Category Archives: Education

A Case Against School Chaplaincy – Part One: A Fox in the Hen-House

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This is Part One of a three-part series of articles. See also:

Part Two:  Russian Roulette

Part Three: Gay Teens at Risk from School Chaplaincy

“Don’t set a fox to guard the hen-house.”

“You can put a silk hat on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

“A leopard can’t change his spots.”

“Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.” – Douglas Adams

Australia’s national school chaplaincy program was introduced by the Howard government in October 2006 and was continued and expanded by the Rudd Government.  Provided at enormous cost to Australian tax-payers, the result is that over 2,000 state schools currently employ chaplains, providing the chaplains and their churches with direct exposure to approximately 720,000 children in state schools. (Overington, 2008).

A key plank of the program is that chaplains are not permitted to evangelise.*  It is passing strange, then, that the major bodies contracted by the government to supply chaplains to schools are evangelical – and expect their chaplains to conform to that religious tradition.

To me, the fundamental flaw in the national school chaplaincy program is that the government is specifically hiring evangelical Christians to go into state schools – and then telling them not to evangelise.  It’s like hiring a fox to look after the hen-house under strict instructions it’s not to eat the chickens:  the directive is neither fair to the chickens nor the fox.

Let’s consider, as a case study, the Scripture Union, a major supplier of chaplains to the nation’s schools.  Scripture Union Australia’s aims, mission statement and working principles are all strongly centred on evangelism.  Further, chaplains employed by the Scripture Union are required to adhere to its core principles and beliefs.  The Scripture Union, for example, believes – and expects its chaplains to believe – that:

“…  the Old and New Testament Scriptures are God-breathed, since their writers spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit; hence are fully trustworthy in all that they affirm; and are our highest authority for faith and life.” (Scripture Union – Aims & Beliefs)

Given this commitment to the literal truth of the Bible, one can only assume that they consider the call to evangelise as a holy commandment.  Growth Groups, an interdenominational group in the UK explains this divine imperative:

“The call to evangelise is clear from Scripture. In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus gives His disciples the “Great Commission”.  In Acts 1:8, He tells them that they will be His “witnesses” (Acts 1:8) and the remainder of the book of Acts tells the story of how they spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.”

“We acknowledge the commission of Christ to proclaim the Good News to all people, making them disciples, and teaching them to obey him.” (Growth Groups)

Of course, Tim Mander, CEO of Scripture Union Queensland, and spokesperson for SU Australia,  insists that all chaplains work under Education Department guidelines.  Mander tells us, reassuringly, that:

“One aspect [of the school chaplaincy program] is that the chaplain cannot proselytise or evangelise and we respect and adhere to that.” (Percy, 2008)

Curiously, this directly contradicts a directive from a Scripture Union International policy paper which says, in part:

“We believe that our mandate is to bring children and young people into the life of established churches by programs that serve them in environments in which they feel comfortable.”

“We believe that, in the case of families that are not Christian, the evangelism of the whole family rather than of children in isolation is still our objective. However, if this cannot immediately be realised, we believe that God still calls us to evangelise children themselves.” (Scripture Union International, 2005)

While the Scripture Union says they resist approaches that treat children as ‘targets’ of evangelism – how can this be reconciled with their stated mandate to evangelise?

The truth is that they can’t and don’t reconcile these conflicting directives.  It is clear from reading anything written by the Scripture Union that their entire raison d’être is to be a recruiting agency for Jesus.  This is their primary purpose in our state schools and there should be no mistake about it.

Of course the chaplains’ missionary zeal is circumscribed, somewhat, by the government’s guidelines –  but only while they are dealing with the children within the confines of the school grounds.  That’s why there is an all-out effort to encourage the children to participate in out of school activities where they are removed from the scrutiny of parents and teachers and the ‘grooming’ process can be continued.

“The good news is that God is doing some incredible work through the ministries of SU Queensland. School chaplaincy, camps and missions are exposing thousands of young people and children to the good news of Jesus every year.” (SU News, June 2006)

“In Australia, SU operates in every state and territory and mobilises around thousands of volunteers each year to engage young people and families in holiday programs at beaches and in urban or rural townships, camps, secondary and primary schools, through sports, recreation, outdoor education and school chaplaincy.

SU’s ministry brings us into contact with hundreds of thousands of children, young people and families per year making SU one of the largest mission movements to children and youth in the world. But what drives us is a desire to see lives transformed. We are serious about making a difference.” (Scripture Union Australia – About SUA)

“With urgency. We intentionally make opportunities to present life-giving messages that invite children to respond positively to Jesus. Our approach is urgent because children will, by their nature and because of the world in which they live, turn away from God unless they are evangelised and nurtured.” (Scripture Union International, 2005)

According to a 2006 Scripture Union newsletter:

“Last year alone, over 2500 kids went on SU Queensland camps where many committed their lives to Jesus for the first time.”

Don’t tell me that those children – many of whom are now recruited through SU’s chaplaincy programme – weren’t ‘targets’ for evangelism.

