Published in The Age on Monday 5 January 2015
By Rev Tim Costello, World Vision Australia chief executive
Julian Burnside is puzzled by Scott Morrison's faith. Burnside examines Morrison's maiden speech to Parliament, in which he stated that his values come from his faith in Jesus, and concludes that Morrison is a hypocrite (Comment, 23/12). Others, including myself, are puzzled that the most Catholic Coalition Cabinet in Australia's history can be so cruel in slashing our aid program – the lowest in our history. Australia is the fourth richest nation but will slip to 19th position in the generosity stakes in the 2016/17 financial year.
Pope Francis has been clear calling the billion people who go to bed hungry each night a "global scandal" but the Australian government has cut funding that tackled hunger and poverty. Despite ignorant populism that aid is wasted, the opposite is true; it is a runaway success. It saves lives through immunisation and clean water and gives girls an education, a chance for a better life. And it is not trade alone that has lifted people out of poverty. The halving of infant death rates over the past 20 years – from 30,000 kids under five years old dying a day to 17,000 today – has been as great in landlocked sub-Saharan Africa nations without resources as in the powerhouses of India or China.
Burnside is right to be puzzled as Christian teaching is clear. Christians believe the resurrection of Jesus brings not only forgiveness of sins but also liberation for the down-trodden and God's promised justice for the poor and oppressed. Pope Francis has further attacked "savage capitalism" that allows inequality to grow; with profits flowing to the richest and the poor are abandoned. Why are Catholics in office deaf to their Christian obligations when they smash government aid – one of the key levers to tackling hunger and poverty?
Is "hypocrite" the only conclusion to explain the puzzle of such a faith disconnect from those who assume power? I think not. History has recorded the inescapable transmogrifying of faith once it is married to political power. The typical solution of the devout politician is to privatise faith and truncate the Gospel so it only addresses the personal dimension of forgiveness of sins, with the social dimension contracted out to market technocrats. Worse, Christianity is diluted to some conservative moral principles that act as cultural glue to support the state sometimes in its worst nationalistic chauvinisms – for example, Christian nations that went to war for God, King and empire in 1914.
But Jesus didn't call people to be Christians but to be disciples that practised all he taught, including the impossible bits like love your enemies and turn the other cheek. He believed the image of God was in everyone, even the enemy, and that to see this clearly meant that he was not truly an enemy but able to be transformed by love.
The novel power of the first 300 years when Christianity peacefully conquered the Roman Empire was because they believed, preached and lived this. Christians ran the only schools and hospitals for the Roman poor and insisted that slave, female and disabled equally carried the image of God. This was novel and an explosive idea as the Graeco Roman world had no such universal ethic or services for the poor. It released the power of human dignity because all were image bearers. The conversion of Emperor Constantine was the first episode in history where Christians became the chaplains to power and strayed from bearing good news for the powerless to blessing imperial wars and the oppression of rulers.
To those who say religion has caused more war and violence I would protest more than what? Both before and post Constantine, all societies/governments were religious up until the 1789 French revolution. But what a record since; secular government fired by nationalism – yes, sometimes baptised by faith – has arguably caused far greater suffering. Nationalism fragments universal ethics and clouds our thinking regarding to whom who we are responsible. Not God but our national boundaries.
It is a primary loyalty to the nation and its political fears that explains Scott Morrison's action. For me the moral calculus changed when more than 1000 people drowned. As a disciple I cannot accept that the best we can do to stop people drowning is to lock up children and send people mad. Similarly with the budget, we asked "why is the burden shouldered by the poorest?" Christian politicians must be held accountable when their decisions inevitably cost lives and destroy hope.