that we are images of God. It’s not just the temple thing – coins, with images, functioned as political communication tools – every transaction in Rome, and the value of the coin, was guaranteed by the emperor’s head, and the other images and inscriptions celebrated and communicated the emperor’s achievements.

So how do we function as images of Jesus in the political process in modern Australia? That’s what I reckon is the big question to answer when deciding how to vote.

I’d say, as Christians, we’re not just images of God where that’s an abstract thing and we have to guess at what we were created to be based on the first two chapters of Genesis – as Christians we have something more concrete to shape our lives around. Jesus.

Here’s passage 2… Romans 8:28-30.

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

And not just Jesus. But the incarnate and crucified Jesus. The Jesus who became a human – observable and touchable, and who spoke out against the problems with broken political systems by claiming to be God’s promised king. But who was also put to death by the hostile state – a nice combined effort from the Jewish religious establishment and the Roman political machine. I’d suggest that “taking up your cross” or “imitating Paul as he imitates Christ” is part of what it means to be conformed to the image of Jesus.

So the question then, is how do we vote, as Christians, in a way that takes up our cross – where our decision in the voting booth is shaped a desire to bear the image of God through self-sacrifice for the sake of others (and who is the other?).

Here, I think, is Paul’s paradigmatic account of the “image of Jesus”  I think this based on verses 1 and 5 – I think our union with Christ is a big part of our image bearing function. and the Christian life based on the cross, from Philippians 2. This is how you show that you belong to Jesus.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

So I’d say voting as a Christian means putting aside your own interests – maybe your own economic comfortability or security – your own upwards progression in the world, your own interests for the sake of others.

Shaped by the way Jesus did that when he  lowered himself to become human and die on the cross. Humiliated.

Here’s what Cicero, a Roman statesman, said about crucifixion.

“The very word ‘cross’ should be far removed, not only from the Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes and his ears… the mere mention of such a thing is shameful to a Roman citizen and a free man.” Cicero, Pro Rabiro

The cross involved giving up a huge amount of status – being humiliated – for the sake of others. How do we vote like that?

I think Paul uses the Philippians 2 framework in Romans 12, and throughout his letters to the Corinthians. I think Romans pivots on chapter 8. Up to chapter 8 Paul establishes what it means to be human in the light of the gospel (I think Romans 7 describes being a sinner made in God’s image with the capacity and desire to do good, but inability to do it). In the following chapters he deals with what it looks like to live a life transformed by the Gospel. He works through the ethical (and political) implications of the cross and the transformed minds that come through being united with Jesus.

Transformed minds must necessarily lead to transformed votes.

In Romans 12 he seems to be echoing Philippians 2 (especially when it comes to life in the church) – but I’d say it also means thinking about how to live visibly, as God’s image bearers shaped by the cross…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you…

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Christian living – and a Christian approach to politics – then involves sacrificial living. It involves being counter-cultural – deliberately. And it involves using our transformed minds to “test and approve” God’s will. But, we get a pretty good clue for what living according to God’s will looks like in the verse before, and the verses after… the sacrificial love for others.

Just for a little bit more pushing this image of God/death of Jesus thing – check out 2 Corinthians 4…

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Peter has some pretty good stuff to contribute too. Check out 1 Peter 2 and 3.

2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.

3:13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

 

Implications for voting (or politicking) as a Christian

Here are some of the implications that I’ve drawn from the above Biblical data (and some other bits) – they’re not the only relevant bits of thinking. We’ve also got to figure out how we participate in the process in a post-Christian world that will be increasingly hostile to the gospel. And part of my thinking is drawn from a commitment to the idea that not only is the way we live (ethos) part of our testimony, but the way we speak about how we live and why (logos), is also part of the narrative we weave while bearing God’s image – so I’m in favour of talking about the political process. I’m also keen not to alienate people who disagree with the particular stance I take, and keen to love and respect those who are willing to enter public office.

Bear Jesus’ image and take up your cross with your vote and in how you talk about it

I want people to know that I’m weighing up the issues involved in this election based on a “transformed mind” – but ultimately based on the sacrifice Jesus made on my behalf, even though I was his enemy. And I really want to actually authentically be doing that – not just putting it on. Self sacrifice is paradigmatic for me. I’m keen to not look to my interests, but the interests of others – especially those who can’t vote.

