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Rudd on Christianity

Amos 5: 4–6, 10–13

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 08 Oct, 2006

OPPOSITION FOREIGN Affairs and Trade spokesman, Kevin Rudd, has generated a lot of controversy by suggesting that Christians should have a political role. We need to hear him out.

I am convinced that we Christians must have a voice in our world. But I also believe that it is extremely unhealthy for the churches to be closely linked with any political party.

I grew up voting Liberal. I moved to the left when I understood that the liberal view of society leaves the poor further and further behind. That was before the Liberal Party went so extremely right wing. Thank heavens they still have Petro Georgiou!

Today, I vote more for policies than parties. Sometimes I vote Labor, sometimes Green, sometimes Independent.

SPEAKING FOR THE DISPOSSESSED

Kevin Rudd pleads for socially–concerned Christians to speak out on society, and for secular leftists to listen to what we are saying. As his springboard, he uses the centenary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famous German pastor, peace activist and committed social democrat, hanged in April 1945 for conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Mr Rudd is impressed by Bonhoeffer’s theological ideals. Bonhoeffer said that Christian ethics mean nothing unless translated into concrete social action on behalf of the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed.

This is simple Biblical teaching. What did James say?

Faith without works is dead.

Bonhoeffer taught it, and he did it. He opposed the Nazis from the start. Rudd says, “He publicly called on the Lutheran Church to resist Hitler’s race laws. He split from the church after it succumbed and became Hitler’s Reichskirche, and he supported an underground Christian movement that produced much of the leadership of the German Resistance. He assisted German Jews to escape to Switzerland. And at 39 he paid for all of this with his life.”

Sadly, today’s church seems to forget past heroes. Think even of some recent Christian activists: up front people like Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King; or those like Corrie ten Boom, one of the few survivors from a large and loving Dutch Christian family who hid Jews from the Nazis. Think of the Corrigan brothers in the US, two priests who opposed the war in Vietnam. Remember Rosa Parks, and so many like her, ordinary Christians who sat down and said, “We have had enough!”

If the church finds it hard to remember, the world around us has advanced dementia. All most people remember is that some wars have involved Christians.

Unlike many people, Kevin Rudd argues that Christianity must speak to a troubled world. He is perhaps out of step with many secular humanists who support Labor. He says,

"Sixty years after his execution, Bonhoeffer’s gospel of social justice still speaks to us."

However, Rudd is disappointed by how some Christian groups neglect the Bible’s social demands. He says that the social justice tradition of Christianity is being drowned out by a kind of evangelicalism which celebrates private morality and personal prosperity. What has happened to equity, solidarity and compassion? This kind of Christianity is open to exploitation by people like George Bush and John Howard, who promise security and prosperity. Kevin Rudd says that this kind of Christianity “...carries with it the below-the-radar message that the Liberal Party is the natural party of God.”

One reason why I had us read that passage from Amos was to see the Bible’s teaching on social concerns. Amos rails against the rampant evil in the land.

^{AMOS 5:7} You who turn justice into bitterness

and cast righteousness to the ground...

¹⁰ you hate the one who reproves in court

and despise him who tells the truth.

¹¹ You trample on the poor

and force him to give you grain.

The Bible constantly preaches against social evils. Amos speaks against not only the shady deals of crooked businessmen, but people using political and social power to deprive the poor of justice. He goes on, speaking for God,

¹² For I know how many are your offences

and how great your sins.

You oppress the righteous and take bribes

and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

Jesus also says a lot about our social role.

Do you remember what he said about the Judgment, where the sheep and goats are separated from each other? Those who enter the kingdom aren’t those who testify to great experiences or great miracles, but who have cared for the poor and the oppressed and the imprisoned.

Those are all social concerns.

A CHRISTIANITY FOR TODAY

So Kevin Rudd says that it is time to challenge the idea that Christianity is only about personal morality and prosperity and feeling good about God. He says,

“To fail to do so is to repudiate the legitimacy of Christianity’s social justice tradition. It is also just plain reckless to [...] concede the ground to the conservatives.”

I have mentioned before how so many people squeal as soon as a Bishop or a pastor says anything about social or political issues. Imagine how they squealed about Kevin Rudd! They say he is ending the separation of Church and State. One woman said that what he said meant that she could no longer vote for Labor, because Rudd is handing the party over to Christians.

Someone else went on so much about the Spanish Inquisition and the treatment of the Incas that you’d thing that rampaging Anglicare volunteers were chasing him down the street to see if he denied the trinity, and that things would only get worse now that Rudd has called in the Christians.

Rudd actually faces those accusations head on. He says that the Australian constitution is right to separate Church and State, and to create a secular, pluralist and democratic society.

For us Baptists, this can only be good news. There are many people who believe that the French Revolution invented the concept of separation between Church and State. In fact, it was the continental Anabaptists who seem to have been the first to argue for such a separation. While we Baptists were not quite as extreme about separation, we also reached similar conclusions, as did the Quakers. It was Continental Anabaptists, Quakers and Baptists who first pushed this idea, at least 150 years before the French revolutionaries caught on.

Rudd writes,

“Christians are as entitled as anybody else to advance their views, so long as their views are tempered by reason, to the secular forum that is Parliament. My concern is that in recent years we’ve only been hearing one set of Christian views on politics — and that has been an overwhelmingly conservative one.”

