Resisting Christian Nationalism: Secularism Australia’s inaugural conference

Lucy Hamilton

1 year ago

Jane Caro speaks introducing a panel at the Secularism Australia conference

Spiritual and cultural Christians – indeed such people of all faiths – need to consider allying together with those who identify as belonging to “no religion.” It is the fundamentalist authoritarians who would divide and constrain us all that need exposing as the small minority they truly are. We must make them as powerless as their numbers, goals and hypocrisies merit.

At the first Secular Australia conference in Sydney on the 2nd of December, people gathered to hear presentations on maintaining the line between church and state in Australia. Jane Caro ably ran proceedings, opening by explaining that the conference’s goal was to build a stronger voice for secularists in the way the nation operates. We can no longer passively expect our interests to be represented when our parliaments are becoming more not less religious. The organisations and individuals maintaining our line between church and state must coordinate action. Some freedoms, Caro reminded, are only possible in a secular society.

Michael Kirby launched the conference, drawing attention to the fact that as of the 2021 census, 39% of Australians declared themselves to be of “no religion.” Professor Luke Beck outlined how Australia’s constitution dictates that we are a country where the separation between church and state is established, illustrating the historical battles between denominations that ended up shaping the structures we function within.

David Shoebridge of the federal Greens spoke about the work in federal parliament, noting in particular the “Basic Religious Charity Exemption” robs Australians of considerable wealth from businesses associated with charities and churches such as Sanitarium, as well as removing supervision of how almost $25 billion of public money is spent in these bodies performing outsourced government services. NSW Green Abigail Boyd described the struggle against entrenched and unaccountable religious conservatism in that state parliament. Both spoke of the way so many Australians are made second class citizens in the privileging of Christian prayer in our parliaments.

Rationalist’s Fiona Patten outlined the important achievements her party has helped achieve in Victoria, presenting an optimistic impression of our trajectory. Secularism, as she pointed out, means equality and freedom of conscience. South Australian Labor’s Chris Schacht illustrated the statistical support that secular government has in Australia, urging the bodies assembled to campaign more strategically in counterpoint to our well-organised religious lobbyists. Our politicians do not understand, he asserted, the census results proving the size of the secular vote, instead continuing to prioritise the activated religious vote. Victor Franco described his efforts at Boroondara Council to prove that privileging Christian prayer in such bodies is likely illegal, within Victoria at least.

Our public schools are established to be “free, secular and compulsory.” As Shoebridge had reminded us earlier, a fair and just society is embedded in that injunction. Alison Courtice and Ron Williams spoke about the secularists’ efforts in Queensland and NSW to constrain the controversial chaplaincy and religious instruction programs in their state schools. Federal governments of both stripes have spent almost $1.5 billion to place inappropriate figures in schools. Not only is this a profit stream for Pentecostal movements, but also a mission field. The ALP’s “secular” option is being embraced by these groups with new “wellbeing” companies set up to place more Pentecostal figures in primary schools.

The Australia Institute’s Bill Browne introduced the think tank’s survey results proving that the school chaplaincy program has only minority support in the community.

Former Director-General of the Navy’s Chaplaincy Collin Acton spoke about his brave stand to make sure secular “chaplains” serve in our navy as first resort pastoral care providers (as well as or instead of the old system where chaplains bring a theology degree and a minimum of two years work in a civilian community). The Religious Advisory Committee to the Services, some of whom also treat the ADF as a mission field, ought to be replaced with a secular expert panel to ensure our service people are best protected from psychological distress. The army and airforce have still not embraced the new balance that Acton’s team persuaded the navy to trial.

Acton, Beck, Shoebridge and Kirby all drew attention to the substantial financial ramifications for the nation’s budget in the strong lobbying powers of the religious sector. Money is spent in huge proportions there, much of it unscrutinised for the manner and effectiveness of its use. This, as Caro pointed out, leads to religious healthcare providers becoming the sole service for a region but robbing the population of crucial medical procedures that don’t meet the provider’s moral code.

Part of the substantial injustice of the excess funding of private schools is attributable to this power imbalance. We will continue to become a more unjust society if the public education system is starved of funds in both function and infrastructure, by contrast with taxpayer funds being spent in abundance on church-linked schools. Former president of the NSW Teachers Federation Maurie Mulheron spoke with great passion on that injustice. The chasm between education systems both segregates and polarises our society.

