A faith short of compassion when it sacrifices social justice

Christians have no monopoly on conscience. They are one of many voices arguing to be heard in the secular forum that is our Parliament. And it is right that our founding fathers agreed on the separation of church and state so there could never be in this country an established state religion with some higher claim to truth.

Since 70 per cent of Australians still profess belief in the Christian God, it is important we crystallise how their belief system shapes Christian views of the polity. Broadly there are two traditions: a privatised Christianity which holds that personal faith is all sufficient and that beyond questions of personal morality there are no particularly Christian demands on the public polity and politics of the country.

The other is a Christian social justice tradition that says that personal faith is incomplete unless translated into concrete action on behalf of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed both through individual effort and the collective agency of society through the state.

In his column (November 8), Tony Abbott argues: "Why is deregulating the labour market (a process which the ALP began) 'market fundamentalism' but deregulating the financial market not ? Rudd is trying to invest with theological significance what is, at most, only a difference of degree."

The fundamental difference is that an unrestrained labour market is about the commodification of human beings whereas the financial market is not. It is the intrinsic dignity of human beings that commands the centre-ground of Christian, and in particular Catholic, social teaching. That is why there is a litany of papal encyclicals ( Rerum Novarum, Laborem Exercens, Centesimus Annus) that seek to protect human beings from exploitation in the workplace. That is also why the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has criticised Work Choices.

The Liberal Party has been taken over by a bunch of Hayekian market fundamentalists as demonstrated by the systematic culling of small "l" Liberals or old-fashioned Fraserian conservatives with a social conscience from their ranks. It happened in Victoria in the 1990s. It is happening now in NSW. Let's not be misty-eyed about Friedrich Hayek: he taught (and modern Liberals believe) that there is no such thing as social justice and that the only dignity to be delivered to human beings is through their emancipation by free markets untrammelled by the state. Bob Menzies and B.A. Santamaria would be turning in their graves at the sight of what has happened to the centre-right of Australian politics as under John Howard it has moved to the extreme on industrial relations.

The ultimate internal contradiction of today's centre-right is the tension between the libertarian, market fundamentalists on the one hand and the religious conservatives on the other. Here the touchstone is the family and family values.

Hayek offers no answer to the destructive impact of rampant, unconstrained capitalism, consumerism and materialism on the family reinforced by the new industrial relations laws and the new spread of working hours that make it harder for families to be together, play together, pray together and, therefore, stay together.

Abbott also questions what the centre-left credibly has to say about global climate change. Quite a lot, actually. Social justice Christians, together with many evangelicals, will point to the biblical injunction to be proper stewards of God's creation, as well as leaving the planet for those who come after us in a state not worse than we received it. As for social democrats, in the robust, market-based tradition of Adam Smith, the environment is properly conceived as a public good, not a private market. That is also how we primarily see education, health and social capital. The robust protection of public goods in Smith's order is essential for the robust functioning of private markets.

Gerard Henderson ("With religion back in the rihg, both sides are circling", November 7) points to differing perspectives on Christian social conscience between inner metropolitan and outer suburban Australia. I don't see it that way.

What I see is a growing discontent, country and city, with an official Liberal ideology which is devoid of fairness, devoid of compassion, and increasingly, therefore, devoid of soul. There is a thirst for a bigger and broader vision for our nation's future: one that harnesses the dynamism of markets but one that never loses sight of the fact that markets are made for human beings, rather than human beings for markets.

This is the difference between Hayek's market fundamentalists and social democrats. Social democrats embrace the discipline of markets tempered by the demands of human decency. And this is where we find common ground between secular social democracy and the social justice tradition of the Christian church.

Kevin Rudd is a federal ALP member of Parliament.

Bonhoeffer provokes new politics and faith debate in Australia

A paper by a shadow government minister at an academic conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, published recently in a leading Australian journal, The Monthly, has sparked a further instalment in an ongoing debate on the role of Christian faith and the churches in Australian policy debates.

Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian, philosopher and pastor who became famous for his resistance to the Nazis, and who was executed in Flossenburg concentration camp a short while before the Second World War ended.

He has been a towering figure in modern theology and European intellectual life, combining a biblical emphasis on discipleship, ethics and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount with a questioning approach to the role of the church and belief in the contemporary era.

The paper, "Faith in Politics", by Kevin Rudd, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, and regularly mentioned as a possible future leader of the Australian Labor Party, explores the legacy of Bonhoeffer as the basis for a Christian response to a range of current political issues. Rudd then goes on to provide a clear account of Bonhoeffer's views on how the church should engage in the political process. According to Rudd, Bonhoeffer's theology was that Christian ethics was a dead letter unless translated into concrete social action on behalf of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed.