Mr Rudd says that he is not pushing for Christians to have a greater role in politics, but for a different Christian voice to be heard. He points out that the Labor Party historically was not exclusively the party of non–religious secular humanists.

Think about this. Why have evangelical Protestants voted Liberal in the past rather than Labor? It was not that Labor was secular, but that Labor included so many Catholics, while Robert Menzies’ Liberal party was mainly Anglican and Presbyterian.

So, in fact, in a secret fashion, our political system actually did bring religion into Government, despite the Constitution.

But we were wrong. Rudd points out How strong the English Methodists have been in Labor, as well as humanists and Catholics. He says that the thing all these different groups have in common is a conviction of “...the overriding importance of social justice.”

For us Baptists, the Methodist influence in politics is important, because we share so much in common with the Methodists. The early Methodists played a very important role in the end of slavery in England. Everywhere the Methodists went, they not only preached for conversion of the people, but for an end to slavery. They campaigned for better conditions for the poor, for better health care, for improved treatment of prisoners.

As one Marxist historian said, Baptists were a religion of the poor, and Methodists were a religion for the poor. We Baptists were the poor supporting each other; the Methodists were the better off doing whatever they could to raise the conditions of the poor.

A COMMON ENEMY

Mr Rudd says that the breakdown of a concept of society is the common enemy of socially–concerned Christians and of secular humanists. He mentions Margaret Thatcher’s comment that there is no such thing as society, and Frederich Hayek’s idea that free markets should determine the value of everything, even people and institutions.

Although Rudd doesn’t mention it, we have probably all heard Tim Costello arguing that the current Government thinks that we live in an economy and forgets that we live in a society. It’s the same idea.

I am not blind to Labor’s shortcomings. Although I want us to hear and to understand what Mr Rudd is saying, remember that, in the past, I was also critical of Labor when it was in power. But I have seen so much change in the past 10 years that I have major concerns for our nation. Rudd puts it this way:

“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.”

He goes on, “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.”

I like Rudd’s challenge to the secular stream within the Left. He says that our Government is pushing to instill the values of Thatcher and Reagan. That’s Christians only have to criticise issues such as the new IR laws, or what is happening in Iraq or in Guantanamo Bay and leading politicians like Downer or Costello launch a public attack. Rudd lays it on the line to so–called Social Democrats. He wants to know if it is right for Social Democrats to sit back and let Christian leaders be mauled by conservative politicians. He challenges his fellow democrats to join Christian leaders in the fight for justice.

EXPLOITING CHRISTIANS?

You might think that, if Kevin Rudd doesn’t want to hand his party over to Christians, maybe he wants Christians to uncritically support Labor. Rudd says that this is not at all what he wants. In fact, he believes that there is something seriously wrong with any party’s trying to lay claim to God.

“Christians should adopt an ethically informed and rationally engaged critique of all political parties and all politicians,” he says. “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.”

Mr Rudd gives examples from contemporary Australian life, such as the impact of new Industrial Relations laws on families, or the problem of asylum seekers. He asks how our understanding of the Bible informs us in such cases, or how the teachings of Genesis on proper stewardship of creation should be expressed when we consider climate change.

These are important questions.

Rudd quotes an earlier Australian Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, who articulated a vision for an Australia which would be a light on the hill. That is a Christian image, of course. Rudd calls for a renewed emphasis on values of fairness, decency and compassion, both in Australia and in our international relations.

We can sum it up in the contrast that the late Christian Theologian, Francis Schaeffer, drew. He said that we Christians can’t be allies of Communists, for example; but we can be co-belligerents, we fight as separate armies in the same battle for justice and peace.

SOCIAL CONCERN AND EVANGELISM

For us Christians, there are some important considerations.

We Baptists come from a radical tradition, which stood strongly for separation of Church and State. To be effective in our world, it is vital to re–emphasise this concept. One of my concerns with Christian parties is that they seem to set themselves up as “The Christian voice.” That is extremely dangerous. The Church is the Christian voice. It speaks for God, never for Caesar.

Second, we must work out our positions. Rudd is careful to emphasise that it is reasoned arguments which carry weight in Parliament. We can’t just say, “The Bible says so.” Nor should we just accept what a synod or council somewhere says. It is our responsibility to get the facts, to read them in a Biblical sense, and to argue a rational case.

But Mr Rudd left something out, and that is the relationship between social action and evangelism.

Jesus‘ word still stands,

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses...

If we neglect evangelism, the church will ultimately die. But, more importantly, the millions who die without Christ die into a certainty of judgment and condemnation, because we are all part of the problem; we are all sinners whose disobedience to God brings destruction onto the world, and our only hope is the grace of God mediated through Jesus our Lord.

But, if we neglect social action, we prove that we ourselves are unconverted; because to neglect social action is to neglect love.

There are far too many unconverted Church people these days!

Putting the two together, the solution is not fundamentalism, but revival. It is not having the best doctrines, but having a right relationship with God and our fellow humans. It is not what we have, but what we give — which is the way of Jesus, who gave everything for us.

We must listen to Kevin Rudd, because this is some of the best thinking on Christianity to come out of the political world for a long time. We need to put much of what he says into practice, because all other ways end up with oppression and persecution.

But we must do it as repentant, converted people, who never lose sight of the goals of repentance and conversion for the entire world.

Let’s decide to do so!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)