Of course, it is up to parents whether to allow their children to be involved in these out of school activities.  But, as Ron Williams of the Australian Secular Lobby explains:

“Chaplains go on excursions and on school camps, so if you want your children to have no exposure to the chaplain, you’ve ‘volunteered’ for them not to go to the museum or the bush camp.” (Williams in Potts, 2010)

SU’s mission is clear.  Groom the children within the schools, win their friendship and the trust of their parents and then invite them to a fun adventure camp.  Get the unchurched and non-Christian kids to put pressure on their parents to let them attend.  Once you have the children in your care, and beyond the jurisdiction of the Education Department and their parents, work on them to ‘give their lives to Jesus’.

Now, some may take exception to the use of the word ‘grooming’.  After all, isn’t that what pedophiles do? Yes it is – and I use the word deliberately.

While I am not suggesting that chaplains (in general) are grooming children for anything more than religious conversion, it is impossible not to see the similarities between the two approaches.

In his article, “Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis”, former FBI agent Kenneth V. Lanning identifies the stages involved in a pedophile’s grooming process (Stang, 2008):

  • The first stage is to identify a child who is vulnerable in some way – often the same kind of ‘at-risk’ child that may be ‘targeted’ by a chaplain.  One of the best ways to do this is for the pedophile to spend a lot of time in places like ‘your child’s school and playground’ – exactly the place where the chaplain identifies children who may be open to conversion.
  • The second stage is to win the trust of the child and his parents in order to gather as much information as possible about the intended victim.  Similarly,  we have the kindly chaplain listening to the child’s problems, playing sport with them in the playground, maybe visiting the parents to discuss the child’s welfare.   We also have the use of the intimate and familiar term ‘Chappy’.
  • In the third step, once the pedophile knows a little about his victim, he steps into that child’s life to fill a need.  For example, a lonely child might receive extra time and attention, and a child who feels unloved might receive unconditional affection – exactly the kind of attention provided by a chaplain.
  • The fourth step in the grooming process is to lower the child’s inhibitions about sexual matters.  Of course, the chaplain (generally!) doesn’t do this, but taking a child on a camp where all the ‘cool’ counsellors pray publicly and give testimonies about how Jesus made them happy and successful and confident may certainly lower a child’s inhibitions about following a religion.
  • The fifth stage for a pedophile is the overt sexual abuse of the child, often resulting in marked changes in personality and behaviour.  Again, the correlation with chaplaincy is the successful religious conversion of the child  – an event specifically designed to result in marked changes in personality and behaviour.  Indeed, a stated aim of the evangelical Christian is to ‘change lives’.  And what else can we expect when a child is finally convinced to accept the premise that they are a sinner whose only chance at redemption is to live in the humble service, and in accordance with the moral (or immoral) precepts, of a supernatural deity?

In light of the above, consider the following video from SU Australia.  There is no denying that, in many respects, it is a ‘good news’ story,  and I am absolutely, unequivocally not implying that the chaplain or any of the camp counsellors are pedophiles. The correlation here is the process which is employed.   This process becomes very obvious in “Jarred’s Story”:

The evangelistic agenda is carefully avoided in the Jarred video, but for more insight into the SU Connect camps mentioned in the story, consider this:

“Keanu Schubert is 16 and lives in one of Brisbane’s headline suburbs. Now in Year 11, Keanu came to Connect in Year Nine – “pretty much a mess”. “There was not a lot of good stuff happening,” said Keanu. “I was close to doing things no one should think about.” One the first expedition Keanu made friends among boys he described as his school enemies. Part of his transformation included hearing about Jesus and becoming a disciple. He’s now connected to a number of church youth groups in the Springwood area.” (Journey Online – Queensland Uniting Church, 2008)

Further, training literature from SU Connect provides advice on how to engage children into talking about the Bible by using movies such as “The Matrix” or by talking about football. (Knowle Parish Church – Leaders Resources)

Make no mistake – religious conscription is at the very heart of everything Scripture Union does.  My issue is not that the children are being helped, but that they are being helped at a price by people with an agenda.  Indeed, sounding very much like a fox who’s been given the keys to the hen-house, SU’s CEO, Tim Mander admits:

“To have a full-time Christian presence in government schools in this ever-increasing secular world is an unbelievable privilege. Here is the church’s opportunity to make a connection with the one place through which every young person must attend: our schools.”

You can almost hear him salivating at the prospect of all those young, unsaved souls.

Now, with all this talk of foxes in hen-houses and wolves in sheep’s clothing and pigs in top hats, I must call a pause here to say, perversely, that I don’t think that the chaplains, themselves, are bad people.  In general, I believe, they are kind, sincere, enthusiastic, loving people with a genuine desire to help the kids in their care.  I also don’t dispute the fact that, in providing a friendly ear and some much needed attention for at-risk kids, they may fulfill an important role.  I don’t question, at all, the value of having someone in the school who has the time to play sport and ‘hang out’ with the kids and listen to their problems.  I don’t question that taking ‘at risk’ kids on adventure camps does wonders for their self-confidence and discipline.  What I question is why religion is brought into this process.  Why are evangelistic Christians, (often with no formal qualifications), who have an agenda which clearly goes beyond friendship and support, providing these services?  If our children need counseling and advice from adult mentors, surely these should be qualified people who have no agenda other than to assist the children in their care. If school counselors are less effective than chaplains because they’re not out in the playground with the kids – get them out in the playground!