Love others and “do good” with your vote

Love for others is the motivation behind Jesus becoming flesh, and the motivation for Christian living. Loving others and “doing good” is also part of how we bear witness to Jesus, and bear his image.

Be “Incarnate” as foreigners…

Jesus became part of the world. Join a political party. Participate in the process. Meet candidates. Call talk back radio. Blog. Discuss policy on Facebook. Become human. Get a sense for why the people you’ve grown up not voting for prioritise the things they do. Remember that as a Christian you’re a citizen of a different kingdom that transcends national borders and patriotism, but that you live in Australia so loving Australians is a good place to start.

Be wise with your vote (be informed)

Voting is an amazing privilege. And an amazing opportunity to live out the gospel in front of others – but it’s complicated. Life is complicated. It’s going to involve compromise. It’s going to involve self-sacrifice. It’s inevitably going to involve choosing a least bad option – and that will look different for different people. There is no party with a monopoly on the Christian vote or the voice of God. Not even Family First.

The Bible Society has put together a nice (though limited) guide to the election and the ABC’s political compass is worth having a go at to weigh up your priorities and see where that leaves you.

Go beyond doing your duty to Caesar to do good

I think this is part of the tension Jesus articulates with the taxes thing – we are called to be good and dutiful citizens and to obey the law and vote and stuff. But our vote is not where our contribution to public life ends. If refugees are your thing – join a refugee group, get to know some people who have arrived by boat (or even by plane – it’s more likely you’ll come across them). If the environment is your thing then figure out how you can make a positive contribution to the environment that goes beyond the political process. It can be pretty easy to think our government and its policy limits what we can do in particular areas, and to outsource that sort of care. But this relates back to the incarnation thing.

Witness to office bearers (and other people who are interested in politics

I love this bit in Acts 26, where Paul is appearing in front of Roman authorities, on trial – and he tells his story and the Gospel – and gets this response:

28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

29 Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

I hope that in any political discussion be it with office bearers in the capacity of advocacy (I’m on a committee for the Pressy church that does this stuff, but I’m thinking about the letters/emails I send to politicians in my personal capacity as well) that there’s a real chance that the gospel will be clearly seen in the positions I’m advocating. That’s why I think it’s almost untenable for Christians not to be pro welcoming asylum seekers – you can’t tell the story of the gospel while saying we should close the doors to paradise because people might be evil or we might be full, or they might be taking something of ours…

Honour current, future and potential office bearers

Romans 13 is a pretty good place to go on this one – I reckon one of the differences between empire and democracy is that the people you slam today might be your leaders tomorrow, so it pays to respect anyone in office, and anyone running for office. Because they are willing to give their time to governing.

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

I suspect real damage has been done for the Christian voice through immoderate speech about those who have been characterised as political opponents – I can’t imagine, for example, the Greens viewing Christian voices with much charity if they hold the balance of power in the senate. But this no doubt works on a local level with your local member, as much as it does on the party level.

There is of course the tension that some rulers are doing things that don’t honour God or carry out his will. But that’s not a new dilemma.

Pray for current, future, and potential office bearers

So I’d say the answer here is 1 Timothy 2. We should pray for those in authority. It seems the prayer is linked to the above.

2 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 

At the end of the day – whatever the outcome in the election – the sky isn’t going to fall in. Christians will still be free to live good lives, freely, among the pagans as a witness to Jesus. God will still be in control, and prayer will still work. Perspective is important.

My reflections on the Australian political landscape and this election

I mentioned above that I’ve never been more disillusioned with the political scene. And it’s true.

If I was voting out of economic self-interest I’d vote for the LNP. I think they tend to produce prosperity better. Or I’d vote for Labor – fast internet for the rest of my life is something that excites me, and the Coalition is just asinine on broadband policy.

