Politics and religion: crossed paths | The Rise of Atheism

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Politics and religion: crossed paths

Posted on : 26-12-2009 | By : grant | In : General

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David Marr talks about the Christianity of Australia’s leading politicians.

Published December 26, 2009

We pay lip service to separation of church and state, reports David Marr, but we really don't give a toss about politicians parading as Christians.

Shriven, blameless, fresh from Communion, the Prime Minister stands at the lychgate of St John's Canberra and takes questions from the media. Although he rarely does the rounds of the Sunday current affairs shows, Kevin Rudd stands at the weathered gate of the old church on Constitution Avenue, available for the cameras, whenever Sunday finds him in Canberra.

The message is clear: Rudd is a Christian. To find a Labor leader as openly of the faith takes something like archaeology. Keating was tribal Catholic but not devout. Hawke was agnostic. Whitlam wasn't a believer. The last man to fill the bill for Labor was Andrew Fisher in the First World War.

But Rudd is the full box and dice: born a Catholic and now an Anglican, he signalled his candidacy for the top job in the nation with a thoughtful essay on Christianity in The Monthly. "It's another day," he told a press conference at the gates of St John's in the Brisbane suburb of Bulimba on the morning after his election. The other day he slipped into Mass at the Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel in North Sydney as the story of her impending sainthood began to break.

"He can't resist the opportunity to hold media conferences outside churches," says the former candidate for the priesthood Tony Abbott. But are Australians impressed or perturbed by a commitment to faith that puts even John Howard's attachment to Christianity in the shade?..."
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