State schools should provide a religion-neutral environment for children with parents of all faiths and no faith.  It is not sufficient to say that the Christian chaplain is ‘non-denominational’.  The act of placing an evangelical Christian chaplain into a school and telling them not to evangelise is unfair to both the chaplain and the children.  It places the chaplain in the position where they have to answer to two masters. When ‘God’ is telling you to spread the gospel and that children who are not ‘saved’ will burn in hell for eternity, and the Education Department is telling you that you mustn’t ‘target’ children for conversion – which ‘master’ do you think a good, evangelical Christian will listen to?  If you sincerely believe that, without conversion, a young person you care for will suffer eternally, how could you not find ways to defy government protocols or at least find ways to circumvent them?  And, indeed, this is exactly what chaplains do.  As we have seen, even if they have to take care what they do and say within the school, they use their position ‘strategically’ (SU’s own word) in order to entice the children into out-of-school activities where they, or other Christian agencies they work with,  are not constrained by Education Department policy.

For Christians reading this article, consider how you would feel if, instead of placing Christian chaplains in state schools, the government decided to employ Muslim counsellors whose role was to get close to the children, identify those ‘at risk’ and then encourage them to go to Islamic adventure camp where they were encouraged as part of a ‘long term programme’ to convert to Islam and accept the Koran as the true word of God.  Would you be arguing then that there is ‘no harm’ in bringing religion into state schools?

Chaplains are not evil, but they have no place in state schools.  You cannot place an evangelistic Christian into a state school and expect them not to create opportunities to evangelise.  They are compelled by their religious beliefs to do so.  Chaplains should not be put into that position and parents should not have their beliefs (or lack of belief) undermined by someone within the school whose primary aim is to entice their children into adopting a particular narrow, fundamentalist, literalist, Christian ideology.

It’s not fair to put a fox in a hen-house and tell him he’s not to eat the chickens while he’s in there.  You cannot expect him not to follow his innate compulsion to eat chickens.  Even if you happen to find a fox with remarkable self-control, a clever fox will simply invite the chickens to step outside – perhaps for a ‘really fun’ adventure camp –  and eat them then.  He is then able to claim, quite honestly, that he complied absolutely with the directive not to eat the chickens in the hen-house.  The fox is not evil.  You can’t blame the fox for doing what a fox does.  The blame lies squarely on whoever decided that it was a good idea to put a fox in a hen-house and direct him not to act like a fox.

Chrys Stevenson

This is Part One of a three-part series of articles. See also:

Part Two: Russian Roulette

Part Three: Gay Teens at Risk from School Chaplaincy

 

Update

8 August 2010: The Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, will today announce an allocation of $222 million to boost the number of chaplains in schools by more than one-third, which would mean about 3700 schools will be covered under the voluntary scheme introduced by the Howard government.

Clarification from Australian Secular Lobby

*”A key plank of the program is that chaplains are not permitted to evangelise.”

Although this is generally true, Hugh Wilson of the Australian Secular Lobby provides the following clarification:

It depends which programme you are talking about. DEEWR prohibit proselytising, but are silent on evangelising, but EQ prohibit both, so a NSCP chaplain in an EQ school cannot do either. The ASL discussed with DEEWR what they meant by ‘proselytise’, because the word is not defined by them. Within the private school section of DEEWR , there is a vague description of ‘proselytise’, and that comes out closer to EQs evangelise.  The new policy is here and says, in part:

“instruct volunteer and/or paid chaplain that s/he is not to evangelise or proselytise at any time in the delivery of chaplaincy program”

The words are defined here:

Evangelise: Engagement and dialogue with a student/s with intent to attract to a particular faith group.

Proselytise: To solicit a student for a decision to change belief system.

First-time comments on this blog are moderated but will be approved and published as soon as possible.

 

Further Action

Yes!  You can do something.  If you believe that the National School Chaplaincy Program is contrary to Australia’s secular principles and that chaplains (however well-intentioned) should not be placed into state schools, please support the High Court Challenge to the National School Chaplaincy Program being mounted by Ron Williams .

“NSCP federally-funded state school chaplains across Queensland may: conduct Christian prayers on all-school assembly; at significant school ceremonies; hold lunchtime prayer/Bible study sessions and engage with students in the classroom, playground, school excursions, school camps and sport. Chaplains oversee and conduct Religious Instruction classes and on-campus church-designed and run programs including Hillsong ‘Shine’ which connect children with evangelistic off-campus clubs, programs and camps.

Contact with concerned parents in every Australian State and Territory reveals that occurences of the federally-funded National School Chaplaincy Program being utilised as a Christian evangelic ministry are common within the nation’s state schools.

After years of correspondence and meetings with state education and DEEWR executives as well as personal meetings with two Education Ministers and their Directors General, in 2009, a frustrated Mr. Williams sought advice regarding a possible High Court challenge to the constitutional legality of the Commonwealth providing treasury funds to the National School Chaplaincy Program. In February 2010, Horowitz & Bilinsky accepted the case.

This matter concerns more people than the Williams family from Queensland. It concerns all Australians, of all faiths and none, who support the secular ‘wall of separation’ concept concerning church and state. This ‘wall of separation’ is required to safeguard our multicultural, multi-faith  and non-faith liberal democracy that has become the hallmark of the civilised 21st century nation Australia rightfully claims to be.