But I’m asking what it means to vote for others – what it means to vote for the vulnerable. The voiceless. The future generations. It’s a complicated balancing act – do I prioritise abortion – and lives lost there (probably the Coalition, definitely not Labor)? Do I prioritise Asylum Seekers (the Greens, definitely not the Coalition or Labor)? Do I vote on indigenous issues? Foreign Aid? Economic management or environmental management – for the sake of future Australians?

It’s hard. It takes wisdom. It takes prayer. And it takes speaking out and participating in the public discussion from a renewed mind shaped by the cross.

Or joining a party. The only way for Christians, who are serious about the cross, to become less disenfranchised with the the political process is to speak into the policy making process. Joining a party won’t be for everybody – I’m not sure it’s all that healthy for people who want to speak apolitically to all parties, and lovingly to other Christians who are strongly affiliated to a party to join a party, but it’d be very healthy for the parties to have a Christian voice speaking out during the process.

My vote and articulating why I vote on issues like Asylum Seekers – or abortion – are opportunities to demonstrate the transforming of my mind, and my priorities. I’ve had a go at articulating this in previous posts – but check out David Ould’s attempt to show how the gospel shapes his thinking on Asylum Seekers.

Imagine a country which operates a radical asylum seeker policy. Instead of waiting for people to arrive on airplanes or even on boats as they do in Australia, this imaginary country charters boats and planes at great expense and sends them to countries where they know there is a desperate need for people to be rescued…

But that’s the gospel pure and simple. God the Father sends the Lord Jesus Christ into a world which opposes Him (John 1:10; 3:16). Jesus willingly dies for those who are His enemies (Col. 1:21, Rom. 5:8). This is the amazing, and dare I say it, ludicrous nature of the good news of what Jesus came to do.

 

August 4, 2013

A Christian’s guide to the Queensland Election

So tomorrow is election day. After a year of ridiculousness we finally get to put the longest and most annoying election campaign in history to bed.

This campaign involved both parties, but particularly the ALP, sinking to new lows and treating the electorate with an incredible degree of contempt. We are not stupid.

The latest in this cascading, nay, spiralling, cycle of stupidity comes in the form of Anna Bligh’s early concession advertisements – which plead with voters not to punish her party too harshly on the basis that Campbell Newman will have “unfettered” power if he wins a significant majority. This is an interesting pitch. In some sense it’s an improvement on the horrible ad hominem negativity Labor relied on for the first 11 months of this election campaign. If this is plan B, plan C must be terribad. This line of argument is incredibly stupid. For two reasons. Essentially, so far as “power” is concerned – there is no difference between a one seat majority, and a fifty seat majority in the Queensland parliament – especially as there is no senate. The argument also strikes me as being a little hypocritical, given that back in 2004 the Labor party had a 63-20 majority. And they weren’t complaining about the damage this did to democracy then.

Anyway. As Christians, who are more than just your “tick a box on census day” Christians, there’s all sorts of pressure that different people attempt to pile on to us to sway our votes. If it’s not the ACL telling you where everybody stands on the “important moral issues” it’s Family First telling you that their stance on all those moral issues is, to quote the musician Beck, where it’s at. I listened to a panel discussion on 96.5 (a Christian radio station in Brisbane – for those of you reading outside of south east Queensland) last weekend, featuring a good and very reasonably minded friend of mine, and the implicit, if not occasionally explicit message from the show was that a Christian can’t really, in good conscience, vote anything other than conservative. Which, quite frankly, is ridiculous. While we should be mindful of employing a historical fallacy – that how things used to be, or how things were in the beginning, is equal to how they are now – both Labor and the Coalition parties were established to promote, or protect “Christian” values. And both historical party platforms have important messages in particular times and places. Thankfully, modern Australia isn’t really that place – the parties essentially agree on almost all the major issues. We have it pretty good in Australia – and our politicians, while approaching issues from different philosophical frameworks, are essentially just putting different window dressing on the same shops.

The problem with most Christian “how to vote” cards, policy trackers, and any sort of suggestion that God endorses the policy platform of any party, is that life is complex, and democratic politics involves complexity and compromise. It’s be great to be able to force everybody to do what we want, but not so great when the boot is on the other foot.

