The Two Australias

As I reflect on a place I’ve visited, I like to note its contrasts and spiritual climate. In many respects, there are two Australias. There’s the tough, macho ‘Bruce’ Australia, who drives his Ute, doesn’t give a Castlemaine XXXX for any kind of nonsense; he’s a straight-talking, hard-working kinda-guy who probably attends church on Sundays or at least holds to what we might describe as Christian values.

Then there’s the nanny state Australia, an interfering, meddlesome kind of country. It requires cleaners to take formal health and safety qualifications, and fines Aussies for leaving cars unlocked as well as requiring excessive driving tests. Secular illiberalism is gaining ground here, just as it has boldly staked out its territory back in Britain. Israel Folau, a leading sportsman, has been sacked by Rugby Australia for daring to express his Christian views. This very week, the New South Wales state parliament is seeking a loosening of abortion laws which were designed to protect God-given human life.

Unlike back home, however, the Judeao-Christian world-view has not been entirely exiled to the backwaters. The Sports Minister stood up in the state parliament to explain that he’d be voting against the proposed changes for the sake of his Christian constituents ‘and the Word of God’. You’d be hard pressed to find a man of such calibre in any of Great Britain’s elected assemblies. Similarly, the churches and chapels seem to be thriving numerically, in terms of their numbers and the numbers darkening their doors. Visiting a baptist church in Brisbane, I learned it attracted 1800 regulars each week, though it was only the third largest baptist church. Other denominations even outstrip the Baptists (I appreciate that numbers aren’t everything and that unbiblical churches often attract the largest crowds). Christian schools advertise openly, not with the embarrassment of faith seen at home, but with such bold slogans as ‘Character through Christ’. All this shows me that the Christian world view is not yet suffering death throes in Oceana as it has in Europe. Even the smallest rural towns have apparent gospel witness. Although masonic and Kingdom Halls seem ubiquitous, so too do Presbyterian and independent evangelical congregations. While at my mother’s home last week, a local church came knocking on the door inviting her to a Bible Study. Large billboards in fields and roadsides proclaim the gospel.

God blesses Australians with more than just a beautiful country and fine weather. There is a spiritual wealth here that exposes Britain’s poverty and squalor. Yet Australia, I fear, may be going the same way. Politically correct, spiteful illiberalism stalks the nation, gaining footholds from which it may never be shifted.