Mr. Williams has established a trust account for the purpose of accepting donations to defray the considerable costs related to this s.116 ‘wall of separation’ constitutional challenge. Mr. Williams has instructed his solicitors that all funds deposited to the account are only to be applied for costs and disbursements associated with the High Court proceedings.

Considerable financial support from the broader Australian community will be required by Mr. Williams in order to meet his expected, and unexpected, legal costs. Whatever your faith position might be, this is a significant legal exercise aimed at ensuring Australia really is a secular nation-state, as our forebears clearly intended it to be.

Please secure a stake in your nation’s secular future by donating as much as you feel comfortably able to.”

Please note that funds donated go directly into a solicitors’ trust fund to be applied only to legal costs.  The money does not go to Ron Williams personally.

You could also write to or email your local Federal Labor candidate and/or the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard with your objections to the National School Chaplaincy Program and noting that the extension of this program will be a consideration in your decision on who to vote for at the forthcoming election.

Gladly’s Book Recommendations

Gladly’s favourite book store for online purchases is Embiggen Books.  If you’ve found this article interesting you may enjoy this further reading:

Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan
What Should We Believe? by Dorothy Rowe

Similar Articles

Jesus weeps for Gillard the hypocrite, Ben Sandilands, The Stump

Left Right Out by Labor

11 Replies

I was just 14 years old when Whitlam’s Labor Government stormed into office in 1972, but I still remember the feeling of excitement and anticipation that ‘something big’ had just happened and that Australia would never be the same again.

Once in office, Whitlam set to implementing his policies with iron resolve and an almost unseemly haste. Well may we question the fiscal responsibility of the Whitlam government but we still live with the benefits of their brave, take no prisoners reforms: multiculturalism, Medicare, free university education and the first moves towards Aboriginal reconciliation to name just a few.

I felt the same sense of breathless anticipation when Rudd was elected. He was young, energetic, ambitious and seemed intent on sweeping aside the crushing conservatism of the Howard years, just as Whitlam had done thirty-five years before. He started boldly with an apology to the Stolen Generation – surely this foreshadowed a commitment to other social justice issues? He followed with the 2020 summit, giving ordinary Australians input into building a vision for Australia’s future. We dared to hope for an inclusive, representative government that would actually listen to what the ordinary citizens of Australia really wanted.

Sold a Pup

Do you know the feeling when you see a trailer for a movie and think ‘that’s going to be amazing’, but when you actually see the film you realize the only good bits were in the preview and even they don’t move the story along much? That’s how I feel about the Rudd government. We were sold a pup. Up front we got a big, glossy, exciting bells-and-whistles wind-up, but the whole thing just turned out to be a disappointing flop that failed for want of good direction.

Rudd may have patiently listened to your views at the 2020 summit but he has since rejected all of your silly ideas and just gone on his own merry, conservative, non-consultative way.  He may have apologised to the Stolen Generation, but what has he done for indigenous people since?

The Rudd government is not the reformist government we expected.  Rudd is not the alternative to Howard we were promised.  Rudd is just Howard in a blonde wig.  He has sold out the Labor left.  Indeed, there are even some of us who considered ourselves more centrists than lefties – and even we are left feeling that the political rug has been pulled out from under our feet.

The overwhelming feeling of those who have been hung out to dry by a party many have supported all their lives is anger, betrayal and dismay.

Prior to his election, Rudd claimed to be a Christian socialist. He now claims he has never been a socialist. (I’m just waiting for the day he concedes he’s never been a Christian either!) Citing Bonhoeffer as his inspiration, Rudd had us believing that his was a religionless Christianity steeped in a commitment to social justice rather than religious dogma. We expected a liberal Christian – what we got was a new best friend for the arch-conservative extreme right-wing religious nutters at the Australian Christian Lobby.

The Exclusive Brethren and Other Cults

Prior to his election, Rudd denounced the Exclusive Brethren as a ‘dangerous cult’.  After his election Rudd’s government continued to provide millions of dollars to the cult enabling them to keep their children isolated from the general population and actively dissuade them from pursuing tertiary studies.  Further, Labor has refused to support the inquiry into the tax status of Scientology proposed by Senator Nick Xenophon, frightened that it may open a Pandora’s Box regarding the tax-exempt status of more mainstream  religious institutions.  Neatly brushing the issue aside, Senator Ludwig said that the government preferred to wait for the results of the Henry Tax Review – the recommendations of which have since been substantially rejected.

Bill of Rights

In more sleight of hand, Rudd agreed to a public inquiry into an Australian Bill of Rights. Ignoring the blatant conflict of interest, he appointed Father Frank Brennan to head the inquiry, despite the Catholic Church’s official opposition to the concept. Reflecting the strength of feeling encountered in the public consultations, Brennan’s National Human Rights Consultation committee recommended the adoption of a Human Rights Act but Rudd’s government refused to accept the recommendation of its own inquiry. Adding salt to the wound, the Liberal Party controlled Menzies Research Centre claimed the defeat of the Bill of Rights as ‘a significant victory for the Menzies Research Centre and the Coalition’. Just remind me, who is Rudd supposed to be representing – the Labor party, the majority of Australians or the Liberal conservatives?

