No Faith, No Unity

Australia’s turmoil reflects a loss of shared moral and religious foundations.

We really do seem to be in a confused state now in Australia. It is not just the politics within and between parties. It is something deeper.

Currently, there are regular comments about who we need to be because of dramatic events that are happening globally and nationally. There have been regular demonstrations that have carried a spirit of harshness, anger and even incitement to harm. We have had an evil shooting of innocents having a beachside picnic. We are having torturous discussions, debates and decisions about who can come into our nation under what circumstances.

And what kind of language are we hearing from our leaders? Calls for more calm, more tolerance and more unity. But tolerance about what, and unity around what?

We are referred to statements about our national values, but if you look at those, they are not natural to humanity. They are derived from other deeper aspects of life. They reflect that our values come from prior beliefs. That is, they reflect that we decide what we consider important (what we value) depending on what we understand to be good and true (our beliefs).

On what do we base our beliefs, and what beliefs were used to establish Australia? To answer this, we need to understand that we derive what is good and true from that in which we put our faith about who we are as humanity. What are we as people in our society about?

This is why religion does have an impact on how we decide who we are as a nation. If we decide that our familial clan is what we put our faith in, then we will make decisions about right and wrong and what we value based on what brings honour to the clan and what avoids shame to the clan. This will include what is honouring for the clan’s respective gods.

All original people groups have lived or still live this way. Someone in such a group will objectively not tell the truth out of a priority to avoid shame, to be loyal to the group. Such ‘tribal’ collectivism can even be seen in suburban equivalents – i.e. in youth gangs.

History has shown us that we can only move beyond the local clan’s religious commitments if there is a greater vision of humanity that transcends the immediacy of local loyalty. Many societies have done this by brute force – by bringing regions of people together so that a stronger society can utilise more of what is available in that region. Sometimes this brought a relative peace – like the Pax Romana (the peace of Rome). At other (most?) times, such enforced unity brought great pleasure to the elites, and misery to all who served them (think communist or fascist or religious regimes). Clan-based faith and loyalties will still be there, but will have moved underground.

There are still many examples of such ‘tribal’ and ‘authoritarian’ societies in our current era. So, what makes Australia different?

Many in Australia do not want to admit it, but when the preamble to our Constitution states that those creating it were “humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God”, they were committing the citizens of Australia, in faith, to the principles of civic life based on the Ten Commandments.

Some might downplay the first four (how we live with God), but if those ones are ignored, the next six (how we are to live with each other) become difficult, and eventually, socially degraded.

This is, as we have already noted, faith stances do prescribe what we can trust. For example, if our faith is in science, then we cannot have any agreed rational discussion about ethical issues, because what is right and wrong cannot be decided by the scientific method.

If our faith stance is based on some ‘general spiritual force or forces’, then deciding what is right and wrong becomes a matter of appeasing the (fickle) forces and spirits of ‘mother nature’ (expressed in many ways). We have these kinds of beliefs being exercised in parts of Australia.

Faith stances can also be based on established religions, or in variants and combinations of these belief systems. Some like to treat them as all the same, but that is both disrespectful (they are saying ‘it actually doesn’t matter what you believe’), and it is ignorant.

But, as has been regularly described of late, it is only Christianity that transcends local identity towards voluntary civility. Only belief in the Bible’s Creator God can bring people of different backgrounds and current statuses together. The starting point is seeing the Creator in Creation (see Psalm 19:1-6 and Romans 1: 17-18). If we acknowledge that, then we can agree that there is a designed way for us to live, according to the Creator’s design. In Australia’s history, this was not controversial, even though not everyone would have called themselves ‘Christian’ or ‘Jew’.

That is why the second part of the Ten Commandments – about respecting authority, accepting the sanctity of life, being a faithful person, respecting other’s property, telling the truth objectively, and not acting from jealousy, spite and revenge – only work when we agree that these are principles which transcend our local circumstances and heritage because they come from the Transcendent One - God.

No other faith stance enables this wonder of people coming together.

It is why our leaders sound weak when they give generic platitudes without any deeper public foundation from which to speak.

Without a base, we become de-based. It is as the apostle Paul wrote: “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved [literally, debased] mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. “(Romans 1:28, NIV).

Disappointed about the current events in our nation, we may well be. Surprised? Not really.