Some of the money, such as that spent on chaplains, may also be unconstitutional.

One of the most important aspects of the day’s discussion, however, was affirming respect for people of private and virtuous faith. We must stand against the mere 12% who belong to fundamentalist movements that see the rest of us as an impediment to their goals.

Chys Stevenson delivered the day’s most striking speech explaining the risk to our democratic project posed by the Christian Nationalist Right (or Christian Dominionism). She described this Americanisation of Australian politics as part of a “cancerous political ideology.” We have the protection from a soft coup by Christian authoritarians of a much stronger electoral system than the USA, but complacency, Stevenson warned, could nullify that advantage.

The Pentecostal movement is working to infiltrate government and public institutions; the intent is “gaining complete control.” And while the style of religion is foreign, it is growing. The New Apostolic Reformation group alone has 1,000 churches around Australia.

This “imposter Christianity,” quoting Professor Samuel Perry, is often antithetical to Christ’s teaching. It is radicalised to the point that, Stevenson explained, in many churches pastors can no longer preach the Sermon on the Mount without being attacked for being the rotten “woke.”

The Christian Nationalists that Stevenson depicted believe that End Times are close. This requires the purification of every person and nation on the planet to allow Christ’s return to rule. Purification entails constraining all lives: no reproductive rights and no sex outside sacred, heterosexual marriage. This allows no LGBTQIA+ existence at all. Women should be returned to the domestic space.

Stevenson described the Seven Mountains Mandate which intends all aspects of human society to be controlled by Pentecostal figures: education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment and media. There is no obligation to be honest with the secular world about this intent or the methods used to achieve it. Everything is literal spiritual warfare. The secular world, including Christians who are not of their movement but most particularly Catholics, is often depicted as demonic. The movement is deeply antagonistic to First People’s cultures, and often segregationist in race terms.

Stevenson used UTS academic Jeremy Walker’s research into the Atlas Network and its affiliate “think” tanks in Australia where anti-climate action work is accompanied by culture war battles that amplify splits in society. The Atlas model of division was at work in the Voice referendum campaign, not least because the fossil fuel sector that funds so much of these junktanks’ work fears the alliance of First People with environmental campaigns.

Neither the paleolibertarians nor the Christian Nationalists have any interest in democracy. The former see it as an obstacle to the free market, while the latter sees it as an obstacle to imposing Biblical law. Stevenson recommended Clare Heath-McIvor’s insider revelations about the threat to the democratic project posed by this movement.

Stevenson’s speech built on Leslie Cannold’s depiction, in the preceding presentation, of how polarised Australian society is becoming. We are following the American route towards hyperpolarisation which cannot sustain the democratic experiment.

Dr Anna Halahoff from Deakin illustrated the degree to which far right lobbyists have pushed the Western Chauvinist cultural deployment of Christianity into our new school curriculum. Then education minister Alan Tudge’s revision to the proposed Australian history curriculum ended up reducing content covering First People by one third, replaced by greater emphasis on our “Christian heritage.” Tudge has no record of being on the Orban speaking tour like too many Liberal Party alumni, but he was apparently filtering the fascistic politics through from the network.

Van Badham spoke with passion, and some trepidation, about her adult embrace of Catholicism. She depicted her faith as integral to her commitment to social justice and her wellbeing. Badham described secularism as a vital bulwark against the authoritarian Christians who pervert her faith, damaging believers as much as people of no religion.

The scandal emerging from Florida in recent days is indicative of the forces at work in the Christofascist right. Christian Ziegler is the state party chair of the Republican Party and a staunch ally in Governor Ron DeSantis’s war on “woke,” with constant assaults on both straight women’s and LGBTQIA+ safety within the state. His wife Bridget Ziegler was a co-founder of the hate group Moms for Liberty that has bedevilled American schools and libraries with anti-LGBTQIA+ aggression.

The fact that the Zieglers have been in an open marriage with another woman, including allegedly lesbian activity by Bridget, followed by an accusation of rape and physical harm of that third party by Christian, exposes the rot at the heart of this kind of politics. Families and individuals are leaving Florida and similar states for their own safety. People have been driven to suicide. Others are living with the mental distress of being targeted for outsider status by this neofascist crusade. The hypocrisy, however, is standard.