Asylum Seekers

With a self-confessed Christian socialist in charge, we may well have hoped that the Rudd Government would foster a kinder, more understanding public response to refugees rather than pandering to ill-informed populist scare-mongering. Perhaps they might launch an education campaign to explain why asylum seekers are neither ‘illegal’ nor ‘queue jumpers’. But no. Rudd’s approach to refugees has ceded to the same conservative populism which fed Howard’s policies. In fact, more and more, the Rudd solution leans towards the Howard government’s inhumane position of indefinite mandatory detention.

Gay Marriage

And so to homosexuals. In his article, “Faith in Politics”, Rudd said: “I see very little evidence that this pre-occupation with sexual morality is consistent with the spirit and content of the Gospels. For example, there is no evidence of Jesus of Nazareth expressly preaching against homosexuality.” But, when Rudd’s liberal views on homosexuality were put to the test, he folded. Rather than support the ACT’s move to allow gay marriage as a positive reform, Rudd’s government overturned it.

Climate Change

On climate change Rudd came out with all guns blazing. Climate change, he said, striking a statesmanlike pose, is ‘the great moral and economic challenge of our time’. His government’s Emissions Trading Scheme, he assured us, was one of the ‘most important structural reforms to our economy in a generation’. When getting the ETS through became too hard, however, Rudd did a Scarlett O’Hara – “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee, I’ll think about that tomorrow” – and stuck his climate change reforms in a drawer marked 2013. I have a vision of Rudd in a Scarlett O’Hara bonnet, driving his carriage out of town lickety-split as Atlanta … er …  Australia burns behind him.

Internet Censorship

The Rudd government’s $43 billion National Broadband Network is already being criticized as an outdated white elephant – even before the scheme has been introduced. Further, Senator Stephen Conroy, Rudd’s Minister for Communications is pushing a hugely unpopular, $125.8 million mandatory internet filter which will put Australians’ freedom of information on par with countries like China and Iran – and, if the IT experts are correct, substantially slow internet speeds. And it’s not just a few computer geeks grumbling about the assault on Australians’ freedom. In January, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that internet freedom was central to American foreign policy and that the US would actively resist efforts by governments seeking to censor the internet. Subsequently, the Obama government has raised its concerns about the plan with the Australian Government while child protection agencies have noted that the filter will have no effect whatsoever in protecting children from sexual predators or abuse.

Many rank and file Labor voters are astounded that a Labor government would even consider a policy that undermines Australians’ basic freedoms and dismayed to find that Rudd and Conroy are working, hand in glove, with the right-wing Australian Christian Lobby on the implementation of the scheme. In fact, in December it was revealed that the results of Conroy’s internet filtering trial had been shared exclusively with the Australian Christian Lobby – leaving other stakeholders out in the cold.

One has to ask what backroom deals have been done between the Rudd Government, Conroy, Family First Party Senator Fielding and the Australian Christian Lobby to make Labor ignore the advice of IT experts and child welfare agencies and risk the ire, not only of the vast majority of internet users but the American government? Is the Labor government selling us out to the right-wing conservatives for 30 pieces of electoral silver?

National School Chaplaincy Program

And then we have the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP). This ridiculous scheme was instituted by the Howard Government. According to the Australian Secular Lobby, even the Coalition never intended it as a long-term policy. But, to the dismay of Labor voters, it has not only been continued, but expanded under Rudd. I am sure I’m not the only one who shudders to think what the evangelical chaplains provided by the Scripture Union are telling young people who confide in them about same-sex attraction, pre-marital sex, or unwanted pregnancies. If our children need support and advice within the school system surely this should come from qualified, unbiased counselors – not from largely unqualified people with a clear religious agenda? The NSCP is yet more evidence that Rudd has sold out the Labor party to the conservative right.

As the Australian Secular Lobby rightly says:

“The question for ordinary tax-paying Australians must be, “Do we elect politicians to make decisions in the openness of parliament and in the full glare of the media, or are we happy to have secretive evangelical groups undertaking ‘quiet work’ to determine what is, or is not, in Australia’s ‘national interest’?”

Left Right Out

In the Sunday Age today, national political reporter, Josh Gordon writes:

“Understandably, the left today might be feeling a tad disillusioned and disenfranchised … One prominent Labor backbencher said there was a growing perception that Rudd had sacrificed the aspirations of traditional rank-and-file supporters in a Howard-esque pitch to swinging voters.
”We are getting quite a lot of emails which are critical of the positions that have been taken about carbon trading and asylum seekers,” the MP said. ”If you show up at ALP branch meetings you do see a certain amount of frowns and folded arms and so on. I think there is some concern among the leadership base about those things.”

The MP is right and I have some inside information that an internal Labor Party poll shows that Rudd’s overt religiosity and pandering to the religious right is a matter of considerable concern within the party. Traditional Labor voters are disillusioned, disenfranchised, angry and betrayed. Rudd has left the left right out. He promised a Labor government and delivered a Liberal conservative government in all but name.

Further, Rudd’s efforts to woo the ‘moral majority’ for Labor doesn’t seem to be doing him much good. This week’s Newspoll results show the Rudd government trailing the Coalition on a two-party basis (49-51 per cent) with an 11-point drop in the PM’s satisfaction rating to 39 per cent. Fifty per cent of voters, it appears, are dissatisfied with Rudd’s performance. Seems those votes the Australian Christian Lobby promised you just weren’t worth the price, Kev!