So here, before I go any further, is “how to vote” tomorrow. As a Christian. Or as anybody.

Vote with your head.

That’s it. You can stop reading now. If that’s all you were after. Participating in a democratic process is an incredible privilege, and abusing it is a sure-fire way to end up with a bad government, and a lowest common denominator form of political campaigning.

Here’s my handy “how to vote” card for any Australian election – it was prepared for the last Federal Election, but is still relevant for tomorrow.

This may be an over simplification, because we have to acknowledge that there are hot-button issues for Christian voters. Some of us feel so strongly about a Christian moral framework that we only want Christians governing the country. And we want the country governed using a Christian worldview. We like to appeal to Australia’s so called “Christian heritage” to justify lording it over our heathen neighbours, who on the whole, just want to eat, drink, and be merry – without us interfering. The Christian heritage assumption is based on a pretty questionable interpretation of some historical data, I’m not going to argue that our system of laws isn’t based on Judea-Christian values – because they are – but I doubt that Christianity was ever practiced by the majority of Australians in any meaningful way (church attendance has consistently been much lower than those who nominate as Christian in the census). If you want you can read my Australian Church History essay on this question.

I posted on abortion recently – and it’s an issue many people feel pretty strongly about. Strongly enough that it might influence their vote. And possibly With good reason. Abortion, to my mind, involves speaking out on behalf of the voiceless (the unborn) and attempting to protect and uphold life. But, the reality is that Labor and the LNP are in a two horse race to be the decision makers for the state (Katter’s Australia Party, the Greens, and Family First might compete in each electorate – but their policy platforms aren’t big enough for them to be treated as worthy of a vote). And their positions on the issue of abortion are almost impossible to tell apart. So, Campbell Newman, refused to outline his party’s position on the issue. There’s no real choice here anyway – and the way forward on this issue is something I discussed in the post linked above.

This isn’t really anything I haven’t said before. But a couple of people have asked me if I was going to post about the election. And now I have. There’s a second post following this one very shortly.

At this point, in terms of my own vote, the similarity of the major parties, and the craziness of the fringes, means that my vote is coming down to a question of style rather than substance. I feel inclined to punish Labor for their horrible campaign. Relentless negativity based on spurious accusations, directed at an individual, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I can’t possibly vote for the Labor party after their campaign.

March 23, 2012

Family Last: Why I’m not voting 1 for Family First despite being a Christian

A well meaning friend, perhaps unaware of my position on Family First, suggested that I become Facebook Friends with Queensland Senate Candidate Wendy Francis. I have met Wendy (a few years ago), I used to play football (soccer for the luddites) against her son. Anyway. I added her. She seems like a decent, hard working, Godly Christian lady, I’ve no doubt she’s a great mum. I’ve got no doubt she’s a Christian. I’ve got no doubt she’s moral. And I’ve got no doubt she’s intelligent. But I won’t be voting for her. She’ll probably end up somewhere above the Greens and the Australian Sex Party on my ballot paper (I like numbering the senate paper completely. I’m a politics geek. Sue me.). And here’s why. I don’t think she’ll make a good politician. Pretty much by her own admission. If you want a godly, motherly, intelligent amateur holding the balance of power in the senate (which might happen) then feel free to vote for her. I won’t judge you.

She’s been busy on Facebook posting 101 reasons to vote for Wendy Francis. Here are some examples.

#13 I’ve never had media training and I don’t know how to avoid or fudge questions.

#88 I really don’t know quite how to be a politician and I rather suspect I should stay that way and those who vote for me would agree

#71 In a campaign featuring robotic candidates controlled by media minders I’m a fresh contrast. It’s time for un-politicians!

My big problem with the Family First campaign (and its epitomised by Wendy’s appearance on Sunrise) is that they completely lack any form of nuance or any sense that they’ll be, if elected, governing for everybody. Not just the people who vote for them. What they say is fine (almost) coming from the mouths of lobbiests and special interest groups. But this sort of comment from her Facebook profile is just a little scary: “Atheist Prime Minister & atheist Greens with senate balance of power equals the wrong road for Australia”.

I can’t help but think that if she had media minders, or thought like a politician, she may have avoided situations like this.

“legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse”

Comparing anything that’s clearly not in the same category of child abuse to child abuse is like comparing things to Hitler. We have a pretty solid definition of child abuse to work from – and we have myriad victims of child abuse in our community who must feel somewhat slighted by the idea that children with two loving parents are being placed in the same category.

Christians hate it (I know I do) when atheists suggest that Christian parenting is child abuse. So why would we, as Christians, use similar language to describe family structures we disagree with. Even if it wasn’t her who posted the message (and she says it wasn’t, but that it was a staffer) it’s the kind of amateur hour thing she seems to be proud of (based on her points above). And she didn’t distance herself from the sentiment in subsequent interviews. A little media training and political nous goes a long way.

Something can be bad for a child without it being child abuse. This lack of nuance is appalling. Is she saying that any child without a father is suffering abuse? Does it follow that any mother who leaves her husband and becomes a single parent is also an abuser? Or is it only if they leave their husband for another woman?

I sympathise with her position on same-sex couples adopting. But I think it’s a much more complex situation than can be adequately argued or justified on Twitter in 140 characters or less. Is it better for a child to have loving gay parents than no parents? Probably. As soon as you concede that point you’re on the back foot. Coming out with emotive tripe that seems designed purely to cause scandal is a ridiculous political strategy designed only to resonate with the lowest common denominator of Christian thought.

My biggest problem with Family First is that they almost completely fail to empathise with the people they oppose. Christians, by the grace of God and our parliament, enjoy incredible freedom in our country. This kind of “we speak for the majority so we’re going to prevent any minorities being represented” mentality is just scary. You know what happens in cultures that oppress and silence minorities. They start sending them to death camps. There. I made a Hitler comparison.

Politics has famously been described (probably by Churchill) as the art of compromise. By being definitively “non-compromising” and “non-political” you’re essentially saying that you don’t care about the outsider. The people who don’t hold your views. That’s not what being a senator, or being a Christian, is about.

August 10, 2010

Julia and the Big Red A(y)

Julia Gillard is in line (depending on the rest of the election campaign) to be our first elected female prime minister. As far as I can tell the only people more excited than the red heads and the females in the electorate are the atheists – because Gillard is out and proud. She’s not definitely the first atheist PM (as far as the internet is concerned Bob Hawke was an atheist, though he told Denton he’s an agnostic not an atheist). She could well be the first. And I thought there had been a pretty muted response from the Christian community – there were even a couple of great articles (one from John Dickson in the Herald, one from Greg Clarke on the ABC website, and one from Michael Jensen on sydneyanglicans.net) suggesting that it didn’t matter.

But the scaremongering has kicked in in the last few days – and more and more Christians I’m speaking to are expressing concern about the idea that Julia, an atheist, might be running the country. I don’t think that the disendorsed Liberal Candidate from Sydney, David Barker, speaks for all Christians when he says this – but he taps into a scary undercurrent in Christian thinking:

“I’m not anti-Muslim. I believe every one should have their own beliefs,” he said.

“But I don’t know if we want at this stage in Australian politics a Muslim in the Parliament and an atheist running the Government.”

Why don’t the atheists deserve a place in a democratically elected parliament? Shouldn’t the parliament be representative of the electorate. This means 10%, roughly speaking, of our politicians should be atheists. The fact that one rises to the top of their party is a testament to their ability and the faith their colleagues have in their ability to do the job.

I’m wondering at what point people think her atheism will impact her ability to govern. Or her ability to act as the leader of the nation. We don’t have the “Christian heritage” the U.S claims as they ban atheists from holding certain positions in public office. There’s nothing in the Bible that suggests the leaders of our nations should be God fearers (we’re not Israel – despite some people trying to insist that the Old Testament should apply to our legislative body today). The New Testament affirms the government of the day as a government chosen by God – and the Roman empire was perhaps the most anti-Christian regime of all time.

