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Is there still a place for the “religious voice” within our national conversation?

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s recent exhortation to the faithful to do good works in the community stands as an important reminder of religion’s role in countering some of the more detrimental tendencies of a utilitarian culture. (Bianca De Marchi / NCA Newswire – Pool / Getty Images)

The Prime Minister courted significant criticism with his recent reflections to a Christian conference on the formative influence his personal faith has played in inspiring his contribution to public and political life. Scott Morrison’s encouragement to those attending to deepen and extend their efforts to support those in greatest need in our community has been howled down by strict secularists, who seem convinced that the threat of theocracy can only be avoided if we remove religious influence and worldviews from public life altogether.

But such attempts to drive religion from the public square disregard or dismiss the important contribution made by religious figures to the development of our national character. Our history is replete with examples that might be cited in support of this contention. Among these, the significance of that contribution is scarcely better illustrated than through the largely unknown, but timely, tale of a chaplain who found himself at the heart of one of our most seminal stories, the Anzac Gallipoli campaign.

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) is best known for his posthumously published daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, which has sold over thirteen million copies across thirty-nine languages. Chambers was a Scottish poet who left his post as principal of a Bible college in London to be stationed in Egypt with troops travelling to and from Gallipoli. His deep-yet-grounded faith remained constant in the face of the devastations of the First World War, and inspired hundreds of soldiers. His unpretentious approach to Christianity seemed particularly appealing to Australians. For example, when told by a soldier “I can't stand religious people”, Chambers replied, “Neither can I”. It is instructive to encounter Chambers through the eyes of the Anzacs who knew him. Theo Atkinson wrote:

The hut was packed with a large audience of Australians back from Gallipoli, a pretty tough lot, their being there at all spoke volumes for the new spiritual influence in the camp [following Chambers’ arrival]. Mr Chambers spoke for fully 50 minutes, and with such power and eloquence that there was not a man but was mightily gripped.

John Blight, for his part, wrote:

A military camp is the last place to which one would willing go for influences that touch the finer side of life and that speak of things that are age-abiding; but at the YMCA hut, in spite of the hampering influences of militarism, men were brought face to face with a greater reality than the grim reality of war. The memory of days spent with Oswald Chambers in Egypt surpasses in vividness all other memories, and eclipses the physical and mental nausea and discomfort of the campaign.

The Gallipoli campaign cemented the narrative of “military sacrifice” at the core of our nation’s conception of itself. The presence of Chambers and the hearing he evidently received among Australia’s soldiers, suggests — along with a myriad of other historical illustrations — both the influence of, and a certain openness to, the “spiritual voice” within our national story. Indeed, notwithstanding the demands of the strict secularists, any account of that story remains incomplete without regard to that “voice”.

Any considered account of the great themes defining Australia’s peculiar national character must also add our distinctively utilitarian bent, famously identified by W.K. Hancock, who, in 1930, claimed that “Australian democracy” considers that the “duty” of the state “is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” Although recent research suggests that COVID-19 has inspired a new level of spiritual interest on the part of many Australians, for most the measures of post-pandemic success will have been assessed in purely utilitarian terms: the ability to shop, the freedom to attend sporting matches and to drink with one’s mates. A drive down main street on any given Sunday morning will testify that, under the conditions of secularisation, our cafés have become our cathedrals. What remains to be seen is whether passing pleasantries to strangers in a line while awaiting caffeine can replace the community once provided by the church.

Even so, that these three great narratives intertwining within our national identity — the valorisation of military sacrifice, the spiritual “voice”, and utilitarianism — can coexist in productive tension is itself a cause for optimism. Although he is perhaps an unexpected figure to cite in the service of such an argument, Friedrich Nietzsche was not wrong to claim that a “magnificent tension” between philosophical traditions can allow society to “shoot for the most distant goals”. Solomon’s wisdom that “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken” also has its resonance in political philosophy.

Seen in this light, the Prime Minister’s exhortation to the faithful to do good works in the community represents an important recognition of religion’s role in countering some of the more detrimental tendencies of a utilitarian culture. Indeed, in the Australian context, we are greatly benefitted by religion’s challenge to the more individualistic, materialistic, and hedonistic aspects of our utilitarian inclinations. I am reminded of Aloysha, the monk in training who in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov states (with the author’s characteristically grim panache):

The world says: … “Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation … for the poor, envy and murder.

This prescient warning — published in 1880, just as the utilitarian sediments within our own culture were calcifying — channels a claim made by Augustine: in essence, that unfettered freedom becomes oppression. Or, as Jean-Paul Sartre put it, paraphrasing Dostoyevsky: “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Indeed, the challenge of the “spiritual voice” to contemporary utilitarian Australia continues a role it has played throughout the entire history of the West. The radical “otherness” and counter-cultural claims of religion are a perpetual preserve of both personal and community freedom.

Morrison’s comments to the faithful also managed to revive discussion on the federal government’s proposed “Religious Freedom Bills” reform package, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When held up against the historical and philosophical tableau painted above, the Religious Discrimination Bill can be seen as providing a contemporary litmus test of our willingness to accord religious voices an ongoing place in our national conversation. This is also reflected in its presentation as an attempt to respond to a growing sense of marginalisation on the part of religious believers, as well as by the specific protections to “statements of belief” afforded by the Bill.

Although the Bill offers protections that fill existing gaps in our law, certain of its terms require serious further thought. For one, the Bill requires judges to decide doctrinal disputes by employing methodology that leading jurists around the world have overwhelmingly cautioned against. As I also recently argued in Third Sector Review, the Bill also fails to adequately protect religious bodies that hold a traditional view of marriage from the loss of their charity status.

Oswald Chambers’ interaction with the Anzacs provides another, largely untold, instance of the influence of religious voices in the formation of the Australian national character. Last month, at Anzac ceremonies across the nation, army “padres” — Chambers’ successors — led prayers thanking God for the sacrifices made both by our forebears and by our contemporaries in order to preserve the liberties we possess. The rise of secularism will continue to ensure that there will be no shortage of tensions following any intrusion of the “spiritual voice” upon our national discourse. However, these tensions should be retained, for they are at the masthead of freedom within the West and a source of its distinctive dynamism and fecundity.

Mark Fowler is a practicing lawyer and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Law School of the University of Notre Dame Australia, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Law at the University of New England.

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