A vote for the Greens may well be a vote for Labor – for now – but the Greens are gaining in strength, attracting a broader base and, at the next election, it is highly likely that Labor’s left will desert in large numbers. Rudd and his cronies would do well to look at the UK election results in which the Liberal Democrats now hold the balance of power and will largely determine who leads the country. The left may be disenfranchised, Kevin, but we don’t necessarily need you to win.

Chrys Stevenson

First-time comments on this blog are moderated but will be approved and published as soon as possible.

Read Also

Abbott’s Contrasting Role Revealed in Black and White by Leslie Cannold for a similar analysis of the Opposition leader.

Sources

The Legacy of the Whitlam Government – Modia Minotaur – Friday, November 11, 2005

Are Asylum Seekers Illegal? – Asylum Seeker Project – Hotham Mission

Politics and religion: crossed paths – David Marr, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 2009

A matter of church and state, Amanda Davey, Mosman Daily, 5 April 2010

Faith in Politics, Kevin Rudd, The Monthly, October 2006

Rudd’s dangerous climate retreat, Paul Kelly, The Australian, 29 April 2010

US reveals concerns over Conroy’s net filter plan, Paul Colgan, The Punch, 29 March 2010

Conroy will be censoring people, not the internet, Nina Funnell, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 December 2009

Rudd praises ‘quiet work’ of evangelicals: evangelicals undermine Liberal Party and ‘national interest’, Australian Secular Lobby

Figures prove hard for PM to swallow, Michelle Grattan – The Age, 5 May 2010

Policies Overboard, Josh Gordon – Sunday Age, 9 May 2010

Further Action

1. Consider supporting the Australian Greens at the next election – particularly in the Senate. It is not a ‘wasted’ vote, if your Green candidate fails to win, your full vote will go to your next preference. You do not have to preference according to the Green’s ‘how to vote’ card – you may choose your preferences according to your own wishes. If Labor only wins because of Green’s preferences that sends a strong message to them about where their support is coming from.

2. Write to your local Federal Labor representative stating your dissatisfaction at the direction the Rudd Labor Government has taken.

3. Donate to the High Court Challenge which seeks to expose the government’s National School Chaplaincy Scheme as unconstitutional. (Paypal now available.)

4. Electronic Frontiers provides a list of ten things you can do to stop Conroy’s internet censorship scheme.

5. Write to Senator Nick Xenophon stating your support for an inquiry into Scientology and other similar organizations.
Senator.Xenophon@aph.gov.au
Level 2, 31 Ebenezer Place, Adelaide 5000

6. Collect signatures on a petition for Equal Marriage Rights in Australia

7.  Join the Facebook Group Kevin Rudd’s Lies and Broken Promises and invite your friends to join.

Gladly’s Book Recommendations

Gladly reckons his crossed eyes make him lean towards the left. He wonders if Kevin’s lurch toward the right and apparent short-sightedness might be corrected with a visit to a good optometrist. If you liked this article you might be interested in reading further from Gladly’s favourite online bookstore, Embiggen Books.

A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam’s Life in Politics by Graham Freudenberg
It’s Time Again: Whitlam and Modern Labor by Colleen Lewis and Jenny Hocking
Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia by Robert Manne
Exit Right: The Unravelling of John Howard by Judy Brett
God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics by Marion Maddox
Beautiful Lies: Australia from Menzies to Howard by Tony Griffiths
Behind the Exclusive Brethen by Michael Bachelard
The Statute of Liberty: How Australians can take back their human rights by Geoffrey Robertson
The Purple Economy: Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State by Max Wallace
Realizing Secularism: Australia and New Zealand by Max Wallace
Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change by Clive Hamilton

Labor’s Double Standard on Church/State Separation

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Wilson campaigns outside Qld's Parliament House

Since 2006, Hugh Wilson, a parent of three teenage boys, has devoted countless hours campaigning for a secular state education system. As a member of the Australian Secular Lobby, Wilson has communicated extensively with the Queensland Minister for Education – both in writing and in person.

The Education Minister and the Premier remain intransigent, however. Wilson has been told, plainly, that the Queensland government has no intention of restoring the clause, removed from the Education Act in 1910, which guaranteed that children would not be exposed to religious doctrine within the Queensland state education system. In refusing the request of the Australian Secular Lobby, backed by hundreds of non-religious parents throughout the State, the Queensland Labor government clearly rejects the principle of the separation of church and state.

The Williams Family

Ron Williams is also a member of the Australian Secular Lobby. A father of six, Williams and his wife, Andrea, assumed that by placing their children in Queensland state schools their right to have them protected from religious indoctrination would be respected. They were mistaken.

In 2008, Williams became the subject of international media interest when he announced his intention to take legal action against his youngest daughter’s prep teacher and school principal. He first became concerned when his daughter came home from school upset about the animals that were soon to drown in the ‘rain that God made’. He later discovered, that despite his express wishes to the contrary, the child had been exposed in her classroom to a movie based on the story of Noah’s ark and a bookshelf full of children’s biblical titles and had been involved in building a large cardboard replica of Noah’s Ark. Williams was also forced to withdraw his two oldest children from another school when it employed a chaplain and, such is his commitment to secular education, he is currently mounting a High Court challenge against the Federal government’s funding of the National School Chaplaincy program.

