Faith in Politics - It's Time!
Thanks Chelsea and Angie for your replies to my last post. I thought I'd return the favour and reply to your's (Chelsea's post | Angie's post), which conveniently were both on the same topic: Kevin Rudd's SMH piece on "faith in politics".
In this article, Rudd, among other things, upholds his "social democratic Christianity" against Howard's "neo-liberal Christianity":
Regrettably, much of [the] 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.
Now obviously this quote is somewhat hyperbolic (after all, Rudd is a politician, with a political agenda). But I wonder all the same if there's some truth in what he's saying.
Is it true that our Christian message has shifted entirely from serving others to serving ourselves? Why are we more interested in petrol prices, interest rates and tax cuts than we are about refugees, the homeless and social justice? If the Howard government has got such a skewed view of Christianity, surely we have only ourselves to blame!
As Christians in Australia, we are so privileged that we are free to vote for our government, and to lobby them with our Christian concerns. In other countries (think Sudan), Christians are vigorously persecuted by their own governments. So why do we take our democracy so for granted?
Chelsea is right - our Christian voice should be unified. And Kevin Rudd is right - our Christian voice should be heard. We should be standing together as a body of believers, applying the gospel that binds us together, to the "concrete social challenges of the day".
Let's not let a select few dictate their "Christianity" to our government.
Let's not leave standing for social justice to the left-wing hippies.
And let's not take our democratic freedom for granted.