Sixty years after his execution, Bonhoeffer's gospel of social justice still speaks to us. Regrettably, much of this social justice tradition of Christianity has been drowned out by a new brand of political Christianity which is being systematically exploited in Republican America and John Howard's Australia. It is a brand of Christianity that celebrates private morality and personal prosperity alone - to the virtual exclusion of equity, solidarity and compassion. It is also a brand of Christianity that carries with it the below-the-radar message that the Liberal Party is the natural party of God.

In his paper, Rudd draws out what he understand to be the implications of Bonhoeffer's legacy for a variety of issues including the environment, global poverty, environmental issues, asylum seekers and militant Islam. He draws heavily upon two principles: Bonhoeffer's concern that the church should speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, and the question of speaking the truth - drawing attention at this point to the discussion by US theologian Stanley Hauerwas on the importance of truth in politics.

While Bonhoeffer is never far from view, in his discussion Rudd takes the opportunity to comment on the appropriate relationship of church and state. His position is that, in contrast to Britain, Australia's founding fathers chose to separate church and state constitutionally by not establishing any religion or denomination. Given the history of the European wars of religion, they were absolutely right to create a polity where all views are to be distilled and determined through democratic electoral processes. Rudd is arguing for an arrangement that is both secular and pluralist, with the emphasis on the two elements in equal balance.

Rudd is clear that Christians are as personally entitled as anybody else to advance their views to the secular forum that is Parliament. His concern, which has provoked this paper after a long period of being reticent to engage in this debate, is that in recent years Australians have only been hearing one set of Christian views on politics - and that has been an overwhelmingly conservative one. He argues that the answer to this does not lie in a greater Christian voice in politics. It lies in a different Christian voice in politics.

He notes that for 115 years the Australian Labor party has been a broad church made up of Irish Catholics, English Methodists and the occasional Christian Socialist, as well as the great tradition of non-religious humanism. He says that where these traditions meet is in a secular consensus on the overriding importance of social justice.

In a largely nuanced and evenly tempered paper a moment of political passion emerges when Rudd states that:

Our common enemy is the political project of John Howard which seeks to reconstruct Australian society in the image of his particular set of neo-liberal values. Howard's vision for Australia is Frederich Hayek's rampant individualism where unfettered free markets determine the value of not only every commodity but of every person and institution. Remember Margaret Thatcher's chilling declaration: "There is no such thing as society." Within this world view, Christianity is an entirely privatised affair in which I have absolutely zero social responsibility for the material wellbeing of my neighbour.

Rudd denies that this means that the church and Christians more generally should by definition support Labor. He returns to Bonhoeffer and argues that the church needs to retain its own independence from the political process.

Christians should adopt an ethically informed and rationally engaged critique of all political parties and all politicians. Bonhoeffer argued that the function of the church, within a constant ethical framework, is fearlessly to speak the truth to the state, however politically uncomfortable that may make the state feel on any given day.

In an early response to Rudd's paper, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen commented that:

"We now require a vigorous, thoughtful and well-informed response from someone in the Liberal Party to show how it is that the sort of individualism and freedom espoused by that side of politics is consistent with the great biblical summons to love our neighbour, ? This would be a far more engrossing and worthwhile discussion than the vapid meanderings about Australian values to which we have been subjected lately by the media. ? And, as Rudd makes clear, this has a great deal to do with the practical politics of such things as industrial relations reforms, the use of our weekends and the obligation laid on us by the Bible to be a generous nation and to steward creation."

The Archbishop of Sydney, a forthright conservative evangelical, in his response to a social critique that displays a genuine admiration for and theological awareness of Bonhoeffer's heritage, has put the "conservative" side of Australian politics on notice that his constituency is not totally comfortable with appeals for Christian endorsement by Prime Minister Howard's government.

Doug Hynd is a public servant and also lectures at St Mark?s National Theological Centre. He is President of the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ), signatory to a radical biblical statement on Christian confession in today's world, and contributes regularly to Ekklesia.