Another Queensland father, posting on an internet forum, recounted similar concerns. On enrolling his young daughter at his local state school he clearly indicated, in writing, that he wished the child to be exempt from religious instruction. Imagine his surprise when he took her to the park to feed bread to the ducks, and she said, “Daddy, why are you feeding the body of Christ to the ducks? You’ll go to hell for that.”

When he contacted the principal he was told, “Oh, sorry, yes, we accidentally included her in religious instruction classes. But, really, it wouldn’t make much difference because we just put the ‘opted out’ kids in the back of the classroom anyway.”

The Australian Secular Lobby receives hundreds of similar complaints from non-religious parents whose children are subjected to religious indoctrination in our state school system. And yet, the Education Minister and our atheist Premier, doggedly refuse to respect the concept of state/church separation and amend the Queensland Education Act.

Helen Pomery

Which brings me to the story of Helen Pomery. Helen Pomery was once a member of the Brisbane Christian Fellowship church – a fundamentalist group of 25 churches described by investigative journalist, Chris Masters, as ‘a small outwardly civilised church causing extraordinary harm’.

When Pomery’s younger daughter was excommunicated from the Brisbane Christian Fellowship, Pomery was instructed by her husband and the church elders to have no further communication with her.
“It was horrifying,” said Pomery. “I used to go and sit in her room and cry just for sheer terror of where was my daughter and what was happening to her.”

A year later, distraught and now defiant at being estranged from her daughter, Pomery was also expelled from the Church. This resulted in the breakdown of her marriage. On the brink of suicide, Pomery checked into a deprogramming centre in the USA to help recover her life and sanity.

Pomery is not the only person to suffer at the whim of this church. John Simmons, an ex-member of the Toowoomba Christian Fellowship was born into the church and confirms that breaking up families is:

“… deliberate and intentional to control people. They try to separate husband from wife. They would set a husband against a wife, a wife against a husband. They would try to put a wedge between children.

When Simmons and his wife left the church, their son, Haydn, was told to have no further contact with them. Haydn Simmons explains:

“I was just so torn apart, not knowing what to believe. Here’s my parents, my father and my mother and I’m not allowed to talk to them and [the Church is telling me] they’re bad people, they’re evil and the Lord God is punishing them …”

These concerns are not just being raised by the media and bitter ex-members. Even Baptist pastor, Greg Passmore, a brother-in-law of one of the church elders, spoke out about his concern for the psychological abuse imposed by this church on its followers. Passmore said, “… my heart breaks for people in that movement feeling trapped and dominated. Some of them are seeking help very, very secretly.”

Reporting on the cult on the Four Corner’s segment, “The God of Broken Hearts”, Masters asks, “In a civilised nation where all forms of penalties apply to perpetrators of grief and harm, how does a house of God get away with this?”

Helen Pomery is now divorced from her husband of 30 years and estranged from two of her children and three grandchildren. She alleges that the Brisbane Christian Fellowship ‘used intimidatory and abusive tactics to maintain control over members and was responsible for family break downs’. Backed by Greens’ leader, Bob Brown, Pomery called for a Senate inquiry into religious organizations, such as the Brisbane Christian Fellowship and the Exclusive Brethren, which allegedly practice such abuses, while still claiming government grants and tax exemptions.

Now, here is the kicker. Remember Hugh Wilson and Ron Williams and their failure to convince the Queensland Labor government to respect the need for a separation of church and state in our state school system? Well, apparently, Mrs Pomery has written to all Federal and State politicians about the Brisbane Christian Fellowship but says she has been told by Labor politicians that they were ‘reluctant to support an inquiry because they believed that religion and politics should remain separate.’

Is anybody seeing an egregious double standard here?

Submitting to pressure from religious groups, the Federal Labor government vetoed the ACT government’s decision to allow gay marriage (a decision based on nothing other than fundamentalist religious prejudice dogma). Further, Rudd and his band of merry Christians have happily ploughed millions of dollars into Exclusive Brethren schools and the National School Chaplaincy Program. Meanwhile, the NSW government has allowed the Anglican Church to vet the secular ethics classes to be trialled in that state to ensure they do not offend religious sensibilities. Both state and federal Labor governments have ploughed millions of dollars into supporting Catholic World Youth Day and the Parliament of the World’s Religions but ask them to mount an inquiry into harmful religious cults and they retreat behind the crumbling wall of state/church separation.

Senator Bob Brown has twice proposed an inquiry into the Exclusive Brethren but has failed to garner support. Similarly, the Senate has twice rejected Senator Nick Xenophon’s calls to launch an inquiry into Scientology, based on former members’ claims of abuse, coerced abortions and other offences.

How is it that our government is prepared to plead ‘separation of church and state’ as an excuse for not protecting Australian citizens from abusive religious cults but happily takes a bulldozer to that same wall on issues relating to education, same sex marriage, and the tax-payer funding of major religious events?

This farce must end. Our government and education systems must be secular and religious institutions must be subjected to scrutiny where there are allegations that adherents are being abused. Political decisions must not be based on religious prejudice and dogma, but upon evidence and reason. The Labor government has sold out to the religious right. The Liberal-National coalition did so long ago. Secular government will only be restored in Australia if we, the people, begin to demand it – through energetic lobbying and through the ballot box.  Labor must be called to account for its double standard on church/state separation.

Chrys Stevenson

Comments on this blog are moderated but will be approved and published as quickly as possible.

