By Andrew Klein
In Western tradition there is a concept of kings and queens ruling by divine right, you have to imagine ‘God’ giving his/her imprimatur to the successful bidder for a Throne. Mostly this occurred after bloody battles and political scheming behind the scenes and more often than not involved members of the church. Those familiar with English history would be aware of Henry VIII of the Tudor line who succeeded his father Henry VII who managed to beat Richard III at Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses, much being made to discredit Richard III and bringing an end to the Plantagenet dynasty. Whilst it seems perfectly alright for ‘nobility ‘to raise armies, create alliances with powerful barons and their troops the idea that a ‘commoner’ would challenge a King was considered abhorrent, and in fact, regicide.
England did eventually have a commoner challenge a king when Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentary Army fought and beat Charles I, leading to the King being decapitated and Puritan Rule under the rule of Cromwell. Anyway, it makes for good reading when you have the time.
My point this morning is the influence of the Church and Religion in the 21st Century on the Secular State. The relatively recent rantings by the ISL (Death Cult) in the Levant and its desire to create a Caliphate is probably about 600 years too late; most religions develop and evolve and religious scholars are more than capable of placing any religion into the context of the times. The evolution of the way that the divine is seen perceived and acted upon is not new.
Surprisingly, there is also a resurgence of fundamentalist thinking in the West, often by those who trawl through the Old Testament and select those passages that allow them to degrade and undermine persons deemed to be less worthy than themselves, and for some bizarre reason, the United States is still able to produce some of the most vitriolic and nasty type of preacher who would have felt much at home during the wars caused by religion willingly carrying verbal faggots and fuel to ‘burn’ and malign those apparently breaching Leviticus. Not a particularly bright move, but in effect sad and hurtful if people take the message of the ‘Christ‘ seriously.
The unknown danger lies in what our elected leaders believe and I expect that most of us, much like me, never took religion or its impact too seriously when voting for a candidate. Yet here is the crux of the matter: Australia has had a Royal Commission into the abuse of Children by Churches and Faith-based organisations which occurred for generations. Rape, sodomy and physical abuse not being uncommon and the more the evidence comes out one – as a reasonable human being – can only feel a sense of revulsion towards those that were both active and complicit in the abuse.
I have to ask myself why our former government moved funds around and away from these inquiries and having read the Submission by the Commonwealth to the Royal Commission I am left shaking my head. We have had a Prime Minister, that almost, daily made it a point to remind us that Islamist Terror via the ISL Death Cult compromises all of us. Sadly this has also been a slur of those in our community that are not only Australian but also Muslim. Yet the very sources of evil that came from a Christian background are ignored, white washed and justice is denied or delayed.
I do not think that religion has any place in a secular State and it is time that those seeking to rule/govern a secular State place their cards well and truly on the table and declare any conflict of interest that may arise. Our former Prime Minister and his more than gentle dealings with Cardinal Pell should be the first. It may be convenient for governments to ignore the plight of what are called the ‘Forgotten Australians‘ but the more evidence is presented there may come a time that distraction and deception fail and the voting public will want some serious answers.
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