[Also on Ekklesia: Bonhoeffer Agent of Grace - DVD; Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King: Speaking Truth to Power ? J Deotis Roberts; Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence - Stanley Hauerwas; Ethics: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 6; Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography by Eberhard Bethge; Death of anti-Nazi pastor seen as a sign of hope for justice; The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Discipleship: Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Bonhoeffer - Stephen Plant; The Bonhoeffer Legacy: Post-Holocaust Perspectives; Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

Kevin Rudd's 'muscular Christianity'

Kevin Rudd's essay "Faith in Politics", published in the October 2006 issue of The Monthly, is an important statement of his world view, no doubt intended to position himself as a future leader of the ALP.

In this essay, Kevin Rudd declares his admiration for the arguments of the German political activist and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis in the dying days of World War II. He argues that, "Christianity, consistent with Bonhoeffer?s critique in the 30s, must always take the side of the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed" and supports Bonhoeffer's "muscular Christianity".

There is much in Rudd's essay that is admirable, particularly its arguments against poverty and economic inequality. However, the essay also reveals a troubling social conservatism at the heart of Rudd's world-view.

There are two points at which this underlying conservatism becomes particularly apparent. Rudd rightly criticises the Religious Right for promoting a view of Christian morality that emphasises, "questions of sexuality and sexual behaviour". He points out that, "there is no evidence of Jesus of Nazareth expressly preaching against homosexuality. In contrast, there is considerable evidence of the Nazarene preaching against poverty and the indifference of the rich". So far, so good.

Rudd clearly wants to encourage social justice style Christianity and then win that vote for Labor. After all, Howard has benefitted electorally not only from the evangelical Right but also the conservative Catholic vote.

Gay and lesbian rights advocates, concerned about the political implications of Rudd's Christianity, will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief. He clearly isn't a member of the Moral Right. But where is the next obvious step for an advocate of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "theology of the oppressed"? Rudd claims he wishes to read up the ethical implications of the New Testament in order to support those Bonhoeffer terms, "the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the reviled". He wants to support those experiencing "otherness".

Yet, Rudd pointedly doesn't go on to make the obvious argument that gays and lesbians are currently an oppressed and reviled "other" in Australian society.

As recent Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission online discussion papers make clear, same-sex couples are denied the most basic equality with de facto heterosexual couples in federal legislation. That, after all, is why it is Labor policy to systematically remove discrimination against gays and lesbians (other than in regard to marriage). However, Rudd's inherent social conservatism seems to block him from spelling out the next, logical, step in the arguments in his essay. There seem to be limits to whom this Labor Good Samaritan will explicitly define as a reviled stranger in the Australian body politic.

(After all, in the Bonhoeffer context, let's not forget that the gay rights symbol of the pink triangle originated in Nazi concentration camps).

So while he may not be a member of the extreme Religious Right, Rudd is conservative enough to side-step an obvious opportunity to use his Christianity to support same-sex rights.

There is a second point at which Rudd's social conservatism becomes obvious. One of the strengths of Rudd's essay is that, unusually in much recent Labor thinking, it explicitly acknowledges forms of capitalist economic inequality. He clearly sees the need for some state checks on market inequalities, especially labour market ones. Rudd even cites traditions of Christian socialism.

The essay contains an important call for checking rampant individual self-interest in the name of equity (and sustainability). Rudd also argues for broader forms of social inclusion that would, for example, encourage compassion towards asylum-seekers, NESB migrants or Indigenous peoples. He's particularly strong on opposing the government's recent asylum seeker legislation while merely critiquing Howard for hypocrisy in supporting English-language citizenship tests but cutting funding for English classes. Nonetheless, he seems to suffer from an inherent hierarchy of oppression which privileges more traditional forms of economic inequality, for example, class ones, over other forms of social inequality (and doesn't see how they interact).

This privileging of the economic is revealed in Rudd's argument that Howard's "radioactive language" of social exclusion is predominantly aimed at "distracting the body politic from the reality of his faltering program for government". Elsewhere, Rudd has spelled this out more explicitly: "Part of Labor's challenge is to hang a lantern on the problem by exposing John Howard's culture wars for what they are: a masking device which distracts from the debates he doesn't want to have," for example, between "individual reward and social responsibility".

Undoubtedly that would be a good debate to foster but you are wrong Kevin. The culture wars aren't just a distraction or even just a clever wedge (although the latter is one effect). Like Kim Beazley, your own brand of social conservatism, which privileges issues of economic inequality and downplays other forms of social power, is blinding you. It leads you to underestimate the diverse ways in which Howard manipulates the fears of "mainstream Australians" while claiming to protect their privilege and their identity. It prevents you from seeing that, unlike Labor, John Howard takes issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and increasingly, religion, just as seriously as he takes economic ones.

In fact, he has been winning elections on that basis for ten years now.