Sources:

Overington, Caroline (2008), Genesis of a Complaint, The Australian, 5 December

Hill, Janine (2009), Coast Woman Calls for Cult Inquiry, Sunshine Coast Daily, 10 January

Masters, Chris (2008), The God of Broken Hearts – Transcript,  Four Corners, ABC  Television, 23 June

ABC News (2009), Brown Wants Exclusive Brethren Inquiry, 21 August

Bowden, Rich (2010), Second Xenophon Scientology Senate Inquiry Motion Defeated, The Angle.Org, 19 April

ABC Television (2010), Scientology – The X-Files, Documentary Preview

Maley, Jacqueline (2010), Keneally allows Anglican Church to vet content of ethics lessons, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April

Further Action:

Please donate to or raise funds for the High Court Challenge to the National School Chaplaincy Program

Helen Pomery will be speaking for the QSkeptics at the Red Brick Hotel, cnr Annerley and Stephens Road, South Brisbane on Monday, 26 April from 6.00pm.  More details and RSVP here.

Express your views on a secular education system in Queensland by emailing Geoff Wilson, Queensland Minister for Education and Training at education@ministerial.qld.gov.au and/or the Premier, Anna Bligh, at premier@ministerial.qld.gov.au .

Express your support for the NSW ethics classes trial to the NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally at thepremier@www.nsw.gov.au or email Penny Sharpe, a supporter of the trial through her Facebook Page, website or by Twitter to @pennysharpemlc – Penny is forwarding all messages she receives on to the relevant minister.

Gladly’s Book Recommendations

Assaults on the separation of church and state are enough to make a bear go cross-eyed!   Gladly recommends the following further reading:

Hugh Wilson, Australian Education Minister Backs Cardinal Pell: ‘Secular Experiment Failed‘, Online Opinion, 9 July 2009

The War for Children’s Minds by Stephen Law

The Purple Economy: Supernatural Charities, Tax and the State by Max Wallace

Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan

Behind the Exclusive Brethren by Michael Bachelard

Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia by Robert Manne (ed)

Education books, secular books, books on religion and books on Australian politics are all available online from Embiggen Books.

NSW Ethics Classes vs Scripture Classes – If Your Product’s a Dud, Don’t Blame the Competition, Jim

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This week there’s a right brouhaha over the introduction of a course in secular ethics in New South Wales state schools.  Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is concerned that ethics classes will undermine scripture teaching in New South Wales schools.

Wallace fears that the introduction of ethics classes is part of a wider secularist agenda to push religious education out of schools. He’s wrong.  I don’t know of any atheist or secularist who opposes the teaching of the cultural significance and literary history of the world’s religions to students – and that’s what religious education is.

What scripture classes offer, however, is not religious education but religious instruction.  In other words, children are not being asked to study religion in an academically detached way, but are being instructed on how to be religious.  These are two entirely different things.

As Hugh Wilson of the Australian Secular Lobby said in an interview on Brisbane’s 4BC radio this week, if you don’t understand the difference, consider whether you’d like your children to be given ‘sex instruction’ in place of  ‘sex education’!

Poor old Jim Wallace.  He is really not coping with the fact that religion is simply not relevant to today’s youth or their parents.  He says:

“We are now hearing reports of volunteer Scripture teachers at one of the 10 trial schools losing up to 60 per cent of their classes to the government’s new program – something understandable if a new subject is being offered in competition with Scripture.”

And who is to blame for that?  If parents supported the scripture classes, they wouldn’t be letting their children attend the alternative.  All this shows is that, until now, parents have been letting their children take scripture classes because the only alternative was to have them sit around twiddling their thumbs for an hour a week.

And what about the kids?  Why aren’t they clamouring to stay in their scripture classes?  Because what is being taught is obviously irrelevant, boring and didactic.

Competition is good, Jim!  Competition encourages higher achievement.  It motivates all parties to lift their act, improve their ‘product’ and to make sure their message is relevant to their target market.  If your product can’t compete,  you either have to improve it, update it or accept that it’s obsolete.  There’s no point bitching that you should have a monopoly on children’s minds – that just won’t wash any more.  Worse, it’s an abject admission that you have an old, out of date product with a fatally tarnished reputation that you just can’t sell in an open market.

If your product’s a dud, Jim, don’t blame the competition.

Chrys Stevenson

Comments on this blog are moderated but will be approved and published as quickly as possible.

 

The Australian Book of Atheism by Warren Bonett, with a chapter by Chrys Stevenson and chapters on religion and education by Kylie Sturgess, Hugh Wilson, Professor Graham Oppy, and Graham Lindenmayer will be available Australia wide in all good bookstores from Monday, 22 November 2010.

See Also:

Dr Leslie Cannold’s excellent article “Kids need protection from ads – and Bible bashers” – The Age 20/6/10


Further Action:

NSW MLC Penny Sharpe supports the ethics program.  Let her know what you think – Jim’s crowd certainly have.

Email Penny
Tweet: @PennySharpemlc
Penny’s Facebook Page

Gladly’s Book Recommendations

Gladly may be cross-eyed but he loves to read!

Gladly’s favourite book store for online purchases is Embiggen Books Australia’s specialists in philosophy books, education books and atheism books.  If you liked this article, you might like to read these books (and, if you didn’t like it, maybe you should read them!):