I don’t care that Gillard is an atheist. I care more that she sounds like a character out of Kath and Kim. I’ll weigh up my votes on policy alone. Some of those policy positions may be reached as a basis of the application of my faith. That’s my right as a voter. Even if my vote (which won’t go to Labor at this stage) counts for nothing (or just for one) and Labor retain power I’m not going to sleep poorly knowing that an atheist resides in the lodge. At least she’s open about her beliefs rather than claiming to be a lapsed Anglican – one wonders how much time John Howard has spent in church since losing power.

I think John Dickson’s advice for Christian voters is pretty awesome.

“Christians should be willing to change voting patterns after Christian reflection on particular policies. A believer who cannot imagine voting for the ”other side” has either determined that only one party aligns with the will of God or, more likely, is more attached to their cultural context than to the wisdom of scripture…

…So, what principles guide the Christian vote? First, a Christian vote is a vote for others. It is basic to the Christian outlook that life is to be devoted to the good of others before ourselves. In the political realm, Christians should use whatever influence they have to contribute to others, to ”consider others better” than themselves.”

If Christians are worried about Gillard’s moral compass (using the tired old chestnut that atheists can’t be moral) they should perhaps remember two things – all people, atheist or otherwise, are made in God’s image. I assume that includes some sort of moral compass coexisting with the sinful nature, all people (including Christians) have the capacity to act immorally, and all governments (atheist or otherwise) are provided by God. Even the ones that oppress Christians. We should cherish the opportunity we have to have a say in who rules us – but a vote based on scaremongering, or a “Christian Values Chart” like the one Simone rightly loathes, is a wasted vote.

August 1, 2010

British How to Vote Card

This made me laugh. I’ve been mostly disintrested in the whole British election thing. Who cares who runs the ninth most important country in the world. I thought about posting about Gordon Brown’s press “gaffe” the other day. I thought the media beat up was pretty nasty – given that he was smashed by the press for giving them full access to his campaigning. They crucified him. It wasn’t nice. Anyway…

From here.

Via David Ould.

May 2, 2010

Election day

The countdown is over. We voted this morning. Robyn told me afterwards that she’d voted for Family First. It was a funny joke. We laughed. 

Here’s why I don’t vote for Family First…

  1. While I appreciate that Family First put the family first and often that means supporting things that are good for Christians and Christianity – I think their very presence dilutes the conservative vote and is counterproductive for Christians looking to vote on their issues. 
  2. I don’t like the idea of giving politicians a mandate to turn Australia into anything other than the democratic system we have now – theocracies are great provided you’re a believer. Which I am. But they don’t do a good job of protecting minorities or other interests. I’d rather a candidate sympathetic to all than a candidate only sympathetic to me. 
  3. It’s not the state’s job to convert people to Christianity – it’s ours. Separation of church and state is a protection for the church too…
  4. Better the devil you know – I know that the LNP and the ALP will act in a predictable manner based on their convictions. The same can not be said for Family First members. There have been too many loose cannon loonies running for the party for them to have much credibility as a united voice. The idea of a united Christian voice is nice in theory – but you only have to look at the Uniting Church to see it in practice. 
  5. It’s a wasted vote. Unless we’re voting for a Federal senate spot the party will never the numbers to get candidates into seats. What’s the point of voting for Family First when you can be voting against a party you disagree with and keeping them out of power.  

I have no numbers to back this up. But I’m sure I could find them. I know that some people who are single issue voters on abortion will get angry when I say this. But voting for family first when you’re a nominally conservative voter who doesn’t like abortion is pretty much a vote for Labor – who (despite their name being similar to the act of giving birth) are the most likely party to legalise abortion in Australian states.

Obviously the preference system allows you to make this statement while still essentially voting for the LNP – but a real statement would be made by the number of people not preferentially voting at all – and ousting a government without having to rely on preferences at all. 

It may be a principled move. It may make a statement.  But it’s a phyrric victory only. So I won’t be making that move any time soon. 

This is too late to change anyone’s mind anyway. But it’s my two cents worth.

Also, I think it’s slightly ironic that the Greens print out how to vote cards. They’re such a waste of paper. Perhaps we should change the legislation to allow each nominated candidate to place a “how to vote” card in the voting booth. That’s under 10 printouts per candidate per booth – rather than thousands.

March 21, 2009